Kaygee

Jasmine, toffee and lemon pound cake--with cream! ...and its really really interesting how differently everyone reacts to this one. Think it may have something to do with where you are in your cycle...cause I can just bet that if I had this on during the "go away, ya bother me" phase of my cycle, I wouldn't want this in my nose... But since I am currently more than willing to have a boy follow me...it smells AMAZINg....and make me grin in a very very wicked (and more than usually confident) way.

I think Blood is one of the scents you shouldn't wear everyday, and shouldn't decide about all at once. For starters, if you smell it in the bottle, you'll toss it--cherry and medicine, and a dead ringer for Cherry Sucrets--the old ones in the tin, wrapped in silver paper...a fond childhood memory, but not a scent of choice. But put it on. Five minutes into dry down on me, the cherry has disappeared--not gone, but morphed from that artificial cherry that we all know, and into real cherry, which is actually not sweet, but bloody, organic, and very strong...the myrrh and clove adds a rough edge, and a kind of iron and salt metallica at the back of the scent. If you could turn the extraordinary and viscous red of fresh blood from a colour to a smell...it would be very close to this... Which may or may not be a good thing for you. But I think there may be days when you want to smell like the colour of blood. A warning maybe?...a declaration? I just felt strong when I wore it. Like someone who can bleed for seven days, and not die--and so a little scary, and very female. With this on hand, I think it's like AC/DC says, if you want blood--you got it it.

Isn't it wonderful how the name of a BPAL scent so often IS the best way to describe it? This mix of herb and sweetness (must go berry and sweet faster on me than some) with just a bare hint of flowers might best be described as how an androgynously lovely young person, living in an idyllic forest, with a heart full of young young and longing love, might smell. If you are a wee slip of a girl, who knows how to climb trees, this is so for you. If you still have that girl living somewhere inside you, you'll love this too.

Yggdrasil: My daughter was so pleaed when this arrived....The Tree of Life, she says, reading the label, as if every teenager in Canada just naturally knows the meaning of Yggdrasil (and, I might add, its pronunciation)....and them we both sniffed...and realized this may be the best name for a scent ever...if accuracy is a measure of perfection. In the shield region of central Canada, there these incredibly deep, cold lakes, tens of thousands of them, deep into the granite rock that covers a huge huge expanse....and around the lakes the forests right now are all golden....mostly jack pine and poplar and trembling aspen....in the late afternoon, right now, by the lakes, when the sun warms the autumn-turned trees, there's this smell...of dying leaves, and mud, and the soft green plants still trying to grow in the shelter of the trees, even though the season for that is pretty much done... I put this oil on my wrist, and let it dry, waving my arm in the air...and I was there...in the sun, under the turnding trees, in the very clean air....I could practically see the flutter of gold when the breeze off the lake sets the aspen shuddering..this is the best tree smell I have ever tried. It's magic.

Umbra's been on my list for ages...couldn't decide between ordering Omen and Umbra my first time....and now Omen is my main scent...but was still curious...so grabbed this imp straight out of the box when it arrived and sniffed: Yow-zah. Actually quite similiar to Omen, with the combination of patchouli and green tones...but more complex, and less resiny...strong and dark and full of shadows. On the skin wet...this is great...this is me, up to my elbows in the side garden, working peat into wet soil with flats of plants waiting to go in...the patchouli is there, which is fine with me (your skin either loves patchouli or not...mine does, so almost anything with it is fine on me, never soapy or powdery or too perfumey) but everything else is VERY organic and much earthier than Omen...like wearing one of the green scents layered with Graveyard Dirt. Dry down: Softer, which is to be expected, and a bit sweeter...just a hint of cinnamon...a whisper...but still a drak green shadow, which is great because while I really only go for the earthy, herbal smells, very few of them last very long on me...Umbra lingers beautifully, and has good throw without being overpowering. A wonderful choice for those on the Gaia side of the scent spectrum....if you're looking for dark and leafy, you're going to love this scent.

Just got this. Excited because I've never tried any if the Irish scents, and as an Irish descendant, feel an obligation to find one that works for me. In the bottle: Oh dear. Johnson's Baby Shampoo. On the skin, wet: Better than above. Strong floral, but not overly sweet...more like wild flowers than traditional gardenia/rose/jasmine/lily of the valley type stuff...also nice green grass smell. It's ...meadowy. Dry down: Very strong. Real staying power...gets quite perfumey as it warms up. Hour later: Oh dear again. Smells like White Shoulders now...which is an expensive and popular perfume, but I grew out of my White Shoulders stage before I finished my freshman year of college...and that is a LONG time ago. This is a young woman's scent...a serious, romantic, somewhat bookish young woman, who can still wear flowers in her hair without irony. Had to wash it off. The days when I could do much of anything without irony are far behind me.

Does anyone else get a feeling of alienation from this one? I mean, it's a fascinating blend, so subtle--I get the earthy, mossy thing right out of the bottle, and on dry down the myrrh really pops on me, and finally after a couple of hours that sweet juniper that masquerades as old rose--kind of a spicy green medicinal thing--and I don't dislike the smell at all--it's just not only does it not smell like me...it doesn't smell like anything or anyone I know... I sniff and sniff my wrists, and it is such an unexpected scent. Maybe this is perfume for another planet...a dark, old place...or for when you feel like you're from one. It's going on the No pile--but not because it isn't really interesting, just... I think someone out there with more alien DNA than me might appreciate more. added to June 6, 2005 Re-think: Put it away for a couple of weeks, and then today it was soooo hot, soooo muggy (we're having monsoon season in the Great Plains, go figure) and I just wanted to try it one more time, and hallajuah, it is now I who has sufficient alien DNA to wear Omen. There was something about its dark, green coolness that I just craved...and now...I think its perfect....just goes to show, never swap or sell too fast...might not be the oil...might just be the time of season that makes a scent seem like it doesn't suit... Off to sip iced coffee, and sniff my wrists--got to remember to stick to the wrists in public, got caught sniffing my own shirt at work today...and actually no one seemed very surprised...note to self, work to reduce reputation for eccentricity at work.

Alack a day.... The White Rabbit and I are not to be. Wet I can smell the tea abit, and sweet milk, and something quite...proper...like a White Rabbit's waistcoat ought to smell, when pulling out a pocket watch. But then the linen took over, and that was all I could smell after dry down--very nice, correct linen, like clean, well-Bounced sheets. Much too button-ed down for me. I have a friend who's knickname is Bunny--I will send it to her, and see if sympathetic magic will make it work better on her skin.

I have the same problem as some of you with Jabberwocky...it fades almost immediately on me! The problem is trebled by the fact that my beloved Blogger Boy ADORES it. I mean, I do too, but anything that gets the boy off the screen, and all over the back of my neck is PRECIOUS! I don't blame him. It is so GREEN and fresh and piney but sweet too. Daytime, I am all about the green smells. Can anyone recommend something this green smelling that lasts longer? Me and my neck would thank you.

Truly the scent of autumn itself -- damp woods, fir needle, and black patchouli with the gentlest touches of warm pumpkin, clove, nutmeg, allspice, sweet red apple and mullein. I got a decant sample of Samhain 2004 and was delighted because it was high on my list of things I'd like to try--if only still available. It is simply wonderful. Wet, it smells of the mix of patchouli and fir, with the apples just keeping it sweet. As it settles, there's this greeness that lingers, from the pine I suspect, but it's in a context of apple and spice and something that's just warm, and very safe--but not cuddly or powdery or girly girly--just safe as houses. Then I got it! It's my grandmother's house, at Thanksgiving. It's the wet firs out back, mixed with the apple and pecan pies coming out of the oven, and Grampa's spicy cologne--cause he's "spruced up" just before we arrived. Amazing. I vote for a Samhain 2005 re-release, please!

I wish I could have liked this one long term. When I put it on, I was just giggly. There it was, coconut, mint, caramel, licorise...it smelled just like a plastic pumpkin full of Hallowe'en candy, and it was such a happy, totally lacking in seriousness mix. It stayed that way for the first hour, and then everything else faded away and all that was left was the coconut and mint and it smelled exactly like Burt's Bees Coconut and Mint foot cream, and that was not sexy or fun--just sort of medicinal. After another hour, only the coconut remained, and a little something that brought a touch of Coppertone to the whole thing--just sun tan lotion without the sun blocking advantage. Sigh. My body doesn't seem to do well with the foody smells---it really doesn't like the cherry wood either. I'll pass this on to someone with a different ph balance.

Hint to all: Do not try Hearth if you've got a headache...cause it has staying power. If you're like me, everytime you get another waft of it, it'll be boy, yup, I still feel that pounding, cherry flavoured hammer on my head....not good Wet it smells really strongly of cherries--Really really red cherry...not candy or boutique candle---real just off the tree dark, strong, winey cherry. Dry down, the cherry fades a bit into the leather and tobacco, and it smells just like sitting by the fire with Charles Dickens while he sips cherry cordial and smokes a pipe full of Borkum Riff...which would be very cool, just not necessarily something I'd want to keep on my wrist for five hours. Very male...very older male, wearing tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows male. A Daddy smell. Not a Kaygee smell unfortunately...but certainly worth the sniff...just for the literary tour...

This is a rave. I'm a newbie and am just trying little bits from all the families of oils, a little ozone here, and little floral there, and sorting out what it is I actually like--I have worn nothing but Lush Karma for two years. Not keen on the heavy incense--not so big with the flowers--not a water chick--on me, the water scents like Tempest smell like Love's Rain from Grade 6...and I do not need to go back there. Then I tried Snake Oil, and wow! Wet, I could smell the vanilla, and some amber...and a darkness that seemed almost like cocoa--mixed with mud. Put it on, and waited for the dry, and then waved it under my beloved blogger boy's nose and he said, "Hmmm, plasticene" and then "Yum" and then I got majorly nuzzled. Now who ever said "plasticene " and "yum" in the same sentence? I mean, I knew what he meant, there is a sweet earth tone, but it's much prettier and more complex than that, and as it dried--and it stays with me for Hours--it just got better--settled on my skin as this haunting, sweet spicy thang. But the most important thing is that it is basically sex in a bottle--at least for me...no scent has ever had that effect---I put it on, and all of a sudden, Spidey-sense was tingling like crazy, and I couldn't stop grinning. Hilarious, and amazing. No wonder this is a bestseller.