Shollin

First sniff: If I didn’t know what this was, I never would have sniffed it and thought “Hazelnuts!” but it’s very true despite that. Hazelnuts have sort of an indescribable scent, more woody than nutty, with no sweetness at all (at least to my nose), and that’s what this is. Wearing: The same warm dark-wood scent as in the vial, very subtle on my skin – it definitely doesn’t shout, and there’s almost no aura at all. This might be nice in a lotion. I had a “toasted hazelnut” lotion from B&BW for a while, and this is a much truer version of that scent, without the sugariness B&BW threw in. Strangely, I sniffed it after about half an hour, and it reminded me very strongly of my grandfather. I can’t imagine why – if he’d smoked a pipe that would make sense, as it does remind me a bit of pipesmoke, but no.

Hi catgreens! Zephyr seemed to be very like White Musk when I tried it on - you might like it. My favourite light scents are Phantasm (soft misty lemon), Ingenue (which is lightly floral, but the most prominent note is white melon) and Tempest (smells like a storm at sea... absolutely glorious and very wet).

Aha. OK. I didn't realise it was that complicated. <---- knows nothing about coding

Vice and Bliss both tend more toward the food side of chocolate - Vice is darker with hints of fruit underneath, Bliss smells to me like melted chocolate drizzled over someone's skin. (At least in the vial - I haven't had a chance to wear it yet.) Dangit - you're making me want to try that combination, and I'm not even particularly fond of Bathos...

Hey QS - since you've cleaned up all the clutter, could we move the "reviewing rules" sticky to be above all the reviews subfora? I remember we couldn't do that before because with all the upcoming reviews it'd be messy, but that isn't an issue anymore.

Is it weird that I'm salivating over Pele, when I don't even know what the notes are, more than any of the officially described ones? The lure of mystery, I spose... That said, I MUST have Danube, Kali and Ulalume. And the Internet is so very educational sometimes... I found out tonight who Szepasszony is and read a Poe poem to my cats. Whee.

I have absolutely nothing interesting to add, I just had to say... Beth! You used the word FLOOPY! Done being insane now. (Well, I'll still be insane, but I'll do it privately where y'all won't have to read it. )

First sniff: At first sniff I don’t really like Cabaret. It seems to be a very heavy powdery floral with not much going on. Wearing: Much better! Soft jasmine, but not overpoweringly sweet, and something pale blue bringing it back down a bit. It’s still a tiny bit powdery, but not annoyingly so - much nicer on me. Unfortunately, I desperately needed hand lotion fairly soon after I applied, so it quickly disappeared under the weird nondescript scent of Helping Hands, but I'm definitely trying it on again.

One more for the list: RAPTURE.

Wouldn't it be BOW-an (bow rhyming with cow)? The A and O would make that a broad "bh," and it's my understanding that it would therefore be a W sound rather than a V sound. Granted, my very very rudimentary understanding of Gaelic comes from a musician who's about an eighth Irish and cheerfully ignores the rest of his heritage... Oh, wait. Is it a Scots Gaelic vs. Irish Gaelic problem? That could be, I know utterly nothing about Scots...

First sniff: Very calm and comforting – thick honey and cream with a whisper of almond. Great for those frazzled days. Wearing: It’s my Friday and I’m wearing Dana O’Shee… life is good. Seriously almondy with a big gloop of golden honey on top. I don’t quite smell like dessert, but it’s close. This is GLORIOUS. Smelling Dana while standing next to the coffee pot was almost enough to send me into spasms of joy. Much to my dismay, it seemed to vanish the first time I washed my hands at work.

First sniff: Voodoo is otherworldly and mysterious, flickering firelight and pulsing drums and dancing shadows. I can’t pick out any specific notes (except the sweet almond, after I’ve checked the list and know it’s there), but I like the feel of this. Wearing: Definitely sweet almond. After a few minutes the aura turns into something very dry and enveloping – the lightest brush of a gossamer veil, a very familiar scent but one I can’t quite pin down – almost like honey, if it were dried to a powder and sprinkled in the flames. It reminds me of one of the phases Alice went through before she settled down. There’s a lot going on in this one – it will be very interesting to see how it develops. The wrist-scent goes smoky in a spicy way and then a bit sweetly pine-ish… it’s constantly changing. I think the scent it was most often was a blend of not-too-sharp pine and not-too-sweet almond.

First sniff: Vixen is sharply, juicy orangey with something red and pulsing underneath. Wearing: This orange is more wet than the others have been, and more of a dark red-orangey sunset colour. I smell soft ginger right away, more of a gingersnappy ginger than the biting root-scent of Siren. There’s a definite earthiness about it, very warm earth that reminds me of walking (barefoot again!) through my grandfather’s vegetable garden after he’d done some digging and the soil was all warm-dry and crumbly under my feet. The ginger went sharper and more pronounced as the night went on. I like it muchly.

First sniff: Hunger inspires the same head-lolling moan as Ravenous on first sniff. I don’t know what it is about orange blossom that my nose likes so much, but it is Sexy. As. Hell. Hunger is smoother and mellower than Ravenous, not quite as strutty or slinky – the quiet, smoldering confidence of a woman who knows damn well she’s sexy without having to make a conscious effort. Wearing: *purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr* The vanilla is very apparent, and it’s the same thick slow-flowing vanilla as in Tombstone, all wrapped up in gorgeous warm orangeyness. It’s totally edible... I'm encased in a vanilla-scented candle, one of the really good vanilla candles that don't smell too sweet or fakey, just warm and rich and smooooooooooth. Amazing staying power - it was strong enough to have an aura for at least six hours after I put it on, and still very distinct on my wrists.

First sniff: I get the same blood-red, slithery sense from Succubus as I do from Deimos, and it’s darker and drier, without the blackness that makes Deimos so masculine. This is a scent you do not want to mess with. Glowing red eyes and a twisted, sinister grin. It seems to be more apropos of the Furies than of Succubus – there’s nothing sexual about it that I can smell, at least in the vial, it’s just dark dark dark (dusky is a fantastic word) and decidedly menacing. I’m a bit nervous about wearing this one – I’m afraid I’ll scare people. Wearing: Still dark, but mysterious rather than menacing. Very warm, the visceral warmth of blood and body heat. When sniffed directly, it’s much lighter and the texture is almost powdery, and… *sigh* it reminded me of SweetTarts when it dried all the way. I much preferred the scariness.

First sniff: Cheshire Cat is definite grapefruit in the vial, but not as bright or biting as Baobhan Sith. Not much sugar on this one – again it’s the slightly bitter scent of grapefruit peel. Wearing: For some reason my skin + bitter grapefruit = sugared grapefruit like you’d eat for breakfast. YAY. I like this on me a lot more than in the vial. It’s much juicier and sweeter. I keep getting little whiffs of the musk, and it’s a bit strong, but it’s very occasional so I’m trying to ignore it. The musk fades out quickish so even if I sniff my wrist I can't smell it, and the overall impression was very nice and cheering in a stressful week - I’m definitely wearing this one again.

First sniff: When I get plum wine in Japanese restaurants, often they put a maraschino cherry at the bottom of the glass. The scent of Old Kyoto is the taste of that cherry – very sweet and fruity, but with a smooth round richness to it. Wearing: There’s something spicy under the cherries that grounds it nicely. After a couple minutes on the aura smells a bit like bubblegum. It’s more sophisticated if I sniff it directly – there’s almost a wood note underneath, like the bark of the cherry-tree topnote. Or sandalwood, since that’s actually in there… but it’s not the overpowering dryness I usually associate with sandalwood, it’s warmer, sunnier. The bubblegummy aura fades very quickly and it turns into a gorgeous mature-but-fruity scent.

I've seen a couple of folks say orange blossom and neroli are the same thing, but they're listed as separate single notes. Anyone know the difference? Phantasm is very decidedly lemon, so that might not be the best bet for a match. The main thing I smelled in Zephyr is white musk... so Naiad might be closest.

First sniff: Dry and woody – it took me several sniffs to pin down the wood, but I swear it smells like pine. It’s a rather cheerful pine for something called Burial, more like walking through a Christmas tree farm (the kind where the trees are still growing and you have to cut your own) than like being lost in the woods. Wearing: Chilly and very sharply green, a thick crusting of snow over pine branches. The aura is a bit soapy – a lot of the scents I’ve tried on recently have been doing this, and I wonder if it’s something weird going on with my skin, because I don’t think I’ve ever had this problem before. The soapiness faded pretty quickly, but after that I couldn’t smell it unless I stuck my nose against my wrist - a stronger hint of sweet but pale flowers, as if dried petals were scattered on the snow.

Bruja went through quite a number of incarnations on my skin. First sniff: I don’t know what lilacs smell like, but holy cats this scent is DARK. Elegant, haughty floral base, surrounded by a spooky creeping-shadows kind of darkness. I can picture a vampire queen in a high-necked black gown wearing this scent to lure unwary men into baring their throats… Wearing: Powdery right away, but still dark and creepy. Rosemary’s Baby Powder! The powderiness wears off quickly (which is awesome – usually powdery scents get more powdery on me as they dry) and I’m left with a sweet-spicy sort of floral that reminds me a bit of Lush’s Bathos. It’s making me hungry, which is bizarre, as there’s nothing foodish about it. After an hour or so it’s dried into something completely soft and innocent – a total 180 from the vampire-queen scent in the vial. At the end of the night (after eight hours or so at work) all that’s left is a very faint sweetness on my wrists. I am SO wearing this again, just to track all the strange things it does!

First sniff: My nose really wants there to be apple in Undertow, and I haven’t a clue why – very bright green apples, unripe and hard and far too tart to eat. There’s mint too, and a general sense of greenness, but I’m definitely getting apples. WEIRD. Wearing: Chilling and green and there’s still the random appleness. This would be a fantastic winter scent, especially on a snowy day. Doesn’t last too long on me.

First sniff: Envy is an herb garden where mint and basil grow intertwined, both intensely green. It’s as if someone picked a few leaves from each and bruised them in his hand – the scent is very wet and a bit rumpled like crushed leaves. Wearing: The dark green herbs are predominant, and I can’t smell the mint so much as feel it as a breath of cool air swirling over the top of the greenery. I think my skin sucked it up immediately – I can’t smell an aura at all, just when I put my nose right against my wrist. It doesn’t resonate in the “fresh and clean” category like so many greens do – it’s more of a natural scent, and by that I mean nature-y, like bright green grass and dark green herbs and walking through the garden barefoot. (Can you tell from this and Morella that’s something I like to do? ) Turned soapy on me after about half an hour, goshdarnit.

I really adore the candy-red colour of all these dragon blends. First sniff: The dragon of Dragon's Eye is bright white, opalescent scales and autumn-sky-blue eyes, curled up in a dangerously beautiful ice cave shimmering with crystals. Sweet-floral, but with teeth. Wearing: The sweet whiteness of lily of the valley is apparent immediately, a big white cloud of tiny flowerbells. It smells a bit soapy, but I can’t figure out whether it actually smells soapy or if I just associate lily of the valley with soap because it’s my sister’s shower gel. Stayed true all evening, and I can still smell it if I sniff my wrists. Not really me.

I'm not a big fan of florals (or at least I always thought I wasn't until I found the Lab...) and I ADORE Old Venice and Twilight. Wicked is another floral that's right up my alley - a cooler, greener version of Twilight, might be one to keep in mind if you end up liking Twilight.

First sniff: Lazy, heavy and reddish-purple. I can picture the Caterpillar’s smoke smelling like this as he lounges about on his mushroom, though it’s not overtly smoky. "How cheerfully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his claws..." Wearing: This almost has a dark musky berry flavor to it, and reddish-purple is definitely the right colour – it’s the draping fabric of a harem tent. I’d expected this to be more of a green scent, given the notes, but it’s very earthy and warm.