Kuang Shi

[Muppetk]

Bust out the dzang dzi! This scent honors the zombies of Chinese lore. Mandarin orange, white musk, mango, and white sandalwood.

Nice. Very nice.

First few minutes: smelling mostly mango/mandarin scent. Nice, not obnoxiuosly sweet the way fruity can be.

Later: this scent stays fairly consistant, though fades relatively quickly. This is one I want to try combined with skin moisturizer to see if it lasts longer.

[tart]

When first applied, Kuang Shi smells very dry, like a light incense. While dry, remains fresh and bright, probably from the undetectable mango and mandarin orange. As time passes, the mango and mandarin round out the blend a little more. All in all, Kuang Shi is way too dry for my nose.

[tinyvulture]

Fresh, juicy oranges, blended with the sweetness of mango. As it dries, the citrus becomes less noticeable. It transforms into a soft, powdery, slightly floral scent. At first it seems like it would smell good on either sex, since it’s so bright and fresh, but once the citrus fades, it’s definitely a girly scent.

[sarada]

In the imp I mostly get an orange smell, not very strong. Instead of sandalwood in the background I catch an almost peppery scent -- very dry. As I expected though it starts to fade upon application, and quickly the mango catches up. I recognize this mango scent, I think it's the same that is in Corazon, not very strong but enough to give you a refreshing orangey (the color, not the fruit!) splash. I vastly prefer mango to orange as a scent so that is a welcome change. The mango starts to fade as well after about 15 minutes and finally the sandalwood comes out. It ends as a lovely, dry sandalwood scent with a glimmer of the orangey mango, like a wooden crate that was full of fruit but is now empty. It also makes me think of a faded fabric with a pattern of branches and orange fruit on it. Unfortunately it's so very light and fades so fast I can't see ever wearing it regularly, though it would make a perfect lotion if I just had some empty bottles and unscented lotion to make some with!

[gangstaknitta]

In Bottle: The sharp scent of mandarin is softened a little by the mango. I can smell the sandalwood as well.

 

Wet: Mandarin does not seem to be my friend. The mango is not so noticeable on me, but the sandalwood is still there.

 

Dry: Sandalwood doesn't seem to work on me unless there is a "sweet" scent to go along with it. Mandarin smells very clean an florally on me--I've never been a fan of clean and floral. The scent faded a lot within the first hour and then barely lingered through the second hour.

[synique]

Smelled very sharp to me in the vial and maintained this edge for a little while after application. On dry down, it becomes a lovely juicy mango with white musk, touched with the mandarin and sandalwood.

 

It's not a cloying sweet, but a delicate one. The scent overall is pretty delicate and fades rather quickly.

[donsixgun]

Hm...I can smell the mango and orange...and thats nice, but there is something going on that is reminding me of a cross between laundry detergent and trix cereal...And after a few tries, the verdict is: no like.

[girlmadasbirds]

citrusy sandalwood! the mango adds a nice touch. fun, fruity scent

[olympia301]

This smells very Oriental to me, not the patchouli type of heavy brown scent, but the light incenscy/mandarin way. This is indeed a light and "small fruit" scent. Very pleasant in the warmer months. Arguably it is a bit old fashioned, but attractively so. It is a clean smell and not so very complicated. I recommend this one if you are going to an outdoor party, in the heat of summer, when you want to stop stressing. It is a happy scent, regardless of being named after Chinese Zombies

[subbes]

Origin: Part of a frimp set of pale oils with dark names (zombies, murder victims, and goddesses of destruction, oh my)

 

Preconceptions: I don't like mango, and sandalwood may be one of my chemistry's 'no' notes. However, I like mandarin and wonder what white musk will do, so I'm not going to condemn it without a try.

 

In the vial: fruity-smoke?

 

First application (to elbowpits): Mango, and something darker that lurks behind it. Concentrating really hard can bring out a touch of mandarin, but it's all behind the mango.

 

Drydown: Still a lot of mango. I'm not really a big fan of mango, sadly. Then, the sandalwood comes out. Normally sandalwood, for me, is a precursor to the note in every 'exotic spice' BPAL that my skin amplifies (Snake Oil, Hell's Belle, Sacred Whore, Ahathoor -- I wish I knew what that 'spice' nwas so I didn't keep buying delicious descriptions and having my skin ruin them), but in this case, I think the fruits are keeping that from happening.

There's a little bit of musk in there, I can't pick out any mandarin any more. The mango isn't really mango the way I think of it (I don't like mango but I'm okay with this scent), perhaps because of the sandalwood-incense-smoke around it.

 

Dry: Fruity sandalwood musk blended into something that I can't really describe, other than "nicely odd in a mango-y way). I'll try this again when I'm not testing other imps at the same time.

[rellyjean]

I am hopelessly, helplessly in love with Kuang Shi.

 

First sniff in the bottle: a bit sharper than I was expecting, and a touch unnerving. I ordered this mostly for the mandarin/mango touches, and I can't pick them out in the imp. Hmmm.

 

Wet: OH MY. The instant this touches my skin, it morphs into something exquisite. The mandarin and mango are lurking way in the background, and up front is - the sandalwood? The musk? I don't know much by way of notes.

 

I cannot stop sniffing my wrists.

 

Drydown: The scent goes through a few light phases - now a touch softer, now a bit fuller, etc - and every single one of them is exquisite.

 

The scent is warm - not the golden glowy wrapped-in-a-blanket warmth of Blood Amber, but the feeling of bare feet on sawdust on a warm day - and complex. There are levels I could get lost in. The sharp tinge to the sandalwood - the thick smokiness - the fruit rounding out the scent, keeping it from being too close to the edge, but never coming out front, content to hide in the background and pull strings.

 

The overall effect is strong, feminine, and powerful. Kuang Shi saunters up to the bar and orders a drink, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and making them look sexier than any of the thigh-high boots that the girls around her are wearing. She makes them all look like they're just trying too hard. She looks you right in the eye when you talk and throws her head all the way back when she laughs. She's confident and proud and strong, and it's all a challenge laid out before you.

 

I have already ordered a 10-ml bottle of this. I would order the two-gallon size if they offered it. So. Much. Love.

 

Now I have to go sniff my wrists some more.

[gravity_always_wins]

I love reading reviews (see above). Unfortunately, I wasn't quite as taken with Kuang Shi as others. From the imp to wet stage to drydown, all I got was musk and sandalwood. Apparently, my skin loves them, but I don't. Any hint of fruit or citrus was completely absent on me. :-(

[Ajila]

Wet on me this was very wet, juicy fruits, when I first tried this I forgot there was mango in there and I couldn't work out why it smelt so much more fleshy rather than citrusy. The musk and the manderin are there in the background, giving the mango a slightly fizzy edge. I don't get any sandalwood at all. Dry the fruits fade and I'm left almost entirely with the musk, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but probably not for me.

[Northernminx]

The sandalwood in this made this very strangely sharp on first application but thankfully the white musk starts to soften it a bit. I was pleased that I was able to pick out the white musk in this which was soft under a great deal of mango and mandarin orange for most of the wear-life on this one. Fruity, but I found this less sunny and more serious. I'm not quite sure if I get zombies but it's lovely none the less.

[Em-]

I was realy looking forward to the musky fruityness of this one, but all I get is sandalwood. Really strong sandalwood. No mandarin. No mango. Not even much musk.

 

It took me a long time to try this because it smelled very harsh in the vial, an it just doesn't work with my chemistry.

[telesilla]

Why I bought it: Chinese zombies, man. How could I not? Plus I'm all about the citrus and the sandalwood.

 

In the bottle and wet: Orange! This smells like something really familiar but I can't put my finger on it yet. Some kind of candy maybe.

 

Drying down: The orange and the mango are stronger than the sandalwood. It's a really "bright" fruit scent, not very sweet but somehow sunny, if that makes sense.

 

Dry: It's still mostly about the sharp mandarin orange, but I think the musk is mellowing it out some. I'm still not getting sandalwood, which is odd because my skin loves sandalwood as a rule. It's sharp and bright and oddly upbeat.

 

If this is about zombies, they're happy fun zombies that are damn cheerful while they eat your BRAAAAIIIIINSSSS! Or I dunno, maybe Chinese zombies don't eat brains. Regardless, I'm keeping the imp although I'll want to try it a few more times before I decide if I need a big bottle.

[madelf]

This is yummy without being foody. The musk and sandlewood are the big foreground notes in this, but the mandarin/mango combination still peeps out every now and then. This has a perfect underlying sweetness to make people wonder exactly what they are smelling.

 

This got a lot of compliments from my friends and customers. Kuang Shi continued my streak of "You have the best perfumes" comments.

[slugbait]

This smelled almost identical to Akuma to me, in the aspect of being tart and fruity. Initially this has a bit of a pine scent, like mangoes have. But as this dries, the scent isn't as sweet and seems to be a bit drier. I think the sandalwood blends nicely in this, it usually smells like pencil shavings on my skin. I barely noticed the musk in it. Dry, this is light and airy. Overall, I really like this blend and I think I will be keping my imp.

[Little Bird]

Kuang Shi didn't work on my skin at all. I like the smell of mango and mandarin orange, but the fruitiness here was just... odd. It was like fruit that didn't really smell like fruit. Sort of a dry and sharp orange scent. Not wet or sweet as fruits normally are. Underneath that smell was a light almost-pepper smell.

 

In the drydown, this is all white musk. My nemesis . The best way to describe how white musk normally smells on me is 'cheap hairspray'. Sharp and bitter enough to make my brain explode. I had high hopes for a mango scent, but I can't smell anything resembling mango here at all.

 

Another one for my swaps.

[coulrophobe]

Kuang Shi is such an odd scent on my skin. All the notes listed usually work for me - I'm a slathering fool for fruits and white musk, but this one doesn't smell anything like I thought it would. It's sharp, bright, and very cold-smelling - and there's an underlying tartness that's almost aquatic; it reminds me of the tart note in Akuma. I'm really surprised that the musk and sandalwood don't add any warmth to this blend... the description sounded warm and fruity, but instead this is very cool and airy on my skin.

 

It's interesting, but a little unsettling. As zombies should be, I suppose.

[Miss Lynx]

Oh, yum! Well, OK, this isn't quite I-want-to-eat-my-wrists yum, but it's as close to it as a scent can get and not be too foody to me. I was trying to test my boundaries with this one. I was originally very nervous of fruity scents, but having found since that as long as they're not too foody, they can actually work rather nicely on me, I wanted to see how far that went.

 

I do think Kuang Shi is probably about as fruity as I can safely get, but it's not all fruit by any means. There's a really nice non-edible undertone to it, presumably the musk and sandalwood, that gives it depth and keeps it from being a Juicy Fruit type of scent. Instead, it smells kind of like an exotic liqueur of some kind, maybe the mango equivalent of Grand Marnier. In that slightly boozy, intoxicating scent, it reminds me a bit of Vixen. It's also slightly reminiscent of Fae to me, but less sunny and more... mature, somehow. Still a mood-lifter, but a bit more sultry and sensual, which is I guess is the Vixen-ish side of it.

 

But it is definitely not reminiscent of zombies to me, at least not unless Chinese zombies dine on fresh mangos and Grand Marnier instead of brains.

 

Only real down side to this one is not much staying power. On my wrists, it's gone inside of an hour or so, though in the crooks of my arms it's good for a few hours.

 

Grade: B+

[quimerula]

Wet it's mandarin and organge, playing tricks on my nose and saying that there's some peach inside too.

 

Fruity and sweet, the musk and the sandalwood are perfect to be blended with the starting notes.

As it dries down it goes less fruity and more musky.

[darkitysnark]

Kuang Shi

 

Hm. I could not for the life of me pick up on any of the individual notes in this blend. Either I've lost what ol factory sophistication I had, or this is just another one of those absolutely perfectly blended oils that comes at you in swirly waves of mingled colors and textures, or, option C: a little bit of both.

 

In the bottle:

Hm. Sweet and sour. Not that gelatinous dipping sauce at the Chinese buffet, but something homemade with orange zest, simple syrup, and vinegar. Something that gets your gleekers going with a weird mix of anticipation and dread.

 

Wet/drydown:

Whoa. I do NOT like this. It's sharp, bitter, attacking the back of my throat and... hm, not so bad, in fact, I like sniffing my wrist for those woody/musky undertones but... eeeesh, I'm still kind of... scared? Where'd that come from?

 

Later:

Medium staying power, this one doesn't waft much, but it's there. Lurking. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Compelled and repulsed at the same time. If I can think of a moment/mood in which I would actually wear this, I'll keep it. But... it's also just as likely for swaps.

 

Interesting side note:

I usually assign gender automatically to my oils. This one is beyond definition of he or she. It's definitely an "it".

Edited October 4, 2005 by darkitysnark

[Diana]

Every once in a while, I'll get a random catalog oil without testing it first, just based on the description or the notes. Here's a good example.

 

When I open the bottle, this smells strongly of orange blossom. That doesn't bode well for me, and I have actually put off wearing it because of that. I can only take it in small doses (like in Catherine), otherwise I find it overwhemling & nauseating (Seraglio).

 

Throwing caution to the wind (after double checking that there is, in fact, no orange blossom), I slather it on. It starts to develop a more strong orange note (no blossom). It smells almost of orange lollipops. Mmm. It's sweet, juicy, and more than tolerable.

 

As it wears on after a few hours, the juicy fruit note moves aside and the sandalwood becomes stronger and more evident. The sandalwood never becomes all that strong though (which is a shame, because i LOVE sandalwood).

 

The overall effect is a soft woody note that you'd smell while drinking orange juice.

 

This totally works.

[urraca]

This is very much like its description --- mandarin and white musk are on top, with some sweetness added by the mango and the sandalwood bringing up the base. BPAL has made me less phobic about musk than I was, but I still don't care for white musk on me, so this was a miss. Glad to try it though.