YoakeNoKami

Bottle: Rice wine--but minus that alcohol note, faint tea, and this little spike of mint. On: A bit more of the mint, and some scattered flower petals. The rice wine is mellowing a bit. Drydown: Dark tea, and a rich waft of cherry blossom (interesting, because in my experience they don't have that much scent to them) It's an interesting scent, though, and the mint is just barely hovering beneath the tea. For some reason, this makes me think of someone who'd be very quiet, very dignified, but almost startlingly strongwilled. Several hours later, it's still hanging around in the form of faint, slightly sweet black tea, and a faint coolness (probably remaining from the mint) like a misty, eerily still night.

Imp: Fruit, fruit, fruit. On: I definitely get the dragon's blood--usually fruity-spicy on me, and that's all for the good. Nothing much else yet... Drydown: five minutes into drydown, and the currant joins the party. There's just a faint waft of fig, too. But it's spicy-currant-fig-fruit, a bit of a mishmash until a couple of minutes later, when the dragon's blood twists into the more resiny incarnation I sometimes get out of it, and then the currant really pops out.

Egh, does an eyeball smell like this? It might, really, but there's no blood in this eye. It's all lily-aquatics on me--not something I'm really wanting to wear, ya know? Especially since I'm not particularly keen on lilies for the most part, and aquatics are often terribly bitter on me. Yep.

Spicy-sweet fruit and floral... not violet or lavender. *looks round* We have a huuuuuuuuge lilac bush on the side of our house--there's a faint hint of that in here, faintly sweet and melancholy.

The same all the way through on me--coconut, with this faint splash of fresh iris. ETA: Not catching any of the white musk, thank goodness, so no sudden outbursts of sneezing.

Imp: Champagne? LOL Champangne and this teensy faint hit of strawberry On: Still champagne, but with a fuller strawberry note. The champagne does smell bubbly! Drydown: Oooh, this one's a keeper. Champagne with fresh, ice cold strawberries and sugar. It's quite light and still bubbly too. It lasts okay on me--most of the day, in fact, though it's strawberry-sugar at the tail end of the day.

This one is a lovely, tart pomegranate in the imp-- a bit less mellow to me that Fruit of Paradise was, but a lovely, bright scent. On: Pomegranate, and something like a "dry" berry (i.e. like a cranberry rather than a blueberry) on me. I saw someone else mentioned juniper berry? Maybe that's it. Drydown: Sweet-sharp pomegranate, with some strange floaty alcohol hint in it, and a faintly sugar-crystal edge. ETA: Left words out. Oops.

Imp: BERRY. PINE. 0.0;; On/wet: Sweeeeeeet berries and a little pine, some sort of dry green leaf. Drydown: This goes all squished ripe berries on me, with a dusty leaf note. We have blackberry bushes in our yard, and they smell like this towards the end of the summer, when the berries are gone and only the bushes are there still--I can certainly feel the tomato leaf coming through, and a faint, dry sweetness underneath. It reminds me ever so slightly of sun-dried tomatoes: Sweet, dry--with a little bit of succulent moisture in it, and an interesting body to the flavor like dried berries, too. Edit: Much to my advantage to try it again when I could actually smell all the notes!

This delicate, spectral perfume gives rise to an eerie distortion of of the senses. It bestows an ephemeral, ghostly, and truly haunting quality to your presence. Green tea, lemon verbena, jasmine and neroli. Imp: Lemon tea, with some faint floral--like there's jasmine floating round in your tea. On/wet: Hello lemon! *waves cheerfully* Aren't you a lovely bright note! Drydown: Sharp, tangy lemon drops with that dusting of sparkly sugar. Yumm. The jasmine wafts back in a couple of hours later.

Envelop yourself in the soft, sensual embrace of gentle sandalwood warmed by cocoa vanilla and a veil of deep myrrh. Imp: Bitter cocoa; some sort of dark musk On/wet: Sandalwood? and slightly more mellow cocoa Drydown: Myrrh. Myrrh and bitter cocoa. More Myrrh. Augh, it's all bitter and musky on me.

Mmm... yumm. Imp: Vanilla-coconut On/wet: VANILLA!!! Possibly tonka bean instead, but something along those lines. Oh, and sugar. Drydown: Toasted coconut and this odd note that makes me think of smooth stone.

Imp: Leather--that delicious whiff of leather when you put on a good leather jacket. Mmmm... On/wet: Clean, faintly warm leather--still a new-ish jacket. Drydown: Faint, slightly sweet spice which lays close to the skin and the smell that leather picks up when it's worn but well cared for... my mom's favorite coat--a knee length black leather coat that my father gave her almost 15 years ago--smells like this. I remember this as a safe smell--just like I remember wrapping myself up in that coat when I was little. Definitely what leather is meant to smell like!

Pretty much the same all the way through--my reaction to this is: "Augh!!! The florals ate my arm!"

Imp: Heavy, acidic herbs. On: Wet, green, crushed herbs, like the what it must smell like to be in the middle of one of those herb paste rubs. Very rosemary, though--almost overpowergly so, with a medicinal edge.' Drydown: Musty sharp herbs and withered lemon. There's a heavy sage note too--very strong on me after it's dried, and the smell lingered for so long I finally had to wash it off.

Imp: Dry, turned earth. On: Wet, dirty leather and a chewy sort of vetiver note. Drydown: Old leather, books, and a strange lazy myrrh note. A bit musty on me, though, so not for keeps.

Imp: Wet earth and vetiver... egh... On: VETIVER!!!!!! and waterlogged earth again, but with this really sharp ozone tang to it. Noooo! Drydown: Destructively dark smelling--crushed wood, bogs, shattered stone, ozone, and that weird calm emptiness of something that's just been torn apart.

Imp: Uh, fake grape-flavor lollipop. You know the kind--always super sticky and always more messy than it should be. But you eat it anyway. On: *chokes* Okay, an odd combination of grape soda and a weird wine scent.' Drydown: I have to say that this one rolled quickly downhill on me--and at the end, it was a weird grape children's tylenol tablet smell, faintly metallic and medicinal and having nothing at all to do with a real grape. I really wish that I could get a little of some of the notes described by other reviewers to join the party.

Imp: Cherried dragon's blood. Reeeaaally odd. On: Ack, sweet! Damp, sugary syruped cherries and some tangy fruityness. Drydown: All sticky, cloying cherry syrup and sugared clove. Makes me think too much of a melted sunday and is way too sweet on me.

Imp: Oddly musky-but-airy floral. On/wet: WHOA, there's that iris! Sharp at first, but with an earthy grounding note. Drydown: Muted, crushed iris and warm woods--like an escaped garden iris in the wood loam at the very edge of the yard. A little more floral than I'd generally wear, but I can see in for a mellow, relaxed kind of day.

2007 version Bottle: Dark, tart pomegranate--with some sort of other, winelike fullness underlying On: Fruity, dark pomegranate still, with some sort of faint mulled, spiced wine note (minus that alcohol sting). Drydown: Every time I wear this, something about it makes me feel uplifted. I'm not sure of it's the deepness of the pomegranate note itself--that deep, deep "red" flavor that's fresh and sensual and somehow solid all at once. I guess you could describe it as that lush, deliciously full flavor you only get from the pomegranate fruit just before it's ready to turn, to shrivel and fade. It actually lasts quite well on me, and even several hours later I catch these faint whiffs of it, like something you'd see out of the corner of your eye. I guess that in some ways, this scent seems kind of transient for me, like something that fades away after you touch it.

A lovely frimp from the lab... Imp: First of all--I have to say that I adore fruitcake... the kind that's dense enough that it weighs five pounds all on its own and is deliciously moist and chock full of all the goodies--candied cherries, almonds... that lovely boozy note (the one that peeks out and wave behind enough sugar to give even a dentist nightmares)... and that, my dears, is exactly what I get, heavy on the almonds. On: There's this faint. dry-wood-almond undertone with a glaze of fruit in it. After a moment, there's a hint of that boozy note, too. Drydown: Wow, definitely wish that I could get a hold of a bottle filled with this somehow. *drools* There's an interesting faint rum note, one which reminds me of Grog, in this, but there's also a sweet-sharp tang of those sugared fruits and buttery cake all whipped together into it. Like a really, really good kind of fruitcake. Downside: *is now really really hungry*

Imp: Mint, mint mint... and... fruit? On/wet: Fruity, juicy orange and just a little mint. But the orange!!! *mouth waters* On/drydown: Faint citrus with a sharp spike of mint in it--a little faint on me after drydown, but nice and refreshing.

In bottle: Honey-floral something. Jasmine? On/wet: honey and dry-ish jasmine, almond Drydown: Honey, jasmine aaaaand... apricot? Yummm. Really like this one all the way through, and especially the apricot hint on drydown~!

Imp: *chokes* This one is--um, I'm not sure what's in it, but it makes it smell metallic, like drying blood. The first association that this brings to mind is a hospital... and I hate hospitals. On: Really depressed, icky, seaside-horror-film-sanatorium. Metallic, dark, aquatic floral and blood or saltwater eroded iron. Drydown: Not going to risk it with this one, despite my general willingness to slather things on my skin. It's already terribly horrific on me. Time to wash off!!

Imp: Flat, dirty leather… strange spiciness On: Clean hospital room sheets and bleach. Blech. Drydown: Bleach, bleach, bleach. Combined with the leathery, spicy smell? ARGH!!!! I was looking forward to this one, too... Even if I wanted to smell like dirty leather, the bleach I'm getting from this would definitely make me run away. Particularly as I'm nearly as allergic to the actually substance as I seem to be to this at the moment. I don't know what's in it, but it's coming off NOW.