sd357

I had high hopes for this bottle - I absolutely adore mosses and cypress and tobacco. But I opened up the bottle to sniff and all I could pick up was the caramel.

 

On, it's the same. Caramel/butterscotch. I just don't like foody scents - and I had truly hoped the caramel note in this wouldn't be something that my skin would amp up like crazy.

 

So off to the trading stash this bottle goes.

When am I going to learn that as much as I love amber, it just doesn't work on my skin? This is a very pleasant scent, but doesn't work on me. Worse yet, it starts to smell a bit rancid over time on me. This one will be getting traded off to someone who can appreciate the artistry, because my skin most certainly doesn't.

Wet: Usually, most of the notes in this scent work on me. But this is just… off… somehow. I pick up the notes, but "deranged" fits them well - either the opponax doesn't agree with me, or it's just the way these don't quite blend together for me that doesn't work.

 

Dry-down: What's going on here? I'd already written this off as not working, but it's blending nicely now... I think I need to change this to a like!

 

 

Dry: Where'd it go? Rats. Ah, well. Appropriately named, but not something I'm going to be wearing on a regular basis.

This is a much lighter scent than I expected it to be. It goes on as a light musk, with the leather and cigar tobacco slowing coming up during dry-down. Dry, it's just a hint of a wonderful cigar sitting unlit next to a leather easy chair. One of my most favorite ever scents.

I'm a Taurus. I groaned when I read the scent description - rose? Florals? How could Beth do this to me? How could the woman who gets scent interpretations right all the time reduce me to rose and florals?

 

I ordered a bottle anyway.

 

And I take it all back.

 

This is a gentle Taurus, not the bull-in-the-china-shop-stops-at-nothing Taurus. This truly is a rooted scent; herbs and herb-like florals that somehow manage to convey peace, calm, being centered...

 

Wet, it's a quiet scent. Unassuming. So I tried it. Not much throw; herbs with a bit of rose come out as top notes here.

 

Dry-down: Other florals that I can't quite place come up. It's a scent that makes me stop, think, sniff again. Wonder how it feels so grounded.

 

Dry: Sadly, it's almost gone. After only 30 minutes. Until I sniff again. And then it's there - a scent reminscent of beloved posessions stored in a trunk scented with a sachet of herbs.

 

Nicely done, Beth. As usual - an unexpected twist that shakes up preconceptions and resettles them.

Wow.

Oh, wow.

I guess I ought to actually post a review.

But I'm still sitting here going... Wow.

In the bottle: Crisp, minty, with a warm hint of vanilla.

Wet: Exactly the same. My first reaction was that I now understood why the vanilla mints are so popular. But I expected it to turn on me...

Dry-down: The mint blends with the vanilla, smoothing together...

Dry: It's still minty vanilla! Wow...

I'm off to order a backup bottle. Or three. Because vanillas don't usually work on me, as much as I love 'em, and I don't usually like smelling like mints. But this is marvelous...

I've tried Blood Kiss a few times now, and I honestly can't decide if I like it or not. In the bottle, I don't care for it all that much. But in true addict fashion, I know that the bottle scent hasn't got a thing to do with how it smells on me...

 

Wet: This is complex, and I can't figure out a) what it smells like or whether or not I like it. The complexity itself is fascinating.

 

Dry-down: I can start to pick up clove, cherry, musk, traces of a deep bitter vanilla, dragon's blood...

 

Dry: As it starts to mellow, I like it more and more. Black wine cherry vanilla dragon's blood? But the next sniff, I don't like it. And then I sniff again, and I do...

 

Since there are so many other scents that I absolutely adore, this one will be off to the swap pile, even though it's a tantalizingly complex scent.

Wet, I pick up the pear and the sweet pea. I don't normally go for florals or fruits, but this is a very clean green. It smeels like the best shower products possible - I adore it. Dry, it keeps the same scent to it - it's a wonderful change of pace from deeper scents I usually like. A very surprising win, here!

Wet: damp incense and florals. Nice in the imp, ok on me.

 

Dry-down: more and more floral. This is a scrub-it-off-me-it's-making-me-sick-to-my-stomach sweet floral.

 

I didn't make it to dry. It amped up so strongly and sickeningly that I took lemon juice to it. Wow. Totally unexpected. I'd love to know what note or notes ramped up like that.

Wet: yummy - green and woodsy and warm and amber and musk all at once.

 

Dry: it stays just about the same, but blends together much more nicely.

 

This is a real find, because I adore amber but it usually doesn't work for me, so an amber scent that works on me is marvelous.

This goes on cinnamon and incense. The clove starts to come out on drydown. It's too strong at first, but once it dries down, the clove and cinnamon are nicely balanced. I really like this one.

Wet: a light sage and bay leaf. I usually pick up cedar early, but not here.

 

Dry-down: Here comes the cedar - this is the perfect scent to store with my sweaters. Where are those BPAL dryer sheets, durn it?

 

Dry: a perfect blend of cedar, sage, and bay leaf. I adore this scent. I want to roll in this scent. I am *so* glad this is a GC!!!

Wet: sweet, comforting, pine-y. The woods are marvelously softened by the chamomile here.

 

Dry-down: the woods and the rose come up more, in a marvelous blended scent that is fast becoming one of my absolute favorites.

 

Dry: A wonderfully light blend of woods with a hint of rose that is softened perfectly by the chamomile. Almost no throw, however. I love this, but I'll need to find a way to get it to last longer!

I love the way this smells in the bottle. Sadly, however, it smells like stale, dusty herbs on me.

Wet: It starts out deep, soft, slightly smoky - very, very faint.

 

On dry-down, the cinnamon starts to come up, then, when dry, it settles into a very sensual smoky blend with just a hint of cinnamon in it. I absolutely adore this. There's a 5ml in my future...

Oh, Misk U, how you broke my heart...

 

This scent has been one that I so desperately wanted to love. Irish coffee is one of my favorite drinks ever, and I *have* a library full of dusty tomes. Ah, the longing...

 

And so this morning, the imp from a recent swap arrived, and I was prepared for what I was convinced would be one of the best scents ever.

 

Alas, poor Misk U, for you and I are not meant to be.

 

In the vial: butterscotch.

 

Wet on me: butterscotchy caramel.

 

Drydown: more butterscotch.

 

Dry: Caramels left to melt in the sun.

Wet: one of the few scents in which I can smell the cocoa note, but it's a muted cocoa, with an almost-but-not-quite metallic undertone to it. It reminds me of a deeper version of Velvet - one of my all-time favorite comfort scents.

 

As it dries, the incense starts to come up. I keep expecting a blood note here, but instead I get more a bit more of the florals, but they come up as green, not flowery.

 

Dry, it's a clean, deep scent with the tang of forged iron underneath and a subtle element of mystery. There is a 5ml of this in my future.

In the bottle: Green, light, with a subtle background of something deeper to it.

Wet: Very much the same.

Drydown: Sadly, all gone... It just doesn't stay with me. And much as I love the more "masculine" scents most of the time, this one doesn't work so well for me. As a room scent in my library, however? Oh, yes. That's where it'll find a home.

 

I'll have to try it on the hubby next.

Warning: Don't wear and drive...

 

On first sniff, well - remember everyone else's warnings about singed nose hairs? My husband was sitting nearby, and his dry comment of "sniff it, don't drink it" set me off in a fit of coughing, laughing, and managing not to spill the precious on a very startled cat. It's a marvelously blended scent, that while it's absolutely nothing I want to wear, I'll be keeping around just for the sheer uniqueness of it.

 

And now on to the reason I don't want to wear it. Sadly, on me, within a short while you end up with a mix of oak and sweaty-morning-after-a-drinking-binge scent. Ah, well. In any event, this is one to at least try if, for no other reason, than the fact that its a very self-assured scent that knows exactly what it is and makes no attempt at subtlety.

I was frimped this recently, so I opened it to sniff.

 

Oh. My. I'm very, very glad that other people like this, because this has made it to my most-disliked scent list. And that's before it went on.

 

I had to try it. And I end up smelling like bubble-gum flavored vomit.

 

Thank heavens for lemon juice's scent removal powers. I will be sending this one along to someone who will hopefully love it dearly, because it deserve a better home than I'll be able to give it.

I ordered an imp of this from the lab as part of a wander through woodsy, earthy scents. I'm glad I didn't read the reviews before I tried it - they'd have scared me off!

 

On me, this scent starts out smelling like licorice with a hint of tobacco. It seems to disappear completely as it dries, and then, in about 15 minutes, it comes back up. It's an earthy scent, smelling of clove, anise, tobacco, and leather. I absolutely adore it - it's made it to my "will get a 5ml" list.

 

It may not work for some folks, but it definitely works for me!

This review isn't focused on scent, but rather on effects.

 

I have several "stuck" projects hanging around that I have been finding all sorts of reasons not to do. I'm uip against deadlines on some of them, and so I decided this morning that I was going to do what I could to get them done. The issues with these projects - one in particular - is that its absolutely huge, and I need to find a couple of creative solutions as just part of the project. Note that I happen to be working from my home office today.

 

I decided to use Road Opener in a very simple way - I annointed a couple of pieces of jewelry that I use for magical work, with the focus and intent that I was going to find a creative way to solve this project. I told myself while I was annointing the jewelry that I did not need to see a complete vision for the project - I just needed to work on it for 50 minute intervals, focusing only on "what comes next?" as I worked through each piece of it.

 

As a supplement to the process and to help me retain focus while I was working, I used a very small amount of Concentration.

 

This was about eight hours ago. I am well into the problem project. Things that seemed impossible to organize have become easy. I've streamlined and reorganized several forms that my firm uses for this type of proposal. I found a completely different layout for the documentation that makes this project *much* easier to understand.

 

During my breaks, I decided to shampoo the rug in my family room. Once I finished, I looked around the empty room and realized *exactly* what has been bothering me about the room's layout and traffic flow since we moved into this house - and I have now started the process of completely flipping the room on it's ear. The new layout solves a whole collection of problems involving blocked doorways and things getting dumped on top of places they don't belong - I'm going to have a very, very surprised family when everyone gets home tonight!

 

To top it off, I happen to love the way Road Opener and Concentration smell. :-) (I don't get the mint in Road Opener that everyone else seems to pick up, though. Hm.)

 

If I can keep up this type of creative problem solving for a couple more days, I'll have cleared my backlog of projects-that-I-don't-want-to-deal-with - something I've wanted to do for a couple of months.

 

Yeah, I'd say that Road Opener is a keeper...

I didn't expect to fall in love with this one...

 

This is a scent where I'm not picking out individual notes. It strikes deep into the hindbrain, bringing up images with it that are far more complex that the description might imply.

 

Wet, it's light; reminiscent of a sea breeze, clean, and refreshing.

 

As it dries down, that breeze settles, and there's the imagery of pine tress on a remote, ancient sea shore. This is a sea that moves and hides secrets, but it is not foreboding or dark. It is just primal, like the ancient trees that stand nearby. My head knows it's the eucalyptus coming up, but that requires thought, and this scent bypasses thought.

 

Dry, it is the scent of baptism, cleansing, and penitence - not in a religious sense, but in the sense of starting everything over. It is the scent of a fresh start by choice. It's the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner; it's Swinburne's The Triumph of Time.

 

For those of us who are magically inclined, it's a scent for use in ritual cleansings.

 

I never expected this reaction to a scent named for something designed to be a terror that taps into our most primal fears, and yet it seems fitting.

Sadly, this smells like lemon pledge on me wet, dry down, and dry...

This is a strange, complex scent. I can't pick out any of the notes in it - it's a sweet smell, with a dusky undertone. I don't know how to describe it. It gets sharper as it dries. It triggers a memory - something that I feel like I should recognize.

 

As it dries, I pick up occasional reminisces of curry, but it's a very subtle curry-type blend - not the strong smells that I associate with Indian food.

 

I have no idea what I'm smelling, but it's different and it works on me. Not to mention that it's keeping my subconscious busy trying to dissect it!