gypsyjolie

I don't like SO new or aged, and O smells less like honey and more like B.O on me, but I adore Boomslang. The cocoa and teak seem to calm the spicy/powdery smell of SO. I liked Western Diamondback a lot, but I love leather, so that probably influenced it. Australian copperhead was pretty good because of the red tang of the acai berry , but I'm not much for fruity blends. Womb Furie was powdery honey - so the sharpness of SO and the curry-esque spiciness are both muted... and the honey stayed pretty true. I was pleasantly surprised by WF, but I have a lot of very honey blends from BPAL and others and figured it's not worth buying a bottle. I liked both Lilith Victoria and Lady Lilith as the feminine aspects embraced the powdery SO and muted the spiciness. If the sharpness of new SO or the spiciness of SO is your objection, try the Snake Pit and WF. If you don't like the powderiness, you're pretty much SOL on all of the SO blends.

first sniff - OUCH. sharp sour wine and smoke. Eye-watering. wet, on - smoke still acrid and sharp, wine blossoms and gets warmed and deeper, blood scent appears drying - the smoke chills the heck out finally. the wine is really getting yummy - I'm getting a hint of rose to sweeten things up now. dry - rich velvety dark red fruity wine, rich red rose, coffee, some rich fruit (cherry? plum? grape?). The harsh smoke became an incense smoke backnote and is really lovely now. This is sexy and gorgeous and rich. Very well blended. Not too much rose to put me off it, either. This is almost painful for the first five minutes but is really wonderful after 15. Seems to last quite a while. I may have to get more of this despite the opening horror. I think this will age very very beautifully! ETA: The drydown of this and Possets: Madeira is eerily similar. I'm testing them side by side right now. Both in full drydown - Zadok is a bit darker and heavier on the rose, and Madeira stays slightly fruitier, but huh, I guess I don't need a bottle since I have one of Madeira already.

A powdery black musk, sandalwood and dry sweetish nutmeg spice. It's sweetened a bit by the benzoin/tonka but it's very dry. It does smell like a high end beauty product (I get the Oil of Olay reference above, but this is better). Still a tinge sharp or soapy on me, especially as I've had it on for a while. Black musk lovers should try it!

This is mostly soft leather, with a rich wood and slight smoky tobacco. I don't get cognac, unless it is just a hint that is keeping this scent from being too dry. Very manly in the best possible "my boyfriend's leather jacket that he never takes off and I want to borrow it on a cool summer's night and just sniff it the entire time" kind of way.

I think is GORGEOUS! This myrrh is a honey-like, thick resin and the star of the show. Rose geranium, which I love, makes a wonderful partner for the myrrh - adds a touch of creamy greenish floral but this is not really a floral scent. The tobacco makes a soft warm base, and the wenge adds some woodiness. This is unisex to my nose, will have to try it on the DH. I love that it is so soft, golden, and creamy without being powdery. It's got an amber-like tone to it but never gets the doom powder that BPAL amber often gives me. in full drydown, this is creamy, almost olive oil-y, tawny, tobacco, sexy. Very sophisticated.

I LOVED this scent from wet to about an hour or so in, all the fruity tart/sweet but not candylike base and the hints of tobacco and vanilla - but in full drydown, it's all cloying butterscotch/french vanilla like a candle and I'm not a fan of that scent on my skin. Woe! I really thought this was going to be great on me.

I'm not a big fan of plain Snake Oil, and I hate O, but this honey makes the Snake oil less plastic-y on me. It's quite lovely honey and spices. Too bad it has very little throw and it is gone except for a bit of a sniff close to the skin in less than an hour.

Red musk is dominant on me, with lemon coming out second and lending an unfortunate hint of cleaning product to this. I don't get the spicy cassia that others were talking about here... barely a woodiness to the scent after 30 mins. The throw and snifing close to the skin are very different scents! Love the warm red musk-fruitiness of the throw, though the close scent is definitely medicinal/cleaning product. Not sure I like it or not.

Pretty, dainty. In bottle - blackberry and lavender, herbal... wet - perfumey! floral, lavender, slightly fruity drying - ah, honey warms this up and sweetens it. The blackberry deepens, lavender receeds a lot. fully dry - soft honeyed blackberry with a hint of lavender to keep this from being all foodie. I think carnation is making this creamy. This is an airy scent, not heavy fruit. VERY feminine! nice amount of throw.

The 2009 version: This started out wet with a lot more sharp boozy cognac and an almost-floral linen scent. I hate linen scents, and the hint of dried flowers isn't helping either. As it dried, more vanilla cream came out and the sharpness died away. Still a bit "old lady" floral - the scent sort of sticks at the back of my throat. After 15 minutes, this warms up - hello tobacco! and blends with the vanilla cream. I don't get any incense, but the musk appears and the very strong throw is like a cloud of Egyptian musk and vanilla cream around me. It's perfumey - I can see why some have compared this to department store perfumes. After 30 minutes - mostly the same as at 15 minutes, with a touch of incense if i sniff closer to my skin. the throw is still all vanilla musk. This is nice, but not a lot different than Vanilla Musk blends from Attar Bazaar or Auric Blends. A bit too perfumey and linen-y for me. I'll see how it ages.

Mata Hari? Scherezade? Illustrated Woman?

I was scared of the pine and patchouli, but I tried a decant of this after it has aged a bit and it is soft and woodsy and vanilla'ed after the first hit of pine topnote burns off. The patchouli blends with the musk, and the blend overall is lighter and more feminine/prettier than I expected. This has nice throw too, making a gentle aura around me from just a drop on each forearm. I think this is a bottle purchase!

Powdery, minty dried flowers. I didn't get enough amber after the mint fades somewhat to warm it up enough for me. Pass.

Soft fuzzy dreamy mint over some white floral that *almost* smells like honeydew. The mint has a touch of eucalyptus to it, clearing my sinuses when first applied. The white amber and sage are lending the soft powdery fuzziness to the scent, I think. This is like a softer, minty Snow White on me... and also vaguely desert-y smelling from the sage and the slight woody undertones. Winter in the desert?

lovely dry grassy herbal honey for the first 20 minutes.. and then it becomes all ROSE and something honey/fruity. WTF? Rose, my nemesis, you win again!

Wistful and vulnerable: lotus, water blossom ivy, stargazer lily and white rose. sweet bubble-gummy floral - mostly lotus and soft girly white rose. Way too floral for me, almost little girl pink & ruffles.

Lots of carnation, almost no rose, but the grey amber (smells like ambergris to me) and the blue/white musk make this a touch powdery and quite perfumey. The vanilla sweetens this up nicely wihtout ever getting foody. Though this is not very floral per se, the musks and amber make this jsut too perfumey for me and a bit of headache-inducer. Sad. This is a gorgeous airy feminine scent. It would be a great Gateway scent for people to try BPAL that are used to commercial perfumes, as it is a bit reminiscent of that type of smell (though much nicer!)

This is my first sniff of lotus - WOAH bubblegum. Black Lotus is bubblegum and sandalwood at first, and dries with a darker scent as the myrrh comes out and makes incense with the sandalwood. The sweetness fades to something more floral than the candy-like scent it starts as, and I like this a lot - as long as the myrrh behaves itself. this is rich and exotic and velvety.

This was all cherry in the bottle wet, and all wood when it dried on my skin. It's rich cedar and a hint of dark rich black cherry/fruit after a few minutes on my skin, but the wood is too dry for me to wear this often. I think this might be great on a guy... though how would you get them to wear it when it's named The Red Queen? LOL

I think this is more gender neutral than masculine, but then I love leather scents and dislike floral, so my definition of a feminine scent may be somewhat off kilter. This is brightened by a green note (ivy?) and the tangy red wine note, with the leather and sandalwood making a smooth & slightly spicy undernote. This is livelier and prettier by far than the description would have led me to believe! The ozone isn't sharp on me, it more makes the ivy scent like a freshly-rained-upon ivy. With wine. I need a bottle of this!

This is a really lush dark foresty floral - pine and humid flowers. The pine keeps it cool and dark and subdues the flowers to a wearable level for me (I'm not a floral girl). I also get a shadowy musky deepness to this, but it's not as Goth as I'd expected at first sniff. This is a rather dramatic deep scent. I'm not sure how much I'd wear it but I am oddly drawn to this. A rich dark floral for those who don't want a girly white floral?

Lovely, dark & deep floral - a shadowy nighttime purple sexy floral. I hate rose and jasmine, but Queen Mab is totally entrancing my nose! I don't like florals as a rule, but this may be an exception (along with Xiuhtecuhtli). perhaps it is the sandalwood that is calming the rose and jasmine and keep them from amping Old Lady on my skin? I do love some sandalwood! Whatever it is, Queen Mab is on the bottle list. I would never have believed it from reading the scent notes !!

I wish this smelled like honey on me, but my nose knows myrrh and thinks it smells slightly rancid. Off to swaps.

I loved the vanilla/tonka, musk, and tobacco portion of this scent - but the lilac made this go all floral powdery, and ruined this for me.

Not sure I can add a lot to the other reviews. Leather, a brief spate of saltpeter/black pepper that fades quickly, and then the scent mellows into a honey-beeswax similar to Hanerot Halalu but drier (no olive oil), faintly smoky, over aged, soft leather. I love it best about 40 minutes after application through several hours. It becomes a surprisingly sweet & creamy warm leather/beeswax candles skin scent. I love leather, honey, beeswax, and I love this! Would be great on a guy, I bet! This is the leather note from Perversion, but without the wine & tobacco notes and slightly creamier from the beeswax. If you like Perversion, you'll probably like this. Or if Perversion was too strong, you might prefer this. Are they too similar to have bottles of both? Hmmmm...