lady_pandora

This is a seriously beautiful rose scent. I get the rose, obviously--it's white rose, and I think I can smell the kinship with the other two white rose blends I've worn recently, Symmakhia and The Waltz--along with a light amber and a slight bit of what I think is the snow, which is a little almondy and a tiny bit minty and reminiscent of Snow White and kind of shampoo-y. It really does feel both blooming and chilly at the same time--maybe this is just the name and story talking, but it does make me think of an innocent maiden blushing in the cold air. Just lovely.

I'm not really knowledgeable about chypres, but I know they traditionally have oakmoss, and so I suspect that's one of the things I'm amping here: a green, herby, pleasantly bitter note. The other thing I'm getting is amber. This doesn't really morph much on me, and the oakmoss and amber are dominant enough that I can't pick out the other notes, but the overall effect is sophisticated, unisex, a little mysterious. I feel like I should be a dame in a noir film and probably have committed the murder. This isn't like anything else I have, and I'm definitely keeping this decant at the very least. I might need more.

My skin picked out a random assortment of notes from this and turned it into a close sibling of...Fairy Thorn. It was the same kind of ethereal greenery/sharp sandalwood/vanilla/floral thing, and when I compare the note lists, I get it! They both have vanilla (or vanilla orchid), they both have white sandalwood, they both have moss, and they both have tuberose. I'm amping all of these things, which makes them very similar on me. I like this, and it's really beautiful. But with a full bottle of Fairy Thorn, I don't think I need more of it. The sandalwood also comes out too sharp for me to use it as a sleep scent, and I don't get any lavender.

Early on, this is straight-up rose, a pure and perfumy rose, I want to say tea rose but I'm not always good at telling roses apart from each other. Gradually a hint of wood starts to show up, and it smells like a rose incense stick. There's a big and sudden turning point at around a half hour, on me, where the oud wood suddenly stands up and says "I'M HERE!" and the smoky wood aspect comes out more dramatically. But by an hour, it's really well-blended, rose and the woody oud note in roughly equal measure. Hours later, there's an interesting twist where the oud seems to take on a patchouli-esque tone, like the sexy funk of Sin or Lust, much more carnal than what came before. The rose is still present and pure. This is really interesting, and I'm so glad I ordered it! It's not quite like any of my other roses. ETA: Way way way down in the drydown, like 8 hours after applying, I get the same weirdly sexy oud scent that I get from Sinus Amoris, and amazingly, the rose is still hanging out. Mmmm, nice.

Beth is a sorceress, because this smells like a perfumy version of moldering house. I can't quite break down the accord--I think the perfumy element may be coming from some type of musk? It's sweetish, cloying in the first few minutes but then mellower afterward. And there's definitely a wood note but I'm not sure which wood. I can't decide if I like this as a skin scent, or if maybe I want to try it as a room scent, or if that'll just make me feel like the room is musty for real! But it's just fascinating, and a really cool experience. Hanging on to this decant for now while I figure out how I feel about it!

Try Lullaby, and Fairy Thorn if you can get it.

Jasmine and lavender, yup. The combination comes out smelling kind of like dish soap to my nose, but darned if it doesn't work like a charm. Conks me right out. I'm probably going to get a big bottle of this; I think it works better for me than TKO. ETA: Aaaand I think I'm allergic to something in this. There seems to be a ton of overlap between "nights I wear Somnus" and "mornings I wake up with my eyes puffy and watery as all hell." Dang it. ETA II: Guess not, after all! I had the same reaction this morning while not using it, so I guess I'm reacting to something else.

Oh yeah, d'oh! How did I not think of the four horsemen?

Oh, Talvikuu for another icy one, but that's another old LE. Event Horizon for your black hole needs; it's got some notes in common with the aforementioned Final Darkness.

I've never sniffed it, but Nuclear Winter is one idea! It's up right now in the Yules. If you think the world ends in fire, not in ice, I recommend Djinn (smells like burnt wood to me), or if you can get it, another one that has that association for me is When Thy Will Stung the World Into Strife, though that one's an old LE. It also smells kind of burnt to me, though not in a bad way, and it makes me think of empires falling (the poem that goes with it is about ancient Rome).

This starts out wet lush floral with lily and what I thought was narcissus at first, but then that note resolves into the night-blooming jasmine. And hooray, I apparently don't amp night-blooming jasmine quite as much as regular jasmine, because I get more than one note here! But between the lily and jasmine, they totally take over. It kind of morphs back and forth which one is dominant--the night-blooming jasmine, or the Dove-soapishness of the lily. The light musk may be involved too, though I can't pick it out specifically. I don't get everything I hoped for, but it's pleasant and pale and innocent, and I like the symbolism, and I don't think I have anything else quite like this in my collection, so keeper, at least for now.

Lemon-lime, then shading into orange with herbs and maybe something a little anisey. It doesn't totally disappear, but it does go faint after a few hours. I used this today because I slept badly and really needed to be competent at work. It took about an hour to kick in after applying, but I did find that it worked; I felt energetic. For the first hour or so of the effect, I was actually a little bouncy, and then after that, just a normal level of energy (which was an improvement over how tired I'd have been without it). I didn't find that it made me any more or less focused than usual, just pepped me up for the day. ETA 6/16/2017: Tried it again to prod myself into working out this morning (I usually do it later in the day when I'm more coherent). It worked--just the scent of it helped clear my mental fog and get me moving--and I was able to exercise without issue. Also noticed sort of a "cola" scent about it this time--it smelled fizzy and cola-y, or maybe Dr. Peppery or root beery. As that reminds me of caffeinated drinks, that seems appropriate!

Spicy amber, a little orangey in the beginning, snuggly-musky later, a little powdery. Simple, and really psychologically comfortable to me--it feels like "me," it feels like a second skin. This is a little black dress perfume--you could wear it anywhere. Definitely will need more of this!

Palmyra goes on as soft incensey leather, and then I get an incensey cloud with a light dusting of cinnamon and still a little bit of leather. There's something sweet, somewhere, that makes me think "incense cookie." And something in it is reminiscent of the Lab's tobacco note, to me. Why does this remind me of Cafe Mille et Une Nuits? They only have one note in common. But it does. It continues to be incense/spice/a little leather/a little whatever smells like tobacco for a while. Then, gradually, I start getting more sweetness, kind of a honeyed aspect to the incense-cloud. It starts to remind me of beeswax, and I go to the notes list because I can't figure out where this is coming from and d'oh! I had forgotten there's vanilla in this. Anyway, it's complex and really pretty. I'm really glad I jumped on this one!

The scent of this oil is kind of citrusy and herby, but I don't really recognize it. If I've smelled these notes before, they were combined in a really different way. I rubbed this for a few nights on an area of my body where I had a concerning pain; I used it in tandem with Wolf's Heart, actually, to ease my anxiety about it. I was checked out tonight and it was just a muscle strain. So I used Healing again in my ritual of thanks.

Cicuta is not really a morpher on me--I get mostly a lovely soft rose and frankincense throughout. I can't really identify beeswax or saffron, but something is making it a little sweet, and something is making it just a bit spicy and exotic, so they're here. This is a beautiful classic incensey rose. I get a visual from it--this is in a cut-glass bottle on your grandmother's vanity, if your grandmother is a stone fox. I think maybe Hymn is a little like this, but it's been yeeeeaaaars since I smelled it, so who knows. Anyway, I really like Cicuta. It doesn't smell like gnarly nosferatu at all. It smells like old-fashioned glamour.

It is, and I'm bimodal too! I seem to have at least two big categories, which I might overgeneralize into Spicy Vanilla and Incensey Rose, and then I have some randoms that don't fit either category, and sometimes they appeal to me because they're like nothing else I own. And you can put a little citrus with either category too.

Smells like someone poured lavender oil into my bottle of Undertow. I get lavender, lotus, and I think some mint. It feels very "cooling" and refreshing. A bit medicinal. Gradually, the mint fades out some, and some other green herb comes in--maybe thyme? This is a little more herby than what I prefer in my perfumes, but I think this would be a smashing sleep scent for hot nights. This imp is staying with me.

MANLY MEN'S COLOGNE OF MANLINESS. POUR HOMME. OK, I hate to sound so gender essentialist, since of course anybody can wear anything they want, but perfume is so much about scent associations, and this is, for me, a giant whomping whiff of "DUDE." In my earlier BPAL days, when I thought I hated vetiver, it was because I didn't like vetiver in this type of incarnation. It's super aftershavey and super strong. It's well-blended and I can't really tease out all the separate notes, and I can step into my objectivity shoes and see that this is a classic cologne scent and wouldn't be out of place in any department store, but it's not for me. TTP mentions Drakkar and I think she's dead right. I can connect it to Stoker in that Dracula would wear this when trying to pick up women. That and it's a classic type scent that probably existed in some form during Stoker's lifetime.

Never tried either this or One to Tie, but you might try an imp of Roadhouse--some people didn't get the booze notes at all, and it just smelled like grass and dandelions on them, going by the reviews.

Voodoo Lily is such a weird scent! At any given point, I'm never sure if I like it, but I feel the urge to keep it around. First things first, this doesn't really have anything to do with the scent Voodoo or with the practice of voodoo, it's just the name of the plant. But if you google them, YOWZA, you can see why they have such a suggestive Latin name, Wet, Voodoo Lily is floral and something weirdly savory but also sweet, like sweet pickles? There's a bit of incense too. The skin scent is more pickley while the throw is much nicer and more of a "normal" floral. But there's something "off" about it. And it turns out that one of the voodoo lilies is the plant known as the (spoiler cut for imagery you might not want in your head): ...which I have never actually smelled, but have heard a lot about. It does make sense for there to be an "off" quality, then, and I guess I should be glad Beth didn't make it any more naturalistic! It dries down to a floral that is odd and a little discomfiting, yet strangely pleasant, that's sort of spicy-nectar-lemon-honey, and I can't pin it down any more closely than that. It gives me a slight headache, so maybe I should swap it, but I feel like it needs more time to get to know it.

Frimp from the Lab. I really hoped to like this one as I have some attachment to the Greek gods of death, and I did end up liking it quite a bit. It was not without its weird stages--I actually physically moved it into and then back out of my swap compartment in the middle of testing it. It starts out dark green notes and something cleanser-y. It reminds me of a cleaning product my mom used when I was a kid but that I don't use--like maybe Comet powder. I have no idea what note is causing this impression. It develops into rose and myrrh and cleaner, and then eventually just rose and myrrh without the cleaner. After an hour, it's almost all myrrh. It reminds me of a (non-BPAL) single note myrrh oil I have and sometimes use in ritual. Really pretty, and appropriately somber. And then later there's sweet smoky wood to go with the myrrh. After an inauspicious beginning, it ends up really nice. I was reading the Phoenix update while testing this, and kept forgetting this was supposed to be Thanatos and not a Phoenix scent. It's certainly smoky/resiny enough to be one. Smells sacred and temple-y.

Wolf's Heart starts out smelling like spices and incense, and then turns to honeysuckle or linden (I can't really tell these two notes apart). It smells amazing, frankly. I've used it a couple of times when trying to work up the nerve to have difficult conversations. Both times, I did manage to take the leap I needed: the first time, I was able to stand up for myself when placed in a difficult situation at work, and the second time, I was able to overcome my nervousness to make a phone call I was stressing about. That second time, I didn't manage to reach the person, but I count it a victory that I was able to call at all, because I'd been freaking out about the prospect. Definitely keeping this puppy around.

The oil is kind of pink, which I think is really charming! And really, charming is how I'd describe the whole composition. I get mostly white wine and soft rose. It's a little like Symmakhia, which I thought it might be. I can kind of pick out the "fizz" of the champagne too, and a little wood in the late stages. It isn't super strong on me, hovering close to the skin. It's soft, pretty, and elegant. I want to try layering it with something like Lights of Men's Lives to evoke the candle in the scene.

CURSE YOU, YLANG YLANG! I was always on shaky terms with ylang ylang, which used to do weird things on me sometimes, but it had been years since I'd tried anything containing it, and all the rest of the notes in this were made of win, so I bought a blind bottle of Lucille Sharpe. And I do like it, but the ylang ylang is making it into something much different from what I expected. Wet, I smell rose, ylang ylang, and maybe red fruit. Plum really makes itself known a few minutes later. And then the ylang ylang kicks into high gear and dominates. One of the weird things the YY does on me is that it smells kind of 80s, hairspray, alcohol-y (though maybe the lily is involved in this too? IDK). It has kind of a nose-stinging edge to it. I think this maybe reminds me of a perfume that some adult wore when I was a kid. It's mostly plum and sharp ylang ylang, with a little more rose returning about an hour later, but still mostly those two things. Waaaay into the later hours, it becomes really amazing, when the YY loses its sharp edge and smells almost fruity. I do like this, but it's not "my" Lucille; it's maybe Lucille reincarnated as a bad-girl rocker (now there's a plot bunny!). It just comes out distinctively 20th century on me (and I do mean 20th, not 21st). It makes me feel really badass and sultry, for sure! I think it will be a good going-out scent. ETA: And lots of staying power. I can still smell it after showering the next morning and putting on a different scent. ETA 2: I let Lucille cool her heels for a few months. Wow, this is just amazing now. The ylang ylang has calmed down a bit and the amber has restored order. It's now a well-balanced, well-blended fruity-floral with a honeyish amber holding it all together. If it were a color, it would be dark purple shot through with gold.