tesao

dirt. musty attic full of cobwebs. bundles of dried flowers, herbs, spices, twigs hanging from the rafters. a hint of sunlight attempting to pierce the darkness through the single, small window. the poisoned fruit of knowledge. acrid. unknowing. blind. rife with power. but only for she who knows how to unlock it. too tart and too fruity for me at the same time. who knows how the lab does this??? has beth sold her soul to nikki????

hmmmmmmm. the artistry in this blend is, once again, nothing short of amazing. alchemy, indeed! first sniff on my wrist is bright spearmint. feet crushing it as they walk upon it. next stage is warm, spicy, fresh cedar. i love cedar. final note is sweet, almost bubblegummy. this must be the lotus, although i'm not familiar with it, so i truly can not say. i never got any of the bitterness that i associate with saffron. it's a piece of art, this fragrance. and it is not for me.

in vial: roses. big, full-blown, old-fashioned roses. kept wondering to myself WHY i had wanted to try this... wet, on skin: roses. nice, though, which is odd because rose doesn't usually agree with me. dry, on skin: i'd totally forgotten that i had it on. and then all of a sudden i felt as though i were inside some sort of wooden chest -- lined in sandalwood. the scent had morphed compleatly! drydown: notes of patchouli pop up as spice, in the constantly swirling haze of finest sandalwood, as seen through a garden of roses. i am so surprised by this. i may have to order a bottle of it!

i honestly can't recall a description that had less information to go on but was SO dead on. great call, beth!!! i like this. it is another one of those evocative blends, wood and leather and bones in davy jones' locker (the ozone notes). you can literally see the pirate ships and the tattered jolly roger. it doesn't last very long on me, though. and i'm not sure that i would reach for it all that often. i love it on a man. rrrowr.

disclaimer: oakmoss + tes = awful in the imp: yum. leather leather leather on my wrist, wet: very masculine. much more so than the gender neutral blends usually smell on me. but it smells great! leather and hints of rose. no amber that i can tell , but no oakmoss, either . other florals start to come up after a bit...... on my wrist, dry: ooops. THERE'S the oakmoss. too bad. so sad. buh bye.

this was lagniappe from the lab. i most likely would never have ordered it on my own; black currant (well, most fruit, with the notable exception of citrus) tends to hate my body chemistry/skin. when i first put this on, it smelled of citrus, more like orange than any other. citrus and spice. reminiscent of a pomander ball made from an orange, whole cloves, and a cinnamon stick. as it dried down, i realized i had absolutely NO CLUE what i was smelling. it isn't citrus. it isn't any spice i'm familiar with. it IS warm and spicy and comforting. it sends a little shiver up my spine. i want more.......

Picture, if you will, a period piece. a mansion in the country, arriving by night via horse drawn coach. The creak of the leather, the brightness of the stars as you are helped out of the conveyance by a footman. You are led by a silent lackey up countless stone stairways that have known the feet and dust of centuries. Up, up, up the dark and twisted ladder. Heavy wooden doors are opened onto a scene of magic suspended in time and space. A huge marble fireplace roars with warmth, yet the room is strangely cool. Incense wafts up to greet you first, to pull you in with the air. Mosaic rosewood floors weave elaborate patterns and unknown languages beneath your feet. The room is furnished with a massive rosewood desk covered in glass beakers, pipettes and tubes. Scrollls of parchment lay scattered amongst dark metal devices that spin and whir, giving off the occasional spark and pop. Small burners reflect the light of the fire flames. An worn cordovan leather couch, divan, armchairs and poufs are scattered about the room. But the study is not dominated by all of this; rather, it is a singular man dressed in black, a black silk skullcap on his ebon curls, who pulls your attention to his piercing eyes that see not you, but straight through you..... My child....he whispers, yet his voice is as strong and as clear as the bells at evening vespers. It pulls you forward, towards him. You instinctively kneel at his feet. He is neither tall nor short, neither young nor old, neither known nor unknown. He is none of these things and he is all of them. He reaches into a pocket of his supple black leather waistcoat and extracts a small vial. He opens it with one hand, noiselessly, and leans forward to annoint your body with it. It smells of vanilla...but not.....he murmurs words you do not know, and you swoon into a swish of silk and satin at his moroccan leather clad feet.....

Piquant citrus tempered by jasmine, soft Mediterranean herbs, lavender and orange blossom. in the imp: orange blossom and green herbs. on my wrist, wet: no jasmine. but it says jasmine. and jasmine hates me. what i get are soft breeze borne flowers and herbs. on my wrist, dry: it's gotten a little soapy. but there is still no noticeable WHAM of jasmine. it may be there in the background, but this is so well blended that really the only note that i could ever pick out was the orange blossom. light and airy. summery. beachy. it isn't really me. at all. i think i like it though.

provenance: lab lagniappe! yay!! in the imp: whoa. HEAVY white flowers. my first thought was jasmine. on my wrist: still HEAVY flowers. maybe gardenia. jasmine sometimes likes me, sometimes not. i've yet to find a gardenia scent that likes me, although i adore the flower itself. dry: maaaaaaaaybe a teeeny hint of sugared vanilla or honey. something that isn't the previously mentioned floral, but still SWEET. overall: HEAVY WHITE FLOWERS. if you like them, and they like you, you will love sacred whore of babylon. me? i'm washing off my wrist.

this was lab lagniappe!! as always, many thanks for your generousity - it allows me to smell SO many things i would never have the opportunity otherwise. in the imp: sour. off. couldn't get past the something is rotten in denmark smell. i almost didn't put it on. on my wrist, wet: the same. after much sniffing (i know, perhaps i am a masochist), i decided that it smelled like pickles. or pickling spices. mustard seed, dill, something heavy and green and pretty awful as a perfume. on my wrist, dry: well, the pickle smell is gone. believe me, this is a good thing. it has been replaced by a woody craftstore like floral that i can't identify. i smell no rose and no jasmine....my skin amps them up like wildfire. i suppose it could be the frangipani (which i have always called plumeria, but i believe it is the same flower)....but it doesn't smell like any frangipani i have ever known. so now it is a heavy floral that smells pretty soapy and fake on me and is giving me a headache. sorry, lab. this isn't the kind of review i'm used to giving!!!

a gift imp from the lab. and i'm quite glad of it! in the imp, it reminded me a lot of mass as a young girl in brasil -- and it caused me to smile and say mmmmmmmmmmmm. then i put it on and it was rose rose ROSE. i couldn't smell anything else. but mass never reminded me of roses. on the drydown, there were subtle hints of something other. and i liked it. i never could pick out the specifics of frankencense, but the wood and resin were there. i'm not usually much for rose scents, but i'm not swapping this imp.

i really had no expectations at all for this blend. deer is one of my strongest animal totems, and it is almost always on his back that i ride when i journey. so when i saw that a buck moon lunar oil was coming out, i just had to have it. for ritual. for journeying. for tribute to deer, and to the buck that died bringing me the knowledge of my totem. in the bottle, all i really smell are the lunar notes. on my wrist, once the scent has dried down, what it reminds me of is a round nest in a large expanse of tall, tan grass. the grass has dried, it is late summer. i've found a good spot to sleep for the night. it is sheltered on two sides by tall, wide trees. i can see all around me. i hunker down, turning around and around, making a circular indentation of soft grass. i lie down, and close my eyes. i smell the warm grass, i smell my fur. i smell the scent of the herbs in the meadow before me, and the sharpness of the forest behind me. and the scent of the clear, crystalline night sky above me.

i've had both hits and misses with rose scents. rome, for example, delights me. so, although advertised with two roses as the first components, i was swayed: 1) only the lab could come up with a dylan thomas poem scent. and i LOVE him 2) there were other elements that i love: vanilla, tonka, carnation, tobacco. in the bottle: sniffing, my skin tingled. rose, yes, but not forward rose. in front were green, dark, spicy smells. yes! on my wrist, wet: rose, rose, rose. spicy rose, mind you, but rose. drydown: rose, rose, rose, ROSE. never a hint of the promise sniffed in the bottle. i have to say, though, that the rose itself actually worked for me, which is odd. pure rose has never worked on me. i'm guessing that even though i couldn't detect the other notes, they were there, nevertheless, working their suble magic on the blend. so, i'll keep it and see if there are times when i want to feel surrounded by a heady garden of hybrid tea roses. i've never really had that luxury before.

i'm at a loss to explain this scent. it is compleatly different than any other perfume i have ever tried, of any variety. in the bottle, it almost isn't there. at all. if you sniff more deeply, it is reminiscent of butylene candles. i know, that doesn't make any sense. it is the same way at first, when you dab it on. no perceptible smell. it is warm on the skin, however. and the longer i wear it, and sniff it, the more confused i am. just waving my hand in front of my nose, i love this. trying to smell it up close, and the individual notes all blur. dry: it is faintly floral, and a spicy floral. i think the spice comes from whatever floral note it is. carnation, perhaps, or some sort of spicy rose (i don't know the rose varietals well enough to say). i think there is also a white, night-blooming flower of some kind: jasmine or tuberose or pikaki?? who knows. what this scent does to me when i close my eyes: a sultan's tent, set up by an oasis in the desert. lavish, strewn with soft fabrics, pillows, flowers overflowing from dozens of vases, candles, drapes. there is a fireplace, a chiminea. the night had been fiercely cold night, stars like needles in the dark sky. the sultan and i made passionate love next to the blazing fire, over and over and over. he left before dawn. i barely noticed, sated with sensual overload and compleatly spent. when i awake, the tent is dimly lit with dappled shadows of the early morning. the blaze in the chiminea has become a gentle, warm glow of embers. i stretch and inhale the day. the faded flowers of the night greet me, along with the lassitude and content of a night well spent in flames the day will not ever see. the way that i imagine that i would feel, IN THAT MOMENT, is what fire eater smells like. not before or during the eating of the fire. what it smells like after the fire eater has swallowed.

this scent, to my nose, is "BPAL light". in the bottle: faintly aquatic, faintly grapefruity. on my wrist, wet: more grapefruity. not compleatly, but i can't make out what other note(s) i smell. on my wrist, dry: quick cucumber stage. it's over in a flash. this is faint, faint, faint. seeing myself from a loooooooooooooong distance. it's cool and soothing. it isn't my favourite aquatic, but it is quite lovely. a perfume to wear when you don't want to wear perfume.

kunstkammer: there is a softdrink in Brasil called Fanta. it is an orange soda. strangely orange but not quite orange, if that makes any sense. intensely fruity, insanely sugary, and fizzy. that describes kunstkammer to me perfectly.

Sharp, shining, metallic: rubbed iron with a dry wooden base. i'll give a brief review here, but i've got to say that Penance...um..."nailed" the description of this. this is rain in rio de janeiro. it smells of sea, of the clean breeze that dances across the ocean bearing with it soft autumn rain. it drips and mists and pours down onto the city, the metal street lights, the cars lined up on the mosaic sidewalks, the iron gates around the apartment building and the grates pulled down over the shops and the trees and bushes and flowers that are everywhere in the city. ozone. metal. aquatics. wet, living green things. i'm not sure that it is ME, but it is an amazingly evocative scent, and i would love to have my house, my room and my bed smell like this. it brings me home.

in the bottle: overwhelmingly sweet. beyond floral. more fruitlike. overripe fruit, plums, grapes. i wasn't sure that this boded well for the gypsy and i. on my wrist, wet: the fruitiness is fading. a warm spice is kicking up, and the smokyness that only recently snuffed candles can bring. the florals are well blended, i can't seem to pick out individual notes. they are just heavy, hanging in the air. hmmmm. maybe this does have possibilities. on my wrist, dry: the spice has morphed into carnation, pure and bright. the jamminess is back, and is reminiscent of the perfume Poison to me. grape jam. alas. something here just does not like me, and i honestly tried.

at first sniff, this was very green, lots of balsam and herb. as it dried down, the tobacco started creeping out around the sides. i get no rose whatsoever in this. none. i suspect that rosewood is a wood, and has nothing to do with a rose flower. in the dry down, there is a woodiness that shows itself between the strong tobacco notes and the teeniest hints of opium. alas, it then went soapy. i enjoy tobacco notes. i love perversion. the tobacco here is quite different, stronger, the way that a tobacco barn smells in the fall. too strong for me. i'll stick to perversion.

in the bottle: COCOA, fig and lemon. an odd combination that i would never have thought to mingle. somehow, it works...beautifully. on my wrist, wet: similar to in the bottle at first, but the lemon spikes up. then warmer vanilla and tonka join in the background. on my wrist, dry: mmmm. bergamot. and something else, something spicy: could that be the honey musk? i don't know what calamus is, and i get nothing fruity that isn't that delicious fig fragrance...so i don't know about the pomegranate. what i do know is that i want more of this!

for me, geek is a shy, retiring type. feral, perhaps....in that he smells of forests and woods, pine needles and mossy grasses. but introspective. more likely to hide than to attack. to blend into his surrounds. very definitely THERE, but subtly so. you have to seek to find. in the bottle, i get mostly grasses and moss. wet on my wrist, the cedar pops up, and the pine. dry on my wrist, i finally find the leather. again, this is subtle. not new car leather. more like the leather bracelet that your lover has worn around his wrist so long that you come to associate it as part of HIS scent, and not separately. there is an occasional almost breath of something spicy. but so occasional and so fleeting i caught myself wondering if it had ever really been there at all. i LOVE this. i'd love to sleep in sheets spritzed with this.

caveat: i don't think i know what funnel cake smells like. that said, Midway is wonderful, sweet, creamy, sugary bliss in a bottle. in addition to those, i get lots of vanilla. caramel is sugar cooked in slow heat in butter....so add caramel to that list. finally, add blonde fudge. no chocolate, but fudge just the same. more butter, cream and vanilla. and yes, every once in a while, a teeeeeeeeeny hint of something off. like dirt perhaps. born on a teasing breeze, here and then gone....leaving you do dream of sugar plums dancing in your head. this is WONDERFUL. and macha? i adore the ferris wheel that looks like a giant spiderweb!!! it is PERFECT. eta: more comparisons....i've been reminded now of super buttery scots shortbread and high quality cake doughnuts covered in powdered sugar. both while still hot from the over/fryer. mmmmmmmmmmm. this would be great as a room scent. guaranteed to get you sex, sell your house, or throw the BEST holiday party EVER. eta: my husband thinks that it smells like coconut. now, i get no coconut myself. but i thought that i should report that in the interests of science and gender equality.

i had the husband (who knew absolutely NOTHING about Carnaval Noir) to open this one, smell it, and tell me what it was. he was hesitant. i don't have your bloodhound nose, he protested. it's okay, i told him. i just want your opinion, no matter what it is. emboldened, he twiested the vial open. and sniffed. he broke out into a glorious smile. popcorn! he exclaimed! hot, buttered popcorn!! with EXTRA butter, and salt! beth and the lab are fecking geniuses. and that says it all.

The King of Pain, the Famed Fakir. Frankincense and sweet clove, mandarin and bourbon, lemon peel and leather, grasses and smoke, lime and vetiver, ambergris and deep musk. in the bottle: sharp green grasses.. a bit TOO sharp! on my wrist, wet: citrus and booze, grasses and leather. drydown: it settles down and rounds out with amber and something else....can't quite figure it out, yet, but think it is a resin. it's a keeper! and i agree with red hot mama, i think it will deepen and improve with age!

when i first sniffed this, it was all good! light florals, skillfully blended. faintly sweet, mostly honeysuckle and star jasmine. ahhhhhh. then i dabbed a bit on my wrist. ohhhhhhhhh noooooooooo!! violet soap. bah. how my skin can find that hint of violet that was virtually undetectable in the bottle i will never understand and always rue. no rose, no amber, no vanilla. i will say that of all of the scent blends that i have tried that contain violet, this was the LEAST noticeably violet, had little throw and stayed close to the skin. but it was still unmistakably violet.