The_Merf

I had to mull this one over multiple times before I could review it. I wanted to love this scent desperately; I don't mind red roses, and I absolutely love pomengranate. When I first put it on, it's really lovely, and a very fragrant, juicy pomengrante with a slight hint of rose around the edges. However, almost every time I put the oil on, the rose will dry the pomengranate up, leaving a very dusky, dry floral on my skin. It's very heavy to breathe into the nose, and something I would only be in the mood for every now and then. It's an imper, but not a bottle.

This is all tea on me. I can't detect any ginger at all, and only the slightest bit of citrus. It is a really overpowering scent for about ten minutes, and then it vanishes on my skin.

I could not distinguish this oil from Kumiho--I guess my skin amps up light teas more than I thought it did. This one is basically tea with the slightest hint on lemon. I can't pick up on the honeysuckle at all, which makes me sad, as it is one of my favorite florals.

I have been very excited about this scent for some time. This is sort of what I wanted Rose Cross to be like--it is the frankincense (and there is definitely a cedar edge to this scent) and hyssop tinged with rose geranium. It's light, but not imperceptible, and would be a gorgeous Spring scent. It's like a more sophisticated version of Hymn, with a harder (smokier?) edge from the frankincense

You know, every now and then there are scents that just don't register to your nose, and Peitho is one of them for me. In the imp everything is a huge muddle, and I can't pick out anything in particular. It almost disappears on my skin when I put it on, and when I sniff the area later, all I pick up is a faint jasmine. I'm sure this will reveal its complexity on someone else, so it's off to swaps.

This really is quite the blend--it is, as many others have commented, a masculine floral. It's a superlative blend of the musk, which makes me think of the color gold, the roses, which are barely there, and the spice. This is one of the those scents that has a slightly dual personality and you can smell one of two things on each whiff: sometimes you get a very creamy edge and sometimes you get a sharper, more classical cologne edge. I'm quite fond of the former, and I'll have to see if that's what other people get from the blend when they smell it on me. This is a really interesting one--folks should give it a try.

This is extremely high-pitched in the imp. It's a very strong lavender scent. However, once you put it on, it settles down considerably, and the sandalwood and mugwort give it a nice grounding that I haven't seen in the two other Somnium blends that I've tried (Baku and Somnus). (I seem to like lavender with earthy, dirty notes--I adore Mercury.) I haven't tried sleeping with this on yet, as I just wanted to see if I could take the smell, but I'll revise this review once I do.

In the imp: Jasmine! Wowzers--also something light to back it up. This reminds me of Eos, not New Orleans. Wet: There's a blast of what is, to my nose, myrrh, that vanishes very quickly and gives way to lots and lots of jasmine. Drydown and wear: There must be something rosey underneath this, because I am reminded of Nyx. In fact, this oil strikes me as a blend of New Orleans, Nyx and Eos. Jasmine and a bouquet of florals.

In the imp: Holy crap, red sandalwood. And amber. And patchouli...the cinnamon is quite faint. Wet: Man oh man, this does sort of remind me of Scherezade, Loviatar, Fenris Wolf and the general "red" family of scents. The cinnamon does lend a distinct quality to this scent. It is a very deep cinnamon--no redhots here, at least not when the oil is freshly applied. Drydown and wear: Hmmm...the patchouli is quite strong in this blend, and it is not a very good combination with the cinnamon. But we've got a real morpher here, because suddenly all traces of the patchouli disappear and all I can smell is the sandalwood, with the slightest dash of cinnamon. I'm not entirely sure what I think of this blend, but it will go through another round of testing. It is very red...

In the imp: This is violet, iris, black amber and the slightest touch of mandarin. Wet: This scent is black amber, vanilla and creamy floral (which leads me to say Iris, but this could also be the combo of violet and vanilla). There's not a lot of depth here and the scent is very, very light. Drydown and wear: This is such a pretty scent, but it doesn't really seem to have much throw. Iris is a dominant note on DD, and I've had problems with other iris scents (esp. Florence) being too weak. I would say this is iris, black amber and vanilla are the strongest notes. It's a clean, yet feminine scent, and as I said, extremely beautiful. I'll have to get opinions on throw before I decide what to do about the decant.

As far as the "crystalline" scents go, this is not a bad one (these type of scents generally range from unworkable to meh on me). This scent is all lemon (which is pleasing enough, but I have plenty of lemon-accented scents) and only after it has been on for about 15 minutes do I start to get the slightest hint of light floral. It remains plain on me and does not morph. OTOH, it doesn't go wonky on me, so if there is white musk in here, there's probably not a lot.

In the imp: This smells strongly of violet and what I'm going to assume is the primrose. When you breathe deeply, you can pick up faint hints of the rosewood and sandalwood. Wet: This smells very much like tea; I'm going to assume that's the influence of the chamomile. Drydown and wear: This is mostly chamomile and primrose (or rosewood?) with some dusty violet in the background. I do not smell anything citrusy, nor do the woody notes come out on my skin. It's relatively light, and there's an edge of rose on the drydown that I find faintly soapy, so I'm going to swap this one.

I'm through five of the six Snakes I want to try, and of those five, one has become a top-10 all time (Death Adder), one has become a top-10 least fave (Saw-Scaled Viper), one was good enough to keep the bottle (King Cobra), one was not bad but not a keeper (Australian Copperhead)--and then there's Western Diamondback. I'm still not 100% sure what I want to do with WD. When I first opened the bottle, I wrinkled my nose in disgust. As many others have noted, the leather note in this blend is the same clean, cold leather note in Quincey Morris, a blend that did not work on me. Going with the 'you gotta try everything' theory, I put some on, and to my surprise, I quite liked the blend after the leather had a minute or two to settle down. The leather became much warmer, no doubt due to the SO background. There was a little bit of tonka also present, but I couldn't really pick up on the sage (unless I was mistaking it as part and parcel of the clean leather note). However, as the blend dried down, it left just the clean leather note and the sage. I really don't like the tone of the leather, but I imagine that this could be a scent that really becomes a superstar when the SO base starts to age. I'm really not sure whether or not to hold the bottle, or to try and swap it. Right now, I'm leaning toward a hold.

In the bottle: A very strong, very red berry. This is not candy like, but it is bright and juicy. It's a bit lighter than raspberry, but not as sweet as a strawberry. I can't detect any of the Snake Oil, and the other notes in this blend don't really stand out either. Wet: This is overwhelming berry. After a few minutes I can detect some amber, but no real SO. Drydown and wear: This is berry and amber, with the slightest hint of vanilla. I wonder if the amber is black amber--this gets the somewhat 'off' smell that I get with a lot of black amber scents. I still can't really detect the richness of SO, but when I imagine SO blended with this, I don't really like the idea all that much.

I tried this blend in the same session where I tried Tarot: The Empress, and they strike me as similar, since they are both rose-based scents. This is a strict floral for me, though it does not go powdery, as it has for others. I wonder if there is some sort of carnation or gardenia in this blend, as there is a bit of a kick to the floral which keeps it from being weak on drydown. However, it's really too much white rose for me (I don't like the sharpness of white rose).

As I said in my review of Tarot: The Lovers, this blend, along with a lot of other blends that have a theme of love or attraction, has a lemon base. I would almost mistake this for a Voodoo Blend, as the lemon is combined with the oily, difficult to define base that is in many Voodoo Blends. In fact, this blend strikes me as a combination of Come to Me and Black Cat (which is, indeed, an interesting take on the art of seduction). As the scent dries down, my skin smells burnt. I don't know what could be doing this, but it is not a pleasing smell.

I was really on the fence about Tarot: The Empress, but I eventually decided to put it up for swap because the rose (which strikes me as white/tea) is a bit too strong for my nose. However, there seem to be many other florals in here--perhaps gardenia or lily? This is a very proper feminine blend and seems to speak to the Venusian/beauty/balance side of The Empress (then again, this card is identified with Venus, so that makes a lot of sense). I would like to have seen some stronger notes emerge, but the florals here have good throw.

Tarot: The Lovers has two primary notes as it dries down on my skin: lemon and musk. After reading some of the other reviews and comparing it to my own experience, I guess there might have been something aquatic among the edges of the scent, as it were, but this is dominated by lemon citrus notes, which give it a very sunny character, and seem to be a common note in other "love" blends (Seduction and some of the Voodoo Blends come to mind). However, the musk is a light one and does not sit well with my skin. After about 30 minutes, this is very stale on me.

This is lavender, through and through. It doesn't seem much for helping me get to sleep, but in terms of feeling rested when I wake up, it does seem to have a bit of a positive effect in that direction.

This did smell quite pretty in the imp--light grasses (not heavy fermenting grasses freshly cut in spring, or dried out grasses in summer) still in the soil and some wild berries. Sadly, on my skin, it vanished in less than 45 minutes. While it was on my skin, it was a light base of grass, and the berry note did not emerge until it had been on my skin for about twenty minutes. By that time, the whole thing was faint.

I was really excited about this because of the peony, but I did not smell a floral note once, from sniffing the imp to drydown. This was all teas, with a slight herbal edge that emerged on drydown. The teas were light teas as well, and light tea notes tend to go a bit wonky on my skin much like light musks do (unless there's something else there). Much to my disappointment, this one went off to swaps.

I don't get any of the orange or grape that some others who have tried this oil smelled. All I get initially is dragon's blood--pretty standard and unblended (tending toward the sweet, lilac side of DB). However, upon drydown, the oily base that is in quite a few Voodoo Blends (like Black Cat, in particular) that also has a somewhat herby edge, emerges. Try as I might, because I like the topnotes in a lot of the VBs, I can't get past those oily notes.

Resolved: Merf should not buy scents that list Indonesian red pactchouli as a note. Evidence: Bloodlust and Malice were not OK. Really, really not OK. Malice, in fact, smelled like burning on my skin...stale burning of something rotting. I had to wash it off immediately and it left a red mark that lasted for a day. Resolution is accepted. Ya-ay.

This is an odd little scent, and I have to admit that I didn't even recall the name from the GC (i.e., I had to look it up). I smelled like an orange creamsicle when I wore this. It was very light-hearted and zany, for lack of a better word. Of the citruses, orange is probably my least favorite, and I've never liked creamsicles at all, so this one went off to swaps.

*cries* Stupid frickin' roses...I mean, I guess I sort of knew what I was getting into when I tried a blend that had three types of roses in it, but the note list also said cinnamon! I don't get any cinnamon at all; this is strictly roses, and they are white or pink ones, not deep red ones.