urraca

I should like this since I love everything Beth does with rose. But as many have said, the rose note is not all that strong here, though it is detectable. I don't get anything I can identify as lilac and I'm not familiar with wisteria so I'm not being very helpful. Overall it does smell like flowers on the edge of being overripe. It also reminds me of the kind of perfume used to scent dolls --- a little too strong and a hint of plastic undermeath. I can't believe I am saying such awful things about one of Beth's wonderful creations --- stupid chemistry. Hits self with stick: Hits self with trout for good measure:

This starts out so beautifully. It is a lovely, sour, juicy, watery pineappley scent on me. But after a couple of hours it turns into my nemisis --- plastic doll. Ugh. Desdemona did kind of the same thing so they must share some note. So sad.

It has a promising beginning with that cherry-almond-arsenic scent. But then, oh dear, the ylang ylang taks over and it is all dead, wet leaves on me. Ylang ylang ruined Eve for me this way too. After an hour or so it is nice again, a gentle floral with enough sweet skin scent to convince me it is O's little sister. But too little, too late.

There's a lot going on inside this little imp. There's a sharp blast of cypress and then a duet between the orchid and the myrrh. Later in the drydown, it is the labdanum and the black currant that are the strongest. Black currant is the only fruit I feel totally comfortable wearing, secure in the knowledge that its tart sharpness will not make me smell like a candle. I like this very much and may order a big bottle.

First off I get a scent that reminds me of olives, the good olives swimming in juice that you get when you order a glass of wine in Spain. This is a good thing. Then the sandalwood comes to the fore, backed with some incense, and thisis also very good. If you have been looking for a scent that recalls a spice merchant's wooden chest and all the lovely things inside it, this is the perfect scent --- not too sweet, just nice and woody and fragrant. Late, late in the drydown I do get a hint of rose but it is subtle enough that I think this is worth trying for the wood lovers and flower haters out there. Delicious.

I get mostly the lemons, vanilla, and bergamot. The white musk sneeks up after a time. These are not bad things, but I find this scent on me oddly cloying and oppresive feeling. It reminds me a little of Van Van but without the vetiver from that scent.

This was not what I expected. From the description, and from the way those notes usually work on me, I expected something quite sweet, possibly even overpowering. Instead this is perfumey but almost sharp and not the slightest bit sweet or flowery. It reminds me a little of how Moscow smelled on me.

It goes on with the winey rose note from 2,5, and 7 that I love. This quickly fades into the barest hint of bubblegum. That too fades quite quickly and what I am left with on the drydown is a lovely sweet aquatic scent, with the feel of no particular floral. It is very pleasant. Possibly best as a spring or summer scent.

I like this. It is like myrrh and burnt sugar, kind of sweet and smokey and incensey. A little more foody than I was expecting, not quite as mysterious as I expected.

This should basically be Eos, which I love, mixed with lavender, which I like. Instead it doesn't work for me. The lavender goes on very strong and almost medicinal, and after a while seems to turn the other notes soapy. Drydown reminded me oddly of Darkness. I think I just don't like blends of lavender with other florals. They seem to always smell somehow wrong --- kind of messy. I loved Gaueko, but thathad lavender paired with incense notes.

This started off as an attractive bitter cocoa and then quickly shifted to vetiver and nothing but. It reminded me of some of the voodoo oils.

This is exactly what it describes itself as one me, a beautiful aquatic, reminiscent of Dirty, scented with the moonflower I recall from Midnight and Chiroptera, and rose. It seems like a very summer evening scent to me so i think I will wait until next spring to decide if I need more than my imp.

The lovely and talented zenvodunista gifted me with a sample of this in a swap and I was so excited to try it. I have been fascinated with this feast for several years, and this was the only Halloween scent I ordered from the 2005 edition. I love this and it makes me long for my 2005 bottle. It is better than I could have hoped. On my skin is is a burnt caramel, chocolatey candyish smell but wafting from where I have applied it is a beautiful sophisticated floral. A complex, lovely and subtle blend.

I get very huffy when people compare Beth's creations to cheap drug store perfumes of the 70s but I have to admit that the first time I tried this on I thought "OMG, Love's Baby Soft!" I think it was the combination of the lavendar, rose, and white musk that gives it the slightly fizzy scent I remember form my youth. In any case, the lavendar is fleeting, to be replaced by a lovely heavy sweet orchid. All the stages are lovely but together they are a little incongruous so I think I'll enjoy my imp and not buy more.

I'm trying this from a perfume spray frimp, so I may not be getting what others get from this. First off I get a very nutty scent, almost like toasted hazelnuts. This must be the cinnamon. What is left once that fades is both green smelling and perfumey. I don't get any violet to speak of (too bad). The green scent is a little dank, like rotting vegetation. I'm glad to be able to try it, but it is not for me --- off to pay it forward!

An ancient blend, swollen with arcane power: galangal, high john essence, frankincense, cedar, and sandalwood. Immediately I get a blast of wood, like a sawmill. That thankfully fades down to a dusty cedary scent with a sweet background.

This starts out in an unpromising dichotomy of pez candy and a creamy note that must be the lunar oils. But soon enough these two strains meld into a gorgeous heady creamy flowery blend. I can't identify any individual floral notes. It does smell like an entire bouquet of flowers, but the kind of flowers that don't assault you with fragrance. It lasts a few hours on me but I keep reapplying.

I knew I'd love this one; the question was how much. The answer is a lot. Like many people, it reminded me in its sweet orchidy vanillaness of both O and Queen Mab so I tried them all together on different bits of my arm. First I should say that trying them together probably changed my perception of each one. But they were quite distinct, more so than my sense memory of them. Queen Mab was much more floral while O was distinguished by its amber. Regan seemed to stand in the middle. I liked its faint hint of stephanotis, so much so that I would have liked more.

The piney notes come to the fore first, succeeded by the incense and resins. This evokes its name beautifully. It smells like the fifteenth-century, the rotting corpse covered with velvet and perfumed with frankincense. It's like an ancient church opened for the first time after centuries to find the bleached bones of its priest lying where he was stricken performing his last Mass.

This was a frimp that came in an order that included Ephemera which also has calla lily and geranium, so it made sense to include this one too. I'm not crazy about either one, as it turns out, though surprisingly for different reasons. I thought it was the calla lily or the generanum that made Ephemera go a little sharp on me. This has quite a different scent even though it is sharp too. Woodsy and green is a good general description. The cedar makes it a little bit odd, I think. Not hamstery, just a little off. The orchid doesn't sweeten the mixture quite enough for me. Enormous throw and lasting power though!

A generous lab frimp that could have worked, since I love amber. But on me it is tht BPAL spice note that goes straight to raw cake batter and that's all I can smell. (Am I the only one this happens to with spice?) So this goes straight to swaps!

Grape flavoured candy that turns darker and deeper once it hits my skin. Then clove emerges. The scent remains kind of smokey-sweet from this point but not in a good way with my chemistry. The sweet is still artificial candy-like while the smoke is a little sharp and sour. I was curious about the mimosa urinelike scent some have mentioned (which I don't get) because to me Madrid (the city) smells like hot sun, potatoes frying in oil, lingering deisel and human urine. But in a more romantic mood, Two, Five and Seven best evokes the city I love to me.

This is very pretty. Spicy carnation and sweet rose come to the fore with bergamot in the background. Milk and honey for the base notes. Altogether this is a sweeter, more flowery version of White Rabbit. But alas, it doesn't last very long at all on me --- an hour and it is gone, so I may swap it to someone with a more compliant skin chemistry. That or blow the whole imp putting it in my bath!

I tried this one on tonight because I thought it would be an easy review, an obvious mismatch with my chemistry. A lab frimp, I don't like dragon's blood and bubblegummy lotus is nice for a novelty but not that compelling. But the two mixed together create something quite special. The dragon's blood tempers the sweeteness of the lotus while the lotus adds new dimensions to the resin. It is deep and rich and thick and sweet without being too sweet. It creates a red warm sexy skin scent. I can believe there is red musk working here in the background. This may be a big bottle someday.

The mint comes through first for me but it is a mint I am unfamiliar with --- very different from a spearmint or peppermint, a little duller. The scent morphs into various different herbal, grassy, and almost milky phases (I am reminded of White Rabbit) before settling down after about an hour into something quite different; a lovely sweet floral. It is really a perfect floral in which none of the notes stand out as all conspire to become something more than their individual parts. There is nothing harsh, sharp, or soapy about any of this. It smells to me like the best of spring. It lasts for several hours and has good throw. I'm sold.