CrazyPretzel

What a strange animal! In the bottle: eek! My first thought was 'smells like a witch's potion!' Something you'd brew up to put a princess to sleep for a hundred years. There are cherries in here too but I have to sniff pretty hard to find them -- nothing at all like Monster Bait: Bloody Mary. Wet: Hm, still peculiar. Getting nicer though -- I can smell some definite fruit in here now, something a little alcoholic (probably the cassis). Drydown: Oh, now /this/ is lovely. All the spices that smelled so dangerous at first have mellowed slightly into a beautiful, very mysterious blend. Really not getting much cherry from this now (but that's okay, Bloody Mary supplies me with plenty of cherries for now.) Medium throw. Winner!

In the bottle: cherry jam. Wet: ooh, decadent stuff! Still getting loads of cherry but there are other juicy red fruits in here now too. Drydown: yep, still smells like a syrupy cherry dessert. I wasn't sure about this one in the bottle, but after trying it out I like it quite a lot! I think it'll be a nice one for when I'm going out to a goth club and want something suitably juicy and decadent without being too heavy and musky.

My first thought after I put this on was 'smells like babies!' Without the grim diaper-y bits, obviously; but something about the combination of sweetness, roses (remind me of powder) and milk really put me in mind of babies. My flatmate walked into my room about six hours later and the first words out of his mouth were 'Why does it smell like babies in here?' so you can see I'm not crazy. I should add that carnation comes out pretty distinctly on the drydown. But seriously, yeah. Babies.

Darnit. This is lovely in the bottle -- just as described, cream with lashings of dark cocoa powder on top. On my skin, it changes immediately: first I get a peculiar, almost wheat-y scent, then the chocolate disappears entirely and I'm left with a faintly sour note. Bizarre! Usually I'm fine with milk and chocolate scents -- White Rabbit and Bliss are two of my favourites -- so I thought this one was a sure bet. Now it looks like I'll have to swap it. *shrug* Someone out there will enjoy it.

Right! The first voodoo blend I've tried and quite an interesting one. Wet: Heady, almost overwhelming jasmine/honeysuckle. I suspect this might be super-strong to mask something less pleasant, like civet. When I first dabbed this on my wrists there was a slightly sour vomit-y note to it that had me worried, but that faded almost immediately. Drydown: Pure jasmine. Whatever the slightly sour and/or civet-y notes there were in here, they've vanished into the flowers. There's a slightly different sweetness to this as well, like sugar, that lingers in the background. After a few hours: Ooh, interesting! As this fades the jasmine starts to disappear and I get this cool grass-y, musky scent. Totally different from what it smelled like before. As stated, this is really very jasmine-y, which makes me happy but might not be everyone's thing. Also my skin tends to amplify sweetness, which might help this one. I don't know if I'll buy a bottle, but I'm keeping the imp.

This smells the same on me as it does in the bottle, and has been smelling the same for the past hour and a half. And that's a *good* thing! Chocolate, yes indeed. More specifically, very posh hazelnut truffles. And quite a seratonin rush -- I'm cosily cocooned inside a cocoa bean of happiness. This is awesome. If you're thinking 'chocolate perfume? yecchh!' don't risk it. If you're thinking 'chocolate perfume? sounds....interesting' get an imp (it's a great pick-me-up). If you're thinking 'mmmm chocolate perfume' go straight for the 5ml. Bliss is right!

Wet: Strong amber with something that I assume is apple blossom: a floral, almost pollen-y smell that's very sexy in an organic birds-and-bees sort of way. Totally love it! Drydown: Still predominantly amber with spicy carnation lurking just behind it. Sadly the apple blossom (or whatever that sweet sexy note at the beginning was) faded quickly on me. End of the day: Amber and carnation. A reasonably long-lasting, ladylike but sexy perfume. I'll have to go looking for more scents with apple blossom in!

Wet: Spearmint! Really strong spearmint and possibly a hint of woodsy cinnamon lurking underneath. Drydown: Ummm....still smells like spearmint. Boyfriend gets upset about this because it reminds him of antiseptic After half an hour the spearmint fades quite a lot and many other notes come into play: strangely I'm getting predominantly floral notes with some woodsy stuff underneath: cinnamon, pine, oak... At the end of the day: Sort of a strong, 'masculine' floral scent -- but women can wear this no problem. The scent feels very 'safe' and protective. This isn't at all what I expected -- it's a great floral, but not sure if that half hour of mental spearmint at the beginning is worth going through again.

Wet: Wow, I can really smell the linen in this one! Creamy sweetness. Drydown: Sweet honey scent. The ginger and pepper give this depth and keep it from being too sweet, while the linen smell stays noticeable and prevents it from being a run-of-the-mill fragrance. Unusual but totally lovely. At the end of the day: I'm happy to say this doesn't fade. The honey note lingers longest -- my boyfriend reckons this smells like expensive beeswax candles. Definitely a winner!