pamplemousse

XCIII (93) In the bottle: O, perhaps a bit lighter than regular O, with honey note most prominent. Wet on skin: O plus some florals (my nose is bad at identifying specific floral notes unless they are hugely amped, but I know there's no gardenia in here). It's a lot like O + Et Lux Fuit. Drydown: Initially, very floral, but as drydown continues, the honey and vanilla and a bit of amber come back out, so that gradually it becomes a well-blended mix of florals and O. The next morning, I could still smell it lightly on my wrist. It's very pretty, very feminine, sophisticated. I'd have preferred a foodier O blend, but this is pretty.

I actually put some White Chocolate/Sugared Violets on one arm and IoE Violet's Dream Come True bath cream on the other, and had I not known which arm I'd put which on, I don't think I'd have been able to tell the difference. I like, but don't love, both of those -- in fact, there is something about each of them that I actively dislike -- but yet I find myself using that bath cream pretty regularly. I am actually considering buying a bottle of the BPAL scent. (Hmm.. maybe a partial would satisfy me well enough.)

Pumpkin with mango, persimmon, coconut, and myrrh. On me, this goes on mostly persimmon and coconut. It seems almost like some apple sneaks in there, even though it's not listed as a note. I'm happy with how long the coconut seems to linger in the scent. BPAL coconut notes tend to announce themselves big on my skin but after a few minutes they run off and never come back. So far that hasn't happened with this one, and it's been a few hours since I applied. Nice! I think it's my favorite pumpkin this year.

This is the first CD Act IV scent that's loved me back! To me this is very much like a peach version of Vice. Soft, delicate, fruity, chocolatey. It smells wetly delectable. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a lot of staying power on me -- maybe 2 hours, max. I'm going to try it in a scent locket to see if I can make it last longer, and will also try making a parfum spray. This will be a bottle purchase for me.

I don't know why I've been having such terrible luck with CD acts IV and V, but on me this smells like taking cinnamon and pine tree car air fresheners and rubbing them on my skin. At first it's all pine, and then it's all cinnamon. If there was vanilla in my imp, it ran away. Such a lovely idea, though! I really, really *want* to like it. I just don't like it on me, and the cinnamon is too strong for a room fragrance for me. Waaaah!

I was hoping this would be a rich and complex scent with beeswax at the center (I luuuuurve beeswax), but on me this is 90% lily of the valley with just a hint of the nectarine and green tea. I don't smell any beeswax at all. I think that lots of people will love this, but it's not for me.

Me, too! All the notes I didn't want to amp came out on me, and all the ones I wanted to smell vanished. This one is going to have to go to the swap pile, I think. I am so disappointed!

I loved this in the imp. It was pure caramel for about the first 10 minutes on my skin. And then when that went away, a strange incensey smell came out, even though there's no incense in this blend. I smell like church. Like being by yourself in an old church, with sunlight coming in and warming up the wooden pews, and looking inside old wooden cabinets and smelling that slightly musty old-cabinet church smell with just a whiff of Holy Water. How strange is that? It's not really unpleasant, but it's definitely not what I was expecting.

Oh, I'm so sad -- this is all patchouli and moss on me, with no violet at all. Off to the swap pile...

I never expected this to work on me, but oh my goodness it is brilliant, and one of my top ten for sure. This starts out being pink candy floss in the bottle and wet on my skin (I didn't get any of the "vanilla cake" scent mentioned by other posters). It dries into a cherry-blossom sweetness with just a hint of guava. Normally my skin amps the heck out of grapefruit, but fortunately it doesn't here. This is sweet and gentle and 100% girl. I adore it.

In the imp, this is possibly the single sweetest scent I've ever smelled. But I like sugar, so that's OK with me! On, the pure sugar rush faded into a melange of fruitiness. Definitely a fruit-punch kind of scent. On me, the rum didn't come out at all in any stage of wear, and I think that's probably good. Eventually, this dries into a general fruity sweetness in which it is impossible for me to pick out individual notes. However, it's the best balanced of the fruity Tikis I've tried, without any single notes coming out and punching you in the nose. I'm thoroughly on the fence about whether to order a bottle of this or not.

So far, this is my favorite Tiki blend. The vanilla orchid is LOVELY. It reminds me of the vanilla/marshmallow-y smell in TKO (but not quite as sweet) and I wonder if there just might be vanilla orchid in TKO. I love the vanilla orchid so much that I almost resent the sharpness of the ginger in the blend. However, with wear the ginger seems to lose its bite and I'm hoping that it's the vanilla orchid that will be dominant in the sillage. I'm hoping it doesn't go plastic on me, though... <crosses fingers>

In the imp, this is sweet syrup with a splash of grapefruit, but on me this starts and finishes almost as SN Grapefruit. If there's anything else in here, I absolutely can't pick it out on my skin. How strange! I finally had to wash it off after about 2 hours because there was just too much grapefruit all over the place. I need to try it again sometime, because everyone else's reviews sound so delicious that I'm wondering if my skin chemistry is going wonky, what with the phase of the moon and all.

In the imp, this was all black cherry and almond -- and distinctly black cherry, too, not maraschino or Bing. I love how Beth can get the exact scent of something (her apple scents are particularly good this way, I think -- you can easily tell the red apples from the green just by sniffing). Wet on my skin, the almond takes over (as it always does on me), but as it dries it recedes and leaves the cherry dominant. At this point it's definitely a cherry Coke scent on me, which I don't mind. However -- as drydown continues, the cherries get kicked out of the way by a massive invasion of lime, which sets up shop and never leaves. By an hour after I've put it on, this has become all lime, all the time. An interesting scent, but not right for me...

Unlike the previous posters, I can smell the gin in this one from miles away. (Not that that's necessarily a bad thing!) For me this ends up being mostly tangerine and gin when it's wet on my skin and in the initial stages of drydown. I love passion fruit and guava and really wanted those notes to come out more in the blend. On drydown, it becomes substantially less sweet on me, and subsides into a stale boozy aroma with a hint of tangerine. I really wanted to love this and it's a pity that I can't quite get there.

Testing newly-arrived decants! This was one for which I had super-high hopes. In the imp and wet on my skin it is a delicious sweet pineapple with a hint of rum. I mean, want-to-lick-your-arm, expecting-sticky-yellow-juices-to-be-dripping-down-it, sweet pineapple. As it dries on my skin, the intensity of the pineapple fades and I get some of the spice from the spiced rum. And then a strange thing happens, after about 20 minutes -- it disappears completely on my skin. I love this, but will evidently need to wear it in a scent locket. Sigh... probably no bottle purchase of this one for me.

I had indescribable love for this for the first hour I wore it. Sweet but not cloying, a beautiful mix of fruity apricot goodness, vanilla, and jasmine. Perfect, really. I wasn't so much of a fan of the apricot brandy in Grand Guignol, but I loved this apricot. Feminine, floral, fruity, FABULOUS. For the first hour. Then... plastic. Or, as others said, wax. I will definitely try this in a scent locket or in a candle or in my hair, though, because the initial phase is beautiful.

Of the ones you list, the darkest scent on me is Gluttony (which is surprisingly non-foody on me, just so you know). It is more like dusty baking cocoa than anything else. The cream in the Candy Butcher scent behaves (at least on me) the way that all the other cream scents do, so if you don't like the cream in, say, Love's Philosophy or Beaver Moon 07 or MB: BloodyMary or any of the others that have a cream undertone, then you may not like Candy Butcher so much. The chocolate in that one is both sweet and dark, though; I like it a lot. Bliss is definitely milk chocolatey. For me, that's heaven in a bottle. I also really like El Dia de Reyes, which is more of a chocolate-coffee-mocha thing -- I don't know how you feel about the possible addition of coffee to your scent, but this is a spicy, slightly bitter chocolate that also has some sweetness without it being overpowering.

Galleywest, it's not just you. I really wanted this to work for me, but on me it is unimaginably awful. On me there is something like dusty, rotting wood. The only connection with grapes I can make is possibly being trapped in a winery basement. I have friends who love this, so I dunno what's going on. I am so sad! Maybe if I age it? Edited to add: I thought maybe it was just that imp, so I acquired another one, and it's just the same on me.

I got this as a freebie imp with purchase; have worn it twice now and still can't decide if I like it! I'm not normally a floral girl, so the sweet pea in here is not my usual thing -- and on me it's almost entirely sweet pea and no vanilla that I can detect. The scent is soft enough at first that I thought that it would be gone off me inside an hour. But once it dried down it hasn't seemed to diminish much -- it was never strong to start out with but what strength it had seems to be unchanged several hours later. I think this might grow on me over time, and it will be lovely for Spring. Like some of the other posters, I'm also going to try it in a scent locket. Would also be lovely for scenting a lingerie drawer, I think.