Brienze

No description available. I guess I'm starting the thread, so I'll have to apologize for being so terrible at picking out notes. Scent Category - woody/herbal/resin/smoky In the bottle - In the bottle this is mostly herbal and resinous. There's pine, I think, but it's not "piney". There's something that I want to call patchouli but probably isn't, because I tend not to like patchouli. It's a deep scent without being dark. It's unisex... maybe a bit more to the masculine side, but not in a cologney way. On, wet - True to the bottle. It doesn't cling to my skin, but the waft isn't that huge either (in a fight between this and the Voodoo Queen on my other arm, Voodoo Queen is winning, even though the way I use my hands puts Doc Buzzard closer to my nose more often). On, dry - There's a smokiness coming out, a bit like a burning candle. Incensey without being at all sweet. There's a bit of waxiness (the smell, not the texture) though I can't swear that it's the beeswax note from Lupercalia. It may well be. Summary - I know next to nothing about Voodoo and hoodoo (I skipped that tour cause I was sunburnt from the cemetery tour already ), but I can imagine this as the scent of a witch doctor performing a ceremony. It definitely has masculine character, and there's no sweetness to the incensy/smoky bits, but it's also not harsh or acrid. A friend and I are scent opposites (she loves patchouli and woodsy notes) but we both agree Doc Buzzard is fabulous. Duration - 4 hrs and going strong, as long as you're inside my personal space. Only really morphed the once, from wet to dry. Rating - 5/5 Of the three C12 scents, this is the one I'll try to imp out the least of, so I can keep more of it for myself!

I've been going through a box of extremely aged BPAL (kept dark and cool, but most of it dates from 04-05). I've had this imp of The Hamptons since its release. I just sniffed it and got a powerful scent-memory of food, or maybe medicine. I had Mr. Brienze sniff it to see if he could tell me what it was -- he, poor man, thinks all perfumes smell like "flowers and alcohol" if he can smell anything. No help there. But I finally figured it out -- Hawaiian fruit punch! Any booziness it once had is gone, and it now smells exactly the way fruit punch tastes. Depending on how well you like fruit punch, you can take this as a warning to not let The Hamptons sit around unused for three years. =) Edited for inappropriate apostrophe.

I love aquatics, and I love green scents. Holiday Moon is my favorite, and I've worn Squirting Cucumber and Garden Path with Chickens. To me this is almost entirely aquatic -- I don't get any of the overwhelming greeny cucumberyness that others are reporting. It's long-wearing on my skin, and for most of that time it's a sweet, freshwater scent, like a more flowery Olokun. There's the barest hint of saltwater. Wet, I actually do get a bit of something I'd call the Sturgeon... it's not a dockside, fishy, mackrel-sushi smell, just something indefinable that makes me think a lolfish was just there and tagged my hand with "Sturgeon wuz hear". My very favorite part is that the drydown is entirely consistent, with none of the slightly musty, too-sweet powder that other aquatics get when they lose their, pardon the pun, freshness. At night I sleep with my hands tucked under my pillow, right at nose level, and Sturgeon Moon was a pleasure to go to sleep to. It's also something entirely wearable in 102F (38.8C) sunlight, and I can count on one hand the number of scents that's true of. Gets a five rating from me!

I love how this scent keeps me guessing. In the vial, it's sweet grapey wine. On my skin, if I sniff near my skin, it's just cassia. BUT, the waft morphs constantly, and it's all good. Sometimes I get the apple pie scent that others describe, and sometimes I still get honeyed wine. Sometimes I can't really tell what I'm smelling, but it's all good, and it all has warmth and a red/purpleness to it. I can't wait to try this one in an oil burner... all the yumminess of making wassail, without going to the trouble of actually making wassail. It's also worth noting that this is the only BPAL honey that hasn't done very nasty and rude things when applied to my skin, so if you're a no-honey person, you might want to give this a try anyway. Definitely keeping my bottle of this.

In the bottle, and wet: Grass! Grass grass grass grass grass with a side of grass! To me this is a good thing... I love Rosalind, but the berries get in the way of my grass-happiness. This is bright, fresh, and green... it gives the same feeling that Holiday Moon does (no notes in common though, just the bright happy greenness). Drying: The grass mellows out, and various flowers play together nicely. Rose behaves herself instead of climbing all over everyone else, and there's no sign of the verbena going funky on me like it usually does. I don't wear many florals so I can't really pick out which are which. 2 hrs later: The scent lingers, but not for much longer. Unlike Beltane and Litha, it never went powdery on my skin. Yay! I made a booboo and tried this on right as I was going to a movie... usually I wouldn't wear perfume in a movie theater, but I'd just gotten my order and I was excited to try something. It was a very crowded theater... a lunch matinee of The Princess Bride... and none of the people around me gave me dirty looks. So Chickens is very inoffensive to others, methinks. I love grass! And while the florals aren't quite as wonderful as wet Beltane or Litha, they aren't powdery or overwhelming and that's quite good enough for me. Keeping my bottle.

I love Red Lantern, but most of the time I don't really have the personality to carry it off. The Sailor's Den is a Red Lantern for shy, quiet girls. The rum and coconut combine in a way that's similar to the caramelly smell in Red Lantern, and the tobacco and leather are just hints in the background. I don't know what orris is, and it doesn't scream "lilac" at me (nor does it seem particularly "floral"), but I can tell there's more going on in this scent than the individual notes my nose can pick out. I'm disappointed that I can't smell the linen more strongly... I loved Berenice and Dirty. Not much throw, but then I applied very sparingly. This is really well blended -- neither the rum, coconut, nor any other one note knock me out. I agree with others; you could wear this in any situation and not give offense. I'll be keeping my bottle, but I might imp some of it out. This is an "everyday" scent, but I gravitate to other things for my everyday wear.

In the bottle: I smell the fruits and cane sugar, mostly. It's not the "cherry Coke" smell, but something akin to that. Weird that I'm able to smell "sugar" rather than just "sweet". On, wet: Still fruity, with a bit of the grains and nuts coming out... it's a bit earthier (but not in a "dirt" way) and on my skin it immediately backs off from being a fruit scent like Bewitched or Tweedledum. On, drying: It seems to morph a lot, or maybe it's that each time I sniff, my nose picks out a different dominant note. It definitely smells like autumn... a bit of apple, a bit of cinnamon (go figure... maybe that's the spiciness of chrysanthemum actually). To me, it also has the smoky note that I love from Xiuhtecuhtli's drydown. On, dry 3 hrs: No more apples. It's smoky, with a floral-musky residue, and some creaminess. I hate milk notes and creaminess generally, but this is completely different... whoever above posted that it's plant-milkiness had it right on the nose. Duration: final drydown at 3 hrs, seems like it'll linger, just a bit, the rest of the night Throw: Not much. Summary: I can't pick out my beloved bamboo and tea notes specifically in this, but I think they're what keeps Harvest Moon 06 from being too heavy and/or cloying. (Last year's was too cinnamony on me, and the Halloween scents too heavy/dark.) I like the fact that I can smell different notes each time I sniff, and I really like the effect of a fall day with a fire in the hearth and fruit pies cooling on the open window. It was 100F today in Austin, though, so I'm going to have to wait till November to really be able to appreciate this scent. Glad I got two bottles though! Rating: 4.5/5

Wow, I get a very different scent than most everyone who's reviewed so far. I was going to say "it's just like Berenice, but with less musk", only to look up the descriptions and realize that Orpheus has no stargazer lily, but it does have musk as the first note! On my skin, it is just like a less musky Berenice. It's a light, clean, mostly floral (of some sort or another... I'm not good with florals, and it's none of the obvious flowers that I know). I get no lavender, which is good since lavender goes completely vorpal on me and I was taking a big chance with this. It does smell somewhat of "department store perfume", only without the chemicals and alcohol... nice, in other words. I agree that people who like Dirty will like this. Throw is medium for an hour or two, then settles close to the skin. Morphing not at all, which imho makes it even better than Berenice (on me it took awhile for the musk to calm down), plus it's GC! Lasted 4 hrs already; seems like it will be around for a few more, but not strongly. Rating: 4 of 5. I very much like this, but I'm still puzzled that it seems so different from the description and from other reviews. Where's the green?

This was my experience too. The scent is sharply herbal (I wasn't paying attention to specific notes) and has a good "hey! you! pay attention!" sort of vibe. I do my best work when pushed to an absolutely immovable deadline, when I have to get something done and my critical brain shuts up (or just gives up) and lets me get on with it. Concentration dropped me into that mindset without it being 3am the morning that a project is due. I think my mind and my body are used to working at the point of exhaustion, though, because as soon as the scent faded (which only took an hour or so) my interest in plugging away at the work faded too. I didn't experience the "lost time" that happens when work is going really smoothly and I'm getting lots done. I'm openminded, but not so openminded that my brains fall out. I do my best to be respectful, but I don't believe an inanimate object can push me around. The sharp topnotes gave a kick-in-the-ass to my concentration level, but the drydown didn't seem to make any difference. For me, Concentration is an interesting (and decent-smelling) novelty, but is no substitute for native Stubbornness. Scent: herbal/woodsy. sharp. not sweet, but not acrid either.

I'm with you on both counts... doctors who choose this as a specialty are seriously messed up, and you could probably make a lot of money on the Internet with that video. I think they probably find it works better when they don't tell the patient what she can expect before arriving for that test.

I get butter and cocoa from this while it's still in the bottle. On, the cocoa is dry and not overwhelming. I had assumed from the inspiration that the butter was actually buttered rum, but I never really get a distinct boozy note. There's definitely vanilla, though, and as it dries down the vanilla dominates (as it usually does on my skin). The musks from Smut are here, but Storyville is more her born-again cousin... trying to be a good, wholesome girl (thank you very kindly, Mr. Story), but still slutty underneath. She's sweet, but not as temptingly saccharine as Smut. I'm also reminded of what Beth first said about Smut, that it smelled grody in the bottle and we'd have to put it on our skin to really smell it fully. I never had that problem with Smut, but the bottle scent is definitely the worst part of Storyville. It needs a chance to develop, so if you swap for an imp, try it! Don't just let it sit in the imp box and take it out only for sniffing. This has a lot of throw at first, but calms down within half an hour or so. By 4 or 5 hours the drydown is just clinging to my skin. FWIW, I didn't get out of this any of the caramel that Misk U has for me, and I'd relate Red Lantern and Misk U to each other more than either of them to Storyville. My skin amps vanilla like crazy, so to me Storyville is more like what would happen if Antique Lace went on a bender and had a "lost weekend".

A nearly-narcotic blend of opiate-touched bark and blossom reflective of the bleakness and solitude of winter, the quietest point of the year : black opium poppy, bamboo pulp, ylang ylang, lavender, chamomile and white sandalwood. First, let me warn that I don't know whether lavender is a bad note for me. I usually don't even bother reviewing scents that I know are bad on my skin (the vanilla in Montresor does me in, for example) because what good does it do anybody to know that if it contains X and X is bad on your skin, it'll be bad on you? Duh. I'm not huge into florals though, and I don't think I've ever had a lavender-containing blend before. On my skin, Sleepy Moon gave the most godawful lavender soap smell at first... I felt like Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoons, with this miasma of stench spreading out from me in all directions. The soapiness went away, but it was still nasty in some other variety less easy to quantify. I can most clearly review it by what it wasn't. It wasn't chamomile, or sandalwood, and most especially wasn't bamboo pulp, which I loved in Holiday Moon. The real kick in the ass is that a RL friend tried it on last night, and on her it was a lovely sandalwoody floral. Dammit. I guess take this as a general warning that if you know one of Sleepy Moon's notes doesn't work on your skin, this might not be the blend that proves the exception to the rule. I'm glad that many people seem to really like it, though, so my imps can go on to find more appreciative homes.

That one was a big surprise to me; I figured it was an automatic reject cause I'm not into dirt and I saved it for last to try, but it's really nice. Wet, it isn't knock-you-down-at-50-paces earthy like Gnome, but it wafted definite dirt for about 15 minutes, then mellowed to a kind of wet spiciness. There's no mention of cinnamon in the notes, but that was the impression I got -- and actual cinnamon is very hit or miss on me, since I got Big Red gum out of Three Witches, and cinnamon red hots followed by parsley out of All Night Long. Maybe black orchids are spicy, dunno. I didn't get noticeable patchouli, either, which was fine by me. The Maelstrom seems to be the LE Series Of The Disappearing Patchouli on me, cause it didn't come out on my skin in any of the blends it's listed in. The spiciness that followed the wet dirt gradually fades, and the scent lasts perhaps 3 or 4 hours on me. The waft seems pretty minimal. Rating: 5 of 5 when compared to its dirt-bearing brethren, 2.5 of 5 overall Bottle: probably not, but I'm keeping my imp. I tend to find that the LEs I like are analogous to a GC scent I like, only better. For example, Spirits of the Dead is a better Embalming Fluid, Holiday Moon a better Neo-Tokyo, etc. But the general catalog has tons of spicy scents so there's no need to hoard an LE for the same purpose.

I'm one of the people who was utterly grossed out by this, but my review will be impossible to recapture, now that I'm several days removed from the shock of it. I'm convinced this is a great joke that Beth is playing on us; I'm just not sure how, since there are some people it smells good to before it even hits skin, so it's as much nose chemistry as skin chemistry. The Imp snuck up on me... a cautious whiff got me roses, so I took a great honkin' breath and half a second after the roses hit, I was assaulted with the nastiest substance I have smelled in BPAL since the buttered-salty-popcornness of Shill. It wasn't cognac and I've no clue what it was (I've heard the suggestion that it's roses gone rotten), but it was foul. Of course since IotP is rare everyone will be clamoring to get a sniff of it, and I bet even after the reviews of its nastiness pour in, people will still want to sniff it from lack of believing us, or for the novelty of it or whatever, so it'll definitely fulfill the promise of its name. Unless you're absolutely in love with roses, or with cognac, my advice would be to not worry about selling your firstborn to get hold of an imp. Imp of the Perverse may be good when it's good, but it's really REALLY REALLY bad when it's bad.

Unfortunately, my skin gobbles up Usher so fast that I barely have time to pick out the notes before it's gone. Literally, 5 minutes and *poof*. This is the Maelstrom scent I had the highest hopes for, too. The impression I got from Usher was that it's a perfectly gender-neutral blend; there's nothing at all that suggests to me it would be better worn by a man or by a woman. It's not sweet or floral, but nor is it astringent in the way colognes can sometimes be. Usher is a great blending of notes, and will be fabulous on anyone whose skin can hold on to the notes equally well.

Berenice is my favorite of the Maelstroms, and the review I most regret losing. In vial and on, wet: My first impression was "it's like walking past a department store perfume counter" and I gave a sort of mental flinch, but slowly realized that I wasn't hit with that "eww, yuck, hold your breath and hurry past" impulse that happens in actual department stores. I don't know if it's the lack of alcohol in BPAL, or the lack of chemicals the commercial perfumes use to stabilize the scent no matter the skin chemistry it's applied to, but Berenice has the scent of department store perfume without the feel. I like it at this stage, but I think I would be hesitant to wear it out in public where I might subject other people to the same instinctive flinch. On, 3 hrs: Aside from the moderate throw tapering off a bit, and the sharpness receeding, this didn't change much at all over the first few hours. I think the lily and white musk are probably what I got as top notes; while I never got something I'd call "amber", the sharp edges of "commercial perfume" smell softened... blonde amber must be a whole different critter from regular amber, because this isn't the least bit powdery. Linen is really at the forefront now. It smells exactly like crawling into bed at my grandparents' house when I was a kid. I even went so far as to ask my Mom if she knew what laundry detergent they used, and after a side-trip to sniffing Downy at the grocery store, we concluded that it's probably just the smell of freshly-washed sheets hung out on a line to dry in the fresh air. It's a really powerful scent memory for me, and I love it. Before the board ate reviews I saw Berenice compared to classic coture perfume (a reviewer with a happier relationship with non-BPAL perfumes than my department-store negativity; I presume we were talking about the same thing from different points of view), and also compared to Antique Lace but without the vanilla. I don't like vanilla scents but I do like linen, so it's nice to have a form of Antique Lace that I can appreciate. I'll definitely be ordering a bottle at Peony Moon. Category: floral/musk/fresh Throw: moderate Longevity: really good, 6 hrs+, but with diminishing throw Bottle: yes, definitely Rating: 5 of 5; one of my new favorites, though probably not for daily wear

In the bottle, this smells a lot like Kitsune-Tsuki meets The Dormouse, which is exactly what I was expecting and hoping for, since I love both those blends. On wet, the Chinese musk comes out and it's a musky-plum-flower. It's quite sweet, and seems to have a lot of throw. Drydown: This was a huge disappointment. It goes very perfumey on me, in a "yuck" way, not like the perfumeyness of The Perfumed Garden, which I liked. It lasts maybe 4 hrs total from application to gone, and half of that is the yucky perfumeyness. This may be a bad time of month to be testing, though, so I won't get rid of the whole bottle just yet. I wanted to love this badly enough that I'll definitely give it another try.

In the bottle, this is very like Miskatonic U... that one is butterscotch, and this is caramel. I've always had trouble telling the difference between them. On me, this one is a lighter, sweeter Herr Drosselmeyer. It's not a strong, deep pipe tobacco with cherry, but the tobacco is definitely there. The caramel is front and center, and its sticky ooze keeps the coconut from taking over like it does in every other coconut blend I've tried. Those of you with Chinese 5 Spice in your pantry, go take a whiff. Cinnamon, clove, Szechuan pepper, star anise, fennel -- I'm pretty sure this is the Asian spice, but all of those form such a small portion of the blend that it doesn't turn into overpowering Cinnamon!Clove! spicy hell (or Big Red gum, which is what Three Witches did on me). Amber is lending a bit of powder but not enough to spoil it, and I don't know what opium smells like so I can't pick out that, or the delphinium, or the black currant. In the "tribute to the opium den cum bawdy houses of Shanghai in the 1930s" this is much more the bawdy house side of the equation. It's got nice throw, too, for about 5 hours until it suddenly disappears. The tobacco is much more prevalent when sniffing close to the skin... it's the sweeter and spicier notes that make up the throw. I can see the familial resemblance to The Perfumed Garden. Both have a lot of ingredients from different scent categories that play nicely together instead of one schoolyard bully beating all the others into submission. Red Lantern is an assertive scent. It's impossible to ignore. I'm actually not sure I"m woman enough to pull off wearing this, but I'll be keeping my bottle, and this will be a "decant of last resort" only when swapping for something else that I desperately want.

In the bottle: Very myrrh, also a bit dirty/earthy in a way I'm not fond of (nowhere near the recoil impact of Gnome, though). On, wet: The "yuck" note goes away in about 15 seconds flat. Yay! This is definitely a perfumey blend, but it doesn't at all smell like having to dash through the entrance to a department store while holding your breath just to go buy a stupid sweater for your dad. Oh, sorry, flashback. Anyway, me and "perfumey" do not get along, but this isn't off-putting at all. On, dry: The nasty top note was the only really noticeable morph, although musk seemed a bit stronger wet than dry as well. This has been pretty darn consistent over the course of an hour and a half. I can pick out apple, though it smells more like apple blossom or applewood... I guess I don't know what the peel would smell like; all I know is it's definitely not the same apple of Harvest Moon, which I received in a swap today. The jasmine is very soft, and I have to try really hard to pick out thyme at all. Sandalwood is there in the background. I'm not sure what quince or citron smell like, but they're probably helping the fruityness come up to match the florals and the musk. I don't detect the myrrh, but then I'm happy not to. Someone fond of it might well be able to pick it out. This is really well blended; nothing dominates. I don't know if this will mean anything to anyone but me, but when inhaling, this blend hits the very top of my nose... it feels like I'm smelling it from between my eyes or even with my forehead. It's definitely distinctive and unusual. Throw: Very little. otoh I've got teh Smut on my other wrist so it's not really fair to compare apples to sex. Category: Fruity/Floral/Woodsy/Animalistic Lasted: 3 hrs of good sniffing of wrist, and by 4 hrs just a breath of florals left Summary: I'll probably wear The Perfumed Garden when I can't decide what to wear, since this blend can't decide what it is. If it had more throw I might be concerned about wearing it in new situations where I might encounter people who don't like perfume at all, since it is perfumey. I just happen to think it's a good perfumey. Purchase again: I'm happy to have the bottle, but one should be plenty for me. Rating: 4 of 5 (but only because these aren't my favorite notes. 5 of 5 in terms of a well-blended representation of what notes are in it)

Several people on the first page compared this to Spirits of the Dead, and even though I got both bottles today as well, I figured it might be useful to compare Holiday Moon to Neo-Tokyo instead. I used to think N-T was one of my favorite scents, but Holiday Moon knocks it right out of the park! Wet: bright green bamboo; in-your-face in a happy, non-threatening "look at me! look at me!" sort of way. N-T is the shy younger sister in comparison, even with the sharpness of ozone added. On, 5-20 mins: The top notes (brightness and clarity of the scent, to me) stick around for a good 20 minutes on Holiday Moon. In comparison, N-T very quickly loses those top notes and the ozone and aquatic give way to the floral that's in N-T but absent in Holiday. 30 mins: for about 5 or 10 minutes there the scent turned a bit earthy; I think that was the oude. It went back into hiding pretty quickly, though. 1 hr: Holiday has softened, it's very slightly powdery (VERY slightly... I argued with myself for awhile about whether it was powdery at all, but finally had to conceed that it is, just a bit) but not at all perfumey. The tea has come out and partially hidden the bamboo. N-T by this point is both powdery and perfumey... not to the point that I can't wear it, but I loved N-T for the top notes. 2.5 hrs: Sniffing my Holiday'd wrist just gets a bit of lingering, powdery aftereffects. Ditto the N-T wrist, only more powdery, with more perfumey tossed in. The amazing thing though is that as I move around, I'm still catching waft from Holiday, even though I can't smell it much on my wrist anymore. It's not quite as bright and green as when freshly-applied, but the waft, even this much later, is closer to the wet scent than the closely-sniffed drydown. I heartily approve! Other comments: I never got lemon from this, or aquatic (and I loves me my aquatics, so I was looking for em), or floral, though I will admit it's a sweet green scent -- not astringent like medicinal herbs, or sharp like Mediterranean herbs, so it definitely has sweetness coming from somewhere. Maybe bamboo is just like that. I have to admit; I reapplied so I could smell the top notes again. Not sure how long the waftyness (is that a word? is now!) might last, since wrist-sniffing isn't an accurate gauge in this case. It's at least 4.5 hrs on me though. Summary: it's bright, it's green, it's sweetish, and it doesn't go funky-powdery or perfumey in the drydown. It has surprising waft. Rating: 5 out of 5 from me, and I'm a picky bitch so it really earned its rating. I wish I'd ordered more than one bottle! BTW - If you're scared of all this talk of "green", don't be. It's nothing like Envy. Besides Neo-Tokyo, I'd liken it to The Dormouse -- Holiday is getting sweetness from bamboo instead of peony, but they're both in the same "range", I think, in terms of strength and degree of sweetness.

I got this as a frimp from the lab. My weird chemistry may be able to shed a bit of light on the components. Wet in vial: Honeysuckle! and wetness (aquatic) Wet on skin: Still honeysuckle, gorgeous and wet and green. It's a greeny damp floral, not cloying like this heady flower can sometimes be. The reviewer who said it reminds her of the South pegged it... this has the feel of a really humid day in the South, when the motion of air in and out of your lungs is the only breeze around, and the atmosphere feels more solid than gaseous. For me, this ties in to the concept of temperance nicely, because it makes me very aware of my movement in the world, and I'm inclined to be more cautious and appreciative when I can feel things that are usually autonomic. 15 minutes on: The honeysuckle is fading, the aquatic wetness is gone, and oh no, the green is turning to bugspray. 1 hr: Still discernably a floral, but the 'eau de Off' is pushing the honeysuckle into the background. This lasted at least 4 hrs on me (I went to bed at that point), and it never did get to the OMGBUGSPRAY level of badness; it was just the green component gone wrong. I had the same bugspray effect from Envy and Lolita, so I'm inclined to blame lemon verbena. That would explain why some folks get lots of lemons from this... just a difference in our chemistries. Still, I'm glad I got to try this, and it really was lovely wet.

I didn't get into BPAL till September of this year, and though we did have some 100F+ days at the end of September, I wasn't getting many oil shipments then. But yeah, this is definite food for thought... I'm not looking forward to being a BPAL swapper in Texas in the summertime.

2005 version By now everyone knows that yep, this is pure gingerbread dough. Not too doughy on me... it doesn't smell like underbaked cookie; there's just enough dough that I can tell I'm sniffing gingerbread cookie, not just spices. It is not buttery on me, which is good, cause me and butter don't get along. (I run screaming from Jack and got Shill out of my house asap.) The first time I tried this, it seemed very consistent from the initial wear through drydown, and lasted about 4 hrs. It's hard to give lots of detail because I was testing 3 other things at the time, so my arm was kinda busy, not to mention my nose! I just went back to test this again all by itself, and got the weirdest reaction. I'm pre-mensutral right now, and while about half the time I smell the same gingerbread that I did initially, half the time it smells exactly like a woodburning tool smells when it's used on a piece of wood. It's not burnt plastic, or smoke from a fire; it's the specific smell of a woodburning/engraving tool. Which I happen to like (brings back memories, etc) but it's also just really weird. I'm not sure how much I'll use this as a perfume when my chemistry is normal, but I think in addition to room scent, it would make a lovely hand lotion or soap. Something that you can enjoy the smell of when first used, but which doesn't tend to stay with you all day. Rating: 4/5

I just got this in a lab frimp, and had to review because trying this out has turned out to be the evening's entertainment. In vial - wine and dragon's blood On, wet - see above 15 minutes on - The rose has come out to play now. 'Play' may be too mild a word, though, because it's getting aggressive. My skin normally amps rose, and dragon's blood always seems strong and powerfully wafty to me. War has broken out on the back of my hand: Rose: Kneel, Dragon's Blood! I will whip you into submission with my powdery, velvet-soft petals! Dragon's Blood: I don't think so, you insolent flower! You can't do much whipping when your petals are bogged down in my sticky-sweet, fruity sap! 2 hrs - The wine never had a chance. Rose and Dragon's Blood are equally matched... and really, since both are strong scents on me, I should have realized that this combination would be the only one that could possibly tame either scent. 4 hrs - Poor Rose's petals have been shredded, and Dragon's Blood wins the field. I'm going to bed now, but I know there'll still be a trace of it left in the morning. This has medium waft and a lot of staying power on me. I usually get tired of dragon's blood long before it gets tired of me, but this is one blend that I just might keep.

I don't know if this has been mentioned, because 19 pages, whoa! But I'm finding Vinland and Glasgow to be very similar, especially in the drydown. Wet, Glasgow is sweeter, more berries, while Vinland is its coniferous cousin. Dry though, they're virtually identical on me - I had to try one on each wrist to decide which I wanted to keep. Glasgow I think has more throw, while Vinland is more of a skin scent.