kylni

I tried an imp of this one because it got so many recommendations - it was in the same pack with Snake Oil and O. After being unenthused by both (powdery vanilla was all I got), I was significantly less optimistic about Dorian, since I think vanilla doesn't generally do well on me. But Dorian is wonderful. It is most noticably vanilla, yes, but there's definitely tea there, as well as musk making it smell like a perfume and not like you spilled tea on your jacket, or something. I personally get no lemon at all. Dorian also lasts quite a while for me - in the 6-8 hour range, which is quite high. My mother, who up to that point had been regarding my budding BPAL obsession with a sort of amused tolerance, tried a bit from my Dorian imp... and said, shocked, "This is really nice." She was also surprised that it was still there, hours later. Enabler points for me! Though, she's not much of a perfume person, so I think I still need to score a few more before she obtains any BPAL of her own.

I was looking forward to this one, since I'm a fan of spicy scents. I think this was the first blend with Dragon's Blood I tried, though, so I wasn't sure what to expect from that. In the bottle it's very nice, sort of spicy honeysuckle-ish. I assume the honeysuckle is the dragon's blood. But on my skin, nothing. I literally could not smell anything except a faint sweetness once it had dried, and then only if I put my nose right to my wrist. I tried again with more, eventually literally swiping a quarter-inch by inch band of oil across my wrist - which lasted a bit longer, but only because it took it longer to dry. Dragon's Milk does this too, so maybe it's the dragon's blood? I thought I remembered others saying that dragon's blood was a particularly long-lasting scent, so maybe I'm just strange. However, I have discovered a sub-addiction, and that is: wearing Wrath in my hair. It's still subtle, but it smells like it did in the bottle, and makes my hair smell red. Perhaps the best part is when I hop in the shower the next day - the scent is long gone from my hair dry, but when the spray hits my head, I get a rush of the sweet honeysuckle scent. Mmm. Though, I really don't think this scent says 'Wrath' to me, exactly.

When I first tried this a couple days ago, it smelled exactly like I remember Lightning smelling - sharp ozone and salt water, and nothing else. So now I have them fighting it out on opposite wrists. They do smell very similar, especially wet, but I can pick out differences. Lightning's more overwhelmingly ozone, and stronger - if I sniff it first I almost can't pick out Jolly Roger afterwards. I can actually almost pick out the non-aquatic notes in Jolly Roger now - it may be that it's actually smelling somewhat different today, because I definitely couldn't do that before. I still don't really get rum, but there's something sweet-spicy under the sea smell that could be leather and wood, if I think "leather and wood" at it long enough. Overall: Nice, but I'm not overly enamoured. I'd like to try it on a guy and see if the other notes come out more, though.

I put this on shortly before going out, so my impressions were on-the-fly. On me, this is pure cranberry, and strong - I put some on my wrist and could smell it while walking. It's nice, but I'm not really a fan of cranberry, so I was a bit confused - why did I think this scent was a good idea again? Reading the note description, I can see why - musk? Ginger? Spices? All some of my favorites. And I'm not against fruity smells in general, so if the cranberry was less prominent, I could see myself liking this. Unfortunately, I really couldn't identify anything but cranberry. The imp has gone to the good cause of enabling my friend who loves cranberries.

On me this is very sharp. The ozone is prominent, almost eye-watering if I put on too much. I actually like the sharp smell, though - it's not bitter, just sort of watery and clean. It also lasts a very long time - I could still smell it 12 hours later. Overall: I thought I liked this one a lot, but then I tried Neo-Tokyo, which has the same sort of ozone sharpness but tempered by more interesting fruity-floralness, and I think I prefer that.

I got this one as a frimp from the lab a bit ago. I looked up the description, wasn't too enthused, then read the first few reviews and was more optimistic. Woody cinnamon? I like cinnamon! I put some on my wrist, smelled it, and was confused. It smelled neither woody nor cinnamony. I couldn't quite place it... then it hit me: Wintergreen tic-tacs! Exactly! I was dismayed, and tried to mentally shove my brain into smelling cinnamon or wood, but my nose adamantly insisted there was nothing there but wintergreen tic-tac smell. I feel less insane now that I see that other people have gotten this too. But now I really want to smell the cinnamony version.

I like this one a lot. Maybe it's mostly because of my great affection for jasmine. But really, the scents seem to blend together amazingly well - knowing that it has jasmine and ginger and apricot in it, I can pick them if I imagine really hard. Maybe. So I'm not sure I can adequately describe it. It's just kind of sweetly-floral (jasmine and vanilla) but also slightly spicey and fruity, so it doesn't come off totally flowery, which I don't like at all. Perhaps my favorite so far, of my admittedly limited sample.

I got this one as a frimp with my first lab order - I gave it a brief sniff when I was first smelling things, and it smelled to me exactly like cheap men's cologne. "Huh," I thought to myself. "That's odd. Ah, well, I'll try it again when my palate's more clear, so to speak." A few days later, after having read reviews here and seeing Scherezade mentioned repeatedly on the "What scents do men love?" thread, I came back to it thoroughly prepared to love it. Opening it again, I got the same impression as last time. Undeterred, I dabbed some on one wrist. The scent didn't change much for me as it dried, and it smelled really strong for the dab I put on. Eventually I got a headache. I don't really know what I was expecting, but something resembling slightly-musky rubbing alchohol was not it. I'll probably try it again, since I still really want to like it (maybe once it's aged a bit?) but so far it seems like it's not for me. Edit: A few weeks later, I tried it again. It's softened up quite a bit. I hardly recognize it, especially on my skin - there may be different time-of-the-month chemistry going on as well as the oil itself aging somewhat. I now am highly tempted to adore this. It's much less sharp, nicely soft, spicy and somewhat musky. Hopefully I'll come to a final decison by the time my imp runs out, at least...

Having read the reviews here before I tried it, I just put a little on the back of my hand to start. It felt a little warm for a bit, but nothing too bad. I later put it on my wrists and didn't even feel that much, so I guess it really depends on the person. As others have said, wet this spells almost completely of almond. It made me a little wary at first, because I have no great love for that scent. As it dries, though, it becomes mostly cinnamon. I don't get candy-sweet (Red Hots) cinnamon exactly, though - I guess there's enough of the almond and neroli in there still to make it interesting. I love cinnamon, so this one gets my approval. I kept smelling my wrist and going, "mmm, cinnamony."