kjirstiben

When I encountered this year's Pumpkin Patch, I controlled myself. Many of them sounded wonderful... and of all scents, pumpkin spice is my favorite environmental/candle scent. But... when I tried Jack I was unhappily surprised. So I would only try one of the Pumpkin Patch oils, and Pumpkin IV it was to be. All those non-foody wood and tobacco notes must mellow down the foody pumpkin, right? Wrong. This smells like nothing so much as gingerbread or spice cake... Both things I enjoy eating, but having the scent hanging on me all day made me feel slightly sick. Unfortunately, not only does it not sit well with me, but it also doesn't wash off. So, while I may experiment with this as a room or car scent, I don't think I'll be wearing it again. I am saddened, but glad to learn a little more about my own scent preferences and skin chemistry!

I like Port au Prince, quite a bit... and very much for how different it is from some of the other scents I like. Going on, Port au Prince is sweet, spicy but herbal. It's light, almost clean-smelling. (What you'd want your skin to smell like after using a spicy body wash...) There's the rum... The scent is greenish, fresh, and, yes, a little masculine (I keep thinking aftershave). Over time, the clove becomes more and more prominent, and by an hour in, that's pretty much all that I can smell... strong clove with a LOT of throw. At two hours, however, clove backs down again, and by three hours in, all of the notes have subsided into a fainter version of what they were to begin with: a clean-smelling, light, spicy but sweet and slightly herbal blend. This is a good scent for a hot day in a humid place... it has a touch of that "piratey" feel to it.

You know, I got Morocco with my very first order, back in June of this year, and though I've tried it several times, I never had a long enough lasting mental impression of its character to review it. So I put it on this afternoon in order to discover what I thought of Morocco. And I can see why I didn't have an immediate impression: this is a very subtle oil, particularly in its initial phases. Understated, a little resiny, a little sweet, with a slight hint of spices, but nothing too distinct rising to the surface. Indeed, it took nearly 3 hours for Morocco to really come into its own. After spending a the first 2 hours as a vague, subtle, powdery-musk blur, suddenly the resins in Morocco did their thing and blossomed into their own. Warm, sweet, golden... some of the sweetness I associate with honey or vanilla but without the overtly foody connotations. Morocco doesn't have a lot of throw but it does stick around for a long time, so it's good for those times when you just want a subtle scent presence. I'm glad that I couldn't make up my mind about this, because it's been a delight to discover it now!

What a disappointment! I bought Eclipse hoping for something sweet and spicy... and got something sour and musty. As I initially put it on, I could smell the cherry-almondy scent familiar to me from Dana O'Shee, and it disappears upon hitting my skin, just as it does in the other fragrance. A few minutes later, a cinnamon scent rose to the surface, briefly. But after that, a sour smell came out, kind of sour-stale and musty-smelling. I'm reminded of mildew or... mushrooms, maybe. Is it the "bitter almond" doing this or is it the frankincense? Since every other almond scent disappears on me immediately, I don't have much to compare it with. 3 hours: The stale mushroomy sour smell is starting to fade, now... 4 hours: ...and I get soap. 8 hours after I put this on, I can smell something nice on my wrists... something faint and sweet. However, I'm not sure if it is Eclipse or if it was the handsoap that I used. So chalk this one up to skin chemistry ruining what should have been a very nice scent... Sigh. At least I know not to expect much out of almonds from now on!

Initially on, Eve was fruit and floral, a round, juicy crisp floral fragrance. After an hour or two, it was mostly floral, with some apple and honey undertones. There was a sunrisey effect, a sense of yellow apples and garden flowers... By four hours in, the scent is floral honey on the backs of my hands and (oddly), clean-smelling on my wrists. Actually, it smells rather like scented shampoo. Faint, fresh, and clean. Eve is probably too floral for me, but it's nice--just not my thing. Thankfully, I let my roommate smell it (she has a fondness for fruity, honeyed scents) and she was immediately thrilled, so this is going on to a more loving home than I could give it!

Bewitched started out all blackberry in the bottle, and in its initial application phase. On my skin, though, it quickly developed a deeper, greener character while drying down. Later on, the berry scent turned into berry candy. Sweet, fruity, but SWEET more than anything... I was actually reminded quite a bit of the scent that stands out most in Sticky Pillowcase... I like this, but it's really, really sweet. Makes my teeth ache, smelling it, almost. ...though, if I sniff closely at my wrist, there something woodsy, fuzzy-mossy, there in the background, lurking, grounding this otherwise pure candy scent... 6 hours in, the scent has lost its candy-sweetness and turned tart, musky, and green... more of an unsweetened berry herbal tea, at this point. I like the final stage, but I think I'd rather smell like juicy blackberries than like hard candy for the first 4 hours or so... I'll have to try this one again and see if it does the same thing to me.

It's so interesting how many different takes there are on Voodoo--it's got to be an artifact of everyone's skin chemistry, how this scent behaves. Voodoo is a morpher, that's for sure. The complex, almost (for a while) chaotic-seeming combination of notes makes for a confusing set of impressions--I think I took about twice as many notes while wearing this one as I have with most of the other scents I've tried. Initially on, it went like this. Hmmm. Woodsy. Oh. Is that... *checks list of descriptions* ...yeah, it's vetiver. (20 minutes later it was unmistakeably vetiver, all dark woodsiness and smoke on me...) but there's a sweetness overlaid, and some sharpness, too... that would be the vanilla and the lime. I even got a fleeting impression of "peanut butter" that seems to be as much as I get out of almond notes (we're talking a note that stuck around for maybe three seconds). And the clove comes out strongly, too, pairing up with the vetiver. Four hours later, from a little ways away from my wrists, I can smell a complex mix of ingredients, sweet and spicy, tangy, and darkly woodsy... but if I sniff my wrist, it's all smoke and woods and vetiver. After seven hours, vetiver releases its stranglehold on the scent and I start smelling the vanilla and pine coming forward shyly at first, then in more strength. At some point this afternoon, I found myself thinking, "What is this spicy goodness?" and it was a combination of pine needles, cloves, and vanilla that had all emerged from the thick dark blanket of the vetiver I'd smelled all morning long. I like Voodoo--I'm going to have to try it on a couple more times, though, before I've got a real opinion about it. Since it's very dark and quite strong, it's probably not something I'll be reaching for every day, but I have the feeling it would be a great "special days" scent.

I put this on this morning and was almost knocked over by the intense dark evergreen smell of Yew-Trees fresh out of the bottle. My roommate, in fact, asked me what I was putting on, then mentioned that it initially smelled like evergreen, then changed into something almost like candy, it was that sweet. At the time, I had no clue what she was talking about--this was all heavy-duty evergreen close-up. However, after a half-hour or so, the "piercingly sweet berries" of the description emerged, and over time, came more and more to the forefront. By several hours in, this is a faint, sweet berry scent with a memory of evergreen woods behind it... It's very pretty, and very unlike what you expect when you first open the bottle.

First impression of Paris: WHOA, lavender!!! It went on sharp, eye-wateringly pungent and herbal. Fortunately, within the first minute it began to mellow out, and lotus put its lovely foot in the door. Within five minutes, I was smelling something oddly herbal-floral but... it seemed almost... fruity. My notes at this point say: "Spicy, like... apple peel? nutmeg? clove?" Actually, there's a sense of all three to it (at least to my nose...) Over time, the lotus softens and becomes less sweet and mingles with the spices, to form an almost buttery fruit-spicy scent... I am reminded of Bastet, which shares the lotus note... This isn't a long-range scent, but it's something that would make me smile all day long... 4 1/2 years later: I'm revisiting this review because I recently, on a whim, revisited my bottle of Paris, and OMG, it's amazing! I'm not sure if this is a consequence of the blend aging, or my tastes changing, or what, but I am blown away. Paris does indeed go on with a blast of sharp, herbal lavender, but I'm used to this from my beloved TKO and I know it burns off almost immediately. As soon as the lavender blast starts to die down, a rounded, sweet lotus starts to show up -- sort of a fruity floral -- and as this stays on my skin, a soft, sweet spice underscores the combination of subtle French lavender and lotus. I spent the day catching errant whiffs of it and wondering, "What is that amazing smell?" So, anyhow, this now goes in my top blends list. I suppose I'll need to look into a backup (so that it ages to this beauty by the time I need it).

London is a clean, sweet, lovely, pure tea rose. This is very reminiscent of a scent that I used to wear back in my early teenaged years, a tea rose perfume (I still remember its clear pinkness in the bottle!). I've had rather hit-or-miss luck with the Lab's rose notes, some of which work on me, others which amp to a screaming level and drown out other notes. London works. It is a lovely, pink, full-bodied, dewy full-blown rose... I like it quite well. (Note to self: tea rose goes into the "safe" category!)

Eeeep! Jasmine, all jasmine, only jasmine... (but then, that's what jasmine does on me) ...and a headache (again, to be expected). Thankfully, I have a mother who adores all things jasmine, honeysuckle, and lavender... I think this imp has her name all over it!

Eos is just as advertised: jasmine with honeysuckle, a sweet back note that must be buttercup, and an anchor of skin musk. On me it starts out a little overpoweringly jasmine, but after an hour or so it quiets down and the sweeter florals underneath come to the forefront. It's quite pretty--though florals just really aren't my thing. I think I'm going to pass this on to my mother, who has more than once voiced her wish to find a true honeysuckle scent (and she loves jasmine, too). What a great way to enable!!!

I suppose I should have guessed, after having had neither Snake Oil nor Dorian work well on me, that this one might not work, either, but (foolishly, perhaps) I persevered and was rewarded by... ARRRRGH. When I first swiped this on my wrists--the first half-second, or so--there was a breath of warm, lavendered vanilla that was very promising. Then the "exotic oils" of Snake Oil did their thing and amped into the Headshop of Horrors on my skin... so much so that I was unconsciously extending my arms away from me all day, so as to have the smell at arms' length... and I still got a headache. It took seven hours for my skin to stop amping whatever it is that I amp in Snake Oil... at that point, I actually quite liked Lilith Victoria on me. However, seven hours of a headache is probably more than I'm willing to sit through to get to a nice scent stage. Sadly, this is not likely to be a scent I can work with, though I'm going to keep it around and see if aging it makes a difference.

Shocking, horrific, fierce, savage, sensationalized, luminous and hazy ? That's not really how I would describe Lurid, except maybe the "luminous and hazy" part of it. On me, Lurid is a very light, somewhat fruity, somewhat fresh scent. In the bottle, all I smelled was something incensey, but on me, this was quite perfumey, except for a certain sharp, salty smell that had to be the ozone. Over the next half hour, the "perfumey" quality of the oil went away and some sweet and fruity roundness came out. At the one hour mark, the scent was soft, fading away, and after 2½ hours, it became a soft musk/resin that can only be smelled distinctly when my nose is touching my wrist... it's hard to characterize as a scent, except that you can still catch a little bit of that ozone "zing". Several hours later, the light musk/resin scent has stayed with me at precisely the same level. Overall, Lurid is a light, fresh, smooth scent with a nice little jolt from the ozone. Personally, while it's a nice break from some of the heavier scents I've been trying lately, this probably won't be one I'll be reaching for lots of the time. (Though it has fed a certain interest that I've had piqued lately about aquatics...)

Ahhh, Tombstone... my first love of the BPAL world! Tombstone hits my skin all cedar and a little bit of sassafras-vanilla. In the first five minutes, the blend is a little harsh (the cedar) and a little plasticky (probably the sassafras), and then... The vanilla blooms on this one. The longer I wear it, the more like vanilla I smell. I go from smelling like dusty, scorched, outdoorsy vanilla for the first couple hours to smelling like vanilla frosting. I suspect this is a case of my skin chemistry amping both sassafras and vanilla and I must say, I like the results! I've worn Tombstone as a pick-me-up in the middle of field training (tramping through the San Antonio wilderness in full body armor in late July, all day long), and had someone comment to me--AFTER all the sweating and general grossness--"WOW! You smell good!" Tombstone is that great. All in all, Tombstone is a smoky, woodsy, outdoorsy vanilla. The reviewer who mentioned toasted marshmallows around a campfire isn't too far off! This is a delight to smell all day long and my scent of choice whenever I'm feeling down-and-out. (One caveat: if foody vanillas aren't your thing, you may want to be careful around this one... Tombstone smells edible, like frosting, in its later stages, and rather than dying down, seems to amp more and more over time.)

My first impression, opening the bottle of Centzon Totochtin, was of booze times ten... The red wine, a deep, dark burgundy colored wine, swirls around you, overwhelming everything else. That's how it is initally on my skin as well, but after a minute or two, it starts to go darker, become deeper. I get no "chocolate" or "cocoa" sense from this at all, but I don't doubt that's what's causing this to be so deep and dark and rich and bittersweet... Over the course of the day, it continued to get darker and smokier, but it stayed remarkably true to form... red wine with a swirl of darkness added. Oddly, I really do like the way this smells... but it's too heavy for me to have on for long! My nose was exhausted at lunchtime, and by dinner I actually made an attempt to wash it off my skin (not that it really worked). I guess, like its notes, Centzon Totochtin is best taken in moderation... When I try this on next, I'm going to be sparing in its application.

What a delicious surprise! This came to me as a frimp and I put it on, curious what the blend of smoky-sounding ingredients would turn out like. At first, this was a blast of weird, harsh, soapy lavender... but I've noticed that most of those "first blast" scents don't stick around for long, so I stuck with it, and after a couple minutes, a certain sweetness started to emerge. After a while, it toned down into a woodsy lavender, but the real fun started after an hour or two. The throw on this was a "New Age bookstore" scent, all incense, but up close it was smoky, sweet, and woodsy. The tobacco and sandalwood are what I primarily smell here, and, after what it started out like, I'm amazed that this one is so mellow, sweet, and pleasant. Gaueko is a very, very nice scent... a "sleeper hit," I think. Fun to find a new combination of notes that I like so well!

On me, Jailbait is exactly as described, until the perfumey note arises and goes bad... Initially on, this is amazing pink, gooey bubblegum, the kind that you can't quite chew at first because it's too hard but has a tooth-aching sweetness to it. After a minute or two, you can smell fruit lollipops... from my perspective, it was more red lollipops than orange, but sweet and, yes, perhaps a little too childish, but fun. However, after an hour and a half, a sour, stale scent started to bubble up from underneath all the fun girlishness. Over the next hour, the staleness overtook everything else and it's hard to remember that this was such a fun, bright scent to begin with. **Disclaimer: florals tend to go very bad on me, so if the "womanly perfume" mentioned in the description had a floral base, that might be what's going wrong with Jailbait. Sigh. I did so want to like this one.

My first thought when I opened the bottle of Lady Una was that it smelled like honey and something nice to drink. I think what registered as "boozy" was actually the blackberry scent, upon further reading of people's reviews. However... it started out a fruity, sweet scent with just a touch of an edge to it--probably the tea or blackberry leaves. This scent stayed remarkably true to form for about 2½ hours, and then, all of a sudden, it up and quit on me. All I got was the slightly-dusty, almost burnt, scent that I've come to expect from my skin when anything with a "fresh green" note hits it. In this case, I suspect it may have been the green tea leaf. So... though I loved the first 2 hours of Lady Una, I'm not fond of the end results. I may try using a scent locket... perhaps without my green-hating skin chemistry interfering, I can enjoy this scent for longer.

Cathode smelled of mint, primarily, when I put it on. Mint--but organic, garden mint... unsweetened, un-plasticky, un-sugared. This is not a toothpaste or a dessert smell. On my skin, it became a lot greener than I initially expected, and over time (this one doesn't morph too much--mainly the mint mellows), it was more of a mossy, outdoorsy scent than I would have expected to begin with. I can smell the ambergris, too, in the later stages. It's balanced, and mossy, and if I assigned it a color it would be a silvery grey-green. I'm having a hard time judging my reaction to this scent... I like it rather well, but other than that... I suspect that, if I wear it a few more times, this could really grow on me.

My first impression of Glasgow was of sweet berries and flowers. After it had been on my skin a while, I got a sense of fruit with a little floral... no, wait... make that a LOT of floral! (And floral and I don't work too well together.) Over time, this one never amped into the flowers-of-headache-bringing-doom that I get with some other scents, staying instead a sweet, fruity flowery scent. "Generic girl-perfume" was my initial impression, but upon reading through the reviews, I think I agree with the "really nice dryer sheets" description. It's a nice scent, but not one that works particularly well on me.

Pontarlier starts out as strong, sharp, bitter florals and greens. Almost immediately after application, this initial bitterness starts to mellow. However, at the same time.... the florals begin to amp. Over the course of a few hours, the lilac and rose battle it out for who can be the most headachingly overblown floral in the land... and they both manage to overdo it for at least my nose! Sadly, the absinthe, which I loved in the fragrance Absinthe, is completely eclipsed by the twin giants of lilac and rose as they scuffle for prominence. After it turned into painful, bitter, burnt-plastic screaming FLOWERS, I knew that this one could not be for me. Sigh.

Envy--definitely a GREEN scent! When I initially put this on, I was surrounded by a cloud of deep green herbal scents. It smelled naggingly familiar--I'm not sure which herb I'm smelling, here. Geranium leaf? Mint (as in the non-sweet version that you crush leaves of in the garden)? Catnip? After a half hour or so, it has softened and sweetened. Mint is definitely recognizable here, and some lavender with it, but that unnameable mingled-herb scent lingers, too... Whatever it is, it's lovely, and a fresh but non-girly scent for days when you don't feel too frilly. Unfortunately, after three hours it's all but gone... this is not a long-laster.

Cheshire Cat started out as a GRAPEFRUIT smack in the face... strong, strong citrus filled the room (my roommate asked me what I was putting on, it was that strong). Within 10-15 minutes, however, it mellowed out--I've found that most of the citrus scents will, if you give them a few minutes. At this point, it was citrus with a fruity, almost berry, undertone--probably the currant making its presence known--with a certain soothing herbiness underneath (chamomile and lavender). I love this scent and could wear it forever... ...Unfortunately, after a day's wear, all the other notes melted away and I was left with musk. Thankfully not powerful musk, but cloying, powdery, soapy musk that elicited a grimace when I smelled my wrist at the end of the day. However, the middle stage is probably worth it--I may just have to reapply to avoid the last stage! Overall, I liked Cheshire Cat, but I agree with other reviewers who've remarked on its similarity to Schrödinger's Cat (with the latter being better). It's a solid like, but not a love.

On me, Velvet is a sweet, light, marshmallowy hot cocoa scent with just a hint of something going on behind it. It's reminiscent of one of those "gourmet" hot cocoas made by high-end chocolatiers. It smells very much in the bottle the way it does on my skin, though after most of a day, I kept catching passing hints of a woodsy scent and wondering what it was. Oh--that's me! After many hours, Velvet dies down to a faint sandalwoody sweetness. Vanilla and cocoa work together in this one and the sandalwood stabilizes everything, keeping it from being off-the-charts gooey dessert. A very nice, cozy scent--one I envision wearing indoors on a chilly, overcast winter afternoon, wrapped in an afghan and sipping--what else?--hot chocolate.