ChaosKitty

That's exactly what November did on me, I remember that too, and thought Autumn and Winter might do the same.

I can second the recommendation for Verdandi! I also love Cristina in autumn, both Hexennacht scents and Mead Moon. I also think Donna Con Ventaglio will be a beautiful scent in autumn, it's a very dark citrus-rose that I think is perfect for late-summer.

I swapped for this scent with a lovely forumite, and wasn't sure if this would work on me. As it turned out, I ended up adoring this! The initial scent is very much bergamot, blood orange and with a bit of sharpness, which quickly fades. Tonka is the most prominent note in the next stage (I love tonka) along with blood orange, fig and a small bit of rose and ylang ylang. It is very sweet and creamy. Completely dry after a half hour, it's still mostly tonka with rose and blood orange, perhaps a bit of fig, and the rest of the notes very subtle. It reminds me a little of The Haunted Palace. Very, very beautiful and I'm ecstatic that I took a chance on a bottle!

Khajuraho (honey, date palm, tuberose, davana blossom, amber, white sandalwood, vanilla bean, Damask rose, and champaca flower) is a limited edition, and it might depend on skin chemistry, but the main thing I smell is champaca flower (parrot_suspect is right, champaca blossom and champa are the same). It smells like a sweeter, little more incensy version of Patou's "Joy" perfume on my skin (where the main ingredient is also champaca flower). That might be a close resemblance.

Schwarzer Mond, the 2006 blend more so than the 2008 one. I can barely tell them apart from Opium, even side-by-side with the YSL perfume to compare.

Tissue is almost all gardenia, so is Marae. Both are LE's, however, and I seldom see them on the swap/sale threads. From the GC, Eternal is very beautiful, but I don't remember how strong the gardenia note was.

I third (or fourth?) Lemon Scented Sticky Bat. But what I like even better is Lustration from the Panacea section. It's a little bit sharp like lemon peel at first, but on me it turns into a very sweet lemon-vanilla when it dries.

I recently discovered The Zieba Tree (reviews here). It has no "linen" note, but to me it smells just like fresh laundry dried in the sun.

#324, received in a swap with the wonderful Aldercy! Wet: clove, and ginger, and clove, and vanilla, and clove, and a musky background...and clove. Drying: it settles down fairly quickly, and now I get a little bit of either cinnamon or allspice too. The heavy clove went *poof* and now there seem to be fairly equal amounts of clove and ginger, plus allspice...and maybe pepper? Definitely musk in this blend, but just a little (or else I'd smell nothing but musk at this point). As it dries, the vanilla that wasn't apparent initially comes out more and more. Dry: it's vanilla Three Witches with ginger in place of cinnamon, and I'm in love! Lucky me!

I LOVE this! Wet, it is a bit sharp and resiny, but it dries down to a sweet vanilla-floral scent that reminds me a lot of lily of the valley rather than narcissus. I don't usually like florals, but this one is lovely! I would put it in the same scent category as Hope and Faith, or Haloes and Bijoux Y'ha N'thlei. Different scent, but same scent family.

My favorite is Eat Me (Three white cakes, vanilla, and red and black currants). I also like Shub Niggurath (A blend of ritual herbs and dark resins, shot through with three gingers and aphrodisiacal spices), which smells like ginger snaps. I didn't like Vice, it was too sweet and cloying just like Gluttony was, but Velvet is beautiful (sandalwood warmed by cocoa vanilla and a veil of deep myrrh). You might also like Hope (sugared roses) or Faith (sugared violets), or Grog (the description says pirate's rum, but it smells like rum and butterscotch to me). There are some good limited editions too, like the Pumpkin Patch scents, Cake Smash, Lilith vs. the Giant Crab, Sugar Moon, and many of the Moth and Butterfly scents that just came out sound delicious!

If I'm applying right from a bottle I use a toothpick or decapitated q-tip. I only dip the q-tip into the oil once, and then swipe it onto my wrists or neck. If I dip the toothpick deeply into the oil there will be enough on my wrist that I can transfer some to behind my ears, cleavage, underarms wherever. Plastic q-tips are hollow and some oil gets in there like a little pipette and you can blow it out into a puddle on your wrist and then put it anywhere. The oils I use most often I decant into imp vials and just use the imp-wand as this is easier and the bottle is less likely to be spilled. I am a great believer in inverting the bottles and even imps a few times and taking two minutes or so to gently roll them every which way. Before I started rolling the imps I noticed a couple that smelled one way at the start of the imp and a completely different way toward the end (Black Lily was one and another was House of Night). I also suspect that a certain amount of the changes people ascribe to aging are actually from the oils not getting mixed properly each time they are used so some components settle to the bottom and aren't used up as quickly. I do notice a difference with some back up partials I've gotten in the swaps where the oil doesn't smell as fresh as my own bottle even when they are the same age. They just smell a bit more blended and the fragrance looses definition. I thought this was people applying right from the bottle and introducing skin oil into the bottle but i could be wrong. Decaptiated Q-Tips used as makeshift pipettes - that is brilliant! I think I will try that, it sounds ideal for me. I think you are right about having to mix the oils each time. A friend of mine is very much into aromatherapy, and has bottles upon bottles of essential oils. When I started to get into BPAL, he let me test some of these, so I would learn what certain notes smell like. I noticed that some essential oils are very light and watery, others have various degrees of thickness or are even more solid than liquid (oak moss or benzoin I remember as being more like a paste). It stands to reason that the thicker, heavier components would sink to the bottom, and lighter ones would float on top. You can see that in a few, like Boomslang, but in others it might not be as clearly visible and still happens. I learned to roll the bottles and imps from reading the forum posts here. Before that, I used to shake them...not shake them hard or long, but I would give them a few shakes. I haven't done that in a long time now that I know better, and I even like rolling them because it makes it a little more "ritualistic" to put them on, not like any old perfume, but something special. (*Sounds daft* - lol) I haven't swapped for many partials, but that is just coincidence because the few I have gotten here have seemed fine to me, so I would do it again. I did have a strange experience on eBay, however, where I got a partial King Cobra. It didn't smell bad, but it smelled very, very faint compared to the bottle I already had. I'm not sure what is wrong with it, and I paid very little for it (too little to make any fuss with the seller). If it wasn't dilluted, it was probably not handled correctly. Wish I knew! Anyway, thank you for the advice and I will try the Q-Tip "pipettes".

That makes a lot of sense, thank you! Good point about lotions, I can imagine they do a lot of damage to oils, whereas skin oils are just sort of...well, gross. Even bottles I'm sure I'll keep, I often decant from them for someone else. So I guess it'll be a one-time dip with a toothpick, or else stick to my imps method. Thank you for clearing that up, though, I did think skin oils or bacteria would harm the oil more than they apparently do!

I have to slather, because (even with lotion applied before oils) my skin eats up BPAL. I decant oils I use into imps that I refill from the bottles, then just glop on a few drops from the imp onto one wrist, smoosh my wrists together, and then swipe them over my neck and chest to distribute the oil. Probably not the "right" way to do it, and I use A LOT, but these oils really do disappear on me quickly. I have always been wary of wand caps, swizzle sticks or toothpicks, and this seems like a good time to ask what others think because it does seem like an easier way to apply the oils than what I do! I haven't been using anything like that because, don't you transfer oils, salts, bacteria and so on from your skin into the oil if you dip a wand cap into the oil after you've used it? I have wondered this because I know in medicine, a sterile instrument is immediately non-sterile the second it touches anything unsterilized. This made me wonder about wand caps and such, and keeping oils really "clean", so I wondered what others think (I even hope I am wrong, since it does seem like a practical way to use the oils).

I was surprised how good Jabberwocky smells! I knew it has a lot of eucalyptus, so I tested it today. I'm coming down with a cold, so it sounded perfect, and it was. Lifted my bad mood up too, it really is a happy eucalyptus.

I like Marquise de Merteuil a lot (galbanum and amber, glistening peach, and a bouquet of French florals, with a merciless undertone of jonquil and heartless vetiver). I don't smell much vetiver at all, and I would definitely say this is a "daytime" scent. Belle Vinu is also very nice (red sandalwood, vanilla, rosewood, osmanthus, and white peach), as is The Cup of Death (peach blossom and peach tree leaf, Mysore sandalwood, French lavender, bois du rose, myrtle, and blue yarrow). The other peachy scents I haven't tried yet, so I'm not sure how they are, but these three are lovely.

I've come to love wood scents, most of my favorites are listed here. I'd add Al-Azif, there are no notes listed, but I get a very sweet, woody note from that, maybe maple or birch? I also love Conservatory Tableaux (Lacquered beech wood and old books). At first it smells very sharp, like laquer, but that fades and leaves a deep and rich wood scent behind, I think it's wonderful.

I thought the caramel note in Tiresias is very similar to the one in Now Winter Nights Enlarge - delicious!! The apple note killed Agrat-Bat-Mahlat for me, however, and I didn't like it at all (the caramel also seems much lighter, not the dark brown sugar kind that I love in Tiresias, NWNE, Red Lantern or Bad Luck Woman Blues). Incubus also has a great caramel note. I saw it mentioned already, and second that!

Some of my favorites: Cheshire Cat: Grapefruit, red currant, dark musk, Roman chamomile, delphinium, and lavender. Vampire Tears (LE, but there are still bottles floating around): wisteria, white grapefruit, neroli, green tea, jasmine, white ginger, honeysuckle, iris, and tonka. Shanghai: The crisp, clean scent of green tea touched with lemon verbena and honeysuckle. Et Lux Fuit: golden amber, heliotrope, vanilla musk, carnation, daisy and sunflower bouquet, neroli, lemon peel, ylang ylang and honeycomb. (Also an LE) Croquet: Pink lime, pink grapefruit, white nectarine, wild rose, sage, woody patchouli, bergamot, and ornery hedgehog musk. Cheshire Moon: lunar herbs and blossoms, with lemongrass, guava, pink grapefruit, banyan fruit, hibiscus, and cherry blossom. (Also an LE) There are lots more, I'm just partial to the citrus family.

Blood Kiss, Sachs layered on top of Violens, or any of the Snake Pit blends!

Mead Moon (Golden mead, fermented with gruit, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, ginger root, sweet-briar, rosemary, and lemon) is my top favorite, so is Schwarzer Mond (opoponax, Tunisian black amber, night musk, antique patchouli, zdravetz, terebinth, myrrh, and Pimenta racemosa). I love the scents you listed above too, so your tastes might not be that different from mine, and I love these two Moons (most are too light and airy for my taste, but these two are heavy and spicy).

This is prettier than I expected (I can't wear many rose scents), a wee bit in the direction of Snow White, but I'm reminded more of a sugar-free version of CD's Hope with a "greener" rose. As it dries, the rose fades into a soft candy-floss background, and it is a very light scent that seems to fade fast. I like it, but I think I will stick with Hope, as I like scents that are a bit deeper than Pink Snowballs. Keeping my imp, but I doubt I will get a big bottle.

I love this, it's perfect for springtime! It has a similar tea note that Kumiho has, slightly lemon/citrus, but instead of the sharp ginger, there is fresh, green bamboo. Wikipedia tells me that oud is agarwood and has a scent profile that includes ambergris, jasmine, earth and wood notes. But I don't smell any of that here, even after it dries down. It just smells very clean and fresh, like white tea with a bit of citrus and a bit of green. I'm fast becoming a fan of the tea scents, and this is one more that convinces me to try more of them. Love it!

I received this oil in a swap, really wanting to try it because of the notes listed, but (I admit) a wee bit doubtful if it would work on me. In the bottle and fresh on my skin, I was hit by the smell of heavy resins and (woe!) laquer. But I let it dry, and boy was I in for a surprise! The chemical smell evaporated completely, it deepened and sweetened into an almost honeyed, woodsy floral. For a while, it turned almost foody with a scent like hazelnuts, and then the honeyed florals and woods came back to blend with it. I absolutely love it to bits!

Mata Hari, maybe (five roses with soft jasmine, warmed by vanilla, fig, tonka bean and mahogany, spiced with a drop of coffee bean)? The fig does smell more like fresh fig than dried fruit, but that seemed closest to the description. Or, if you like pumpkin and foody scents, I'd rec Pumpkin II 09 or Pumpkin V 08. Both have rose and it blends beautifully with the foody pumpkin. And Hope is nice - sugared rose, it smells like a kind of rose candy on me.