Floria

I get lavender and honeysuckle out of this. It is relaxing, more so than simply smelling something pleasant is for me, but in the amounts I use (I'm a dabber, not a slatherer), it's not strong enough to wind down my keyed up night owl ADHD brain on its own. I do like the smell, and it's definitely more relaxing than the other lavender blends I've tried to use as amateur aromatherapy, but the effect isn't very strong.

This is strong and very sweet, but not quite unbearably so. I'm wary of honey, but honey + flowers + sandalwood seems to be more wearable on me than the honey + wine of Athens and Delphi. There's a point at which this is almost foody on me, and at certain points on the drydown it develops a slightly dusty undertone that must be the sandalwood. My body chemistry's a bit in flux at the moment, so I'll have to test it again. As it is, it's not entirely my style but I'll keep it on hand for occasions on which I want to feel like a glamorous ancient Phoenician.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Twilight Sparkle: Arcana, maybe Dee Applejack: the Hesperides or Tombstone Rarity: Venice or Roses, Pearls, and Diamonds Pinkie Pie: Eat Me, layered with Chaotic Fluttershy: The Little Sparrow, maybe a light, innocent floral like Desdemona Rainbow Dash: Hurricane

I didn't get any rooibos in this, which was no surprise, since it's not a very strong smell in the nature of things and my skin eats tea. What I get is a slightly creamy, nutty, oddly familiar scent with a bit of exotic spice to it. I was a bit worried about the fennel and licorice, since I get a lot of anise in Absinthe, but they behaved themselves. The drydown reminds me a little of the amber and pink pepper base of Hermia, but foodier - maybe with some Indian rice pudding? I wouldn't mind a bit more spice, but as it is this is an interesting blend that doesn't turn my wrists bright pink.

Maybe you could try layering Rogue from the RPG collection with one of the pirate scents, if you don't mind leather. It's not nautical by itself, but it has rosin and hemp.

Drae - I ordered a few days ago, and I decided on Snow White. When in doubt, go with the classics.

Sweet, a bit powdery, incensy-spicy, exotic in a slightly headshop-ish sort of way. There's a bit of a bite to it that might be clove or one of the sharper incense resins. It has lasting power. It didn't smell as sultry as I expected, but that could either be body chemistry or the age of the blend - I've had the imp for about a month. With all I've heard about the wonders of aged Snake Oil, it'll be interesting to see what time will do.

Ave Maria Gratia Plena might be worth a try. It has jasmine, orris, and sandalwood.

Ogygia might deserve a mention. Most of the reviewers just got aquatic-and-something, but it's the only perfume I've ever seen that combines violets, wild celery, and seaweed.

Goblin is rather an odd scent - none of the ingredients are that unusual, but combined, it smells like old-fashioned makeup. Very evocative, at least if you ever spent time as a kid playing with your older relatives' scented face powder. Some of the RPG scents are rather offbeat.

Disclaimer: I'm getting over a cold, and my nose might be off. In all honesty, this wasn't what I expected. It's pleasant, but I didn't get nearly as much of a cake feel as I'd anticipated. In part, this is because it's not buttery, and I'm getting a lot of the currant - it's at least as much a fruity scent as a bakery one. As sweet berry combinations go, this is lighter and more versatile than Lampades or Bewitched, where the musk + berries can get a bit too heavy for close quarters or warm weather. The combination of bakery sweetness and tart fruit reminds me a tiny bit of the toasty amber and passion flower in Hermia, oddly enough.

I haven't tried it, but Bones Trombone from the Monsterbait series has a lemon meringue note.

If you like a bit of sass in your feminine florals and don't mind amber or a bit of fruitiness, there's Hermia. Pink pepper, golden amber, honeysuckle, and passion flower.

A little background: I'm fine with most florals - and stargazer lilies are one of my favorite flowers - but something in either my skin or my nose does not like the lily note in Black Lily and Sheol. (I can wear Lampades, although it's more cranberry potpourri to me than florals, and lily of the valley/muguet is fine.) Have any other lily-challenged BPALers tried Ave Maria Gratia Plena, and did it work for you? I'm going through a bit of a rosewood phase right now, and it seems like an interesting blend of notes, but I'm worried that the "dusting of lily" is going to make the whole production turn bitter.

If you want to make Chocolate Chip Cookies with GCs, I'd suggest layering. Maybe Bliss + Dana O'Shee for chocolate chip oatmeal cookies with a hint of almond extract, or Bliss with one of the vanilla + amber blends if your skin chemistry makes the amber go toasty rather than powdery. (I'd suggest O, or aged Mouse's Long and Sad Tale if you don't amp sweet pea.)

I really don't need two big bottles of "cold, soft and sweet girly winter scent," so I've decided to buy Snow White or Pink Snowballs, not both. However, I'm having a hard time deciding which one I should get. I like vanilla, but I'm well supplied with vanilla-dominant scents, and if I'm going to buy another big bottle I want it to be more of an ensemble than The Vanilla Show. Suggestions? Comparisons? Relevant personal experiences?

I'd look for scents with a vanilla + amber base. It's a popular combination, and gives a very nice sweet, toasty warmth on the dry-down. Then pick whatever top notes sound good to you! (Mouse's Long and Sad Tale is lovely, Golden Priapus is very pleasant but the pine is more bracing than snuggly, I haven't tried Tamora but it sounds yummy.)

Fair warning - I'm getting over a cold right now, and likely to miss some nuances. At first, on my skin, this is evergreen and dusty incense - like unburned incense sticks or perhaps incense ash. Given some time, this develops into an interesting blend of evergreen and the type of incense I associate with shops selling Asian imports and other exotica. It's not as as sweet as I thought it might be, and I'd consider it a unisex blend. Along with the occult-shop associations, it makes me think of mages doing a ritual in the woods or outdoor fantasy roleplaying.

It's midwinter and I'm getting over a cold, so I suspect I'm not really experiencing this scent at its best. But anyway - This is a sharp-edged scent. The mint is fairly penetrating and mentholic, which in my current state is not a bad thing. There's an initial bit of bitterness, probably from the champagne + grapefruit combo, which isn't the way I normally like my citrus perfumes, but isn't entirely unpleasant. Combined with the mint, it would probably be very refreshing in the height of summer. It does sweeten up when the lotus comes out, but the initial cool sharpness doesn't last very long, and although I wasn't counting, I'd be surprised if the sweet drydown lasted more than a couple of hours. (Although part of this lack of longevity might be because I was baking this morning and therefore washing my hands a lot.) I'm looking forward to trying this again in seven or eight months or so.

The base of this reminds me of Belle Epoque, oddly enough, with the upper layer smelling like some hybrid of Polynesian Pop and Schrodinger's Cat. It's very bright and citrusy, a bit tingly, and does evoke sherbety yellow and pink based colors. Oddly, right after it was applied the fizzy citrus brightness was kind of subdued and it smelled a bit more traditionally perfumy, but it got closer to its smell in the bottle after a minute or so. This should be a wonderful scent for warm weather.

I have a bit of a cold, and I suspect this is an older imp - but for whatever reason, I don't get a lot of sweet pea from this, and the sandalwood is pretty subtle. However, the vanilla-amber combination is very nice. This is a toasty amber, not too powdery, and combined with the vanilla and other ingredients it's foody and sweet but not cloying.

Rogue was the scent that got me interested in leather blends. It's manlier than I'm usually interested in, but something in the leather + pine rosin combination is very wearable and appealing. There's a definite foresty quality because of the rosin, but it's kind of spicy and not pure Christmas-tree stand. (Rogue is actually the perfume that got me interested in Whip, oddly enough. I thought, "I like evergreens, I like evergreen + leather, I like rose, ergo...") Paladin was surprisingly feminine on me. I think it was the musk-frankincense-vanilla converging and going just a bit powdery.

This was a heartbreaker. In the imp, it's a delicious sweet, creamy coffee drink, but within seconds on my skin it loses all its sweetness and I get a rather flat, sort of light-brown, slightly scorched or toasted, vaguely grain-like smell. Unfortunately, *this* smell is very tenacious. This is the first scent that made me wish I had a scent locket - but I'm a cheapskate, and buying an $80 piece of jewelry to house the contents of a $4 vial of perfume (which I got as a freebie, anyway) seems a bit disproportionate. I do plan on trying it on my hair and clothes, or to scent craft projects. ETA: I tried this in the oil burner. I like it much better than I did on my skin.

Very feminine and "perfumey". I think the opium and sandalwood combine to keep it from smelling like a creamsicle, since the mandarin is a lot stronger in the bottle than it is on my skin. It feels rather old-fashioned, but not "old ladyish" in the potpourri and face powder sense - more like something a spirited young lady would have worn a hundred years ago. A good scent for wearing silk dresses and drinking tea, or looking at Impressionist art.

Dana O'Shee smells rather like oatmeal soap to me (in a good way), so I'd forgotten that it included honey. Haven't tried Against Idleness and Mischief or The Lights of Men's Lives, but they sound promising.