kjirstiben

OK, Alice is definitely all about carnations at first. It's spicy and sweet. I didn't know a flower could be this spicy! Very nice. Later: Why did I wait so long to try this one? I love it! At the 2 hour mark: It's clean, spicy, sweet… and still pure carnations. After a few hours: Alice is barely-there, a sweet carnation loveliness. Alice reminds me a lot of Katrina Van Tassel but with carnation in place of the white rose. It's a subtle sweet-spicy-girly scent, not so much sexy as sweet, even innocent in nature.

Prunella goes on as pure wildflowers, though they're tempered (a very little bit) by cream. However, as it dries down, it becomes a sweet plum and cream scent, where the flowers have completely vanished. It's sweet--like grapes and vanilla, even a little bubblegummy. It eventual late stages are a soft, sweet cream. A very loveable scent.

Wow! I love this scent! I wore it two days in a row and can barely pry my nose off it long enough to write a review. It goes on sharp and peppery (that's the frankincense), and as it dries down it's still sharp and peppery, but it's also metallic and sweet. There's a certain honeyed almost-sweetness that is the beeswax--I love this note! After a couple hours, I had a momentary scare--it seemed to be going sour on me! However, the scent regrouped and reemerged in its final stages. In its end stages, this is quite subdued, compared to its sharp, spiky beginning. The brightness of the scent has been softened, and the whole thing mellows out. It's a very nice finish, though I prefer the early hours of POW! that I got with this. UPDATE (Jun 2010) - this scent is in my top ten, with good reason. I've worn it both on my skin and in a scent locket (it stays sharper and stronger there) and it's wonderful. I think aging it has made it even better, too. I may need a backup bottle (or three...)

Initially on, Undertow struck me with a rush of a scent that I think of as "aquatic" (and I'm not totally thrilled by), but that wears off quickly and what emerges in the drydown is something sweet. Is that vanilla? It's hard to place, so I consult the description and realize, of course, it's lotus! It's a nice, soft, almost powdery scent, which is pretty much straight lotus after an hour or so, though from time to time I get a whiff of mint. In its end stages, this turns into a faint lotus sweetness, barely discernable hovering close to my skin.

King of Hearts has been stalking me--I've gotten a frimp of it with over half of my orders from BPAL! So now I've finally gotten around to reviewing it… The oil goes on a little sour and peppery-smelling--upon consulting its description, I can identify a sour cherry and sharp astringent lavender right off the bat. Underneath those two notes is a rosewood polished base, rounding things out. Once the lavender plays itself out, this smells very powdery--like a scented powder that I should be putting on with a pink powderpuff. Ah… this is the red musk thing--it ends up smelling like makeup or powder and spends a while in the middle stages completely taking over any scent that it's part of. In its final stages, the red musk calms down and I have a slight rose scent emerging from the makeup/scented powder. It's nice at this stage, but not really me.

This scent goes on smelling purely woodsy, and for a moment I'm tricked into thinking it's cedar I'm smelling, but it's actually pine. After it's dried down a few minutes, vanilla emerges. (This is almost exactly like Tombstone--which I love.) After a while, the scent is distinctly piney, but the vanilla sticks with it. The vanilla and the pine are amping together, and they complement each other rather than fighting it out. Over time, the scent quiets, but it stays true to form for a long, long time. Toward its end stages (by the end of the day), there is less pine and more vanilla--I expect that if I had long enough, it would eventually smell completely of vanilla and the pine would be gone, but that would take more than a day to happen. I adore this scent! Tombstone has been my favorite to date, and this is as close as can be--with the cedar of the first replaced with a slightly more evergreen pine, which is a nice twist on the theme. Golden Priapus is destined to ascend to my top 10 list, I can tell. I love these "vanilla with an edge" scents.

At its first application, this scent is very floral in nature--it was slightly green-scented in the bottle but it isn't on me, just pure florals. Thankfully, as it dries down, some honey and vanilla and a green quality to the scent emerge… (though at this point I realized it might be giving me a headache) After a while, I get a sense of candies and incense, where flowers are taking the supporting role instead of center stage. Oh-ho: maybe I do like this scent, after all! After about three hours, this really smelled a lot like Sticky Pillowcase to me--like fruit candy and not much else. I'm not sure what I think of it. I think my chemistry might be devouring a lot of the nuance of this scent so that what I end up with is a single-note hard candy. I think I'll try it in a scent locket to see if it retains more of its delicious bazaar-like quality from its early stages.

This scent was confusing, because it went on in a rush of--I swear--Buttered Flowers. Thankfully, the "butter" scent went away as soon as the oil absorbed into my skin. It was an odd beginning, though. After that, it becomes sweet, then floral. Really, really sweet and floral. Oh! This is the honey mixed with the jasmine, perhaps with a touch of the vanilla and cinnamon… that's why I'm getting the WAYYYYY sweet and WAYYYYY floral combination (jasmine amps on my skin, and so do honey and vanilla). Very weird--vanilla-cinnamon-honey are smelling warm and sweet while jasmine screams on top of the mix in its typical jasminey way… these scents really don't feel like they don't belong together. Unfortunately, this never did resolve itself. My skin wanted to amp both scents in opposition to each other, and the screaming floral that is jasmine always felt like it was at war with the sweet honey cookie-smell that stayed closer to my skin. I think that with the right chemistry, this could be really pretty, but it never quite resolved itself there for me.

Green, green, green! An initial grassy note smelled in the bottle fades, on my skin, into the overall herbal greenness of the scent. As it dries down, it seems somewhat soap-like, and I'm concerned that it may bring on headaches Over time, the scent becomes powdery-greeny, and doesn't (as I feared) take on the burnt-grass smell that I get from so many "green" scents. This would be a good herbal for a summertime scent, when you want the cool scents of greens around you.

Yeah, that's apricot! And the brandy is STRONG at first. When it touches my skin, though, this scent ceases to be as sweet as it smelled in the bottle and takes on an almost… soapy?... character. Yes, there's definite soapiness here -- over time the fruit fades almost completely away and I am left with a remaining distinctly soapy smell. After a certain point (not a very long time), this becomes very, very faint, almost as though I had washed with a peach-scented handsoap recently, and nearly disappears. It's an interesting notion but as usual, fruit misbehaves upon interaction with my skin chemistry. I'd like to try this in a scent locket but I don't want to smell as though I was dipped in peach schnapps all day, either. This may have to be a weekend scent.

Ahhhh, TKO. Perfect for bedtime. This starts out with a blast of herbal lavender, but right on its heels is the scent of sweet vanilla marshmallows. Probably would be too sweet to wear out and about during the day, but this is a perfect scent for bedtime--great for knocking out stale air or heater smells so that you can drift off to sleep peacefully...

I never got the pink pepper out of Hermia at all... First out of the bottle, this was a wash of florals and amber. At first, they seemed to be almost competing for prominence, with the warm amber trying to make an almost buttery layer underneath florals that gained an oddness for the buttery backdrop. However, as it dried down, the flowers softened and the amber mellowed into its usual self, sweet and warm without being overpowering (or weirdly buttery). Over the next few hours, this turned into a soft resiny scent with just a touch of honeyed floral. Interesting that in this scent, honeysuckle really does smell almost like honey to me.

Initially applied, the scent was strong, cool, and definitely along the "traditional perfume" lines. I kept being reminded of a magazine-fold scent, or perhaps... it reminds me a bit of a perfume I got from American Eagle back in the late '90s. I loved that scent at the time... but it never smelled "like me". Same problem here... It's a cool scent, with a certain juicy edge. Subtle and ever-so-slightly "hip". I can see a young urban person wearing this. For my tastes, it's a little cool and impersonal. This seems a slightly ice maiden-esque scent, instead of the warm and inviting aura I'd like to project. It's pretty, but it's very remote.

Initially applied, Humbug is an odd mix of butter cookie and licorice smell. It reminds me of Le Père Fouettard, minus the heavy coal-leather-licorice stage. From drydown to its final stages, this is a lightweight, sweet vanilla-anise scent that becomes increasingly pure vanilla over time. In its final stages on my skin, this virtually disappears, it's so faint. Very sweet, and just what it was supposed to be.

Mmmm. Snowblind was not exactly what I expected, but I love it! Perhaps even more than what I expected... Anyway, this scent is overwhelmingly buttery in the bottle; enough so that it's hard to tell it's supposed to be a mint-vanilla scent. But as soon as it touches my skin, it turns into a sweet, minty, yes, creamy scent that hovers close to the skin but is delightful whenever I sniff my wrist. Over time, the mint burns off (as it tends to), and I'm left with a sweet scent reminiscent of nougat or taffy or possibly white chocolate. Very good, very light, and a nice comfort scent. ETA: 4 years later, I tried this on again. I had been (erroneously) remembering this as one of the candy scents that goes bad on me, but I tried it on to see what aging had done to it... and oh.my.goodness. The creamy sweetness of it is truly wonderful; I could wear this all day, every day, I think, all winter long! Why didn't this strike me this way to begin with??? Anyhow, just wanted to chime in and mention that a few years makes this scent that much more amazing.

It's interesting--I find that a milk note usually makes the scent disappear on my skin (both Dana O'Shee and Sudha Segara did this, though Alice stuck around beautifully on me). Cream, on the other hand, will enhance a scent for me, taking notes that don't work on me normally and toning them down so that they are truly delightful. This was particularly noticeable in Katrina Van Tassel and in Lady Lilith with the florals; I'm finding that Prunella, too, is enhanced by its cream component (I have a hit-or-miss record with most fruits). I've currently got The Gaoler's Daughter on order--I'll be interested to see if the cream will tone down the otherwise iffy gardenia and peach--and Agrat-Bat-Mahlaht, where I hope the cream and amber mitigate apple blossom and caramel (aka, on my chemistry, Screaming Floral and Nasty Burnt Sugar, respectively). It looks like most "innocent young maiden" scents contain either milk or cream...

Leanan Sidhe goes on slightly soapy (I may be misreading an herbal scent here) and quite green, but green in a mossy, not a grassy way. Like Irish Springs soap as it dries down, very much a "running springs fresh" sort of scent. I'd imagine this for detergent or fabric softener. It's nice, but a little too much of a refreshing blast for everyday wear... And in the drydown, it stops all kidding around and becomes really, truly, 100% soap in nature. Nice soap. Clean soap. But soap nonetheless. Hmmm.

My first impression upon putting on Hanging Gardens was of undifferentiated fruit and flowers... lots and lots of fruit and lots and lots of flowers. At first it seemed mostly floral--was that plumeria I was smelling? Rose? As it dried down, it became much sweeter. It must have been the fig I was smelling--it's a rich, fruity scent but not one that's immediately familiar to me. Over time, it smelled fruity, almost buttery-sweet fruity. Very tropical fruit in nature. I'm not sure if I like this--while the tropical fruit is interesting, it's not exactly what I care to surround myself with, or smell like. What an interesting and exciting conglomeration of scents, though! Fun for the experience. ETA: Nearly three years later, I retested this scent and found it truly wonderful. The sweet fruit that sticks is definitely the pomegranate, and the gardenia and plumeria merge with it into a sweet, gardeny, tropical fruit-floral scent. No rose ever really emerges - a good thing because it could easily overwhelm the blend. This scent never goes through an awkward / bitter / burnt phase the way that so many sweet scents do on my skin, and for the summertime, I think this is a lovely scent to have around.

I've found that I really love these evergreen scents, and Black Forest was no exception to that rule. Freshly on, it smelled strongly of pine at first, then started to sweeten up slightly. After an hour or so, there was a scent to it, like it was trying to go sour, but since the scent has so much depth (evergreen depth), it's not something you can pick out. The end, though... it did go a little sour on me... then abruptly disappeared. How odd. I wonder if it was the black musk that made it disappear like that on me? This will take more experimentation...

Swank goes on berry-sweet, so sweet that I'm a little worried... it smells like I'm applying Jolly Ranchers to my wrists! Once on, a tart, lemony note emerges. Now the fruit smell is more like real fruit or fruit juice. Rather suddenly, around the 1.5 hour mark, the scent suddenly goes dusty and tart--but now with no fruit. I'm getting a bit of the sour/musty scent that I tend to get from scents with a sugary note. It continues to sour, but not too badly, and gets really faint after about 3½ hours. This dries down to a faint, clean-fruity scent, like a fruit body wash. It's barely there but what there is of it is pretty nice. Overall, I'd say Swank behaves as advertised. Very strongly fruity, a little touch of that tart cocktail "fizz", and dries down to a faint, fruity aftereffect. Personally, probably not one I'll wear all the time--it doesn't feel like "me" in the way that berry body sprays don't feel like me--but if you're someone who loves berry scents (pomegranate comes across like red berries), this would be the way to go!

Ogun sounded so interesting to me, but something went horribly, horribly wrong on my skin chemistry. At first I smelled melons and a tart smell that was hard to place (I think it was either the gin or the juniper or possibly some combination of the two). The tart smell kept amping strongly into a tart-melon-soap sort of smell. Melons I might be able to handle alone, but when paired with this tart, soapy scent it was too strong a juxtaposition... I found I was very displeased with the way that these notes worked on me. It's got a very strong "masculine" nature that has put me off some other blends... rather like aftershave... with melons! Oh well, at least I know a little more about my skin chemistry, right?

Quite an odd one, this Licwiglunga. "I have never seen graphemes such as this before," indeed! The scent went on peppery--something I've come to expect with frankincense, but on the skin it dries to smell leathery or parchmenty. There's a background scent-memory of fennel, but nothing up-front or in-your face about it. I'm getting a salty, twingy, noticeable scent here that increases the oddness factor of all the other scents, but nothing I can put a finger on. This mellows over time to a smooth, tangy anise with herbs scent. It's rather light, very different than any other scent I've tried, and quite enjoyable. It's an interesting, almost contradictory scent, with the herbs, leather, and anise stages that it has. A very lightweight, subtle scent. I think this would be a good day-out casual-wear scent, when you don't want to overpower people...

Mmmmm. Such a delightful scent. Pickled Imp goes on smelling of cinnamon and clove and quickly is distinctly the scent of spiced cookie. I smell like a cookie! It's a bit screamingly baked goods just at first (not usually something I prefer to smell like), and this one doesn't seem to be going wonky on my skin the way that lots of the foody scents do. Dried, this is still sweet, but... it's trying to go a little sour on me (though the sourness is mixed with a dusty sweet vanilla-clove loveliness). Fortunately, the sour smell was a short-lived transition phase, and I get a pine with clovey vanilla. Very, very nice. I still smell sort of like a cookie, but not so much so that it makes me feel sick... I really, really like the pine-vanilla combo--this is a lovely, comforting, cozy scent.

This goes on smelling of wine... rather grapey wine, but wine nonetheless. It continues to be so, but the grape note intensifies and I'm getting a touch of extra fruitiness that must be the pomegranate. As it dries down, there's a definite pomegranate underlayer, and some leather emerges with the wine (grape) scent that takes center stage. However, this all but disappears on me after a few hours... there's a subtle leather and wine scent lingering right on top of my skin but that's about all. Very nice, but I think my skin eats it!

Ahhh, delightful, delovely... This isn't much of a morpher--it goes on as resiny incense, and stays sweet, resiny incense for hours upon hours. It has a certain "dusty" character after a while but that only adds to the aura... Very nice. Very much what I was hoping for. Midnight Mass is a winner!