Shollin

Ooh. That would be a fantabulous gift, actually - I know a lot of people who are nutters about rose soap.

First sniff: Oh-so-jasminey, cool and sweet. I’ve been rereading my Mercedes Lackey collection and jasmine always reminds me of what I think the Tayledras Vales would smell like at night – Nyx is no exception. Wearing: It’s just too sweet, sadly. Toward the end of the night I kept catching a whiff of something I thought was musk, but it never quite settled. I'm betting the friend who ended up with most of my "too-girly-for-me" scents will love this one though.

I had a wee bit of leakage - the High Priestess seems to be the biggest culprit, but all four of my bottles were a bit slippery when I took them out of the packaging. I actually wiped the High Priestess' label off when I was trying to clean her up, but it stuck back on without a problem.

First sniff: Smooth honey and tart apples, a very springtime scent. I don’t smell rose in the vial. Wearing: Ah, there it is. Slices of green apple rubbed with rose petals, when first sniffed on my skin, but the rose quickly becomes predominant and twines more firmly around the apple tree, greenery and all. It’s a fresh, calm, sunny blend that I think I really like. I’d categorize Eve as a green/floral. The honey shows up after a couple of hours and turns it decidedly less innocent. I was going to try something else on when I got home, but even after a couple of hours in a smoky bar Eve is quite determinedly hanging on… which is a good thing! She's also responsible for my Very First Lab-inspired compliment... the lady at the blood drive today said I smelled "good... not too strong, but really good." Yay.

Dana O'Shee. Definitely. Jester would also be a great soap scent. And countless others, but those are what's coming to mind at the moment.

Yay for updates! And Nella told me my 4/17 order shipped out today, so an extra-big fuzzy snuggly :snerfle: to the gang!

I smelled tart green apples in Undertow, bizarrely. That's one of many that faded to soap on me though, so I can't really recommend it. Jester is by far the appliest to my nose, even though there's no apple in the description. I've tried both Virgo and Libra and didn't smell apple in either of them - but I swapped them away before the scent notes were posted, so I didn't really get a chance to sniff for specific things. I'm hoping for appley goodness in Eve - she's in my next order which WILL COME TODAY. :nods firmly:

Ooh! Another one I have to look for... Does anyone know what happened to Ingenue?

Massage oil is what I was thinking. I'm having sudden visions of a massage with Bliss... :drool:

That would seriously ROCK, Beth. I'll keep some spare appendages crossed for you!

Oh, good... that means I won't have to place another order immediately when my current one shows up. Good to see you around again, Beth. Glad Nella's making stuff slightly less insane!

Welcome, Nella. Good to have you around!

Yup, there's definitely a PJ's here and I know exactly where it is. Maybe I'll take myself out for coffee tomorrow on my weekend. Thanks for the rec, SV! *end of hijack*

Well, I've just come to the stunning realisation that I've never actually had a good cup of chai... just the stuff from Starbucks, which I wasn't terribly impressed with. So I don't know how helpful I can be about the scent, but I can tell you Hunger and Seraglio smell hellagood together, very creamy-sweet, somewhat foody-spicy, and surprisingly, Hunger's orange and Seraglio's rose aren't clashing. I actually can't smell the rose at all, which is weird, because after the almond fades that's usually Seraglio's topnote. They both seem to be toning each other down so I don't feel like I've spilled almond extract all over me (from Seraglio) and I don't feel like I'm sitting inside a vanilla candle (from Hunger) - it's melded into one delicious sweet/spicy scent with just enough vanilla. Granted, they haven't had a whole lot of time to dry and develop yet, but the first few minutes are very promising.

Hunger has the vanilla and the orange peel, but not the other stuff. I wonder if you could layer it with Seraglio or if they'd fight... hmm, I have both of those scents, I should try it. I'm not sure the Lab has any scents that contain black tea... there are a few with green or white tea, but I don't remember seeing one with black. I'll report on the Hunger/Seraglio experiment.

Well, I should probably check these things before I lie to y'all... It still might be an oversight - I remember that in the last update before this one, Ingenue and Vicomte de Valmont were listed as available on the Shiny & New page but never made it onto the Love Potions page. However, Vicomte is there now, and not Ingenue... I'll wait for confirmation from Beth before leaving a "discontinued" note in the Ingenue topic title in Reviews. And if it is gone... well, at least I got to try it...

If you're looking for reviews, they're right here. If you're searching for it on the Lab's site, it's under Love Potions - and the "find" function of your browser might not work because there's an accent over the first e.

Phantasm - light, fresh, clean and citrusy. No basil though.

First sniff: Bold, bright berries. Bordello smells like dessert – I feel like I should be eating it with really good vanilla ice cream, the pricey kind with the little brown flecks. Wearing: A wild, thorny berry patch in the moonlight. It’s not sunny like so many of the fruit scents I’ve tried have been – this one is shadowed. After a few minutes it’s less of a berry patch and more of a vineyard, but still wild and overgrown; I smell grapes rather than wine, big round lush grapes that would burst perfectly on your tongue.

First sniff: Holy WOW. Chocolate almonds is my first thought – there’s definitely something in Bliss that elevates it above Hershey. My enduring visual impression is melted chocolate being drizzled over someone’s bare skin in a very warm candlelit bedroom. It’s amazingly sensual. Wearing: As Emeril would say, “Oh yeah, baby.” I want to lick myself. Same in the vial as on my skin - just chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.

First sniff: Black Phoenix reminds me of Luna! It has the same sharp hard-candy texture to it, though the scent is darker. Very playful. Wearing: Amaretto to the infinite power. I like it, but it’s waaaaaaaaay almondy. After about ten minutes there’s a flowing fruitiness around the almonds, with some big soft flower petals scattered in there somewhere. I’m undecided on this one – need to wear it again.

First sniff: I AM FRUIT HEAR ME ROAR! If there’s anything else in March Hare, I can’t smell it – this is very bright juicy apricot. Almost liqueur-like in its intensity, as if the flavor has been condensed. Wearing: Juicy! Yum. After a few minutes I can smell the clove on my wrist, tending more toward sweet than spicy. It faded quickly enough that I didn’t feel like I was blasting apricot at work but still has a very faint bakery smell, though the fruitiness is gone, more than twelve hours later.

First sniff: A bottle of red wine knocked over on a white tablecloth, pooling around a rose the colour of Phèdre’s sangoire cloak, a red so deep it’s almost black, and two candles in wax-dripped bottles. I can’t yet decide whether the bottle was knocked over in a lover’s quarrel or in a mad rush for the bedroom. Wearing: Bedroom. Definitely. Blood Rose somehow manages to be elegant and entirely carnal at the same time – a beautiful flowing ballroom gown tossed carelessly into a pile on the floor by an eager lover. Juicy, juicy, juicy and very bright red – it’s bolder than in the vial, less dark. It’s not at all sweet on me, at least not yet (I’ve had it on about ten minutes), and not screamingly rosey either. The wine dried up about halfway through work and it turned into a beautiful subtle breath of rose, very soft without being at all powdery.

First sniff: Oneiroi is rich and enveloping, not quite warm but not quite cool. This is what I imagine lavender tea would smell like. Wearing: Gorgeously lavendery and strong enough to wrap me up in a blanket of scent. It’s reminiscent of Badger Balm’s sleep balm, but stronger and less green. I’m not entirely sure of its effect on my dreams, but then, I did dream that I was dating Frasier Crane, so… Definitely wearing this one again, but maybe only to bed, because I slept like a rock and I'm not sure I can wear something this soporific during the day.

First sniff: A ghostly lemon, very soft and light with no hint of sharpness, and something green drifting around the edges – it might be the evergreen juniper-scent from Oberon. Wearing: Immediately there’s something here besides lemon, a faint note of green spice, and the lemon has firmed up quite a bit. Eidolon is a more definite scent than my old lemon standby Phantasm. It went soapy on me quickly, and disappeared within a couple of hours. I'll try it again before swapping, just to see if my skin gets over this annoying phase where it makes everything soapy...