CrazyPretzel

Wet, this is totally delicious juicy apple goodness! There's a hint of cinnamon in there as well, but since that's not listed in the notes I guess my brain's just supplying it to go along with the fresh apple-cider scent of this oil. I can totally smell the vanilla from the Snake Oil in here too.

My only problem with this is that it fades quickly -- after 3 hours I couldn't detect any of this remaining on my skin. All in all a tasty little snake!

Wet, this is distinctly cinnamon-y, and it smells like red hots on my boyfriend; but on me it comes off quite a bit sweeter and smells rather cake-like. Not bad, not bad at all! Not particularly wood-y despite the components.

*purrrrr* Ooh, this is nice. I adore almond in blends and this almond note actually stays on my skin! Vanilla, frankincense, cinnamon - yup, all in there, and thankfully the cinnamon isn't too hot. This is exotic and comfortable at the same time, and totally delicious.

This was a very weird combination of scents for me, as chocolate and vanilla scream FOOD! and myrrh and sandalwood equally loudly scream NOT FOOD! In the end I was too confused by it and had to swap it LOL. This captures the concept really well though -- it's a heavy, draping, slightly fuzzy scent.

There's something about Paris that puts me in mind of foreign sweets. Bear with me. You know how sometimes you go into, I dunno, Chinatown, or an Indian restaurant, or a Turkish pastry shop or something, and there are sweets that look really pretty and you think, 'hey, candy! I like candy; I'll have some of that,' and then the first few bites taste really bizarre and you wonder why you bothered? And then after a while they start to grow on you and you eat the whole pack. This is pretty much what Paris did on me. First sniff: lavendar and something really weird! Kind of sweet and cloying--I'm not sure if I like it or not... Then getting used to it, and the weird note starts to fade a bit, and it becomes much more pleasant -- all lavendar and spice.

Well, if that made any sense, good...

Eh... OK, this smells like shampoo and a public swimming pool on my wrist. Bummer! Szepasszony is a more likeable rain scent, IMO..

Mmm! As is usual with musk, this is staying pretty subtle and close to my skin -- like a dozey little kitten. (are kittens subtle? ) I'm very keen on cardamom but am not getting too much of that from this, which is a bit sad. Wet, the cinnamon and a tiny bit of orange are more noticeable. Still, it's a very cosy scent and good for a gloomy day like today. Cuddly.

Wet: hm -- not an immediate dislike, but it has that sharp grape-y plummy note that I hate (got it in Horreur Sympathique, Skuld). I think it's probably wine. Fortunately there's honey in there as well, which tends to help blends that I'd otherwise have trouble with. We'll see how it goes...

As it dries, I'm getting a whiff of, like, raisin scones, or cakes, or something. The sour grape-y note is fading, so I think it's safe to put it on both wrists now.

On the drydown, I get a very light incense smell that fades very quickly -- in about ten minutes or so. That's a shame, as the raisin cake phase was interesting. Some scents just seem to vanish very quickly on me.

D'oh. Yeah. What the heck? Wet, this reminds me of Hamadryad -- that weird, wintergreen, somewhat old people-y smell. There's a more dominant cedar note in here than there was in Hamadryad, but even though cedar seems to be a woodsy scent I can pull off successfully it's not enough to make this a winner. Anyway, I already have Sri Lanka for my cedar needs.

Wet in the imp, this smelled incredibly wet and rooty and jungle-y. When I was living in Taiwan, I used to have to hike partway up a very lush green mountain (called, incidentally, 'Monkey Mountain') to go to French classes at the uni there at the weekend. Strangler Fig is just what that mountain smelled like in the summertime.

Dry on me, this unfortunately puts me in mind of a freshly-split coconut that's been kicked around in the dirt for a bit. I say 'unfortunately' because I don't really like dirt scents. I know there are people out there who do. That's fine. Really. When the BPAL forum takes over the world, you guys can have your own chunk of it, okay? The rest of us girly floral foody fanciers will be far away having frilly tea parties and so on.

Erk. I had high hopes for this one because of the pink grapefruit, but somehow the blend, which sounds lovely, once on my skin boiled down to just two things: lemon and wood. And that combination put me in mind of furniture polish. Ah well. One for swaps.

Straight out of the imp -- and, indeed, for the first hour (or two) -- this is awesomely strong. I spent the afternoon in a thick cloud of dragon's blood and felt a little sorry for the people next to me on the bus!

Once it settles down (and it does take a while, at least on me) this is surprisingly smooth and silky, and brought a smile to my lips every time I smelled it. It's a powerful scent, but in a very calming way. It makes me feel in control and happy.

I should also add that my flatmate says this smells like babies (same thing he said about Alice!) so I guess it's a bit powdery.

At first sniff this had the sexy dripping nectar-y scent that I associate with Brisingamen (apple blossom, no?) and also some of the overpowering, almost-rank sweetness that I get in Follow Me Boy -- not sure what that is since Follow Me Boy has no notes listed; could be ylang ylang maybe? The rankness hung around rather longer than it does in Follow Me Boy so at first I didn't like this one, but after half an hour or so it calmed down and became quite pretty -- like a less grown-up version of Brisingamen. I'm undecided about it.

ADDED Aug. 31:

In the imp: rose, honey, gooey sex.

Wet on me: strong acetone scent at first. It continues to smell of nail polish/polish remover for a bit...

After a few minutes: apple-scented air-freshener. It's just really chemical on me. Ylang ylang does this sometimes (happened with Seduction, too).

Drydown: Gooey-sweet honey and ylang ylang.

The drydown is pretty enough but kind of overpowering -- I have other ylang ylang blends I like better, such as La Petit Mort, so I'm not sure I need to keep this one.

Hmm. Wet, this smelled like red candies -- cherry Jolly Ranchers, maybe, very strong. On the drydown, all the sweetness disappeared and I was just left with the smell of china cabinets.

Just can't do wood.

This is simply amazing. It's been on my wishlist for a while and I'd forgotten all of the notes until I reread the description just now.

Long ago, LUSH used to make a soap called Sunny Citrus. When I put Jezebel on my wrists this morning, my first thought was 'holy crap! it's sunny citrus!' There was that delicious creamy citrus scent with some decadent floral right behind it -- I was guessing maybe gardenia.

So it turns out I'm totally wrong. So it turns out the closest thing to citrus in here is orange blossom. So it turns out that she also contains rose and sandalwood, which I've gone public saying that I can't wear.

So I've been proven totally wrong. What the hell? A new one for the top ten.

Got this as a frimp in a purchase from a very sweet forumite -- and I can no longer remember which one, having done a lot of shopping here lately ^^;

Sri Lanka was on my wishlist but when I opened it and sniffed I thought, 'Darn, this one probably won't work.' Sandalwood and other woods have a tendency to go all wonky on me and smell like musty old attics.

This one, however, doesn't. It's perfect dry, gentle incense and does not go all weird on the drydown. Makes me think of blue skies and temples high in the mountains -- very, very beautiful.

If woods generally don't work with your chemistry you might want to give this one a try, because it's the first sandalwood-y blend I've come across that I can wear (Belle Epoque, Velvet, Red Queen, and some others have all flopped on me.)

Really, really pleased to have this one!

My new order from the lab has arrived, I've only just torn into it, and before I do anything else I feel compelled to comment that this particular imp smells precisely how I imagined Crumpet Rebellion would smell. (Disclaimer: don't get all excited, I've never actually smelled CR; this is just how I *imagine* it would smell.)

I only had the lid off for a second but there's an awesome smell of freshly-baked pastry crust lingering around me in a big cloud. I'm surprised and really excited! I'll edit this in a bit to add information on how it smells once applied.

ETA: OK, I've been wearing this scent all day. It is indeed very pastry-ish, and remains so on me -- like a delicious fresh-baked berry pie (or, you know, blackcurrant tart.) The rose is in there but happily not dominant. I really like the combination of rose with berries or red fruit, as this keeps it from smelling too old-ladyish on me.

Totally scrummy!

This was a frimp in my last order from the Lab -- in the bottle it was very sharp and unsettling, and I was kind of worried about it...figured I'd have to swap it.

But then I put some on my wrist: Hilarious! The 'twin to Deimos and child of War, the embodiment of terror and mortal fear' smells like friggin' LEMON SORBET!!!

So given my predilection for sweets and food-y scents it was pretty much uphill from there. After a while the tart lemon sugary-ness disappeared and I was left with lemon and musk, refreshing and sexy.

All right, Phobos, you can stay after all.

Sniffing this girl straight from the imp, I was reminded of a time years ago when my fiancee used to work as a ghost story-teller/tour guide in St Augustine -- wandering around the creepier bits of a very old town at night, in a semi-tropical climate with lush flowers and trees. That sort of dark floral. Very evocative.

Once applied, on the drydown (first 15-20 minutes) this starts to give off a very sharp, nearly poisonous soap-like odor, which will probably make my boyfriend complain though I don't mind it myself.

Once that phase passes, this turns into a mind-blowingly wonderful dark, creamy, mysterious floral. I had no idea what poppies smelled like before trying this, but if this is the Lab's poppy note I will *definitely* be looking for more blends with poppy in them.

I am so getting a bottle of this.

This was one of the scents I ordered in my first batch of imps a few months ago. When I tried it then, my initial reaction was : '*cough* Well, that's interesting....really a bit much though; I wonder why everyone's crazy about it?'

And then I had lots of other imps to deal with and so I forgot about it.

This morning I picked it out of my BPAL box after having ignored it for two months. What an incredible difference aging makes! It's still smoky and sultry, but so much creamier and calming at the same time. After being really stressed out all morning, my day took a turn for the better as soon as I put this on. I've been staying in and working on my thesis and find that it's really put me in a relaxed, chilled-out mood and it's easier to concentrate. For this reason it would probably make a good aphrodisiac as well

Moral of the story: age your Snake Oil!

In the bottle this smelled frankly somewhat offensive to me (it was a frimp from the lab; I sampled it without having read the description.) I seriously would have guessed this was a voodoo oil. It's similar to the scents from the voodoo section of the catalogue -- on application, I get the same faint unpleasant note, civet or something, that fades within a minute or two. It's also like the voodoo oils in that it's STRONG as hell; this morning I got a tiny drop of it on my thumb from opening the imp and wiped it off on my elbow, and I've been smelling it constantly, all day (overwhelming poor Voodoo Lily, which was the one I intended to wear!) Now that it's dried it does smell like a standard-issue sea-breeze scent (more the turquoise sunlit bit of the ocean than the gloomy depths).

And I swear that for the first hour or so it reminded me of bananas. Don't ask.

Wet: Roses, but not too sweet -- definite spicy undertone.

As it dries, this smells like soap to me -- very nice soap, very posh soap, but soap nonetheless, though not at all bitter. It is decidedly Victorian; I could easily imagine wearing this with a high-necked lacey dress. I myself prefer something a bit sexier, so I don't know how often I'll actually wear this, nice as it is.

ETA: forgot to mention that this does have pretty impressive staying power. It was still quite distinct on my wrists at the end of the day.

Wet: beautiful beautiful almonds. Marzipan is about my favourite stuff in the world so I REALLY love this.

First five minutes: noooo!! The almonds vanish! Initially I get sort of rose + synthetic fruit smell; not too keen on this stage.

But then after another ten minutes or so the fakeness goes away, and I can mostly smell roses, orange, and subtle spice. If I could sum this up in one word, it would be *silky*. Also the throw increases enormously at this stage, and for a couple of hours I can smell it very strongly on myself, which I like.

This might not be quite nice enough for a bottle -- though if I had all the money in the world it would be -- but I'm going to hang on to this imp for sure!

ETA: I topped this up before coming to the computer lab and have been sitting here feeling vampy as hell in my plain ol' blue jeans. This might have to make the bottle list after all...

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.