stinkycretingurl

i was excited about smut when i ordered it because i **adore** my lovely snake oil bottle and obsessively hoard my snake charmer bottles because i love it so so so much. with everyone mentioning them in the same breath as smut how could i not order it? i opened that box when i got it, confident i would love it. i had seen mention of red musk and, yes, it scared me because i find red musk to be utterly and completely intolerable. but the other musks would be there to blend with the red musk and make it play nice? right? nope. from the moment i put it on it was red musk. everything else was dominated by red musk. headache, nausea and a feral *need* to wash it off ensued. my skin must amp red musk because it's the same sensation i got from haunted palace (sweet tarts being beaten with a cat o' nine tails by red musk) and red phoenix (cinnamon being stomped to death by red musk). i'm not going to even give it a second test. b.f. liked it but i felt like i was being stabbed with a fork in the eyes. --scg

i was having an absolutely horrible day when the order arrived so i put this one away. i thought it was the badness of the day that influenced my perception of it. that was a couple months ago. i tested it twice this past weekend. in the bottle it is unimpressive. slightly cinnamon with faint lurking clove. on the skin it warms and the clove and pepper arrive and bloom. it's quite lovely and intriguing. on dry down, it smells remarkably like big red chewing gum. sweet, cinnamon, clove, spice. i liked this stage of it. after about half an hour of wearing the notes begin to blend and sour. the second time i tested it i realized what it smelled like: ancient ketchup with a faint hint of dill pickles. like, ketchup in the bottom of the bottle in the recycling bin for a week. it's not terribly unpleasant, mind you. just not really for me. --scg

it might be hard to find but chiroptera is *the* light floral. i have a 5ml from the lab, bought last year when it was available. it was a little "old lady" at first but it has aged into a very ::beautiful:: light floral.

i nabbed a bottle while carnivale noir was still up, not really thinking about it, really. just gave it a try and to me, it was smelled very similar to snake oil--only better. it didn't have the ever so slightly "medicinal" note that snake oil has. i loved it. but i haven't worn it for a couple months because i've been dabbling in the samhain/yule scents and because i wanted to see how well it aged. well: i had to work on my car this afternoon and fresh out of the shower i took to get rid of the grimey gook of wrestling with my engine, i put on snake charmer. delicious. it ages freaking beautifully. much like snake oil, it deepens and becomes richer with age. this is a truly spectacular blend and it becomes even more stellar with age. purely beeeeeyoootiful. i am happy i am a hoarder, my friends. and what's even more amazing is that i had to go back to my car and work on it a little more a couple hours after i put on snake charmer. i've been spraying carb cleaner, getting carbon all over my hands, grease and oil. i just washed my hands when i finished and i can *still* smell my lovely snake charmer on my wrists. delish. --scg

hmm! interesting question. queen (just plain queen, in the voodoo section) is the first thing that came to mind. it's very powerful and "female". not very floral, really. very unique. others that come to mind: morocco, bengal, the coiled serpent, serpent's kiss. maybe baghdad?

tezcatlipoca is in my top 3 scents and is probably actually #1. it is simply, totally, perfection. i got it as a frimp in my first order and i remember so well opening up the imp and taking a whiff. in the imp the scents are discordant--smoke, chocolate, a tiny bit floral--it blew my smelling circuits. i literally recoiled. but in a "i can't believe that smell!! it's BEAUTIFUL!" kind of way. on the skin, it opens up and wraps itself around you in an aggressively beautiful way. the chocolate dissipates into the background and the incense comes forward along with a tame and purring patchouli. i like patchouli but it can have claws and has a tendency to scratch it's way to the fore of any blend. not in tezcat. it smells exactly the way a smoking mirror would smell, weirdly enough. it's unique among the 150 lab scents i've tried. whenever my boyfriend wears it and walks by me i always stop him and have to sniff and say "what ARE you wearing? mmmm!" it has a fantastic sillage, too...obviously. ::sigh:: tezcat love. --scg

i was really looking forward to this one because of the leather/incense/citrus combo and it did not disappoint. in the bottle it is a deep, mesmerizing sexy combination of leather, incense, musk and grasses with a hint of lime. on the skin it blooms in to a beautiful and complex scent reminiscent of a naughty (but fun) saddle in a dark room with lime/citrus in a bowl on the table, with the faint smell of an oriental incense lingering in the curtains. it is breathtakingly sexy--but unisex. it smells amazing on both me and the b.f. interestingly, it reminded me a lot of habanita by molinard from 1924. so last night i tested them both together. torture king IS habanita but the incense/grass notes creates a preferable scent to my nose--less cloying and powdery than habanita. lovely lovely stuff. --scg

i've had the imp for a while but i never tried it. something about the scent in the bottle--didn't seem interesting. but a friend told me last night she loved it so i gave it a try. in the bottle it is unremarkable. once on, it blooms into a very beautiful powdery scent tempered with a deep musky sexiness. it truly is beautiful! on the big bottle list? however, i slathered it on this morning--and i mean SLATHER. multiple dips into the imp, even put it on my ::hair::. and three hours on it has faded to nothing. if i sniff my wrists very closely i can smell it, but it has developed a slightly sour note and as a consequence it smells only vaguely they way it did the glorious first hour. meh. it's off the big bottle list. --scg