Shollin

First sniff: Snake Oil is sweet and spicy, very food-y. Brighter than Angel Innocent. Wearing: More spicy on my skin, not as overwhelmingly sweet. Pretty nice, but I need to wear it again when I can actually smell. On second try it’s damn sexy, and made me feel slinky all evening. No help in the man department though. I really do like this one, but I think it's been supplanted by Ravenous as "perfume I wear when I want to feel sexy."

First sniff: Warm, sweet, bright. Slightly sharp. Wearing: OK, I thought Carnivale smelled like cough syrup, but maybe that’s just because I’m sick at the moment. After the initial coughsyrupness it’s pleasant - warm and sweet. Will have to try again when I can smell properly. Either it wore off REALLY fast or I’ve lost my sniffer again. Second wearing: Still a little bit coughsyrup at first, but that very quickly warms up and gets spicy… it’s almost a holiday sort of scent after it sits for a couple minutes! Holly berries or something. After a while there’s an undernote that goes weird on my skin, probably the amber. I do so wish resiny scents liked me better. Apart from that it's very pleasant.

Black Rose First sniff: Yup, that’s a rose! Smells like my rose-petal tea. Wearing: Yup, that’s a rose! Definitely… a rose. Sweet and flowery and… rosey. Yup. Rose. OK, getting over my Master of the Obvious thing now… It’s not at all powdery, or old-lady-ish, it smells like a rose out in the garden. Or maybe in a greenhouse, because it’s not a sunny outdoorsy garden smell, it’s just a ROSE.

First sniff: Compared with Old Venice, Old New Orleans is firmer and more defined with a light brushing of spice over the flowers. A well-manicured garden, greenery included, rather than a riot of floral insanity. I really wish I could pick out individual scents because there’s something in this that says holiday to me, and I can’t imagine why. Wearing: Greener, lighter and spicier than Old Venice, still very soft and warm but not quite as BIG. I’m still getting the holiday scent – something like mulling spices. After a few minutes it was intoxicatingly sweet-floral, honeysuckle, and something in here is making my nose itch. Both the sweetness and the nose-itchiness toned down nicely after a bit longer, but it's still decidedly sweeter than really suits me. Goes in the “nice enough but I wouldn't mind swapping” category.

First sniff: Aggressive. Somehow bright and dark at the same time… close darkness and torchlight and incense and the creaking wood of a pirate ship. (Who, me, influenced by descriptions? Nahhhh…) I haven't tried it on yet - I'm hoping the incense works on my skin, as they often don't. Wearing: On first application, Anne Bonny is pretty darn nice. Warm and dark and enveloping. And I smell my wrist a few minutes later and there’s the sharp-sweet resin thing happening again. *sigh* Ah well, at least I know Cathedral and Aureus weren't flukes - I just can't wear incense. *pout*

First sniff: Feminine and floral. Very pastel, but blue, not pink. Wearing: Very pretty. Delicate roses with a hint of something sweeter. It's a bit too girly-floral for my taste, but matches the character perfectly - water plants and innocent white rose. Very Ophelia.

Snow White First sniff: Cool. Slightly minty? Very subtle and delicate. Something yummy in here too that I can’t put my finger on. Wearing: Something round and fruity under the mint - white grapes, maybe? Smelled a bit like pineapple or pear at work. Still a cool scent, but more fruit than mint.

First sniff: I definitely smelled fruit, but all I got was apples. No hint of spice, just pure round fruity apples. (I smelled everything this time before reading the descriptions, just to see how close my nose got.) Wearing: Here's what I wrote to Elizabeth in a moment of unrestrained fangirl drooling: "Jester is the most gorgeously perfectly hobbity scent I've ever worn. I can't figure out why it's all apples to me, because there isn't a hint of an apple in the description, but there it is... bright tart crisp autumnal apples, the kind for which you'd dodge the grouchy farmer's big scary dogs and climb way too far up in the tree, furry feet and all. Reminds me a heck of a lot of Merry and Pippin, and I loves my hobbitses." It's absolutely delicious and crunchy, if a scent can be crunchy.

Velvet didn't work on me either. As gorgeously chocolate-spice as it is in the bottle, about thirty seconds after it hit my skin it turned to very loud sandalwood that I couldn't seem to wash off. It's apparently just our skin though, because several people have said it's utterly gorgeous and sexy on them. If I want to smell like chocolate I'll take Vice any day.

First sniff: I wanted Unseelie the moment I saw it on the site, and it’s GORGEOUS. Soft and dark, a hint of flowers but not too floral - night-blooming flowers, maybe. Wearing: Very powdery and silky. Unfortunately it’s far nicer in the bottle than on me – it seems to dry to baby powder pretty fast.

First sniff: Vice literally made me moan aloud. Dark, lush cocoa. Utterly delicious. Wearing: Same as in the bottle. Not too strong. The cherries still haven’t shown themselves – I just smell rich dense dark liquid chocolate, like swimming in Willy Wonka’s river.