tansil

The cypress comes out first. It's so woody and sharp that it drowns everything else. Then quietly the frankincense sneaks out a bit. After a couple of hours it's still sharp and hten it quiets down to moss and hazelnut. It's nice but I’m not sure it's for me. I'll put it in the swap pile.

It goes on all lavender. And then here comes the jasmine. Please fade.. Please fade.. Please let me have my bergamot.. Sadness. After 20 minutes, still with the jasmine. All jasmine all the time.

I'm not feeling particularly kinky with this. It's got some nice peachy florals in it though. Let's see how it does in an hour or so. The florals are still there with a little bit of a slap underneath them. Just enough spice to make things interesting without sending my body into fits of OMG CINNAMON! or somesuch. I like this.

I want to like this so much. In the vial it's cocoa with a hint of floral. On me, wet, it's floral incense and leather with just a hint of the cocoa underneath. I like it wet, let's see how it dries. After half an hour it's a sweet soft leather with just a touch of flowers. I love it.

This goes on smelling just like strawberry bubble gum. Then it goes through this weird rotten fruit phase. It settles down into this fun fruit. Oh I love it. I went through my imp in just over a week because I kept reapplying and putting it in my hair and.. you name it. My 5ml came yesterday along with all my Yule blends but guess which one I ended up sniffing first? The Bordello. It's truly a boozy romp.

I'd been hoping for some of the fruity fun of Bordello but what I got instead was a nice sweet softness. Sadly, after about 45 minutes the sweetness goes to baby powder on me and the berries go slightly rotten. I'll keep it and try it at another point in my cycle but unless it's a knockout then I'll be swapping it. Sadness.

Oh I'd been hoping for so much! Last year's Hearth was just a little too cherry so when I heard this had been redone I was so excited. I wanted some of that warmth with a bit of the butter I love so much in Shill. I got that upon initial application but then almost immediately it started smelling of plastic and soap. Soap? How is there soap in there? And then I remembered the "woods" and realized I was smelling Pine Sol. It settled down after a couple of hours and eventually was a nice warm buttery nutty scent but I know me well enough to know that I won't deal with two hours of plastic and cleaning supplies before I get to butter and nuts. Curse you, body chemistry! Curse you! Into the swap pile.

Nature spirits and protectors of the world's groves and forests that appear as breathtakingly beautiful women. Hamadryads are born into a tree that serves as both a home and an anchor for the creature's soul. They are sometimes tricksters, sometimes seducers, sometimes helpful and benign, but they are always fierce and furious protectors of the natural world. Seven dry woods with mossy lichen and a gentle breeze of forest flowers. I wanted nature and woodsy and impish womanliness. Instead, this smells exactly like menthol cigarettes or BenGay. But floral. Like the fresh scent BenGay. It smells, actually, fine on me, it's not an overpowering or unattractive scent, I just don't think it's something I'd wear enought to keep it around. On the other hand, my sinuses are completely clean.

This should have been lovely, but the white tea and iris made it go all floral and banged up the chocolate. When they faded it was just a pale citrus. I kept hoping the chocolate would come back and it just never did. Woe! My skin just is *not* a fan of white tea, mores the pity.

This goes on all soft and lemon, which is great because my number one favorite, Severin, starts out the same way. This has some added dimension though. The lemon is a bit too strong after initial dry-down. Let's see how it does. It stays strong and then starts to mellow out after about five minutes. Then the green tea takes over. I'm not liking this as much as I liked Dirty. And then.. At 40 minutes? Soap. Huh. Oh well.

This is like heavy sweet spices. I can smell the bergamot at the beginning which is great because it's my favorite note. Now let's see if we can keep the neroli in line. Just like with Torture King there's something that's doing a bit of… *bright* right on the inhale. And it's nice for the first dry-down. Fifteen minutes later: The amber just sent this to baby-powder. *sigh* And it's completely gone in an hour. Oh well, I'll keep hunting for the perfect bergamot scent.

This is the scent that taught my about my skin's reaction to myrrh, which is to say: Not good. It has this bitter spice smell on me. So as much as I wanted to like Athens, the honey goes on sweet and threatens baby-powder like it always does. Then the honey goes straight to baby powder with the sharp spice of the myrrh under it. I swapped it out and vowed to find a Wanderlust smell that *would* work on me.

Wet: If this stays as good, as sweet, as tangy lemon gorgeous as it is in the wet phase then I'm in love. Dry: The musk mellows the lemon so nicely..reminds me a bit of Dorian and Severin mixed. I'm in love. It has a bit of Lemon Pledge if my skin is too cold so it's not a winter scent, but the Lemon Pledge reminds me of my neat freak mother, so it's not so bad.

I've been trying for a fruit or floral that didn't go cloyingly sweet inside of ten minutes on me. Who knew that the solution was to mix a fruit with a floral! They say "iced pear" and on me the frostiness really comes out. The white grape doesn't go all "jelly" on me like some grapes and wines do and the musk and floral keep it from being too sweet. A winner! It'll be a fantastic spring scent, I might even dash it on in the middle of winter when I need some spring breezes.

I wanted to like this so much, and for the first few minutes I actually did. The cocoa was all warm and soft and the wine was just a little sharp. But on dry-down the cocoa almost disappears and the wine comes out harder. After about ten minutes the cocoa is gone completely, the wine has taken over, and the sweetness under it has turned it completely into grape jelly. *sigh* Into the swaps, I'll keep hunting the perfect chocolate scent.