thekittenkat

For the 2009 version. In the bottle: Gently sugared snow. Wet: There's a bright, sparkling high note at first. It's almost like a dept. store perfume, for a moment. There's some ozone and the lightest hint of florals. The dry-down: It turns a little bit more sweet and more snowy as it dries. The coconut note is present but not as strong as in the 2008 version. I think some aging will work wonders on this year's blend.

I compared Snow White and Pink Snowballs side-by-side last night at WC and they aren't the same, or similar, at least not to me. If Pink Snowballs reminds me of anything, it's Hope from the Carnaval Diabolique. Hope is a richer scent, whereas Pink Snowballs is lighter. In the bottle: Like, pink sugar and roses. Wet: It's now a light pink rose, like a tea rose. There's still the sugar, and some snow. The dry-down: This is not a morpher on me. It's much the same throughout, a pink rose that's been sprinkled with sugar before the snow came falling down. It's a light, delicate skin scent.

For the 2009 version. There's a lot of citrus and other fruits. The florals make it bright. I like the citrus fruits in this, especially the tangerine. There needs to be more BPAL scents with tangerine and blood orange as major notes. (NOTE: I did not pick up blood orange as a note in Sol Invictus.) Dry-down was a soft, warm, golden scent.

Smells like the best bakeshop in Germany around. Very cookie (of course), with hints of almond and pepper; the rest of the spice notes were even fainter. (I do like the cookies in RL, so may get a bottle of this for year-around sniffing.) I was very pleased that this wasn't almond all the time, as I usually amp the dickens out of almond.

If you liked the earlier version, you will like this 2009 one, I think. The pomegranate is sweet, not bitter, very yummy in its fruitiness. I'm not getting any spicy notes, though. There's a lot of sugar, but this isn't girlie pink like, say, Velvet Unicorn, but more of a sexy dark and deep pink scent but still sweet.

I amp almond, so that's all I got at first, both in the bottle and then on my skin. After a while, the apricot came out to play. Never got any cherries, though, not like I have a problem with that, or anything. This scent makes me want to try the real thing. It's a nice yummy food scent.

The usual: very sugary sweet and peppermint. Really, better than the candy canes themselves. It's strong, and lasts a long time. It reminds of all the other years' versions.

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I hate store-bought egg nog, so I didn't expect anything out of this. But the goat's milk note is very nice and creamy. It's not too sweet, and thank goodness the coffee note doesn't rise up and slay all the other notes as it usually does on me. I'm surprised by the idea that out of the three Mother Shubs oils, this might become my fave. As the evening wore on, this just got better and better. It's a foodie scent that's more like a skin scent.

This was very strong to sniff right out of the bottle! It's very much a red wine scent, and I'll swear that there's some red musk in there somewhere. After it dried down, I got more of the red currant note.

Now that's an amazing list! I love Beth's snow note, so I have a lot of these, and am looking forward to the new scents and also the resurrected ones for this year.

In the bottle: Musk, something sweet, maybe fruity, some spices or incense--it's a sweet darkness. Wet: A sweet dark cake, being eaten in a room where there's some dark fruits in a bowl, like blood oranges, too ripe peaches, plums. Nearby, perhaps in another room, someone is burning a lovely incense, full of amber and resins. The dry-down: Just yummy and foodie, but not in a lick-your-wrist sort of way. This is what fruitcake should smell and taste like. I like this a lot and will be wearing it some during the winter holidays. My only complaint is that it doesn't last long and I have to re-apply. And the name of the scent is pretty, but I would have expected a lot of ozone for some reason with such a name.

This review is for the 2005 version. In the bottle: Like standing in an evergreen forest, at night, no wind, no snow, just the scent of the trees all around. Wet: A very powerful pine/fir/Christmas tree scent. There also seem to be a hint of citrus, very faint. The dry-down: Still very much the evergreen scent. No juicy berries here. This may go into an oil burner, or head off to the sales/swap pile. It's a very evocative perfume oil, but as others have said, I don't want to smell like an evergreen tree with no other notes to calm the scent down and ground it. This scent does not morph on me at all. I'll try it on the bf and post back as to how it works on him.

Coconut and a bit of sugar with pomegranate, pink musk, orange blossom, cypress, honey myrtle, and incense. All the notes look and sound lovely, so let's see how this goes. In the bottle: Spicy, sugary fruits floating on that pink musk. Wet: There's the orange blossom as a top note, pink musk as the bottom note, a whiff of the incense, and all the fruits rolled in powder sugar. Otherwise, this is rather the same as in the bottle. The dry-down: Lovely and delicate, yet strong underneath. I like that this scent is not a morpher on me. I'm not sure what honey myrtle is supposed to smell like, but it may be that note that keeps this from being too sweet. And I'm not getting red musk, but pink musk, and that's wonderful.

In the bottle: Tangerine is one of my favourite fruits, and this smells just like I started to peel one. Wet: The benzoin and ambergris are swamping all the other notes. This oil is sticky, too, just like the fruit. The dry-down: It's all sandalwood and pear now. Where did my lovely tangerine go? This is one for the scent locket, obviously. And another morpher.

In the tester: Hay and sunshine and patch. Wet: All the notes are present and are doing that wonderful combination thing. The dry-down: It's very much as though I was standing at the edge of a noon-time woods, off to walk in the fields where some patchouli-wearing folks have been shooting at hay-stuffed targets. There was a bottle of this at the August DSWC; I would have been happy to buy it then and there. The hay note is the same one as in Hay Moon, if memory serves.

Last of this year's Patch to be tested. In the imp: Why, hello there, almond! Wet: All almond, all the time. At the moment, this is disappointing. The dry-down: Finally starting to get some of the honey note, and a touch of pumpkin, and a hint of the brown musk deep in the mix. Everything is slowly mixing into a lovely blend. I was hoping that this would be beautiful from the notes, but that blast of almond was rather off-putting. I suspect that this will will do much better with some age on it. Next autumn this should be very lovely, with the almond note hopefully mellowing out. (Note: this does not seem to be the same brown musk note as in Whoso List To Hunt, thank goodness.)

Pumpkin, rosewood, red sandalwood, and tea rose. In the imp: Sandalwood and rose, and a grace note of pumpkin. Wet: Morphing into lots of rose, with the sandalwood deep in the mix, and a buttery note from the pumpkin somewhere in the middle. The dry-down: This has become a lovely light tea rose. The red sandalwood note gives it a touch of spice, and the faint pumpkin note grounds it. Not getting any of the rosewood note. The sandalwood reminds me a bit of MB:U, although the sweetness here is of rose and not vanilla. A very light and delicate scent that has some depth to it.

I'll say right off that I like to drink coffee, but not smell like it, but since this has a coffee bean scent in it, now that I have finally located the decant, I thought that I would try this, and also because I want to know what the hazelnut note is like, since it doesn't get used very much. In the imp: Lots of coffee, just what I was afraid of. Wet: Still coffee, but the beginnings of being slightly tempered by the other notes. The chocolate and the vanilla are present, but I have no clue where the pumpkin or hazelnut is. The dry-down: Wish I was getting that pumpkin spice latte scent that others have gotten, but, alas, it's not to be. This is more like a plain cup of joe that someone has put in some of the chocolate and the vanilla from the shakers. I just amp coffee, and that's that. It does smell good, though. Ah, there's a hint of pumpkin, now, but faint, as though I wandered into a kitchen where someone had baked pumpkin bread the day before.

In the imp: Florals, a hint of blood, and fresh moist dark earth. Wet: The metallic copper tang of the blood and the sweetness of the heliotrope have overwhelmed the soil. In fact the flower and the blood are combining to make a richer and deeper scent than I would have imagined. The dry-down: The wet dirt has dried up and is blowing away, the flower is dead, and the blood no longer runs freely. A fascinating scent, but I can't imagine when or where I would wear it. But then, I said that about Graveyard Dirt, and yet I have a bottle. At any rate, this doesn't come off as an autumnal scent to me. There's a coolness about it, so it might be good in early spring, when a sudden frost can still come and wreak havoc amongst the buds. Yet another morpher.

First, I must say that I love blackberry fruit and leaf scents, and also apple scents, and so this has been a bit of a Holy Grail for me. In the decant: Apples and blackberries all mixed together with something that's a little spicy and herbal. Wet: snuffs deeply at wrist My goodness, but that is one of the best things ever! This smells exactly like walking through an apple orchard in the autumn. In the next field/meadow over is where they make apple cider in a little old stone building covered with ivy and surrounded by copses of hazels and overshadowed by oaks. There's a fence in-between with last of the season blackberries growing amongst a tangled thick vine, and some wild sage hiding under the brambles. In the cider-house is a shelf to one side with various jars of spices and other goods. For some reason, a jar of myrrh is open slightly. Off to one side is a barrel of hops, in hopes of apple beer. The Dry-Down: Exquisite. If there's a matter of component issues, I sincerely hope that one day they can be resolved, and that Beth can re-create this work of almost sheer perfection once again. Until then, I will treasure my decant. And, best of all, this is not a morpher on me, as from first to last, it's just the same lovely scent. If only apple cider or hard cider or apple beer tasted as good as this smells... If you like blackberries and/or apples, this is the perfume oil of wonder. Thank you, LittleBird, for allowing me to experience this beautiful perfume oil.

This is about as opposite from Lucy's Boudoir Spray as one can imagine. I sniffed the tester and found all the scents present, very strongly. After spraying, it's rather intense, very cloying in an almost sickly-sweet fashion. If one were to spray this in a room, and then apply Lucy, Kissed, the two scents would work well together, but at the same time, the result could be a little too intense, perhaps. These are elegant scents, but I'm not a femme fatale and I don't think that I could carry these off.

Just sniffing the tester I get the rosewater and lavender right away, but the florals just seem to be a selection of light and white flowers. There's a hint of sweetness, which must be the honey. After I spray it, the light, delicate feeling continues. This would be a lovely room spray for spring-time for those who love gentle florals that don't overwhelm. It's very pretty in an old-fashioned lady-like style.

In the imp: Roses and violets that have been left out in the cold winter rain in a cemetery to rot, sadly. (I'm not picking up an aquatic note, it's just the idea of coldness.) Wet: The red musk rises to the top, with the heady florals. The cubeb is giving its usual peppery note, but only slightly; and there's a coldness from the icy musk and the marble, with a hint of the woods. The patchouli is behaving itself, and the amber is only slightly powdery. The dry-down: I like violet as a scent note, but it usually doesn't work on my skin. That being said, since there are so many notes here, the violet so far isn't changing into that nasty sharp scent it usually gets after a while on my skin. This is a rather interesting perfume oil, as it is meant to be evocative of the Nosferatu, and specifically one who was once a young lady. I like this, but am not sure that I would ever wear it. It's darker and richer and more sensuous a scent than I would usually look for. It is a wonderful execution of the concept, however. It will probably age very, very well.

This spray reminds me of a cross between stollen and the very rich, very dark, very moist fruitcake that was sold at Whole Foods last winter holiday season. (I hope that they bring it back.) I love this, and although it's not quite like my frimp of Fruitcake, it does make the room smell very very good.

This is very much Samhain to my nose, with tons of sugar and cinnamon. I like Samhain the perfume oil, but would adore this scent also as a perfume oil. It also lasts a long time.