lady_pandora

I like Lights of Men's Lives because it makes me think of being in a warm room with candles, and like Mokiefraggle, I'm sure I'll end up using Mini Mag for the same thing now that I have it. I also like foody scents better in the cold than I do the rest of the year, like Misk U, and I reach for heavy resins a lot too (I've been wearing Event Horizon a lot lately). Once in a while I feel like being one with the arctic blast rather than insulating from it, and for that I'll wear Talvikuu.

Phantasm is the battle of two amps: lemon and jasmine. I often have trouble with "tea" scents because I'll amp the lemon too much, and also have trouble with almost anything containing jasmine because the jasmine won't share the stage. But this was a frimp from the lab, and if there's anything I've learned in BPAL, it's to try anything once, because you never know. Wet, Phantasm is a huge sharp burst of lemon. I've seen softer lemon (or lemon-esque) notes lately: the lemonade scent I got from Delirium, or the soda scent I got from Gnome. This is sharp, sharp, sharp, cleaning-product-y, Lemon Pledge kind of lemon. I can smell a little jasmine lurking in the background too. Drying, the two notes share the stage for a while. When sniffing, I get the lemon first in each sniff and then the jasmine rolling in behind; if it were food, jasmine would be the aftertaste. The throw is more jasmine than lemon though. And then by the half-hour point, jasmine is victorious. It's not quite single-note, because it smells tarter than jasmine usually does, so I can tell there's still a little lemon hanging around. It continues to be mostly jasmine the rest of the night. This isn't me; I don't like the initial lemon burst, and I have other jasmines that work better. However, I can see how it evokes the concept of Phantasm. The first sniff of it is such a bright, sharp shock to the nose that it's reminiscent of the "green flash" (think PotC), only yellow rather than green.

No I didn't get to try it! I thought it might be too basic. I think it's still up for a few more days.

Hekaerge is an interesting morpher, and then finally settles on a nice comfortable scent that I like. Like milo, I was sure there was vetiver in this when I smelled it wet. Here are my best guesses: (a) I have no idea what gurjum balsam is, so it might be that, or ( lemongrass is apparently actually a relative of vetiver. Last time I saw lemongrass, it was lemony and over-amping in Angeronalia, but maybe this is a different aspect of it playing up. I don't know. Anyway, wet, I smell this vetivery note along with a little citrus (probably the lemony aspect of the lemongrass) and a sharp floral that's probably the lavender. Drying, it's very woody. Still making me think vetiver. It's smoky right on my skin. The throw is sweeter; the honey seems to be making its move. At 10 minutes, honey is coming out on my skin too. The other notes are still strong. The combo is chemical-y in a non-perfume way. Medicinal, maybe, like an ointment. But I'm also starting to feel like it's reminiscent of another oil I tried recently, Wild Indigo Duskywing, I think because of the smoky honey and because of the vetiver-that-isn't. 20 minutes: Honey amping everywhere. The medicinal quality is mostly gone, but smoky wood is still present. 30 minutes: Slightly smoky honey in the throw, somewhat smokier honey on arm. 1 hour: Smoky honey. When I saw "smoky honey" in the description of Wild Indigo Duskywing, I think something like this is what I was hoping for. That was more smoke-with-a-little-honey; Hekaerge is more honey-with-a-little-smoke. At this point I start to get a little woodiness again too, this time identifiable as red patchouli. Approaching 2 hours, it's still smoky honey and a little red patch. Seems this is where it's settling. I really like it! I don't feel the need to build a time machine, go back to 2011, and buy five bottles, but I'm glad to have this decant. ETA: Tested this last night, just woke up in the morning still smelling like it, so good staying power. I smell honey, patch, and maybe a little myrrh--I can't smell the myrrh much, but I think it's helping hold it all together and give it all this staying power.

My first thoughts were Coyote (I have no idea what the planty stuff in it is, but it's definitely a cuddly scent and has amber and musk) or maybe Golden Priapus (it's got the eucalyptus juniper; this blend went way wrong on me but a lot of people love it). Edit because I typed the wrong note One more edit for a disclaimer: I haven't actually tried Sweater Weather

High John starts out with a big cherry blast (I read up a little on High John the other day, and it sounds like it really does smell kind of cherryish) and then morphs quickly into manly, green soap. As perfume, I'm not really into it; it isn't bad, but not my thing. However, I'm going to keep it around for its magical uses.

This was a frimp from the Lab. I tested it with a little trepidation, given my history with lemon--I tend to amp it, and it's not really a note I love. As for the other two notes in Delirium, I amp and love apple, and love but often anti-amp rose. Wet, this is a really well-blended mix of the three notes. When you smell it, you don't necessarily think of any one of them individually. But if you go looking, you can pick out each of the three. They're very balanced in the wet stage. As it dries, at first I get my usual lemon-amping issue. For a little while, it seems like it's going to dominate the blend. But rose has a resurgence and catches up to it. It cycles back and forth between two stages: one that smells like rosy lemonade, and the other that's sort of a spicy rose potpourri or maybe a rosy spiced tea. Unusually for me, the apple is the least prominent of the lot, but I think it may be what I'm picking up as a spice note. Dry, rose is the most prominent note. Rose? Holy crap, guys. I don't think I've ever had rose outlast the rest of a scent before. Maybe my skin has finally stopped just deleting it? It's the soft girlish rose from Persephone. Now I want to retry Persephone. Delirium is mostly gone at about the one-hour mark, except for some lingering hints of rose. That said, I like it. I often say that I'm going to wear this oil or that oil in the summer, and often I never actually get around to it, but I think in this case I mean it. This is a light, breezy blend but with just enough decadence to suit my fancy. Not a bottle as of now, but keeping the imp.

I really want to start doing this too. I figure, into the diffuser/oil warmer can go some of the lovely scents with jasmine that go all jasmine when they hit my skin, and also all the tea scents--I have several, and as it turns out, I don't really want to smell like tea myself, but I think they'd make nice fresh room scents.

I started my test of this when I wasn't online and didn't have access to the notes list, and only remembered it was supposed to have dragon's blood in it. As it turns out, I guessed almost all of the notes wrong, yet looking at the notes list now, I can make clear connections between what I thought I smelled and what each thing actually was. When Thy Will... is a complex blend and a morpher. There's a lot going on here, and especially in the early stages, it changes fast. This first goes on as something that called to mind "expensive perfume counter." I wasn't really satisfied with this impression, so I tried to make out what I was smelling, and finally guessed it was a little of the dragon's blood along with neroli and rose. I now think the sharp citrusy tang is from the ginger, and that the rosy scent is the geranium. They all blend together really well, and like I said, it smells "expensive." The next stage is mostly the dragon's blood and the geranium, with the dragon's blood gradually becoming more prominent than the geranium. I still get occasional whiffs of citrus. It becomes a little powdery in a good way. When the geranium has mostly faded, it becomes more woody, and this note I did correctly guess as red sandalwood! it mixes really well with the dragon's blood to create a scent of incensey wood. At this point my left wrist and right wrist start smelling different! My left wrist stays mostly DB and sandalwood with occasional wafts of geranium. My right has started smelling more burnt, not in a bad way, like woodsmoke. I had thought this might be a vetiver, but I think it might actually be the coffee bean. It's a very perfumey coffee bean, not much like the drink, but adds the roasted and bitter properties of coffee to the scent. (I kind of made up a story in my head where there's this orchard, and a dragon comes along and lands there, and at first it's just kind of milling around smelling the fruits and flowers, but then decides "eff it, I'm burning all this" and lets loose with its flames. The poem is apparently referring to ancient Rome, so maybe there's a "fall of Rome" metaphor to be found here?) ETA because I realized I forgot to finish off with the drydown: left wrist continues to stay DB and sandalwood; right wrist cycles periodically between the burnt scent and a DB/sandalwood combo like the left wrist has. The throw isn't huge but the scent hangs around. One more edit: Much later, after everything else is mostly gone, dragon's blood is the last note standing on both wrists. When Thy Will...is a really unusual blend, not like anything else I have, and I like it.

I decided to try O Love and Time and Sin because of the reviews comparing it to Spellbound, which is an all-time favorite of mine. The comparisons are really accurate--the rose and musk in this are a lot like those in Spellbound, and both have a resin component as well--the amber there, the opoponax here. I admit to not really being a connoisseur of opoponax--I've mostly tried it in blends that had a million other things going on. So I think I've learned a little about it by trying this! I have a much better idea of what it smells like just by smelling the difference between this and Spellbound. The opoponax is incensey, husky, a little bitter. This doesn't really morph much and is well-blended with none of the ingredients over-dominating. It's Spellbound played in a minor key. It's beautiful, and yet there's also something that makes me uneasy about it, more in a sad way than in a scary way. It may just be the power of suggestion, I don't know, but I get a sense of sadness from this. I feel the desire to keep it around, and yet I'm not sure how often I'll wear it, just because it's so close to its happier sister. But a scent experience I'm glad to have had.

This was a frimp from the Lab, and like Djinn last night, one that I might never have gotten around to if I hadn't been frimped it. Thank you, Lab, because this is utterly beautiful. I'd been expecting something like Khephra, which was also really beautiful but which skewed masculine enough that I pretty much never wore it. But Cairo was nothing like what I expected. Opening the vial, the predominant note was a wine note. This was a little surprising to me, as I came in blind and hadn't read other people's reviews or a description of what was actually in Kyphi (Bad witch! Bad!). But definitely wine, I think the same wine note that's in Excolo Lilith. There's something a little camphoraceous, too, when I first dab it on, which thankfully calms down to an incense scent. I think I smell myrrh and also a lighter resin, and some spices, maybe a little cinnamon. As it dries, the wine and incense hang around and then...rose? Is that rose? Yes, it's rose, and it's so soft and pretty. I love rose with resins--resins seem to be the only things that keep rose from flitting away off my skin. It was at this point that I decided to look up the ingredients of Kyphi! From Wikipedia, wine was definitely in it, so was cinnamon, and myrrh and frankincense and a variety of other resins. So apparently my sniffer is mostly on target. There was also a mysterious "thorny shrub" that no one has identified. I wonder if the rose is the Lab's stab at what it might have been. If so, I'm really glad they put it in there, because it's gorgeous. Dry, the lighter incense resolves into something more obviously frankincense, and comes to the fore. Rose is still there but fainter, wine is also still there, and I think there's some myrrh holding it all together. This is seriously amazing. It's the scent of a world where the sensual and the sacred are one. I want to use it ritually, but I also want to wear it just to huff myself all day. I definitely need to keep my eye on how quickly i use it--it might well be a bottle purchase. I LOVE this. Thank you Lab.

Blessing of Isis reminds me, a bit, both of Anne Bonny and of the in-vial and drydown stages of Djinn (the middle part of Djinn, when it's all smoky, is really different).

You know how Facebook has a setting where you can view your page the way it looks to your mom or your boss or a total stranger? Defututa is one of those moments when I wish perfumes had that setting. I'd just click "Smell this perfume as: Someone who doesn't amp jasmine to hell and gone" and then I'd get to smell all those other lovely notes. I love the concept of Defututa and it sounds wonderful from the notes, but I can really only smell the one, and dangit, I still have an almost full bottle of Corinna around here somewhere, so I'm probably full up. :cry2: I can see why someone mentioned Flying Fox. It does remind me of that, and would probably smell great layered with it.

Score another for "things I never would have tried, but I got a frimp, and I liked it!" In the imp, this is a strong herbal incense that reads as Middle Eastern. It reminded me a little of TAL Blessing of Isis. I also have Cairo in this order, and I thought for a moment I'd picked it up by accident while meaning to pick up Djinn. Wet on my skin, it's mostly smoky wood. There's vetiver here, behaving maybe not quite as well as it does in Sloth, but almost. The rest of the smoky wood is made up of, I think, red sandalwood and pine. There's a slight hint of something minty. It might be cinnamon. A few times while it was drying, I thought I smelled wax, but I think it was a bit of throw from the Mini Mag that I have elsewhere on the same arm. But...it worked? I may try them together on purpose sometime and see what happens. Mini Mag could soften Djinn, and Djinn could accentuate the wood-and-smoke parts of Mag. Dry, it's really not smoky at all, but a woody mix of red sandalwood and some vetiver that smells more herby than smoky now. So it's a bit like I'm watching the fire in reverse--first the smoke and fire, then the intact wood. There's a little incense too, but I can't define it. This is a scent of power, I think--I could wear this if I needed to stand up for myself in a difficult situation. At the same time, I think Djinn would feel at home around a campfire with some beers. It's like nothing else in my collection, and lots of thanks to the Lab for sending it--otherwise I'd never have known I'd like it. FWIW, it comes across as gender-neutral to me.

Single Note: Lemon Lime Soda. This was a frimp from the lab, and it sounds like the old version. I haven't decided yet if I'll wear it. It's definitely one for hot weather if I do.

I picked this up to try it, and could smell patchouli right through the bottle! When I opened the bottle, though, I smelled mostly honey and a bit of cinnamon. On my skin, this is predominantly herby patchouli and a small amount of honey. It doesn't really morph a lot from wet to dry. I can't smell any vanilla, and I have to really go looking for the cinnamon. This patchouli is very "green," fresher than what I'm used to from patchouli, very woody. This may the first time I ever really thought about patchouli being a member of the mint family, because here in this blend I can kind of see it. The honey is firmly in the background, which is kind of a bummer because I love honey. On the other hand, I always figured this might be one to age. It's wearable now, but I'm curious what it might be like in a few months or a year. ETA: This is so much better after even just 5 months of aging. The patchouli has calmed down some and has matured out of its terrible twos. The overall effect is really well blended--it's spicy vanilla-y honey-y patchouli goodness, with no one note dominating, and like some others have mentioned, snuggly. I think the patch just needed time to develop.

In the bottle, this is a strong, sweet, boozy vanilla. Wet on my skin, I smell beeswax and something herbal. Then it seems to almost disappear for a few minutes, and when it returns, it's beeswax and a bit of the red sandalwood--mostly the beeswax. I'm pretty much only amping beeswax at this stage and it's a lot like Lights of Men's Lives. Which is fine, because that's one of my favorites, but I definitely hoped the other notes would come out and play, and they did. As it continues to dry, I get a little more of the wood--this isn't as rough-and-tumble as red sandalwood sometimes feels; it feels "smoothed out" somehow--and a little more vanilla. It's right at the half-hour mark that smoke makes an appearance. This is a quiet, soft smoke, not knock-you-back-off-your-feet smoke like I got recently with Wild Indigo Duskywing. It's definitely more like a candle was just blown out. And that seems to be where it lands: beeswax, a little sandalwood, a little vanilla, and some soft smoke. I get no kitchen herbs except in that one moment in the beginning. This is really lovely, and like others have said, a comfort scent. It's not very strong on me and has little throw, but this kind of scent is more for me than for the world anyway. ETA: The second time I wore this, I amped the sandalwood and vanilla more than I did the first time, and less of the beeswax. I kept being reminded of Monster Bait: Underpants. It's not a dupe, and as a caveat I haven't smelled Underpants in many years, but I couldn't shake the association (this is a VERY good thing). It was a combination of the softness of the sandalwood (though that was white and this is red) and the boozy decadence of the vanilla.

Oooh, another good plum is Oya. Most of the notes aren't listed, but it's kind of "headshop with plum."

In the imp, this is really acrid to my nose, not very pleasant. Wet on skin, I get something that's obviously the same note but calmed down a lot. Very woody. I think this is the vetiver. It smells kind of like pencils. Sinister pencils. Next, it starts to throw really strongly and becomes smoky. It smells kind of burnt, not like a burning wood fire but more like an extinguished one. It seems to switch back and forth between regular woody smell and burnt woody smell and sometimes cigarettes, probably depending on what my brain is zeroing in on at that moment. I also start to get a spicy note during this phase. Next stage after that is smoky wood and PEPPER! This is "opening the big tub of pepper while cooking at my old job." It isn't awful, but with this list of notes, I really wish more of the sweet notes would come out to play and balance out the harshness of this. This is probably at about the 15-minute mark--I wasn't really timing it yet though. So I decide that if a watched pot never boils, maybe a watched BPAL never morphs, so at this point I decide to ignore it for about half an hour. At about 10 minutes, I start getting a sweetish waft, maybe honey; at 20 minutes I'm pretty sure it's the frankincense. It keeps on being smoky. At my self-imposed deadline, I sniff my arm again and the frankincense is rounding it out some on my skin. Throw is still mostly smoky. And then after all this, it starts to all seem to come together--I think I can smell currant now, and it and the frankincense are balancing all the smoke nicely. I'm not sure it's "me," but I think it's finally doing what it's meant to do. I'm not sure what to make of Wild Indigo Duskywing. I like what it finally settles down to, but I'm not sure I want to go through ~45 minutes of heavy smoke pepper for it. But kudos to the Lab for getting me to play with vetiver scents again. (They frimped me Sloth when I was convinced it was a death note, and I liked it.)

I wear Bengal a lot for this sort of thing. The spices feel like they clear my head right out, and the whole thing is also reminiscent of a caffeinated beverage like a chai latte. Works best if you have a real caffeinated beverage too, lol!

I may have just saved myself from endless Gas Lamps' Flare stalking by realizing it's kind of close to Les Bijoux on my skin. It's all going to depend on what you amp, of course, but on me they're both sort of "sweet and slightly orangey apple with incense." There are differences, but I think they fill about the same niche in my collection, and huzzah, I already have a 5ml of Les Bijoux on the way.

In the imp, this smells strongly orangey; wet on my wrist it becomes more of a fruity bubble gum. It's a lot like the way lotus sometimes is bubblegummy, though there isn't supposed to be lotus in this. As it starts to dry, here comes the jasmine, and I ask myself, "lady_pandora, will you ever learn?" But soft! What light on yonder window breaks? 'Tis APPLE, and it's here to save the day! Jasmine hangs around, but for once it actually deigns to share the spotlight, and so what I get is a blend of the apple, jasmine, and still the bubblegummy note. Close to the skin, there's a hint of spiciness that is probably the pink pepper, but that doesn't make it into the throw. I kind of like that in a metaphorical way; the throw says "I'm sweet and innocent", and then if you get up close and personal, the skin scent says "...well, maybe not so innocent." This is a really pretty floral/fruity scent that I think I'll wear more in the spring and summer. I want to be wearing this with a white sundress in a garden at twilight. It never quite stops being a tad bubblegummy, which keeps it from being a great love, but it deserves a medal for being the first blend ever where jasmine played nice on me. I probably won't hunt down a bottle but will use up this imp. ETA: On repeat wear, I think the bubblegum note may be the pink pepper (like in High-Strung Daisies) plus a bit of the orange blossom, a really sweet version of OB like the one in Lacus Bonitatis.

I talked about this at greater length in the TAL Workings thread (so I apologize if you're seeing it twice), but I ordered Blessing of Isis in the hopes of strengthening a relationship that is still very strong in the "companionable" department but has lost a lot of its romantic/sexual zing due to a big pile of mundane factors. I got it in yesterday, and since the boy and I were going out to a nice dinner with friends, I decided to get started. I did a little ritual/prayer to Isis, with whom I already have some degree of relationship, to talk about what I wanted, and anointed myself with the oil. Review: Efficacy (To be updated as I continue using it) First day: I noticed two big things. One was that when he arrived, after the ritual but almost certainly before he'd really gotten a big whiff of the scent, I was bustling around grabbing my coat, bag, etc. when the boy said, "Come here for just a minute." I set all the stuff down and he said "I love you. I don't tell you often enough." and swept me into a big Hollywood kiss. ETA: He was also a little more touchy-feely, like arm-around-shoulder, during the night than usual. The other thing I noticed, at dinner: There's a woman in our friend group who's been flirting with boy lately. I don't actually think she means anything by it, but it's really been irking me and we've had a few conversations about it. She was at this dinner and gave me a hug, and when she did, I got the strongest burst of the Blessing of Isis scent that I had all night. It felt strongly protective, like Isis was saying, "She won't have him." This woman ended up leaving the dinner really early. Update 11/23/14: more progress toward a more passionate relationship has occurred. Review: Scent At first sniff in the bottle, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to put it on--it's really strong and just smelled...weird. But I really wanted to use it for its magical properties, so I figured I'd use just a small amount and see what developed. The oil is bright orange. When it first went on, it smelled of orange and of some darker herbs that hadn't differentiated themselves yet. The orange seemed to evaporate quickly, leaving behind a scent dominated by sandalwood and a very woody patchouli. If it reminded me of anything from the GC, it's Anne Bonny. As I've always liked Anne Bonny, this is OK by me! As I only used a little, and didn't use it in my usual "perfume" spots, I mostly got the scent in random wafts throughout the night, and they were very pleasant. Update 2/11/15: As the months pass, this oil is starting to become a little peanut-buttery in scent. I think maybe it's red musk amping up as it ages. Red musk doesn't normally do the PB thing on me, but it did in Sed Non Satiata, and what's happening here is similar. Thank you, Lab, for making this oil for me to use.

This was a decant purchased from a wonderful forumite. As soon as I took the cap off the imp, I smelled a bold rush of apple. At first, in the vial, it smelled a lot like the apple note that I think is in both Poisoned Apple and Fearful Pleasure. Once I put it on my skin, it changed a little and now I don't think it's exactly the same note--this one's more tart. It begins to dry down and at first it's apple apple apple, and then the orange rind comes out and tarts it up a little more. And then, mmmm. The incense note. It reminds me of frankincense but I think it must be the copal, with which I'm not really familiar. Orange rind is mostly gone, but the apple hangs around, softened by this lovely sweet golden glowy incense note. There's a little smokiness to it too. This is really lovely. A golden glow with smoke seems just right to evoke a gaslamp. It's kind of faint on me--but then I was trying Die Sunde, vom Tod verfolgt earlier, and the latter was throwing like a mofo, so maybe this just seems faint by comparison. But when I sniff my wrist, it's just glorious. I'm not sure if I'm going to need to hunt down more of this. It's kind of a paradox. On the one hand, I love Gas Lamps' Flare because I love smoky apple blends. On the other hand, precisely because I love smoky apple blends, I have a few already, at least one of which is easier to come by. I'm thrilled to have this imp, though.

Die Sunde was going to be my Holy Grail, a couple of years ago when it came out. I wanted it bad. I was looking through my old forum posts recently and saw post after post of me trying to figure out how to fit it into my budget right after I'd already ordered, finally deciding I could afford it, and then nothing--I remember that I couldn't afford it after all and was terribly disappointed. So when a lovely forumite put a bottle up for sale, I just had to finally give it a shot. The first thing I thought when I opened the bottle and took a good long huff was, "Smut with flowers." Right at application on my skin, it's red musk plus something smoky that develops over the next couple of minutes into something woody. It smells like red sandalwood, though that's not listed. As it continues to dry down, the sandalwood-y smell dominates the musk for a little while, and then is itself eclipsed by the musk and by--I always feel like I'm "cheating" when I only identify a note because someone else mentioned it--but mymymai is right, I think it's dragon's blood. So maybe what makes "blood musk" is red musk plus dragon's blood? It finally settles down to a mix of the red musk and something that reminds me not just of dragon's blood, but specifically of Blood Amber. I can maybe, maybe, smell a tiny bit of orchid, but I have to go looking for it. Silly skin, I could smell it in the bottle! So Die Sunde is not at all like what I expected--but I really like it anyway. This, on me, is a sultry, heady mix that screams the color "red." I've also heard some things about red musk and the monthly cycle, and as I'm PMSing, I wonder if that's affecting what I amp in this. I'll make a mental note to try it another time to see if I can get the orchid. ETA: There's something in this much later that reminds me a lot of Event Horizon. Could this be an orchid note? It's the only thing they have in common as far as I can see. It also feels related to the dragon's blood, so maybe the DB I thought I smelled was orchid all along? IDK.