Invidiana

Here comes the carnation to haunt me again. Wet it actually smelled sweet, even a hint candyish from what I believe is the treacle, and seemed somewhat promising but it dried down to essentially all carnation on me--what do I expect, I amp the stuff like the devil. So on me this basically turned into candied carnation.

Fruity and effervescent; initially fizzy tangerine, and dries down to reveal a still sweet-tart but more "pink" feel from the passionfruit and guava that compliments the tangerine very well. This isn't really boozy per se, just has an extra kick of fizz from the gin and tonic.

This is a cool autumn day captured in a bottle. The falling leaves aspect is not as strong as October but is still adrift in there giving it a distinctly autumnal feel. It's not a screeching floral at all; the orris gives it a "downy" feel because it does go slightly powdery on me (but in a good way) and the other flowers are not overbearing but delicate and crystalline. Thankfully I don't get any intense greenness or manliness from the chypre but it is a white chypre after all. Overall this is oddly comforting and eerily beautiful.

I'm not alwasy quite the best of friends with orange blossom, but whatever kind is in this behaves beautifully. It's really more of a fierce--not sharp, just full-bodied--citrusy scent fired up with red patchouli. Maybe it's the blending of the orange blossom and patchouli that has that effect with my chemistry, I don't know but I couldn't stop huffing my wrist.

For something based off a nasty insect this is actually pretty yummy. It's very much like orange spice tea, like that Southern sweet orange pekoe tea, but more resinous and spiced with hints of pepper , cinnamon and cardamom. Thankfully this type of cardamom is the newer one that behaves on my skin because there is a certain type from I think it was before '07 that I turn to nutty plastic but not this one. Thank you Labbies for the awesome gift and fantastic weekend, and we hope you come by here again next year!

This is very much like a sprayable Midway , though a bit more on the cakey side but still with plenty of sugary and caramelly goodness to balance it out as well. I also detect a bit of spice which isn't in Midway but still delicious. I didn't really detect the wood note too much but then again I was inundated with scents that day so I'll give it some closer inspection soon.

This is a fresh green scent with a certain "humid" quality to it evocative of the New Orleans atmosphere, probably from the moss. I can definitely smell some sort of myrtle in there too, not quite sure what type but possibly lemon myrtle. Not really for me, but definitely one for green fans to check out.

I just bathed in this today and have to keep reminding myself not to lick it (as Ted said when I was huffing it at the NYCC booth "no funny business!" ) It's like candy apple perfectly balanced with sweet-tart lemon drops. Yum.

Here's to one of the few aquatics I can actually wear without turning it into generic soap. I would have passed this by had it not been for the "balsamic" in the description; I love balsam and also have a certain fondness for sweetgrass in the right blend (like L'Autunno bath oil). Thankfully I don't turn it to swamp and amp the balsam and sweetgrass the most, with the greener and "reedy" notes staying well-behaved in the background. There is enough green and salty water to stay true to the theme but it's not overwhelmingly seaweedy. It actually reminds me more of the smell outside after an autumn rainstorm rather than a swamp. Overall it's a resinous dark green scent with aquatic elements, very unique and strangely attractive.

This really is a morpher, but thankfully on me it morphs for the better. At first it is somewhat peppery and very floral; I wasn't even sure it would warrant a bottle for me. However, after giving it a minute or two I could have sworn I was smelling a completely different scent. Whatever made it seem peppery had completely faded and in its place was a lovely creamy "white" scent laced with soft cocoa, and I can smell the tobacco flower which reminds me of Door. It's sweet but not too sweet, and definitely evocative of the theme with the ethereal feel. I can also happily add this to my extremely short list of BPAL scents containing jasmine that actually like me.

Oh Ellebelle, I envy your skin because I only wish this reminded me of my beloved Tetramorph. However, I have quite the penchant for turning aquatics to generic soap and lo and behold what two words did The Lincoln Tunnel Vortex translate to on me? Coast soap. Dead-on Coast soap. Not unpleasant, but not what I was hoping for. I have to say that in the bottle I could smell hints of what actually did remind me of subway air somewhat (but fresher), which is pure genius, but once it hit my skin it was pure Coast in 30 seconds.

This is seriously like the love child of Snake Oil and Midway. It smells almost identical to Snake Oil in the bottle but the notes that differentiate it really bloom once it's on my skin. It's got that same irresitably sexy red musk I recognize from Snake Oil combined with sweet and sticky background notes of root beer and what seems to be hints of funnel cake, caramel and cotton candy, especially the caramel. The root beer note doen'st really scream "root beer" in particular but may actually be what's adding to the caramelly feel. I swear if there could be a perfume translation of the song "Sex and Candy" this would be it. It's also the (highly addictive) miracle drug of perfumes for me because I amp just about every ingredient in it to the nines so a trace amount puts me in a scentagasmic cloud of happiness for at least 8 hours.

I absolutely adore this. It's like Joyful Moon's diabolical older sister. It's sweet rose tea in the bottle, but on my skin it blossoms into a deep, sophisticated honeyed vanilla backed by the musk and olibanum and traces of the tea, rose and mandarin that add to its uniqueness of character. This is not one of those overwhelming dry rose blends at all; it's really dominated by the vanilla, honey and resin with a veil of warm and sensual Egyptian musk. The rose is a soft accent in the background as it is in Joyful Moon and while it supports the blend it doesn't overwhelm it in the least. The creaminess and honey/resinous aspects really shine as it dries down further, yet it still retains an air of something sinister in the background. It brings to mind the immaculate face of Marie Antoinette with a poisonous glimmer in her eye. Much, much to my wonderful Sibyl angel!

This is so delicious and right up my alley. It's a thick, cakey vanilla with warm spices and touches of smoke and copal incense in the background. I almost thought there was patchouli in it until I read the note list again. I think the slight smokiness is coming from the smoked jalapeno note, which thankfully doesn't smell like actual peppers or else it woudl have made me run for the hills. The bitter chocolate complements it beautifully with a certain earthy darkness. I'm thinking maybe that, along with the smoky jalapeno, was making me think of patchouli. I get a hint of something boozy from the tequila, but not in-your-face tequila. Overall it's really addictive!

A circular pastry glazed with pink sugar that symbolizes the sweetness of life and the certainty of death. Pink-frosted donuts! Not specifically strawberry-frosted, jut a pink-sugary feel to the frosting note. The fried dough note is reminiscent of the funnel cake in Midway; has that hint of fried crust to evoke the feel fo the actual thing but doesn't turn into nasty deep-fryer grease on me is balanced well by the sweet cake. I googled pictures of these things and while I've never tried them they look just as tempting as the scent, like giant donuts with hot pink icing. I wish DD carried them, at least as a seasonal item.

Red musk has always been one of my favorite notes (I'd put being embalmed in Snake Oil as my final wish if I could), so it's not a surprise that this ended up being love at first sniff and an instant holy grail. Wet it's a sweet red musk at first, and as it dries down the cream and honey really show themselves and blend in perfect proportion to the red musk to create something that is pure decadence. I would say this is Snake Oil and Misfortune Teller v3's fraternal triplet; while the first is more of a resinous vanillaed red musk and the second is more of a cakey vanilla and red musk, this is their creamy, honeyed sister. Definitely a trademark scent for me.

This has both fruity and "golden" aspects, if that makes any sense at all. Either way it's perfectly fitting for the festival it' intended to evoke. Wet I can pick up something like hay and/or grain over red fruits. As it dries down, the red fruits, which I'm taking to be cherry and plum, possibly some redcurrant, settle into a base of sweet golden grain and what must definitely be honey. It make sme think of a reddish late summer sunset with flashes of gold. I really hope Beth resurrects this one like she did Mabon because it's quite lovely.

Wow, the labels for Boo, Punkie Night and Sugar Skull are awesome...good thing I need backups as it is anyway. Anyone have a pic of this year's Samhain? I hoard Samhain because I love it so much but I'm dying to see label porn.

Disclaimer: unlike ZZ, I am a HUGE Malibu Rum fan. It's head to head with Godiva Dark Chocolate Liqueur as my poison of choice, so take my review with a couple grains of salt (in your margarita) if you will. Boozy banana WIN. This is just as delicious as I expected it to be. I don't get too much grenadine; there really isn't a "red" feel to this scnet at all, maybe just a slight tang from that. It's pretty much equal parts creamy banana and a heady shot of coconut rum. Though it does smell very boozy in the bottle and initially in the wet stage, most of the booziness of the rum dissipates, leaving an equally sweet and creamy coconut to blend with the banana and making me want to chew my arm off.

There is something about this that in my mind places it as a distant cousin of Antique Lace, but it is a unique scent all its own. I was a little bit afraid I would end up amping the rose, honeysuckle or in the worst-case scenario both (shudder) but I'm pleasantly surprised at how soft they are. Instead of blasting into the forefront they act as supportive notes that tie the lend together but don't overrun it. I do love frangipani, which rounds out the other two florals and adds a sensual feel of its own. The orris doesn't dominate either but stays well-behaved, very slightly powdery but in that good, comforting sort of way like soft fabric caressing the skin. Cool vanilla and white musk are the most prominent notes for me, with added muskiness from the ambrette seed. As a whole this is not a foody scent but more sweet, ethereal and feminine, somewhat floral but not overwhelmingly so. Beautiful.

This is flowery--very, very flowery. Not just floral, but downright flowery like sticking your head in a greenhouse. I do get a bit fo the banana, especially in the beginning, and a tiny bit of ginger on the drydown, but this scent is dominated by flowers for the most part. I don't really get much raspberry; I would have never known there was any in this until I read the description. I do lke tropical florals, but I think I personally would like this better if it had something like coconut/vanilla/amber/sandalwood to ground it.

Manly? Dude running around in a garden? I don't think so. This stuff is so incredibly sexy and unlike De Sade or Iago (the definition of "manly" to me). This is like CC: Female's infernal twin. Where CC: Female has that Snake Oil-y vibe with the creamy vanilla and subdued leather, Byron v13 is the fiery answer smoldering with flames of red musk on a black leather jacket that clings ever so suggestively to the skin. There is also something "delicious" about it that isn't foody in the least but rather seethes eat me alivethrough swollen lips. It's perfectly evocative of Byron's roguish ways without being too restrictively male, though there is a masculine quality in the way of the Loviatar-esque dominatrix feel but it isn't manly in the least. It's just as daring and roguish as its namesake. Bottom Line: this is basically very akin to Snake Oil with a little extra red musk and an undercurrent of soft, sensual black leather. Or sex in a bottle. Whichever you prefer.

This was one of the Carnaval protos I was lusting after the most, until my sweet-amping chemistry decided to have a way with it. Amping sweet notes is usually a positive thing, at least for me, but in the case that there is not enough tartness to balance them things can turn disastrous pretty quickly. Wet the first things I smelled were lemon and melon--probably honeydew--and I already knew it was hopeless. Unless there is a lot of something to counter them, both cantaloupe and honeydew go cloying on my skin. The lemon faded quickly and out came a blast of mango, which I do like in certain blends, but without enough tartness to balance it, joining hands wtih the melon the whole scent just became more and more saccharine, like a certain ubersweet aspartame-sweetened tropical gum I can't stand, until it became cloying enough to finally have to scrub off. At least the fact that I'm out of the race means there is more room left for people who really would adore it.

I absolutely love this one and must seek out more. It has significantly more musk and vanilla than the released, which is mostly plum and red musk on me. I'm confused as how it could be fruitier than the original but I amp vanilla and red musk and I couldn't be happier with the way they amp here as they're also two of my favorite notes. It's a thick, heady, deeply sensual red musk cloaking equally thick boozy Bourbon (I believe) vanilla with a hint of plum and maybe a dash of spice, or at least the feel of some spice in the background even if it isn't actually there. It has that magnetic quality of drawing you to it wanting to take just one more sniff, and when you pull away you realize you need another...and another...

Another lovely butterfly. Seriously, I've fallen hard with this whole collection, butterflies and moths. I'd forgotten the notes when I dabbed this on and now looking at them again a lightbulb went off as to what reminded me of the feel--not the exact scent, just the feel--of rootbeer; the sassafrass! I actually looked up sassafrass on Wikipedia and it was indeed used to make rootbeer until it was banned by the FDA for causing liver damage. It's very distinct and unique, and the scent as a whole reminds me of old-fashioned spice candy, like a richer version of Neccos. I normally amp clove but thankfully it took a backseat to the sassafrass here, and the sugar and plum lend it a lovely smooth sweetness and keep it from morphing into a spice rack on my skin (which many blends that have clove tend to do). Oh, did I mention I used to catch these things in my backyard all the time as a kid? They were my favorite butterflies because of the iridescent black wings, which were so atypical yet so gorgeous--just like this scent.