Pottersville

OMG ... LOVE in a bottle!! I'm a huge fan of kvass and can actually remember the days when they sold it from huge, portable metal kegs on the streets of Moscow. Must have been a "Soviet" thing because only bottled was available last trip. Anyhoo .. the Witch's Repast captures the slightly sweet, tangy black bread scent of the kvass with an undernote of ... of ... yes, of pot roast. To my nose, it comes across as a slightly woody undernote. Hard to describe indeed!

2009 edition and the first BPAL Trick or Treat I've gotten to try ... aaaaand ....it's lovely! It's also not at all what I was expecting, which I guess is a good thing. I love candy corn, as well as those awful mellowcreme pumpkins Brach's makes, because they're basically a legal delivery system for a heart-attack inducing amount of sugar. It's much spicier than edible candycorn. Nice!

Spicey, buttery cake. Hoppiness = unhappiness. On me, the beer translates the cakeiness into somewhat musty, past-expiration date panettone. Not a keeper!

<sigh> I'm not sure WHY I keep banging my head against the wall of amber, but I do. Whoso List to Hunt is yet another brick in the wall, built by my funky skin chemistry, that grabs at any sign of amber and transmorgifies it into the cheapest drugstore knock off brand baby powder imaginable.

This was very -for lack of a better word- generic on me. It wasn't bad and it wasn't good. I was frankly amazed that I couldn't pick out any of the fruit scents. I think it's the *&^%$ amber. Amber hates me.

What an odd little scent! It's got an earthiness to it, but not so much as to be musty (as the Wind in the Willows scents smelled to me). It's also got definite foody attributes, but they're not blatant. The patchouli is very subtle as well and the overall impression I get from the Gnome is sassafras. How weird is that?

FIRE!!!! FIRE, I SAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is all smoky, up-in-flames at first sniff and for awhile thereafter ... autumn-frosted maple leaves and cinnamon sticks tossed into the flames for good measure. There's also a certain sweetness lurking underneath. Ahhhh, I know ... it's Monster Bait: Ventriloquist Dummy! Remember him? "Savage apricot, depraved dry woods, and psychopathic patchouli covered by a disarmingly sweet mishmosh of caramel, brown sugar, hazelnut, and butterscotch." Well, somebody got wise to his tricks and tossed him into the fire. I love him both plain AND flambe'd!

I very nearly didn't get Stinky because I HATE baby powder! HATE, HATE, HATE! (did I mention that I hate baby powder?!) I'm also not a huge fan of honey. So, I have no idea why I went ahead and added a bottle to my order, but am so glad I did! If this is baby powder, it's not the Johnson and Johnson kind I'm used to because the scent is soft without the cloying note I associate with J&J. It reminds me a lot of the scent of Burt's Baby Bee products - warm, sweet, clean. Think sunshine and an outdoor-fresh wooby with a dash of sticky honey! Oh, and I love the dog on the label!

Edited to add that the throw and longevity of Stinky is impressive. And that I'm surprising even myself by contemplating purchasing a back up bottle!

Not at all like true goat's milk (thank goodness!) but still someone pungent, musky, and earthy. The myrrh is a distant note on me while the fig is of the dried variety (slightly musty?) rather than fresh. Oddly enough, when I first tried my decant, I had forgotten what the notes were in this and thought, "Corn! Corn??!" Thank goodness I tried it a second time, because this is really a very unique and lovely scent ... fresh in a summer harvest way (corn again?!), warm and not too sweet.

Thanks for the feedback, astarinel! The DD turned up her nose at my bottle of Lick it One More Time. I think it might have been TOO minty for her. I hadn't considered Green Tree Viper mainly because I'm probably one of three people on the planet who don't like Snake Oil. It might be lovely on the DD, though. Hmmmmmmm.......

I'm trying to find an equivalent to MB: Tokyo Stomp, because my DD has discovered it and turned into quite the slatherer. So far, I've read that Mad Hatter may be a reasonable GC equivalent (though it's more pennyroyal than mint). What about Wylde Ivy's Ice Princess or Villainesse Scintillating? Any other recommendations before the kiddo slathers me out of mint and home?!

Mmmmmmm. Not what I was expecting, which was something with a bit more tannin and bite. Wet, I do get a lovely peppery quality. Dry, I get something that just reminds me of aloe. It's a softly fresh scent. Not at all sweet, which is a treat on me. Not long lasting, either.

This is lovely stuff, very comforting indeed. The tonka adds just the right amount of sweetness, and the wood is very smooth. The coffee isn't overwhelming, which is nice since I'm not much for wearing foodie scents. I don't get any smoke, rather I smell unlit pipe tobacco and it's quite wonderful. I have only passing acquaintance with Pinched with Four Aces (thanks to an imp from a generous forumite) and I don't smell much similarity here, which is ok, since Pinched was quite a bit more cherry on me and didn't last very long at all. VDPP reminds me a lot of Tiresias and Ventriloquist Dummy, but is definitely a kinder, gentler version. Might be worth a bottle since I love those two!

Nothing to see here but cheap men's cologne!! Makes me eyes water. Urk!

Whoo hooo! After a good six-in-a-row misses from the imp shoe box o' doom, it was nice to pull out Plunder today!! It's lovely cinnamon-y goodness, rounded out with warm spices and what must be the tea. Someone else mentioned spiced potpourri and I'd have to agree. Doesn't last nearly long enough, though!

Another random draw from the imp shoe box o' dooooooom! I loved this one in the imp and on application. It was bright and sunny, a wee bit fizzy even. The tangerine added some citrus charm without the bite, the lavendar was lovely, and mmmmmmint. But at the drydown, the cat has gone funny. The brightness is gone and there's a vaguely unpleasant mustiness coming out. The oakmoss, maybe?

Urk! Another imp drawn randomly from the shoe box o' doom. It's FLOWERS!!!!!! Wet, dry, mellowed down ... nothing but FLOWERS!!!!! Just like that. Not spring subtle or rain washed flowers ... FLOWERS!!!!!!! Something grown in a hothouse or in a tropical environment that leaps on you and wraps its flower stinkiness around your head like a vise until you can run away gasping. Oh, no. I don't like.

Yes!!! Definitely the smell of a Cosmopolitan! I don't get a lot of booze out of it ... but then again most Cosmopolitans I've sniffed smell more like fruity candy than a bar, much like The Hampton does. It's a fun little scent. Very short lasting on me, however.

A random imp pulled from the shoe box o doooooom .... I NEVER would have guessed the notes correctly! In the vial and on the skin, Siren has a weirdly unpleasant odor. It's a cross between BO and cheap candle wax - very dry and not the least bit sweet. If there's ginger in here, it's the dried kind and has been sitting at the back of the shelf for a few years. It's the antithesis of creamy and there are no signs of any fruit or vanilla. Yech!

Another random draw from the imp shoebox o' doom turned up the Hermit today. I tested with trepidation, as I was afraid the notes would be all unwashed cave dweller ... dusty, musty, rotted woods, etc. etc. Nope. This Hermit is spicy with ... cinnamon? That gradually fades to a lovely floral waft ... carnations? Mmmmmm. Good.

Another random imp from the shoe box o' doom. I didn't check the notes before trying this one so I didn't realize that "metal" was in there. The Lab's "metal" and "ozone" notes pretty consistently get my hackles up, making me vaguely uncomfortable in a way I can't put my finger on. So I found GG pretty unpleasant! Scentwise, it came off as a cheap men's cologne on me. Ick!

Grabbed this one out of the imp shoebox o' doom this morning. At first sniff, I got the patchouli note loud and clear. I LOVE patchouli, so I was quite happy. Then something sour started to creep in. The ambergris? The orange blossom? Not sure which, but I do wish it would creep back out again.

Mmmmmm, very foody, which is odd because I don't usually eat tobacco! As usual, my skin chemistry amps up any and all sweet notes it can get its grubby hands on, so Elegba is all sticky sweet syrup on me. The tobacco keeps it from going into sugar overload, thank goodness, and the coconut is more coconut in the husk than the nasty sweetened shreddy stuff you find on cakes. A nice scent, but it doesn't knock my socks off.

Another test from the shoebox of ever-multiplying imps ... and you could've knocked me over with a feather once I'd come online to check the notes! As a rule, I don't do florals and I don't do aquatics and anything that even hints of storms or ozone will set my head to aching. Szepasszony is lovely, though. Very springlike and fresh. Lovely light florals - the earlier spring ones that don't have a heavy "flower" scent, like daffs and crocus. It's freshened with a bit of green and gently washed with spring rain. This *might* be a bottle purchase!

I've gathered up all the imps that have been multiplying in the corners of my house, stuffed them all into a shoebox (ok, so it's a child-size shoebox, but IT'S STILL A SHOEBOX STUFFED FULL OF IMPS!!!!), and have been determined to test them all ... randomly grabbing an imp or two a day. Today's candidate was Penthus. It almost didn't make it to a skin test, because out of the imp it had a sharp yet cloying note to it ... something bordering on vaguely chemical. It stayed that way for awhile on my skin, gradually mellowing down to a indeterminate, yet white smelling, soapy floral. Checked the notes when I finally got to my computer and realized that it was likely the water notes that were like nails on a chalkboard to me, closely followed by rose. Urk! It's tolerable now that it's dried down some, but not worth the wait.