Shollin

First sniff: Pine. Very much pine. Cold and dark and snowy. Wearing: This reminds me more of pine sap than pine needles, the way your hands smell when you’ve helped bring in the Christmas tree and your fingers are all sticky from the sap. There’s an interesting sweetness underneath – it’ll be fun to find out what’s in this. My guy, who grew up in Colorado and has happy pine-related scent-memories, absolutely loves Val San Retour, and it works a lot better on his skin than mine.

First sniff: Wow – Jailbait really does smell like bubblegum. With an edge of heat that I can’t quite pin down. Wearing: Yup – dead-on bubblegum, the kind that has no extra flavor but just the pink powdery sweetness of gum. As it dries it turns a bit cherry-cinnamony, but by the end of the journey it’s back to straight pink bubblegum.

I really wish this behaved as well on me as it seemed to on y'all. Glampyre's version sounds especially lovely! First sniff: Crucible of Courage is a weird scent. It makes me think herbally-minty-green, but I’m not sure it’s really any of those things. Wearing: It turns to dark purple baby powder instantly upon hitting my skin, and a few minutes later just smells like regular baby powder. Dang.

First sniff: Tears immediately reminded me of an outdoor memory that fled as soon as I tried to pin it down. It’s fresh and green, with an initial burst of salt that yields to cool wetness. Wearing: The aura is raindrops or waterfall mist, but the salt is very apparent if I sniff my wrists. I really, really like it – I do wish it hung around longer, but I’m used to the fresh scents wandering off fairly quickly.

First sniff: Ooh, bright red oil – is it dragon’s blood? Mars is darkly, broodingly spicy, with cinnamon in the afterscent. Wearing: I love the initial darkness. The cinnamon is pretty loud right at first, but tones down quickly. Definite spicy kick. I didn’t think I was very impressed by it, but ended up wearing it to bed and it grew on me overnight – there’s a faint scent of ginger lingering this morning that I really like.

First sniff: Hyssop is a very light, very fresh, pale yellow-green floral. It’s what I’d imagine baby’s breath would smell like before it’s dried. Wearing: As with most of the other single notes I’ve tried, this stays very true on my skin to its scent in the vial. It’s almost aquatic in its freshness, as if the flowers are sitting under flowing water. It stayed fairly strong all evening, but by the end of the night had gone unfortunately soapy.

First sniff: Licorice dusted with powdery yellow spices. Wearing: Licorice and I just do not get along. India Bouquet is an interesting scent, but one I won’t be wearing.

First sniff: Dark, smoky resin/herbal. Green incense. Wearing: Right when it hits my skin, “floral” is about the last word I’d use to describe Juju. It goes on dark and smoky and makes me think it’s the smoldery sort of darkness I’m going to like… and then immediately flips around into a sweet white floral that gives me a headache. Traitor!

First sniff: Very green herbal, no notes I can pick out. There’s something very dark and very weird underneath, almost salty, and knowing Melpomene is the Muse of Tragedy makes me think tears. Wearing: It’s still such an amalgamation I can’t get a clear picture of what might be in here. Herbal, very slightly minty and green green green.

First sniff: Oh, I like this. Dragon’s Tears reminds me of Tempest – the same sort of rain-over-salt-air scent – but with a wonderful round warmth holding it up. Wearing: It’s definitely seawater, and the scent on my skin is much cooler than it is in the vial. It’s pretty, but I’m not sure it’s different enough from the other salt-air scents. The redness and warmth I usually associate with dragon’s blood fade quickly under the salt.

I got an odd Christmasy/hollyberry note from Carnivale when I first put it on. Ulalume reminded me of Christmas, though I don't remember why. I suspect it's the spices. Seraglio had the same sort of Christmasy spices in the vial, but they mostly went away on my skin. Lust, weirdly, also smelled like Christmas in the vial. Also, most piney things make me think snow/cold/winter - Loup Garou and Burial are the main culprits here. And the upcoming Val San Retour, though I haven't tried it on yet, is very piney in the vial.

First sniff: Musty, dry wood with a hint of pine. Wolfsbane doesn’t seem the sort of scent that would keep a werewolf at bay; it smells like the sort of place I’d probably want to live in if I went furry. It’s very dark-foresty, mysterious and forbidding. Wearing: More piney on my skin, and the dark-forest aura is simultaneously beautiful and creepy. I like this a lot more than I expected to. It’s weirdly comforting. I’m not sure what it says about me that I find a dark-creepy-forest scent comforting… but there you go. About ten minutes in, there’s a rose, a white rose, blooming palely in the shadow of the wood. And, gosh darn it, as it dries the rose just takes over. I liked the dark forest.

First sniff: Very, very sweet – almost like fruit punch with too much sugar. Wearing: Yup, much better on me. It’s still sweet, but there’s a nice smoky warmth underneath. Blood Amber reminds me of a sweeter, lighter Dragon’s Heart.

First sniff: Perversion is big chunks of chewy, juicy coconut meat, wrapped in purple-black velvet. The coconut is very prominent, but there’s a very odd, very dark scent crowding in around it. Wearing: Coconut heaven! I LOVE this. Smoky, sexy coconut. It’s lasted well more than eight hours and made me smile several times during a very frustrating night at work.

First sniff: Hazy herbal, less soft than I expected. I have some soporific bath salts that smell very much like Empyreal Mist. Wearing: I like this one a lot. It’s mostly herbal-green, but there’s a very soft flower peering shyly through – I think I recognise iris. Fairly quickly, it faded to the point that I have to really sniff to catch a whiff – but that whiff has clung all night.

First sniff: Cinnamon and leather… like Christmas potpourri simmering in a tack shop, and there’s a cherry-sweetness behind it. I like it, though – Tintagel is very warm and comforting. Wearing: When wet, the dragon’s blood works its magic on my skin. The leather stays in the background, just enough earthiness to give the scent its foundation – the main players are soft cinnamon and the red scent of dragon’s blood. As it dries, the leather comes to the forefront, and the final incarnation might be a bit too leathery for me. I’ll try it on at least once more, just to see if it behaves itself better.

First sniff: Greenness sprinkled with cinnamon. If you put a cinnamon tree in the middle of a deep, dark forest, that’s my idea of Hamadryad. Wearing: This is a lot more spice-intensive than I expected. It’s nice, but the scent on my skin doesn’t at all say forest to me. It faded pretty quickly and didn’t seem to shift from the initial cinnamon… a scent I don’t mind, but don’t really want to smell like.

First sniff: Misty-fresh and clean and green. I never would have imagined The Unicorn would be a watery scent, but now I’m flashing back to that scene in The Last Unicorn where they come flowing in on the waves, a shining white tide. Wearing: There’s a wildness to this scent that hadn’t struck me before, and apparently it’s just me. If you spotted a unicorn across a misty grove, you’d get a hint of what this scent is on me… but to get the full effect, you’d have to be riding him at breakneck pace through the woods, running for the sheer joy of it, his silken mane whipping your face in the wind.

First sniff: This is really beautiful, though I can’t pin down any of the notes. It reminds me of the spices in Old Morocco, without the sweetness. Scherezade definitely has some desert-sand heat to it, and it strikes me as the perfect scent for the Sunrunner princess Sioned, from the Melanie Rawn books – it’s what her firegold hair would smell like. Wearing: I still can’t tell you what this smells like – I just know I LOVE IT. I feel like I’m wrapped in something flowy and silky, like I’ve suddenly become panther-graceful and my every movement is a dance. It’s mysterious, it’s joyful, it’s exquisite.

... Blackberry wine and apple cider with hops, apple blossom, English ivy, hazel, sage, oak bark and myrrh. First sniff: Mabon smells like harvest. Lightly spicy, yellow-orange and faintly fruity. I get an image of a cornucopia with Indian corn and sheaves of wheat spilling out. Wearing: Autumn spices, faint hints of apple… and there’s a freshness to it on my skin that wasn’t apparent in the bottle. I’m having a hard time pinning this scent down, but it’s just lovely.

First sniff: Deep purple fruit, round and regal and oh so juicy. Wearing: I suspected the King and I would get along quite well, and he’s proven me right… in spades. This is a wonderfully enveloping, juicy, warm fruity scent with just a touch of dark wood. It sweetens as it dries… which might not be a good thing. Something is giving me a killer headache, and I’m inclined to blame sitting in front of the computer all day because I really don’t want to think my King is responsible.

First sniff: Ooh. Cranberries. Not cranberry sauce, not dried sweetened cranberries, but the real thing, crispy and white-inside and too tart to eat straight. The afterscent is oddly dusty. On second sniff I recognise the ginger… that’s what gives Lampades its sharpness, I bet, the tartness of cranberry and the ginger bite. Wearing: Tart and fruity and still a bit sharp. I need to re-wear this one on a less busy day… I didn’t get to notice it much while I was at work. But it’s pretty.

First sniff: Pale roses and damp earth – dark, rich gardener’s soil after a soft rain. The afterscent of Zombi smells exactly how I expect a Bertie Bott’s dirt-flavoured jelly bean would taste. Wearing: Moist-earthy and powdery-flowery at the same time? How? The Bertie Bott’s impression is heartily reinforced here – I definitely feel like I’m tasting this scent more than smelling it, which leads to the distinctly unpleasant thought that this is what being buried alive might smell like… as interesting as this scent is, I really don’t think I can wear it. And now that I’ve had that thought I absolutely cannot wear it to bed. Off it goes.

First sniff: Flowers, flowers and more flowers. Sacred Whore of Babylon is very full and soft, and there’s something brightly white-sweet – jasmine or gardenia, maybe. Wearing: I can’t tell if the dusting around the flowers is spice or mint. It smells more like cinnamon, but it makes my nose cold in the same way mint does. I suspect this scent is not for me – it isn’t my sort of floral.

First sniff: Deeply smoky, spicy, musky. La Petit Mort reminds me somewhat of O, but it’s much darker… almost forbidden. Wearing: Oh. Oh. Smoky honey, dragonskin-bronze like the single note, and heated from within like dragonskin too. If I sniff my wrist directly, there are a few sweet soft white flower petals sprinkled over, but the aura is all flushed and breathless and wow. I guess the floral has to be ylang ylang, but my brain identifies it as rose, and it’s a bit powdery. The initial burst is fabulous, but it dries to the powdery rose, which just isn’t me. *rummages for her Honey to get the wet effect*