Miss Lynx

I was looking forward to Cairo, because I really like Kyphi incense. It smelled a lot sweeter in the imp than I was expecting, but I wasn't particularly put off by that because one of the traditional ingredients in Kyphi is wine, and the wine note BPAL uses can smell really candy-sweet at first, but usually dries down to something more reasonable. On me, at first sniff it smelled a lot like Delphi, which makes sense since I'd imagine they have a few ingredients in common -- Delphi is bay laurel, honey, wine and incense, and Kyphi is an incense that contains wine and honey. I like Delphi, so this was promising. But then it began to evolve in an altogether different direction. The first sign of trouble was when my wife walked by my desk and said "Uh-oh -- something really doesn't smell good in here!" I sniffed my wrists again, and sure enough, it had morphed into a sharp, pungent, cloyingly sweet scent. It was a bit like the overly-sweet-commercial-perfume scent that Dragon's Heart, Snake Oil, and a handful of others turn into on me, but with an unpleasantly sharp, medicinal note injected into it for added nastiness. I stuck it out for a while to see if it would improve, but eventually gave in and washed it off. So, no Cairo for me. I don't know what exactly it has in it -- Kyphi traditionally has 16 ingredients, some of which are no longer available in modern times, so people make various substitutions for them. But as much as I like Kyphi incense, something in Cairo doesn't like me. Grade: D+

I had high hopes for Depraved, because I've found that fruity/earthy combinations tend to work pretty well on me, and overall, I'm not disappointed. It's funny how the interaction of just two ingredients can sometimes produce something unexpectedly complex... Unles maybe there's more in here than just the black patchouli and apricot that the Lab site lists. It's simultaneously sweet and juicy, and dark and earthy, with all kinds of interesting harmonics going on in the middle. Both Kettu and I could have sworn there was some hazelnut in there, and sometimes there seem to be some kind of green notes as well. At one point, she thought there was a scent like black walnut hulls in there... It really does seem to have a quirky multi-layeredness to it. I wouldn't call it a perfect scent -- the patchouli is kind of agressive, and sometimes verges on playground-bully behaviour, but fruit scents usually hold their own fairly well on me. The particular patchouli used in this blend is also kind of musty-smelling with an edge of decay, like damp earth, which I don't find too pleasant, but the apricot balances it out fairly well. And the scent stays fairly true on the drydown, though like most BPAL scents it doesn't last as long as I'd like, and overall the scent is not that strong. It lives up to its name pretty well -- it's simultaneously lush and dirty, like overripe fruit fallen on moist earth and just beginning to decay, smelling of both sensuality and a touch of corruption. I don't know if it will become a top favourite or not, but it's definitely a keeper. Grade: B

This does an excellent job at evoking what it's supposed to -- my first impression of it, both in the imp and on my skin, is very Indian. It smells like walking into an incense and herb store in Little India. Patchouli is what comes out the strongest in it as it settles into my skin, and I think there's also a strong element of sandalwood and maybe some frankincense or other incense resin. Plus just a tiny trace of some kind of flower - lotus or champa maybe? And for once, my skin is not amping the florals - it's the patchouli that dominates, to an extent I find not altogether pleasant. I think I've commented elsewhere on liking patchouli when it plays well with other scents, but not when it becomes the playground bully, as is kind of the case here. Though I am finding now that as it dries down more, the patchouli fades a bit. But so does everything else, to some degree anyway. It's not a bad scent, though, and I could see it being very good for its intended purpose. I don't really do yoga currently, but I've been thinking about starting, and I think this would probably be great to get me in the right headspace for it. But probably not as a daily-use perfume. Grade: B

I was expecting to hate this, because floral scents usually don't work on me at all, and Jasmine in particular usually amps up incredibly on my skin and becomes overpoweringly strong. And yet... It's not bad at all. It's a much softer scent than I expected - I thought it would be overpoweringly sweet and cloying, but it's not so much. It is certainly a sweet floral, but not excessively so. There's a touch of something light and warm and non-sweet in it - looking at the description, I see it's got sandalwood, musk and vanilla, so that makes sense. It's very soft and sensual, and stays close to the skin - it seems like almost a floral-tinged version of a natural skin-scent. I could see it being a very good date-night scent, which someone won't smell until they're close to you, and that it would just add that extra edge of fragrance and sexiness. It does seem to fade fairly quickly, but a lot of scents do that on me. I'm still not sure it's entirely me, but I think this is the closest thing I've found yet to a jasmine-based scent that I can actually wear. Grade: B

Bottled gloom; the essence of oblivion. Blackest opium and narcissus deepened by myrrh. I tried this at the same time as Peitho, one on each wrist, and my results were really quite opposite to what I expected. I thought this was the one I would like better, with the myrrh and the dark earthy edge it seemed like it would have... But no. I can smell that part of it in the background, but the florals are stomping all over it, and they're exactly the kind of high-pitched, cloyingly sweet florals that my skin loves to amp up to screaming levels. I get nothing spicy or smoky or any of that. Just full-oncloying, powdery floral assault with a faint touch of myrrh in the background. Overall it smells kind of like gothic baby powder. Definitely not for me. Peitho on the other hand behaved itself surprisingly well, but that's another review. Grade: D

OK, this is the polar opposite of Snake Charmer, which I tried earlier today. Snake Charmer was packed with notes I thought sounded really good, and yet it turned really unpleasant on my skin. Perversion is packed with notes I thought sounded awful, and yet it smells surprisingly nice on me. Fortunately, I am getting none of the coconut scent other people have mentioned from this (I like eating coconut, but hate the scent in perfumes). It smells more herbal/incensey to me than anything -- I guess maybe that's the tobacco? Considering that I can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke, tobacco in a scent would normally be a deal-breaker for me, but if that's what this is, it's not bad. And there's a sweet, vanilla-y base that guess must be the tonka, and a slightly fruity/boozy overtone. It is absolutely not a foody scent, though. I initially thought it was nice but not necessarily a "me" scent, but as it dries down, it's settling in nicely and has that warm aromatic fruity/incensey tone to it that some of my favourites do. I still don't think it's likely to become a favourite for me, but it's definitely a pleasant surprise. It's complex and hard to pin down, and seems to do a lot of slow shifting between different layers of scent. It's also relatively light, despite its richness. I had to put on a fair bit to get a strong impression of it. And there's a definite sensuality to it, that would probably work equally well on either gender. Between this and the Snake Charmer experience, I'm really wondering if I can trust my judgement of what I'd like based on descriptions at all! Maybe I just have to try everything. Except strong/sweet florals. Those I know are bad news on me. It's nice to be able to be sure of one thing, I guess. Grade: B, maybe B+

No, my CN order hasn't come in yet, but a lovely forumite just sent me an imp of Snake Charmer, so I get to try this one in advance. In the imp, it smells about like I expected -- spicy vanilla incense. Kind of what I expected Snake Oil to be, before it turned into horrible drugstore perfume on my skin. Snake Charmer doesn’t do that, but it does do some other weird stuff, unfortunately. The tiny element of coconut thankfully faded pretty quickly once I had it on, but what happened then was that an unexpected sharpness rose up that I hadn't smelled in the vial. It actually smells really citrussy to me -- like there was a big dose of lemon in here or something. Did anyone else get that at all? Maybe my skin is just weird. I can still smell the amber/vanilla and incense notes in the background, but for me this scent is dominated by a sharp/sweet citrussy note that smells like lemon drops, or candied fruit of some kind. Don't know if that's the plum or what, but I wouldn't have through plum would smell that sharp. Now it's drying down further and the lemon edge is fading a bit, but also starting to smell a little... synthetic, for lack of a better word. There's starting to be that Play-Doh element to it that you get in some bad vanilla perfumes. Oh dear. Not a happy-making development. Snake Oil did that too, once it got past the sweet-enough-to-kill-you stage. And there's also a touch of something that smells like burning plastic. It's so weird. There is nothing on the list of ingredients apart from the coconut that does not sound good to me. I was certain I would love it. But Snake Charmer is not charming me. There are notes in here that I do like, but they're being pushed into the background by the ones I don't. Grade: C ETA (Nov 24/05): My CN order finally showed up, and I tried Snake Charmer again, from the new bottle this time. And it's actually working out much better. I don't know if the imp I had before was just a little off, or what, but I'm not getting that sharp acidic edge this time, or at least not nearly to the same extent. There's a touch of tartness, but overall it's more of a warm vanilla/amber/musk type of scent, with a hint of spice -- more what I originally expected, in other words. And now, several hours later, I can confirm that it stayed nice all the way through. It's got pretty good staying power, too -- still there after around 6-7 hours. I’d still have to say I don’t like it as much as I originally thought I would -- it's pretty vanilla-dominated, with not as much of the other notes as I’d have liked -- but it is nice, and I'm not parting with my bottle! Still no idea why the original imp and the bottle turn out so differently on me, though. In the imp/bottle, they smell identical -- it's only on my skin that they change. Revised Grade: B+

Well, I guess my conversion to a fruity scent fan is now complete, because this has nothing but fruit in it according to the Lab description, but I really like it. And my growing suspicion that fig can pretty much do no wrong on my skin is confirmed. I don't think I've tried a single fig-containing scent that I haven't liked, apart from Dragon's Heart, and dragon's blood in general seems to hate me, so I'm not holding that one against the fig. Anyway, for what it's worth, Carnal definitely smells like more than just fruit. There's an earthiness to it, and a slightly spicy edge, which combine to make it smell a bit more like fruit-scented incense or candles than actual fruit. It's got a warmth to it, and a slightly smoky edge that reinforces the candle-like impression. Sweet, but not cloying, just rich and sensual. And it doesn't seem that overlty orangey to me -- more like some strange exotic spicy fruit that's not quite orange or fig but has elements of both and other things besides. Staying power, alas, is not great, unless I really slather it -- then I can still catch whiffs three or four hours later, at least from the more protected areas like my cleavage. But it's lovely enough to be worth reapplying, and I expect to go through this imp really, really fast. Grade: B+

Yet more evidence that dragon's blood is really not my friend. It's ironic, because I really like the smell of actual dragon's blood resin, especially as incense. But the oil has this cloyingly sweet, maraschino-cherry-ish scent to it, which is nothing like the resin and which I really don't like. There are a few blends with dragon's blood in them that I do like, but that seems to be more the exception than the rule. I do like the spiciness of this one, but spices over cloying sweetness don't really work for me. Wrath is basically Serpent's Kiss without the vetiver, or Blood without the myrrh (or cherry), and in both those scents, the earthiness of the heavier notes is part of what makes them work for me. I did find that once Wrath dried down for a while -- like an hour or more -- it started smelling quite nice on me, a spicy incensey smell that is probably more like what others get from it. That's actually what happened with Dragon's Heart and some of the other DB blends I've tried to, so I guess my skin eventually does make peace with DB, but it takes longer than I'm usually willing to wait. The eventual result may be nice, but I can smell like spicy incense right away if I just reach for the Chimera instead, so there's really no point in suffering through an hour of smelling like something you'd top a sundae with to get there. Grade: C

*blinks* Hey, I didn't realize I was under discussion in here! Wow, I'm famous! And it is, in fact, a seal in my icon, not a cat. A harbour seal named Lucy at the Niagara Falls Aquarium. They have a "seal encounter" program where you can be taken right into the seal enclosure to meet a seal, feed it, play with it, etc. and one of my partners got me that as a surprise present last time we went there. More pics here if anyone wants to see'em. But on the topic of the original post, yes, scents do often sweeten up a lot on my skin. But not so much in a candy-like way. It's mainly florals that my skin amps really strongly, so any scent with a little bit of floral smells a lot more floral on me, and any scent with a lot of floral becomes unbearable. There are a few other notes that do it too -- dragon's blood in certain combinations ends up smelling like cloyingly sweet, cheap drugstore perfume on me, but that one's tricky, because it doesn't do it all the time. Serpent's Kiss, Tintagel and Blood were all fine on me, but Dragon's Heart and Dragon's Musk were awful. Red musk sometimes does it too, I think. And something in Snake Oil, but I don't know what. And yes, like someone said, I've had pretty good luck with the gender-neutral and/or masculine ones. Not everything I like falls into those categories, but a lot does. And the masculine ones often smell completely different on me than they would on a guy. Black Forest, Fenris Wolf and Titus Andronicus, for example, don't smell at all masculine on me. I've also found that when it comes to sweet notes in a scent, fruits don't go nearly as strong on me as florals do, so they're often a safer bet. What you need to do is find out which notes, or categories of notes, are the ones that your skin does amp up -- is it all sweet scents, or just certain kinds? Once you know, you can avoid them. And definitely have a look through the gender-neutral and masculine scents. There's a list pinned in this forum, I think. Gender should never be a barrier when it comes to smelling good.

I didn't like this so much when I first tried it the other day, but I wasn't sure I was ready to write it off, so I tried it again today, and I'm glad I did. It initially struck me as way too floral for me -- in particular, heliotrope and I don't tend to get along unless it's well masked by other notes. But this time it seems like the other notes are coming out more strongly, so I get more of the berries, amber and musk, all of which I quite like, and a slightly cinnamon-y scent that I'm guessing is the carnation. Doesn't smell foody at all on me -- the berries and spice are well-balanced by the rest of it, and there's a Haunted-ish undertone to it. I do still get a fair bit of floral of it, which I suspect my skin is amping since other people don't seem to have found it all that floral, but not enough to kill it for me. I don't see it necessarily being a top favourite -- it's a lot more, well, girly than the scents I like best tend to be -- but I do like it, and will definitely keep using the imp. I guess by the time that's done we'll see if it's something I need a bottle of or not. Grade: B, maybe B+

I was looking forward to trying this one, partly because I lived in Tenochtitlan (well, its modern-day incarnation, Mexico City) for a while as a child. But it really wasn't what I expected. On me, this is a sweet, mild, not-very-interesting fruity floral. Nothing especially herbal, spicy or incensey about it, at least not until way into the drydown when it's already getting pretty faint. Definitely not getting much in the way sage or coriander or anything like that. For the capital of the Aztec empire, I'd really have expected a little more darkness. I guess it's the pear and the poppy that are dominating it for me, and making it the kind of bland fruit-floral scent that I associate with pretty soaps at the Body Shop or Bath & Body Works. It's a "pretty" scent in the way that Xiuhtecuhtli is, but not even as interesting as that one. Not doing too well with the Aztec scents, here. Oh well, maybe Tezcatlipoca will like me better... Grade: C+

Oh, wow. I wasn't sure if I'd like this or not, but I really do. And I am now kicking myself for not including it in my CN order. I was tempted, but the array of different notes was just a little too freaky, and in particular I was worried it would be overly foody. But at the same time, I was curious enough about it to eventualy score an imp. And now I want a bottle. Want want want. This is really nice. It is not too foody, or too sweet, or too any one thing. It's got the same kind of strange and ever-shifting assortment of seemingly incompatible notes that things like Nephilim and Voodoo and Nemesis have, and on me, at least, it really works. I can't stop sniffing myself. It's definitely fruity, but also a little bit spicy, and earthy, and incensey, and I-don't-know-what. It's funny -- after a recent run of scents that didn't work out all that well for me, I was starting to wonder if maybe I'd already tried all the BPAL scents I was really going to like and from here on it was all going to be downhill. But no -- still plenty of surprises out there, and this is a definite addition to my A-list. Well, when my CN order does come, possibly one of the scents in there won't work so well for me, and I can swap it for a bottle of this. Because I can see myself going through the imp pretty fast -- its staying power isn't great, though it's not nearly as short-lived as some that I've tried recently, and it's yummy enough to be worth frequent re-applying. Grade: A

Hmmm... I was hoping to like this more than I actually did. I've lately been curious about trying more of the "traditionally masculine" scents, since discovering the greatness of Titus Andronicus, which is fast becoming a top favourite. And a lot of the feminine scents are too sweet for me. This one sounded nice, both from the description and the reviews, but I wasn't so impressed with it in person. It's nice, but not really very exciting. Kind a clean, slightly citrussy, herbal. A bit like a more androgynous version of Mantis, really. And like Mantis, sadly, it pulled a rapid disappearing act on my my skin. Not quite as fast as Mantis did, but it's been less than an hour and it's no longer perceptible on my wrists, and only slightly in the crooks of my arms. The only place it stayed at all strong was in my cleavage, and frankly I'm, um, well-endowed enough in that area that it may have actually formed an airtight seal. So, pleasant enough, but not a winner. Maybe I'll try it on the boy. Grade: C+/B-

This was one of the scents I was originally going to put in my first Lab order back in June, but then I found the reviews and got scared off by the citrus element people were focussing on. However, once I got over being scared of fruity notes, I looked at the description again and realized it did sound really, really nice, and eventually I found someone selling some on Livejournal. It smelled divine in the imp -- only slightly citrussy, with a nicely complex herbal/resinous based under that. When first applied to my skin, it was likewise lovely enough that I ended up putting on a fair bit of it, convinced I'd just found a new favourite. And then -- voom! Away it went! In under ten minutes. By the end of 15, I could pick up a slight scent if I pressed my nose right into the crook of my arm, but it was literally no stronger than the remnants of the previous day's Delphi that I'd still been able to catch a whiff of the next morning. I know I often comment on scents not lasting terribly long on me, but this was one of a very few that just fade freakishly fast, even by my standards. Thanatopsis and Silk Road are the only other two I can think of that disappear this fast. As in, better take a good sniff while it's still wet as that's likely the only chance you'll get. Ah well. That very, very faint scent was left after 15 minutes did stick around for a while afterward, but only at a barely-perceptible level. So maybe it's not so much that it disappears as such, but fades down to a Sudha Segara level of extreme subtlety. Mantis, I would have loved you if you'd stayed at a decent level of strength for any time at all. As it is... Grade: Initial scent B+/A, staying power D, overall grade: B/B-

Patron of the Aztec pantheon, he is the personification of light within darkness, warmth in the cold, and life in, and after, death. He is a creative and destructive God of Fire and Light, and is appeased only by sacrifice, trial, and the slaughter of his people's enemies. Copal, plumeria and sweet orange and the smoke of South American incense and crushed jungle blooms. The Lab included a free imp of this in my latest order, and I'm glad they did. Though I must say, for an elder male god who was honoured by having victims burned on hot coals after their hearts were cut out, this is a very pretty scent, and seems more feminine than masculine to me. It's got distinct floral, fruity and incensey elements to it, and for a pleasant change the floral element does not rise up and overpower everything else. Maybe plumeria, a.k.a. frangipani (I had to look it up in Wikipedia since I didn't know what it was) is one of the few florals that works on me. There's also a very lush, wet, tropical feel to it -- it's oddly watery for a fire god's scent. I suppose on one level it's no surprise that I like it -- it's got copal in it as a major note, and that's one of my all-time favourite scents. Copal was what pushed Chimera from just a nice spicy scent into cinnamon bliss for me, and it works very nicely as a base for this scent too. I can smell the orange, but with the other notes it seems more like some exotic tropical fruit than regular orange to me. Slightly reminiscent of Kuang Shi, to me. All in all, a very nice scent, with a fresh, lush, watery feel to it, but alas, very little longevity. I only put it on maybe half an hour ago, if that, and it's already nearly gone on my wrists and only a little stronger in the crooks of my arms. But what there is of it is quite nice. I'd rank it higher if it lasted a mroe reasonable length of time, but as it is... Grade: B

The smoke of Sacred Incense of Apollo twined through laurel branches, bay, and honey wine. Oh, wow -- this is gorgeous! A little scary at first contact -- when it first hit my skin it had that overwhelmingly sweet grape candy note that Lilith also had. But thankfully that faded within a couple of minutes, into a really rich and complex honey/bay/wine/incense scent. Really, really evocative... If I closed my eyes, I could see myself in the Oracle's cave. It had an almost intoxicating effect, and also made my mouth water although it's not at all a foody scent in any normal sense. And I can now confirm that Bay is the note I liked in Jolly Roger -- there, it just showed hints of itself that made me want to somehow pull it out from the rest of the scent, which I mostly didn't like, and smell it by itself. Here, it adds a beautiful spiciness to the scent and keeps it from being too sweet. Lovely. About the only down side is that, like a lot of scents I like, it doesn't last very long. Within an hour or so, it had faded down to a very soft, subtle spicy-fruity scent. Still pleasant enough, but not nearly as lovely as it was at its full strength Grade: B (was: B+) ETA: Hmm, I posted too soon. Got to wait a few more hours, because some scents do keep on changing after that... In this case, after an hour or so more had passed, the spicy was all gone and all that was left was a vaguely grapey scent, like a diminished version of the grape candy note that it starts out with. Not so good. And that scent lasted until the following morning on me! I still like the full-strength version of the scent, and the beginnings of the fadeout, but I think I'm downgrading it to a B.

I wanted to like this one so much more than I did. It's not bad, but it's not nearly as nice as I'd hoped it would be. Dark, spicy, fruity, incensey scents are exactly the sort of thing I love best, but this one doesn’t seem to love me back, or at least not all that much. On first application, I get the clove, and something dark and a little off-smelling, but I also get a big blast of what appears to be almond, which as far as I know isn't supposed to be in this. Thankfully that doesn't last too long (I intensely dislike the scent of almond -- actual almonds are fine, but almond extract and Amaretto and that sort of thing smell awful to me). It was actually very similar to Voodoo, where fortunately the almond note also fades quickly. Eventually, the fruit notes come out a bit more, and then it became almost pleasant, but there was still a bit of something harsh and grating in there, that didn't quite go with the other scents. I don't think it could have been the patchouli -- patchouli ordinarily makes a very good base for scents like this. One of the incense resins, I guess. The eventual drydown is not bad, but it also starts fading significantly by that point. There are aspects to this scent that remind me not only of Voodoo, but also of Blood, Vixen and Chimera, all of which I quite like, but somehow in this scent the different elements don't seem to mesh together quite as well as that could. I don't know; I don't dislike it, but I certainly don't like it as much as I'd expected to from the description. Oh, and just to add insult to injury, my partner said it smelled like cat pee. I'll probably give it a couple more tries, though, before giving up on it. It's not without appeal, it's just... not what I wanted it to be. Grade: B/B-

I really like amber, so I was hoping the fact there are supposed to be five kinds of it in here might outweigh the floral notes, but no such luck. As soon as it hit my skin, it went fiercely floral and overpoweringly sweet. Far too girly a scent for me. After drying down for a while, though, the amber came out a bit more. But at the same time, it starting fading away, at least on my wrists, so as the scent got more ambery, it also got weaker all around. In the crooks of my arms it's stayed a bit stronger, but also still heavily floral, with only the faintest undertone of amber. No apples either. Orange blossom may smell like oranges on me, but apparently apple blossom does not smell like apples. It's a just a generic, near-sickeningly sweet floral. Oh well. I guess for amber scents I'll have to stick with Haunted, the Lion and Titus A. Grade: D+/C-

Well, this is frustrating. I really like this scent, what I can get of it, but it's so faint! Even freshly on, I have to put my nose right down to it to smell it all, and of course it fades even more on drydown. It's like this one was somehow prepared at 1/4 strength or something. I'd be wondering if I got a diluted imp, were it not for the other people who’ve posted about this scent being weak. But I do like it... It's slightly reminiscent of the white tea and ginger hand soap from Bath & Body Works, but softer, and more real-smelling. It's almost like the natural skin scent of a really nice-smelling person, with just a hint of ginger over it... And it actually does hang in there for a while, albeit at the same really subtle and faint level that it initially dries down to. Maybe if I slathered it on really heavily it might actually work for me. But as it stands, it's more of a tease than anything. Grade: B

I didn't originally know what the name referred to, so I Googled it and found the poem, though not until after I'd tried the oil. But I think it makes a certain amount of sense... I could see this scent being evocative of ghoul-haunted woodlands, dim lakes, and funeral flowers. Thankfully, the lilies didn't amp up too severely on my skin... They were strong enough that I'd still characterize this scent as more floral than not, at least on me, but they weren't unbearably strong. There's a nice earthy/foresty undertone to it, that fortunately was in no way similar to the nasty graveyard dirt note from Zombi. And I can definitely get the aquatic element. My overall impression was that it smelled swampy, though not in a bad way. A faint whiff of almost-too-sweet flowers in a damp, boggy forest. It's pretty well-balanced -- not so floral as to be overly sweet, but not so earthy or swampy as to be unpleasant. Definitely a haunting scent that stirs strange images in the mind. But not, alas, a particularly long-lasting one. I put it on (for the second time that day), left the house and walked for about 20 minutes to meet my partner at the local occult shop, and by the time I got there, she had a hard time smelling it on me without pressing her nose right to my arm. Oh well. Still nice enough that I'll almost certainly use up the imp. Grade: B

This is quite lovely. As with Kuang Shi and The Red Queen, two of my other recent experiments with fruity scents, the fruit note -- apple in this case -- is quite prominent, but there are other notes balancing it out and keeping it from being too foody. I don't really get the amber as such, but there's definitely something softening and mellowing the apple, which is probably that. And there's an underlying darkness and slight spiciness that keep it from smelling like the green apple soap at the Body Shop or anything like that. It has a slightly smoky, incensey edge to it that makes me think of apple-scented candles more than actual apples. Or maybe some kind of magical apples of the Otherworld. After a while, the apple settles into the mix more and isn't as distinct, and it's just a nice scented-candle type scent that's no longer that strongly fruity, but still very pleasant. Grade: B+

Like Kuang Shi, this was a venture into testing how far my newfound liking for fruity scents goes. And it's a very interesting one. On first contact, it was cherry overkill -- incredibly strong and sweet and fruity to the point of being kind of pungent. But in the imp I'd been able to get an impression of other notes as well, so I let it settle in for a bit to see what it would evolve into. Within a few minutes, the initial cherry blast had faded a bit, and all kinds of new elements were coming forward, making it unfold into something really rich and complex and hard to describe. I could definitely still smell the cherry and currant, but now they were intertwined with much darker, earthier notes, giving it a sort of bittersweet depth that I found very appealing. Unfortunately, the staying power is not great --- within an hour and a bit it's faded down a lot, to the point where I need to put my nose pretty close to my wrists to smell it, but even as a subtle scent, it's pretty nice. Grade: B/B+

I've been wanting this one for a while, but was also a bit wary as red musk and I are not always friends. When I finally got it, it smelled nice in the imp, but so did Dragon's Heart and various other red musk scents that turned evil as soon as they touched my skin. But thankfully, whatever it is that turns red musk into drugstore-perfume-hell on me is absent in this one. It did go a tad perfumey at the very beginning, but didn't stay that way for long. Pretty much as soon as it dried down, it turned into a spicy version of Fenris Wolf, the one red musk scent I'd found thus far that did work on me. It's yummy spicy incensey goodness, and with a very sensual/sexual edge to it -- I would be all over someone wearing this. Scherezade definitely goes onto my list of good date-night scents, along with Sin, Vixen and Desire. It doesn't last as long as I might like, but then, relatively few of the scents I like do. But it's lovely enough to be worth reapplying. Grade: A (was: B+) ETA: On further experimentation, I find myself falling in love with this one. I've upped it to an A.

Doesn't smell too maddening to me -- it's actually quite nice, kind of a light, spicy vetiver. It's very similar to this French vetiver cologne that I bought several years ago but haven't worn for some while: Vetyver by Roger et Gallant. It's a nicely balanced, fairly gender-neutral scent, in which the heaviness of the vetiver is offset by the sweetness of the tangerine and the spiciness of the saffron and cedar, and the whole scent is mellowed and balanced by the amber. I could picture it being a Victorian men's cologne or something, though I like it just fine on me too. The scent doesn't change much over time, and actually has quite good staying power -- I could still smell it 6-8 hours later, which is not common on me at all. And while vetiver is one of the notes that usually does last the longest on me -- that and oakmoss -- usually the rest of the scent disappears over time and leaves nothing but that one note. Not so here -- the whole scent seems to last nicely. All in all, quite nice, though not necessarily likely to become a top favourite. Grade: B