spiresinthesnow

THE DECREPIT HOUSE During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was; but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium—the bitter lapse into every-day life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows. —The Fall of the House of Usher, EA Poe An architectural doppelganger reflecting a ruined soul: dilapidated planks of mahogany and cypress wood perched feebly on a grim foundation of long-dead leaves, black musk, patchouli, galbanum, tobacco absolute, fragonia, and oakmoss. The scent of sweet, sun warmed, aged wood, with a smoky, musky, autumnal kind of backdrop. Its not sharp like fresh cut tree, or dusty and prickly like sawdust, nor does it have any mildewy aspects. Its sweet and heady and actually not very decrepit at all.

Cold Hour of Dawn is kind of pungent at first with a definite frostiness that quickly dissipates. The musk and the eucalyptus are running away into the distance leaving a trail of subtle iris with a cool balmy front. Balmy like big, thick, waxy leaves of a tropical plant. There is a soft powdery fizz of iris below these leaves. The musk and eucalyptus lend a light faraway chilly sweetness.

The bottle of Dee I just received from the lab looks like this. I love Dee.

by Cherie Carter-Scott 1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period. 2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life." 3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work." 4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson. 5. Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned. 6. "There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here." 7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself. 8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours. 9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust. 10. You will forget all this.

Hehe! I think I do number 10 most of all.

Cool!

Cool! thanks for the info!

DORIAN - me and my lover boy both wear this. Usually he prefers musky and or woodsy vanilla, even if he smells like a girl. lol! Though he prefers the vanilla/sweeter types they always smell amazing and sexy on him and are very fitting to his disposition. I absolutely love these for myself, but they are pretty unisex scents in my opinion: Dee Tombstone Parliament of Monsters Kroenen the Dodo King of Hearts Snake Oil There are so many more but these come to mind, and are the ones I like. My loverboy said he really liked Tombstone and so do I so I'm gonna get a bottle soon.

heh, I got all my GC's taken care of the old fashioned way via paper and pen. When it comes to all the LE's there ever were it gets pretty complicated but I remember most of the ones I've already tried. I just figure if it doesn't stick in my mind it probably wasn't meant to be. I've been loving the GC catalog (over LE's) more than anything here recently. Outta curiosity, is there any place besides scentbase? I don't really like the style and set up of a spreadsheet. I tried to look at hackess spreadsheet but I don't have any apps that support that on my pooter. I know there is google docs I tried that before with something else , and it kept messing up. I actually have a "notebook" app on my pooter so I kinda just made a huge list of all the LES I ever tried and How I thought about em. I don't really need to know alot of details like if I have a bottle anymore or not. Any other suggestions? The scent database is awesome btw! Alot of work you peeps put in that.

I tried this yesterday, and will definitely be gettin me self a bottle. When I first sniffed it I thought of Cuir Ottoman by Parfum d’Empire. I had a sample of Cuir Ottoman I used up completely. Definitely a unisex blend, to me its a dab of sharp yet muffled leather and a drop or two of astringent incense softened up a great deal by the musky wood and paper notes. It last forever.

Oh cool! Is it a new bottle? I'm not sure! I thought someone here might know if it has always been like that. Probably has. Yea, kinda like how the Snake oil bottles are different. I think the black phoenix GC is different too. its been a few years since i tried Dee, I received an imp yesterday and tried it on earlier. Freakin love it! My taste must have changed or somethin. I think I may order a bottle soon.

I love this one, and I love white musk, yet this one isn't as crisp a white musk as most due to the amber I presume. Soft light amber, musky and slighty crisp and cold with a glittering sweetness over faint white flowers (daisy and lily types?). I love. Its one of those blends that I put on and throughout the day get occasional whiffs and wonder if its me that smells so good. Pretty, and enough throw and presence without screaming "look at me". Anyhow it reminded me of Defututa (GC) but upon comparing them side by side they both had an initial similarity but First Spirit turned out to be more musky and crisp, when Defututa had more of a "meaty" honey sweetness.

Did anyone smell the Nut Crack Night Atmospheric Spray? Anyhoo, this is a dead ringer to it in comparison, to me at least. I love Nut Crack Night. Grossvater smells like roasted spiced nuts and is just all around sweet foody, buttery, bakery and puddin, more emphasis on the roasted nut part. Remember Mother Shub's Pfancy Pfeffernuesse? Its kinda like that but way better in my opinion. I really like it but, not so much as a perfume. I think I'll stick with my Nut Crack Night AS instead. Mmmm.. I love them sweet little nuts. lol!

Eh, I didn't really like this so much, it reminds me of Interfector. Its weird cuz I thought I loved tobacco in blends like Velvet Dogs, I really like that one. Its just this one is a little too cloying sweet. I could hardly stand the first stages, so I washed it off. The scent that was left barely lingering on my skin afterward was much better only then I could detect more leather and faint spice. Just not for me I guess.

Smells like my tin of Ginger Altoids. Fresh, spicy, ginger and dusty, powdery, sweetness. Pretty simple and straight forward, I like it, but don't know if I need a bottle. I can say I definitely like this much more than gingerbread poppet though.

Fun and cute! Ripe tangy sweet plums floating through a dusty haze of sugar fairy powder. I love apricot, like that in Common Jezebel, this is a dusty yet sparkling scent with plenty of sweetness. Eventually the tang chills out. Its spunky, and playful with a sultry, sugary, smoky like muskiness about it. I like it.

When I first tried this I thought that it smelled identical to Tweedledee! I broke out my Tweedledee to the compare the two, sure enough they are very similar but have some slight differences. I get the same tangy, salty sweetness in both of them. They also both seem to have similar citrus like connotations but perhaps different types. I think the tart "citrus" I'm getting from Tweedledee is the green tea, mango combination. Kingdom of sweets isn't as strong in the "citrus" aspect as Tweedledee and as Kingdom begins to dry down it becomes a lot more sugar or candy sweet than its counterpart which happens to be more astringent tart sweet. Kingdom of Sweets is like tangy fruity candies a melange of grape, cherry, orange, lemon, lime strong and forefront dusted with sugar.

Oh cool! Is it a new bottle?

I just figured that they are sending a replacement because its missing components. They didn't really tell me why, but I'm glad I'm getting the real Infernal Lover now.

I just received word that they are sending me a new bottle of Infernal Lover, to replace the one I have with missing components.

I love the bptp bath oils, and this one smells awesome, although a bit strong on the cinnamon/spice side. Not only that, I was sad to find it burns my skin, probably from the spices as well. I'm glad I skin tested it lightly before I put it in my bath.

There are two versions. I received a bottle from a swap and it was a honeyed cream scent, with the usual golden colored oil. The bottle I purchased from the Lab when the weenies were released is dark red oil, and smells like heavy red musk and honey. I have the same problem. My bottle of The Infernal Lover is lacking the red musk. I thought this morning when I tried it, maybe there was something wrong with skin chemistry etc, but after reading that this isn't specific to me, I'm really not happy that I ordered a red musk blend that doesn't seem to have any red musk in it! That's a rather extreme variation. Same... I emailed the lab about it 5 days ago or so and still haven't heard a response, because my mind was just like blown by the utter lack of red musk. Anyone heard back from the lab at all concerning infernal lover variations? Because meanwhile I am kinda morally meh on swapping it until we know more (I am very meh on cream/milk scents, but a red musk fiend), in case it is a mistake or missing a component. Because this seems like such an extreme scent difference :/ It really is like someone just forgot to add the red musk that would appear to be the main component in the original Obviously I haven't liked every single scent I have ever tried from the lab, but I've never been disappointed with an order and felt so mislead as with this blend. Because its not like I am imagining notes wrong or how they will go with my skin chemistry... like after reading the reviews of the original I feel like I was promised pizza, and given a sack of mozzarella cheese... yes its an ingredient in pizza... but it alone is nothing like pizza. With every other order I've ever had from the lab its been more like I ordered pizza, had no idea what toppings it would come with or how it would taste... but I always got the pizza I ordered whether it suited my personal tastes or not. I was just reading this and ran to sniff my new back-up bottle that arrived just this last week, and it too is missing the red musk! Oh! I'm so sad! I now see the two bottles I have of this blend are drastically different. I'm glad I read this and ran to check, I emailed the lab too.

I think there are different labels for the 2010 Samhain bottle. The one I have has a white background, with a girl wearing a big red hat (looks like a witches hat) and above her it says "tis Halloween!". The letter A in Halloween is apart of her hat. Her arms are spread out and she has red bat wings tied to them. It's really cute!

Just wanted to pop in here to say how much I love the Night Raven! Dash of plum and patchoul imixed with a kind of dark dry musk, that reminds me a lot of violets, a touch of bitter rose. A little sweet, a little dusty, but definitely dark feeling. I wasn't sure I'd care so much for this one because of the strong rose note I got initially, but it tones down after about 10 minutes in on me. It reminds me a lot of Parliament of Monsters in its drydown, except much more feminine and elegant. It makes me feel like I'm wrapped in huge glossy black wings.

Love love love this one! Edens Sixth Day pretty much nailed it on this one. I was surprised when I tried it. No strong magnolia or rose, or any predominance of any of the notes that I can tell, its just so well blended together. Opium-like is a very good way to describe it, smoky too. Overall it creates a dreamlike haze that is very mysterious, melancholy and a little bit sexy. My second favorite from the Goth Lit series and definite bottle purchase.