lilacea

First sniff, I pick carnation. Not as strong as some blends, but still noticable. I don't know what it is, but white tea makes me think of verbena, astringent and sharp. Rose makes a subtle appearance. A bit too jagged for my liking.

The scent of the wild, hauntingly beautiful Pine Barrens of New Jersey! Pitch pine with blackberry leaf, cranberry, cedar wood and tomato leaf. Oh hell. This stuff is intoxicating. It's a heady and sexy and deep, with gorgeous grounding notes. It's a lovely pine too, the blend has enough interest from all the other notes to save this from that stark pine o clean smell some pine blends have. The berry rounds this, makes it smooth like a fortified wine (not that it smells like that, but it just has the feel of that thick, viscous richness). There's a slight, ever so slight, bitterness here, way way at the back.

Light and airy, ever so slightly sweet herbal smelling freshness. There's something like a touch of aloe here. It's a fairly comforting scent for all its lightness, like newly washed hair in the sun. Close to the skin mild muskiness and tolerably light florals. There's a lovely lemony touch in one of the resins here.

Sweet and effervescent, whitish wine grape and not a touch of chocolate to be seen anywhere! As it warms, there's a corriander scent that dominates on my skin. I was kind of hoping for more booziness (especially considering the cheap sex of the title), but it's a rather clean, pleasant affair. Ginger! That's what the effevescent scent is I'm getting!

OMFG, this is nummy white buttery cake. The cassia is brilliant, softer than cinnamon, but woodsy warm and softly spicey. Just a touch of coconut here, lovely and dry. No cocoa to my nose, but that's not such a bad thing, given how delicious this already is. Not too sickly sweet either, it's on the dryer side of sweet, so still wearable without becoming cloying.

Hell, I had such high hopes for this. I lurve leather scents, especially worn leather. The musk was somewhat of a worry, as I tend to prefer the lighter musks, rather than heavy black musk, but seeing as the reviews for this spoke of a masculine musk, but a nice close skin hugging one, I took a punt. In the bottle, this is glorius leather, reminicent of C. August Dupin (one of my all time favourites). On me, it's pretty true to it's description initially, leather and musk. Not a big bad black musk, but softer and warmer, with lovely supple leather. Unfortunately, once my skin gets a hold of it, it starts to smell really camphorous and dusty, like leather that's been stored in mothballs.

I am very tempted to just use this one emoticon for my review: Because that's kinda the mood Katrina sums up for me. It's girly-as rose, soft and decidedly innocent. The cream isn't that overwhelming type that can sometimes turn curdled on my skin. It is soft, sweet, smooth and simply feminine. It's almost reminicent of turkish delight.

Where's my boozy butter and rum? This came out as red apple, a touch of marzipan almond and very soft orange. Not a lot of the cookie smell that I was anticipating unfortunately. Any spices that were there were eaten by this overwhelming apple and fruitiness.

Woodsy aquatic. There's a big splash of balsam at the front of this, with airy, light, slightly herbaceous woods there and soft tobacco. There may be something sage or rosemary like lurking in the background, and a delicate, soft sweetness. Something a tinge soapy comes out on my skin, freshly soaped skin though, a bit like aloe. Definitely a more masculine leaning scent, but fresh enough that a woman could pull it off.

Citrus eucalyptus blast! Mostly I'm getting a strong orange peel vibe from this, with a touch of something fresh and medicinal, like cajeput. There's definitely eucalyptus there, that's the first thing I smell. There's a mellow soothness under all this, something I'm not quite sure of. After a bit of wear, there's a lemony, sherbet like feel coming out here too. There may be some patchouli lurking down in the dry down too. As for the purification effects, I will update this post once I've had some time to use it properly.

Could you please post a link? I went to flickr and searched by your forum name, but couldn't find them It's in her sig .

Crumpet Rebelion to me is intially a bitter orange, almost too bitter for my liking, but then it begins to settle into black tea and soft pie crust spices, almost reminiscent of BPAL's pumpkin note. More of a baked goods foody scent than a fruity/berry foody scent, there's warm spices and cakeyness close to the skin.

Rooty herbal, a brown herb if that makes sense. There's a slight sweetness here, the tobacco is subdued and lovely. I really don't get a lot of leather from this at all, and my skin usually amps leather like crazy. It's a softer, almost olive like aroma to the leather element. Wears very close to the skin.

Sugared lime and manly musk undertones, with a touch of colonge. Mostly it's bright and sweet at first, which makes me think this could be a very unisex scent. The lime is bright and as others have metioned, effervescent. The bay comes out on the skin, making this a more masculine as it wears. The musk is deep and dark, but kept in place by all the lighter notes There's a slight sour note here, which could possibly be lilac or something similar.

A unique blend. Kind of thick and rich to start with, smells like rich clotted cream, honey, and something slightly "interesting" added to the mix. I believe that's the lily. It's got a honeyed sweetness to the beeswax, the tea is lovely yet subdued and very close to the skin, but there's something that smells slightly off on my skin. I don't know if it's the honey/milk combo, because these can go wonky on me fairly often. It's hard to describe, almost like it's too rich? But even saying all this, it is a blend I still enjoy, lily and pepper are a fabulous combo in my books, and once that initial rich cream dies away a little, it's a soft, comforting scent.

I've hesitated doing a review for this because there's not much more that I can say, other than "it smells like dirt", original, huh? Yup, it's a rich potting soil blend, with a slight turn of mould, the kind you'd get when you were a kid and you'd leave a banana in the bottom of your school bag for a month. As for it's wearability, I could imagine on the right chemistry, it would be a nice loamy, deep scent, but on me, it's really not wearable. Although, having said this, I don't want to part with my bottle, as the novelty factor here is high.

ooh.. I would love to see that one to Not a great photo, but it should give you an idea of what it looks like. http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c388/lil.../Picture277.jpg

I just took part in a group order that totaled close to $1000. You can bet it didn't fit in the PayPal comment box. I'm sure the character limit is causing a lot of headaches for the Lab, having to match the separately emailed orders with the PayPal payments. I hope it gets changed soon. (Edit for clarity.) Not a flippin' chance! I tried it so many different ways, abbreviations, taking out all the vowels (), using the product code (but that was just way too confusing ), then when I got down to the individuals imps I had to just give up and put a note that I've emailed the order seperately, there was no way it was going to fit. I put the transaction ID in the email and as much detail as possible and used the same heading for the email and paypal subject line so they know which Paypal transaction it belongs to, but it must be such a headache for them . Does anyone know if there's been any official word form the lab as to what to do if the order won't fit the 300 character limit?

This is yummy. Wet sees a blast of oakmoss and patchouli, then as it warms the coconut comes out, it's gorgeously caramel-ish at this stage. I do believe there may be a teensy tiny dollop of leather in there, or maybe birch? Whatever it is, it's lovely and smooth, rounded and earthy. The coconut is nothing to be scared of, it just adds an interesting touch to all the yummy earthiness.

Wet, this is sasparilla and creaminess, a touch medicinal, but very yum. Dry, it's yummy buttery vanilla with that root beerish smell lingering in the background. Warm and comforting. The vanilla does go a little plastic on the dry down, but it's not a really bad plastic like some other vanillas can be.

Wet: honey and peppery pine! The notes combine in a way that smells almost like fresh mango to me. Dry: Stunning skin musk and and high pitched honey with fresh pine. Lovley and fresh smelling, but grounded. Slightly delicious. It's like fresh night time air.

Wet: grapey ozone. Dry: I was kinda hoping for more ozone in this, but as it dries it's a fresh sort of plum smell with sweet opium. A very fresh coal tar like note, something soapy and clean. Slightly wet, yet powdery (if that makes any sense), almost like a touch of powdery violet. Although my skin is practically eating this up, I'm having to stick my nose right up to my hand to smell it. There's something dry and soft like birch here too.

In the bottle, it's heavy myrrh, a touch of sweet sandalwood, and faint cinnamon. There's something perhaps resinous here too that I can't quite make out? But on my skin, Priala turns to acrid, smokey, dusty myrrh with a suggestion of cinnamon.

This may very well do as a Pinched With Four Aces replacement! It's soft on the cinnamon for me initially, soft on the pine too (it's not "woah pine" more the suggestion of pine). Lovely creamy vanilla, and sweet clove. The dry down sees a little more of the cinnamon amp up, while the pine fades away. It is a lovely dry, husky cinnamon cream.

Hand of Glory is, for lack of a more eloquent turn of phrase... fucking scary! Oh boy, it is not for the fainthearted. Heavy beeswax (I didn't even know you could make beeswax smell this stong), lots of leather, a touch of pepper. It really reminds me of something dead. You know what it reminds me of? It's the kind of smell you'd imagine in the movie Hostel, where they visit the torture museum, dank and dark and dead. Edited to add some further impressions: for all the initial scariness of Hand of Glory, this really does mellow down into something quite wearable! Once that initial blast of omg in your face beeswax and leather subsides, there's the subtle spice from the nutmeg that comes out, and a kind of honeyish vanilla sweetness. The leather and beeswax does stay on though, so if that's not your thing you might want to skip it altogether, but it becomes softer and a bit more bearable as time wears on. This is one blend that I think ageing will really do some justice with.