pekeana

Devil's Night came out of nowhere and surprised me. In the bottle, it smells sugary, boozy, and leafy. On me, it smells like bonfire smoke (the good kind where you're dancing around in your Halloween costume around a pile of leaves that's going up in smoke) tinged with the deeeeep, crackling scent of leaves that have lost their clorophyll. After a while, a bit of sugar, booze, and musk come out to play, but it's mostly crackling fire.

Arachne is rather odd. I don't think it's supposed to be as sweet as it is on my skin, but.... I smell soft, gentle florals, bitter herbs, and very young, pretty woods, and something almost fruity that stands out at the top of the scent and screams "I'm sweet and you can't stop me!" I rather like it, but it's a little odd.

Rapture is rose, rose, rose -- but a spicy, warm rose. It melds with my skin and breathes musk, spice, and rose. Alas... again with the skin allergy to the rose, and I have a giant red welt where I slashed the back of my hand with the imp wand. I really love it, but I can't justify the pain for the pleasure.

I definitely smell the lilac, and I feel the extreme flushing bite of the rose (and have the welt to go with it), but I could swear there's some kind of wood in here, too. All in all, swap pile for the skin allergy factor.

Okay, Beth, I get the point already -- not all patchouli is bad. I got a frimp of Vixen and dabbed a little on out of curiousity. It hit my skin and started to scream "sex, sex, sex, omgsex!" It's a cross between Snake Oil and Katharina, minus the strong fruity and sweet notes from each of those. It's warm and inviting, sexy in the extreme, and I must have more. (I hate patchouli but I endorse Vixen, yo. How screwed up is that?)

I LOVE NUMB! I just... yeah. I hate florals, but I love Numb. My family hates it, but I love it. Mmmm, NUMB!!! In the bottle, I go "whoa, I'ma put that on my skin? WTF?" It's strong violet and ozone, with a touch of something else that I can't put my finger on. But the ozone is the same sweet, snowy/icy ozone from Snow White, so on it goes. Dear god, how I love this stuff -- it hits my skin and erupts into a pure white, icy cold scent. I smell the violets, and I smell sharp citrussy lime juice (or it could just be me), and the ozone, and after time, something else floral comes through, but it has a warm, sweet edge to it. I want to say vanilla flower, but I'm not sure. But OH! It's clean and super-cold. And I LOVE IT LIKE WHOA.

I've made it through airport security with a metric shit-ton of BPAL. I let them open up and sniff the bottles when one person didn't believe it was perfume, and they sifted through the imps and sniffed, as well. When I travel with my BPAL, I take a big Ziploc bag. I seperate my bottles into their own smaller Ziploc baggies and tape them up with a bunch of bubblewrap, and imps get their own baggie, with even more bubblewrap. Then I slip all of that into my purse so it gets hand-inspected if it's going to be looked at.

You're missing Athens! Red wine, honey, herbs... it's yummy.

I'm gonna say Jabberwocky.

I get a very strong orange blossom from Katharina -- but that's just because my skin sucks up apricot like no one's business. Akuma has a very strong neroli note, but neroli doesn't smell like straight orange blossom to me.

On me, Block Buster is spicy cinnamon and something almondy and vaguely fruity. There's a touch of floral, too, but it's mostly cinnamon fruity. It's happy, and it helps break through creative blocks for real like whoa. Amen, Beth!

Belle Epoque is very soft, subtle floral with a touch of sandalwood. It goes powdery on me, and that's all we wrote.

Lady Macbeth is a very burgandy scent to me -- somewhere between red and purple. Tum is very much a deep, dark purple, tinged with gold.

Loviatar is very, very warm leather with just a slick trickle of red musk -- slightly spicy and warm, deep and passionate... But the leather doesn't play nicely with my chemistry. So, alas, it smells like plastic furniture on me.

So... Lust isn't very lustful to me. It's patchouli and red musk, not really any ylang ylang on me, but patchouli usually is the most dominant note on my skin. It's actually kind of pleasant in the same way Malice and Urd are, but I probably won't keep the imp.

Some of my favorite non-florals (or very light florals): DORIAN Shanghai Embalming Fluid Katharina Aglaea Nytharlahotep Xiuhtecuhtli Dragon's Musk Dragon's Tears

A paean to all the Wicked Queens, Evil Stepmothers, and other misunderstood villainesses throughout history and lore. Lends an aura of majesty, refinement, strength, and a deep, brooding malice. A sophisticated, womanly scent: rich myrrh and jasmine draped in the subtlest rose. Wicked is... well, number one, it hits my skin and leaves a giant red welt of doom. (One of these days, I'm going to have to take pictures to document the rose-burning phenomenon, just because.) But after it rests a while, the welt goes away and the scent turns into a soft, sweet powder with just a touch of myrrh at the bottom of the scent. I like it, but not enough to deal with the "omg, it burns, it burns, get it OFFFFFFF!!!!" factor.

In Dragon's Eye, I get the dragon's blood and a smoky floral behind it. That's all -- nothing spectacular, but that's just my skin chemistry, I'm sad to say. It loves Dragon's Blood and doesn't let anything else play nicely.

Holy bananas, Batman! I popped my imp of Manila open and promptly gagged and made many, many faces which my mother snickered at from across the room. I HATE BANANAS -- the smell, the feel, the taste... ugh. So to be overwhelmed by banana was very sad for me. But I'm a trouper and I dabbed a little bit on. Fortunately, after it sat a couple of minutes, banana go bye-bye. It was mostly wood and a reedy incense smell. Kind of like bamboo, but not as clearly reedy as that. It was pleasant enough, but the HOLY CRAPSICLE, BANANAS! initial phase turns me off so badly that this imp will be going far, far away as quickly as I can manage it.

Midway very much smells like sugary donuts.

This is soft woods, leaves, and herbs -- it's woody, but also quite green. It's very soft and pleasant, but not high on my list of favorites.

Ehhh... Queen Mab is a nice floral. It's not obnoxious or overbearing. It is a little powdery after a while, and it makes me itch (rose reaction) a little, and I can smell the sandalwood. When wet, it has almost a Dorian feel to it till it leeches into your skin.

The verdict is in -- I apparently have two bottles of House of Mirrors. (And I think Oakmoss has a bottle of Snake Charmer with a House of Mirrors label on it -- which might make sense.) Sara at teh lab is sending out a bottle of Snake Charmer when they get a chance.

wickedgoddess was a goddess and sent me an imp of House of Mirrors (labeled Snake Charmer)... I'm kind of ambivalent about this scent -- I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. It's very sharp and clean to me -- I don't smell any of the listed notes at all. It's very well blended, but so very, very sharp. And it lasts forever -- and stays sharp and very sibilant the whole time. (Edited to swap House of Mirrors and Snake Charmer reviews.)

Okay, I already e-mailed the Lab about this, but I'm dying to know which one I have. I got 2 bottles today -- one labeled Snake Charmer, and one labeled House of Mirrors. The contents are identical. (I tested to make sure, and yup, they're absolutely the same, whichever scent they are.) Now, what confuses me is this -- they smell almost nothing like the imp of Snake Charmer that wickedgoddess gifted me with, except for there being the vaguest hint of coconut to it. They smell like non-vanillaed Snake Oil, to tell the truth. Are they Snake Charmer or are they House of Mirrors? I'm so confused.