AnArtfuldodger

In the bottle: very cologne-y. Wet on wrist: this bears a sharp resemblance to Shadwell on my skin -- I love Shadwell, but I don't think they share any elements...maybe it's just the cologne aspect? On the drydown: This is quite soft and masculine. It fades on me rather quickly, though a tiny hint still lingers hours later (just stops being strong very quickly, I guess is what I mean to say). I bought this for my boyfriend for when we go out to do nice things, so I think this will suit him better than it suits me anyway! I don't dislike it, but I prefer Shadwell.

Round 3 of 3 of testing this series for me, so here I go! CCCXCI In the bottle: This is a very sweet scent, I can pick up the Dorian in it as well. Wet on wrist: It's a light musk, similar to....I can't quite tell, maybe Giant Vulva, mixed with Dorian. On the drydown: Skin musk + Dorian, I think? CCCXLIX In the bottle: Yew trees! Wet on wrist: Dorian has taken a stroll through a heavily wooded area of Yew trees, and has perhaps climbed one. On the drydown: It settles down into a tamer yew tree with just a tiny, tiny hint of Dorian mixed in -- a sweeter version of Yew Trees. I like it, but not sure when I'd wear it. Hmm. CCXLV. In the bottle: Heady dime store perfume. But that's to me -- 80% of florals remind me of dime store perfumes even when everyone else smells something divine. Wet on wrist: This reminds me most of Khrysee, actually. *sniff sniff* A lot of Khrysee, maybe another floral, not getting much Dorian here. My skin amps scents like Khrysee like crazy so I tend to steer clear of them these days. On the drydown: Sweet, a little heavier than CCCXCI in the musk department, but they make a good pair together, I think. Not for me, but not bad.

Marzipan (it's that sweet almondy smell, not nutty, just sweet), with maybe a bowl of oatmeal somewhere nearby? It's sort of like the sweet little sister to the tomboy granola-eating horse-riding girl Gunpowder.

Got some more half-bottles to review! CCCLXX: In the bottle: Is that...anise and Dorian? Wet on wrist: It's reminding me of candy...there's a tiny hint of licorice in there, yes. But it's not like the sweet sugary anise from Absinthe...this is dark, heady licorice, with a hint of something else playing in the background. What is that in the background? Incense? Licorice, a sweet incense, and Dorian. On the drydown: This is morphing into something quite tame. The heady licorice is subdued, and Dorian's peeking his head out a little more. It's like regular Dorian, but with a spicy kick thrown in. CCCXXXV... (quite smudged) In the bottle: This smells...I don't know WHAT it smells like, but it's invoking some childhood memory. Not bad! WAIT! It's reminding me of this lilac bubble bath that I had YEARS ago and hoarded from about age 12 to about age 16. HOARDED. Wet on wrist: I get regular Dorian, with a hint of something quite clean. Drydown: ...Is this Dorian and bananas??? Wait, there it goes again, that's gone...back to the lilac bubble bath smell. After a few more minutes: I don't know if the banana smell was a freak waft, because nothing else is reminding me of bananas here. Just the lilac bubble bath scent, mixed with Dorian. Not sure I'm going to keep it -- I don't dislike lilac, but it turns more soapy on me (hence the bubble bath, probably!), so I might as well just wear regular Dorian without the soap, yanno? Even though the lilac is quite nice. I do like lilacs. (*wail* they just don't like me!) CCCCXXXI In the bottle: Fruity pink CAKE and Dorian! 6th time's the charm! This is what I was hoping for with this CTV thing! Wet on wrist: omnomno--...WHERE'D YOU GO, CAKE DORIAN LOVE? On the drydown: *sniffle* Please to be coming back now? I can barely smell it. It's a clean smell on my wrist, and I'm going to need to apply some more, methinks...*slathers* Nope. All but disappears on me. In the bottle, this is divine. On me, it fades to almost nothing in .02 seconds. What's left behind is a sweet hint of flowers and cake, and Dorian...I may try layering this with regular Dorian to see what happens then. :-/

Oh my goodness. This is like standing in a sunlit herb garden with a light breeze. Not too herbal (I was afraid it would be The Apothocary, but it's DEFINITELY not) and barely any dirt, and it's very...crisp! Not cleanser-green, either, just a ruddy spring clean green, but herbal, too. Crisp! Love! And that's coming from a foodie -- I really think this is one of the first real green/vegetation sort of blend that's worked on me!

This is a sweet woody spice scent -- like a sweet cousin to "Tombstone" really (whic I just adore). Growing up, my family had a few cords of cedar wood in the backyard, and this is what tat wood smelled like up close, plus sweet cloves, and just a tiny hint of tobacco in the very, very far background. And it's strong, too! I put just a tiny bit on with a toothpick, walked into the kitchen of the apartment, and was like, "What's that delightful smell everywhere?!" and then realized it was me! Mere seconds later! I may need a backup bottle of this. I asked my SO to whiff my arm and he was like, "I do not like cloves " but I don't care, I'll wear it when he's not around, this is divine! (Looking at the description of the notes, I'm not seeing cloves listed, but this is totally, totally cloves on me.) April 14: Okay, I have been wearing another blend all day, but my mind keeps thinking of Bandito. Not because what I'm wearing resembles it. No. Oh no, my lovelies. I have a crush on Velvet Bandito, and nothing I can do can keep me from thinking of him and his lovely hot man sombrero and his velvet gun, and you guys, I think I'm crushing big-time. Pardon me while I doodle little "Artfuldodger + Velvet Bandito 4EVA" hearts all over my work documents here...

In the bottle: dark smokey wood, milky coffee On my wrist wet: COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE -- it's like Misk. U, but without the caramel-note that sprung up on me, much less sweet. Straight-up coffee with a little milk and such. However, as soon as it dried, the coffee mellowed... On the drydown: LOVELY cedar and tobacco, like a cedar box holding cigars, with the faintest whiff of coffee. This is lovely -- a good professor sort of scent. Distinguished and mature, and either gender could wear this very well. Later: The coffee has mingled beautifully with the wood. It's a very rich scent.

CCCXL (I think, the silver ink smudged a little but I wrote down what I thought I saw): In the bottle: heady, with a hint of lemon dusting spray? On my skin wet: Very lemony, sort of like a lemon tart, but just the filling of the tart, not anything else (no pastry). On the drydown: Still very lemon-tart-filling, and an afterwave of Dorian in the background...it's like Dorian at a lemon tart party. An hour later: It's still there on my arm, but the lemon tart's mixing with something that reminds me of what "The Sea Foam's Blood" turned into on me -- not bad, but sort of like what a store selling salt water taffy smells like. I think in the end, I like the idea of lemon-tart-taffy-store Dorian better than it likes me on my arm. If there were more pastry and less whatever-that-scent-from-"The Sea Foam's Blood" is, I'd be all over this, as I'm quite the foodie. Hmm. CCCCXXIV (I think) Sniffing the bottle, I almost wondered whether this was a Snake Oil blend, rather than Dorian, but the bottle says Dorian, sooooo....here we go. Wet on wrist: This is dark, not floral...I'm not getting any Dorian from this at all, but I'm getting a hint of a childhood memory. It's like dark clay, and resins, and some dark spices added to the mix. On the drydown: This reminds me faintly of Lilith Victoria, but less flowery. The clay smell has morphed into some sort of earthy tree smell (I don't think it's cedar, but something similar) and it's very earthy and woody. Like Dorian went on a hike? It's definitely nice...just not *me*. CCCL (I think) In the bottle: very similar to my first CT, CCCXL above, but cleaner. I'm getting a sort of clean floral detergent smell + a whiff of Dorian (and just a tiny wee whiff) too. I'm at work and one of the admissions people just walked in a remarked that my office smells the best in the whole building! Hee! On my wrist: I really can't detect what this is though. I'm *terrible* with detecting florals in general -- this is quite light to me though. Dorian picked some tiny flowers? If I liked florals, I'm sure I'd like this! Is there a hint of lemon in here too? I really can't tell at all.

In the bottle: tangy aquatic, with a sharp iron note (blood, I assume) lingering as an after-smell. Wet on wrist: this is *really* complex on me! I lived on an island for a while, and the beach was a national park so you just got straight-up sea + sand smells without boardwalk smells interfering...this really reminds me of that. I get a hint of the smell of a store where I'd often buy saltwater taffy...but it's not foodie in the least, not even close. There's a scent of wind over the channel that I remember -- salty, but not heady. There's a salty edge to it that bursts in after the initial soft almost floral top note. But it's not a heady floral at all, it's almost like the tiiiiniest hint of...sunblock lotion? I think it might just be my brain associating whatever that scent is with the lotion, but it's really nice, whatever it is. Again, this is quite complex! On the drydown: This is a very clean scent. Not aquatic in the sense of oh-my-god-I-fell-in-the-pool at all, like so many commercial aquatics tend to be like on me. This is the scent of the water pooling in a sandcastle's moat, with a tinge of iron in there (the blood note?). I really wasn't expecting this to work on me because I fear aquatics, but I've never tried a BPAL aquatic, and now I feel like I'm going to have to try more!I'm really surprised how much I love this. It's really unique. I'm not sure there was supposed to be milk in this one. You may be thinking of the Sea Foam's Milk. One hour later after application: WHOAH this became a bit heady...sort of like floral dusting spray/floral detergent. Normally I like clean linen/cottony smells, but this is really just the floral note added to the detergent, not the detergent itself, if that makes sense. :-/ I liked it a lot initially, but it amped up on me all of a sudden, and now it's a bit much -- rather headache-inducing, almost. :( Not *bad*, but too strong for me for that scent.

In the imp: very fruity-pebbles purple-y! Wet on my wrist: WHOAH that's sweet and fruity-pebbles some more! On the drydown: It evens out, and now when I sniff my wrist, I get a whiff of sharp berries, and then an after-scent of deep, bloody wine, a very rich merlot, something like that. Ooo, I like that.

Very citrus/lemony, with a more herbal base. I just started to take up jogging (1.5-2 miles every morning) and naturally, because I've become a desk goober at work I'm out of shape, and thus my leg and calf muscles have been KILLING me all week (to the point where I'm...walking funny ) . I tried massaging some of my imp of Ugh oil on my legs, and met with some success -- it definitely smelled good, but I'm not sure if the dabs I used were enough to really do any good, since I didn't really notice much difference in pain levels. I may have to try again with more oil even if it uses up my imp rather quickly -- if that works, a bottle shall be mine. So, I'm very unsure about Ugh as it stands now. Smells nice though, so I certainly wouldn't mind putting some on before going out (if the pain decreed it). Will edit as necessary if conditions improve with a larger dose of oil...

This reminds me very much of the 2008 Lupercalia The Flower Song but a pinker slightly fizzier sweeter version; it's like a younger bubblier sister. I get a good deal of wine, a bit of dandelion, and really no honey at all -- it's very mead-like, yes, but I can't actively detect the honey note. Very well-blended.

Wet: On me, this has the same base-scent as Monsterbait: Closet does on me, of all things. It's a bit heady, but the honey comes into play as well, making it heady and sweeter. On the drydown: The vanilla kicks in (my skin loves vanilla), but I'm still getting the base from Closet, but unlike Closet (which is love) it's less sweet now, and I'm not sure if I like it. :/ It's quite strange. After three hours: I'm getting a faint scent of a plain french vanilla candle, the Closet base-scent seems to have worn off. I don't ~~love~~ it (I wish the fruitiness others have mentioned came out for me...I'm not getting any though)....but I don't dislike it either. Hmmmmmm. I may have to test this a couple more times. Huh. Like.......but it doesn't have any real *kick* to it on me.

I expected this to be similar to Dirty, but I was quite surprised to find that it's sweeter. Dirty has a sharper edge, while Wensleydale is much sweeter, but not in a sugary way. It's like a soft scent of liquid detergent that's had a floral scent added, and I absolutely love it! Very soft, not loud at all. Quite like Dove soap, really.

I actually got an imp of this a while ago, tried it, thought it was okay, swapped it away. However, I had a hankering to try it again, so went for a bottle this time. And my mind has changed -- I'm glad I gave it a second chance after about 7 months. This is a really good rainy-day scent. I get a soft combination of the mildewed raincoat and roll-ups the strongest, but it's not overpowering by any means. The tea lends a tiiiiny twinge of sweetness, but it's very, very subtle. This is quite complex. I think this is a very specific sort of day scent; I wouldn't wear this outside on a hot summer day; I think it's excellent for a rainy day, maybe going to a cafe, maybe it's a little cool outside. I'm really falling in love with it. It's very distinguished without being straight-up cologne; it's like the scent of a quiet young professor or TA who dresses in greys and blues.

Very pepperminty and soothing. It's a similar peppermint to "Lick It" but without the sweetness. I get headaches about every other day, and this oil has more of a zing than just simple peppermint oil.

In bottle: Very weirdly green. It's not sharp. It's not soft either though. Huh. Sort of a wet green, but not aquatic-wet at all. Spritzed-wet, like in a greenhouse. Wet on wrist: This is interesting. It's spring-like, and grassy but not floral. The above poster got it right in saying it's more like flower stems rather than flowers. Freshly-cut stems. On the drydown: I'm getting something almost pickled from this. It's not bad. It's like a berry, but not juicy or sweet -- a very tart berry that you'd find growing wild by a trail. Is that the cloudberry? Probably? Huh. After 10-15 minutes: This turns to pretty much all dandelions on me! Huffing my wrist, it's all that fuzzy dandelion scent. Final outcome: I think this will end up going in the swap pile. I love the concept of dandelion and wine and peat (I was really psyched for the peat, actually, but I'm not smelling any of it, I don't think) and everything else...but this is 100% fuzzy dandelion on my skin. Alas. The English major in me dies a little at not being able to keep this poetic scent.

I've found Dirty and Tombstone to be good dry or humid summer scents.

I'm normally a total foodie. I have extreme trouble finding any floral that works for me. They all smell like dime store perfume to me, most of the time. So let me just say that Queen Alice is DIVINE. The wine is subtle and playful, but at the same time very grown-up, and the flowers are subtle enough that they don't overpower the wine. It's lovely and sophisticated, and like nothing I could find in stores!

This scent conjures up the memory of summer camp. It's all the cedar and earth and it's absolutely lovely! I just kept sniffing my arm and being transported to falling asleep in a rickety bunk in the woods.

I should preface this review with the fact that: a) I have never tried a chocolate BPAL scent before I am, however, a foodie c) Bloody Mary is my holy grail LE scent d) I love to eat chocolate So I figured this would be a winner! .......Unfortunately, I was wrong. (I've been having really bad luck with the Lupercalias this year if you note my other reviews....well, bad luck with scents, good luck with the bank account, I suppose. ) This goes straight to a medicinal cherry (sort of like the warming Tylenol cough syrup I chugged all November, actually -- that stuff was the devil...and I don't mean Devil's Food...ok sorry) and the scent of the cocoa wafers my brothers and I would get at AC Moore to melt into candies. Very dry and sharp, but in the wash-it-off-ahhh! sort of way. Alas. *cries sad little tears* I was really hoping that since people had been saying it was similar to Bloody Mary's cherry (that sounds dirty, actually...oops) that it'd be a new love. But it's nothing like Bloody Mary's cherry on me at all! My bank account is thankful....my bank account is gleeful....and I'll just keep hoarding Bloody Mary.

In the decant: GORGEOUS heady vanilla and spice -- what I wanted Snake Charmer to be (but wasn't on me) On my wrist wet: GORGEOUS (see above) -- SO wanted to knaw on my wrist After the drydown: .....babypowder. So few of the Lupercalias work on me though (judging from decants) that I think I'm going to order a bottle anyway and put it in a scent locket and in my hair instead of directly on my skin. I think that should solve my woe. I am determined to make this work, dammit.

I adore this! It's tart and fruity and just a liiiiittle boozy and woody without being "just walked out from the bar sloshed" boozy. Sweet! Sharp! Eee! I'm seriously considering buying 2 bottles of this. It's fruity, it has good throw, it's not too boozy so I can wear it to work (I am right now!) and OMG it's just delicious. OMG you're right, it IS J&J! But in a good way!

This was actually the blend that I initially thought, upon reading the notes, I would adore. I got a decant, and eagerly tried a bit. You're not gonna believe it, but of all things, this went to a weird parmesan cheese smell on my wrist. I have no idea why! *sigh*

This is almost an identical twin to Snow Bunny 2008 (the Yule LE) on me! It's nice, cool, with a hint of floral -- really, it ends up on the drydown reminding me of flower-scented laundry detergent, which (as I mentioned in my review of Snow Bunny 2008) I don't mind at all, because it's quite nice. Snow Bunny without the pine. And I barely got any pine in Snow Bunny to begin with! Very soft. At this point, an hour after putting some on, I can only barely smell it. It's a good sweet under-stated scent. Snow Bunny did last a little longer on my skin though, so if I had a choice I'd probably opt for Snow Bunny. But at least this is easier to get my hands on!