astarinel

This was very sweet in the vial, so I was surprised when I put it on and was punched in the nose by the spices amping on my skin. The foody/bakery aspect here is kind of light when compared to other Yule goodies (Sugar Cookie, Gingerbread Poppet), and the spices remain very prominent on my skin. It reminds me of Gingerbread Poppet, but I have to say that I ultimately prefer GP for its richer bread scent and lighter spices -- there's definitely a spice in PP that's got a bit of a kick! For those of you who found GP a bit too foody for your taste, however, PP is definitely something you might want to consider.

This reminds me a lot of Snow Moon. I actually like this quite a bit, but it has that same "snow" note that a lot of the snowy blends do, and as that note can be rather loud on me, this blend doesn't have enough to differentiate it from the others enough for me to need a bottle. I do love daffodils as a note, but I don't get terribly much of that here, more of a generic light floral scent under the snow that reminds me of Snow Bunny with a bit more sweetness.

This reminds me a bit of Nuclear Winter -- I think some of the mints involved must be the same. However, this scent is a very ozoney, airy, almost dry cold, where the cold in NW always struck me as sort of wetter and slushier. It is a very cold scent, indeed, and it definitely doesn't have the standard "snow" note (as I get in Snow Maiden, Snow Moon, Snow Bunny, et cetera) for people who dislike that. It is very ozoney, though, and it definitely took on a slightly soapy/detergenty/dryer sheet edge for me as it dried, and it disappeared rather quickly on my skin.

I didn't really expect to like this, and I actually do. I don't think it's something I'd wear regularly, but it's different enough from the foody blends I already have to make me consider trying to get a bit more of it. This is foody without being sugary-sweet. The honey and berries definitely add some sweetness to it, but the base of the scent is this buttery nuttiness that almost provides a salty contrast to all the sweet. It's a very warm and rich scent, foody but very different from most of the other dessert scents I've tried. As it dries it gets even softer, and stays pretty delicious!

I totally hate to agree with a negative consensus, but I'm going to have to do so, here. I sniff the decant and think, crap, this really smells like caramel, and I still remember the horrible things Agrat-Bat-Mahlaht did to me. But, the other notes are so win, and the description says "traces" of caramel, so I try it anyway. Alas, it was not to be. It pretty much just smells like caramel at first, and scorched caramel at that. I completely agree with that description, and it's really overpowering. As it dries, it becomes more interesting. The vanilla and red musk combo starts to remind me a lot of Trick #1, which I do love, but it has less depth and sexiness than Trick, and the sweetness of the caramel keeps lurking around in the background. I like where this scent starts to go, but it never really gets there for me. And that scorched caramel thing is just ick.

I get no snow from either of these. Perchta, on me, was a slightly crisp floral, and Moon of the Terrible was all lychee wet, drying to lavender + resins. I was disappointed because what I wanted out of them was the snow, which was nowhere to be found. My favorite snow blends are Snow Moon and L'Inverno. L'Inverno doesn't have the snow note listed, but it's definitely a snowy scent to my nose. My boyfriend prefers Lines Written... which I second as being a "snowy" scent, and Nuclear Winter, which is definitely minty (but not sharply so) and sort of... slushy.

I wore Fearful Pleasure for Halloween and craved apple cider all day.

I really, really wanted this to work. Pumpkin scents rarely do for me, but I had hopes since this one did not smell like cloying buttered fail in the bottle like so many of them do. I love pumpkin spice lattes, and at first I got a lot of warm chocolate and spice and coffee. But there is SOMETHING in this, lurking SOMEWHERE, that I just don't like. The throw is great, but when I huff my wrist there's this weird acrid tinge to what is otherwise a delicious warm foody smell. I am disappointed!

This morphed a bit, and my opinions changed as it wore on. In the vial, I was all gack sugared coconut? Uh oh. However, I put it on, and while wet it remained very sweet and pink, with faint touches of wood and coconut. Very light and playful. As it started to dry, though, the other notes started to peek out, some of the honey myrtle and pom, and it became something really pretty. It actually doesn't remind me much at all of the Mme, which is dominated by red musk and patchouli on my skin. This is much airier and sweeter. The airy pink sugar reminds me slightly of Pink Moon '05, with the addition of some fruit and coconut. I don't really smell the heavier notes here, like the cypress and incense, but I think they're cutting the sugar and keeping this from being overly sweet.

This is very candy-bubblegum wet, down to the almost powdery smell some of those really sugary individually wrapped gum pieces have. Like Bubblicious, or something. It's definitely got that tangerine citrus scent to it, as it starts to dry, but it's very soft and sweet rather than tart and juicy. It also definitely gets a vaguely salty aquatic aspect to it, like chewing orange bubble gum at the beach. On the whole, I find it nice but very soft and a bit too candy-like for my taste.

I wish I were getting the vanilla more, as I love vanilla and that's what made me try a decant of this one, but I don't really get any of it. Wet, it's very smoky, and like previous reviewers have mentioned, it's a dry smoke and different to my nose from the ones in St. John's Eve and Devil's Night (which strike me as sweeter). As it dries, the leather comes out more, and this honestly seems like a kind of masculine blend, to me. For a wearable vanilla leather, I prefer Bow and Crown of Conquest.

I love apples and apple blossom, so I was really looking forward to this, but I unfortunately get very little of that in this scent. In the vial, it's really sharp and almost unpleasant, but I can smell the fruits lurking under there somewhere, so I put it on. Which was, in retrospect, a mistake. It goes almost cleanerish on me, and I really wish I knew what was doing this. I'm going to have to guess something with the azaroles or nuts, because I can sort of smell the fruits, but on top of them, there's this tart sharp bitter scent that I really dislike. This is a combination of me not especially liking the scent and my skin chemistry torturing it even further. Either way, it's not for me.

Alas. Cherry cough syrup. I think the alcoholic brandy aspect of this scent is really putting it into NyQuil territory for me, and my skin does it no favors. Sigh.

Trick or Treat 2009: It was slightly corny in the vial, almost syrupy. However, as soon as I put it on, it turned into a very heavily cinnamon-spiced version of Sugar Cookie. It had that same sort of sweet thick cookie baked goods vibe, but the spice here was quite strong. As it dried, I was left with nothing but cinnamon in the end. This was okay, but smelled nothing like I had imagined and ended up being too similar to scents I like better.

I tested the 2009 version. Although this isn't the kind of scent I normally wear, I rather liked it. The smoke/fire note here reminded me a lot of St. John's Eve, which was a little strong for me. Here, the fire and smoke is still definitely a main player, but it's softened by the musk and sugar. The musk is dark, and reminds me a little of Smut without whichever other musk in there made that scent awful on me. It lasted a very long time and had more throw than all the other scents I was testing at the time, even though I only used a tiny dab.

Preface: if I had known there was rose lurking in these depths, I wouldn't have bothered. That said, I actually like the pastry note here -- it's very light and fluffy and less buttery than many of the cake/foody perfumes I've tried, which is a nice change. This really comes out in the drydown, which is pleasant soft almondy pastry. Unfortunately, the primary note in this scent while it was wet is definitely rose, and it stomps everything else into submission pretty thoroughly. Caramel can often be a loud note on me, and I was expecting that as a potential problem here, but not even caramel can stand up to the power of rose on my skin. As it dried, the other notes poked their heads up again, but it was too late, I had already passed.

I should have known this blend wasn't going to be for me when people started comparing it to Mme Moriarty and Snake Charmer, both of which I find kind of meh. The dark red sexy scents are just not my genre, and I need to remember that. However, while those were just "okay" to me, Mircalla actually went kind of ick on me due to skin chemistry issues. I like red musk, but I tend to prefer it when the background notes are sweeter and brighter. The first thing that hit me about this scent was whoa red musk, reminding me of the red musk in Mme. In the vial I could smell the other notes sort of hovering around the musk, but as soon as it hit my skin, the primary other notes I got were patchouli and clove. Clove and my skin do not play nicely, ever. It makes me a bit sad because I love smelling it on other people, but on my skin it goes very loud and almost bitter, and that's what it's doing here. I actually ended up finding this scent kind of unpleasant on me, which was disappointing. If you have chemistry issues with red musk or clove, this may not be for you, either.

Since I haven't seen anyone suggest this one yet, my personal favorite fresh clean outdoors-post-rain scent is Mag Mell. I found June Gloom '09 nice, but a little too floral for my taste -- that one's more like post-rain in a lovely garden. But if that appeals to you, I highly recommend it! Mag Mell: The warmth of amber, the puissance of white ginger and the clarity of verbena, with fresh green grass, lush sage and cleansing droplets of summer rain.

I had a bottle of this, but I swapped it away so I can't provide a picture of it. It resembles the other lupercalias. http://www.flickr.com/photos/miss_twilight...57606843655198/ In overall pattern, it was similar to this Smut bottle. For Dolce Stil Nuovo, the band in the middle was gold writing on light blue, and the outside bands were a cream floral pattern if I recall correctly. Sorry I can't be more help! *listens to crickets* Was this a dumb question? Were all the Lupercalias from that year the same label?

Yay I got my Inquisition set! In the bottle: I actually compared this to the bath oil (just currant and honey) to see how the notes arranged themselves, and while the currant and honey are still kind of the main players to my nose, the blackberry adds extra fruity goodness and the pink pepper gives a little spiciness. It's complementary to the bath oil, but much more complex. On, wet: This is gorgeous and so well-blended. The most prominent notes to my nose are the currant and blackberries, which are fruity, tart and delicious, and the honey which is sweet but a little less "sticky" to my nose than a lot of the honey notes can be. The amber is in the background, adding a little bit of smooth warmth, and the pink pepper is subtle adding just a touch of sweet, carnation-like spices. On, dry: As it dries, the blackberries come to the fore. It still kind of has a golden-honeyed touch, and the presence of amber under the berries reminds me a little of Carnivale, which I also love. With the bath oil: The bath oil goes extremely well with this one. On skin, the bath oil becomes soft and well-blended, the honey and currants mingling together in a sweet, fruity aura. The perfume has the blackberry and warmth of amber, and retains a bit more tartness. I really love how these two smell layered next to each other -- the currant and honey in the bath oil make those notes in the perfume stand out a little more.

Tokyo Stomp is my favorite vanilla/mint! I prefer it to Snowblind (plasticky!) and all of the Lick Its. For similar vanilla/mint blends, I do like Villainess's Scintillating a lot, with the caveat that I've never tried the perfume. I have used the soap, and Scintillating is my favorite smooch. I even used to use the whipped a lot before I switched to ennui so it wouldn't interfere with my BPAL. All of those were very similar in terms of scent, and they have that bright, sweet vanilla mint. For something a little different, I also like Green Tree Viper. It gets a bit Snake Oily in the drydown, but the mint hits my nose very similar to the mint in Tokyo Stomp, and the vanilla in SO makes it a member of that "scent family" IMO. My boyfriend likes Mad Hatter, which is not at ALL similar to TS to me -- the pennyroyal has a more herbal mint scent to it, while the mint in TS strikes me as a more foody/candy mint. Good luck!

Tobacco can so often be a note of doom on me! But, FWIW: I'll second The Illustrated Woman. It definitely has a bit of sweetness to it, but I know the pine can be problematic for some people. This is one of the few blends where I can smell the tobacco but it doesn't dominate the entire scent for me. I quite like The Antikythera Mechanism (although I prefer it on my boyfriend to on me). The vanilla adds a bit of sweet, and it's a very warm woody tobacco. I personally get a lot of tobacco out of The Great Sword of War, but I think this can vary a lot with skin chemistry because other people I've tested it on get more musk and mandarin. But still, the tobacco is definitely present. Gaueko also has some nice tobacco, and it definitely has a little sweet to it although you might not guess from the note list. Definitely more smoky than the others.

Oh man, I'm thirding (I think?) the mentions upthread of The Oblation being an awesome blackberry blend. I somehow missed this while it was available (probably because of the florals listed first in the notes), but it's an amazing tart, juicy blackberry with a little honey sweetness and some lavender lurking about at the edges. Also agreeing that Bon Vivant is the most strawberry of any I've tried in the GC. I find the champagne aspect of it is pretty low key and just adds a bit of dry fizziness to the scent. I really enjoy it.

CCXXXIII: In the bottle, this has some prominent weird minty thing going on. I'm going to call it sort of herbally mint with menthol? It overwhelms everything else. Once on my skin, however, this minty thing immediately fades. Like magic! The scent left behind is definitely an O base, but it smells like it also has the creamy beeswax from Hanerot Halalu mixed in. It definitely reminds me of HH, but without that citrussy olive aspect, and with a darker musky honey from the O. It's also missing the smoke, with that touch of something resinous. Maybe more or a different amber? Or something like myrrh? It's nice, but as I have a bottle of HH and a bottle of O already, it's too similar to stuff I already have to warrant keeping.

CXCIV: In the bottle, I'm getting some Dorian, but it's in the background. Most prominently, I smell what is definitely sugar cane -- that dark, woody, liquid sweetness. There's also some unidentifiable fruity note lurking about, something brown and rich, like fig or date or something. Once I put it on, sugar cane does its inevitable sugar cane thing on my skin and begins to smell like celery. Notably, it does it LESS than it does for me in most blends, so I can still smell the other notes underneath. It lasts really well, and the musk is really rich (maybe extra musk added?), but my skin chemistry issues prevent this one from being a keeper.