pekeana

The Hanging Gardens smelled very fruity and floral in the bottle, then I put it on me. Generic floral for a couple of hours, then it mellowed out and the pomegranate came out to play a bit. It's nice -- a bit powdery, a bit sour, a bit fruity and fizzy.

Peitho hits my skin and screams "JASMINE, JASMINE, JASMINE, lily, JASMINE JASMINE!" After about an hour and some, I finally get a hint of vanilla, but ultimately, the jasmine scares me off.

Tears is aquatic, slightly floral, salty, and has a slight undertone of wood. It's nice, even if the wood gets more prominent the longer I have it on. It's very gentle and caring, but ultimately, the woody undertone is just a bit too much for me.

Silk Road is spicy and woody -- more woody than spicy on me because my chemistry is apparently really strange. It's nice, it's pleasant, but it's not something I'm going to race out and grab a bottle of.

Orange blossoms, cinnamon (oooh, firey cinnamon), and an aquatic note. Red Devil is warm, sexy, well-balanced, and just plain yummy.

The Magician started off for me all anise and herbs, and as it dried down, it picked up a sweet berry and aquatic tone -- all in all, I really like it.

Judgement was very resinous, almost powdery, quite herbal and incensy to me -- it started off light and poofy, then darkened into a vibe almost like "death and despair, mere mortals!!!!" Nice, but kind of creepy.

Snake Charmer is all about the happy. Happy, happy, happy.

It's ambery and warm, slightly sweet and mainly just warm and ambery. There's a hint of patchouli beneath it all, and it's Snake Oil without the vanilla top note.

I LOVE THIS LIKE WHOA OMG.

(Edited to switch my Snake Charmer and House of Mirror reviews.)

I splashed a bit of this on this morning after being up for 36 hours straight. Temple of Dreams is all astringent lavender, crushed herbs, and there's something vaguely spicy to it, too... maybe cardamom or anise? But the spice is extremely faint in the background.

That being said, it works.

Mmmkay, this one's just not for me. It's the sandalwood.

Velvet is nice and pretty and everything -- all chocolately vanilla with a hint of mint and wood -- then it hits my skin.

And foul chocolate powder with a woody undertone is the end result.

Ulalume smells like dry, rotting leaves in the middle of the forest in the fall on my skin.

The end.

Shanghai is definitely a sister to Embalming Fluid and Tarot: Justice. They're all three different aspects of the clean green tea happy notes.

Where Embalming Fluid is the youngest, garish sister, and Justice is the older, wiser sister, Shanghai is the quiet middle sister that likes to sneak off to the attic to read. She's sweeter than the other two, and much more subtle and close to the skin, but she's the one that cries when she drops her ice cream cone on the hot concrete, and she's the one that says "wear me!"

So, yeah.

MMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Holy hell, this is GORGEOUS!!

Strawberry Moon is very sweet in the bottle, but the moment it hits my skin, I get a thick, juicy, sour strawberry smell. After a while, the tea makes itself known, and I do smell a bit of floral about it.

MMMMM, FRUITY! LOVE!

Honey Moon is divine. I'd given up on finding a honey scent that would work on me, then BOOM.

On me, I can smell all of the flowers that are listed in the description, and here's the thyme note from Lady Macbeth...

And HONEY. Pure, sweet, clover honey. *dies a happy death* I can smell the green of clover in this, too. MMMMMM.

I LOVE.

Oberon was very nice. Citrus, musk --

And then the dreaded patchouli reared its ugly head and overwhelmed everything else with a deep earthy note that smelled out of place.

It makes me sad, alas -- why can't I like patchouli for the sake of liking patchouli?

This is miles away from anything I've liked before -- sweet!

In the vial, Nyarlathotep is very biting and sharp, fresh -- I can smell the ozone and the lemony-ginger that I smelled in Shub-Niggurath, too. I also smell something darker and heavier in the background.

On me, I smell... CINNAMON! Cinnamon, ozone, a touch of lemony ginger, and something that smells almost like burnt grass. It's smokey and incensey, but with the deep tang of ozone.

Think of crossing Scarecrow, Lightning, Three Witches, and Shub-Niggurath, and you have Nyarlathotep -- at least for me. I love it like whoa.

Whoa, I'm beginning to learn that I don't really like jasmine.

In the vial, this is all sharp jasmine and creamy almond to me.

On my skin,, it just doesn't smell very good. It has a very dry, acrid note from the sandalwood, and then the jasmine goes positively schitzophrenic and makes a huge noise (and stink) about not being the center of attention. So... poor Salome needs to go to swaps like right now. Dance, my pretty, dance -- away from me.

Love, love, love, love, LOVE 13.

In the bottle, I smelled chocolate -- but white chocolate. I can smell the difference because I prefer the scent of white chocolate, so it's very pleasant. I can also smell a touch of floral and a touch of citrus. But it's mostly white chocolate.

On my skin, it's like "HELLO, SMELL ME, I SMELL FABULOUS, DAHLING!!!!!" Soft chocolate, sharp but sweet citrus, a tiny hint of floral, and something red. I wonder if there are berries in this because I smell berries. Hmm. It's slightly powdery, very sweet, and incredibly delightful.

Every foodie scent fan should have a bottle of this. I'll definitely be buying more when it comes back. It's just that good.

Guhhhh... Mad Hatter is sex.

On me, it all blends to smell like mint on top of leather. Kind of funny considering there's no leather, but whatever -- it's pennyroyal and leather to me, and it's just sexy. And in the vial, it smells a lot like Villainess's Novocaine Smooch to me.

I didn't order Queen of Clubs because the "earth notes" scared me. Um, yeah, my stupid. I tried it on at pkwench's, and whoa.

Queen of Clubs is all bright and almost alcoholic wine in the bottle, with just a hint of something beneath it that might be moldy dirt. Mmm, dirty wine.

Once on my skin, it's strong, fresh, loamy soil -- it's not the dirt of Zombi, it's more... it's like going outside right after it rains, when the mud smells the strongest. There's an aquatic note to the dirt that makes it sing on me. After a while, the earthy stuff backs off and I smell hints of fruit and VANILLA! It brings on kind of a dirty, kinky bakery kind of a smell. After a while, the dirt fades completely and I'm left with a soft, gentle fruity vanilla, and then it goes away completely.

Mmm, love it.

I tried this on at pkwench's the other night, and I'm sad to say that I'm glad I went with my gut and didn't order it.

Ides of March starts off blindingly citrus and floral, and gets more and more screamingly, blindingly sharp as the minutes go by.

If I liked greenery, this would be a perfect scent. Alas, we just don't mesh, and it's no wonder the Ides of March is an inauspicious time.

For those of you who like comparisons, Elegba is Spooky without the chocolate and the mint.

For those of you who don't, Elegba is just... guh. It's coconut and rum, with a soft smoke tinge to the very bottom of the scent, grounding it. It's so beautiful.

It took me a while to pin bottle IV down, because it's so strange. It's dark, dark, dark like whoa, and totally removed from anything else BPAL that I've ever tried.

Chaos Theory IV (4):

In the bottle, this is cinnamon butter cookies with a touch of something that almost smells like liquid smoke, and a hint of wintergreen and pine around the edges. (See, told you it was weird.)

Once on my skin, it screams wintergreen, pine, and butter cookies -- like jumping off of my arm and beating me upside the head with their heavy, deep, darkness. And then the smoke comes back, the cookies recede, and all I smell is leather, smoke, and pine. AND THEN, it all fades a bit, and I can smell red patchouli and musk, but it isn't heavy musk or civet, more like a soft, smooth golden musk. After a while, it's a conglomeration of everything but the wintergreen and cookies -- mostly pine, leather, smoke, and musk, with just the lightest touch of patchouli.

It's truly the oddest scent I've ever, ever smelled, and yet, for some reason, it screams "please come have sex with my arm". WOW.

Y'know, I probably ought to write a review for this bottle before I send it off as spoils of bidding in my Aids Walk auction.

Chaos Theory, bottle CII:

This is vanilla, coconut, musk, and sandalwood... it smells extremely similar to Blood Pearl, but has more of a woody undertone than a dry orris tone, and the vanilla lends it a sweetness that Blood Pearl didn't have.

Alas, it hates me and smells like Beaver's Best Ice Cream Sundae!

Chaos Theory XXXIX (39):

In the bottle, it's very watery, crisp, clear, with a twang of wintergreen around the edges. Cucumber, something floral, something aquatic, something really green, and WINTERGREEN! *excited bounce*

On me, it sings WINTERGREEEEEEEN for a very long time -- fortunately, I love wintergreen, and it loves me. Then, out of nowhere, bam, there's a very subtle cucumber/moonflower?/aquatic thing going on below the influx of wintergreen. After that, it doesn't really change much, and with the way wintergreen and cucumbery-aquatics last on my skin, I won't have to slather... which is good because I'm going to be absolutely heartbroken when this bottle is gone. THIS is the pentultimate cucumber scent for a cucumber freak like me.