bettybaker

Skin musk, shortbread, and roses; this is my favorite BPAL, and I have, um, a lot. Jack has been supplanted; Follow Me Boy's my signature scent from here on out. It's long lasting and a wee bit strong, but ummmph. The psychological effects are awesome, and the smell is gorgeous, pretty durned.

I say:

Plunder is sweet cinnamon tea. It's a wee bit strong, and it lasts and lasts. I smell like holiday potpourri, like cinnamon toast and a cup of tea on a cold morning, but not at all buttery or foody.

Okay. So. Take the buttery pumpkin of Jack, and the boozy chocolate July of 07's 13, and blend them together. This is a chocolatey, buttery, brown-sugary confection. I feel like raiding a bakery and eating all of their pumpkin-flavored coffee cake. It's warm, it's comforting, and there's a strong boozy note at first. I dig it. I smell like Christmasween.

In the vial, this smells like Pumpkin Queen's twin. On my wrist, though, this is a lighter more tea-and-spice scent. It's like a cross between Bakeneko and Pumpkin Queen. I like it! I'm not getting one trace of the butter scent so often noted in Jack. This is very light and spicy on my arm, in a friendly, pumpkiny, autumnal sort of way.

In the bottle and on me, 13 smells like a rum-spiked chocolate truffle.

In the bottle: peachy orange-y sugar.

 

Wet on my skin: That peachy orange-y sugar is still there, but now it's rounded out with hints of butter cookie and cinnamon.

 

Mr. Roommate says it smells like, "Scent. I dunno. Lavender? Really, it just smells like scent to me." Upon my description of the oil's name and dominant listed notes, he says "it does smell very pumpkin pie-ish."

 

After a few minutes to let it dry:

 

This smells like a milf on Halloween night. I loves it. Pumpkin Queen '06 is one of my favorite scents; it's right up there with Dragon's Milk and Jack. It makes me feel all confident and sophisticated when I wear it, so it's got psychological mojo voodoo magic going for it too.

Dragon's Milk smells like vanilla bubblegum. I smell like a pretty young thing who's learned a trick or two in the sack, and I like it! I may love it. *sniffs* Yes. It's true infatuation.

 

Dragon's Milk is very long wearing. It sits smoothly on my skin and glows out its sweetness without being overpowering.

 

I think I have to buy the rest of Ars Draconis now.

I associate mandrakes with Harry Potter and Pan's Labyrinth, and I gotta say, this smells more like hand-shoveling rich earth and pulling up weeds than it smells like screaming baby.

 

It starts out smelling like a dark mossy patch of recently upturned earth. Not really my thing, but it feels all nice and mysterious and witchy and stuff. After several hours, it subsides into a very subtle, close-to-the-skin scent of cinnamon-honey root.

 

Edited for spelling.

As I received this as a frimp from the lab (squee!) I decided to write down my impression of Whip before I read what the notes were. Here are the results: Whip smells like golden cologne spilled over a red fruit roll-up.

 

Now, I'm highly suggestible, so once I read that Whip is supposed to smell like leather and roses, that's exactly what I smell. This is a nose-to-arm-gluer. I like it. =)

It smells like cheap from the microwavable box curry + a leetle bit of asthma-inducing head shop. I'll wear this on a date I want to go wrong.

Bakeneko reminds me very much of Bengal, only slinkier and sultrier. It has only a medium throw on me and fades in a couple of hours. At first I was disappointed, thinking that I was getting nothing from Bakeneko that I couldn't get from Bengal, but then I realized that the musk was making me feel very prowly and mysterious. I love it! This is "date night" perfume.

Wearing Faith makes me feel like a pretty, pretty princess. It's a very girly scent. I experience it as a candied blue scent. Faith only has a medium throw, and it subsides quickly. My friend Kerowyn could still smell it after an hour, but I couldn't. Two hours later, I couldn't smell it anymore, and neither could she.

 

Warning: Faith may bring skillful flirting and diabolically feminine cunning to the fore.

On me, Zombi has a wonderful, very pink and fleshy rose smell. Unfortunately, it also reeks of Windex. I don't think my skin likes the dirt. Alas- the rose keeps taunting me, because it smells so wonderful, but the Windex smell gives me a headache.

Smells like honeyed bananas on me at first- which is nice, actually- it makes me feel very warm, confident, and graceful. Upon reading the notes, I think I'm responding mostly to the gardenia and the ginger. After about an hour, this settles into a cool, subtle gardenia scent, and I'm fine with that. I keep getting (haunting?!?) wafts of banana. I'll finish off the imp and consider a bottle. I think this'd make a great romantic scent to wear around my sweetie.

So, this is a really unusual scent. It smells like spicy baby shampoo, but oilier. This is something a harem beauty would wear as part of a campaign to usurp the head wife; it's diabolical, sultry, and intriguing. I'm very interested in it- I keep putting my nose to my wrist. It makes me feel like wearing eye-liner and flirting in a mysterious, sophisticated way.

 

Whoops. There goes flirtatious e-mail number one. Next I'll be calling someone and letting loose coquettish one liners. Soon I'll be oiling the shoulders of long-haired men and whispering schemes into their ears. Tantalizingly.

 

I'd wash this off before I get myself in trouble, but I'm having too much fun.

 

Make cookies, Betty. No Illicit phone calls.

In the imp, Juke Joint smells like mint in a garden- a garden just recovering from a morning rain. Freshly put on the skin, the mint comes forward; it's fairly sharp and intense, but it's not unpleasant.

 

After an hour or so, Juke Joint becomes more complex. I smell sweetness, yes, and a hint of booziness, but I still smell fresh. I've worn this to church a couple of times, and it's felt completely appropriate. I swear I smell a hint of vanilla here, but that could just be the sugar interacting with the bourbon. On the whole, this is a pleasant, sorta unusual smell that I'll wear for a pick-me-up or for feeling happy.

When I first sniffed Kumiho, I thought "this is sunshine in a bottle!" It's like waking up on the right side of the bed and bounding through morning. I highly recommend it.

Lyonesse makes me smell like a perfumed sugar cookie.

In the vial, Hellcat smells like icing mixed with booze. Wet on me, Hellcat makes me feel I'm a rum-soaked sweetcake coated with slice almonds and meant to be enjoyed after a decadent dinner. This is very adult, very darkened parlor, very velvet-bathrobe-slit-to-thigh. This is sensual and vaguely sinister; it reads smug, still sexually active older couple, smiling knowingly at the innocence of the world and plotting for their own betterment. This is a good scent to wear when you want to seem disreputable yet eerily seductive; it's a great scent for manipulation.

This is one of the scents that Miss Apple gifted me with.

 

In the vial, the unicorn smells like sweet sugared flowers. I smell a hint of orange citrus. The Unicorn is a pure white, sweet smell. This is a wonderful smell, very maidenly and virginal, almost mythically so. I can see giving it to a little seven year old girl in a pretty dress and watching her play with her dolls; it's so mild and sweet that even slathered I'm not overpowering.

 

As it dries, I catch hints of something green, as if the unicorn cantered through a stand of herbs in the forest of forever. This is a smell for pretty pretty princesses.

 

I accidentally messed up the plastic on the top of the imp as I opened it, so I was unable to close the imp back up and get any sort of seal, so I brushed some oil against the lightbulbs, and soaked two cotton balls with the stuff. One cotton ball I put in the bathroom, and one cotton ball I put next to my computer. I'm sad, because the Unicorn is a lovely, lovely scent, and I'm sure I would have reached for it often, but now I won't get to.

 

Wearing The Unicorn, I feel like a little girl dressed up in her flower girl outfit and ready to scatter silk petals on the ground for the bride; I feel that precious and young and freshly washed.

 

It faded fast on me- only an hour after application it's very faint and powdery on my skin, however it's stuck to the cotton ball like glue.

In the vial, I can smell cranberries for sure, but also a darkness which I suppose must be the spices and the musk. Wet on my skin, Lampades smells like a cranberry hard candy, but I also sense that lovely cranberry bitterness; this isn't overly sweet. Instead, it smells like a fresh batch of cooled cranberry sauce. So far, I'm thinking “Hello, winter scent. If Jack is my autumn scent, then you're my winter!”

 

The throw on Lampades isn't very strong; I keep wanting to apply, so I can smell more of it, but I know my sweetheart is coming home soon. I don't want to knock him over dead with what I could describe as the scent of Christmas twilight. While it's not a warm scent, Lampades inspires thoughts of love and home. I'm imagining myself at the family Christmas gathering later this year and feeling very cozy.

 

Lampades is a very demure scent. It's ladylike and proper. I have piano teacher smell! Wearing this makes me feel like Miss Marriage Material: sweet and homey, but with a darker edge that speaks of an intelligent mind and a depth of character.

 

Aw, let's go nuts. I just applied more- some to the other wrist, and I swished some across my collarbones. Thickly applied, Lampades carries with it much more musk and spices, but it morphs (and fast) into cranberries with a lot of sweetness but an appropriate tinge of bitterness. The musk and spices serve to warm things up just a little bit, but I do have a cool feeling on each wrist that is reminiscent of menthol.

 

I am intrigued and pleased. I'll wear Lampades to Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas parties. It's the smell of happy cold weather family festivals and pretty, prim ladies.

In the imp's ear, Kumiho is sweet, bright, and sharp; a white glow.

 

Wet on my skin, she's an intense waker-upper, all confidence, sunshine, and intelligence. Kumiho is morning-person-style start-of-the-day exuberance. She gives me the same sensation I get when I drink that first glass of orange juice. Kumiho isn't citrus-y, but she has the same sort of energy. I can imagine putting her on just after a morning shower and radiating joy all day.

 

After about an hour, her sweetness and light fades, becoming milder and milder until she's a “come closer” scent.

 

Several hours later, Kumiho smells like baby powder; she's unoffensive and clean smelling.

Oh my. I'm going to abandon the approach of telling you what this smells like in the imp, wet on my skin, and during the stages of drying. I'm going to tell you the place this takes me.

 

Last night, I participated in an intense pagan ritual. Afterward, we all stayed up, talking, processing, and making quiet jokes. Early in the morning, when everyone else was finally going to sleep, I put on a coat, poured myself some red wine in a pewter chalice, and went for a walk outside.

 

In the early morning hours, the modern day seemed more present than it had during the midnight ritual -the sounds of the freeway rushed over me on the overpass. I walked through the wet field where we had gathered during the night, and found the spot of our campfire, with its dew-damp ashes. Standing there, I sipped my red wine and meditated on all that had gone before.

 

Overall? This is a hypnotic, evocative scent with an almost repellent charge. It's the scent of the end of mourning and the beginning of moving on; it's the breaking down that happens before rebuilding starts, in a very personal way. It isn't a pretty scent, but it might be good for reflective work. Notes that I scented: red wine, green grass, wet, and lots and lots of ozone, with the very tiniest hint of ritual sandalwood and prettyboy leather.

The first thing I did was sniff the imp. At first, I smelled butter and rum. I closed my eyes and sniffed again; this time, I smelled flowers. So far, I was delighted, so I applied some to my left wrist.

 

At first, all I smelled was cinnamon. Some of the oil had leaked when I closed the imp, so I'd wiped a smear of that on my right wrist. Interesting. The left wrist, with its heavy smear, smelled like straight cinnamon, while my right wrist (with it's light smear) smelled almost entirely of butter.

 

During the first stages of the drydown, Jack still smelled strongly of cinnamon, but the cloves and nutmeg were making an appearance. Lovely. I was surrounded by an aura of pumpkin pie.

 

Now, a few hours later, Jack is still present, but now he's smelling softly of peach, clove, and nutmeg. I'm very happy with this.