hackess

Alice for all of the above (it reminds me of my boyfiend's soap/shampoo/deodorant combination), Ugh/Grr/Oof for calming, and cinnamony scents for coziness. Cheeriness? Rose Red makes me really happy, and Persephone is nice and bright when it's blah out. Maiden reminds me of my mom, so it's also a happy scent.

Sniffing it made me flash onto the scene of a dim corridor, the stone walls covered with dead, dry moss and beams groaning under the weight of decades. Torches line the walls sparsely, leaving enough dark between each that you fear the shadows every hundred steps. As I got wafts of it over the next hour or so, I could taste copper as the Dragon's Blood came through. To me, it was a very creepy scent, just for the dilapidated castle in my mind's sight. (I've seen too many old horror movies, methinks.) While it's very evocative (as many BPAL blends are!), I don't think I can wear it regularly.

Citrus menthol - more calming than Vicks and MUCH stronger. It's SO fantastic. I applied some after a night at a smoky bar so I could clean the smoke out of my sinuses - it definitely helped me breathe clearly again! I need to get more of this!

Minty and cooling. I put a dab on my temples when I had a week of headaches and they got tingly, but the headaches evaporated quickly! There's sage and eucalyptus in here too on the drydown. Definitely recommended for headache sufferers!

I love the Panaceas I've tried! Ugh is medicinal, for sure, but minty and soothing. It makes me think of Vicks Vapo-rub more than Oof or Grr do. If Bengay smelled like this, I'd use it for all my aches!

Aquatic and ozone are two of my hit-or-miss notes. Heavy aquatics smell like mold on me, and ozone in large doses makes me sneeze like mad. Sea of Glass is a little bit of both. It's salty and makes me remember summer days at the recreation center pool as a kid. It's what my swimsuit would smell like after rinsing it out - just slightly chlorined and green. There are white flowers underneath that are evocative of Ophelia drowning herself in Hamlet. For me, Sea of Glass isn't a peaceful scent. It's the melancholy that Ode to Melancholy isn't. I don't know why, but this one saddens me.

I love "clean" scents, but I can't really wear them. Dirty, Lightning and Embalming Fluid are the exceptions. The ozone in this isn't anywhere as strong as Lightning and it's more of a watery ozone, like the atmosphere right before it starts showering - a light spring shower that passes after a few minutes for rays of sunlight. There's definitely something yellow and bright under the aquatics. It has energy, like others have said. Slightly citrusy and very pure.

It's definitely a male scent to me - reminds me of my boyfiend's skin after he's just gotten out of the shower. I put a tiny bit on him to test it and it amp'd into Irish Spring - which he doesn't use. The aloe came way out, which wouldn't be so bad if the aloe didn't bring the white soap smell with it. He's since washed it off. On me, it was clean and light, but lasted all of five minutes.

My first imp of this ended up in a swap pile and went away. Just seemed too unnaturally fruity for me. I got a second imp as a frimp from someone (Lab order, I think) and am giving it another shot. First sniff: Rose, for sure, but there's something else over it - the apples. It's very much a springtime scent in the imp. Wet: Hmm. Like apple-scented bubble bath. I'm not getting any lemon from this at all. Drydown: Now the lemon's there, and it's not mixing well with the rose. It's turned sour. Guess I had it right the first time.

Wow, this is nasty on me. It's like astringent. If institutional antibacterial cleansers came in scents like apricot, this is what they would smell like. I don't know if it's the ginger or the jasmine that's hating me in this one, but it's gotta go.

Floral scents, especially white florals, tend to go soapy on me and this one follows the rule. In the imp, the lavender is really nice and I'm hopeful. Sadly, the wisteria takes over and all I smell is high-class soap. It's not a wistful blend for me.

Ack! Patchouli! Amber and resin are okay, but patchouli amps like whoa on me and turns this into Cathedral with a slightly green, woody undertone. It's churchy and smoky and just not for me.

Have you been naughty? I really enjoy this scent, but only in certain moods. Most of the time, I'm a Rose Red, Smut or Alice kinda girl, but sometimes I just gotta have Whip. The leather isn't overpowering, but it's definitely there on my skin, and moreso in the imp. To me it smells almost more like a soft brown suede, a wet leather instead of dry, stiff black leather. I get flashes of the leather when I turn my head or run my wrists past my nose, almost like a switch passing through the air. There's almost no throw on this one, but it's the kind of scent you should be smelling up close anyway.

Gorgeous perfect white carnations tempered by a couple pink roses and the sweetness of tea. It's lovely and reminds me of my mom, who loves carnations, which is why I'm sending an imp to her!

Lucy's Kiss was the first bottle I ever bought and one of my first rose-scents. Appropriately, it seems to me like more of a "younger" rose scent, girlish like the rose in Persephone. It's Victorian roses in a nursery, not the heady womanly scent of London or The Peacock Queen, and definitely not the naughty rose of Whip or Wanda. After a while, it started turning into a powdery rose, so I had to get rid of the bottle. I still have an imp, in case I want to feel girly.

Imp: Pumpkiny butter. It's really quite gross in the imp. Wet: OMG. It's like two different scents entirely. This is sweet and appetizing. The pumpkin is hiding just under the peaches. It's sweet - not at all what I thought it would be like. Drydown: Exactly like cider. It's like going to the apple gardens and picking bags of perfect apples and leaving them in your sun-baked car on top of a perfect-for-carving pumpkin. This one surprised me and I may have to rescue it from the swap pile. ETA: Today the drydown's pretty heavy on the vanilla, which means it smells like chalk made of powdered sugar and Yankee candles -- but only on my wrist. The crook of my elbow is still peachy and sweet. The bit I got on my shirt sleeve is still gorgeous apple cider.

This is the one I was looking forward to and it didn't disappoint. Slightly spicy, like orange chai tea. The cardamom is really gorgeous in this. If clove is too strong for you, try cardamom instead. It's a very sweet-smelling spice that blends so nicely with the tangerine and cherry blossom. It threatened to go soapy on me, but that could've just been wafts of everything else I was testing tonight because it passed pretty quickly.

Imp smells like juniper bushes and that lemony snow scent. It's like going for a sleigh ride through the forest at night, only your companion has a cold and is sucking on lemon menthol cough drops. It dries to something much more tolerable - almost like these lemon mints my grandmother would give me when I was a kid - but it takes forever to get to that phase on me.

... Ozone, white sandalwood, crystallized white amber, verbena, oakmoss, clary sage, and a hint of white citrus rind. Another winter Lunacy that doesn't love me! Including White Moon, the winter lunacies have either gone sour or cloyingly floral or heavy on the pine on me. Hunger Moon is no exception. In the imp, it's lemony fir. Applied, it's snow covered lemon trees over a bed of pine boughs. I love Hungry Ghost Moon, but this and Snow Moon just aren't for me. ETA Lab description

I get fig and cocoa laced with pomegranate at first whiff. No spice at all, no cloying vanilla. No tonka amping like mad, like it usually does. It's really quite nice!

Hmm. It's sweetly floral, definitely jasmine in this. It's a bright, fresh scent and reminiscent of sunny spring days. It also fades very quickly and disappears from my skin after 10 minutes, so it goes to my sell pile.

Imp: More lavendar than anything. Initial application: CEDAR! Lots and lots of cedar. Something vaguely sweet in the background - the awapuhi?? Drydown: Ginger heavy over the woodsy smell - kind of reminds me of cedar sawdust. It's kind of pretty, but not for me.

I so wanted to like this! I've seen so many reviews comparing it to Smut, and I definitely get the sense that it wants to go in that direction, but it goes plasticky on me - smells almost like those clingy decorations for windows. Then the clove comes out VERY strongly and it's like I'm in the club, surrounded by smokers. It's even making my eyes water. I'll take Smut over Passion any day.

Creamy caramel - sticky, sweet, and nauseating in large doses. Anything with butter goes rancid on me almost immediately. Didn't last long, thankfully.

Very, very green at first application, like bathing in an herb-oil infusion. Then the verbena hits and all I smell like is cleaning products. Definitely not for me.