ND¢

I get an unsettling animal smell that keeps prompting me to say 'unclean' even though that's not really the best description. The faint sweet clove smell is nice, but I can't relax with that other smell. But boy, does it ever last a long time!

I enjoyed the China rain note, but what I assume is the vetiver (vetivert?) takes on a harsh and quite chemical tone on my skin. Possibly like unscented nail polish remover? It's hard to compare it to anything.

buzz23666 made note of a smell of an ointment like Neosporin or something of the kind... I smell Desitin (I think that's what it is called?) The sweet pea is overwhelming; I think that's what's causing it.

I was lucky to get a generous imp-and-a-half of this, my most coveted single note. Yup, a real redwood tree, enormous and still in the sun. No green scent, just pure redwood, crisp and gentle and comforting. There is a hint of earth that comes out after it's been on a while, and the next morning it's faded to a sweet ghost of itself. I wish I could make that little vial last forever.

It smelled like an 'Autumn Spice' gel air freshener on me. Sigh.

This was pine and an undertone of salted nuts (? I know... but I can actually smell the salt) on me. I like the pine; it is more of the sweet pine slave1 mentioned and not the sharp medicinal tone I usually get from blends containing pine. That part was very good. I think the 'salted nuts' are the almond milk and sarsaparilla, and somehow the combination of pine and salted nuts... I wanted to like it but had a rather strong reaction to it, so I think it should be swapped to someone on whom it smells like it was meant to (unless it was meant to be downright unsettling.)

I can see how this initially resembles an amped-up version of Dorian-- it is sharper, and I'm not sure what is causing that (perhaps a combination of the musk, jasmine leaf and fougere.) Jasmine isn't my favorite thing to have in a fragrance, but it's not the overly sweet jasmine flower smell. This also has an acquaintance with Severin, probably my favorite everyday scent.

Snake Oil smells quite similar to Snake Charmer on me, which is a great relief and a comfort, because now I don't have to sweat about $40.00 5mL bottles! Lighter than Snake Charmer, but with the same characteristic sugary-vanilla/incense scent that is sexy and utterly feminine.

A lighter musk than I expected from the description. Strong and heavy at first in dry-down, and I smelled a hint of orange in that stage only. Dried to a straightforward, elegant musk with a hint of sweetness.

The florals are most prominent on application and remain so on me. It overwhelms the possibility of smelling other notes. When I exhale, there is an unpleasant acrid 'aftertaste' in my nose that I've had from a few other BPALs. I wish that the orchid/cereus hadn't drowned out the other notes, but I tend not to prefer florals by nature; they tend to seem too audaciously flowery on me.

From this I get a too-sweet smell off the bat, floral, not the honey. (Laurel? I don't know.) Then a very dusty smell comes in... the scent becomes dust and rose.

The wine is strong on me, and combines with the honey in an unfortunately unsavory bitter/sour smell of cooking Marsala.

The cedar, which normally goes out of control and powerful on me, is muted and deep (smoky) and compliments the leather very well... almost making it seem like leather-cubed, as if the sharp tang of leather and the tang of cedar are potentiating each other. I think the musk adds to this effect, making it almost too vigorous for my skin chemistry. Fir rides along the top, giving me the 'autumn' feel. I'm not sure I'm capable of detecting the amber.

The second I put this on I thought, 'This is Snake Charmer's smarter, darker, wryer older sister,' and my first impression stands. The patchouli and red musk make this so worldly without ever venturing into the hippie stereotype patchouli seems to have. It is a bit reminiscent of menthol cigarettes on application, which bothers me, but balances itself out on my skin with the sweetness of plum and vanilla. (I wish it was a little less like menthol cigarettes, but feel confident that impression will change with the aging of the musk & patchouli.) I can only smell the notes when I concentrate on them specifically; this doesn't scream any one note, and I look forward to owning it by the bottle, having tried a decant.

Yeah.... rose scents? Yeahhhhh. I'm gonna need you to.... NOT smell like dill pickles on me? Yeahhhh.

In this case, the dill pickle is very gentle, peeking out from behind mostly-rose and a bit of sandalwood (which didn't go out of control.) Herb and grass scent might be adding depth to this, but not enough.

As has been mentioned, this is also reminiscent of Big Red gum on me. The cinnamon is dominant but softened by the rose, so it's not a sharp, spicy cinnamon.

Though I love the green color of the oil, the Vicks Vaporub scent doesn't really rub me the right way.

Perfumey in the bottle, drying to a sharp eucalyptus/medicinal herbal smell. Green herbs, a sharp pine sap... and a hint of something sweeter... Irish Spring? As I was typing this I smelled cat pee and thought 'If one of those cats peed....' of course the punchline is it is Djinn. I truly smell a note of cat pee.

Two ample samples traded to me by the generous cuervosueno. First reviews to be found here (XXXIV) and here (ML).

XXXIV: Apple with a bitter green vegetable I eventually identified as celery. It strongly suggests hard cider and dries to an Apple Jolly-Rancher sweetness with a tiny kick left over from the original bitter scent.

ML: In the bottle and wet on the skin, starts off with a rich green/resin bitterness that is just intriguing. I've never smelled anything like this. In drying, the bitterness (which is something organic-smelling, like leaves? recedes without entirely disappearing. It leaves a high, not too sharp, sweet floral note floating above a green/ aquatic scent (the aquatic is noticable on exhaling.) I don't smell the bergamot, but I'm also not great at identifying scents.

A well-blended, very green floral that reminds me a bit of the smell of Vitabath and a bit of aquatics. It's a very nice floral, not overwhelming the herbal smell.

In the bottle: Incense.

On me: A sudden burst of flower. Search me; I don't know what's making it do this. People are referring to the sweetness of the sandalwood, so.... It gets a dangerous hint of the soapy... looking through other perfumes that got the same soapiness, the only one I'm coming up with is Sleepy Moon, which has 'white sandalwood.' Man, it's the same exact soapiness, but unlike Sleepy, the soapiness doesn't jump off my arm and bite off my sniffer. I don't get the patchouli much if at all. Nope... not at all. A sweet and spicy, vaguely woody but not at all sharp smell, soft and light, evocative of places I've never been. Dries down to a soapiness much like Sleepy. Sigh.

In the bottle: Somewhat tobaccoey, somewhat coconutty.

On me: The tobacco becomes much more obvious after it is on about two minutes. Before that, it's all sweet spice. Then it's tonka and tobacco all the way, with a touch of leather (the same level of leather I get in, say, Severin, which is my favorite GC so far.) Sweet and dirty. Might need a bottle.

In the bottle: Dirt, like fertilized dirt from the garden store.

On me: Still dirt when wet, a good dirt as other people have said, but also reminiscent of the pickle smell that Lear and other cedar notes don't quite turn into on me, but which was a dealbreaker with Burial (only much less intense in this than in Burial.) It does mix with a warm, faint scent like vanilla. And why is the oil so much stickier than all the others I've tried? Some musk seems to come in after a few minutes.... mostly eliminates the dirt smell and turns into a very nice, evenhanded vanilla(?)/musk with a hint of dirt. Nice.

Got an opportunity to sniff this locally. More than anything it reminded me of Snake Charmer (my number one guy): warm, snappy, and for all the world like my sugar jar: an airtight container filled with organic sugar and a vanilla bean to keep things moving. I sniffed and sniffed with my eyes closed, forgetting everything but the smell in front of me. Lovely.

In the bottle: Sharp, thin, not much scent, just a bit of a stinging whiff.

On me: I wanted it to be as wet and fresh as Rose Red, but it didn't get there. If the leather had been apparent, that'd have been something, too, but apart from an occasional unpleasant causticness at the beginning of the dry-down, I didn't smell leather, either. It is a different rose smell than Rose Red: the stem and leaf are not present and it is much drier. Authentically rosy, just not what I was looking for.