Alice Aforethought

Thank you for letting us know, Elizabeth. The email is on its way.

Thank you for letting us know, Elizabeth. There are three other people included in my order request, so I can now tell them where we are!

Don't fret too much, and I hope you got that sleep.

I'm in that boat too - I emailed an order to Elizabeth on Sunday night (not the papow) but don't know if she got it with all this palaver...I'll wait a few days and then resend just in case I think.

Maybe Wales would be a little too far.

Hot water bottles winging their way through cyberspace in the direction of Tesseljoan...

I work in the kitchen of a hospital, but the same rules apply really - nothing too strong or I get told off! Carnivale and Unseelie are nice and not too heavy.

Thanks, Shriekingviolet! I took the drunk thing as guidance.

Thanks shriekingviolet, I've been having a play! Whee!

The mood indicator has been flummoxing me though - when I chose 'dreamy' and saved it, it kept coming out as 'drunk' when I tried to change/save it...maybe it's trying to tell me something.

Koumori, I love Icon. I haven't found a scent like it yet, not even the one Auntie P recommended as a good replacement (though nice enough in its own right.)

However I'm lucky enough to have most of the Icon range tucked away for special days...so I'm not panicking...yet...

Happy holidays, if they are! If not, enjoy the change of scenery. Come back rested!

Well done shriekingviolet! It must have been a huge job, and you deserve to be really proud. It's beautiful.

The hard work is very much appreciated - a big thank you to everyone involved with creating and maintaining both fora.

Fenris Wolf: Diabolus.

This is a very masculine combination, dry, spicy and fairly dark but with some rounding, warmer notes in there too.

When it first goes on, it's got a hint of fine, very dark chocolate about it - the snap of the bar when it is first unwrapped. But then the warm, woody floral and the solid power come out, and this one lingers for a long time

I can see the chaos in there - there's an unpredictable streak with the surprise of the mellow notes in that dark polished surface.

This is a beautiful, very sensual scent on my SO, and I might just get some for me, too...

I'm not really too keen on this one on me, but on Simon it is fabulous. A beautiful, refreshing lavender, not too sweetened or overly citrussy, but alive and slightly spicy, with the musk providing a lovely raised-eyebrow-come-hither undertone. Definitely with Clephan on the sophisticated side of it. A sort of vaguely detached amusement there, perhaps? Oh and definitely lacy cuffs.

Umbra is very, very much like Middle Earth turns to Rock.

I can see why there are so many rave reviews of this one, but it is a little too sweet and smooth to me. Then again, I don't suit vanilla as a scent! I do love that spicy depth to it, but it's not one I think I'll be using much of.

Then again, I think it might be one that grows...it would be gorgeous added to a carrier oil for massaging.

This is a very deep, spicy, dry scent which is warm like very dark, smooth wood, rather than mellow and velvety warm.

It makes me think of big old libraries with hushed atmospheres, echoing footsteps and creaking floorboards, and leather highbacked chairs for studying.

As this one goes on, the apple stands out most, but with a lovely sweet hint to it. As it dries down, first the rose and then the lemon show themselves. It's a a sweet, sherbety smell like 'rainbow sherbert' - the sweetness is there, but there's a tartness too. There is a slight medicinal smell there as well, almost like Germolene - I don't know where I got that from!

Or, actually, those boxes of mixed flavours of Turkish Delight! That's what it most reminds me of.

It's not one I'll get in the future - I got it for a friend to try - but it would be a beautiful, not-too-cloying summer scent. Especially if you like Turkish Delight.

This does smell very much like green tea with lemon! Very fragrant, refreshing and moodlifting, with a very slight, rounder floral hint in the background. The honeysuckle comes through slightly more once it has mellowed a little, but the lemon and the slightly green-astringent tanginess are prominent. It doesn't seem to last long on me but is very pleasantly uplifting while it does.

Homemade lemonade in the garden, clinking with ice cubes and lemon-geranium leaves floating on top...

I've been wearing this all day and it's still with me. It's not at all powdery or even too sweet, but is positively slinking at me in a full-throated and vibrant fashion. Oooo this one's good...not so completely 'come-hither' as some of the darker scents, but with a liquid, slightly intoxicating presence nevertheless. It feels feminine, but without being fluffily girly at all - instead, strongwilled and glinty-of-eye-in-candlelight. Bizarrely, when I sniff it it makes my mouth water.

This has a green, just-picked smell when first applied, which evokes the texture of the sepals and the damp of the sap as it is first held up to the nose. After a short while, it's that satiny aroma that also brings to mind the little beads of morning dew on the unfurling petals. It's not overly sweet as it is tempered by the 'greenness' of the scent, but is a little too sweet for me. It is a wonderful scent, though, like good quality rosewater.

Just to add, I've just now read through Elizabeth's description after I'd written this! :oops:

I loove this one. At first, the patchouli is dominant, but there is that sweeter, dark chocolate orange hint. As it dries down, the ginger takes prominence, with the dark and the sweet providing gorgeous, shadowy substance.

If anyone's eaten crystallised ginger dipped in dark orange chocolate - particularly Green and Black's Maya Gold, a fab organic high cocoa chocolate, this is sort of what it's like. But more pervasive and lots sexier.

It's like draping your naked self in velvet...a voluptuous and seductive scent.

Carnivale is very juicily, tartly sweet at first, but with an underlying richness from the deeper notes. It soon mellows out to a powdery, almost violetty, slightly spicy scent.

Lorajc is right about the Potion - it definitely doesn't smell similar in the first stages, but once it's been on a while there's that familiar, luxurious spicy floral scent, but with a deeper edge to it.

This is one for dusk in the sweet air of early summer - knowing, seemingly innocent but with hidden depths.

someone mentioned in the annie bonny review that it reminded them of scraping wax off of pews...

That was me. :oops: It does have that incensey quality to it, but warmer, with the wood and polish of an old church as well as the incense. I grew up Catholic too so I know what you mean! I still love that scent. My best friend lived next door to a cathedral, in the priesthouse (the only priest left was a relative and the family lived there - it was massive! Room for ten or so priests) and we spent many happy hours in the cathedral - by that time it was derelict and we had free run of the place. Ooo nostalgia.

This smells surprisingly fruity and clean when first on. After drying down, the musk emerges a little more and makes it a pleasant, if sweet, light scent. One for taking long walks with on summer evenings - a hint of the knowledge of autumn, and the fading of flowers.

Definitely better once it's been on for a bit, and it does last a good while.