skyelyric

Let me preface this by saying this is the first thing I've tried with a leather note because, frankly, the idea scared me. Wow. It actually does smell like leather, I get pure well-worn but clean leather almost exclusively while it's wet. What amazes me is that I like this! As it dries, it turns a little sweeter, with hints of vanilla and something else swirling around, but it stays very elegant and understated, and very unisex...I might have to soul (and wallet) search on getting this one now

Saw Scaled Viper is definitely *not* subtle. To me it smells like red hots wet, only deeper, more complex, and it dries into rich woody cinnamon with wafts of the other spices and the Snake Oil floating around. If you can handle being distinctly cinnamon, this is gorgeous.

Um, ouch. I get a breath of sweet florals and then straight up chili powder...what on earth did my chemistry do to this???

In the imp and wet on my skin, this is a beautiful boozy/fruity almond on me, reminds me very much of amaretto sour cocktails. As it dries though, the almond and tart notes fade and I get an overwhelmingly sweet muddle. So I'm just left with a yearning for an amaretto sour.

Wow. This is what cinnamon redhots would smell like if they didn't smell fake. I know that makes no sense at all, but it's got the wicked spicy vibe and sweetness of redhot candies, but a much more real cinnamon smell with it. I don't get any of the other notes to stand out on my skin, but it ends up being a really lovely, complex cinnamon.

Just whiffing off the imp wand I got a very sour note, doesn't bode well, but meh. On my skin, this is a sweet, light, watery floral, and as it dries it turns into sunshine and clean laundry. Not sure I would wear this out, but it's a really nice scent to have wafting around while I'm gardening or hanging around on the back patio.

A celebration of the Nativity: the light, uplifting incense of the Misa de Noche Buena, purple sage, and a vibrant bouquet of plumeria, chrysanthemum, tuberose, Angel's Trumpet, Mexican tiger lily, dahlia, and azucenas. I don't get any incense out of this at all, maybe because it's fairly aged at this point. On me it's a bright, almost syrupy chrysanthemum. I think I'll be happy with my little tester, since it's not a particularly "me" scent, but it is quite lovely.

Dragon's blood is interesting to me because I get non-skunking jasmine out of it. Wet, that's all I'm getting out of Dragon's Bone. As it dries, I get warm, dusty woods, but on my skin the dragon's blood stays too present and it's just too sweet to be something I would wear.

This totally does not jive with the description for me. Was a frimp in my last order, and to my nose it's a kind of butterscotch/caramelly/coconutty white musk. It's not bad, but it's really, really sweet, and white musk is generally a death note on me--this seems to be behaving in a similar fashion.

I like almond notes, I like spices, this should work, right? Wet in the imp I get a honey sweetness, toasted almonds, and an odd green chili note that Forspecialplate mentioned. On my skin? Corn chips. This has seriously been my most entertaining BPAL yet. After half an hour or so it settles into a sort of nondescript sweetness on my arm, but I don't think I could generally keep a straight face long enough for it to get there.

I've tried a couple of the Snake Pits, and on me, Saw Scaled Viper is basically an atomic fireball candy that mellows into a cinnamon vanilla with some woody undertone. Habu seems to dry into smoky vanilla, but there's something almost watermelon candy-like about it wet. I don't mind fresh SO that much, but it is rather heavy and incense-y lab-fresh, so I can see why it might not be a universal favorite. I'll make sure I keep half an imp locked away to see what it's like aged. A lot of people on the sales page have decants of the Snake Pit blends, you could always look up reviews to see which sound the most promising and go from there.

I actually got a frimp of Dragon's Bone today and it's quite interesting. It's very dragon's blood when wet, but it gradually dies down into a sweet, spicy dry wood. Might be worth a try for you.

w...t......f? black tea and dried apricots. where in the bloody blue blazes did apricot come from? i literally just broke into my package, so it's still travel-addled, but totally not expected. so of course i adore it. while it's drying on my skin this really reminds me of a less-syrupy Aglaea, sweet, with tart fruit, and just now a tiny peeping-out of what might be vanilla or linen, something soft and powdery. i'll have to revisit this when it's settled, but it's quite fun now. =)

Baobhan Sith. Something bright and fruit-tinted and sparkling

Mourning Moon seems to remind my family matriarchs of Shalimar. ETA: Of the tea blends, any come to mind that are similar to Hermes Osmanthe Yunnan? On me this is a beautiful light tart apricot-y tea that dries into something sweeter with a touch of powder. It's not floral, it's not really fruity, it doesn't scream tea, it's just a subtle, sophisticated scent. The best note description I could find was:

file under: hmm, that's an experience Frimped to me by a lovely forumite...I seriously love random frimps just for the experience...In the imp and wet this is seriously earthy, a little sweet, a little herby...like the mud you'd get by spilling root beer on the ground. As it dried it got a little smoky, a little more bitter, and just...um, yeah. Thankfully I have the practice of trying iffy scents right before a shower. And here's a surprise...Drown Baron Samedi and he behaves? The minute water hit my arm I got this lovely waft of scent that I could not identify at all as something I had on, but sure enough, I smelled my test spot and it's really nice. In place of the funky soda dirt I now have a clean, tangy bay with undertones of lime and pine to my nose. Masculine, but not overly so, and now I can't stop sniffing my arm. I seriously might wear this in the summertime, just have to let it dry on my skin and then splash it with water.

Thanks for the recommendations. I think I'm going to go ahead and spring for a bottle of Inez and then lurk about the sales posts and see what decants I can snag to try the rest. Addict? What, me?! Never!

Resurrecting this thread looking for suggestions... I would dearly love to pick up a CD blend or two, but I can't afford more than that one or two...I've discovered I like wood and spice notes, amber, and vanilla and honey seem to play nice on my skin. Jasmine and patchouli are serious death notes; I don't really do many florals well in general either. With that preface, the short list: Saw-Scaled Viper Habu Aeronwen Inez Gennivre and Marcilla sound really interesting too, but I think with the still cold weather here I'm leaning towards warmer scents.

Whitechapel and Phobos are citrusy white musk; Whitechapel is the softer feeling scent of the two. Katharina is a fruity floral white musk. I amp white musk in about everything but Embalming Fluid (which leads me to believe there's very little in there), so those come across as pretty much pure white musk on me after the top notes burn off.

Ooo...I like violets. This is kind of a cool purple sweet scent on me, reminds me of the violet pastille candies. I don't really get many of the other notes, probably because musk amps to holy hell on me and gets really sweet, but at least the violet it strong enough to stand up to it. I'll have to pick up Ultraviolet at some point because I love the violet note in here, it just gets a little too sweet for my tastes.

Wow, gotcha watch this one, it gets shifty. When Spider first arrived it was quite heavily citrus, and it is very masculine (which in my case was the point since it's destined to be a friend's birthday gift). I skin tested a bit and it was a clean, citrusy cologne on me, seems like a winner. It's been sitting in the frog box chilling for a couple weeks, and today I snitched an imp for myself, and decided to try another skin test as I was packing up sniffie gifts. This time it's dominated by the vetiver, I think, which is giving it a piney quality. After it's been on my hand for an hour or so, some spicy citrus is peeking out, and it's gorgeous. Overall, Spider is enigmatic and dead sexy, I'm really hoping it smells this good on my friend.

Got this as a frimp, and it's...very interesting. In the imp and wet it's like defiled communion wine, for lack of a better description. It's got that sweet purpliness to it, but the dirt and something else twist it around. When it dries down it gets a lot softer and melds together and I get a kind of powdery sweet herby thing going on. I don't think this is for me, but I'm glad I got to try it out. Going to pass this on to a male friend and see how he does with it.

Ether is really cold and white to my nose, a head-clearing floral. It's nice for a while, but then something goes a little off on my skin after an hour or so and I get something that reminds me of the perfume scratch-and-sniff in a book we had when I was little. Crazy sweet and synthetic. Scent memories are screwy things, eh? Would have been a very pretty scent except for the skin chemistry weirdness.

In the imp, this is lovely--straight up sharp citrus peel and jasmine. However, knowing my tendency to rot jasmine, I wasn't planning on this going anywhere near my skin. With that preface, we know that when I recap the imp it's going to drip, and to avoid marring the label I will quickly wipe it on my arm. /sigh What?! No mutant death jasmine? I seriously am shocked. This starts on my skin as loads of citrus with a little fresh floral jasmine peeking through, and then when the citrus fades (it's citrus, it has the lifespan of a fruitfly) I'm left with a soft, delicate jasmine. I keep waiting for the rot to ensue and it never does. It's fairly light and fading quickly, but very, very pretty while it lasts.