Invidiana

Wet, this is a flood of roses and nothing else; you need to wait for the drydown to truly appreciate the depth and sensuality it has. After a couple of minutes some really gorgeous elements emerge; there must be tonka in here because I can sense that rich, warm and almost nutty quality, and I'm guessing some dark resins as well because as it keeps drying down something sticky and sweet but also dark, and definitely not sugar, emerges as well (my skin tends to amp sweeter notes), along with something earthy and spicy that must be clove, which actually behaves on me this time around and doesn't take over everything else. Possibly a hint of some sort of musk in here too. This is not your innocent blushing pink rose, this is a velvety, voluptous crimson rose doused in sensual resins and oils, like the Cleopatra or Salome of roses. If you're into dark and smutty stuff like I am, I'd say this definitely qualifies as a dark and smutty floral, so give it a try.

This really didn't do much for me. The tangerine and white musk were pleasant enough, nothing astounding, but the cypress just makes it a little sharp for me in the vein of Lines Written on the Euganean Hills. Cypress just tends to come out that way on my skin. I don't get a delicious juicy scent at all, just something light and citrusy and with a slightly sharp minty evergreen, nothing to write home about.

Olive blossom, cardamom pod, amber, morning star lily, bergamot, and a well-aimed snowball. This was another one of the "meh" Shungas for me, a very tea-like floral in the same vein as Unveiled but "colder" with the snow note. I was crossing my fingers for the cardamom and amber to take over at some point, but nothing happened. It just remained pretty uneventful from vial to the drydown, and also very faint on my skin.

I'm editing this post because I tried Unveiled again and...complete change of heart. It's beautiful. At first it seems like a tea-dominant floral but then...the drydown. All of a sudden the warmth of the vanilla, amber and myrrh emerges with an equally warm and soft background of light peach and citrust and gently spiced tea. This has redeemed itself and is going on my bottle list.

This would have been so gorgeous if it wasn't for that blasted lilac. I mean, it's not like lilacs smell so vile in general; I actually enjoy them in the garden around Easter but I'd rather not smell them on me. I can tell the rest of the notes in this are so thick and sensual, but my skin amps the lilac and just makes it smell...wrong. Incongruous. If only there was no lilac in this it would have been a winner for me.

Oh look, who is it but my friend rose geranium again, which my skin so loves to amp. This smelled so promising in the vial, really promising--like a really rich buttercream, so I stupidly held out hope until within a couple seconds the rose geranium burst out and strangled everything else to death, so the end result was all rose geranium swiped with a bit of buttercream. Not something I'd want to eat--or smell.

Murderous alright, as in, my skin murders this. It was so promising in the vial with that rich, sweet and sticky myrrh, and I can still tell how lovely the myrrh is as it dries down but oh the rose geranium. I love how I amp many of my notes of doom to high heaven. On my skin, the blasted rose geranium takes over everything else so this ultimately ends up as slightly myrrh-sweetened rose geranium. Gah.

Skin-piercing alright, how about nose-piercing? My skin+masculine woods=epic fail. Apparently it has a knack for amping not only the vetiver in this, which was to be expected, but the pepper too, so it ended up a peppery vetiver with nary a trace of grapefruit in sight and maybe a hint of patchouli in the background. Blast my chemistry.

Well, finally. After a little too much perseverence in my book, I get a winner among the Shungas, where the listed notes don't only appear as if they'll work well on my skin, they actually do. Despite the anise this doesn't go very licorice on me at all--the anise adds a bit of naughtiness along with the neroli, very fitting for the label art of the girl clearly enjoying, um, what she's doing but still not able to look in that direction. I just get a lovely creamy vanilla with candylike florals; cherry blossom does that on me, and apparently peony does to. I don't really sense any violet leaf, it probably gives a hint of darkness if anything, but when anything remotely green has vanilla and candy florals to compete with on my skin, it gets the message to sit back and behave. Congratulations, Pink Mood, you will be turning into a bottle.

By all indications this was supposed to be magical on me (frankincense! ginger cream!), but then my skin decided to take it for a joyride and turn it to an extremely manly woody gingerroot scent with a touch of equally butch De Sade-esque leather. Note to self: Orris root is second in line to cedar for the rank of Ungodly Wood of Death on my skin. No cream, no resin, nothing, and I have no idea what in high heaven asuhi is but it can't be doing anything good with my chemistry. It basically ends up resembling a spicy men's aftershave, like an amped-up version of the Old Spice that Hod turned into on me.

Remind me again that that most florals+vetiver turn to powder on me. Scratch that, I think allflorals+vetiver turn to powder on me, period. For vetiver to work on me it needs equally dark stuff to support it: resins, spices, smoke, etc. With a second look at the note list I noticed that who else but our friend The High Imperial Concubine Jasmine of Doom is on there, and this must be the type that goes rancid banana on me and amps to the moon. This basically hits my skin like a fruity-floral tea but quickly morphs into a headachingly powdery and cloying jasmine-vetiver concoction with an eerie resemblance to mothballs. Gah.

Wow, proof that when your skin chemistry does strange things sometimes it's for the better! This is all sticky, sweet (but not cloying) wonderful moon tree sap (whatever that is) with a sweet but again not cloying or sneezeworthy at all, floral background. Is there sweet pea in this? Orchid? Lotus? Any fruit blossoms? Those all turn winningly candyish on me so at least one must be in there somewhere. There's a tiny bit of green wet, but I thankfully I don't get any of the green stems once this dries down fully. It doesn't smell like a flower shop at all, just sweet, juicy, almost edible resin. Bottle for sure!

Why is all I'm getting out of this pure lemon verbena? Damned skin chemistry, it really hasn't been liking many of this year's Shungas. Something, and I don't know what, turns the mandarin rind into pure lemon verbena with the magical touch of my skin, and I also amp it to the point of barely being able to smell anything else--maybe a tiny bit of blackberry in the extreme drydown, but that's it. I was hoping to really get mostly blackberry, Indian musk and khus, but my skin revolted.

This was one epic fail after another on me. I have come to the very accurate conclusion that 99.999999998567% of the time, The Great and Highly Revered Imperial Jasmine of Doom will do one of two things on me, depending on the type; either go to straight cat pee or start off as cat pee and quickly morph into rancid banana. Apparently I'm looking at the sad reality that I must amp the stuff too. This jasmine was the rancid banana variety, sickeningly sweet and cloying enough to overpower every other note while still retaining something of a cat pee undertone. I had to scrub it off.

Oolong tea, lilac, sheer musk, crushed ginger, wisteria, delphinium, and lavender. Of all the epic fails on my skin, I would have never guessed this was one of the biggest recipes for disaster from the description but apparently it is. It starts off sharp, quickly sweetens, goes absolutely cloying and reminds of something I can't quite put my finger on until... NAIR. With my chemistry it smells exactly like old-school Nair before all the fancy scents came out to make it halfway tolerable. Lilac is already an iffy note for me, and mixed with everything else it just produced one epic, epic fail.

This was another one I was expecting to be an epic fail but actually turned out so right...it generally smells like rose petals drenched in brown sugar syrup. I think what works the magic on the seemingly scary (to me at least) lychee and rose combo is the cistus, whose deep resinous quality tempers the sweetness of the lychee and gives it that brown-sugary quality. Thankfully the rose isn't sharp at all, just a soft velvety rose interwoven with the sticky sweetness. Definitely bottleworthy.

By all accounts this was not supposed to work on me. I was fearing The Great Ancient Towering Cedar of Doom, De Sade Leather of Doom, Pledge-style wood polish and the greenish smell of fresh olive oil which I'm generally not too fond of. WRONG. This turned out to be the most wonderful fruity (?!?!?!) leather on me with a light woody background. The leather was not that uber-masculine leather at all as opposed to De Sade; it was actually the muted type of leather you find in U; more of a black leather than U's brown leather but still really melow and "well-loved" as the description states. I also sense a slight bit of spice? This could possibly be from the wood itself (sandalwood possibly? Other pleasant woods that aren't cedar?) or from the "polished" note--I don't know what they used to polish wood back then but probably some really great-smelling oils if I'm going by what's in here. I'm thinking possibly orange oil because there seems to be a cirtus touch to the fruitiness. Whatever it is, what seemed like a melange of wrong turned out so right on me...I need a bottle.

Wow, including me there must be 4 extremely different skin types reviewing this! Whatever type of vetiver is in this, it doesn't go powdery on my skin at like Black Ice (the ozone/snow/vetiver combo there might have been responsible for that though). This is just a deep, sensual smoky vetiver with what I'm guessing is sandalwood, patchouli and a backgrop of sweet resins and something of a bonfire/brimstone note. As it dries down further the resins become more prominent and keep adding further complexity. Reminds me very much of chimney smoke and burning leaves and tree sap, an absolutely gorgeous autumn scent! Very glad I took a chance on it.

Oh sigh. Wet this was all lovely and cakey with a hint of fruit and then...something goes terribly wrong. Rose usually behaves with my skin, but one of the other notes, and I have no idea what it is, turns the rose in this into carnation. That's right, exactly like The Giant Carnation of Doom. It just becomes more and more cloying until I finally have to scrub it off. What a shame.

This was extremely floral in the beginning, all ylang ylang, but as it dries down the honey and finally the musk and labdanum emerge and overshadow it. It reminds me a bit of Aeval in a way, in the sense of what was supposed to be an innocent floral corrupted by darkness. Not a "dark floral" which is a whole other category in itself but more of a darkened floral. Very rich and sensual and not a namby-pamby floral at all.

This is at once hazy and sexy but also has a dark side, kind of like a shadowy coconut. Thankfully I'm not getting much Iris--I really get mostly luscious coconut and sheer musk. Maybe the iris is adding to the shadowy aspect, but whatever it's doing it's behaving. I'm not really getting much hazelnut; it probably adds to the depth but this is predominantly coconut musk on me, just light enough for summer or those days you don't feel like something strong, but also just enough of that shadowy quality to make it sexy.

For some reason this came out very clovey on me, and there isn't even any clove here! Wet it seemed like it was all clove. Only on the drydown could I finally detect something sweet (the peach) and the warmth of the amber and musk, but it still seemed predominantly clovey for some reason--maybe that's what happens when patchouli mixes with peach on my skin? I do like clove, but already have enough clove blends to slather an army.

The other notes sounded so wonderful but the cedar...it ended up being The Great Cedar of Doom on me. In addition the vetiver amps it up to an even more woody and masculine fragrance, so I was basically getting all cedar with a vetiver background and a hint of spice. The mandarin and amber were nowhere to be found because they must have gotten choked by the cedar. The result was extremely masculine and impossible for me to wear. Cedar is obviously not my friend.

If I could describe this in three words: fierce red licorice. Seriously! More like a really dark red licorice bordering on black but not quite. It's the clove and anise that make up the smoky, sinister art and the mandarin that seems to "stain" them wtih "blood". There is a certain tang to this, presumably from the mandarin, that makes it evocative of something bloodstained without literally smelling like blood. I've never smelled cumin in a jar before, but I'm guessing it adds the final dash of fierceness to the already ferociously sensual scent. I was right to order a bottle unsniffed; right up my alley.

Carnation? Really? I get a very vanilla honey with a possible hint of spice (might be a drop of carnation in there, who knows), but the vanillaed honey is the dominant, and sometimes really rich honeys seem to have a tinge of spice with my chemistry, not like I mind. This is like the yang to O v5's yin; v5 is more honey, this is more sweet creamy vanilla, both of them are downright gorgeous. If there is carnation in here at all maybe the reason the Great Carnation of Doom is (thankfully) not showing up is because I usually tend to amp the sweeter notes in a blend and the honey and vanilla won the deathmatch with it in .0002 seconds. It clings close to th eskin like v5, though my chemistry tends to broadcast even skin scents within a decent radius of me, but has excellent staying power and a sweet sensuality about it. The maintenance guy in the office who stops by every day just to sniff my bottles (true story) got the tiniest bit on his finger and told me the next day that he couldn't stop huffing it like a maniac for hours.