marared

Decant. Whack o' cherry right out of the imp, and then it turns into Red Hots candy and stays there. Verbena doesn't stand a chance. It's even stamping out the patchouli, and that's tough to do. I am going to assume at this point that cinnamon must be another note that my skin likes to amp, because I had the same experience with Bakeneko - all that goodness just turned into HELLO CINNAMON BABY. It also itches just a tiny bit, which is the first time I've had any kind of skin reaction to an oil. It's pretty insignificant, but it's there. I'm glad I didn't go for the whole bottle...

I got this as a freebie. When I popped the cap, I wrinkled my nose at the sour smell, which almost reminded me of the unpleasantness of Queen Alice, and wondered if it had wine in it. Went to look up the notes, and yep, it's got booze. I bravely tried it on my arm, prepared to wash it off in a hurry and ... Rose and mint. A very well behaved rose and mint, come to that. It's almost like one of those after-dinner mints you get in some restaurants, at least on fresh application. It gets a little more orange-blossom as it dries, but the mint lingers. Oddly, I never smell the rosemary in any of the blends that contain them. Which is probably not a bad thing, since I can only tolerate rosemary the herb in very small quantities.

It's funny how most people think of New York State as an industrial metropolis all over, when most of the state is ... farmland. Following the Thruway? Buffalo, cows, Rochester, cows, Syracuse, cows, Utica, cows, Albany, cows, Poughkeepsie... okay, more like mountains and river there, and then you get NYC. But there's a whoooole lotta farm country. That said, I'm not sure myself what silage smells like from experience - because, you know, cows.

This is a lovely warm nutty smell - it's almost like really good maple syrup over walnuts, or maybe candied walnuts - just not quite so *sweet*. I can't quite call it a favorite, but it's definitely a keeper for the time being, as it's a warm scent that's a little different from my usual.

The Phantom Calliope? Having finally got a decant - this definitely ain't it. I think the cocoa butter must be crucial to the scent, in the end...

The Phantom Calliope? A few months later I actually see this response. lol. That's one of the scents I have been considering, but the reviews mostly seem to point out the cherry, and I'm afraid of the patchouli - at least in terms of trying to match the scent. And it's not impable, so I'm waffling on whether to buy a bottle and hope I like it even if it's not at all like YSTW... Just give Bordello a try! The description of Bordello terrifies me - as much as I love the Lab's plum, the amaretto/almond and booze are two of my biggest scent-dislikes. I think what I'm looking for - having gone and sniffed what remains of my YSTW bar again - is a scent that's predominantly fruity - black currant with an undercurrent of chocolate and bergamot. If Marianne had cocoa notes, that might almost do the trick. Yeah. Black currant, bergamot, and cocoa! *flutters eyelashes at the Labbies*

Frimp. It was nice in the imp - a vaguely floral, vaguely vanilla mix - but unfortunately, it smells a bit like a scented plastic doll on my skin. I'm going to stuff it away to try in a few more weeks...

Frimp from the lab - I'm glad, because I've been interested in trying an appley scent and hadn't settled on a place to start. This is pretty much all apple blossom and hyacinth, with an underpinning of ... well, I've never sniffed dragon blood resin, so I'm not sure if it's that or the musk, or if the two have blended so seamlessly I can't tell them apart. I actually like this very much, despite it being more floral than I would normally enjoy. Hell of a throw, too.

Given that this is very dark with lots of patchouli, it's a given that I'm going to have to revisit this in a few weeks for a better idea of what this is REALLY going to smell like. What this smells like to me right now is of hot smoke and ashes - but of the productive variety. It smells very much like the air in a reconstructed 18th/19th century village or plantation, where people actively engage in jobs of the time like smithing, woodworking, etc, and many of them have open flames -- this reminds me of the sooty smell of people working hard in an older time. Except now that I've written that, there's a flower trying to push its way through...

Frimp! In the imp: a Renaissance faire mix of sweet wine and sweet cider left in the sun for hours and gone sour. Makes my nose twitch. On me: it's not quite *as* sour and I smell the carnation, but again, it smells like it's been sitting in the sun too long, rather than the hothouse fragance of other carnation blends I've smelled. Maybe this'll improve with time, but right now, it's pretty blech to my nose. Edit: wow, this is tough to scrub off, too. It took two thorough soapings just for one swipe of the wand.

This is probably the most morphingest scent I've yet tried from BPAL. In the bottle: fresh slightly squished blueberries with vanilla ice cream. Immediately on me: black licorice. Which is odd, because there's no anise in the blend! A few minutes later: vanilla and ginger. (there's supposed to be blueberry and currant in this! why can't I smell it anywhere other than in the bottle?) Fifteen minutes later, blueberry tea. I think I shall set this one aside, sadly...

I've started stalking ebay for "Warm Apple Crisp" which was my mom's favorite candle - the alternatives I've found for her are not quite the same, she says. What would be the BPAL comparison to that, I wonder? I can't seem to find the notes for it, possibly because it's been discontinued for a few years now. (Aha, it's Crisp, not Pie, and it's available on the net!) Baking apples, brown sugar and spices. Samhain seems to be closest, but it's got pumpkin in it. Maybe the Halloweenies will have something. I really like their Spiced Pumpkin Pie and Autumn Harvest - I have the latter in a reed jar in my bathroom, and then I have Greenhouse in my kitchen with a leaf of basil from my balcony laid on top.

Another warm, sweet and spicy frimp from the lab. This one has been on my "maybe" list for a while - I'm very wary of rose because I tend to amp it, but the honey and the orange keep it from overloading my olfactory gears. In fact, the orange plus the rose is an interesting combination and I keep inhaling it every minute or two, trying to wrap my brain around it. I don't think this is a bottle purchase, but it's a fascinating scent that I'm glad I got to try.

Frimp! Based on the frimps I've gotten this batch, I think the lab is catering to my love of warm spicy scents and has been passing on variations that I might not have considered. This one is definitely mandarin and magnolia. Magnolia can be pretty loud (I can smell a tree from fifty feet away when it's got 15-20 blossoms open) but it's not TOO loud in this, thankfully - and the mandarin and the musk keep it sweet and spicy. I bet this is going to be awesome in about a month.

Another frimp. This is kind of smoky and dirty on my skin - burnt lavender incense is what it makes me think of right off the bat. This would be something I'd put in an oil burner to scent the room, rather than as a perfume for myself.

Frimp from the lab. I whimpered when I saw five roses plus jasmine in the description, because it was almost guaranteed to be too heady for me. And it's definitely HELLO JASMINE! straight out of the imp and freshly applied on my wrist. The vanilla, the coffee, and the mahogany are waaaay down in there, so far that I wouldn't have noticed them if I wasn't looking for them. Fig is too delicate a scent to stand up in this. Heady flowers like this just don't work on me, I'm afraid - they overwhelm everything else.

The dominant note straight out of the bottle is tobacco, but it's not in-your-face tobacco - the herby things start clamoring for attention almost right away. I can smell the lavender and the neroli in particular, and I'm pretty sure that's moonflower, but the resins and the woods don't come out so much - they seem to be *grounding* the scent, and the herbs/flowers provide the personality. It's kind of like walking through wet woods at twilight. I like it, but I'm not 100% sure this is a keeper - but I'm going to keep trying it every week or so for a while and see how it changes. (Mead Moon didn't really excite me at first either, but it just got better and better with time.) Edit to add that I definitely like this better as time goes by. I've been layering it with Red Moon for a lovely close-to-the-skin numminess.

CCCV = 305? Mine is a somewhat strong, sweet fruit-and-flower blend that I would classify as a very tropical scent. The fruit is very bright - a sweet citrus that gets stronger and stronger as it dries and pushes the flowers into the background. I think there might be a touch of rose in it, but it's not heady at all. ...I kinda like this! Later edit: nope, didn't work on my skin. The fruit went off, if you know what I mean - not quite sour, but it went kinda plasticky. It smells great in the bottle, but not on me!

I thought from the notes that I would be head over heels in love with this - spicy citrus is emphatically my favorite type of scent, and I lovelovelove satsumas/clementines/mandarins (and Body Shop's Satsuma lotion makes people walk over to me and inhale) - this was so perfect that I bought the bottle before I even got the imp in a swap. ...unfortunately, I didn't quite love it nearly as much as I thought I should - the cinnamon and the tea totally overpower the citrus to slap me in the face. I do like it, but I prefer the citrus to be the more dominant note. I have the feeling that this is something that I would have enjoyed more while it was fresh.

Apparently I completely neglected to review this! This was in the first imp pack I ever ordered, and I just bought a bottle because it turned out to be exactly the kind of warm spicy smell that I love, and the carnation gives it a lot of depth. I see why people think it's vanilla-ey, but it doesn't have quite the same sweet undertone that vanilla gives most of the scents I've tried. It doesn't have a whole lot of throw - it's the sort of thing I can slather and put in my hair, and not announce my presence from several feet away, but neither does my skin suck it up to the point that it's gone after a few minutes. It's already very mellow and smooth, I can't imagine that aging would change it dramatically.

This reminds me a bit of Dionysia, without quite so much of the sexual whack to it. It's a red scent instead of purple, and the dragon's blood resin is a different kind of spice, but it's the same type of glorious morph that starts out kinda fruity and dries into a lovely warm incense. I really like this and I think I will be keeping my eyes out for a bottle.

Dryer sheets indeed, and I *wish* I had dryer sheets that smelled like this. The reviews are pretty spot-on: light floral, pink, feminine, very slightly aquatic. I knew this would be girly but was hoping it wouldn't be TOO girly, which I'm afraid it might be in the end. I like it, it's just not exactly me.

Now this is an interesting light fruit-floral. It sort of reminds me a bit of Fae, but where Fae sparkles, this kinda ... sashays. It starts out more fruit than floral, but it morphs quite a bit as it dries to incense. I like it a lot - it's very well blended and is reminiscent of something you'd find in an actual perfumery. I'm not reeeally certain I'd want a bottle of this, but I'm definitely going to revisit it in a few weeks and see how the aging process affects it. ADDED Nov. 29: I got a well-aged bottle of this today (cobalt), and wow, this has some serious throw and lasting power. The throw isn't as bad after an hour, but I dabbed my wrists twelve hours ago and the scent is still very noticeable. The scent doesn't really change from the lab-fresh version I originally reviewed - sweet incense with a little floral and a lot of citrus - but it's gotten much louder and stronger with age.

Lab frimp! In the imp: there's a lot more than "faint hint" of leather! Whew! Freshly applied: the vetiver immediately starts fighting for dominance. Cannot yet smell the rose, the gardenia, or the cinnamon. A few minutes later, I can pick out the rose and the gardenia. The cinnamon starts out at the very tail end of the aroma, hiding underneath everything else and you'd never know it was there at first, but it slowly pushes it way forward as time goes by. Thankfully, the rose and gardenia don't dominate, because they're normally too heady for my liking, but here they soften the edge of the leather and the vetiver.

In the decant, Snow Moon smells vaguely piney and not much else, but immediately upon application to skin, it starts acquiring some complexity. Now, I'm not a big fan of evergreen type scents (it's one of those things that I enjoy smelling for real, but it always seems to lack something in a bottle), but it's got an interesting floral background that I thought would keep it from being too ... piney. My initial impression was that of walking through snowy woods. As it dries, the evergreen steps into the background and the flowers come out - it's a surprisingly warm aroma, but certainly more suitable for that time of year than midsummer. I think I'll hang on to it for Christmas parties.