tajana

I totally love Enchanted Wood Florist, but as summer grew old and fall started to creep in, the springy flowers felt less and less appropriate. I desperately needed my light floral BPAL fix, and then Flor de Muerto came to the rescue! In the Bottle: No stinky bug-repellent marigold here to my nose. It smells like delicate flowers and the color ORANGE! It smells a little bit like orange blossom, but without any trace of the bitterness or metallic aspect it can sometimes have. Flor de Muerto smells almost fruity in the vial, and quite bright, but with a slight backing hint of something slightly herbal. Wet: It reminds me more of honeysuckles now, but it's not as heady as that note can be. A happy floral with something about it that reminds me of hard candy. It has that translucent sweet sugar-fruitiness to it, but it's not overly sweet because there's a slightly watery-herbal tint lurking around. I can almost feel the soft, delicate texture of flower petals. But it's shot through with a current of warmth... a delightful tickle of spiciness! Dry: I'm hard pressed to accurately review this because it just smells so golden and orange to me that I keep thinking of all things golden and orange: it reminds me of honeysuckle, orange blossom, even a touch of something almost apricot-orangey harmonizing with freshly watered, deliriously cheerful flowers and their intoxicating nectar. I couldn't help but apply it the day it came in the mail, but already its lasting power and throw is very satisfactory for a scent in this family. I think it's the dash of spicy fresh earthiness that's anchoring this flowery, nectary smell to the skin so well. It never poofs into a bland powdery smell. After hours have passed and it settles close to the skin, Flor de Muerto is just a duskier shade of orange with a balance of warmth and earthy faint floral. Overall: The simple soliflore billing just didn't prepare me for how delightfully mutli-dimensional Flor de Muerto would be. Fabulous. An unobtrusive but quietly enticing and uplifting fragrance. Fresh and floral, with a warming sunset glow. A perfect way to bring a bit of floweriness into the fall, but this will be wearable all year long.

Wet: A dry patchouli, with blackened cedar overtones! A sweet, translucent glaze of orange-colored apricot is painted over it. It feels like it really is just glazed over top of it. I get the impression of contrast, not of a "melded" scent, if that makes any sense. Dry: Doesn't change too much. It's just dark patchouli getting down and dirty with some syrupy, tart-sweet apricot, with a curl of cedar incense in the air. But as it warms up on the skin it seems to coalesce and become a more unified scent. Less "apricots and patchouli", more of one cohesive earthy, dirty scent with a slight fruitiness on the exhale. Lasting power, as you'd expect, is phenomenal. Hours and hours. The longer it stays on, though, the sweeter it gets. With the passage of time, the sweet apricot preserves smell that dominates March Hare is what comes to dominate here, though the patchouli remains an important balancing, grounding presence. Overall: Simple but inspired. I must be a weirdo, because I was excited by the reviews that complained about "cedar chips"... and Depraved did not disappoint. This wasn't overwhelmingly cedary, but it definitely did have a strong dark woods component. And I love this patchouli. It's so dark and husky and dirty, and a slick of bright apricot is just what it needed to become more three-dimensional and wearable.

I love reducer caps and I try to put them on everything. They usually deposit just the perfect amount in one drop, and if it's too much/not enough I can just press the top against my skin to apply just a bit of oil instead of a full drop. The regular polyseal caps aren't useful for oil application, and wand caps are the prettiest but are way too fiddly... those are the most prone to leaking in transit, and I don't have time to clean the wand after each application, so just rubbing it on and then putting it back in the oil strikes me as so... unsanitary. With reducers, I know I can't accidentally spill oil, it's super easy to decant from a bottle with a reducer cap, and they keep the rest of the oil "uncontaminated"... not that I really worry about contaminating my personal bottles, but I'm not exactly thrilled when I see cat hair or other little bits floating in bottles I buy secondhand.

In the imp: Lotus! Wet: Menthol, menthol, menthol. Really sweet mint, with the lotus adding a bubblegum veneer. Juniper awkwardly elbows its way in. This doesn't remind me of water so much as it reminds me of medicine. Dry: Dries down to a sweet powdery menthol scent. Greenish. Kind of like a cross between artificially flavored chewing gum and this gross "cooling" tylenol syrup. Overall: This just fell flat on me, to put it mildly. Not much to say about it. I had to wash it off before long.

Just a mini review, as I tested this lightly at an MnS. The opoponax leaped up at me right from the bottle! What a fabulous note... a rich, thick resinous scent, sweet and just faintly reminiscent of conifers. It settles onto the skin as a musky unisex perfume. I was worried that Siberian musk would be close to black musk, a nemesis of mine, but if it is, its held in check by everything else. Neroli adds elegance and a bit of bright contrast, tonka stays mild-mannered and well-behaved, subtly smoothing the edges with a sweet creaminess. Woody clove with nose-tickling pepper add a husky kick of spice. It all adds up to one warm but shadowy, growly but enticing fragrance. I'd have to try it again to be sure, but its potentially bottle worthy.

Just a mini review since I tested this at a meet and sniff! Grave-Pig starts off like fresh turned black soil with little white mushroom caps poking up through the dirt. Adorable! The fruitiness of fig doesn't peek out on my skin until after it dries down a bit. After a time it smells like clean mushroom dirt balanced with a soft fig note. It's not too sweet, but it's not harsh or too dry either. The oakmoss did not leap out to me, and the patchouli is pleasantly earthy. Not much throw, but it lasted and lasted and I was still able to smell the soft earthy scent of Grave-Pig hours later.

Wet: Oh my. Oak wood! Lots of it. This is a seriously distinctive note, and if you've never tried a BPAL with oak in it, you owe it to yourself to check it out just for the experience. It's accented perfectly by a sigh of muguet and a clean sliver of pale sandalwood. There's a creaminess lying beneath all of it. I can smell the influence of fruity golden apricot, but it's not standing out on its own. This is very clean and light smelling, but very refined, and looking at the painting it was inspired by, it smells like a perfect translation. Dry: If I didn't have the notes listed, I would feel confident that there was teak here! It reminds me of The Antikythera Mechanism, but without the nasty tobacco of death. Haloes dries down to be mostly strong, smooth, very perfumey oak warmed with a creamy, delicate vanilla. While the vanilla's presence is strong, it's held in check, and doesn't smell the least bit foody. I really like ginger, but I never sensed any in here. The white sandalwood gives it a very clean feel, but it doesn't go to soap or aftershave. I usually think of white sandalwood scents as light in general, but Haloes has a whole lot of presence. I just keep sniffing it, not sure what to make of it! It smells expensive, but like something you'd find from a niche perfume boutique, not an average department store. The amber and tonka creep up on me with time, but I'm sorry to report that they don't behave well with my chemistry. Overall: If I was a chemical magician, I would pluck out the tonka and amber notes. Haloes was almost beautiful and grandiose, a golden creamy otherworldly wood scent, but the longer it sits on my skin, the more the discordant powder and butteriness of the amber and tonka bother me. Even if I could ignore that, though, I'm not sure that I would wear this around! Its extremely intense and honestly, a bit weird smelling on me... I'd imagine it would elicit a "love it or hate it" sort of response.

This is for the 2008 version. Wet: Custard city. Creamy vanilla pudding with a bit of orange. Very sweet but has a decidedly NOT edible, offputtingly plastic musk vibe underpinning it, like a lot of foody BPALs exhibit once they hit my skin. Dry: Gets creamier and creamier. Anise pops out and acts all licoricey and devious for a ten minute phase before it abruptly fades off. I usually hate anise and it's definitely disagreeing with me here. I guess it harmonizes well with the orange, which reads as an orange marmalade sort of glaze here, but its just making me wrinkle my nose in disgust when paired with all that custardy vanilla creaminess. It's not buttery, thank goodness, but it's so milky and... moist. Like a really moist, artificial yellow cake, the sort of thing you'd get out of a boxed cake mix. The custard cake stuff amps up and takes over before long, and any other notes are smashed underneath and all but obliterated. Yuck. Sweet and cloying! Where's the celebratory funereal floral bouquet? I never catch any of it, and I kept it on for an hour before I ran to scrub it off. Overall: The notes were pretty intriguing, actually! I thought this had the potential to be an interesting gourmand floral, and I tested it before I read a single review. But, alas, the results were tragic. All foodiness, NO flowers! Not even a bit! I guess if you like smelling like vanilla-y custard cake desserts this is fine, but I was really hoping for some floral dimension...

Wet: I was intrigued by the strong orchid note in the imp, but that's not what I get when it's freshly applied. Actually, for the first couple of seconds, it has an unpleasant sourness to it. That quickly morphs into a tart but sweet berry-like fruitiness, fused with a soft floral. The skin musk and creamy notes round it out. So far, it smells rather commercial, but not in a bad way. Dry: As it warms up on the skin, the champaca and the skin musk come join the delicately fruity creaminess. The champaca-skin musk combo is really lovely, sultry but in a dainty sort of way... I think they're two notes that go really well together. With the passage of time, the vanilla and tonka get stronger too, and their creaminess really comes to dominate the scent. There isn't much throw, so it turns to a skin-close fruity-floral vanilla musk. It's soft and not overly sweet. It's really the champa and skin musk that add interest here... BPAL's skin musk is a really hard to pin down but very pleasing scent, it's feminine and a bit sultry but with a clean lightness to it, and the champaca flower is great and has the faintest of incensey undertones. Overall: It's actually really pretty. The sort of floral I'd recommend to people that are normally afraid of florals, but also to somebody who likes a lot of commercial fragrances but is new to BPAL. It's the sort of scent that seems like it would work on anybody of any age in any situation. But for that flexibility and inoffensive charm, it loses something... there's nothing wrong with it, but it's lacking some oomph and... je ne sais quoi. I wouldn't mind getting more of it (all I got to try was a testable sniffy) but I won't go out of my way for more of it, either. ETA: Why did I say this was kind of blah? I was seized by the sudden urge to acquire more of Vasakasajja just recently, and oh boy, am I glad I leaped for it. Its exotic creamy floral scent is nothing less than addictive. It's something I can wear in any season for any occasion. Don't we all need an all-purpose scent like that in our lives? Yum.

#517 Advertised as: The original owner said she got spiced vanilla, tea and some kind of floral, maybe some lotus too... reminiscent of magnolia and Southern florals at first, after 10 minutes of wear, more tropical florals reminiscent of the floral blend in Hi'iaka, without the ginger. In August: A greenish sweet tea drink, bundled up with candy and a dash of spice. Glossy green leaves, a peculiar spiced herbal tea, with what smells like lotus and hard candy flavored with tropical/hothouse blooms. (My boyfriend said it just smelled like gummi bears to him.) Dries down and morphs: first to spicy tea and purple orchids. A creamy fuchsia scent with spikes of green spice. The tea aspect smells like Michelia alba leaf EO, not true black tea... sweet, but definitely greenish. The vanilla gets stronger with time. After everything dissipates after several hours, its virtually pure rich dark vanilla. In December: This is aging pretty dramatically. The vanilla is getting stronger and richer and overpowering the top notes more now. The best way I can describe it is, it smells like Snake Oil on a tropical witch doctor vacation. There's a toxic jungle candy overtone but the dark, subtly spiced vanilla is really starting to steal the show. I will see how this ages over the next couple of months, but it might just be toooo vanilla for me. D:

Wet: Maddeningly familiar. The anise is in there, alright, but it's fused well enough with the other notes that it doesn't bother me at all, and in fact, is an asset here! (I usually really dislike it.) I can't tell what it reminds me of. It's clean, but it doesn't make me think of soap... it's tickling at some scent memory but I can't dust it off to tell exactly what. Hmm. It's lightly herbal, bergamot and lavender are peeking out, but it's smoothed over with softness. Dry: Well rounded cologne, comfortingly familiar and androgynous, leaning masculine. It smells like scraps of black leather braided with black licorice and sprigs of lavender dusted with a woodsy vanilla (tonka) powdered sugar. A soft amber-patchouli base grounds everything on a slightly sweet note, but the clean snap of leather and herbal quality of the lavender keep things crisp. Dries down to a vaguer but more snuggly smell... the amber is powdery, but not in a bad way, since its complimented well by a hint of creaminess and the clean brush of lavender/leather/anise. Overall: I popped this onto my wishlist on a whim, since I thought that the notes looked good together. And they do work well, at least with my skin chemistry! The far drydown smells vaguely like a favorite of mine, The Bow & Crown of Conquest- it's vanilla herbal leather, only in different proportions. Casanova has a twist of licorice and its vanillic creaminess is only a soft supplement to the soft ambery note. Often, powdery amber bothers me, but again, this scent is so well balanced that it feels right. A keeper!

Wet: Perplexing. Freshly applied, it smells greenish-yellow... like grass and sweet clover mixing with dried out hay... some distant cousin of the pleasant but innocuous Coyote. But that quickly subsides, replaced by weird sour-sweetness, vaguely fruit syrupy, vaguely chemical... like half-dried nail polish Dry: Ahh, ylang-ylang, is that you? Ylang is a nemesis of mine, and it's tainting this scent something awful. That mean-spirited, sour note is one of the only things that stands out clearly in an otherwise near-indecipherable wall of cologney scent. Words like musky, yellow, and sharp come to mind. With the passage of some more time, a burned quality does show up, but instead of a natural touch of charred foliage, it smells like someone is trying to burn some ylang-flavored plastic. Throw is minimal, thank goodness. Overall: I was envisioning a dry grass hay scent with a touch of smoky vetiver and a cologney "wind" note, but instead I got a sour nail polish disaster. It smells like something I might find at the bottom of a drug store bargain bin for 85% off. Clearly not one for me!

Wet: Bubblegum. Plain pink bubblegum, with a lick of sweet cherry flavored candy. There's just a hint of slightly bitter orange... I wish there was more of it. Dry: More pink bubblegum with a side of cherry lollipops. The scent smells pretty fake by default, which by itself isn't necessarily bad, but there's something else lurking underneath the bubblegum. After it dries down for a while, if I inhale deeply, I also get a hint of Big Red gum style cinnamon and something really harshly musky... most musks are benign on me, but whatever is in this "womanly perfume" is a bit nauseating on me. It also goes a bit sour. Overall: Well, no big surprise here. Jailbait just isn't for me!

White leather and sandalwood. In the Imp: Not promising. Faint with a generic cologne smell on the exhale. Wet: A clean white sandalwood: it feels soft and almost malleable instead of dry, if that makes any sense. The leather is also soft and well-worn. This is not a smoky, rough, manly leather... it's rather delicate, like a soft pair of gloves. Dry: More of that clean white sandalwood: not my favorite type of sandalwood, to be honest. This is a note I associate with soap when it's very prominent. There's also a hint of something floral, but not sweetly so... I'm tempted to echo the reviewer that says it reminds them of olive blossom. The leather stays put for the most part, but as time goes on, The White Rider gets sweeter and turns a bit powdery on me. Not that it smells bad, just sort of bland... like a distant, pale echo of The Bow & Crown of Conquest. Overall: It smells pleasant enough, I don't get any sourness that other people are mentioning! This is a very light, pale leathery scent. Although it didn't work for me in the end, I would recommend that die-hard leather fans give this a try, especially if they have trouble finding leathery scents that are sheer and airy enough for spring and summer.

Wet: Sweet and floral, with a tiny hint of fruity tropical drink. As it starts to settle down, it gets a bit smoky and spiced-rummy. Dry: The tobacco leaf isn't as bad as I was expecting: usually tobacco really amps up to unacceptable levels on my skin. It's still rather strong, though, a fair bit of throw from the tiny dot I applied to my skin. It dries down to sweet, spicy, smoky rum. The clean florals that were dominant when this was freshly applied are all but gone, but they left behind a non-specific "clean" note. Not much else to say. Overall: Sorry to say, this smells like cheap men's rum cologne on me. YMMV: tobacco and booze are rarely my BPAL friends.

Wet: Resinous and deep, but with a golden sparkle. Heliotrope is sometimes iffy on me, but it behaves nicely here, a sweet, almost vanillic touch that perks things up. The base is a well balanced mix of resinous copal and deep, aged patchouli, with a nip of oakmoss for a bit of clarity. Dry: Doesn't morph much. This is one of the strongest copal notes I've ever smelled, but there's also a fair bit of patchouli with it. The oakmoss gets a little more prominent, adding a bit of green and a sharper edge that what would otherwise be a sweetly powdery resinous scent. Maybe it's the oakmoss, but this scent strikes me as really masculine. Overall: Another resiny BPAL. Doesn't stand out to me as a personal fragrance. Greed is definitely worth a shot if you're a big fan of copal, though.

Wet: WHAT IS THIS. It smells SO familiar. It's not unpleasant, it just smells like a body wash I must have used at some point in my life. Like, slightly citrusy, slightly sweet, juicy fruity floral. This comes off as clean and fresh rather than cloying or sticky because there's a bit of sappy greenness to it, as if you were ripping some flowers out of a field. Nothing is jutting out though, it's this really blended, balanced swirl of scent that reads as rather commercial. Dry: That initial strange sparkling tart-sweetness tapers off for the most part, leaving me with a whole lot of honey. Honey notes from BPAL often go terribly on me, but Meliai's stays true. Just sweet, pure, light golden honey. It doesn't go powdery or skanky like other honeys I've tried from BPAL, this one seems different. Overall: It's not grabbing me, but I imagine that this could be really popular once more people test it out. Actually, reading reviews now, I'm surprised anyone got pine or a unisex feel from it! I got none of that. Just some really girly, easily accessible flair melting into pure light honey. ETA: This had been rolling around my swap box for about a year, and something compelled me to give it another try. I really enjoy it now! Either it's aged into a more unisex, green blend, or it's a matter of skin chemistry or personal preference shifting. I can get hints of pineyness or aquatic- that sort of soapy touch, but that's fine, I like that clean, sharp edge here, it contrasts beautifully with the slightly floral, wildflower stemmy light honey.

Wet: Mmmm, after trying like 300 BPALs, how is it that I can STILL stumble across jewels of frimps? Freshly applied this is mostly violets, with just a sprig of cool lilac and a high note of tuberose. Dry: There's a brush of soft greeness to it, reminding me of soft, fuzzy violet leaves. The scent has gotten more delicate, slightly powdery. It's very feminine and smells pale purple, appropriately enough. After some time, the tuberose goes from an accent to a star player, regal and strong. If I inhale too deeply I get a little woozy for a moment. This stuff is heady, but not headache inducing. There's a light anchor to it, maybe a trace of some light musky accord, but it's mainly all flowers, all the time, fading with the passage of time. Overall: Elegant in its simplicity. Thinking of the name and breathing in the scent, I picture a graceful woman in a silky purple slip sitting on her wrought-iron balcony and gazing up at the night sky.

Wet: Tangy, sour, astringent, but not in a citrusy way. There's a dark undertone. Herby lavender and rosemary embedded in an already apparent gritty incense base. Dry: Twiggy sharp cypress, lavender, and a hint of smashed fig. Rosemary is still definitely sticking out, and I'm not really a fan, except in certain combinations, it just reminds me of the kitchen. As time goes on all this melds more and more into the dark base of the scent. It's a bit sweet and unmistakably patchouli. Now that I've looked at the notes, I'm surprised that I can't pick out the vetiver in particular. Frankincense is definitely around, but the vetiver isn't dominating. Overall: Not for me. It it doesn't smell good with my chemistry. A bit medicinal, a bit savory, a bit too sour and gritty. From afar, it has the waft of a random mash of BPAL. Eau du imp swap box.

I hadn't tried any new BPAL in foreverrr so when I found a mysterious imp of Muse rolling around in the bottom of a basket I slathered it on straight away without peeking at the notes. I definitely put on too much, haha. In the Imp: Nail polish?! It smells like nail polish. Wet: Flowers. A lick of citrus, lemon or lime. And then pleasant flowers. But, oh, crap. There's an undercurrent of ammonia. My nemesis, jasmine must be here. Cry. Dry: The citrus burns off relatively quickly. Muse breaks my heart. It smells great and lush, with what must be tuberose, and maybe a hint of magnolia, and some sweet lovely lotus. The problem is, this magic has a discordant rotting undertone that I can only attribute to jasmine. The jasmine gets stronger with time, as does the throw. Overall: Pretty straightforward scent, I guessed the notes before I saw them! This would be a lovely floral scent, a bit simple, but elegant, if I could stand jasmine. But, alas, I can't. The jasmine is just subdued enough by the other notes that I can see what else is going on at first, but in the end it amps up, takes over, and gives me a wrinkly sad nose and a headache. Woe.

Wet: It smells... nutty. A nutty vanilla praline, brightened with a creamy lemony glaze. Not a sharp lemon, a candied lemon with undertones of fruit. After a few minutes, the lemon (bergamot, actually, I see!) softens up even more and the fruity touch is clearly a soft brush of apple. There's a woody base here, rendered all creamy, and honestly, this smells pretty damn good. There's a bit of womanly neroli around the edges, reminding me of that subtle floral aspect of Vixen. Dry: Smells much the same, but with added depth. The wood is entwined with patchouli, there's a strong vanilla tone to everything, and the apple, rose, and neroli add distinctively feminine tones. This is one of the "perfumey" BPALs, with a complex interplay of notes from different families. Unfortunately it wasn't meant to be with my skin chemistry, because after another half hour, my death notes have decided it's time to stop playing nice. Black musk does it's cloying baby powder thing, vanilla turns up the dial to sweet terror, rose starts sharpening its teeth, and the apple goes overripe. It turns generic and terrible all at once. Overall: Could be really nice on somebody with the right skin chemistry, but it ultimately fails on me. It also never once made me think of the concept of "desire", haha.

Wet: Bitter, musty herbs with an undercurrent of aggressively shiny red apples. Dry: Amber, amber, amber, oodles of sweet powdery amber rubbed all over bushels of apples. The bushels are padded with oodles of dried old herbs of questionable medicinal properties. After a while the herbs stop being creepily musty/dusty/dismal and start being, well, clean and soapy. The apples, meanwhile, grow progressively faker and more like toxic candy or over-sweetened room spray. Overall: The amber is just the wrong flavor for me, these herbs aren't doing it for me, and the apples are not helping at all. Soapy sweet apple candy powder? No thanks. I usually hate apple scented things, so... fruit salad lovers, take my review with a grain of salt.

Not sure what year this is from- probably 2006, looking at the decant! Wet: Smells familiar. Like Snow White minus the plastic vanilla, plus sharpness. Sugary sweet, cool wintergreen mint, maybe a puff of eucalyptus and ozone, a hint of pale floral. Smells quite "white" but also tinted green. I'm getting a bit of the herbal edge of the mint, and something wet, like cucumber. Dry: The mint retains an herbal edge, and there's a bit of pine, too. Mostly, though, it's a vaguely aquatic, sweet white mint with a hint of green stemmed-florals. After about thirty minutes it smells like a less-sweet Snow White, which is horrible news, as this means it starts to smell like everlasting cheap vanilla plastic. Overall: Drat! When I first applied this I was like "omg need more" but then that horrible plasticky accord took over and that was the end of that.

Wet: Wow, upon first whiff, it's quite nice. A pleasant, glowy, soft edged citrus scent. If I whiff more closely I can easily recognize the components. Elegant bergamot, zippy fresh ginger and lemongrass (which together, give this an "in the kitchen" kind of feeling), sweet orange, and rosy leafy rose geranium that helps round this out beyond a simple lemony smell. It doesn't remind me of cleaner or soap, as some people have remarked, but I'm just REALLY familiar with all of the listed notes, so perhaps the way I parsed and dissected this scent prevents me from getting that impression, lol. Dry: The citrus medley tones itself down, but thanks to the bergamot lemongrass, it stays citrusy and bright for a long time. The blood orange, too, seems to hang on for a long time. The rose geranium is subtle and adds a breath of complexity. The frankincense is a lighter variety, and has a very smooth, almost powdery finish that strongly tempers the other notes. After a while on my skin, a creamy quality pops through and I get distinctly vanilla overtones. Very gentle and comforting in feel. Unfortunately, after a long while, it starts morphing sweeter, and ends up at a bland but potently sweet stage. Overall: This surprised me. It's actually really nice, much less astringent than the note list seemed to imply. For the first hour of wear, it reminds me of earl gray tea and candlelight on a winter evening. It really does have an interesting feel to it: a somber, nostalgic frankincense lit by starry-eyed hope. Sadly, it somehow manages to go really sweet and powdery on me after a while (it turns to that generic vanilla-powdery-incense BPAL smell my skin manages to squeeze out of a lot of things, only The Season of Ghosts manages to pack a whole lot more throw than usual).

Wet: A bright mix of zesty white ginger, lime, and subdued neroli, with a greenish, peevish nip of coriander and a sweetly perfumey backdrop. Dry: The tarragon pops up, and combined with the coriander, add a really unexpectedly herbal tone. The oud, weird old oud, is definitely in here as well, and the only thing it really goes with is the rose. Overall, this is a sweet, unconventional floral scent. After twenty minutes, I mostly get the honeyed beeswax, amber, vanilla, and musk: just a warm, perfumey swirl held aloft by a few scattered rose petals and the pervasive weirdness of tarragon and oud. I recognize little wafts of sweet heliotrope now and again. Very little throw, and it fades fast. Within 40 minutes, it's pretty much gone. Poof. Overall: Complex and interesting, but ultimately ends up unimpressive on me. The fast fading doesn't win it any bonus points. It doesn't remind me of jewelry, but it does succeed in smelling golden.