bheansidhe

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.

Wet: this is chocolate hazelnut Nutella. There's also a milk chocolate element very similar to Bliss. It's the type of cocoa that goes powdery the second it hits my skin and dries to musty dusty dust, though. I can rarely wear this type of scent.

Strong "floral perfumey" blend. Violet, orris, jasmine sambac? Probably some gardenia as well. With wear this blend develops the floral round nuttiness I associate with jasmine sambac and/or kush. Actually, after the sharpness burns off, this is kind of a nutty jasmine sambac note that is very wearable, assuming I want to dab it into my cleavage and set my nipples to "stun." (That was a JOKE you guys.)

Aggressive jasmine or violet (as if there were any other kind!). Acrid, medicinal, and familiar note in here that I can't place, sort of like The Hesperides, but without the apple. Gardenia, birch, jasmine, ambergris? No clue.

A light white floral, sweeter and not as sharp as other AF protos. This is floral with more of an aquatic or dewy note, like honeysuckle and melon. I think it ends with ylang ylang and a touch of blue musk.

Fresh-sawn cedar, hints of champaca and orange blossom, and ginger, nutmeg, and pink peppercorn. Also a sharp pine resin in the vial. There are fifteen dodgy minutes where it's pure petshop (cedar pet bedding and disinfectant!), but the petshop settles down, and I get a light peppery floral mixed in with the woods - sweat pea? There's also a citrusy orange note. I agree with Myth that it needs more oomph at the bottom, but it's a lovely light cedar blend.

I get wet black dirt from the vial and a strong medicinal camphor note. On application, the camphor reads as cypress or black pine resin. It smells black and piney. I also get Spanish moss, although the dirt vanishes on my skin. There *may* be florals in here, but this is not reading as a floral blend, and I get the mental impression of hellebore, lilies of the valley, and other florals either relating to funerals or to overgrown forests.

A very green base, similar to Danube. Soft clean florals, possibly lily of the valley; big time floral soap, lightened by lemon. At the end this goes soft and watery, like a painting, instead of shrill or soapy.

Eleven pounds of snow note in a ten-pound bag. Seriously. If you know the snow blends, you know the spicy-aquatic smell I'm talking about. This blend adds juniper or gin, a kind of vanilla sweetness, a really fresh green galangal (baby ginger) and fresh conifer greens, with an aquatic in the background. Unfortunately there's TOO much aquatic, which is coming across as toilet bowl cleaner. Now I'm getting the fizzy boozy champagne overlay as well. This is really reminding me of Piper at the Gates of Dawn plus champagne and a loud aquatic. I really wish the aquatic wasn't there, because this would be awesome on my skin without it. As it drys, after an hour, I'm getting the spicy snow note and dusty earth and a woodsy sweetness.

Sweet jelly donut, heavy on the powdered sugar and red jam filling. This explodes in my nose - cherry grenadine? White musk? Foody but also heady and a touch boozy, like champagne - no, more like red wine, but it's developing a soft warm spiciness, like spiced cranberry compote. I smell plumeria or white ginger wafting around in the background. I start to get intense iced black tea on the far drydown mixed with the other notes. The pastry impression fades fast, and the blend stays mostly sweet and red-fruity with wine notes.

Some scents must resent being bottled up, like pinioned djinn, because BTMEN came boiling up out of the vial like an olfactory trainwreck. This smelled so horrible I was afraid to test it, but I couldn't stop waving it in front of my nose. Something like dirty public toilets plus violet plus ?orris plus ?dragon's blood, or maybe even civet, that being the only note I know that goes this offensive. When I screwed up the courage to dab some on a finger, it settled into this meek little violet-scented powder. I am neither fooled nor lulled. Off it goes.

The floral notes read as orchid, lotus, mimosa, and lily. The lotus is dominant for a while, in its pink-bubblegummy kind of way. The base has something like tobacco or opopponax; smoky, acrid. Wet, I get the same whiff of burning cigarettes that I found in Giallo - in fact this blend has a very similar feel to Giallo overall; womanly, heady, slightly seedy. Now it's got the warm spicy prickle of Black Lily over that murmur of lotus and ashtray. In fact, it's reminding me of a cross between Black Lily and Giallo at the moment. A hint of hawaiian white florals in the drydown, like white ginger; something clean and low to the skin under the dirty, smoky orchid. Very interesting.

Heavy black or red musk, patchouli, and something that smells like rain-wet woods. It goes pretty woody, but with the fruity red musk layered on top.

I get zippo coconut. I get a strong blast of red musk, red ginger, and "spiced cranberry compote" spices (nutmeg, allspice, cassia, cinnamon). There's a foody note similar to a dry cocoa-dusted cookie that pops up and down, but it never quite resolves into a "foody" blend, and there's also a weird root-beer phase. The cinnamon is amping to overwhelm everything. It's actually pretty reminiscent of Saw-Scaled Viper at this point on my skin. It goes thick and musty on drydown, so I'm pretty sure there's myrrh as well, since that what it does to me. Not a bad blend, just not a friend of the chemistry. ETA: Okay, a couple of hours into drydown, this blend is more woody, and I discern a note that could be black coconut - not a fruity girl-drink coconut, but true coconut rind and bark.

Lemon verbena pow. This reads as a lemon starkist candy plus a faint hint of (I swear) barbeque buffalo wings. There might be a touch of anise in here, but only because I'm looking for it. Cloying lemon perfume note over dusty-woodsy base. It backs off and sulks at me from a distance after a while. Finally the lemon gets tired and lies down, and I can smell the vanilla and licorice behind it. Sad for me, because I love lemon (this may be lemongrass at this point), but the Lab's version never plays nice with my skin.

I like this better than the released Absinthe or Absinthe v7. I get lots of true licorice, which is sweeter and more reminiscent of a black vanilla bean than licorice-flavored candy would lead one to believe. There's a touch of woodsy bitterness from wormwood, and a mild anise-and-hyssop tinge, and a gentle true lemon in the background. Not a ton of throw, but it wears well, and stays sweet without devolving into candy.

Lots of leather, and the same kind of spice medley as Velvet Bandito. And tobacco. Acrid tobacco smoke, rather than wet tobacco leaf. Very realistic leather drydown. This is actually making me a little queasy; there's a kind of grassy musk in the middle that isn't behaving on me. It's not you, BPAL; it's me. Off to wash.

Imagine those Ricola herbal honey throat drops, plus tons of minty wintergreen. My sinuses cleared when I sniffed the vial. On my skin, it swapped ends several times (MINT! Dirt! Leather! Bright hot honey! Something orange! MINT!). I definitely got honey, but the note wasn't behaving at all like the lab's honey notes usually do. Meanwhile, I could feel the minty astringency working through my tearducts, but it's not a green herbal mint; I see how people guessed eucalyptus - I'm going with camphor. That warm orange-honey note kept baffling me, though - and then it dawned: smells like the cubeb in Crib Girls! So. Cubeb, camphor, and herbal throat drops. I don't get dragon's blood, but I don't try it that often, so I may have forgotten what it smells like.

I get all of the above - hard cherry candy, watermelon jolly ranchers - plus LIQUID SMOKE. Maybe because this tester has had a while to oxidize? But there's a faint but discernible note of bright, acrid campfire with the sweet fruity candy. (This sounds weirder than it smells.) The smoke edges away as it wears, and I get a low but definite peppery floral with the fruit candy. Not carnation, but a similar note - stock, or sweet pea? It's reminding me of Mania or...Eris! This is Eris bellied up to the Tiki Bar, swilling mimosas and grinning while things randomly catch fire in the background. Never reads as bubblegum to me. ETA: I just tried my Luna Moth decant, and this is VERY similar to the lime sugar and pear notes in that blend.