Victory

I received Eden as a lab frimp and tried it without looking at the notes. The first thing I noticed was a scent similarity to some of the fall-themed oils, which I think must be the fig. I smelled almond- yum!- and the coconut, which seemed to me to be a coconut- milk/cream fusion. In the dry down, the honey popped up- another yum! When I sniff my wrist, the fig was most prominent, followed later by the honey. Behind my ears, the throw is all creamed coconut. It made me think a little of Obatala, the only coconut scent I've enjoyed, but while Obatala is very cool and watery, Eden is warm and milky. I like it!

Sometimes wood lovers on the forum have described woody scents as if they were looking at the wood itself, which I always thought was a beautiful image, but never one that I've experienced myself. Wearing The Antikythera Mechanism though, I get it. The image I get- and best way to describe the scent- is of a beautiful piece of wood (medium dark, not blonde) that's been highly polished and beautifully cared for, and on top of it, an almost frosting-like thick layer of vanilla spread on top. The teak and oak are absolutely gorgeous, and the vanilla isn't fake or plasticky at all- it's beautiful. The tobacco I don't smell by itself; I think it's buttressing the other scents. The raves about this blend are justified- this is a beautiful scent.

ETA the scent description.

Faiza is an oil I would never have ordered on my own, mostly because I was concerned about the caraway, green sandalwood, oakmoss and gardenia, and I almost didn't give it a try. I opened the imp more than once before deciding this was NOT my thing and putting it away. I even tested the oil on a day I was planning to shower, so I had an easy exit if it went bad. But... I'm absolutely shocked by how well I like this. Freshly on, Faiza smells very fresh to me. I suppose it must be the florals and fruits, but neither group stood out to me. Next, there's a serpentine winding in of muskiness and a sort of green feeling and slightly foody-ness (I am guessing this is is the green sandalwood and the caraway, and I'm not fond of either), then back to the muskiness. Looking at the list of notes, I suspect the white honey played a huge role in making this palatable to me. I think it supported the musk and tied everything together. I shouldn't like this, but I do.

In some ways, The Unicorn makes me think of moonlight. It's such a soft blend, both in terms of "feel" and throw that I had to actively search it out on my wrist, and it was gone in a short time. This blend has the distinction of being the only oil that makes me think "night" without moonflower, which amps on me. Wearing The Unicorn is like having a pale, luminous, gentle shaft of moonlight on your skin that disappears with the moon. And actually, it's much in line with how I imagine unicorns.

I got to sniff this in the bottle at a MnS, so my impressions are only from that, not from on the skin wear. With that said, I found Snow, Glass, Apples to be a very interesting scent- at first sniff, I smelled cold apples, and in the next, the glass. Of course, glass doesn't have a scent- what I smelled made me think of a dark wall, or of dark glass. It wasn't an absence of scent, because I could smell it, it was just... like a wall. Then, in the next sniff, it was back to the apples. Very interesting!

In the imp, I can smell the most delicious honey scent, with a hint of florals. Honey's my favorite note, so I was really excited to try this on. Once it's on my skin though, I smell like ROSE and myrrh- actually, very much like Rapture. The rose doesn't bother speaking softly, if just goes about beating the heck out of the other notes, with the myrrh slinking behind it, sniggering. This all sounds very unpleasant, and if this were another blend (say, Rapture), I wouldn't mind. It's just that this isn't what I was expecting or hoping for. After four or five hours, there's the very very faintest whiff of the honey, followed by the skin scent with rose, which is actually very pretty. The skin scent/rose combination doesn't last long either though, it gets overwhelmed by the rose resurgence. If the skin scent/rose combination were what La Petite Mort smelled like, or if the honey were stronger or heck, if the ylang ylang showed up, I'd be more for this. As it is, I think I'll stick with Rapture for rose and myrrh.

Oh, God. Something named Egg'd Mailbox has absolutely no right to smell this good. This is what I wanted Mitzvah to be like- creamy, sweet vanilla. Soooo good.

To me, Ashlultum is a very pale blend. It opens with the Babylonian musk and tonka and maybe vanilla tea, then as it's drying, shifts to a blast of single note coconut, and then back to the vanillic Babylonian musk. (I don't know what Babylonian musk IS, but to my nose is very gentle. It's more similar to white musk than red or black, but it's certainly not the same.) Although I like lilac and tobacco, I wasn't too put out that they didn't show up, since I liked the blend as it is. I think it would be a good work perfume. Very nice.

In the imp, the Snake Oil is apparent, along with a certain pale dryness. Sage? Sandalwood? Tonka? I'm not sure. Looking at some of he previous reviews, I think it may be the sandalwood drying the tonka out that gives the pale dryness and maybe the sage backs that up. I feel like I should know what it is, since for almost the entire weartime, that's what Western Diamondback sells like. Pale, dry, and dusty. The Snake Oil is virtually invisible on my skin, perhaps just anchoring the blend on me. I wish the leather was stronger on me, it's also a no-show. Sandalwood and I have a love-hate relationship: it loves me, and I don't return its affections; moreover, sandalwood lasts and lasts. I was often temped to wash Western Diamondback off in the first few hours. In the very late dry down, I liked the blend a little better, but probably not enough to try it again.

 

ETA: Having sniffed Brom Bones, I've realized it's the leather that's smelling so pale and dry and dusty. Yech, guess that note doesn't work for me.

I got to test the madam at a Meet 'n' Sniff, and wow. This has red musk? Red musk? The musk that turns to rabid peanut butter on me? It smells NOTHING like peanut butter. It's amazing. I don't know how old the oil I wested was, but it takes years of aging to get rid of the peanut butteriness of red musk to go away, and I didn't even get a hint of it. Amazing. Freshly on, there's a bit of a jumble of notes, possibly anchored by the patchouli leaf, but it almost immediately calms down to a blanket of musk on my skin. I didn't detect the plum or pomegranate, and can only guess that the vanilla bean was blended with the musk to make it so different from what I expected. I am so pleasantly surprised!

I'm so glad I got to test Inez at a Meet 'n' Sniff, because I looked at the list of notes and immediately crossed it off my list because I dislike cedar, and myrrh and sandalwood are headache worries. But when I skin tested it, none of the scary notes showed up, and the amber and vanilla musk came together beautifully. The scent made me think of a golden-tan blanket, keeping me warm and toasty. (My scent metaphors are sometimes strange- the musks in Hunter Moon '07 and Mme. Moriarty also make me think of blankets.) I'll have to think about getting myself a bottle before the Carnivale leaves town.

 

ETA: I bought a bottle in November, and this bottle is very, very different from what I'd tested at the M'n'S. This Inez smells hot and dry like a desert woman, and yet such a delicious, almost edible vanilla musk. Mmm, so good.

Thanks to the Chicago BPALers, I got to test this. I love, love, love the Lab's plum note, I was excited for the pomegranate, plum blossom, benzoin, and raspberry. On my skin, the fruit is very, very muted from the wet stage to the late drydown. I'm not sure what it is I'm smelling- maybe benzoin and mohogany with a faint kiss of raspberry? It's very subtle. I'm disappointed- I wanted to love this!

I'm kind of surprised how much I like Port Royal, because I hadn't really expected to like it much. On my wrists, the spiciness is strongest, with the woodiness only noticeable when I wave my arms around. The prostitute's perfume is only the very faintest of ideas, and I don't smell the sea air. Behind my ears, it's all spicy loveliness. Spices often aren't my thing, but these spices are wonderful, maybe because of the rum? They're sweet, rather than sharp. Maybe the rum tempers them. I will never, ever, ever use up a full bottle, much less my 50 + bottles, but if I come into a windfall, I might buy myself a bottle of this.

In the imp and immediately on my kin, the King is a strong almond scent (which must be the cherry, since I know those two scents sometimes smell very similar) but once the oil sinks into my skin, that scent is gone. There was a couple of seconds' worth of strong white muskiness, then the scent moves into a stage where I can only describe it as one the border between white and lavender (the color, not the smell). My nose has a very hard time picking up rose scents, so I wasn't surprised not to smell that, but I was pleasantly surprised not to smell the red musk, which often smells of peanut butter on me. I didn't pick out the lavender or rosewood notes particularly, just that they were supporting the scent. It faded very quickly, and I was going to write the King off as a non-noteworthy blend, but later on, what I'm guessing is the rosewood shows up. The woodiness combined with the white-lavender floral lingered for a while longer. I would up liking this scent more than I thought I would. It's delicate, feminine, and gently girly.

Nnnnnnnrrrrrrrrrrr. I am SUCH a honey-lover. Hhhooooonnnnneeeeeeeeeeyyyyyy. This is a deep, slightly dark, thick, rich honey that's reminiscent of Honey Moon without the florals. The spices support the dark honey but don't distract attention away from it, and the end result has me making ecstatic growly noises at my wrist (how embarrassing!). So good.

I got Hay Moon because a Will Call review mentioned a similarity to Coyote, which is a love of mine and happily, I think that, too. Hay Moon isn't quite all the dry grasses of Coyote, all the time, though. There's something that darkens the scent sometimes, so the resemblance is only occasional. I don't smell the other notes that people have mentioned and very happily, no OFF! for me. This doesn't smell like actual hay to me, maybe happily, nor timothy grass- this is tall, dry, pale brown grass that's a fire hazard. I like this very much.

Aquatics are somewhat hard for me because they tend to be so subtle and faint on my skin. R'lyeh is of course an aquatic, but to me, it is much more a spicy scent than a water scent. First on, I could smell the aquatic smell, then slowly a spice began to bloom in the water. It makes me think of cinnamon, although I don't think it is. It's not a Christmassy spice, the way Al-Shairan's spices are, but actually a very nice one. The aquatic notes pop up every once in a while, but the majority of the time, R'lyeh is spicy. Not exactly the menacing scent I expected, but nice for what it is.

Pine scents really aren't my thing, so I'm not sure how much I'll really wear Hexennacht, but I will say this: this is FIR, not pine. The plant person inside me is happy when I smell it and think, "fir!" We often get firs for our Christmas trees, and so that scent memory pops up occasionally. This isn't an artificial smelling fir at all, at least on me, it's a dead ringer. Much of the scent is purely fir, and it somehow makes me think creamy, although WHY I don't know. Fir isn't a creamy scent at all, but it may be that the other notes are rounding out any sharpness from the fir and making me think that. I do wish the other notes came out more, and aging might help that a little, because it is a little bit one note on me. I think I would put this into a category with October- not any real scent similarity, but because these are both scents I would wear when walking through the woods. I don't really want to compete with the scent of the woods, but they enhance the natural scent.

In some ways, it's hard to review Anactoria, because it hasn't worn the same on my skin any of the times I've worn it. Some days, the scent is so soft (even from the moment I apply) that I have to press my nose to my skin and breathe deeply to smell it, other times it broadcasts. Some days, the Arabian musk is in my face, other days I smell the planty-ness of the kush, other days it's amber. I haven't smelled the currant or dragon's blood, but maybe those are up next! In the late dry down, Anactoria is sometimes so very like O- which I love- and sometimes still the same as it was before. Anactoria is always golden, but the shades change. It's strange- usually after the travel shock has worn off, an oil wears roughly the same on my skin. This morphing all the time is throwing me off. I like it, though, for all the uncertainty.

In the bottle, I can smell the wood and sea air but on my skin Frederic is all patchouli and wood and.... bug repellant? God, this is foul. Frederic fades away to just whisps of scent in a matter of a couple of minutes, but it's still all patchouli and wood. (Naturally. These were the notes that had me worried.) I think I'll put him away into a drawer and let him take a time out for six months or so and try again. That did wonders for Herr Drosselmeyer, which I also hate hate hated when fresh.

This is indeed thick and viscous pine. It's a dark, deep forest of pines looming over you as you walk quickly through it. I smell like I've crushed up pine needles and spread all of their sap across my skin. It's VERY evocative of the name and very much in line with the description- but absolutely not my thing. I'd put it on without reading the notes and it's really no wonder- pine is not a favorite, ambergris is ok, and don't know much about black musk, but juniper and cypress are notes I truly dislike. Despite that, I can really appreciate this oil because it IS the scent of a black forest. Wow.

I'm one f the fortunate ones, I think, whose bottle of Love's Philosophy (or maybe skin chemistry) doesn't have lots of wintergreen. In the bottle, LP is NOM NOM NOM buttercream frosting. It's almost TOO rich, but wow so good and I was almost worried it would be like that on skin and be too much. This is what I had wanted biggerCritters to be (now that bC has aged, it's its own perfume, but this had been my guess of what it would smell like). Wet, I can smell a breath of the wintergreen, but really only a breath and it's lying under the vanilla. As it dries, my nose separates the notes a bit and says, oh! the wintergreen is actually the saffron in disguise! After those few short moments I can't smell any wintergreen at all, it's saffron giving some bite to the vanilla and cream. When the oil is completely dry, it's straight vanilla cream. Having read the previous reviews, I was worriedly thinking do I smell chalk? Do I smell like a candle? I think this is what all vanilla candles DREAM of being. LP is a somewhat simple perfume when it's dry, but since hugely complex perfumes confuse my nose, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. I like it. I like it a lot. And it really lasts on me. A winner!

Yep, fresh on Al-Shairan smells like a Christmas shop! It's really, really weird for the enemy of God to smell like a Christmas shop. The Christmassy-ness fades a bit once the oil has been dry for a while and leaves gentle spices. Incense notes always frighten me in descriptions, but often supposedly dark incense notes never show up on my skin and they are nowhere to be found here either. I think this is an oil that I'd best enjoy wearing around Christmas and I just couldn't imagine wearing it any other time of the year.

I think I'm a bit allergic to The Lion. A few months ago the skin of my wrist turned red and itched when I applied, and today I had forgotten and tried again, and had to wash behind my ears because of the itching. I smell cinnamon fairly strongly, and relatively little amber. This is a fiery, golden-red scent that certainly is dry and ferocious. If the cinnamon weren't so strong, I'd wear it in a locket, but as it is, I'll just have to give up on this scent.

So many soaps try to smell fresh and clean, that when I smell Aeval, which is both very fresh and very clean smelling, I want to think of soap. It isn't that Aeval smells like soap, it's just that the soaps want to smell like Aeval. I suspect this "fresh" smell is a combination of the sage and sweet pea, because I've smelled sweet pea in other blends without that perception. When the oil has dried down, the pale musk comes out, and it really is a pale musk, not a white one. I don't smell the tonka in and of itself, but I think it is supporting the other notes. Aeval makes me think of dewy grasses and flowers, maybe with some moonlight from the musk.