Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'Halloween 2018'.
Found 151 results
-
Once I said to a scarecrow, “You must be tired of standing in this lonely field.” And he said, “The joy of scaring is a deep and lasting one, and I never tire of it.” Said I, after a minute of thought, “It is true; for I too have known that joy.” Said he, “Only those who are stuffed with straw can know it.” Then I left him, not knowing whether he had complimented or belittled me. A year passed, during which the scarecrow turned philosopher. And when I passed by him again I saw two crows building a nest under his hat. – Kahlil Gibran Corn husks waving on an autumn breeze, beams of amber sunlight, hay bales, and late summer wildflowers. This is very pretty! I expected it to be fairly dry, but smells pretty creamy to me. Sweet and ambery, I don't get any hay and I can't say if I smell corn husks either. Three hours in and it's hanging on pretty well, which counts as fairly long lasting on my skin.
-
And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise –then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust. Terror, horror, and disgust: a bowel-churning sweet clench of myrhh and green musk in a pool of suffocating black moss and a shock of white cognac. Call me crazy. This smells clean and fresh and herbal green with a white sheets background. Overall this could've been called Citrine Waterfall in a Serene Mossy Wood and I would've said "Uh Huh. For sure!". The myrrh comes out in drydown and stays meditational due to the cleaner notes. Quite relaxing actually.
-
[No additional description provided.] Opium, dead leaves, and a touch of nutmeg. And a touch of opium. Good throw and wear length.
-
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos. ― Mary Shelley, 1831 This Samhain, were reveling in the desecration of a classic blend: Damp woods, fir needle, and black patchouli with the gentlest touches of warm pumpkin, clove, nutmeg, allspice, sweet red apple and mullein. I was the lucky recipient of #12. It starts out with a bit of orange and maybe a bit more of the the eucalyptus vibe I get from regular Samhain. I love it! With time, it morphs into the sweet, honey/apple-like scent of regular Samhain. I love it!!! My best Chaos Theory gamble ever!
-
In between earth and sea, in between days – the liminal space between lifetimes: driftwood and vetiver, chamomile and seaweed, ocean foam and tears. I get mainly driftwood, a hint of chamomile, and ocean. It's a watery woody blend. And I actually really love it. Would consider more.
-
Engraving by G. van der Gucht after J. Wootton Bay rum, hay, dried alfalfa, aftershave, and cork stalk. In the bottle: oh! Did The Great Sword of War and Antikythera Mechanism have a spicy baby? On my skin: The first few minutes of this were glorious. That aftershave note really brought out the best of the feelings of Old Spice and the bay rum brought some warmth. However, as it dried down something added an ammonia scent and as it dried down it only got stronger. Boo. On someone else in my house: Warm aftershave with a slightly dry woodsy feel. It was described as "1930s sexy masculine scent" when dried down by the wearer. Definitely has a classic men's scent feel with some added woodsiness. Not a win for my picky skin but my testing partner got a win here.
-
But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments. But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. Night-blooming jasmine and cereus reflected through ruddy musk and crimson amber. Jasmine, musk, and a whiff of amber. This one is a floral jasmine, with heavy red musk. It smells like dusty velvet jasmine. Medium throw and wear length.
-
Red musk, saffron threads, molten honey, and tobacco oudh. Red, red, red. The Blood Red Window Panes HG smells like dark red incarnate. I would call this a red musk-prominent blend, but the other notes really get their fingers into it. The saffron and honey sweeten this and turn it sideways, and the tobacco oudh makes it smell decadent and perverse. It's a bit like if the Infernal Lover took a dose of debauched tobacco oudh and went out on the town. The oudh is definitely present, but I wouldn't call it overpowering.
-
It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry –and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave-cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form. The wild courage of despair: a screech of blood orange and a splash of blood entangled in a corpse-mask of tattered white sandalwood stained with balsam and a grime-crusted winding sheet. Blood, sandalwood, linen. This is mainly a blood/sandalwood blend. Medium throw and wear length.
-
On All Saints Day, Spanish families visit their loved ones in the cemeteries, keeping vigil throughout the evening, saying prayers for the dead. Family burial plots are cleaned and tended, and graves are adorned with gladiolas, chrysanthemums, and roses. Bone-shaped pastries called Saint's Bones, or the Bones of the Holy, are baked and shared in honor of the souls in Purgatory, and to remind us of those who no longer share our repast, but with whom we one day hope to be reunited with again. Orange-glazed cake, dotted with anise seed, and filled with custard, set beside a bouquet of celebratory funeral flowers. Hello deliciousness! This smells just like orange poppyseed cake with a thick layer of custard cream in the middle. (it also kind reminded me of the dry smell of orange fruit loops) This is the first bpal that has any kind of "cake" scent that works for me. All the others made me sneeze. But this is just wonderful without being cloyingly sweet. Nom
-
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos. ― Mary Shelley, 1831 This Samhain, were reveling in the desecration of a classic blend: Damp woods, fir needle, and black patchouli with the gentlest touches of warm pumpkin, clove, nutmeg, allspice, sweet red apple and mullein. #7. I was excited for my number. First sniff of the Chaos HG is fresh and floral which is an interesting counterpoint to the leafy deep smell I was expecting. I still get the lovely apple but its tropical fall. Pikaki or plumeria? Almost a cocoa butter undercurrent. Not chocolatey.
-
Sexy and suckable: black cherry brandy. I was a little nervous after reading will-call reviews that this might go cough syrup on me. Not so! Suck It smells like exactly what it should, black cherry brandy. However, the booziness doesn't take over too much. Instead, it keeps things from smelling too much like candied fruit. I really love it!
-
Truly the scent of autumn itself -- damp woods, fir needle, and black patchouli with the gentlest touches of warm pumpkin, clove, nutmeg, allspice, sweet red apple and mullein. I'm not sure if this is a particularly helpful review as this was a limited edition scent and no longer available, but I guess it might be useful if any turns up on Ebay or as a swap somewhere... The first scent of this is heavily fruity: it smells like black cherries. When I put it on, this note lingers, but is deepened with a scent like tobacco flowers and cloves. It mellows into a rich musky scent with a little crushed greenery. Conventially speaking, I'd say it's definitely an evening perfume: I guess most people would find it too heavy for during the day. Not that I pay any attention to such things Overall, it's one of my favourites so far, totally different to anything I've smelt anywhere else, and for me now inexorably tied to memories of autumn.
-
[No additional description provided.] This is very straightforward. The pomegranate note verges on candy-like, but stops just short of it. I had been wanting Snake Oil with a dark fruit note. This starts out bright and tart, the pomegranate dominating. It settles to darker, still tart, and more balanced with the Snake Oil. It's exactly what I was looking for.
-
The remnants of bonfire smoke and incense. OK, I guess I'll go first ... This is a very pretty scent. It's very light, and "lemony" .. I don't get "bonfire smoke", like the Bonfire Smoke atmosphere spray. If I get woodsmoke at all .. it might be a faintly smoldering pile of cedar, from a distance.. The "incense," I can't pick out the notes of. This doesn't seem to be a "morpher". i get a one-note, light, lemony sort of faint cedar smoke. I'm crap at picking out exact fragrance notes when I don't know what the components are. Light to medium throw. But I like it. It's a sweet, and pretty scent.
-
Fairly antisocial as bats go, Western Bonnie sticks to colonies of less than a hundred other bats. A girl needs her privacy, you know. Butterscotch tobacco. Butterscotch laced with tobacco. A yup. This one is sweet sugary butterscotch supported by some brown chewy tobacco. This will age to a sugary tobacco mess. Good throw and wear length. Which means, if you like sugar or tobacco, GO GET IT.
-
A fair witch crept to a young man's side, And he kiss'd her and took her for his bride. But a Shape came in at the dead of night, And fill'd the room with snowy light. And he saw how in his arms there lay A thing more frightful than mouth may say. And he rose in haste, and follow'd the Shape Till morning crown'd an eastern cape. And he girded himself, and follow'd still When sunset sainted the western hill. But, mocking and thwarting, clung to his side, Weary day!-the foul Witch-Bride. (Aw, c'mon, Allingham. Foul is a pretty strong choice of words, dontcha think?) Pale and lovely, with eyes belladonna-wide: hemlock blossoms and ghostly nightshade veiled by wisteria, white frankincense, black amber, and narcissus resin. I'm at a loss as to how to translate the scent experience of witch bride to words so that you, the reader, could gain some understanding of how it smells and decide if it's something you want to seek out. sorry! I blind bought my bottle based upon the label art and the theme and the notes and I adore it. I don't tend to go for straight up florals, and this isn't that. there's a sweet and warm resiny base, and some light florals (my favorite bpal narcissus experience to date!) on top, and it's just a nice beautiful blend. I only detect the herbal notes if I look for them, and I may only be sensing them because I read them in the description. they are subtle and add a nice bit of complexity (spoken by someone who loves very herby winter stars and the waters of the well of wisdom). witch bride is light to moderate in strength. very addciting.
-
Variety is the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor. ― William Cowper, 1785 Forget about the War on Christmas the years most contentious seasonal battle is actually waged over this inescapable melange of palate-massaging flavors. Weve got the formula down pat, and invite you to join us in a mad-science experiment: Just how far can we bend it before it breaks? I picked up two of these mysterious creatures as it's been a looooooong time since I've had some chaos scents in my life. Here's hoping at least one is amazing on me! First up, bottle #26: oh. my. g-ddess. Banana pumpkin spice. Not, like, banana *bread*. No. This is like, a fresh banana smoothie, right from the blender, with some pumpkin spice mix dusted into it for flavor. Never knew this was a thing missing from my life and now I find myself ecstatic to be the sole individual in the world to have this in my hot little hands!!! This is going to be a really really tough act to follow! Here goes #31: Pumpkin spice and...cologne? In the bottle and wet on skin, I'm mostly getting a sharp fougeré, like a bracing 1940s lavender-based men's aftershave, and a pice of pumpkin spice bread dunked into it. It's bizarre. As it dries, the cologne chills out and it becomes...Dorian and spice cake I can't tell yet if I like it enough to keep it, but testing chaos theory scents is *always* an adventure!!!
-
Harrison Weir Golden apples, cedar and redwood trellises heavy with grapevine, beeswax, hemp, vanilla benzoin, and bois de rose. I like this blend a lot when I first put it on. The apples, wood, grapevine and hemp all combine nicely. I can't smell the beeswax or vanilla. It mostly disappears after about ten minutes, sadly. I've only had it for a week, though, so maybe it needs more time to become more than a close skin scent.
-
We’re running out of room at the Lab, and it’s been a long, long time since we’ve had a trunk show. When Brian and I were rifling through the prototype and snafu shelves a few weeks ago, we dug up two busticated Snake Oils – one that was a mispour of Lemon Scented Sticky Bat, and another involved an Aggravated Vanilla Incident – and we unearthed the very first Samhain prototype from 2002. We don’t have time to do a full-blown trunk show right now, so we’re offering these three for sale. They’re in very, very limited quantity. Fastest delivery ever! I snatched two of these the minute I saw the link up. I got them today and immediately tested fully. I am really scratching my head though. I don't know if my sniffer is off but I am not smelling the vanilla/cream soda like I had hoped. This is a sharper snake oil to me without the powdery, almost too sweet/cloying dry down I can get if I put too much on. Maybe there's some added carbonation dryness in this to make one think of soda pop, but this was not at all what I was expecting and shame on me because I should have known the lab would never make something that smelled so simple/one note (unless released as one of course!) For a minute I even wondered if I got the lemon sticky bat snake oil instead by mistake due to the sharpness/almost medicinal scent, so I tested my 2nd bottle and it still smelled the same on me. The odd thing is, if you just sniff the oil in the bottle, you def. can smell sweet vanilla/cream soda-ish oil! On I get snake oil, dryer, with a bit of a sassafras note and more stable, consistent dry down. I prefer new Snake oil to aged snake oil so I will probably keep using this and possibly swap the 2nd bottle to someone who maybe didn't have a chance to snatch this up and wants to have one. I can't wait for more reviews!
-
A. Ducote Sweet vetiver, bourbon vanilla, and wool. This is the beautiful vanilla blend that I've been looking for all along, like a softer cousin to The Antikythera Mechanism and Tombstone. It's simple, like most of my favorites, and easy to wear. The sweet vetiver blends gorgeously with the bourbon vanilla and wool. It makes me think of a perfect autumn day somewhere in a cool climate, when the skies are a rich blue that contrasts with the orange leaves. I think it will be glorious and long-lasting in a scent locket too.
-
By what a subtle alchemy the green leaves are transmuted into gold, as if molten by the fiery blaze of the hot sun! A magic covering spreads over the whole forest, and brightens into more gorgeous hues. The tree-tops seem bathed with the gold and crimson of an Italian sunset. Here and there a shade of green, here and there a tinge of purple, and a stain of scarlet so deep and rich, that the most cunning artifice of man is pale beside it. A thousand delicate shades melt into each other. They blend fantastically into one deep mass. They spread over the forest like a tapestry woven with a thousand hues. Magnificent Autumn! He comes not like a pilgrim, clad in russet weeds. He comes not like a hermit, clad in gray. But he comes like a warrior, with the stain of blood upon his brazen mail. His crimson scarf is rent. His scarlet banner drips with gore. His step is like a flail upon the threshing floor. The scene changes. It is the Indian summer. The rising sun blazes through the misty air like a conflagration. A yellowish, smoky haze fills the atmosphere; and A filmy mist, Lies like a silver lining on the sky. The wind is soft and low. It wafts to us the odor of forest leaves, that hang wilted on the dripping branches, or drop into the stream. Their gorgeous tints are gone, as if the autumnal rains had washed them out. Orange, yellow, and scarlet, all are changed to one melancholy russet hue. The birds, too, have taken wing, and have left their roofless dwellings. Not the whistle of a robin, not the twitter of an eavesdropping swallow, not the carol of one sweet, familiar voice! All gone. Only the dismal cawing of a crow, as he sits and curses, that the harvest is over, – or the chit-chat of an idle squirrel, – the noisy denizen of a hollow tree, – the mendicant friar of a large parish, – the absolute monarch of a dozen acorns! Another change. The wind sweeps through the forest with a sound like the blast of a trumpet. The dry leaves whirl in eddies through the air. A fret-work of hoar-frost covers the plain. The stagnant water in the pools and ditches is frozen into fantastic figures. Nature ceases from her labors, and prepares for the great change. In the low-hanging clouds, the sharp air, like a busy shuttle, weaves her shroud of snow. There is a melancholy and continual roar in the tops of the tall pines, like the roar of a cataract. It is the funeral anthem of the dying year. A scent that wanders through the Ages of Autumn, from the last green leaf to the first breath of winter. This is truly magnificent. When it's wet, I smell it in layers and it truly does cycle (quickly) through different stages of Autumn. My nose catches (in order) green stems, dead leaves, tree sap, something sour and slightly sweet that reminds me of black currant or pomegranate. Once dry, it melds into a gorgeous leafy (dead and alive) scent with hints of the sweet/sour from the earlier stage. It is an up close and personal scent with little throw. I love this.
-
Philipp Peter Roos Caramelized wood resins, black peppercorn, and leather. I'm still new to testing out HG scents, so I got a 4ml tester in a spritz bottle so I could actually spray it on my hair. I was hoping for leather. What I got was sickly sour yellow biting wood. As it dries peppercorn comes out, which just adds more bite. Turns to a kind of powerdery sour wood resin with an acrid bite. It bothers my sinuses. And a couple little squirts goes a long way!
-
Honey biscuits in warm cream. Biscuits in creamy honey. I don't really get cream - but there is a creaminess. Both the honey and biscuits are more present. Very foodie. Good throw.
-
The Great He-Goat, Francisco Goya. Haitian vetiver, Egyptian amber, carnation, black musk, pomegranate, patchouli, and smoked ginger. I've been looking forward to this one with great anticipation since someone in the Speculation thread wondered if it might be kind of like He-Shub. I love all things ginger, and in general approve of smokiness, so smoked ginger sounded like a winner. The only ingredient that tempered my enthusiasm was the black musk, which generally goes powdery on me. But I ordered it anyway. It was of course the first part of my order I tried ... It's a very earthy scent - almost like Gnome, if the eucalyptus were swapped with ginger. But lighter. The ginger, vetiver, & patchouli all swirl together in a wonderfully rich way, and the amber is underneath them all. I don't really smell the pomegranate on its own ... The black musk, happily, doesn't go to baby powder here. All in all, a winner! If you liked Gnome or Samhainophobia, I think you'll love this. It seemed a bit masculine, so I dabbed some on my guy, but he dubbed it only okay on him. Much better on me! I love the earthy, confident feeling this gives me. It's my first definite Salon love, so I'm extra-happy I went straight for it instead of waiting for somebody else to sell off a decant.
