Shollin

First sniff: Warm furry darkness with a squeeze of lime. Wearing: Well, so much for the lime. Now it’s all spicy dark and it’s going a little bit funky underneath.

First sniff: Warm wood and cold dry dirt. It’s a dusty scent rather than the moist potting-soil of Graveyard Dirt. Wearing: So here’s the thing. I’m extremely claustrophobic. And there are few things that wig me out more than the thought of being buried alive. It’s happened on Buffy, it’s happened on CSI, it’s apparently happening next week on Bones… and inevitably, after watching said episodes, I have a really hard time sleeping for a couple of nights. The actual scent of Premature Burial is rather nicer than I expected; I generally don’t do dirt, but this has just enough warm wood to be pleasant. But it makes me think about the reference, and as such, it’s far too creepy for me to enjoy wearing.

First sniff: It’s a big, enveloping scent, but it’s much lighter than I expected. The scent is quite strong from the vial, but the overall impression is lightness. I’m not explaining this well. Wearing: Oh, don’t go soapy right away! Give me a couple hours’ enjoyment, at least? No? *pout*

First sniff: Like being nestled in the center of an enormous pink flower with soft fluffy petals. Beside a stream. Wearing: It’s tiptoeing right on the edge of being too sweet, but I think it’ll be OK. It’s very pink and poofy. Alas, it didn’t hang around long enough for me to really like it.

First sniff: I first smelled Usher in an enormous jug when I visited the Lab back in February and dubbed it a Definite Guy Scent. In this much smaller quantity, it’s hard to get a handle on, but it reminds me of rain and grass. Wearing: Mint! Soft white mint and watery green.

First sniff: Sylph is a beautiful, pale green, floaty scent with a tiny-bit-minty aftertaste. It’s quite subtle. Wearing: It’s quite a bit mintier on me, and still decidedly green.

Scent: The scent is dark and resinous, but I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to the way it smelled. Usage: I’m trying to lose weight… I’m only about 30 pounds above what I should be, but I’m having a very hard time fighting off snack attacks that jump me when I’m not hungry at all. I anointed a piece of seashell with Determination and asked it to be my anchor, my focus… my magic feather, so to speak. Results: I carry the shell in my pocket and touch it when the cravings hit, and it seems to ground me. The scent is actually clinging to the shell quite well several days later, and it’s another reminder of what I'm trying to accomplish.

From a posting in Walking the Old Paths many months ago: I went to my first UU service this morning, and I think it fits. The Yakima Valley is officially about a third Hispanic (unofficially probably more than that), so Dia de los Muertos is a big thing around here. The service this morning talked a lot about the cycle of life and death, and about the traditions of Dia de los Muertos. And then La Catrina paid us a visit. Sound familiar? That's from Beth's description of the Dia de los Muertos scent. I never quite got it before. La Catrina, as she appeared to us, is the skeleton of a fancy lady dressed up to go to a ball. She came down the aisle wearing a big frilly hat and waving a fan, wearing skeleton gloves and skeletal face paint. She curtsied to us and pulled a few people out of the congregation to dance with her, both men and women, and several couples got up on their own to join the dance as a Spanish ballad played. When I first arrived at the church, one of the greeters mentioned that it was going to be an unusual service. And it was, and I loved it. I was raised in the Episcopal church, and I still enjoy their services for the most part, but there are always things that seem wrong. The main thing that got me thinking about the UU church is that the man I plan to marry was raised Muslim, and I really want our family to have a shared spiritual life. He came to midnight Mass with me last Christmas, and while he enjoyed the music, a lot of the service made him very uncomfortable because it just isn't what he believes. I imagine it'd be the same for me if I joined him for Friday prayers. But based on this morning's service, I think we could both be quite happy in UU. It isn't often that I'm in town on a Sunday morning, but I plan to go back. Edit 'cause I totally forgot to comment on the music.

First sniff: Freezing-cold crunchy-snow piney piney piney. Winter in a vial. And all the flowers that are supposed to be in here are completely swallowed up in pine. Wearing: Well, now the flowers are showing up, and they’re… soapy. Goldangit! One of these days I’ll find a cold pine scent I can actually wear.

First sniff: Yikes, that’s sweet. (For the Lush fans, we’re talking Rock Star soap sweet. Creamy Candy Bath sweet.) Very pink and very loud and very sweet. Wearing: It’s just way too sickly-sweet. I’m 0-for-3 on the Phoenixes.

Butterfly Effect D: The oil is pale blue, a color I haven’t seen very often. First sniff: It’s lavender, pure herbal lavender. Wearing: And on me it’s not even remotely lavender. Yay for weird chemistry! It’s more of a sweet soft floral… and it dries to a faint something-fruity that might be peach? It sounds gorgeous, and it was, but for a sadly brief period of time. Last reviewed by cranberry.

Ha! I actually forgot the second-coolest part of the service. (La Catrina very much took the cake.) The pianist. The music in general, but specifically, the things the pianist chose for prelude/background music. The prelude? Masquerade. From Phantom of the Opera. During the children's pumpkin processional, she was playing the Harry Potter theme (which is spooky on the piano), and when she got done with that, she went into the Imperial March. As in, Star Wars. Darth Vader's theme. Yeah. We sang the Doxology (a genericized version with no specific mention of God) in English and then in Spanish. And the closing hymn was "My Life Flows On in Endless Song," which was a Quaker hymn before Enya put it on her Shepherd Moons album as "How Can I Keep From Singing?" I've had it in my head all day. I've been thinking about the service in general all day. I think this is a good sign. Ooh... I found the Unitarian Doxology on Wikipedia. From all that dwell below the skies let songs of hope and faith arise; let beauty, truth, and good be sung through every land, by every tongue.

First sniff: Deep, dark, fruity-resiny. Wearing: I have no idea why it took me so long to try this scent. Amber and apple? SO up my alley. And this is lovely – it’s strange, in a nice way, to smell such a dark apple. Apple seems to be one of those scents that’s bright and crisp no matter what it’s paired with, but this one is different, shadowed and powerful.

A glorious parasite! Once the seeds of the Strangler Fig find root in the bark of a tree, snakelike roots erupt and reach graspingly at the sky. The Strangler Fig then sprouts numerous epiphytic vines that strangles and surrounds its unwilling host, and finally snuffs the life from it. Rooty, woody, with deep green tones. First sniff: A very subtle, earthy sweetness. Quiet and subdued. Wearing: This? Is GORGEOUS. It’s dark, deep, rich and creamy, and I swear there’s vanilla in here. It’s wonderfully close-clinging and mysterious and I am in love.

First sniff: Okaaaaay… I think this is bubblegum rolled in chili powder. The afterscent smells like chipotle! Wearing: Like chewing bubblegum at a Mexican restaurant. This is just funny. Once it dries a bit, the individual fruits come out a bit more – I’m definitely getting some pineapple and banana, but it’s hard to concentrate on them because the chili immediately takes over my nose.

Desolation. The remnants of an empire, shivering with forgotten glories, a monument to megalomania, sundered power, and colossal loss. Dry desert air, dry and hot, passing over crumbling stone megaliths and plundered golden monuments, bearing a hint of the incense of lost Gods on its winds. First sniff: Hmmmm. This is dark, very dark, and though it doesn’t quite smell smoky, it reminds me of smoke. I suspect it won’t work very well on me. Wearing: It goes from dark and smoky to light and soapy. It doesn’t work very well on me, but not for the reasons I expected...

First sniff: Soft fruit soaked in amaretto, heavy and dripping with the liqueur. Rich, heady and a little dangerous. Wearing: Strongly almondy with deep rich fruit. It dried to an oddly herbal-wood scent, much darker than it started.

First sniff: Oh. Honey. Warm, thick, slow-flowing honey with flecks of green. Wearing: Glorious herbal honey – it’s much greener and less sweet than the other Lab honey scents I’m familiar with, and though I adore the sticky-sweet-smoky honey blends, this one is a really nice change.

First sniff: Powerfully masculine. This is a scent with hair on its chest. It’s more resinous than herbal, with a wooden background. Wearing: Sweeter than I expected, a resinous sort of sweet like honeyed incense.

I was a half-elven ranger for years in an online RPG, so Ochosi caught my eye immediately. First sniff: Spiced wood and smooth greenness. I think this is what our guildhall in the Great Oak of Thelbane Forest smelled like. Wearing: I smell like a dryad. The green wears off as the scent dries, leaving a fantastic smooth warm woodiness.

First sniff: Fresh, bright and wet. A little mint, a little fruit, a lot of green. Wearing: The mint jumps out immediately, a bright white Mad Hatter-ish mint, and then settles back among the green-fruit bubble bath.

... Obatala’s ofrenda is soft, white and pure: milk, coconut meat, shea butter and cool, refreshing water. First sniff: The World’s Most Amazing Coconut. It’s just a little sweet, very firm, pure white coconut meat. No rum, no seawater, no suntan lotion, just the very essence of coconut. Wearing: If I had a soap that smelled like this, I might be persuaded to forsake all others. (Except for blackrayne’s Meadowsweet, of course, my Holy Grail of soap.) It’s sheer smooth coconut perfection with no exfoliatey flakes.

First sniff: Can you make apple cider with plums? ‘Cause that’s what this smells like. Mulled plum cider. Wearing: Spicyfruity and oh so good.

First sniff: Very earthy – and yes, somehow, a little mushroomy. The mushroom part is bright white – imagine the very best white mushrooms you can get at the grocery store, and that’s what this smells like. Wearing: Almost nonexistent. I have to concentrate to smell anything.

First sniff: Yup, that’s candy corn. It smells like the taste of candy corn, and that weird texture candy corn has. Bright orange, almost buttery, and too sweet. It actually reminds me a bit of Midway – it has the same sweet rich buttery thing going on. Wearing: All the foody girls need to try this. On my skin it instantly develops an awesome spice note that was completely absent from the bottle. So now it’s rich and sweet and just a little bit spicy and all-around AWESOME.