tajana

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.

Wet: Surprisingly soft and weak while it's freshly applied. It smells like gentle lilac musk wrapped up in vanilla, with just the barest hint of rich, deep galbanum giving it some body. Dry: The ho wood comes out and it's a perfect match for the lilac. Both notes feel "cool" to me, almost minty or methol-y at times, only ho wood is well, woody, and lilac has a gently purple floral tone. The galbanum eases perfectly into that, too, adding a complicated greenish note that feels appropriately masculine here. Ultimately, though, these are just flavorings for the smoky vanilla, which is the star of the show... only, the vanilla itself feels a bit discordant with the sharper edged notes. It's like someone rudely splashed some creamy vanilla over the perfectly refined ho wood - lilac - galbanum trifecta. Kind of gross, really, thanks to the power of suggestion of the name. Hahahaha. Anyway... I feel like this is less "smoky vanilla" and more "creamy vanilla", like, there's something milky in here. For a minute it goes sour, but then it just settles down into the dreaded play-dough smell. There's probably tonka lurking in here somewhere, but it's hard to pick out the gently woody tonka note amidst its olfactory cousin, vanilla. Overall: Um, not what I expected. I think age will help this particular oil out, it'll smooth the notes together and make it smell more unified. Right now, though, it isn't sitting right on my skin. It's not lilacy enough, and has too much vanilla. ETA: I want to add, as soft as this started out, with time it got stronger and STRONGER and STRONGER and less play-dough, more rancid play-dough. Oh god. Absolutely suffocating and revolting.

Wet: Perfumey! I mean that in the best possible way. Spicy sweetness, a suggestion of fruit, a resinous base. If I huff, I can pick out the gentle mandarin and rooibos tea, which seems so spicy I wouldn't be surprised if there was a sprinkle of cinnamon here. It's rather dry, thank goodness (I expected peach to turn things really syrupy!) and the myrrh comes out more than either the amber or vanilla. Yessss. Wet, Unveiled is all going according to plan. Dry: When it first starts to dry down, the peach comes out and fills in the gap left by the fading mandarin. The rooibos note is great: spicy, a bit herbal, almost woody, definitely reminiscent of a cup of fine tea. It's sweetened more by the distinctive touch of lotus root than by anything else, and the myrrh is lovely, crumbling and heated. After some time, the raw softness of fresh amber comes out, but not enough of it to go powdery. Vanilla lurks around the edges, behaving as a proper vanilla should: smoothing out edges beautifully, without taking over the spotlight. After about half an hour, this fades down to a really soft perfume, a gentle not-too-dry but not-too-creamy golden scent, glowing with warmth: an idealized "skin scent" that seems like it's radiating from your pores. This doesn't have much throw, but it's still definitively present over an hour after application. (I'm sure it'll last longer than that, I'm just too impatient to wait another hour to give a more accurate impression of lasting power.) Overall: A very well balanced perfume. Exquisitely feminine and soft, yet not powdery. It's quite distinctive in the earlier stages, and then ultimately fades and settles down into a sheer but fancy skin scent. I really do like the way this smells, but I don't feel like I can pull it off. It doesn't feel like me... I don't feel like enough of a "grown woman" for it, if you know what I mean. I'm not saying it's an "old lady" scent by any means, just that for whatever reason, Unveiled strikes me as a scent for a woman who has things all figured out and feels supremely comfortable in her own skin.

Wet: Now, I usually hate anise, and I only ordered this because I thought it would be well balanced by the other notes. Wet, I get black licorice jelly bean anise, but it's just this naughty little nip of black sweet spiciness in a pool of creamy vanilla and delicate florals, mostly pink peony and a nuzzle of violet leaf. Dry: Cherry blossom really comes out after a while, adding a powdery-silky soft finish to the anise-bitten vanilla. The other floral notes are all discernible, but given time to dry and settle down, this primarily goes to a candy-like scent, and really intense at that. The throw is pretty strong, and it's so potent on my skin that I imagine the lasting power would be pretty great if I let it stay that long... but I won't. I'm drowning in roiling oceans of creamy, cloying vanilla while being strangled by ropes of black licorice. Overall: Not a good match for me. The vanilla amps out of control, which would be nauseating by itself, but the anise just pushes it over the edge for me. The florals are even softer than I expected.

Wet: MMmMMmm, spicy nutmeg! And charred, smoky wood... a rich, deep sandalwood. I can smell the benzoin and tonka in the back, just starting to add a bit of incensey vanillic creaminess. Throw seems pretty normal so far. Dry: Oh no, nutmeg, sandalwood! You're fading! And what's that in your place? What smells like black musk, benzoin, and tonka. Hey, I wanted black sandalwood, not black MUSK! Black musk goes powdery on me, which is what this is doing. And the sweet, smoky vanilla-ness of the benzoin and tonka really take over to create a perversely sweet yet masculine scent. Whoever said this smells like manly soap is right. It smells like manly vanilla incense soap. Overall: I amp vanilla like notes quite often, and tonka and benzoin both fall under that category. I also don't do well with black musk, and I could swear that there's black musk in here. Andreiphontes just isn't for me. I predict that age will be really kind to him and this will smell way better in six month's time, but I'm not intrigued enough to wait that long.

Wet: Why yes, there's black raspberry here! And booze. I don't get apricot on first whiff, but I do get the "cordial" part, which is surprising, as boozey notes rarely manage to smell alcoholic on me. There's a smooth, creamy white sugary cocoa butter edge to this, but while it's freshly applied, it's barely there. Dry: The black raspberry seems to step down and hide inside the apricot after dry down. I get a clear picture in my head of orange-colored, clear jelly, flavored with apricot cordial, surrounded by white chocolate. The booziness is a bit sharp, but it gives the scent a lot more dimension and perhaps maturity than it would otherwise have. The white chocolate has a sort of cocoa-y intensity to it... it smells a bit earthy and deep, as if there were secret flakes of dark chocolate sprinkled on top. This also has a good deal of throw! Overall: This was more chocolatey than the dark chocolate truffle scent I tried from this year's batch, lol! It's too foody for me to really love it, which I could have predicted, but I'm glad I tried it. It smells really delicious. I'd like to eat it.

Wet: A puff of bittersweet dark chocolate, quickly giving way to creamy key lime. It's a tasty lime smell: all the bright, green, cheerful flavor of lime, but with none of the refreshing astringency. It's like... lime cream, green sugar crystals, and cocoa butter. Tasty, but not identifiable as dark chocolate! Dry: Doesn't really morph at all. Just more creamy limes and cocoa butter. What happened to the dark chocolate? Haha. If you told me this was white chocolate and key lime, I'd believe it! This isn't nearly as tart as I was expecting... the lime is very creamy and candied, but it retains just enough of its true tart citrus character to cut down on the sweetness and make this wearable instead of cloying. Overall: An interesting smell... and unexpected. I was expecting intense dark chocolate blended with tart, assertive lime. Instead, I get a creamy and gentle concoction that makes me think more of white chocolate or straight cocoa butter. It's foody, yes, but there's something about the way it settles in and blends with my skin that makes it smell not quite edible. I don't dislike it, but I will pass on my decant because I know I'll never wear it.