bheansidhe

Very fizzy and citrus-y. Great Indian summer scent, when it's still hot and kind of dry, and you want something light and refreshing on your pulse points. Then it starts to smell like, I swear to you, pomegranate-tinged cotton candy floss. Apparently my skin thinks this is tasty, because it eats it up. All gone.

Heavy cocoa & tobacco right offhand, and an almost soapy star anise. For such warm notes listed, this blend is surprisingly cool and herbal. The notes surge over & slide under each other; the scent is choppy, not melded, which is interesting in its own way, since each sniff is different. Cocoa and red musk finally fight their way to the top. ...ending, sadly, in weird herbal soap. Blast my skin.

PIRATES IN THE POMEGRANATE PATCH! Sharp, dark, and interesting, with noticeable tar and pepper salting up the fruit. I like it.

The new Dawn: Cernunnos is very piney and completely devoid of musk. It's lovely, dark and green. I also recommend Yew Trees, Belladonna, and Nocnitsa.

Yep - gingersnap cookies with candied citrus peel, or maybe some lemon pound cake. The citrus note fades fairly fast and just leaves gingersnap crumbs on the plate. God, this makes me hungry.

Astringent, biting and effervescent. Yuzu and lemon-lime soda hit by lightning and served in a white metal beaker. A real jolt. I LOVE how metaphorical these scents are...

Frimped from the costume contest at DSWC! Honey or waxy honeycomb, rootbeer, and a sweet, dusty herbal note like Roman chamomile or hyssop. A hint of wood in here too. In the spirit of the Lab's descriptions.... This smells like sweet honeyed promises, a big swig of Aunt Ruby's home-brewed sasparilla, and sunshine beating down on the fresh-mowed meadow and the rickety wooden bandstand where the candidate is stumping. Hee. Honey hates me, so this will never work, but it's fun to pick out the metaphors.

No soap, no bitter note, no blood; just musk, musk, and more musk, plus just the faintest peppery nose-prickle of snow. This is Smut sans sugar, Smut melted down into dark, dark liquid Eau de Sex God. If this scent was a guy, I'd beg him to bang me against the wall. TMI? I think not, my friends. I think not.

Sniffed: I agree with myth; aquatic plus a stomach-churning note of aquarium bilge. However, just as Encroaching Madness did a volte-face on the skin, so does PoF. It turns to dryer sheets, lime, and then a light mellow ozone-and-citrus scent, quite breezy and pleasant. Just.. don't sniff it wet, okay? Test it first.

"Old foul, bad yellow things." Well GEE, Beth, when you put it so temptingly, how can I resist? Smelled from vial: foot funk. Bad foot funky. Funky funky foot funk. Applied: complete 180 degree rotation into a lovely crisp green and floral scent. Perfect for those hot golden summer days when you stand at your upstairs window and look out at the cool green lawn shadows and the merry dandelions and the buttercups blooming, whilst behind you the wallpaper creeps closer and closer.... Really, a winner. Pinch your nose and slap it on and see how it works for you.

...aaand, on me, it's dusting powder. Very expensive perfumed dusting powder, from an Oriental type of perfume, but dusting powder. No mint, no rose, no discernable florals; just powdery resins. Very proper and Victorian, very light and feminine. Don't mind me, dear; I'll just be boozing it up with the gravediggers over in the corner. You carry on without me.

There's a Mexican pastry that my boyfriend and I are addicted to, called a Beso ("kiss"). It's a round sweet bread sliced in half, filled with strawberry-guava jelly, sandwiched back together, and then frosted all over with this white granulated sugar-and-buttercream-frosting-stuff. And when I say "buttercream" I'm pretty sure I mean "pure lard" but ooooohhhh my gawwwwwd they are good. And rich. You wouldn't think from the description, but we typically cut one beso in half to share or else we get a little sick. GOOD TIMES. The number of besos that come home from the store are the number of besos I eat the second I get home, with the rest of the groceries still unpacked and melting on the counter. http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/besos_mexican_pastry_kisses/ Golletes smells exactly, I mean to the life, like sticking my head in a box of fresh-baked besos and whiffing.

I'm shocked this DIDN'T go to soap on me, because ambergris and violet are normally one-way tickets to Ivory Soapville. I first tried this at Will Call and was barely able to smell it at all given the olfactory onslaught. My impression at the time was fog-machine smoke (you remember the dance floors of the late 80s too, don't you? Right? Right! ). I gave it a second test all by itself at a later time, and I got wet fog, a lightly citrus-crisp note, and light green sandalwood. It teetered on the edge of being soapy, but instead warmed and cleared into something better. What dominates this blend on my skin are the ylang-ylang and white musk notes. In fact, though it's not an exact match, this has very much the feel of The Girl on my skin. A luminous white nimbus, with surprisingly persistent throw and wearlength.

If there's a scent that makes me think "blue candyfloss," it's Skytyping With Chemtrails. So maybe it was the power of suggestion, but as I waved the tester wand in front of my nose, I thought I smelled the same blue spun-sugar poof note under the pumpkin in Blue Pumpkin Floss. Applied to skin: Pumpkin pie spice. ..and Red Hots. RED HOTS RED HOTS RED HOTS... Is that blackberry pie filling in the back over there? No, it's just PUMPKIN PIE SPICE. SPICE SPICE WOO SPICE. ...and blackberry pie filling. ....aaaand a little blue sugar poof. In approximately that order. It takes a while for the huge rush of peppery allspice to back off. The pumpkin itself never really pops up; it's all spice, and then some sweetened black fruit and blue floss around the back. ADDED Sept. 22: Maybe a separation issue? I tested a different person's bottle last night, to check, and it smelled just as spicy as the first bottle.

A fruit blend smells alternately like spring, summer, and fall. It starts with a tart cocktail of pomegranate and sweet apple blossom; the result smells almost like cranberry juice. There's a hint of almond at first that develops into a maraschino cherry / amaretto note as the blend moves into summer. As it wears it ripens up to a more fall-like feel with the grounding willow bark and fig. The fig is never present as a top note, but it definitely finishes off the scent toward the end, with the sweet apple blossom laid over it. Not a lot of throw on me, but definitely worth a try if these are your notes.

The beer note is nothing like ale or yeasty lager; it's more traces of foam from a white Belgian witbier (wheat beer). My dad used to grow his own hops, and I get a faintly bitter herbal note that could be fresh hops or giant hogweed (whatever that smells like!). The rest smells oddly like herbal hand lotion; cool, creamy, with lightly crushed wildflowers. Not bad on my skin, just odd. The more I sniff it, though, the more it grows on me. A cool wet soft blend; I can't think of anything in the bpal catalog that smells similar.

A dark and musky tapestry with bright floral sparks. Sensual and very womanly. The honey is sharp and lemony, the magnolia cool and white, like soft water in the background, well blended over the bass notes of patchouli and sandalwood. On my skin.... Lehman Brothers bankruptcy versus my 401(k) levels of bad. Honey hates me. Instant trip to the sink. Not, I emphasize, the fault of this blend, which will sing on the right person. In fact, late last night I noticed that I smelled really, really good. Whoever said "naked skin with a wicked grin" was right on. I can't take the intervening hours, but if honey doesn't hate you like it does me, this scent screams sex.

I love Fae and Aglaea. La Vague is like their sophisticated older cousin. Wet, I get the cream, grape, and peach notes on top. Dry, the "cream" note fades back like a white velvet tablecloth laid under fizzy flutes of peach wine and bouquets of lily-of-the-valley in crystal vases. Warm, sweet, and just a hair crisp (but not overtly citrus-y). I tend to amp florals, especially headache death-florals like jasmine and iris, but this blend is subtle and lush without any one flower clawing to the top. It does eventually turn a little bitter on me, which is the sad fate of any blend with "wine" notes, but this is lovely enough to put in a diffuser or scent locket.

In my opinion, this is the best and most distinctive of the Claw Polish shades (though Lady MacBeth and Blood Countess are also very good). Words like "shimmer" or "fleck" imply a glitter-infused nail polish, and that's not this at all. It shines like solid mica flakes. As you move your fingers it flashes from a deep, true raspberry pink to silver-pink metallic cloisonne and back again. If I can figure out how to do a decant circle for nail polish, I'm so doing this one, because more it has to be seen in person to be appreciated.

Caveat: this blend has the honey that goes sharp and acrid on me. Here's what I can get from around the edges: Wet: assertive and voluptuous, but just short of heavy. This is full-blown unashamed rose sprawled on a spicy Turkish carpet of frankincense, wearing nothing but a garter belt and a fur coat. I get the saffron as a kind of dusty warmth in the middle, especially after the blend has settled on my skin for a while. Dry: much spicier and woodsier than I anticipated. It's warm, matte, and Oriental. The rose is drier, almost smoky at this stage (though this may be the honey effect). Good throw, but not overbearing. Verdict: seductive and complex. Going to be a winner on the right skin.

I've tested two decants of this: a prototype sniffie, and a half-imp bought from another person. Proto sniffie: I get the resemblance to Kali, though I'm reminded a bit more of Santa Muerte. On me it's a warm, rich, spicy musk with a hint of powdered (not fresh) ginger and cardamom. Subtle and low to the skin. There's a dusty cocoa sweetness that is neither bitter Mexican chocolate nor hazelnuts, but somewhere between. I also get a flavor reminiscent of the tobacco husks note in Pinched with Four Aces. If there's a floral in here, it's a warm and pungent one like marigold. My purchased decant was heavier on the musk - a dark brown smelling musk - and a touch more masculine, but otherwise read like the first tester. On a second test, it reminded me of the oak-and-hazelnut background in Wezwanie/Hold, still with the cocoa cardamom note on top. No rose in either sample.

A dry, masculine version of Ladon plus extra cedar. Applied: reminiscent of The Magician in its pencil (on me) stage, plus the sweetness of dragon's blood, and a faint hint of what might be hyacinth or some other misty wet floral? This goes to spicy cinnamon, sweet dragon's blood, and cedar as it dries, and sweetens up past the initial dryness. Very wearable for me.

Lots of yellow cake batter, bubblegum-pink frosting, saltwater taffy, and bananas foster, with a hint of scorched sugar caramel and brandied peaches in the back.

A much drier, less sweet version of O v5. Amber is the immediate top note in this blend. This one is ever so slightly boozy, like cognac or mead, but without the alcoholic note. This dries to a much more womanly, seductive "skin scent" kind of smell, predominantly soft (but not powdery) amber and lightly acrid (on me) honey. Final: to my shock, this wears down to a light, powdery amber that works better with my skin than the released O. I actually like this blend.

Disclaimer: O is one of the worst scents on me. Honey as a rule hates me, but O takes it to the next level. So I was not expecting to love this scent at all, and lo, I was not disappointed. Wet: heavy and cloying sweetness. This stuff is thick. Cloying honey, cloying vanilla, cloying -->? lotus or other pink note. Tested: Something in the middle, on my skin, starts to smell just like fresh green bananas. Not ripe, green. How odd. The cloying backs off and the blend becomes merely sweet and powdery. So that's sweet, powdery amber, sweet (I swear) fresh banana, sweet honey, and vanilla-scented powder, not cooking vanilla. Overall less offensive (on me) than the released O, and closer to the released Antique Lace vanilla base. Final drydown: light, sweet, powdery, and warm. Again, fits my scent-memory of Antique Lace but with less vanilla and more honey. Verdict: starts strong, ends meek, and doesn't last long. Goes chemical on me at the end.