Shollin

Thanks to clover for the decant! First sniff: Oh, this is wonderful. Mistletoe is the very essence of Christmas evergreen. Wearing: I’m actually glad it isn’t warm and sunny today because this scent would be too wintry. It reminds me a bit of Skadi in that there seems to be a hint of berry-fruit under the green (poisonous mistletoe berries? hmmm…) but it’s even greener, without being at all sharp.

First sniff: Very sharp citrus melange with a cold-minty undertone. Wearing: Finally, an astrology oil I really, really like – and it’s my beloved’s sun sign (he’s a solstice baby, just barely a Gemini). Veeeeery interesting. The mint is much more pronounced on my skin, and the lemon is asserting itself above the other citrus, so I smell a bit like lemon-mint tea. This is very good stuff.

First sniff: Whoa. This really does smell like dirty apricots. Wearing: Depraved is decidedly freaky. I get juicy apricots and think “whee, happy scent,” and then the patchouli creeps up around it and drags it down into the dirt. Patchouli generally works pretty well on me, but this is such a clash I’m not sure I can wear it.

First sniff: In the vial, Cancer smells like apples and mint to me. Wearing: And on my skin it suddenly morphs into the listed ingredients… rose and lemon, with a softer flower in the background that must be lilac, and the apple and mint are gone entirely. It was pretty much straight rose after a while, and not quite me.

I’ve been wanting to try Haunted for donkey’s years, and it always got pushed out of my order by shiny new things that caught my eye… plus I was never quite sure the black musk would work on me… and then I got an unexpected imp in a swap (thanks, clover!). First sniff: Oh, it’s pretty. In a very unusual way. It hints at spice without ever quite getting there, and the scent-colour is a tingly greenish-bronze. It’s a lot fresher and lighter than I expected. Wearing: There’s a breath of citrus somewhere in here. Haunted doesn’t strike me as a sad scent at all, or a spooky one, but it’s beautifully mysterious and was perfect for surviving the end of my twelve-day week.

First sniff: Peace smells a bit like lavender soap, with a hint of astringent weirdness around the edges. Wearing: It’s just an odd scent. I can’t really pin anything down except the astringency, and it doesn’t quite work on me.

Thanks to clover for the decant! First sniff: Sweet almond – or cherry – over a deeper woody note. Wearing: It turns from bright to spicy on my skin. And now that it’s drying I understand the comparisons to Samhain. This is so amazingly not a springtime scent – it makes me want to crunch through fallen leaves with a chill in the air. Which is rather amusing, because Lughnasadh around here is the dog days of summer… but it’s very much a harvest scent.

First sniff: Flowers and grapevines. Marquise de Merteuil smells like the sort of French countryside you see in travel calendars. Wearing: A wonderfully colourful riot of flowers all crowding for attention. I don’t know where to look first.

First sniff: Mmmmmmm. Wearing: Mmmmmmm. OK, that isn’t terribly helpful. This is the perfect sweet spice, holiday-cheery and bright but subtle enough that it doesn’t really waft. A few of the spice scents I’ve tried are nice but not something I want to smell like… Sweet Clove doesn’t fall into that category. I’m quite happy for my skin to smell edible like this.

First sniff: A purple so deep it’s just this side of black, flowing and velvety. I don’t know why I was expecting Darkness to be heavily resinous, but it isn’t. Wearing: It’s a much warmer scent than I expected, swirling and enveloping and oh so deep. It’s a warm darkness without being too heavy or too close. Like sitting on the porch on a summer night.

First sniff: Fruity and playful. This scent is up to something. Wearing: Just sweet enough, and just musky enough. I like.

First sniff: How odd. I wasn’t expecting sweet fruity cherries from High John. It’s yummy! Wearing: There’s something in this that I’ve smelled in Lush soap, and I can’t identify it. It’s a lot less sweet on my skin – a bit of a green-wood scent, with that indefinable Lushness hanging around the edges.

First sniff: I have no idea why – it’s not a sterile-clean scent by any means - but Faustus reminds me of hospital rooms. Wearing: Murky-weird floral heaviness, like dying flowers strewn across a stagnant pond.

Thanks to ChupaChup for the decant! First sniff: Sharp citrus over glittering ice. Wearing: Beautiful white-musky citrus. I really, really like this scent.

Thanks to ChupaChup for the decant! First sniff: Must agree with everyone who said Skadi smells like Christmas. Like a Christmas tree, specifically. Wearing: Straight-up chilly pine with a very faint hint of berry underneath. The berry comes out more as the scent wears on, adding a lovely plummy warmth I wasn’t expecting at all. Maybe this won’t be one I automatically pass on to my piney sweetheart.

Thanks to kadmia for the decant! First sniff: Oh, wonderful cold bright fruitiness. YUM. Wearing: Midwinter’s Eve is absolutely fantastic. It’s a crystalline fruit, subtly sweet, brightly coloured but delicate, as if it might shatter at a touch.

First sniff: Belle Epoque reminds me of pictures I’ve seen of Monet’s wisteria bridge over the water-lily pond – the real one at Giverny. It’s a floaty, drapey, powdery floral, elegant without being old-ladyish. Wearing: It’s much warmer on my skin, and the flowers recede a bit under that warmth. Very, very pretty and refined.

First sniff: This is Lucifer’s inspiration? It’s a sweet white floral. Jasmine? Not at all what I was expecting. Wearing: It definitely smells like jasmine… or honeysuckle. Checking the description, of course there’s none of that in there – maybe it’s violet that I’m smelling. Fallen is an odd scent – much sweeter than I expected, and remarkably the vetiver hasn’t gone swampy on me. I’m not sold quite yet, but I’ll give him another try.

First sniff: I was expecting a soft romantic floral, but Silentium Amoris is very sharp. It’s almost green-apple-y. I guess ylang ylang is a sharper scent than I thought it was, because I’ve never smelled a rose this biting. Maybe if rose thorns had a scent of their own, this would be it. Wearing: Frozen roses. The Lab has a few rose scents that have swayed me to their side, but for the most part rose isn’t me, and this isn’t either.

First sniff: Skuld is resinous and almost syrupy – not in sweetness, but in thickness. It’s an odd scent – I’m having trouble pinning it down. Wearing: It explodes into honey on my skin… the Lab’s wonderfully thick smoky honey. Fan-bloody-tastic.

First sniff: Oh! I was thinking “The Pines of Rome” before I sniffed this, and sure enough, it’s tall, sap-resiny evergreens lining one of the many roads that lead to Rome. It’s fresh and breezey and doesn’t smell too cold-heavy the way pine usually does on me – I have high hopes. And if it doesn’t work on my skin, my love smells amazing in evergreen, so I win either way. Wearing: Rome agrees with me. It’s a little chilly, very refined and almost haughty – I think patrician is the word I’m looking for. The rose is more apparent on my skin, a crisp white rosebud, still tightly shut, rather than the big soft pink blooms that show up in other scents.

First sniff: Bright, fruity, giggly – it tickles my nose. Wearing: Aglaea doesn’t seem refined enough to be Splendour – it’s young and giddy, it can’t quite sit still.

First sniff: Pretty powdery flowers. Wearing: Thalia is bright but subtle… I’m having a hard time pinning it down. Plumeria is probably the main thing I’m smelling – it’s a sweet fruity flower, much less powdery on my skin than it was in the vial, which is a Good Thing.

First sniff: Hmm. I’m not getting pine, which is what I expected based on reviews – just a fresh, cold, green scent. Wearing: Wolf Moon isn’t exactly minty, but it has that same feeling to it – it’s a cold scent, slightly sharp-edged.

A catalytic, potent love oil used to spark (or rekindle) the flame of desire between lovers. First sniff: Um… ew. This is either civet, or some funky musk, or… some other animal scent that is Not Good to my nose. Wearing: Yup, still got the civety animal funk going on. This needs to go to someone else. Hopefully it'll work on whoever gets it... Fire of Love seems to be very love-it-or-hate-it, and I wish it had turned into sexy peppery ginger on me.