lady_pandora

On me, this is pretty much all iris. Appropriately, it has a ton of lasting power, but is almost a single note. The resins may be why it sticks around as long as it does, but I can't pick them out--this is just a straight-up, delicate floral that lasts all day without morphing, on me.

Oh, this is lovely. It smells kind of like a decadent caramel, but also kind of like incense, like someone made an incense caramel. I think it evokes the concept really well--in the middle of winter, this warm cuddly little secret, whose time has not yet come to be revealed. Close to the skin and totally comforting.

The Lake of Goodness. A perfume that inspires philanthropy while fostering kindness, affection, and compassion: sweet amber with rose geranium, lavender, amyris, motherwort, orange blossom, honey, apple peel, and angelica root. I was a little worried about what the herbal notes in Lacus Bonitatis would do, but I needn't have worried--I don't get them at all. This scent, on me, is dominated by the amber, orange blossom, and an orangey fruit note that I think may be a combination of the orange blossom and rose geranium. This orangey note is the most prominent note in the early going. It's a sweet, bright impression of orange or maybe of neroli, definitely the fruit and not the flower. Next to this is the amber, which is vanillic here, and the overall impression is kind of creamsicle-ish. The orange blossom is slightly perceptible underneath these other two notes. So it's a slightly floral creamsicle. It does this for a few hours, and then the fruit note fades out in the drydown, leaving a blend of the vanillic amber, the orange blossom, and I think some of the honey. There are some blends where these notes are kind of smutty; not here. Lacus Bonitatis has an innocent air about it. This is sweet, cheerful, and definitely hot-weather-worthy. I don't regret pouncing on this one.

I almost didn't get to test this one, because I had a brain fart. For some reason I read the label as "La Belle au Bois Dormant," which I've tried before and was meh on because I amped the plumeria too much, and was getting ready to throw it into swaps unsniffed. And then I got another look at the label! Well, The Lady of Shalott is a story I've always had a soft spot for. I love how she chose to turn and face the world even though she knew it meant invoking the curse. So of course I had to try it. And yay, I like the oil! First wet impression is greenness and water lilies. Then it turns into pretty much lily of the valley single note for a while; I am not a LotV expert by any means, but this is familiar from Belle Epoque. The sense I get from it is cool, dewy, green-white, creamy. Very pretty. Later, I get some gardenia too. It doesn't smell quite as "damp" in the later stages, but it's still white-green and cool. A lovely scent for a hot day, or a rainy one.

Tea rose! I swear this is what that old Body Shop tea rose used to smell like. I hoarded a bottle of that and got it back out to test against London, but WOE, the Body Shop one has gone off, which really should not surprise me because it's probably 15 years old and really I should wear my pretties and not stick them in a box for 15 years. But this is what I think it used to smell like. It's my early 20s in a bottle. I get the wickedness for just a few minutes, maybe at about the 15-minute mark, and then it goes away again and we're back to Tea Rose. I think the wickedness may be some sort of wet wood note, I don't know. It doesn't stick around or amp up enough for me to identify it. I really like this. Definitely an imp keeper at least. Do I need a bottle? IDK. I do have a lot of BPAL roses, and big bottles of many of them. On the other hand, this passed the #1 keeper test, which is that if I test an oil in the evening, and then wake up the next morning wanting to wear it as the scent of the day, it's a keeper. And I've got it on right now.

Wow, thanks! I'll be sure to look out for burning when I test Bengal, cinnamon or something similar has done that for me before (specifically in Arcana's Queen Crossbones) that aging doesn't seem to diminish. Thanks for the tip on the Snakes, aged O and Snake Oil are my all-time-GC-faves, of course. I actually own/owned the entire old Snake Pit but never got around to testing anything other than Boomslang (the story about why I own tons of aged BPAL that is unworn is so long and boring), which I've used up roughly 3/5ths of that bottle, pending this return. I also traded or sold away Green Tea Viper on the old LiveJournal community a while ago, so I've already stocked up on the 2016 replacements for both of those. The entire rest of the old Pit (minus Anaconda, which I have tested gently) are my top testing priority for next week because really, what better time if I fall in love? Yup, Bengal is pretty awesome, but I can't put it on right after I shower or the application site will get all red. If I wait a bit for my pores to close back up, it's fine. I also thought Saw-Scaled was a relative.

Wet, this is a soft pretty rose with something sweet; at this stage I thought it was reminiscent of a fruity note, like the pomegranate in Persephone but not. Soft, slightly fruity rose. The sweet note gradually becomes more vanilla-y and the rose note reminds me of the one in The Waltz. Once this has settled, I get all three notes in beautiful harmony: rose, vanilla, wood. Super pretty. There's also something really clean about it, really fresh. It's faint, though. It fades within about two hours on me, but it's lovely. I need to do some death matching to decide if I need a bottle. Update 3/27/18: Re-testing after almost 2 years of aging. Wow, this is pretty! The louder, gothier Crimson Peak scents kind of overshadowed this one at the time, but this is simply lovely. It's a sweet, effervescent rose scent perfect for spring. Now I'm bummed I only got a decant!

Djinn was very woodsmoke and wood for me--IIRC it kind of went like a bonfire in reverse, starting out with the smoky smell and morphing into the still intact wood smell. Bard is nearly a dead ringer for Lights of Men's Lives on me--I amp the beeswax to the moon apparently.

I love it. I have no idea what hyacinth smells like, but asphodel is a lily and I know honeysuckle; I get lily and honeysuckle and some other flower too, so the third one must be the hyacinth. I've been wearing it so much this spring.

Orc! (Field grey courgette musk, roughly cured leather, and vetiver.) Courgette being zucchini.

I realized my last post in this thread was early enough that I didn't mention a couple of newer vetiver favorites--Anathema and Do the Dancing Maidens Sleep. So apparently I like vetiver with honeysuckle! The vetiver adds the green-bitter thing LiberAmoris mentions and it kind of grounds both blends and keeps them from being too sweet. I'd say the vetiver is stronger in Anathema and less prominent in DTDMS, but I think it works for the same reason in both. And then I also like Black Moths, another case where it's smoky but the smokiness just fits the concept really well.

Countess Willie didn't remind me much of Bordello. It did remind me of, oh what was that Shojo Beat vampire one? Midnight Kiss? Except Countess Willie worked better on me of the two. I amp red musk though, which the Countess has and Bordello does not, so that's probably why they were so different on me.

Yep, I was going to suggest Lights of Men's Lives too--to me, it smells kind of like vanilla and kind of like honey and kind of like the smell candles have when they burn. O might be another good one to try. There aren't a ton of GC scents with pomegranate, but Persephone is super pretty, even though it doesn't have any of the other notes you mentioned.

I can smell this oil through the vial before I even open it, and it smells great. It reminds me of Spellbound--rose, red musk, and incense. That's how it smells in the first wet stage on me too. Spellbound with a little spice. Well, rose isn't listed, and I don't keep smelling it for long, so I guess it was some kind of olfactory illusion. It next morphs into red musk and some spices that I perceive as foody. At about 20 minutes, I get kind of a sweaty note. Is it cumin that can smell sweaty? I can never remember. Or maybe this is a weird thing the musk is doing. The sweat note fades out about 10 minutes later and I get spicy red musk incense, and that's how it stays. It's really sexy! Definitely a keeper.

Spell-soaked herbs and flowers, cold iron, broom twigs, bundles of moss and patchouli root, and moth dust. I tried one of the prototypes of Baba Yaga a loooong time ago, and this final version is somewhat different. It's a morpher in the early going, passing through high sharp floral, to cinnamon, to department store perfume with a bit of spice, to a really stunning lush floral (orchid? lily?), and then finally settling on a faint, pretty floral with some oakmoss. It's pretty, but too faint on me and not really blowing me away.

My mental concept of femme fatale often seems to involve a mixture of fruit, floral, and incense notes. Lady Lucille, Morgause, Spellbound, Lilith are some of my go-tos. White Witch always seems like it should be--it's got a lot of the same notes as these others--but on me it's too heavy on the patchouli, which brings it farther down to earth. It's sexy but more hippie sexy.

To me, the scent of Astral Travel oil is a soft citrusy scent, I'm going to guess neroli, followed by the creamy ambery note that's in Charisma, which I think is ambergris. I'm not sure if my astral practices are as advanced as what others have talked about, but I will say that I'm able to go deeper into trance when I use this oil. I get further down the rabbit hole--the corollary is that it takes longer to come back up afterward. It's a valuable addition to my practice and my TAL collection.

Initially, Morgause is dominated by ylang-ylang, but settles down to a scent that is violet-dominant with a bit of fruit (I think mostly plum, maybe a little grape) to round it out and a soft cloud of incense to deepen it. This is a purple velvet dress in scent form. It's really a lot like Purple Phoenix but less grapey. This...is AWESOME. Because I'm almost out of Purple Phoenix and it's an LE from back when dinosaurs walked the earth and now I can get basically the same thing as a GC.

On me, Harlot is powdery rose and cinnamon and...for some reason something that reminds me of the linen/clean laundry note? It's also really faint on me. I had high hopes for this one, but it doesn't stand out among my rose scents. :/

Cicuta is a really lovely scent in any case. I've never sniffed Eve, but I'm glad I have Cicuta. I should remember to wear it more often.

Oddly, I never really thought of wearing a specific BPAL for exercise--but it sounds like a great idea! I wonder if TAL Energy would be good for that.

Oh, this is fantastic. It starts out cherryalmond and is a lot like As Above. Then the leather comes out, until leather is the dominant note. This is big sexy leather, a little smoky. Then a little more almond comes back, and then it gets incensey with the patchouli. The vanilla shows up more in the throw for me, while it's more patchouli close to the skin. Love it. Haute Macabre is 4-for-4 with that imp set!

White musk, we need to talk. Bow & Crown started out really nice. Cologney wood with something edible, then incensey vanilla leather, mmm! (I literally have "mmm!" in my notes.) A bit of wood comes back out as the scent evolves, all fine and good. And then it goes cloying at about the half-hour mark and never recovers. I've had white musk fail on me multiple times lately. It doesn't always, so I need to experiment and figure out what I can and can't pair it with, but this one isn't working on me. Sorry Lab.

Oh, this reminds me, I also wore some Sinus Amoris last summer. I have some "beat the heat" scents, and then I have "can't beat the heat, might as well join it" stuff like Sinus Amoris, which feels like it just sort of goes with the flow of being sultry and steamy. (I'm the same way about winter really--I have "illusion of warmth" scents and also "it's cold, let's just embrace the cold" scents, depending on my mood.)

I've got on Symmakhia right now and it's a great one (Vanilla, heliotrope, red sandalwood, pear, black lily, white wine grape, and white rose), but it's an LE from some years back and I don't know how easy it is to find at this point. I second Lady Lucille and Persephone. Another big love of mine is Les Bijoux (Skin musk and honey, blood-red rose, orange blossom, white peach, red apple, frankincense and myrrh). The latter two are both GC and so can be tested pretty inexpensively. Sjofn was off-the-charts sweet for me, like bubble gum. La Belle Au Bois Dormant didn't work for me in particular (I amped the wrong thing and just didn't dig it), but I can tell it's pretty.