Victory

Thirteen sugars, honeys, and vanillas dusted with chocolate to help you combat ill-fortune with the raw power of overwhelming sweetness. I'm a honey and vanilla fiend, sugar is usually good on me, and my daughter was born on a Friday the 13th, so this is the first 13 I've gotten- I'm just not a chocolate scent-wearer. And sadly (for me), for the first two hours, it's all chocolate. It's a bitter chocolate, which surprises me since the oil is described as having overwhelming sweetness. Maybe the bitter chocolate is the bad luck that's being burned off. After two hours, I begin to get some honey. It's not the typical Lab honey on me- honey is my bulletproof note, and I'm not sure about this one. It makes me think of the honey in Mead Moon. Actually, the more I think of it, the more I think it must be. This is a somewhat herbal honey. On my left wrist, the scent remains unchanged from here on out. On my right wrist, I do get a softer, vanilla and honey scent. This is much more my cup of tea. It's not hugely sweet on me, though. This just arrived in my mailbox yesterday though, so it's awfully fresh (seriously, labbies. Less than a week after it went up, I got it. It shipped the next business day morning. And so I got to do a first post! I am amazed.) I suspect that as it ages, the scent will lean more toward the right-wrist honey and vanilla scent that I will adore. I can't wait! Actually, the throw is a delicious honey-vanilla. It is sweet, but it's rich dessert sweet, not I stuck a spoon in a bowl of sugar sweet. And the honey loses the herbal cast that I don't love. I'm very happy with this. Edited for spelling. Awkward.

Skin musk is very iffy on me, so I was a little concerned but Coraline is lovely. This is more dry lawn grass than dry grasses in a field with clean, clean skin. Maybe there’s a little moss and a hint of berry, but just a hint. It’s what it says on the tin but it’s prettier and more wearable than you might think. I can see why people mention children in relation to this- not because an adult can’t wear it well but because the scent isn’t hiding anything. It is what it says it is, unlike most adults. I’m a sucker for any dry grass perfume so I’m glad to have tried it and will consider getting myself a bottle.

This reminds me a lot of Hexennacht, although I like this better. The buckskin reminds me of Coyote, which I love. This is definitely a forest scent but it isnt overwhelming to me- I feel comfortable wearing it without feeling like it is wearing me or is overwhelmingly dark. These are the woods you played in as a child rather than the woods that house a monster. This isnt my usual type of scent, but I like it.

This really isn’t my sort of perfume, but I’d always wanted to try it anyway so I was delighted (ha!) to find it in my box of old imps. It’s a very humid white floral. It makes me think of Hell’s Belle and the Deep South- it’s a scent that almost condenses humidity and makes it something you can cut through. It’s definitely sweet but not so piercing as gardenia. If you’re a fan of the damp, humid florals, I think this would be fantastic. As for me, I’m so pleased to have tried it, even though it isn’t something I’d wear.

Leather is very hit-or-miss with me, so I was glad to get an imp of this. Starting out, the leather is strong and dry, which was a bad sign, but as it's dried, the leather gets less dry-smelling. There is a sweetness to it that smells somehow bubble gummy (it isn't bubble gum. I just don't know how to describe it. It's not tonka, it's not the rosewood, what is it?). I like it. It's in the same family as Herr Drosselmeyer- definitely masculine but really comforting for me to wear. I prefer HD, but this is a good second choice should I run out.

Definitely pine-y. A very clean scent. So clean that I think you could be covered in thick mud and as long as you were wearing Elf, you'd smell like you'd just gotten out of a shower. I myself was hoping for honeycomb + berries + musk like FeralFae got, but it's nice for what it is.

Whoa, that is some serious popcorn! Mouse Circus starts off like a headlong dive into a vat of buttery popcorn, then has brief wisps of cotton candy interspersed with the popcorn, and then returns to popcorn by itself. I love butter popcorn, but I'd rather eat it than smell like it.

Plum can be a hit or miss note on me, so I was a little nervous ordering this. Luckily, the plum doesn't turn on me. Mostly maybe because there isn't a whole lot of plum or currant or cardamom here. Sure, the snowball has a faint purple tint, but the emphasis is on the snowball rather than the purple. And this isn't the snowball from Pink Snowballs, unfortunately. That snowball was like its description- soft. This snowball is piney to me and sharp- there are shards of ice packed into this snowball. You don't want to get hit in the face with this one. Also, not a comment on the scent, but I find the label of this perfume to be virtually illegible. Trying to read dark purple text on a mostly-black background is a tough task.

The only reason I know this isn't Snow White in the wrong bottle is the initial burst of mint. So this is basically Snow-Flakes + Snow White. I like it, but I was thinking it would be a unique scent and it isn't, really.

I'm with Lycanthrope- that mugwort (at least here, since I haven't had this happen before) is stinky. Almost a musty smell. For the first 5 minutes it is all mugwort and then... it's gone. Not completely, if I MASH my nose against my wrist and get lucky I can get a little sniff of snow. I'm really disappointed- it is so frustrating when a perfume disappears within 10 minutes, especially when the first 5 are stinky! I just got my bottle a couple of days ago, so I am really hoping that it will settle down and get more oomph.

I picked up my bottle of Ice Queen on etsy. I'm not totally sure why, since I don't wear pine scents, other than I thought, "heeeeey, this is a 2004 Yule!" But I'm glad I did. Freshly on, it certainly is evergreen, and a cold evergreen to boot, but it isn't the normal total turnoff that pine/spruce/balsam are usually. The snow scent sort of hovers around the edges of the scent and makes it really appealing. I don't smell the flowers or fruits per se, and the musks only faintly, but I'm really pleased.

I've tried Cheshire Cat twice- the first time I did smell the grapefruit, the second time I did not. But both times I thought that the scent made me think of the tumbling of incense smoke from the caterpillar's pipe. The notes aren't separate from each other to me, but still somehow they rise and fall together- they tumble! The scent makes me think of a sorority girl's perfume, not that I think that sorority girls would wear it, but it seems somehow pink and girly and flirty. I have other perfumes that fit that niche that I like better, but it certainly is an interesting scent experience.

Freshly-squished strawberries, wild roses, orris butter, red clover, and unmowed grass warmed by summer sunshine. I got to sniff Self-Portrait with Puffy Stickers at C2E2 and I'm glad I did, because otherwise I'd have given it a pass because the notes sounded iffy. Strawberry is a note that I always want to work, but it doesn't often work. To be completely honest, I am not sure I have ever smelled a realistic strawberry perfume note, even in oils people describe as totally realistic. Here it is a candy note too, but the rose twines together with it and makes it fantastic. Maybe the candy sweetness of the strawberry softens the sharpness of the rose and makes them just work. I don't much smell the other notes, maybe there's some grass in the background but it's subtle and yes, not mowed. The strawberry doesn't last, which is normal for me, so the perfume doesn't linger long, but it's really really good. Such a different strawberry/rose combination from Love, which was like an alcoholic drink! This is my favorite of the Tremulous Songs. Edited for the note list!

You should check out the Recommendations forum (where this will probably be moved).

This makes me think of the Post's Glowing Vulva bath oil, because they both smell exactly like Johnson's & Johnson's on me. As Self-Portrait wears, it does move a little away from that, but it still stays in the territory. Sometimes I can catch a little hint of honey, but it's almost wishful thinking. The good news for me is that I don't smell the dreaded gardenia. Maybe a little florally sweetness yes, but no high pitched gardenia. I'm hoping with continued aging it might smell less and less like baby wash and more like freshly-washed baby (if you see what I mean).

Sadly, I like the idea of Love and the list of notes more than the actual perfume. Love goes on as an alcoholic strawberry, like a strawberry that has been steeping in alcohol for weeks, or maybe a strawberry margarita, although the alcohol-note doesn't last more than 10 minutes. The perfume then becomes somewhat indistinctly sweet, maybe the rose and strawberry together or perhaps the marshmallow, and dries down to an impression of whipped cream that's dried like a meringue and then smashed with a hammer so it is powder. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's nothing special.

Often times, at the top of the category's page, it will say something like "limited edition/carnival diabolique/whatever scents cannot be produced as imps. If you request one, another scent will be substituted in its place." If it doesn't say that, then you should be good to go. I think that the FAQ page lists the categories that you can order a scent in imp-form from, as well.

Nuts and honey and fur and pine needles! The February lunacy is right around my birthday and I had hoped for a honey or furry perfume and I am delighted to have it. As someone said, the pine does smell like dry needles, and the fur note is recognizably furry. I don't smell much in the way of the berries, but I am quite pleased with this.

If you looked up Bradford pears and got scared off, you needn't worry. This is most definitely a pear that you buy/pick and then eat over the sink while its juices run down your arms. Yum. In comparison to the Perilous Parlor, to me this is a warm, almost spiced pear. I'm not sure why I think spiced- there isn't anything cinnamon-like or otherwise spicy, and I didn't smell it yesterday, so maybe that's just my nose describing the depth of the pear. It is definitely a round pear note, as opposed to the pear in Perilous Parlor- to me, the pear in PP is delicious, but kind of ethereal in comparison to this pear (apt, considering the copy for PP talks about memory). This pear I almost feel like I can hold in my hand. The vanilla cream and honey make the scent feel like a really rich dessert.

It's been years since I smelled the Glowing Vulva perfume so I can't really comment on that, but this is definitely reminiscent to me of the Glowing Vulva bath oil (although happily, this doesn't make me think Johnson's & Johnson's!). There is also, to my nose, a similarity to Khrysee. It does have the same Asian vibe to it that all of the Asian blends have (duh, I know, but it was something I noticed, so I'm passing it on), although the vibe is maybe a little more subdued. Vanilla comes from an orchid, so when I saw vanilla blossom, I expected orchid and I don't smell it specifically. I'm not really familiar enough with copal or helichrysum to comment on those, but I can say that the vanilla isn't really a gourmand vanilla; it is more on the cool spectrum to me. I think the amber sort of teams up with the honey and beeswax to create a certain heat, but yesterday I didn't smell that at all, so I think that putting some age on this will improve it. To me, the scent has a sort of cream/off-white color feel, and I am looking forward to seeing where it develops as it continues to settle and age.

I'm a big fan of Comforting Plus Companion, if you can find some. Or Lady Una, which I tend to think of as a somewhat cooler-feeling CPC. L'Estate hasn't got the snuggly feeling so much as just dreamy golden-ness that is divine. (Er, sorry, these are a lot of hard to finds. I haven't purchased in a while.) I guess it depends what makes you feel warm and snuggly. I look for that sort of "feel" to my perfumes, and I have a wide range of oils. Coyote, for example, has a snuggly sort of fur/deerskin/musk note, but it's a different beast (so to speak) from O. Same thing with Gingerbread Poppet.

I smell something a little smoky, a little vetiver-y, and a lot sweet in Ekhidna. Fortunately, once the oil is dry, the vetiver goes away and takes the smoke with it, just leaving that sweet scent. At first I thought it was melony, but I think it's the clove that is sweet, and while clove is often a sort of baked goods note, it isn't here. Ekihdna is showing me her lovely face, I guess. There are notes lurking behind the clove, but they're not particularly dark or sinister, surprisingly enough. I put this on thinking it would be too malevolent for me, but it is sweet enough that it is quite wearable.

This is a sweet, fruity, dragons blood/red musk scent. Dragons blood tends to dominate scents, but here it is so tightly wrapped up with the red musk that neither predominates. I was hoping to get more of the musks, maybe to cut the sweetness of the dragons blood. I'm glad to have tried it, but it's not something I would wear again.

I find Black Opal to be a very unique perfume, because I don't know that I have smelled the mineral note before. On my skin, I smell a faint vanilla, the mineral note, and what I can only describe as a skin musk. Skin musks very often go wrong on me, but for whatever reason, it works in Black Opal. I like the mineral note- I'm not sure how to describe it other than to say, you smell it and think "mineral," and I think it works well with the vanilla. Black Opal isn't a strong scent by any means- I would say it is on par with Sudha Segara in strength.

Cream accord, amber, teak, and lotus blossom. I haven't tried the perfume, but I had wanted to order it when it was available and didn't, so when the bath oil came out, I jumped on it. I wear bath oils as perfumes, and when it was wet, the scent was buttercream-y . As it dried, I did smell a powdery, Johnson & Johnson-type note that made me think, hmm, maybe not so much, but it did go away. Dry, the oil was mostly vanillic cream with a spicy, resinous patina- the amber. The teak and lotus didn't really show up on my skin. The scent was really familiar to me, like I've smelled a number of BPALs like it, so in that respect I'd have liked it to be more unique, but I did like it. Edited for the scent description.