SmileCat

HELENA I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,To die upon the hand I love so well. Rose amber, calla lily, night-blooming jasmine, water lily, and white rose. You can't do Hermia without Helena! I must admit, I am a self-confessed rose lover. This is another beautiful rose blend from Beth. The blend of rose and jasmine reminds me a bit of Rose Moon, but while Rose Moon has an earthier woodsy base, Helena has a dewier one. Must be the water lily and cala lily elements. I can't say I can pick out the rose amber (rose amber?) except maybe as another rose note, but it's a very pretty blend! I can definitely get a feel of Helena's self-martyring melancholy. In the imp and on my skin stays fairly true but the rose does certainly come to the foreground.

HERMIA How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;How low am I? I am not yet so low But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes. Pink pepper, golden amber, honeysuckle, and passion flower. Can I feel some love for Hermia? Not only does she have my affection for being short like me, but she's an AWESOME blend in the Illyria collection. When I first opened the imp she was all sticky sweetness and pepper. Amber and honeysuckle make for one syrupy scent! The pink pepper (PINK pepper, more awesomeness) lends a touch of zing; Hermia's no wilting flower. If I huff deeply I can pick out the passion flower behind the rest. On my skin the passion flower really starts to come into play and the stickiness mellows out. I think I have found a true floral love in passion flower. There's a roundness to it that doesn't play high in your nose like a lot of florals. No nostril tickling here. There's a tinge of the fruitiness like, well, the fruit to it. This scent makes me smile. Really, all-out, dimple-producing smile. It's...bouncy and in love with life. To that end, this scent rates a BOTTLE NOW from me. Passionate, fiesty, sweet in love Hermia, you are beautiful.

Sweet rum distillate with tobacco absolute, white sandalwood, and warm brown musk. This blend, on me, is quite a morpher. In the bottle it's all rum and musk. When it hits my skin, there's a blast of something almost candy-ish, but when it dries down, it's a warm, velvety tobacco and sandalwood with a hint of brown sugar. Very comforting scent.

Vasakasajja

Shexy shexy whales. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to describe the smell of ambergris without resorting to "well, it smells like ambergris." Ambergris is one of those things that is used as the basal descriptor. Other things smell like ambergris; ambergris smells like nothing else. Ambergris SN on me is sweet without being sugary, musky and decidedly marine without being aquatic. For the first couple hours it is *strong*. I used one small drop and walked around in a cloud of glowing sperm whale essence, probably much to the confusion of my fellow BART train riders. It doesn't turn you on, but it definitely turns heads. I'm not sure how Beth managed to get this to smell oceanic without smelling like ocean, but she managed it. It doesn't smell so much salty as the memory of salt. And sunshine and waves. It eventually fades down to a softer, fuzzy amber-type scent. Deep down it's still cavorting whales, but maybe baby whales instead of mature adults. I imagine that time and aging will round out the baby whale dry down into something truly magnificent. Not bad for being finely aged whale poop. I think I need multiple bottles.

Trees, trees, trees. This is very strong, slightly sharp, and smells almost identical to the Japanese tea garden in San Francisco.

Oh, there's nothing clothed or subtle about the coding of female vampirism = lesbianism. That's a well-established subtext (or text).

I don't know of any, but I would dearly love some. I want a Queen Christina blend!

A tousled, sexy mix of patchouli, vanilla, and hemp. Holy crap, I like this. I hate patchouli, but BB dries down into this wonderful, warm, sweet, woodsy scent. The hemp gives it a sweetish dry grass note and the vanilla and patchouli play along beautifully. All day I kept getting wafts of this fantastic scent and going "what is that smell?" before realizing once again that it was BB on my wrist. I have to get a bottle of this.

This is soft, sweet, and white-smelling. At first a sweet and floral blend, it dries into powder. Not powdery-smelling but literal powder. I could almost feel the particles tickling my nose. Expensive, scented powder however. Then when fully dry it has a similar feel and quality as Antique Lace, but without the linen note that sometimes overpowers on me. Dusty vanilla. Innocent smelling. Pretty.

Crap. I really really like this. It's Snake Oil with sandalwood and brown sugar. Definitely sweet with elements of edible notes not really "foody" to me. It's missing SO's patchouli, which I am not. Overall a lovely scent that gets even better with age and I am all a-woes that it is so hard to get.

You didn't know about it because they only started doing it recently.

Holy sh!t, iceplants and wet cement! I know this smell, it smells like California coastal breezes, minus the saltiness. But on my skin it goes warmer and slightly sweeter as almost all blends do and then it starts to smell like something entirely different. I'm not sure what, but it makes me that it becomes unrecognizable from the oh so familiar scent in the bottle. ETA: Oh wait, there's that coastal iceplant smell again. It's back, but it's not as cool and clear as it is in the bottle. On the other hand, it isn't as nose-tingly.

Oh, this is VERY interesting. It starts off slightly green-floral-smelling but on the dry down it smells exactly like its name: desert stones. I smell like rocks. Hot, sun-baked sandstone rocks. In between the crisp and clean green stage and the heat-shimmering rocks stage is something sweetish but not quite fruity, like desert succulents.

I'm in love with this scent. It's tea and peaches. A soft sweetness without being sticky or overwhelming. Like sugared flowers, only fruit. It has the texture of cool cream without the milkiness or whiteness. It's innocent without being naive or childish. I don't really get any lemon or pineness. Oh wait, some pine if I smoosh my nose against my skin and huff long and slow. Like lightly sweetened fruit iced tea. With foam.

CCCXCVIII I think that's the longest string you can get for a while! Snake Oil and...smoke I think. Like pipe smoke or a really strong black tea. I was hoping for something fruity or floral. I always end up with really strange Chaos Theory blends. The last time I bought one, it smelled like seaweed. This one doesn't smell like Snake Oil at all, but part of that would be because it was blended up hours before I got it. But whatever this smoke/tea note is, it's really strong. In the bottle there's also something vaguely minty. Right now on my skin, it's being all patchouli, all the time the way Snake Oil sometimes is for me. For the right person, this blend could be awesome, but I don't think that person is me.

Life is too short not to smell like candy.

In the bottle, Lady Una is so sweet she smells like cake, almost like Eat Me. On me she dries down to a mellower vanilla-honey with a weeeeee bit of blackberry. Not much of the spices and if I didn't know the green tea was there, I'd never think of it at all; it does make an appearance, briefly, when I've just applied, but it goes poof soon after that. I wish there was more blackberry (I blackberry), but as it's really blackberry leaf, I can't complain too much. There's an astringent quality to balanace out the sweetness that works, even if I don't always want it there.

Almost excessively pretty. Very light and floral and spring-like (odd, but nice for a fall release blend). I really liked the prototype miles better than the public release, but it's still very nice and reflective.

Honey! Chewy, grainy, almost floral honey. With booze. Booze that tastes smooth going down, but packs a killer punch. This is harvest festival celebrations in a bottle. I feel like I should go dance with wheat stems in my hair.

What can I say about this other than COFFEE? Um, a bit of milk and a splash of egg nog? It's exactly what it says it is, egg nog, coffee, and milk. And I don't like coffee. When I first open the bottle it's in your face coffee latte with a background of egg nog. On my skin it dries down to a fainter, more egg nog, less coffee. Nice, but ultimately not something I'm going to wear very often. Smells a bit like egg nog latte ice cream as everything goes fairly sweet on me. I swapped my bottle with someone who adores coffee scents. She'll be far happier with it than me.

In the bottle this smells sticky and sweet. When I put it on and for the first 20 minutes or so, all I smell like is lint. Yep, lint. That wee little drop of dirty cotton at the end of the list of sugary notes is what dances about on my skin. Thankfully, the little bugger is beaten down and the rest of the folks can come out to play. For a while it smells like lollipops which must be the strawberry goo but eventually it settles down to a mouthwatering blend of spun blue sugar and strawberry. Like fruity cotton candy! Yum yum.

Nostalgia encapsulated. A soft, wistful blend of dry flowers, aged linens, and the faint breath of long-faded perfumes. This is so pretty. In the bottle there's something almost sharp and artificial to it. Reminds me of hotels or some such. Like vanilla and urinal cakes. Thankfully, it smells nothing like that on me. Oh no. This is soft vanilla and softer linens. A finespun scent. Reminds me of porcelain dolls and the clothes they wear. Open curtains on a warm summer day and fresh-washed sheets that dried in the sun. With vanilla. There are white florals in this too, I'm sure, cottonblossom maybe. IDK, Enraged Bunny Musk meets Dorian. And it lasts forever. Been close to 12 hours now and nearly as strong as just applied.

This is a soft, sweet floral that has some throw, but is never something that is very obvious. In the bottle it's pear and plumeria and when it hits my skin there's a flare of dry white wine. Drying it's mostly plumeria as florals like me, but as it settles in the pear comes out again and balances everything very nicely into a cheerful (how appropriate!) simple blend. I like this.

Oh my. This is a very warm, glowing, golden scent. Nothing soda-like or sparkly or ice cream or frostingish. Not a hint of wintergreen. All rich vanilla and saffron.