darkitysnark

Delphi Another gimp from kmasden This was unnerving in the bottle. She is a beautiful priestess in pristine robes burnished by the glow of dawn. She's hiding a knife under those robes, and you can tell by looking into her brilliant green eyes that blood will be shed. There's a sort of culinary herbal bite, sweet boozy swirls, and an overwhelming need to run away right friggin' now. I'm not sure from where this instinct to flight is coming, but it only happens when I'm sniffing nose-pressed-to-wrist. After this alarming wet/drydown stage, she settles back into honeyed grace a little more. A little goes a long way with this blend, and the throw is pretty substantial. Hours later I'm just getting a sweetened incense. No more daggers. Still, that phase at the beginning gives me pause. Definitely a re-try.

Nemesis Two words: candied man. OK. Maybe a few more words: this was a gimp from the Lab. The patchouli is what kept me from trying this in the first place, but I'm not really getting it at all here. I MUST try this on The Mister tonight. I will pin him down with elbows, knees, and thighs if I have to.

Pannychis Lovely gift from the lovely kmasden, who selected this based on my apparently jasmine-heavy wishlist. Not much to add to other reviews and this one hasn't morphed like some of Beth's other blends do, so I'm going to lay it out for y'all: Jasmine. Yup. But for me at least, this "night blooming" kind, tempered as it is by moonflower, ylang ylang, sandalwood, currant and one of my favorite foodie spices, does not reach the "meaty jasmine" that I usually get from Beth (or, really, any jasmine oil out there). This isn't light and delicate like Peitho. This is darker, but still fragile. My skin usually amps currant/berries/etc., but here it is evenly matched by the florals. It adds a sort of tart sweetness to keep everything from going to powder. I do wish I could pick up more on some of the "warm" scents, but this is... tolerable to my jasmine-fatigued nose. Both throw and waft are medium (a little heavier on the waft) but I did apply very sparingly. A little really does go a long way with this one. I'd say this is the perfect scent to go with my more "Gothy" summer dresses/moods.

Cathedral A fascinating gimp from kmasden, my Autumn Switch Witch. I just can't pin this one down... it keeps shifting not only through the various phases, but also depending on how close you are to my skin. This is really amazing. In the bottle: Sharp green, resinous cedar. Wet: The sharp edge softens, the cedar warms, and it feels like a combination of incense sticks got snuffed all at once. Drydown: I'm getting a very strong, dry, warm Nag Champa. Later: This has medium to light throw on me. What's really beguiling me at the moment is the waft vs. the "wrist sniff" scent. I'm wafting a cool, lemony incense note. Very bright, yellow, just a touch soapy. As my nose approaches my wrist (and trust me, everyone at work thinks I'm a total freak now but I can't! Stop! Doing it!) I can almost visualize the yellow fog dissipating and parting to reveal an incense stick ash-stained wooden chest. It's warm, dry, and just the epitome of comforting. I'm not much for lemony scents, but this other side of the split personality effect is gorgeous! The very tail end of my deep wrist inhalations evoke a very strong sense memory of watching my grandmother on my father's side genuflecting to her small altar in her Hong Kong condo.

Magus, toymaker, and Godfather to Klara. An enigmatic man, seemingly somewhat sinister, but bearing a gentle air and a sincere love for children. This scent is dignified, refined, but dark, and hints towards esoteric mysteries and the secrets that tie mechanics to magick. Pipe smoke, sweet leather, woods and linen. From my crazy generous Autumn Switch Witch kmasden. This one stayed pretty much true to form from the get go, so I'm dropping the usual review format to give a more whimsical impression: The cold winter rain that smeared through the village all weekend remains a constant drone, lulling everyone in the house into napping around the fire. Mamma is nodding slowly over her knitting. Pappa snores softly from his corner of the room. My own eyes droop and snap back open every time the fire pops. But he is still awake. He is watching us, and I feel his regard like a sudden pulse of cold through the now stifling heat. His face, which was friendly and open when he entered the house, is darker now. I can barely make out the glimmer of reflected firelight when he moves his eyes -- the only movements he's made since conversation slipped underneath the hiss of rain. I want to run -- away from him and straight to him at the same time. Nothing has changed. Everything has changed.

Peitho What is this "myrtle" of which you speak? I see only JASMINE. Surrender to her! Another fine gimp from kmasden! In the bottle: Straight up jasmine. Not jasmine tea, nor the "meaty" jasmine I sometimes get (why does jasmine make me think of slightly spoiled steaks?), just a heady, floral jasmine. Wet: Smells like a overripe jasmine bloom that is a little crinkly on the edges. Drydown: My skin loves to throw jasmine. Total jasmine tosser. Too bad I'm not terribly in love with it. But this is... bordering on nice. I'm not getting any of the other notes as prominently as the jasmine, but there's a really well blended, warm something that keeps this jasmine from completely taking over. Later: For the first half of the day, I've got incredible throw and waft. Right now (about six hours later) there's still a good "glow" about me, but I don't think I'm throwing that far. This is the most persuasive jasmine scent I've ever worn of Beth's. If I were to keep a jasmine on hand, it would be this one!

Wolfsbane Another in my newly gimped stash from my Autumn Switch Witch, kmasden! In the bottle: Herbal, sharp, green, uh... soap? This is very assertive. Aggressive, even. Wet: The soap, thankfully, fades almost immediately. The greens have swirls of rose, but it stays mostly sharp and herbal. Drydown: There's a hint of the sandalwood, but once again, this remains mostly sharp and green. Later: Alas! I got caught up with work and didn't really see much of Wolfsbane after that. By the end of the day it was all but gone. There was the faintest rosy green shadow on my wrists. I'll have to give this one another try. The beginning is very much a "take charge" kind of scent, but it calmed way the heck down at the end.

I think Baba Yaga is still "unreleased". Correct me if I'm wrong folks!

Sri Lanka Wow. I don't think I've gone from to so drastically over the lifespan of any oil before. This was a wonderful gift from my Autumn Switch Witch, kmasden! In the bottle: strong, bracing men's cologne (a better quality one), lots of green, resinous woods and then OMG YIKES! Toilet cleaner! Huh? Wet: The really antiseptic edge softens and thankfully fades away, but what remains is a slightly alarming aquatic slathered over the usual warmth of cedarwood/cedar/myrrh. Drydown: This has incredible throw and pack a huge punch at this stage. The patchouli is present, but not so much as a scent as it is an action. For me patchouli = forceful hippy head shop. I'm getting bullied around by this blend. The aquatic edge is also still hovering over everything. Like icy water threatening a smoldering incense stick. I'm not really liking it at this point. Later: Seven+ hours later and I'm in luuurve. The aquatic/bathroom cleaner/whatever it was has finally faded and all that's left is a warm, resinous, incensy skin scent. Very, very nice. This is very close to the skin now, but still strong when I sniff my wrist. The woods are blended together to a nice rosy sweet smell, and the myrrh keeps it from becoming cloyingly sweet. I've also got Silk Road in the queue for comparison. I'm not sure if I can go through all the initial stages to get here, when I have other incense/resin/woody blends that don't cause panic upon application. But this last stage is vera vera nice.

Some people get pineapple out of Baba Yaga, but I don't think this is a catalog scent yet. Maybe a combo of BY and a coconutty blend (Grog?). That's probably more work than you want for a singular effect.

My fall back comfort scents are Jabberwocky and Tombstone. If I want to indulge my Bad Mood I reach for Brimstone or Hellfire.

Sloth Post number 1000! I thought I'd better mark this milestone with what brought me to the forums in the first place, the reviews! A generous gimp from Emu Nymph () Hey lady! This was wishlisted because of the myrrh. Vetiver and I are passing acquaintances. We nod and smile, but I don't think we really know eachother yet. In the bottle: sharp, heavy, green verging on dried up dead brownblack. A little musty. Wet/drydown: there's something here that evokes Hellfire, Brimstone, and Danse Macabre. Lacking my handy dandy spreadsheet it's a tossup between the two sumo wrestlers (urraca, I love your well worded review!). The darkish color of the oil suggests a light hand on application and I'm glad I followed that instinct because whoa is this is strong one. Later: four hours later, and this has stayed very true to the wet stage. Definitely not an everyday scent, but it is extremely compelling to me (much in the way the aforementioned blends are as well). This is great for my androgynous days. As far as being Slothlike is concerned... well I have been at work for four hours now and have spent the embarrassing majority on here.

Succubus Another barter with rhubarbbear! Huh. Looking back at the notes listed... I didn't get any of that... maybe the bergamot, but this was so short lived that I'm hard pressed to remember anything at all. I can tell you I had this wishlisted because of the clove, and add a disclaimer that most citrus hates me (as in it turns into a cleaner smell and/or disappears quickly) though orange has been more harmonious with my skin. Having said all that: In the bottle: sharp, green, wet. This is the most aggressive it will be for me. Wet/drydown: I'm getting a very well blended (aka Can't distinguish any individual notes) "clean" scent. It's verging on soapy, but not aggressively nor repulsively so. Just a really crsip, clean smell. Pretty much the opposite of what I envisioned for a Succubus. Later: this "later" is fairly soon after the initial application... maybe an hour or two? The scent is gone. Totally swallowed by my skin or dissipated into the ether. Not even a trace. I don't think I picked up on clove at any point of the experiment. Woe! Huh. This warrants one more try, but I'm thinking we don't get along as a perfume pairing. This would be Most Excellent as a room fragrance. In fact this and March Hare are probably reason enough for me to finally get an oil burner to scent our wee apartment.

Tenochtitlan A barter with rhubarbbear! On a recent flight, I found an issue of "Wine Spectator" in the seat pocket. There was an article about the basics of wine tasting. I'm trying to apply some of the principles in my BPAL testing now (no, not the "swish and spit" part) as I continue to educate my nose. Mostly, I'm trying to just smell for about 15 seconds without forming any words in my mind. Apparently the part of your brain that smells, and the part that assigns words to things can cancel eachother out. It's a lot harder than it sounds! So... on to the experiment! In the bottle: sniffing for fifteen seconds with a blank mind... I get fruit/green/sweet/sharp and BAM! For some reason, Baba Yaga's pineapple was invoked very, very strongly. At the back of my throat for a split second I got sharp BO. Thankfully that went away pretty quickly. Wet/drydown: the sweet "pineapple" dries down but is still present. All the other notes are so perfectly blended (and/or my nose is so undereducated still) that I can't really distinguish anything other than "sweet herbaceous cleanliness". This is just slightly overpowering for me, but I think I also overapplied this morning. Later: the amber is peeking out, sweetening everything up the way amber does (on me amber sweetness is a sort of warm sweet skin rather than a overt sugary throat-closing sweetness). I can pick up the slightly medicinal edge of sage, but it's a furry purple sage, so it's not overly astringent. This is not an everyday "me" kind of scent. But it is definitely beautiful, very well blended, and worth at least a couple repeats. In this cold sterile office, I can almost feel the baking sun and gritty stone of some other place.

Tzadikim Nistarim Another barter with rhubarbbear! I finally finished reading Foucault's Pendulum a few months ago, and with visions of the Thirty Six Invisibles dancing in my head, I promptly jotted this guy down on my wishlist. I am familiar with only a few of the notes listed, but figured this would be a more conceptual blend rather than a "for the smell of it" thing. I'm going to have to break from my usual review style to cover this one, as the circumstances of trial are so much different from my usual procedure. Pulled this out of my collection for my first full day in my Mother-in-Law's burnt out house. I didn't have my spreadsheet handy, but something in my aft-brain snagged on the "joy in suffering" bit and thought that this would be appropriate for the task ahead. The MIL is an OCD hoarder, and her house partially burned in a no-casualties fire a few weeks back. We flew over to help prepare the house for reconstruction and to sift through the remains for salvageable items. There was a great deal of sadness in our task, but also fond rememberance. And the MIL was surprisingly receptive to our suggestions of what should be thrown out. Still, there were moments of mild strife, of resistance, and of resurfacing old emotional wounds. When the soot and mildew and despair got to me, I took a whiff of my wrists. This blend was grounding, calming, and firm... exactly how I wanted to be for my family. Normally, this would be too solemn for me. But for this one day alone, I will keep this imp and use it.

Envelop yourself in the soft, sensual embrace of gentle sandalwood warmed by cocoa vanilla and a veil of deep myrrh. Velvet A barter with rhubarbbear. I had this wishlisted because I sandalwood, and I chocolate, but I would have never thought to combine the two. The resulting mix of these two notes (along with the vanilla and myrrh) make for a very compelling, albeit non-foody blend. In the bottle: dusty, medicinal chocolate. This isn't snackin' chocolate, but something more... theraputic. There's a dry woody bottom note that turns the chocolate away from being foody. This smells like a poultice, but in a good way. Wet/drydown: sweet incense momentarily overcomes the chocolate, which recedes almost to the point of disappearing. I'm getting a flashback to hours-later Danse Macabre here. Later: the chocolate comes back. Oddly, it seems to be what is adding the gritty, earthy base to the high and sweet incense. Interesting. This is the most unfoody chocolate I've ever smelled. I love it! ETA: lab description

March Hare ...from a swap with new momma x2 rhubbarbear! The first time I tested this was outside in barely above freezing temps. All I could remember was that it contained cloves (), but I couldn't recall the other notes. Naturally, upon reading these reviews my hindsight is all "apricot! yes of course!" So I'm listing Take One (outside, ignorant) and Take Two (inside, enlightened) next to eachother... because my first and second experiences were different enough to warrant all this extra rambling. In the bottle take one: peach? sort of a cherry-ish air freshener kind of fruit smell. Not "air freshener" as in "chemical" or "bad", but as in "not an actual fruit, but the reenactment of one". If that makes any sense. In the bottle take two (inside at room temp): fruit tarts, complete with luscious pectiny glaze, dusting of cinnamon and cloves, and slightly over-baked crumbly crust. Wet/drydown take one: mysterious fruit flare followed by cloves! Have I mentioned I love cloves? Wet/drydown take two: I got some on my fingertips. Somehow oils smell different on my fingertips. In this case "different" feels like it means "more true to the original nature of the oil". I'm getting an apricot candle with a swirl of cloves. The fruit is not jam-sweet, and the cloves are not oversharp. They seem to compliment eachother very well here. Later (take one only): Lately my skin seems to be devouring oils. This one was just a hint of clovey fruitiness by lunchtime. The reapplied bit I have is still pretty strong (I'm about 45 minutes in) but feels like it will also fade. Interestingly, the fruit component seems to be hanging around longer. Related sidenote: at the last Oregon Meet 'n' Sniff I watched Tempete slowly invert (not shake, more like a methodical flip) all of the imps she tested to blend the oil. I had my imp of March Hare in my jacket pocket on my way to work. Perhaps the oils blended better when I fished around and got the imp out to test it a second time? Note to self: always "Tempete"r oils before testing! ETA: Whoops! Forgot to list my conclusions... I like this one quite a bit, though I have to agree that for me this is probably more an excellent room scent than a "me" scent. Still. Cloves. Sigh. Love!

Dragon's Bone A gimp from Emu Nymph! In the bottle: floral soap Wet/drydown: My only past experience with Dragon's Blood is Tintagel, which was a cherry-sweet leathery mess on me. I can detect a hint of that cherry along with a very strong floral, which I guess must be the orris. It's not a horrible scent, but one to which I feel a strong aversion. I don't want to scrub it off my wrists, but it sort of puts a frown on my face. Later: More of the floral soap, with a hint of the cherry... and none of the woods. Dang. There is a very slight dryness, which is probably all I'll be able to detect of the woods. The orris is just taking over, and is brining out none of the depth in the Dragon's Blood, just the top sweetness. After testing all the pumpkin patches, I'm tempted to go through the Ars Draconis blends to further educate my schnozz... but if I have the same frowny reaction to DBR each and every time, I'll probably forego that particular ol factory flight. Definitely up for swaps.

The Caterpillar A gimp from the lab that OriginaWacky passed on to me in a Pumpkin Patch decant. (Thanks!) Not something on my wishlist as jasmine is iffy, and patchouli is something I normally avoid, but I love the concept behind this! In the bottle: Jasmine and earth. Wet/drydown: Jasmine. Jasminejasmine JASMINE! There's a hint of what I also get when I wear Crossroads here. I sort of earthy, headshoppy smell, but mostly, it's jasmine. I guess at one time I didn't mind jasmine so much, but it eats everything else and gets bigger and stronger and just takes over. So to you, jasmine! Later: This had medium to low staying power, thankfully. A giant flare of jasmine followed by a very subtle earthy incense fall off.

Gingerbread Poppet '04 A lovely gimp from the lovlier Emu Nymph. In the bottle: butter and spicy, uncooked dough. Having just run the Pumpkin Patch gauntlet, I am not scared by the butter, as it seems to dissipate once the oil hits my skin. Wet/drydown: raw gingerbread. I'm not getting the fresh-baked bread/cookies/biscuit feeling others have, to me this is batter that has yet to be baked. This is probably the most foody scent I've ever tried! Later: four hours later and the spices stayed with me all day, the "green" unbaked edge softened, and now it's almost gone. I think. I still get a warm spiced bread waft every once in a while which is very comforting. My skin has been eating oils lately. I'll definitely try this again (and probably end up using the entire imp!) because it's so delicious, but this is not something I would wear normally. I like the concept of foodie oils, but have very few encounters with ones that work on me. This is the closest.

Black Forest This is the captured scent of a cold, moonless night, lost deep within the darkest wood. Haunting and desolate, this scent evokes images of fairy tale tragedy and half-remembered nightmares. Thick, viscous pine with ambergris, black musk, juniper and cypress. Got this as a generous gimp from Emu Nymph. In the bottle: whoa. I'm not getting Pine but rather a sort of blend of dark woods that somehow registered as "cedar" to me, even though that's not listed as one of the notes. Go fig. It's a bracing, somewhat sharp, but good wood smell. Wet/drydown: Sharp sharp omigosh ouchy sharp piney cedary juniper OUCH! Then just as suddenly it's gone. And afterward I'm wafting something that flits between warm/cool dark woods and baby powder. Like watching Little Red Riding Hood run through patches of sunlight and creepy shadow. And maybe I'm the wolf. Later: Four hours later, the wafting has ended. In fact, the perfume in general seems to have been swallowed whole by my skin. On closer inspection (read: nose on wrist sniffing) I can pick up something sort of baby powdery, but with a slight musky/BO aftertwinge. This is a bearable powder, and a very interestingly morphed blend but so short lived! I'll try it one more time to see if it will last longer on me. ETA: lab description as I'm the beginning of page five!

Bastet Received in a barter with Rhubarbbear. Cats? Amber? Cardamom? Saffron? Oh hells yeah. Lotus? But apparently golden lotus + me = sweet, not bubblegum! Huzzah! In the bottle: sharp sweet cherry almonds and a little aftertaste of spice Wet/drydown: a flare of the sharp, pugnacious almond/cherry, then almost immediately golden sweetness. Very round, very full, very nice. Later: this hasn't morphed much since it calmed down after application. It's been consistently sweet and golden. I am wearing a scarf today that I apparently wore last year along with Morrocco. The assessment on page one that Bastet = Morrocco + Queen of Sheba is very much the case! I'm not getting QoS's slightly green herbally milkiness, but the golden "sweet skin" is there, and the lovely spices of Morrocco are also here. This is not an everyday scent for me. The sweetness is on a level with Jezebel. This doesn't have the crazy throw of Jezzie either--it's more of a close-to-skin scent. But I will reach for this when I want to be worshipped even if it's just a congregation of one. I'll wear this when I want to be wrapped up in gold.

Pumpkin Patch 5 The last in my anally retentive sequential line of testing. I got the decant imps (thanks to resident BPAL Decant Goddess OriginalWacky) as a gift for a friend who is kindly letting me satisfy ol factory curiosity by testing them first. Through testing all these imps, I've confirmed that I generally do not care for pumpkin, though my skin does like to morph it into a sort of incensey smell at the end of the day (except for blend 4, which it just ate) which is really quite pleasant. Still, I probably would not choose to go through the buttery/sneezy phase in order to reach this four-hours-later phase. Even though this isn't my cuppa, I gotta give kudos to Beth and the lab for coming up with such interesting blends. It's been a fun experiment! On with the last review: In the bottle: once again, the powerful buttery pumpkin that Jack built. Whoa. There might be some wood underneath, but honestly it's the butter that I smell first and foremost. Wet/Drydown: the woods all clamour to the front, all but drowning out the pumpkin. It's a little overly aggressive at first, but calms down to a very dry, cool, somehow sad apothecary (but not The Apothecary) kind of smell. Maybe the galangal is what is giving this an herbal, slightly medicinal twang. Later: this one has medium to strong staying power and about medium to low throw. I'm not wafting it like I did the foody scents, but it isn't completely devoured by my skin either. It has stayed pretty consistently woody without much morphing and I cannot really differentiate the pumpkin other than the general notion that the woods are also somehow sweet. There is a little soomething at the back of a deep inhalation that reminds me of Danse Macabre (my favorite "Halloweeny" scent) which is very nice. This is the most uniquely balanced of the five blends to me. I'm so glad I got a chance to try them all!

Pumpkin Patch 4 Standard Snarky Disclaimer: Got decant set for friend, have been allowed to educate my nose by testing first even though I do not seem to care for pumpkin. In the bottle: buttery pumpkin Jackishness, with a gritty earthy background. This is probably the most abruptly buttery of the bunch so far (I still have to test #5). Wet/drydown: the butter flares then dissipates as it has on the other blends, the sweet sweet pumpkin rolls forward, but it is darkened with another type of sweetness which I assume is the orris. I'm not too familiar with it but I luurve me some sandalwood and it has not yet made an appearance (other than the grittiness of "in-the-bottle") Then I start sneezing--violently, and often. I'm beginning to suspect this is my standard reaction to pumpkin. Finally, about 15 minutes later the incensey goodness of sandalwood comes out to play, but it's a cacaphony of smells. I'm a little bewildered by it. Then I went home and took a nap and five hours later there's almost nothing left. This blend had the least throw and staying power of the four I've tried so far. Oddly enough, the other pumpkin blends always ended similarly with a vague incense-feel to them... but this one is sweeter. Like sugared sandalwood? Interesting.

Pumpkin Patch 3 Third verse, same as the first: Snarky no likey the pumpkin, but Snarky is trying to learn. On the largess of a good friend for whom this decant set is intended, I get to play and discover. Sidenote: Pumpkin friend's (who is now to be considered the PumpkinKing for his luurve of the squash) wife got my imp of Swank is love love loves pomegranate. So if this one doesn't work for him, she'll be happy to adopt it. Heck, she'll probably steal it anyway. Because this? This is RED. You can definitely pick up on the pom in this. It's almost knocking out the pumpkin on me. In the bottle: buttery pumpkin introduction, quickly followed by uppercut of red juicy fruitiness. SMACK. Wet/drydown: Yikes. I'm getting nothing but Cherry Chapstick. The very exact smell of it. From the artificial (yet oddly compelling) fruity redness down to a subtle wax aftertaste. Later: While not unpleasant, this is not a blend I would reach for. It is assertive like a candy store--all bright aggressive powerful notes jostling about noisily. The squashiness of the pumpkin keeps the pom from getting crazy sweet, but sometimes it's wafting like the two are fighting for dominance rather than complementing eachother. And, at first I thought I was just getting a little sneezy from the weather, but I think this oil is making my nose twitch. ETA: Dag nabbit, it happened again. My skin throws oversweet pumpkin at first, then it eats it, and the byproduct is a great almost incensy only vaguely foody and sweet (but in the way that some really good wine can be sweet, and not candy sweet) close-to-skin scent. The pom is almost completely gone. How does Beth do it? She's turning a Pumpkin Hater into a Pumpkin Let's Just Be Friends.