reconditarmonia

Smelling it in the imp it's incredibly lovely and herbal - not as in "This is a Herbal Perfume" but as if I actually went out to the garden and rubbed a sprig of lavender between my fingers. Unfortunately, on my skin it goes to a metallic pennyroyal and then fades within a few minutes.

Unsurprisingly this is somewhat similar to Dawn: Maiden and to Katrina van Tassel, but I like it less; it's more citrusy and, argh I can't describe it, feels "smaller" somehow.

Against Idleness and Mischief is a fantastic honey scent. It makes me think of happy bees.

I thought I'd love this one, but I don't, really. It just isn't all that pleasant. Could do with stronger cream/honey.

I wasn't sure I'd like this because vanilla has ruined some other scents for me, but it's actually quite nice. The lavender is truer than I expected, and it isn't overly foody.

The scent of sexual obsession, slavery to sensual pleasure, and the undercurrent of innocence defiled utterly. Amber and honey with a touch of vanilla. I was hoping this would be a perfect honey scent, and instead it's all vanilla and amber. Woe is me.

(2010) Oooooooh. I thought nothing could top London for rose scents (okay admittedly there are loads of plain rose scents I haven't tried but hush) but when I wear them at the same time for comparison, Peacock Queen just knocks it out of the water. It's more full, more sweet - ohgosh.

Important lavender question! Most of the blends that have lavender listed as an ingredient don't specify which kind of lavender. French lavender is herbal and more like a cooking seasoning, while English lavender is sweeter and more floral. So...if you can identify it, which blends have English lavender?

Amber Dawn, you might like Against Idleness and Mischief, maybe. I can't speak to its similarity to Door because Door was all cistus on me, ack, but Against Idleness is wonderful honey and chamomile with tonka, which is apparently kind of like vanilla. (Vanilla doesn't work on me either - too sweet - so this may not be helpful.) Then again, depending on what other notes you don't mind having in it, there are a couple of milk'n'honey blends with other things in, I think - like Alice of Dawn: Maiden, which have rose, carnation, blah blah blah.

I get the impression that this would be a great scent for summer or winter: the honey musk and vanilla (which doesn't make it cloying! maybe because it's vanilla bean) are cuddly, but the green tea leaf keeps it cool. It seems very sophisticated, but not like a traditional "sophistication!" scent. I get blackberry, too, and a bit of spice.

I'd love to get the honey that everyone else seems to be getting, but on me there's too much cistus (labdanum) to distinguish any of the other notes, and unlike in Magdalene (the other labdanum scent I've tried), this one doesn't give way to the other components. Alas...

Goes on smelling like hair spray (I know people say rose does this to them, but BPAL roses tend to love me so I blame the frankincense). That impression fades away after a bit, but it's still a lot more frankincense (+ saffron? I don't know what saffron smells like) and a lot less rose and honey than I hoped.

Luckily, the beeswax didn't turn to cologne in this one, like it did in other beeswax blends I've tried. Instead, I get a lot of amber with a sort of foody beeswax undertone, which the ozone and the opaline notes act on to give the impression of a sort of rich amber dusting powder. No rose.

Wet, I get all flowers (but not rose) and no cream, honey, or amber. Not as warm and yellow as the painting, but I definitely see how it relates - it smells all clean, like I've just got out of the bath. Would that be the skin musk? Never very strong, after a few minutes, it's all but gone. I like the non-aquatic clean smell, but if it doesn't even last as long as the clean smell from an actual shower, there's no real point. Edit: I get a leeeeetle cream as time goes on. But I already have cream scents I like, and this one is very faint.

Skin musk, sugar cane, honey, beeswax, vanilla flower, and copal. Aaaaahhh, now I know what the note is that made Philologus smell so much like cologne! It's BEESWAX! And I love how beeswax smells in real life! I was expecting this to be sweet and honeyed and feminine - but it's just...cologne. I think I'll be passing this on. I know many people will appreciate it better than I could. EDIT: Okay, it's not cologney any more. Now it actually is sweet and honeyed and feminine...but perhaps juuust a bit on the too-sweet/foody side, thank you sugar and vanilla. Still passing it on, but a little more reluctantly.

Admittedly this was bound to be a fail on me because it's a nice, simple blend of two notes I don't like, but it's worse than I expected. Really sharp and awful. Gets a little better in drydown, but not enough to prevent me from going to wash this off right now.

Very green. I definitely get the cypress. Not my thing.

Fruit, smoke, forest. Not for me, though since this was a frimp and the only way it would have worked on me would have been if everything disappeared but the roses, I'm not too disappointed.

This sounded perfect for me - I adore lavender and I adore honey - but, not so much. Lavender is always really weak on me, and this ends up smelling clean and slightly tangy rather than what I was hoping for. I'll have to give it a little time.

Haven't tried them, but some GCs with grass are Rosalind and Amsterdam.

Starts out with an unpleasant green-resin smell which I guess is the labdanum, but in the drydown it's largely rose, and BPAL rose loves me. The orchid comes out after a while, too. Wouldn't buy a bottle - it's not as nice as my other rose scent, London - but I'll finish my half-imp.

In the imp (decant from glasspillars! <3) I can definitely smell the blackcurrant from Lurid. On me, the currant recedes as I get a weird sort of dry, almost toast-y scent. (castoreum? labdanum? opoponax?) It's very like Lurid in the drydown - the blackcurrant comes back - but not as nice, I don't think. Less sweet, more masculine, more of the notes mentioned above. I was hoping it would be blackcurrant-lavender-magnolia-rose, but I'm not getting much of the latter three. Verdict: Finish imp, but no bottle for me.

Oy. Smells just like cologne when I put it on - it's really, really familiar for some reason, but I can't place exactly what cologne it smells like. Dries down to a slightly warmer/manlier/more cologne-y (incensy?) version of Dee (leather and books). I don't pick up the wax per se, but that's probably what's warming it. I may finish my decant (thank you glasspillars! <3), despite the terrible start it gets off to, but I definitely wouldn't buy a bottle. Alas, the perfect book scent evades me.

Eep, this is a bit too dark and smoky for me. Not "OMG get it off" bad, but not me, either. (I'm definitely getting incense, leather and tobacco - I can't really smell musk in general and I can't identify ambergris, so, er.)

Provenance: Frimp (a few months over one year old, that I'm getting around to reviewing) Judgment: Not for me. I can sort of get the "linen" note if I think about it - like hot detergent-y laundry - but "wet" rather than dry. In any case, it's just toooooo sweet and clear.