magpiedee

http://www.coolmompicks.com/2010/03/black_...alchemy_lab.php I just reviewed BPAL for Cool Mom Picks. Always good to spread the smelly joy.

XIV My first Chaos Theory. And it's fascinating! Imagine you are at the zoo, and it's a very hot July day, so you stop to get one of those Minute Maid frozen lemonades. You eat it as fast as you can until there is nothing left but the whippy liquid froth at the bottom, and you feel sated. You are standing in front of the panoramic safari section, with elephants enjoying dustbaths and giraffes twitching their tails and zebras placidly munching, feeling like you are almost-- but not quite-- all alone on the veldt where everything shimmers and sighs. Then you smell the lemonade. It's a lot like that. Notes? Um... hot lemon. Hot, honey, sunshine, dusty, dry lemon. Lemon in a yellow polka-dot bikini. Lemon sweat. Lemon that laughs at Pine-sol and other cleaning products because they're too mainstream. With the tiniest dry-down of something sweetly soapy, like baby soap or laundry detergent in the sunshine. In fact, the exact quote it brings to mind is Ron's fake magic spell from the first Harry Potter: Sunshine, daisies, butter, mellow... my Chaos Theory smells like yellow! It's a fascinating scent adventure for me. Doesn't make me feel sexy or sweet or womanly or spicy or responsible... just makes me see the sun wavering over stunted trees and everything bathed in golden sweat.

Hell's Belle... is like the sassy pirate wench that beat the crap out of Anne Bonny and stole her ship and is now drinking her rum through a straw in a coconut while working on her tan. Seriously, Hell's Belle is what I had hoped Anne Bonny would smell like, because it is the perfect epitome of a fun-loving pirate wench for me. Knee-high black boots, big, floppy hat, floofy white shirt, lipstick the same red as the blood on her cutlass. In more concrete perfume terms, HB is warm, golden, languorous, swingy like a hammock. Well-rounded, like it has aged just enough. It's the color of sun in rum, or of polished golden birdseye maple. Maybe just a touch of green and brown, but mostly gold. The imp, immediate smell and drydown are identical to me, and the scent keeps going for a good, long while. I am 100% behind Hell's Belle. She's me pirate buddy, and we read Cosmopirate together while we paint our toenails, yarr.

Yemaya... is like a glittery blue dragonfly caught in a puddle of melon juice and buzzing a bit with drunkenness. I haven't decided yet whether my 5mL is a keeper. I love the idea of Yemaya, especially as a mother, but I think the Yemaya that struck me and inspired my big bottle purchase was the TAL blend. Yemaya is very strong, sweet and fruity for me, and although the drydown is lovely, it just doesn't last. Within an hour, I couldn't smell a single hint of the sweet, melony goodness. But lovely.

Shango... is exactly like Lady MacBeth deep-throating a banana. In the imp, I found it vile and reminiscent of cough syrup and hearth smoke, but after reading the reviews, I knew I had to try it. And thank goodness I did! It's got that deep, mellow, smokey aubergine-merlot of Lady MacBeth, but with a warm summer component of coconut and banana that makes it infinitely wearable. I almost ran off the road this morning sniffing my wrists. I was going to order a 5mL of Hell's Belle, but I will probably get Shango instead. Huzzah for Shango!!

I keep a little espresso teacup full of dry rice at work with the following imps: Kitsune-Tsuki - soft, like snow and plums, competent but feminine Bordello - a little more rowdy, but spunky - for asskicking at work Queen of Hearts - fresh and strong, executive, playing by the rules Persephone - girlish and sweet, for when I want to be humble Old Glasgow - a very cold, crisp, deep smell, for tucking into work I've also got imps of Rosalind (grassy, fresh) and Whitechapel (tea and lemon, unobtrusive) on the way for springtime. Hope that helps!

I would have sworn I had reviewed this one, but I can't find my review. Weird. Aizen-myoo is my fighting scent. My sweating, fierce joy, bruising crunch of shins scent. I wear it to muay thai class, and it brings a certain animal light to my eyes. It adds bite to my hooks and flow to my 6-counts. It is the smell of hot, sizzling summer in the South, as a child forces a path through the blackberry briars. Torn green leaves, irridescent june bugs, bleeding milkweed, red scratches from wayward thorns. It is a smell that hacks through jungles, fearless of snakes. Sharp citrus, torn grass, summer sun. It nearly buzzes on its own.

Two words: Children's Tylenol. For which I love it. Glitter will be a sleeping scent for me, along with Alice and Bon Vivant. They are not scents that I want to wear for others to smell me, but rather, scents that I personally want to smell. They are memory-spiked and soothing for sleep. For me, Glitter smells exactly like my favorite childhood medicines, the thick pink flu medicine in a brown bottle in the fridge and the tiny pink Children's Tylenol. After a long, hot bath, I like to dab it on my wrists and throat and sleep with my hands by my cheek to inhale the comforting goodness. The smell is light, pink, effervescent, comforting, soft and yes, a bit glittery. Not a full bottle purchase, but one that i'll save for memory lane and sweet dreams.

If the Queen of Hearts gently took the grey-velvet clad arm of Whitechapel and went strolling through Old Glasgow during a deep blue evening, it would smell exactly like Queen of Diamonds. I just want to *be* Queen of Diamonds. So lovely. This will be one of my signature scents until I run out and cry for weeks.

Mabon completely represents to me the concept of "dandelion wine". It smells deeply golden, harvest color, like the very last beautiful day of September, when you say goodbye to fall by lying on your back and letting red and orange leaves fall on your face while whispering love notes to the deepest blue sky. Yellow-gold, clear, liquid, limpid, bold, benevolent, sweet, mellow, ripe. I smell dandelions and leaves and warmth, but that is all I can say of smell. It's like Lughnasadh without the apples and cherries. It is lovely like a sleeping lion, like the perfect leaf, like a bottle of olive oil, robust and lazy and deep. Beautiful.

Would you believe me if I told you that O was horrible on me? One of the top 5 worst scents on my skin? Perhaps we are cursed, O and I. The smell of O on my skin... was of honey and baby diapers. Stinky, stinky baby diapers. I was so disappointed, because everyone seems to love it, but apparently no one told my skin chemistry about that bit. I traded it almost immediately. So there you have it, believe it or not. Honey and baby diapers.

Whitechapel is one of the most polite smells i've ever encountered. It practically doffs its hat and stoops over your hand. And yet, underneath that spotless waistcoat, there is something twisted lurking quietly. Do you remember (perhaps lovingly, as I do) that moment in Bram Stoker's Dracula when the handsome prince first bows to Mina in the streets of London? His gray hat, immaculate suit, cane and glossy black locks, his precise accent, his warmth... and underneath it all, we know who he really is. And some part of Mina does, too, but she's still entranced. And that is the smell of Whitechapel. I smell tea with lemons, Earl Grey, a white china bowl of limes, the dry scent of a visit to the apothecary lingering in a gentleman's handkerchief. Clean and clear, standing in the nave of an old church, lighting a candle for a sick aunt. It is grey and yellow, arsenic and old lace, a gold pin in a silver cravat. I wear it when I feel tidy and clean and alone, when I knit and watch period dramas, when I languish on a Sunday morning. I wear it to go through nostalgic items and to hug my grandmother. So polite, yet... there's always something lurking.

Hamadryad is lovely, but it doesn't work for me, in a strange way. It crosses my wires and screws with my synaesthesia. See, in my brain, things can't be both red and green at the same time, and Hamadryad attempts just that. It is green and clean and woody, but at the same time, red and spicy and cinnamony. So although I like it, it upsets something in my noodle and makes me scowl every time I smell it. Weird, eh? Since it hurts to sniff it, it is hard for me to describe, other than that it is both red and green, cool evergreen but red hot, outdoorsy but kitcheny, elusive and tricksy. It smells very rich and enveloping, like breaking through a circle of trees to see what's in the clearing. It is confusing and natural and warm and distant. For me, it is a scent of opposites, a very unique combination that I simply can't wear. And yet it's lovely.

Snow White, for me, is encapsulated by that scene in Legend in which the unicorn's horn has been cut, and the world is enrobed in sugary snow. When Lilly creeps into the cottage and finds everything once warm, welcome and familiar foreign and cold, dusted with glittering white powder, faintly tinged with blue. It is sweet and lovely and soft, but cold and sharp and glittering, too. This is not, for me, the limp and fearful Snow White of the Disney Film, but a strong woman tinged with sadness, an ice maiden frozen in time. The metaphor is all I have to give you, really. I can't pull out a single note. It is lovely and strong without smelling of food or flowers or wine or musk or smoke or another main "scent" that we use to describe the oils. It is a light, frosted, robin's egg blue to me, opaque and sparkling as snow in the moonlight. The balance appeals to me: soft but strong; glittery but opaque; somehow both cool and warm at once. It is a masterpiece, and I am thankful to Beth and quantum spice for sharing it with me.

Oh, lovely... lovely... lovely... Lughnasadh is the smell of opening the door of a welcoming, warm home after tromping through cold snow in the night. The exact feeling of that door opening, and the warmth bumping against your face like bread rising over the side of the pan, and jolly voices calling welcome. It is warm things simmering, twinkling lights against worn wood, stockings and doorbells and someone else making hot breakfast. It's the smell of Christmas to me, of holidays with family. Actually wearing it, it is all fallish colors-- pumpkin orange, cranberry red, fir green. It is sharp but mellow, winey, deep. The maraschino cherry bit hits me first, and then it mellows into apple and cinnamon notes that are nothing like cinnamon apples, but distinct feelings of the essence of apple, and the essence of cinnamon. I wear it when I want to feel crisp and bright and yet warm and welcoming. It's great with a red sweater.