Ms. MSGirl

Since you guys are way more knowledgeable about scents and notes in perfume, I thought I'd ask for clarification of something. What does the note of "amber" smell like? And is it the same as the smell of "resin" or the smell of "incense" that people refer to in their reviews? I have a vanilla and amber perfume that I like a lot (coty's dulce vanilla), but I don't know if I'm smelling the amber in it after reading the reviews, such as of Aureus. And how, exactly, does the smell of patchouli differ from resin, incence, or amber? It is an incense, right? I also can't really imagine what frankincense or myrrh smell like. In case you can't tell, I haven't been able to make my first order yet, but I think about what I'm GOING to order nonstop, and I was wondering if someone could explain the differences among all these things. Obviously I just need to get me some imp's ears and smell away for myself -- just trying to figure out how to do that from Britain. Thanks for the mini-perfume lesson...

So I tried Angel again today when I was out shopping, after not having smelled it for a long time, and I really do love it. I adore all of the notes in it, the honey and chocolate and vanilla and spices, etc. etc. -- except for the patchouli, which fortunately I can't really smell in it at all! edited to say, here are the official notes I found somewhere: Thierry Mugler Angel perfume consists of: Top Notes: Fruits, dewberry, helonial, honey Heart Notes: Chocolate, caramel, coumarin Base Notes: Vanilla, patchouli What are helional and coumarin? I also read that it has notes of melons and plums... it's quite complex. So, what do you gals think? I am thinking it would be good with O, but I would love more suggestions. I am looking to emphasize the sweetness, but you all are so much more inventive about these things...

I too got samples of babykitty's "orangey-O" and "minty-O" samples, and I love, love love the "minty-O" one! To me it smells nothing like O, but rather like a slightly softened version of Snake Oil with an underlying buttery-minty note. I can smell the mint most strongly out of the vial, on me it works more in concert with the vanilla and spices. The overall effect is like Snake Oil + that note that some people have described as play-dough in Dana O'Shee, which I really love because it reminds me of Burt's Bees buttermilk-and-honey-scented baby lotion + a slight buttery mint. So it's fabulous! It's a creamy white version of Snake Oil, and it stays for ages. Thank you so much babykitty! this stuff is wonderful!!

So interesting, this one. I put it on and it was a quite sweet honey scent, but there was a note in it that reminded me of the slight herbal or green note that's in some of the Voodoo blends. Is that ylang ylang? Or myrrh? I wish I knew. I like it though, it cuts the sweetness when it's wet. It's been going back and forth between warm baby powder scent and faint sweet sexy honey scent all day long on me. I really like it. Wish it were stronger, and still probably like O better, but I do wish I had another imp of this to slather (I have to put on quite a lot to smell it on me).

In the vial, this was pure black currant, winey, ribena-smelling to me; but I put it on, and oh my god!!!!!!! It is so beautiful!! The sweetness of the black currant disappears into something so soft and tart and lovely -- I have no idea what the note is, I wish I did cause I've never smelled anything like it. I want to say it's some soft, clean floral like apple blossom, or orris, or jasmine, or violet.... like I said, I have no idea. I even smell maybe a touch of sweet grasses. It is just lots of juices blended together, apple and wheatgrass and aloe and I don't know what else. It gets faint very quickly, but this is absolutely gorgeous on. I might need a big bottle.

This was perfect for me, as I knew it would be. In the vial it is pina colada with a twist of lime. Going on, it is sweeter than I expected, with almost an almondy note while it's wet. Very creamy. I agree that there is definitely lots of pineapple and coconut cream. I will LOVE smelling like pina colada every day. I really might have to have a big bottle of this. I love the card, I love the sentiment, I love the smell, and I'm even an Aquarius. I want to stick a little drink umbrella into myself. It doesn't smell "beachy" to me like some people think, but just pure sweet drinky-drink goodness.

Going on, this smelled pretty much just like a pikaki single note to me, and was pretty heavy about it, which I like. As it began to dry it softened just a bit into a sweeter, creamier floral scent and the sharpness of the ginger faded a bit. It was lovely but after about 1 minute I had to stick my nose right into the crook of my elbow to smell it at all. I thought, oh well, but THEN! I went to the gym, and the heat and my sweating really brought it out on me, and a lady at the gym came up to me and said "I really love your fragrance, I just had to ask what it is!" So, although this is very faint, it is very very pretty and if it's really hot out it will really attract!

Thick, sugared and bloated with sweetness. Dark chocolate, vanilla, buttercream, and hops with pralines, hazelnut, toffee and caramel. I almost didn't try this, cause in the vial it was pretty awful, just really NUTTY and that sharp, dirty-chocolate smell that I really can't stand. But I'm so glad I did, because the second it touched my skin it became creamy, creamy, creamy, and just kept getting creamier as it dried. On my skin it smelled like soft, delicate, creamy, cinnamon-sprinkled cafe au lait. It had the richest bouquet, too -- it kept getting creamier, some cinnamon came out, and even some rich white creamy florals. I didn't smell so much straight chocolate as creamy spicy coffee -- it was wonderful. It has loads of staying power, scenting my skin with sugary sweetness all day long. I already agreed to swap it away, unfortunately, but this is one that I will be looking to re-acquire in a swap because it is beautiful on me. It's so weird how it smells so bad in the vial and so lovely on. Sheer magic. I've never smelled a foody scent as rich and complex as this one.

This is fun... If you like O and Gluttony, you must try Angel If you've ever layered small amounts of Zephyr + Queen Mab and thought "mm!", by all means try Dior Addict If you love O, smell the Amber candle from the White Barn candle co., or try Coty's Dulce Vanille perfume. If you dig the spiciness in Snake Oil, Old Morocco, and Unseelie, get your hands on some old school Guerlain like Shalimar or Samsara and if you like Unseelie, you'll love estee lauder's Youth Dew If you like Othello, try Pi (a surprisingly sweet men's fragrance) If you like Dana O'Shee, try Demeter's Sugar Cookie

I LOVE Old Morocco, so I was just elated to find this as an extra with my order that recently arrived!! I had been wanting to try it for a while -- thank you beth and crew!!!!!!!!!!! This is indeed spicy sandy hot and dry like Old Morocco, and in order to compare them the following SAT-style analogy seems very apt. Old Morocco is to Snake Oil as Scherezade is to Black Phoenix. That is to say, these former perfumes take out the spices and isolate them, without the vanillas and the almonds and the juiciness of the latter ones. Scherezade is just the dry, incensey spices of Black Phoenix, without any of the cherry or nutty notes that it also has. Which means, it has a different set of spices from that in Old Morocco -- to my nose, Old Morocco has Snake Oil's spices, and this has Black Phoenix's spices. Does that make sense? If you are a fiend for really strong incensey fragrances, I would strongly recommend layering this with Black Phoenix or Spellbound to kick up the incense in those. The combo would be knock your socks off hippie shop lovely. I think, despite the analogy above , that I will layer it with Snake Oil. I love layering Snake Oil with Old Morocco, too, but I think this would be great sweetened up with it as well. It is dry, dry, dry as it dries down, downright sun-baked and windswept. I think in the end I prefer Old Morocco, but this is an amazing foray into just how hot and dry perfume spices can be. It makes me feel so exotic and mysterious..... mmmmm! thank you so much for the chance to try it!

I can't believe I didn't try this before. Someone recommended it to fans of Queen Mab, so I tried it, and OH DEAR GODDESS. This is quite simply the most beautiful floral I have ever smelled. It goes on like a warm, thick summer evening, initially sweet and dark, and dries out into more freshness, almost but not quite a touch of lemon. I compared it with Queen Mab immediately, because I loved it so I wanted to see why Queen Mab had previously been my favorite and how similar they were. Queen Mab is much dryer, much woodier and sandalwoodier to me. This doesn't have that woodiness, it's just the most divine, dark, flowers I have ever smelled. If Midnight is anything like this I am going to love it. I can't believe I just now tried this for the first time. It is exquisite. It is all the beauty and strength of Queen Mab, only sweeter. Must be the apple blossom making the difference -- and the orchid must be the divine thick heady smell I smell. I truly don't think I've ever smelled a BPAL scent I adored as much as this one. I know it is probably redundant to have big bottles of both this and Queen Mab, but I don't care. I've got to get one. This is too beautiful for words.

Alice is the creamy soft rose, to be sure, and while I love it, I got even more of that innocently sexy, first-time-ever-to-feel-sexy-and-recognize-it-as-such, first blush, thirteen feeling from Old London. It's a very pretty rose, with maybe some woods or something in it. I think a rose + amber scent would be amazing, you could get some single notes and layer -- or what about O with Old London?

Everyone said, Oh, you've got to try this if you want to smell like the beach, so I did! Wet, it had a very strong piney scent, quite masculine, and I wasn't sure if I'd like it. But when it started to dry, a sharp, crisp mint note came out, and that was about all I got for a while. It's still pretty masculine, but it had started to sweeten up the longer I wore it, fading eventually to a faint sweetness on my wrist, though I could still detect the mint. I can't say I ever really smelled salt or sea in this, but it did definitely smell beachy. Because of the mintiness and the sweetness in the drydown, I think this layers beautifully with Tarot: the Fool. The Fool gives it a bit of JUICE from the fruity/appleblossom note in it, while playing up the mint and the herbiness, and bringing out the salt/sea smell in more complexity. The combination of the two in a beautiful summer blend. I can't wait to try this with Tarot: the Star, for what I've heard is the ultimate beach combination. I would love to smell this on a guy, but he'd have to be young and lithe and outdoorsy -- rawr.

I am so lucky to get to try this -- my first up-and-coming scent ever! -- from the lovely jj_j! I love it -- it is green and yellow and clean and simply, daffodil. Like the apple blossom single note I've tried, it is very green -- I definitely see the stalk and the leaves as well as the flower. I like that though; it's daffodil, it's not supposed to be really sweet. It does have a sweetness to it, though, that makes me realize I never really knew what a daffodil smelt like until now. Yeah, I will love wearing this, because it introduced me to a flower I really love the scent of, that I never knew I did before. I was walking by a window box the day after I first tried this, and I caught the scent of daffodils -- the essence of spring. Wearing it will be even better.

In the vial to me this was pure grapefruit, but on my skin it was so much more. It initially has a spiciness that reminds me of the clove in March Hare, that same combo of tart fruit and soft spice that works so wonderfully on my skin (March Hare has a fleeting lemony note on me, and this has that same wonderful interplay of citrus and spice). Then, as it dries down more, this unspeakably gorgeous softness comes through... I have no idea if it's the chamomile or the lavender or what, but it's not like any lavender I've ever smelled before, it's young and fresh and OOOOOOOOOOOOh I just want more and more of this smell!! As I slather on more and more, I do get the mint, but beautifully blended into that other gorgeous soft smell. The grapefruit has *almost* become secondary by now, just giving the other notes a canvas on which to play. This is like the very best aspects of Baobhan Sith and Veil put together (I assume that soft smell must be lavender, but I like it so much better here than I've ever liked it before). So in other words, this is beautiful!!! THANK YOU so, so so much, Beth, for this amazing freebie imp in my order -- it has made my day gorgeous!!

I get an absolutely wonderful honey chocolate rose, that has all kinds of variations, by wearing Lush's Soft Coeur honey-scented massage bar on my pulse points with BPAL rose-scented oils. This is lovely and spicy with Othello, pure and simple with Old London, ultra creamy with Alice, sweet goodness with Eve... I also layer the BPAL rose scents with a single note of Tonka bean or a single note of Honey, and with MMU honey-scented lotions. This is one of my favorite combos to play around with -- all of your suggestions sound luscious!

This is pretty, chaotic, and exuberant to me. Quite a bit minty, a little bit bubblegum-sweet, a little bit apple blossom, a little bit herbal. All together that makes it very subtle and agreeable, something I could wear every day only for me and never ever care if anyone complimented me on my perfume or not. It's not there to be noticed, it's there to make me feel happy and sweet-smelling. The mint may be predominant in this -- I even think it feels minty on my skin. But there is a fruity sweetness that is very strong as well, that fluctuates between bubble gum and apple blossom and some other mixed fruits, like the coolness of the fruit aisle of the grocery store. This is a very summery, feel-cooler scent, that makes me think of sipping some brightly colored artificially flavored RED drink, like one of those old-school Slush Puppies, spritzed with a little fizzy soda and some vodka or something, sprawled out on the dirt and grass in the shade of a fragrant tree. It's a barefoot back home in Mississippi scent, with elements I never would have thought of putting all together in a perfume. I would be really happy to wear more and more of this! I can't wait to try lots of other Tarot oils if they're all this subtle and interesting, which they certainly seem to be from the reviews.

what a great topic! i think a good variety sampler pack would be: snake oil - the sexy vanilla one the raven or old sybaris - the violet one blood rose - the rose one and the dragon's blood resin one o - o kumiho, old shanghai, hakkotsu, or embalming fluid - the clean crisp one and for the last one, one of the really complex tour de force new ones: desire, kali, nephilim, or one of the kindly ones.

Wow, like I said, I am obsessed with smelling like the beach, and up till now I had never paid much attention to the reviews of Jolly Roger because it wasn't a sweet, foody scent like the ones I usually go for. But with everyone saying it was beachy, I just read them, and damn! On to my wish list it goes, and near the top too. That scent sounds like something that would seriously improve my quality of life. I am always longing for the water. It even sounds like it has a chance of going sweeter on me -- I absolutely adore the Burt's Bees Bay Rum soap for men. (might have to try baron samedi and old port au prince for this, too!)

I am obsessed with beachy smells at the moment. Can't wait to get my hands on Tarot: The Star, as I hear it is the beachiest one. I have Pele coming in the mail, too!! I love Tempest, it is very clean as well as grapefruity but not so much sun + sand for me as just cleanness. It has something deeper to it that makes it smell tropical and mysterious, too, like island pines or palms. I actually think Old Morocco smells beachy. I get a very hot and sunny sandy vibe from it (I know the idea is desert, not beach, but it is just so hot); I have been wearing it on hot days this summer and I think it's just luscious. It's not that it smells _like_ the beach, but it definitely smells like _I_ want to smell when I am at the beach. Other ones that smell like I want to smell at the beach are all the sweet, foody ones like O (also Dana O'Shee and Snake Oil, which I actually think is gorgeous in hot weather). Zephyr is really watery on me too, with a touch of vanilla that could be beachy. It's always hard to divide the beachy from the dryer sheet, though -- that's the territory both Tempest and Zephyr threaten to infringe on. The other smell that definitely reminds me of the beach is fig, for some reason, and so Carnal with its citrussy sweetness and fig is a perfect beach one for me. I just need to take myself to the beach dammit!!

This is like that amazing smell coming from your box of imps. Initially going on, it is the very dry musky rose of Spellbound, with a soft resiny or woodiness coming through as it dries. Not at all creamy or too white on me, although some of the sharpness of the florals does put me in mind of Queen of Hearts. Its initial sweetness dissipates and it ends up being very very fresh and almost piney to me, like the woods in the summertime. It's got a lot going on, something for everyone I would say, which is why it's like that great smell coming from your box of imps. It's got staying power out the wazoo, too, and I really like it for summer -- less sweet and feminine, which is what I sometimes feel like on outdoorsy days. I am even getting a kind of woody cologny note from it which reminds me of the crossdressing, ladykiller Viola. I don't like the drydown quite as much as the wet flowery phase, but it's a definite keeper, along with Rosalind and Tempest, under the category of fresh outdoorsy scents.

This scent makes me wish I had waited to make an order of 5 mLs, so I could have ordered this one. When I smelled Alice, I thought I had found the sweet candied rose that would be my most-wanted scent. But this proved me wrong; this is the sultry come-hither vibe of Blood Rose combined with the sweet aquatic innocence of Ophelia to me. It really smells a great deal like Blood Rose + Ophelia -- all the sweet fruity candied rosiness, with some sultry purple fruitiness thrown in there too. I really want a bottle of this. So the drydown is a bit powdery, so what? It is beautiful, and I don't know what I will do now that I've used almost all my imp. If anyone has a 5 mL of Persephone they would like to swap, I have several 5mL's coming in the mail, watch for my swaps post! Edited after wearing for a full day: I actually have come to think that I may in the end prefer Blood Rose to this one. It had good staying power, though not as great as Blood Rose's, and it might have been a little too soft and Ophelia like and not quite enough juicy rose-like for my tastes. I would still love a 5 ml but I think I will definitely get a 5 ml of Blood Rose first/too. Also, I don't even remember writing this post! is drunk reviewing a problem for anyone else on here?!

This is a lovely surprise, SO much more to me than ozone and a storm coming... in the vial, it is the sweetest, loveliest aquatic I've ever smelled. On my wrists, it's very citrusy. As I wait after dabbing it on I can smell the ozone coming out just a tiny bit more. But it's still beautifully citrusy, sharpened by a bit of fragrant wood -- maybe the pine others have suggested, maybe balsam or cedar. As it dries it veers a bit close to dryer-sheet territory, but that is something I honestly don't mind in a perfume. I *like* smelling clean, and clean this is. With the citrus plus the pine plus the ozone, it really does smell like freshly washed white sheets drying in the sun and breeze, but it also smells like the surf on a tropical island... all in all it's a lovely clean citrus scent, one I will love wearing. ETA: That is if I hadn't just spilled my entire imp all over my legs in an attempt to get more on the outside of the back of my upper arm..... oh well, I smell really good now!

This is a wicked, cool scent that I didn't really give the time of day when I first got it. But it's very complex and neat, if not exactly my type of every day fragrance. in the vial, it smells like GRAPE JUICE. Juicy, purple Welch's. I like that, though. On, the grape juice quickly turns into a nice red rose, pretty deep but still sweetened by the grape juice, which is great cause some of the rose scents (Spellbound, The Empress) can get too dry for me. I don't know if this smells like strictly evening to me; I'm about to wear it to a garden party in the middle of the day, but I do think it smells dressy. Which means I'll probably wear it with a tank top and jeans to run to the store on weekends -- I love wearing vampy scents out of context. I think this one will be great as a sweet, sexy rose.

OH ok! that explains why my reply to you bounced! I will just wait! sorry to bug you! hope you get it sorted out soon! xx