Kittyflop

The cherry in this is wonderful. This reminds me of my first impression of Red Queen, before she turned all sawdust on me. The anise on me is very subdued, luckily (I was a little afraid of that) and it offset the cherry just perfectly. This didn’t last as long as I’d hoped, but I’ll try it again with a lotion base and see if it holds on longer.

For some reason I’m drawn to this at bedtime. It’s my favorite night scent, comforting. A soft, warm, amber rolled in moondust.

The bountiful, bright and vivacious prelude to the Harvest. A horde of wet, ripe fruits: green apple, apricot, blackberry, black cherry, black and red currants, cantaloupe, English pear, guava, lemon and lime, orange, mandarin orange, kiwi and mango, passion fruit, papaya, Georgia peach, raspberry, plum, tangerine, pomegranate and strawberry over a luminous blend of lunar oils. In the bottle, it reminded me of Fruit Punch. Once on, though, it became a little less sweet and more tangy. Not sour, exactly, but definitely a tangy edge to it. It was citric fruit without the overpowering sweetness I was expecting. Juicy and clear and fruity. Very nice! It lasted fairly well (4 hours), and the throw was medium-strong. Like many fruits, I didn’t want to re-apply once it faded. It’s great for short-term enjoyment, but as I’ve discovered with many foody scents, as much as I love them, I don’t want to eat the same food all day, and I don’t want to smell the same fruit all day either.

A very green floral. It’s crisp and not too sweet. Lovely clean flowers – I really like this! It’s perfect for this warm overcast rainy day. (I often wear scents that are the exact opposite of the weather….) After 2 hours it has faded quite a bit but is still lingering. I may have to replenish a bit more often than normal, but it’s worth it.

email the lab (answers @ blackphoenixalchemylab . com, without the spaces) and tell them. Sara, I think her name is, who handles these things is REALLY nice and they're always good at correcting their mistakes.

In the bottle and on first application, this is sweeeeet. On drying the sweetness immediately starts to subside and it gets tangy-spicy. Something sharp is tickling my nose and making me almost sneeze. Clove? Two hours – the tang has softened and the vanilla is (finally!!) starting to emerge. Now this is the scent I was hoping for – Vanilla and honey with spice. Too bad it took so long to get to it, but if it sticks around for a few more hours I’d say it’s worth the wait.. Four hours – still strong! I’m getting more and more enamored by this.

On first application: Sweet almonds, with a boozy backup. After a few minutes the booze evaporates leaving a lovely, not-to-sweet almond aroma. I think the musk/myrrh deepens the almond, grounds it and keeps it from being too sweet Throw is pretty light, duration only about 3 hours. This is nice enough to keep re-applying though. I like it!

This smells like hot fudge. Pure hot fudge. I don't think I'll wear it much, but this imp will definitely go in the aroma dish when it’s time to sell the house Throw is medium, staying power quite long, lasted overnight.

I’ve worn this twice, and each time was different. The first time I caught a slight whiff of chocolate-mint, but the mint faded and I was left with a lovely cocoa-sandalwood aroma – very comforting. The second time, thought, it was all Andes Mint Chocolates, from beginning to end. It wasn’t bad, but not something I’d wear much. I’ll give it one more try (hoping it was a chemistry thing) but then will probably move on to another chocolate scent on my list. It did last a very long time though – I put it on in the evening, and could still smell it very faintly in the morning.

Mandalinn, I'm so glad you ordered Midway before it was gone! Because it's magic - it's ambrosia - (and because no one's getting a drop of mine unless they pry it out of my cold dead hands - bwah ha ha!) Seriously - you're gonna love it.

I haven’t reviewed this yet even though, or perhaps because, it is hands-down my favorite bpal. There’s something highly addictive about this – I wear other bpals frequently, but I wear this at least 2 times a week or I go into withdrawals! In the bottle, I recall my first sniff was bubblegum – thought that was weird. I was actually indifferent to it on the first day I wore it. Now it is definitely warm, sweet and sunny. I love to wear this on dark overcast days as it transports me somewhere warm and bright. The notes are well-blended and mostly unfamiliar to me, so I’m not sure which ones I’m picking up, but it’s a bit fruity so perhaps the prickly pear, and probably the poppy. The throw is fairly short, but the staying power is long. This is perfect for me because I can put a lot on for me to sniff without having it spill over to my office mates’ atmosphere. I highly recommend this!

Another vote for yummy edible goodness. Spun sugar, caramel and elephant's ears - with butter. Nuzzle nuzzle. Very good staying power on me - thank the goddess, it means this bottle will last a while! This is by far the best sweet foody scent yet. I can't get enough of it. Hmm, only a few more hours to order another bottle...

Strong, cool, murky floral. Blue-green floral. The throw is strong, and it has good staying power - a little goes a long way. This might be an acceptable replacement when my beloved Dunwich runs out!

Oh, baby, gonna have to try this one - Girlfriend is a total Xena-phile! So far I haven't gotten much reaction out of her from any particular scent, but now my curiousity is piqued - I'm on a mission.

Oh those tricky rabbits! When I first opened the vial I smelled candy. Sweet, hard candy. My girlfriend thought she smelled maple syrup. I also thought recognized something in common with Tenochtitlan. However, none of these, I see, are are in the description or any of the reviews, so methinks my nose is out of whack! After reading the reviews and re-sniffing my arms, the sweetness is fading and I can detect something dry and kind of spicy. Definitely not getting any cocoa, though. Perhaps the my skin is amping up the rum and wine? Doesn’t really smell boozy though, either… Not to complain, at all, I LOVE what this has turned into on drydown and will definitely use up the imp while I decide whether to get more. I just can’t find ANY similarities with any of the other reviews here . It's an imp straight from the lab, though, so I'm sure it is what it is... Edited, 4 hours later - still no chocolate or cocoa whatsoever. Sigh. This isn't the first scent that smells totally different to me than to everyone else. Maybe I just can't identify notes. Oh well, at least nothing's ever predictable!

This is the first real rose scent I've tried (I'm not much of a floral gal). It does smell like real roses to me. Walking through the Rose Garden sticking my face into every blossom that I can reach - all colors, all very different aromas (amazing that roses can smell so different!). I wonder if I visit now, if I can find the one that smells like 2, 5, and 7? 3 hours now, still going strong, and no soap or powder that some others have gotten. Just a big rose corsage. Lovely.

Oh my. In the bottle, there was a sharp tang of something vaguely unpleasant. I was hoping it wouldn't hang around, and.. ...it didn't. Gone, whatever it was, and what is left is absolutely fantastic. I'm not sophisticated enough to pick out single notes (besides having no clue what fig smells like), so I won't even try. But it does smell VERY different on my skin than it did in the bottle. In fact, each wrist smells different. This really is a jumble! It was well worth getting past my initial reaction. I'll give it another day, but will very likely order a 2nd bottle before month's end.

Honey and tea, with vanilla undertones. I don’t get much ginger from it. Very lovely, elegant scent – a good one for work when I need to ‘suit up’ and appear business-like (not my most comfortable mode!). Throw is medium, staying power is strong – this has lasted four hours already with a fairly light application, and isn’t showing signs of fading yet. Another winner – definitely going on the big-bottle list!

MMmmm... I get both the apricot and the brandy, and something else I can't quite put my finger on. I don't think I can add much to what others have said - I agree that it is fruit and without being sweet. Fruit leather maybe? Both the throw and the staying power are light-to-medium. This will require frequent reapplication, so I'm not sure if I'll invest in a big bottle, but it is a beautiful scent so I might give in. edited: I just figured out what that something else is - it's wax. It's now starting to smell very waxy, unfortunately for me. I think I'll see if March Hare agrees with me more

In the bottle: Very nice lemony scent, but not too acidic. Wet: Very light lemon, slightly cleaner-ish. Dry: I have no idea. This literally evaporates the minute it hits my skin. Really, no kidding, I've put on about 1/4 imp over the course of two hours, and nothing. I think I'll try mixing it with lotion to see if I can get it to hold longer.

I'm surprised at how few reviews of Dunwich there are, compared to the other SIA's. Beth really nailed this one. The scent transports me straight to Dunwich. It's damp and marsh reeds and stillness. The lilies float over the aquatic greenness in just the right balance. The throw is good, as is the staying power. It stayed with me for a good 6 hours, with a light application.

The chocolate is very apparent to me, and something else that I think is the tobacco. It's not too sweet. I don't get much of the floral that others have mentioned. To me this is very much like eating chocolate drops in my grandfather's old polished-wood-trimmed law office - where you know you have to be quiet and serious, but he and I both break into giggles now and then. I really like this one.

Oh I do! Thanks Penance! When I first opened the bottle, an overwhelming sweetness hit me (decomposing flowers?). I was afraid it might be too sweet. But after just a mere four hours I have grown to love it! It's a clear sweetness, not muddled or sticky. I don't yet have a sophisticated nose to be any more specific, but this scent makes me happy in a carefree, childlike way.

This is my third time wearing Leanan Sidhe, and I still can't get my head around it. Very few florals work for me, but this one definitely triggers some emotional memories (good ones) of some kind. It is soft, herbal and floral in a good balance. It lasts fairly well (4-5 hours) and luckily no soapy drydown. A good floral to try if your chemistry has trouble with them, because it's not too perfume-ey. I'm still not sold on it, but may need to try it a few more times. This is one of the few scents that I haven't been able to say definitely yea or nay.... it's very mood-dependent (or weather-dependent, or something...) ADDED April 11: Floral, herbal and clean. It’s well blended and no single note is dominant. For an herb blend, it is strong and lasts a fairly long time – herbs usually fade quickly on me. I keep wanting to love this because of the description and inspiration, but I am forced to accept that herbal, green scents don’t fit my style or my nose or something. They smell lovely but nondescript – I think my nose just doesn’t pick up on the herbs. I never find myself reaching for them

The squashed maraschino cherry at the bottom of a Manhattan cocktail glass. This is bright in the bottle, but quickly quiets down to a voluptuous, earthy sweet luxury. I'm addicted. ADDED Aug. 29: This is a re-review (mods, no extra point for me!) but it’s different enough that I didn’t just want to edit my previous entry. I just got a big bottle, and the batch variation is so great that it’s almost like a new scent. I wonder if empi girl’s imp may have come from this batch, for while it’s not unpleasant as it was to her, it definitely has a sharp medicinal tang that was absent from my first imp. My original imp of Red Queen was all squashed cherry cocktail with a little woodsy backup. This bottle, however, is all sawdust-up-your-nose wood, with a little tangy cherry layered on. I still like this a lot, but it’s not quite the Queen I fell in love with.