Lamia

This is a very polite sandalwood. Fresh, it's got a bit of furriness to it, which I believe to be the cedar.

This is nothing BUT lavender, and such powerful lavender that it jumps right out of the bottle and punches you repeatedly in the face. It is so aggressive that I actually thought it was eucalyptus, and would be good as a replacement for Vick's. Jeebus. It is also a FAST fade, thank goodness. Trade bag, oh hells yes.

Fresh, this was ... er ... melon that was about to turn moldy, and limp watercress. (People, I can't make this up!) However, after about half an hour, it turned a red-gold dust. There was a swollen roundess to it that is impossible to describe and I went "hmmm". Alas, that lush fascinating scent fades quickly, and it's become gritty and dusty, like grubby talc. Trade bag, sadly.

Blargh - the worst sort of french soap. And it lasts FOREVER!!!!

This starts acceptably, smelling like ... like ... you know the fruit section of a salad buffet? Washed-out fruity sweetness, and the strongest scent is always the cantaloupe? Yeah, that's it. It turns very quickly, becoming grainy and dusty over the fruit. It seems that Beth's pear & I can go both ways, and this time it wasn't successful. As I review the ingredients, I notice amber - blargh, I can only wear "red" and "black" amber - "plain" amber and "white" amber don't do well on my skin. Ah well. This is my least favorite of the LeMat series. I have to try them layered, apparently.

Just opening the bottle makes me reel. I actually started to salivate NOMNOMNOM! It smells amazing, and starts beautifully. Drydown, it turns to vetiver, and loses that amazing chocolate smells. Alas. Reading the above reviews, lots of other people seem to have similar issues. However, they also mention rolling the bottle to mix it - I did not mix it, so will have to try that before re-testing. My lord, I am so glad I bought a 5ml of this...

I was dreading this one, as I despise mushrooms as the vilest of all evils. However, Beth being a GODDESS, she has managed to sneak mushrooms into my food without me noticing LOL This starts magnificently, like sweet fruity candy. It does fade to a chalkiness, reminding me of some great candy that you adored when you were a kid and found in a little dusty corner bodega, but when you stumbled upon it as an adult, discovered that it wasn't nearly as good as some other remembered sweets. This starts great, but turns chalky. The imp is sufficient.

This is FABU! Light and bubbly, carbonated like Pink Moon or Golden Wave. Regretfully, it's a quick fade, but while it lasted, it was a fun fizzy fruity floral.

While testing during drydown I kept thinking "transvestite!" - there was a charmingly sweet feminine scent rolling around and giggling, poking the dour masculine sage/musk core. Alas, the berries have gone away, but the sage does fascinating things to the musk. Nomnomnom

This is WONDERFUL while it's wet. Spicy and warm and confident. I told myself that thinking of standing on a dock while the wind blew off the land and out to sea was just projecting because I knew the name. Then I read the ingredients and was so relieved that my subconcious was right Wet, this is raisins and cardamom and good rum and a hot wind and a beautiful woman in a sturdy corset standing on a dock with a smile on her face. Drydown, this becomes faint and salt-soaked woody - sort of like Sea Rat, but not as powerful and nomnomnom-y. If Port Royal stayed the way it smelled while wet, I would so totally need a 5ml.

Started wickedly floral, a cruel sweet smile. After a few hours, it went brutally sour on me. Damn you, white amber!! Fortunately, the ambered sourness went away (phew!) and has left only snide chalky flowers. This imp is sufficient.

Started light and clear, cold soft florals, but almost immediately turned to damp earth. The florals keep trying to push through the dirt. After about 2 hours, the dirt has faded, leaving only light florals. Pity, this was one of the few Lunacies that seems to have worked well on me, but this has become so light that it almost seems me that I am wearing nothing at all.

Strong sweet floral, with a reminder of the brutal aggressively sweet perfumes my grandfather used to bring back from Moscow when I was very young. Zorya, however, has a refinement that those other scents did not. There is an elegance to this, a restraint that says "Yes, feminine" without punching you repeatedly in the sinuses.

I applied this unsniffed. Fresh on skin, it reeked of moldy dirt. No, that's not quite right. It was wet earth, and moldy flowers. Yes. Extraordinary! The flowers managed to be rotting without being repulsive, crying softly "it's not our fault we were put down here in the dark airless grave!" while the dirt snickered and loomed around. During drydown, the flowers sprang up defiantly, drying off and becoming soft, shooing the damp rot away. Regretfully, this is a quick fade, leaving a faint residue of a magnolia-esque floral on skin, no dirt to be found. Thanks, Hlinspjalda, for the decant!

I can see why everyone loves this one. Soft, delicately sweet, with lemon. It's drops of fresh-squeezed lemon mixed with white sugar into a paste before adding to lemonade, at a table beside a lush rosebush, on a warm summer day. The roses are soft, the lemons sweet, and it's heady without being dizzying. This is the scent a fragile woman should be wearing, like Meiglan from the Sunrunner series, but it also smiles with the reminder that lemonjuice burns, and roses have thorns. I will be going to a wedding this afternoon, and am eagerly anticipating layering with this scent's mate, Red Rose.

In the bottle, this is a thick chocolate cream scent, a haze that rises when you open the cap. On skin and fresh, it is the most exquisite, rich and thick homemade buttercream frosting your momma/granny ever made for your earliest birthday memory. None of this "straight from a can" nonsense here! After about a half hour, the buttercream turns grainy and to mild vetiver. I am so glad I bought a 5ml of this!

I'd tested this in the shop back in Feb, and my notes say "starts like Pop Rocks, turns nice but takes FOREVER to get there!" Bought a bottle at the last ECWC cuz why not? This time, applied fresh and alone, it started with a murky candy sweetness, and has twisted sideways. The champaca and sandalwood are disagreeing voiciferously with the plum like newly-introduced cats. I expect them to settle the hell down eventually, but for now, it's an intriguing scent, muttering and complex between growls.

When I smelled this in a bottle at this month's ECWC, I reeled from the horror and foulness. Testing a frimp sent from Hlinspjalda just a week later, it smelled somewhat sweet. On skin, this wants desperately to work beautifully on me. The ingredients are all proven successes, and it's giving the old college try. Tonka and pomegranite aren't a perfect blend here, but they're doing their best. I don't dislike this, but it's not worth the investment of a full bottle.

In the bottle this smells nasty. On skin, it starts sour but almost immediately (thank goodness) it warms up. This is a pleasant enough scent, but no one element leaps out and dances with me.

In the bottle, this smells like a freshly-unwrapped box of cherry cordials. On skin, it becomes very strongly sugared-cherry, almost chemical - the way a cheap box of cherry cordials smells. My boycat hunted my wrist down to sniff it aggressively, but I moved away before he could start licking (He did that with "Badger" as well) This seems to have settled to a papery cherry. I am the sad. Maybe it's me? Things that I try lately are less successful than I would like. Foo, and foo again, say I!

This is the first 13 that doesn't work on me - waaaaaah! The chocolate is nomm as always, but the thick fruit (yeah, ok, Tootsie pops works as a description!) goes away to leave a soured dairy smell. Someone above mentioned butter, I get more of a milk/white cheese rancid note. The dairy sourness does eventually go away, but WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

This smells rather old-lady-ish on me. The throw itself is nicely musky, and I would be extremely happy to be standing next to someone else who wore this, but on my actual skin, it's sort of ... meh. Trade bag.

I don't get the blissful green springtime from this that everyone else seems to. Nice enough and pleasantly light, but in a soapy masculine way. Trade bag. Or mebbe I'll send it along to MelanieSuzanne

Brown sugar, baby! Nom nom nom It smells like crystallizing brown sugar or maple syrup as it melts in a pot. The husband sniffed and curled his lip, saying it smelled "burnt" to him, and when pressed, said "Yes, it smells like brown sugar when it spills out of the baking pan and gets onto the bottom of the oven and then burns". I pointed out that he'd just had a cigarette and therefore all of his aromatic statements were suspect so NYAH. The dark chocolate, tonka, and star anise all combine to make this a smoky scent, so yeah, ok, I can sort of agree with him, but it's a GOOD smoky scent, like brown sugar & raisin cookies a few minutes before the timer goes off. OMG now I want brown sugar raisin chocolate chip oatmeal cookies... (Edited for failgrammar)

I'm the friend that got the surprise decant from MelanieSuzanne, and I think we traded bottles... I expected better of this, considering the exquisite combination of ingredients. It starts spicy and intruiging in the bottle. On skin it quickly turns lemony (moss?) with spices, but soon turns boring. Oh, sure, it's spicy, but not exquisite spices that pull you from your tower window into a Grimm's fantasy on a flying carpet the way Baghdad does, rather it's a good quality spice-imbued bubble bath. Ah well. My decant is more than sufficient, and I might even return it to it's happy home (shhhh don't tell her )