Astarial
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Everything posted by Astarial
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On first sniff, this is grassy and herbal, and based on the listed notes I was expecting a sweet herbal scent once on my skin. ...Nope. Like some of the previous reviewers, this went very nutty - I wonder if that might be the oak and/or acorn? All the grass and herb notes went away, leaving this as a pure nut-honey scent all day long. And it's strong, too - I've never found a honey scent too sweet for me before, but this one was just... incredibly rich. It eased up after several hours into something I could stomach sniffing more than once, but even then was still quite powerful. Crone is quite unique. I don't think I have anything similar to it, and while the scent is strong, it's not unpleasant. But the sheer richness of that nut-honey makes it something I have a hard time thinking I'd wear frequently, or ever make it through a bottle of.
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I only got the teeniest sample of this - enough to smell in the bottle, and swipe on my skin, but sadly not enough for a bath test. In the bottle, this is a deep, rich, sweet cacao and patchouli. On my skin, the cacao disappears at first leaving patchouli, amber, and oudh, but it and the honey come back soon after to make this a sweeter, snugglier scent. I'm going to need a bottle of this, for sure.
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After swirling the bottle around, I get champagne and vanilla, and right after application on my skin there's a bit of rose, but after that it's all champagne, all the time. It seems like it'd be a nice complement to Stardust. Will update this once I have a chance to try it in the bath - maybe more of the notes will show themselves? Edit: In the path, the rose was more prominent.. but still not terribly thrilling.
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I'm a little bit sad about this one - I never got any of the blackened vanilla musk or the caraway. Sorceress starts out in the decant with gardenia and amber, with the jasmine and tuberose coming out to play once on my skin - a strongly floral blend. It stays that way for much of its drydown, finishing as a sort of red and black fruit? Maybe raspberryish? I'm not sure if that might be part of the black velvet accord acting up, or just my skin chemistry or nose being odd, but it was unexpected. It's nice enough, and all the notes behave themselves, but the sorceress was not quite as vain or malicious as I was expecting her to be, and I was really looking forward to that musk. Edit: I tried this again, and it was allll gardenia and blackened vanilla musk. Sweet, smoky, and gorgeous. Not sure if it's a factor of age or chemistry, but I like it a whole lot more than I did at first.
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This is a manlier damsel than I expected, though she is scrappy so it might be fitting. I get a lot of cedar and sandalwood when wet, softened by the honey and the saffron. The amber starts to come out as the damsel dries, along with I think a touch of white musk. I don't get any of the orange blossom or neroli, as far as I can tell, and this dries down into a golden mix of amber, saffron, and honey. Very nice!
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Oh my goodness - this is phenomenal in every way. I had hoped this blend would be amazing - I don't actually know what several of its components smell like on their own, but I do know that I tend to like blends with them (particularly fougere and oakmoss). In the bottle, I mostly detect lavender, but it's definitely not a really strong lavender - perhaps this is the fougere? Once on my skin it morphs, but I still can't really pick things out - it's a lot like Dorian, actually, but a bit more masculine and maybe slightly herbal? Could that be the clary sage and the oakmoss? It stays very similar to Dorian in feel as it dries, with a touch of leather and vanilla rearing their heads. It's snuggly and sexy and I want to bathe in this... and I want a shiny knight to slather this on too.
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In the bottle, this is very strong, peppery vetiver and leather - worrying, since I don't tend to like either one. Once on my skin, I found myself double checking the listed notes, since it morphed into a stage that smelled like a strong scotch. That in turn morphed into a dark, smoky, woody coffee, with the vetiver lightening up a bit. Definitely corrupt, and fairly masculine IMO. A little too manly for me to want to wear much.
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Very silly and playful! Definitely juicy, sweet-tart fruits. The licorice is somewhat prominent when wet, mingling nicely with the fruits, but when dry it just adds a little bit of anisey spiciness to deepen the fruit. Like with Purple, I don't get any snow here, unless it's adding to the juiciness of the fruits. Pretty!
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A sweet, plummy-purple smell! In the bottle it's all sugar plum, and then on my skin an almost grapey aroma joins the plum - maybe that's the currant? The cardamom joins in as it dries down, but at the same time, the freshness of the fruit diminishes, so it's a little more candy-sweet (and candy-spicy, if that makes sense). I never really get any snow with this one. Eventually it dries down into an indistinctly sweet fruit smell.
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This is a light floral-fruit snow pretty much straight through. It morphs a little - sweeter on my skin than in the bottle, with a stronger snow note, and over the course of the day the florals and fruits dance in and out. No clear notes stand out specifically as being present, but I'm also not fully familiar with how the florals in this blend smell on their own. Pretty, but not amazing.
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In the bottle, this is strongly champagne with just a hint of sandalwood. Freshly applied, bits of citrus and some floral starts to come out, then a strong smell of smoke.. that might be the tobacco flower? It's definitely a tobacco product, but compelling instead of offputting. As it dries down, the florals continue to occasionally peek out, but it stays a pretty straight champagne backed with the sandalwood and the tobacco, and they make it a lot more of a unisex scent than I was expecting given the floral notes. After a few hours, it has become a sweet, vanilla-y syrup. Very comforting and delicious. And it has a fair bit of staying power - I can still smell the champagne the morning after.
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Because I am very, very crass this year. Slushy white mint, vanilla cream, lemon drops, grapefruit, and yuzu! Bright, cheery citrus. I can detect all three citrus notes - the lemon, the grapefruit, and the yuzu. It's a little bit sweet, but just enough to make me want to drink this. Like Blue Snowballs, the citrus slowly fades and leaves behind a lightly sweetened vanilla cream. Gorgeous.
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Strong, sweet blueberry and blackberry juice, with just enough lime to tarten it up. Over several hours, the fruit gradually fades, leaving a light, sweet, snowy skin scent, but it has pretty good staying power for such bright notes.
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Olive oil, beeswax, glowing amber, sweet sufganiyot, pomegranate, and fig. In the decant and wet, this is GLORIOUS JELLY DOUGHNUT. Omg so amazing and delicious, I want to gnaw my wrists off. As it dries down, the amber, olive oil, and beeswax come out more to turn it from DELICIOUS JELLY DOUGHNUT into something more complex, more sophisticated, and not at all foody, and by the end of the day, there's no doughnut left. I love both stages. This is amazing.
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This is a very bready, foody, nutty gingerbread from start to finish. It's savory, not sweet. It gets a little less foody and more spicy/snakey after a few hours, but the gingerbread is definitely the main player here.
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In the bottle this is musky, spicy leather. I don't like leather, but this one is pretty tame. Wet on my skin I have a few moments I would swear smell like wintergreen, before the sugared rose starts wrapping around the musk and the leather and the honey smears itself in between. Each element is detectable, but subdued, as if they're all too busy whacking each other over the head (or doing other, more naughty things ) to beat up on my nose. Sweet, sophisticated, and verrrrry sexy.
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This one does not do what it's supposed to do on me at all. In the decant, it's all sweet, musky heather, while wet on my skin a spicy woody note starts to peek out momentarily... and then the whole thing just becomes strongly aquatic. It might be the ice in the iced peat that's doing it, in the same way that Black Ice and Nuclear Winter both seem very very melty and wet. And it stays primarily aquatic all through the day. It's a complex aquatic, to be sure... the musk and the wood and the heather are all dancing in the background, but they don't do much besides adding a bit of depth. It's a fine smell, and I like aquatics fine... just not at all what I was expecting.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who detected some foodiness and some sweetness here! I gave this decant a sniff just after I sniffed Black Ice, and all I could think was ".....pastry??" This is definitely a sweeter aquatic. It reminds me a fair bit of Cthulhu, but it's not quite the same... it comes across as more fresh water than salt water to my nose. Very gentle and entrancing. Edit: On second testing, that foody smell is definitely salty, and it stuck around a bit longer this time. What it's paired with as a testing partner definitely matters - sniffed next to another aquatic it's definitely nicer than sniffing next to Black Ice.
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Oh my, looks like I get the first review of the 2013 version! In the decant, this is a soggy, irritated vetiver - I feel like it's glaring at me because it just had to walk home in the freezing rain. Once on my skin, a rather sharp note appears - at first it vaguely reminds me of bug spray, but I think it's the asphalt. The sharpness wears off after a bit, though. Once this fully settles, the final scent reminds me of standing on the side of the road in the middle of November, after your car has broken down, as a chilly mist makes everything uncomfortably wet. It's definitely a cold scent - this isn't a summer rain - but it's not quite cold enough to be frozen into ice. It's very evocative, even if it's not quite evoking its namesake.
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In the bottle, this is a delicious buttery cookie. No mint, no pomegranate. Just cookie. Once on my skin, the pomegranate shyly peeks around the corner and settles gently on top of the cookie. I keep waiting for some mint to show up, but it never does. This doesn't morph much through dry-down - it's a pomegranate linzer cookie, one definitely dusted with powdered sugar. Tasty enough, but it looks like minty desserts are not bottle-worthy for me this time around. Kind of a pity though, since the label is adorable.
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In the bottle and wet, this is pure peppermint - definitely a cousin of the Lick It family. On dry down, the peppermint fades, into what my nose started out thinking was a kind of dusty cookie scent, but as I keep sniffing I think the dust is more.. powdered sugar? At the end of long sniffs, I get some sweet wintergreen mintiness, but it's subtle. I wish it were a bit stronger on the mint, and a bit stronger of a scent in general.. I have to put my nose on my wrist to smell anything. I like it enough to keep the decant, but unless this changes significantly over the next couple hours, I don't see myself getting a bottle.
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When wet, orange blossom honey! Not sure where the honey comes from - might be the sweetness of the fig, and my imp is a bit aged which could enhance that. The honey scent goes away as the oil dries, and a bit more of the fig is present, balancing the orange. On me, this scent is very light - not much throw, or staying power. A pity, because it's quite lovely... but on the other hand, with a name like Carnal, a close-proximity nuzzling scent is basically what you're going for, right?
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This is creamy and pearly and I like it - buuuuut it's almost single-note coconut on me. Some of the other notes might be playing very quietly in the background to round it out a bit, but I can't actually pick them out. It's just... coconut. Coconut when wet, coconut when dry, coconut hours later. Good thing I like coconut!
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I got an imp of this back in 2008 or 2009 - hated it (weird, artificial banana smell), didn't review it, tucked it away and forgot about it. So it's about 4 or 5 years old at this point... thick, viscous, and deep red. It's amazing now - heady and wonderful, warm and comforting, perfect on a chilly day. My skin tends to amp honey, but this doesn't come out of balance; its sweetness is tempered by the slight smokiness in the vanilla and the spiciness of the dragon's blood. While it's drying, I get a few whiffs that smell eggy, like a top-notch creme brulee, but aside from that brief period it's not a foody scent to me at all. If I had a partner who smelled like this I'd be alllllll over them. Closest comparisons I'd draw in both aroma and mood are other strongly honey scents (though I both amp and love honey, so ymmv) - Mead Moon, Hetairae, O. Definitely bottle-worthy... but now I'm worried that a fresh bottle won't be quite so mouthwateringly sexy for a few years.
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This is just so... at peace. It smells like going out into a field on a warm, sunny day, and lying down in the grass. Some of the grass stems are crushed under your weight, and their sweet scent wafts up and mingles with the soft smell of the wildflowers. As it dries, it's like a playful puppy sneaking up on you and poking its adorable head under your hand for petting. D'AAAAAWWWWWWW.
