tempete

Lord of the Smoking Mirror, god of sorcery, nighttime, darkness, beauty, war, heroic men, beautiful women, and all material concerns. Tezcatlipoca is the Master Magician, a trickster god and shapeshifter, governing all worldly matters, and is also the Great Tempter, seducing men into evil acts and subsequently punishing them for their transgressions. Deep cocoa laced with patchouli, leather armor, ritual incense, and a touch of Xochiquetzal’s flowers. Tezcatlipoca starts out as a rush of dark, unsweetened cocoa. Slowly, the patchouli and incense peek through and mingle with the cocoa, making the scent both earthier and more mysterious. I can also detect very light florals wafting on top of the deeper notes. At this point, Tezcatlipoca is gorgeous and it's amazing how Beth layered and balanced these disparate elements. I was worried about the mention of leather in the description, because Beth's leather note and I don't get along usually, but it only emerges in the final drydown very faintly after all the other notes have made their appearance. Still, I would have been happier without it in the blend, as it seems to be drowning out the florals and making Tezcatlipoca more masculine than I'd like. I'll have to live with my imp a little while before I decide on whether this is a bottle-worthy scent. (As a side note: If I had a boyfriend, I'd make him wear Tezcatlipoca all the time. He'd probably be able to seduce me into evil acts and I'd willingly accept the punishment for my transgressions.... )

During the wet stage, the dark myrrh single note initially smells woody, but it immediately begins to warm up and deepen. As it dries down, it acquires a light honey-like but dark sweetness that adds immensely to its character. I think that La Petite Mort uses this particular type of myrrh, given the sweetness of that scent on the drydown. I greatly prefer the dark myrrh single note to its light counterpart because of its greater depth and resonance.

Surprisingly (for me at least), the light myrrh single note has an almost peppery bite, but not much underlying depth. I recognize this bite in some of the myrrh-containing BPALs, such as Loviatar and Lilith. I prefer the dark myrrh single note because of its warmth, depth, sweetness and lack of that peppery bite (which is headache-inducing for me).

I was going to pass on Gladdener because I don't always do well with BPAL milk notes and I'm not so fond of powdery notes, but the Will Call reviews convinced me to give it a shot. Unfortunately, while it's not overly powdery on me, Gladdener smells like lavender-y sour milk on me.

Musky white tea laced with soft, powdery violet and a touch of mandarin. I'm a little sad that the opium poppy note isn't stronger because it's one of my favourite notes. But Lady Lilith is gorgeous nonetheless, and I am considering breaking my no-hoarding rule to find another bottle.

Spellbound (three roses, radiant amber, and sensual red musk) is very feminine and utterly romantic. Fenris Wolf is the masculine equivalent of Spellbound (rosewood, amber, red musk and a dribble of red sandalwood) as it replaces the roses in Spellbound with wood notes. LEs that contained red musk and amber include Red Moon 2007, The Ecstasy of Passion, and Midnight Kiss.

I adore red musk, but seem to have very different tastes from all the other red musk lovers in this thread! My favourite red musk scents are Snake Oil, Chrysanthemum Moon, Red Moon 2007, Scherezade, Spellbound and The Contract of Theophilus of Adana. Midnight Kiss is much better aged than fresh. Red musk and certain fruit notes seems to go waay too sweet on me, so I didn't enjoy Hollywood Babylon or Kabuki. I think that the fruit issue also came into play with Marianne - I loooved this scent at first (it smelled like a better behaved Smut on me) but I couldn't wear it after the initial test. I still can't figure out why Mme. Moriarty doesn't work on me. It's full of notes that I individually love, but for some reason it smells really green on my skin when fresh and of nothing at all when aged.

Freshly applied Lune Noire smells like a really yummy liquor that bartenders use to make exotic drinks. The pear note is dominant in this stage and makes the scent sweet, but it doesn't push the too-sweet boundary for me. Lune Noire gradually loses its sweetness and acquires a creamy note as it dries down. Fortunately for me, gardenia (one of my archnemesis notes) doesn't make a headache-inducing appearance. Black Moon didn't work on me at all but I think that Lune Noire is a keeper!

Kubla Khan starts out a bit soapy (perhaps because of the jasmine), but quickly settles into a gloriously complex opium scent that is sweeter and much lighter in feel than Event Horizon. I normally avoid scents that contain tobacco and leather because they tend to smell dirty and overly smoky on me, but my skin apparently loves opium more than these two notes. I'll have to wear this a few more times to be sure, but I can forsee a bottle of Kubla Khan in my future.

I love opium scents, so I was really excited to try Event Horizon. It starts off as strongly soapy opium, but the soap gradually gives way to deep, dark resiny notes. During the transition from soap to resin, the scent manages to convey a sense of hollowness, like it's a shell around a void, which is very apt given the name and description (the only other scent which has evoked this feeling for me is Nuclear Winter). As the resins settle in, the scent becomes heavier and yes, oppressive feeling. At this point, I'm not sure whether I'll graduate to a bottle, but I'll keep the imp because I definitely want to wear this scent again.

The Queen's Salon is initially a fruity rose, somewhat reminiscent of Persephone except with a different, juicier fruit instead of pomegranate (identifying fruity notes is not my forte). I don't really get overtly aquatic notes from this scent, which is good because I tend to dislike aquatics. Hours after the initial application, the floral, fruity and aquatic aspects have receded and resin and musk notes have emerged, giving the scent a much darker tone. I agree with growwild's comparison to Queen of Spades - the drydowns of both of these scents are similar on me and invoke a very proud, regal image.

I love the name of this scent! I usually detest foody blends, but this one is pretty nice. I've never smelled a freshly baked crumpet, but what The Crumpet Rebellion does smell like to me is blackberries and baked cakey goods like cobbler. This scent has astounding throw and lasting power, because it lasted through a scrubbing with hospital-grade antibacterial soap (so that I could go back to the BPAL booth for another round of scent testing).

The Unheavenly City is definitely my fav of the three Convergence scents that I've tried so far and has earned itself a place on my Top Ten scent list. The only note that I can positively identify is red musk (which Beth kindly confirmed for me). This is probably the main reason why Unheavenly City is so stupendously awesome on me, since my skin seems to have a natural affinity for red musk. The creaminess in the blend smells like vanilla to me, but I'm not sure about that. And if there's gardenia in here, it's well blended because I am really good at amping gardenia (whether in a GC or LE scent) in a bad way.

I bought an imp of Euterpe because I have a strange weakness (obsession?) for violet/iris scents. It didn't hurt that Euterpe contains carnation and poppy, two other florals that I love. Unfortunately, there's usually one note in violet/iris BPALs that simply does not work on me, and Euterpe was no exception. This time, I didn't reckon with the honeysuckle, which took over and turned Euterpe into a cloyingly sweet scent. I did get a whiff of iris on the drydown, but it wasn't enough to make me want to go through the honeysuckle dominatrix phase.

Terpsichore is nauseatingly sweet on me when wet, for which I completely blame the sweet pea note. (Same thing happened to me with Aeval and Annabel Lee... I should just learn to stay away from the sweet pea blends.) The drydown is not as sweet and more complex as the other notes battle valiantly against the sweet pea, but it does have a funky undertone. I suspect the vanilla note is the culprit here since my skin seems to have issues with general catalog vanilla scents.

Gah, I don't know what I was thinking when I ordered a bottle of Red Lantern... I should've been more wary of the caramel note (since I hate super sweet foody scents) and the blonde tobacco note (since I can amp up tobacco to the point where I smell solely of cigarettes). Naturally, when I applied Red Lantern, there was an all-out war on my skin between the cavity-inducing sweetness of caramel and the uber-smokiness of tobacco, and it was not a pleasant olfactory experience. Red Lantern eventually dried down to a not-quite-so-sweet 'n smoky scent that was more palatable, but I wouldn't be able to endure the initial caramel and tobacco blast every time I wore this scent, and it also doesn't evoke impressions of an Asian bordello for me, so my bottle has been passed onto a more loving home.

I get the refreshing tea scent from Spirits of the Dead that has been previously mentioned, but the light woody notes take over when the scent dries down, plus the scent doesn't last long on my skin. I think that I'll hold onto the decant, but I'm not sure about getting a bottle despite my love for non-lemony tea scents.

Evening Star starts out as a burst of sweet florals, which I think is largely due to the moonflower note. But as it dries down, the sweetness dies down and the poppy note (perhaps backed by some musk) emerges. At this point, Evening Star reminds me somewhat of Vechernyaya; however, Vechernyaya doesn't include the very sweet floral opening, so I think that I will pass on my decant of Evening Star to someone else.

The Sleeper turned to earthy-smelling soap on my skin and for that, I blame the night-blooming jasmine and Calla lily. It's too bad, because I was so curious about the crypt musk.

For a good long while after I apply Alone, all I smell is cardamon with a bit of patchouli. Great, another spice note that I amp up. Eventually, something sweet comes out but at that point, Alone has pretty much dissipated on my skin.

Annabel Lee starts out as an incredibly sweet floral on me, and guessing from past experience, I would blame either or both sweet pea and peony. As the scent dries down, the cucumber note emerges and tames down the sweetness of the floral opening. Annabel Lee is actually quite nice once the initial sweet floral burst has subsided, so I think that I will hold onto my decant for me, but I doubt that I would get a bottle.

After The Haunted Palace, I was most excited for Dreamland, because I love iris, carnation and skin musk. Of course, those are the notes that I pick up least from this scent... I get a strong hit of iris right after application, and then it vanishes almost instantly. Nooooo, come back! The iris note has been stomped into submission by a creamy tuberose note, which I normally like in small doses. Then the skin musk twined with a faint floral note takes over for a while, and this is the stage that I like the most. Eventually, however, a powdery floral note (phlox?) pushes the musk aside and Dreamland ends on a very floral note. I think that I would have liked this better if the skin musk note was more prominent on me for a longer stretch of the scent's evolution, but since Dreamland was largely florals on me, I doubt that I'll be keeping the decant.

I agree with other reviewers who thought that The City in the Sea is reminiscent of cologne. Like aidenraine, I wish that the violet note was stronger - as it is, I can detect vague hints of something violet, but on my skin, the perfumey-ness of the aquatic/ozone notes dominates the entire blend. I won't be keeping the decant.

Given my track record with lilies (they generally turn to soap on me) and honey (scents that are too sweet tend to make me queasy), I wasn't expecting much from Al-Araaf. Imagine how surprised I was when Al-Araaf turned out to be a very pretty, subtle floral scent, not at all soapy although veering a bit too close to nausea-inducing sweetness at times. I'm not sure that I will get a bottle, but I will definitely hold onto my decant.

Scentwise, Lenore is like the brooding daughter of the Torture King and Snake Charmer from Carnaval Noir... The vetiver note is definitely strong, almost overpowering when Lenore is wet, but it is tempered a bit by the patchouli. It eventually fades away to reveal a sweetness which seems to be a combination of plum, white musk and to my nose, a resin (such as frankincense) or perhaps an incense note. In the late drydown, some herbal notes (possibly the thyme) peek out underneath the sweetness. For me, Lenore is the undisputed winner of the Demon in my View scents, which, is perhaps completely unsurprising given my love for musky/resiny scents. Definitely one bottle for now, perhaps another one before DimV goes away for good.