Shollin

First sniff: Much like its namesake, the Queen of Hearts is LOUD! Big bright showy lilies fighting for dominance with big bright showy cherry. Wearing: This just makes me laugh! I smelled the Lily vs. Cherry Smackdown from the imp and thought it would never work as something I’d want to wear, but I’m really enjoying it. The cherry quiets down pretty quickly but still maintains its fruitiness and keeps the lily from going soapy. I guess they’ve called a truce. Apparently I’m not the only one who likes it – my kittygirl just started licking my wrist.

The oil is red-gold, the label says “E.B.: B,” and this was a lovely gift from danuv. I had the immense pleasure of trying her experimentals at the Atlanta meet’n’sniff back in April, and because she’s such a love, she sent me an imp of the one I swooned over. Her take on it is here - this is blend B. First sniff: Ohhh yeah, this is the teeny-bit-spicy, teeny-bit-incensey, honey vanilla wonderfulness I met many months ago. Wearing: Oh MAN. It’s even better on me. It’s honey and vanilla and something that reminds me of Al Azif. It’s sweet and spicy and a tiny bit nutty and utterly droolworthy. Much with the love.

Much love to clover for the well-traveled imp that chased me to Washington. Looking at the notes, I thought I was nuts to want to try this. Lotus, gardenia and TWO roses? Surely I’m in for a nightmare of loudly sweet white florals and even louder powdery rose! But... First sniff: ...upon smelling, it’s a richly sweet floral, lush and heady. I’m cautiously optimistic about how it’ll behave on me. Wearing: Maintaining cautious optimism. This really is a rich floral, warm and sweet. I just re-checked all the Lab’s orchid scents and almost without exception, the ones I’ve tried, I’ve absolutely loved. Maybe that’s what drew me to the Ace. Yay for obsessively trying everything and finding unexpected loves!

First sniff: Yeah, nothing subtle about this one. It stalks up to me, grabs me by the collar and yells “ROSE!” right in my face. I have that reaction to quite a lot of rose scents... it takes a very particular sort to win me over, and I suspect Lucy isn't it. Wearing: Pure poofy floofy powdery rose. Lucy keeps her fangs very well hidden.

First sniff: The edges and afterscent are purely evergreen. I can’t figure out what the middle is, but it’s a weird mix of earthy and fresh, and it’s a little unsettling. Wearing: The aura is dry wood… the skin-scent is pure leather and smoky weirdness. “Feral” is the perfect word. Very evocative, but definitely not me. It’s very, very familiar, but I can’t even begin to place it.

First sniff: OK. Please ignore my first impression, because it’s totally off-base, but… the very instant I started sniffing, Freak Show smelled like… um… Planters cheese balls. The Cheeto-ey-type things in the blue can. That went away in a split-second, but it was very much Planters cheese balls. Ahem. With that out of the way, the actual scent is much more like white chocolate, lemon, and that elusive yellow note that always turns out to be fig when I check the ingredients. Wearing: Very mild chocolate and figs, and a fresh lemon afterscent. The pomegranate got much brighter and more dominant as it dried.

First sniff: I’m baffled. Truly baffled. I have no clue what this smells like. It’s dark, deep and round, but as for an actual scent… I got nothin’. I do know I like it. And it reminds me of starlight, which is weird, because it isn’t anything like I’d think starlight would smell like (which is more along the lines of Yog-Sothoth). A clearing in a starlit forest, and the night is absolutely still… holding its breath and waiting. Wearing: Soft, cool and mysterious. At the edge of the forest, looking out into the starry darkness… the stag is close by, near enough that I can feel his presence, but if I reach out he’ll vanish into the woods. No stag of flesh and blood could ever carry this scent… this creature is a silver shadow in the night. Holy hell. This is Harry’s Patronus.

First sniff: So beautifully clean and pure. Wearing: Here’s all I can say about the scent itself, because it really defies description. If Yog-Sothoth is the scent of air and darkness, White Light is the scent of air and brightness. I dabbed this on as directed, chakras and palms, before doing yoga. The sequence I was using is designed to change poses quite often – no deep stretches, just a flow of postures, exhale cat, inhale cow, exhale down dog, inhale plank, etc. I ran through it quickly twice, but that just didn’t feel right and I found myself slowing down, holding each stretch for a couple of breaths. At the end, I intended to stay in savasana (relaxation pose) for just a minute, as it’s late and I really need to get to bed, but I found myself just drifting deeper, floating somewhere outside myself. At one point I thought, “OK, we’re done, roll over and sit up” and my body decided “Yeah, not quite yet.” My fingers just wouldn’t twitch. And looking at it now, it seems like it probably should have freaked me out a little, but… no, I was meant to stay there a little longer. It was really lovely and I need to do that much more often.

First sniff: Warm, sinuous, slinky coconut. It is reminiscent of Snake Oil, but it’s a little less in-your-face. (And I do like Snake Oil, but it can be a bit aggressive. ) Wearing: Coconut is definitely dominant, but there’s a lot more going on underneath. It’s musky, it’s spicy, it’s oh so sexy.

First sniff: Dark, minty, resinous herbal. I sometimes misread lavender as mint if it isn’t really sharp. Wearing: Oh yeah, that’s definitely lavender. Lavender and orange. Very pretty! This one was Lab lagniappe and I can’t for the life of me remember why I didn’t order it myself.

First sniff: Cool, mysterious floral. The fortune-teller’s tent is warm, but this chill is more than physical. Wearing: Veils and smoke and candlelight. Alluringly sweet but still untouchable. The citrus (bergamot and neroli) warmed up beautifully on my skin and I found myself sniffing all night. Good stuff.

First sniff: Ah… beautifully herbal, in a dark way. I have very short plane connections in both directions for my journey home for Thanksgiving; I might take some of this along just in case. Wearing: Oh, this is… yum. Unexpectedly yum. Citrus-y herbal, much lighter than I expected. Back in August, long before I tried this scent on for review purposes, I broke into it in a moment of sheer frustration, and within an hour the situation had resolved itself. I’d actually forgotten about that until I smelled it again.

I'm actually doing aight in the love and money department at the moment (could always use more money, but who couldn't?) but once I sniffed this I just had to try a bit on, with apologies to Venus... First sniff: Pure joy. Bubbly bouncy happiness. Spicy-sweet and yellow and YAY. Wearing: I suspect this is going to be a much better Joy Mojo for me than the Joy Mojo itself. It’s really making me smile. The spice is more carnation-y than anything you’d find in the kitchen – fantastic spicy sweetness. ETA: And in honour of stalking the update, this is my five hundredth review. I scare myself sometimes.

First sniff: This is pretty… but ice-cold and very much withdrawn. The barest suggestion of musk, frozen flowers and a tiny hint of sweetness that vanishes as soon as I notice it. Wearing: Ooh. Soft, soft white musk and gentle clean flowers. Could it be… an iris that doesn’t go powdery on me?

First sniff: Wow. Boozey rich vanilla-ness, and a brushing of flowers. The alcohol note is almost too sharp. Wearing: Jasminey-sweet, but not overwhelmingly so. It’s much softer on me, and very, very pretty.

First sniff: Musk and woods, and that vaguely evergreen note must be juniper. Another scent that smells skin-warm in the vial. Wearing: I may have mentioned nine or ten times before that red musk and I get along very well indeed. And Himerus is no exception – a glorious red musk aura, a little bit of dry wood, and soft evergreen right on my wrists.

I haven't seen an official description for Savage, though it's been mentioned as an upcoming. First sniff: Dry lemon, with something cookingish underneath – it might be the same olive leaf as in Alecto, it has that same kind of dark solid presence. Wearing: This definitely reminds me very much of Alecto with a lemon squeezed over it. It makes me think of some sort of lemon-herb sauce for pasta. The dark green leaves are here, and they darken the lemon considerably from its usual bright-yellow incarnation. Alecto didn't really like me... this one doesn't either. Alas.

First sniff: …Huh. I’m not entirely sure what I’m smelling. There’s a light note, a milky sweetness, above the deeper base. Wearing: Oh, lawzamercy. No wonder Eve couldn’t resist. This is one of the most gently seductive scents ever to grace my nose. It’s mysterious, it’s alluring, it’s soft and sweet and… damn. Y’all gotta try this one on, 'cause in the vial it doesn’t smell like much, but damn. There are moments when it smells very much like the lovely White Tropics tea from Adagio – that tiny hint of coconut and greenness. And really… just… wow. *shambles off into drooling incoherence*

And the final Ars Draconis scent I review (at least until Beth adds more!) is the simplest one. Hee hee. First sniff: I finally got around to ordering the single note DB after loving it in pretty much everything. The color in the vial is just fantastic – bright maraschino-cherry red. And it smells a tiny bit like cherries, too – it’s sweeter than I expected without anything reining it in. Wearing: Just a couple of seconds on my skin and it goes from pure sweetness to a sweet-resin scent; there’s a deeper-something-underneath that doesn’t show up in the vial.

First sniff: Oh, wow. Baghdad reminds me of an incense-ier Scherezade. It’s very warm and resinous, and I’m betting the musk is red. Wearing: Sandalwood, red musk and warm florals. This… yeah, this is good stuff.

First sniff: Wet flowers, wet rose, with a tiny hint of mint. The aquatic-ness caught me off guard a bit… but then, of course, Venus was born of the Sea. Wearing: Rosey rosey rosey! And still that little bit of mint. But it’s primarily rose, and there aren’t many rose scents I can wear.

First sniff: There’s a definite weirdness about this scent. It’s somehow leafy without being overly green. Thick, wet leaves. Wearing: Holy snark, that’s banana! I’ve never smelled banana in a Lab scent before, and it caught me way off guard. After the initial banana-burst fades, Manila actually reminds me quite a bit of Alecto, that dark leafiness that I don’t quite get along with.

First sniff: Yessirree, that is by God a peach! It’s a little more restrained than I expected – it’s not hugely fuzzy and juicy. This is what peaches smell like in the grocery store or at the farmers’ market, when you’re sniffing them to test for ripeness. Wearing: It’s very pretty, very true and very quiet. Though truly, if I want to smell peachy, I think I’d reach for Tamora before this one… I like the extra kick of warmth from the vanilla.

First sniff: O frabjous day – I think I can wear this one! It’s floral, yes, but a gorgeous clean fresh-air floral. It’s a wildflower meadow, not a greenhouse packed stiflingly full of expensive blossoms. Wearing: So wonderfully fresh and clean, and I rarely say that about florals. It’s just sweet enough, with a touch of sunshine, and I’m going to love wearing it on this cold rainy November day.

First sniff: <ahem> SWEEEEEEEEET. And powdery. I don’t know what in here is so sweet, unless the berries have been injected with pure sugar, but I’m pinning the powderiness on the irises. Wearing: Oh, this is better. Like, a million times better. The sweetness mellows out on my skin and it’s pleasantly sweet, not chokingly sweet. I wasn’t paying enough attention to it over the course of the evening, and didn’t put much on based on the imp-scent, but the one time I rechecked it, the iris-powdery note had vanished and it was a lovely soft amber. This is one I’ll rewear.