malanna

Cantaloupe! Awesome! Fresh, juicy fruit. Dry, it’s strawberry bubblegum. Not the stick, but the liquid-y stuff that’s in your mouth after you’ve been chewing at the gum (not that it smells like saliva). Very sweet and definitely mood-enhancing. Whoa, I spoke too soon. In the second hour, the concentrated sweetness is really getting to me. Eep, too sweet! I’m definitely getting the cotton candy impression at this point. ETA: If I don’t smell my skin, the scent that wafts over is nice. Sweet, yet not too sweet strawberry with a dash of bubblegum.

At first, this is soft, dark and powdery. It’s a bit orchid-like, yet I don’t seem to smell orchids. This is dark, not because it has any dark, sinister notes, but because it’s wistful, like the hint of a memory. If someone walks by you wearing this scent, it won’t be something you recognize, but you’ll be haunted by the wisps of it. You’ll keep on trying to get a firm grasp on it, but it constantly eludes you. Velvety petals (not waxy) as someone said, is the perfect way to describe this. That haunted floral notes are the magnolias (just checked the description), with a heavy helping of jasmine. This scent really just makes me think of that black and white photo of the Black Dahlia—not quite glamorous, but definitely intriguing and elusive. After an hour, this gets stronger—maybe the magnolias?—and is more solid and less fleeting. In the second hour, this no longer is a can’t-grasp-barely-there scent. It’s reached the stage where it’s not quite there, because it’s getting sucked into oblivion by my skin. That stage, as Black Dahlia, has a sort of blurred sharp note. It’s as if everything has been sucked into my skin, leaving only the slightly dry, powdery essence. I’ll update if there are any changes. ETA: After the fourth hour, this is dry, slightly medicinal, powdered flowers (not so pleasant) with a hint of ginger.

Initially, this is dragon’s blood with some musk. Then, it turns soapy. After an hour, the soap becomes warm, red soap. In the second hour, this becomes slightly watery (a tad bit lotus-like, but not too strong), in addition to the soap impression. This ends up being slightly powdery, red soap.

A very tricky kitty, indeed. Used most often as a key to bringing back the joy one needs to have in life in order for living to feel worthwhile. Brings back a sense of delight in simple pleasures, and creates a surge of childlike curiosity and a youthful sense of fun. This blend can also be used to reverse troublesome lesser crossings, create a playful air of catlike sexuality, and, because cats will be cats, it can also be used to throw minor, irritating or bothersome hexes, causing small amounts of chaos and disruption to your foes. White and soapy—sort of Dove soap, not slightly green soap a la Come to Me. Stating the obvious, but it’s not quite “black” so far. Then, after an hour or two, this gets to be stronger and waftier—still strongly soapy, but with a tad bit of muskiness to it. After three hours, it still has the strong white soap scent wafting about, but when sniffing the skin, this smells like more pleasant (less strong) soap with a hint of herbs and flowers. Fifteen minutes after typing that, Black Cat became much less soap-like, because it had become very sweet, with soft, wispy flowers.

I had put this in my “don’t really like” pile, so I was surprised when I thought, upon first applying, “Mmm. This smells so good and familiar.” This was odd, because I remember it smelled like Tarot: Justice—slightly cherry and slightly watery. It is sort of red-tinged, but it mostly smells like laundry to me when it’s wafting. When I sniff my skin directly, it’s red and slightly medicinal. After an hour or two, this isn’t so wafty. When I sniff my skin, it’s still a sharp sort of medicinal smell, not altogether unpleasant, just different. In three hours, this is a red floral, slightly spicy (carnation?). Because it’s a red floral, it makes me think of Red Moon. Four hours after application, it’s now more of a skin scent, staying close to my skin, warm and still slightly spicy. Really very nice, but it’s probably not a scent that I’ll keep. And that’s my judgement. ETA: In the ninth hour, this is now soft, slightly herby French-milled soap. Nice.

At first, this rather made me think of a cross between Alice and Lughnasadh—a touch of cinnamon to lend the scent a bit of warmness and spiciness, with something milky (and maybe some carnation) mellowing it out. After a few minutes on my skin, this gets to be a bit more floral and sweet, the cinnamon and floral mixing well together. This is fortunate, because I’m not a huge fan of cinnamon. An hour later, the milk, floral (a yellow floral) and cinnamon impression continues. This is such a comforting scent. This is like a warm glass of milk or a warm blanket. Three hours later, it’s faded a bit, with the cinnamon not as faded as the others, so the impression is now that of a wool blanket. Wow, I just read the description. The spiciness is from the carnation. Can carnation really be this wonderful? (Rhetorical question.) Yum. This is gone in four hours.

Cool, slightly minty. A very “distant” scent. A few minutes after putting Shattered on, I smelled something I didn’t like. I thought, “Good God, that woman [the person in the cubicle next to me] always puts on artificial, bad-smelling scents.” I figured out that what I smelled was Shattered. The bad news: I don’t like the scent. The good news: Shattered really wafts. I think it’s finely crafted, and rather does make me think of glass, at times, but it has this plastic-y artificial smell—which is probably just the “glass” components speaking. Reading the description, maybe it’s just the aquatic blooms and lotus that aren’t sitting well with me (lotus and I have a hate-hate relationship). I’m probably getting the “plastic” impression from the white champagne notes. If so, that’s a pity, because smelling like white champagne sounds really good. The scent stayed pretty constant throughout the day. Four hours later, it seems less plastic-y, so I’m warming up to it (only slightly). Maybe the grapefruit came out more. My own personal preferences aside, Shattered is really well blended (naturally). The notes all work together to create a scent that is true to the description.

The tale of Cupid and Psyche is both a perfect love story and an allegory for the soul's search to reunite with Deity. This is the scent of true love, your heart's deepest, purest desires. Bulgar rose, Chinese white musk, lavender, orchid and frankincense. I had placed this in my “don’t really like” pile, so I was confused when I first smelled orchid, a la Queen Mab, when I first applied this. After a few moments, the orchid is tinged with a green medicinal smell. This is starting to give me an imagery of an orchid surrounded by poison ivy (not that I know what poison ivy smells like, but a plant that’s green and leafy like that). Then, it gets a bit soapy, with the green getting stronger and the orchid impression receding. After a few hours, this makes me think of Midnight, the night-blooming flowers in a sea of green. This isn’t a very sweet scent, yet it’s definitely a floral scent. Psyche is pleasant enough, but doesn’t stand out enough for me.

My first impression is that of a Juicy Fruit piece of gum (cherry?) with a dash of lotus. As Forbidden Fruit dries, the lotus comes out to play. This does not bode well for me, as I don’t like lotus. After an hour, this still smells very lotus-like and is very strong in that the scent isn’t strong, but the one note is very pointed. After three hours, this smells more like a lotus, yet less like one, because it’s less watery. It reminds me of Pandora. It’s much less stronger (and less headache-inducing) and is less floral, with a bit of a medicinal touch.

Sensual ecstasy, the blinding red fire of the apex of sexual pleasure: Moroccan rose, Sumatran rose, mandarin, Egyptian myrrh, night-blooming jasmine, bergamot and neroli thrust into Arabian musk. When I first applied this, this was a musky scent. While I didn’t actually like the scent, I didn’t straight out dislike it, as I normally do with musk scents. I could actually see myself growing to like it over time. The musk reminded me of Darkness. It’s a dark musk, that’s slightly reminiscent of a blown out candle, the smoke wisps rising in the air. It’s not too smoky, though. After an hour, Rapture turned into a clean scent, a bit like Come to Me, but lighter and with less of the French milled soap quality. I rather liked this stage, even if the scent didn’t stand out so much. After another hour or two, there were some light florals. I’m inclined to say that it was a white floral, because the florals weren’t that distinctive, but, like I said, the florals weren’t that distinctive, so it’s hard to say. After another hour or two, it smells like nothing. I mean, there is a slight scent, but my first impression from sniffing is that my wrist smells like the clean scent of nothing, a nice scent. It’s only when I really think about it and sniff harder that I get that there is a scent. I like all the stages in this scent. While I don’t think that, in the end, this would end up being a scent I really liked, I think this is a scent that would be fun to get to know.

At first, I get lavender—that sweltering heat I associate it—with a touch of mint, making the scent a bit green (green with envy, as others have said). Since lavender and I are not good pals, I was ready to dismiss this scent. However, the scent cools down (really, it does feel cooler), because the lavender recedes, the mint is stronger (although it’s not that apparent) and Envy becomes this nice, powdery smell. It sort of reminds me of Imagine…Peace, a discontinued Bath and Body Works perfume. Envy doesn’t make me think of baby powder, but of those posh, scented powders you get at Sephora (okay, maybe not quite posh, but at least it’s expensive). Green powder, because it’s cool, and the mint is there, but not so that I was really aware of its presence without thinking about it. I don’t really think of it as an “envious” scent, but it is green, so it is a bit envy-ish. Envy is a pleasant scent that I like, but not enough for me to keep. Oh, I just read the description. Hmm, I suppose the coolness and greenness can be attributed to the lime, too.

Eep! Vetiver (and civet?)! This is a very blue-green masculine scent. This has vetiver, and maybe civet (can’t remember what civet smells like), which really are not notes that I’m particularly fond of, and, baby, this is STRONG. I was afraid that this was going to be a not-so-mainstream scent, offending the people around me, so I just did one little poke with the imp wand, and this is wafting like crazy. I think that I could like it (well, at the very least, not dislike it), but it’s just so strong and hitting me over the head with its scent. I feel sort of screwed, because I needed to talk to someone about discontinuing this internship…I’m going to wait a few hours and see if Bluebeard decides to be less abusive. I think I could like this on a man—wait, no. I would definitely be intrigued, but it would still lose its appeal over time. It’s a bit more likeable when I sniff my skin, rather than when I sniff the air around me. The good thing about this is that it’s really nipped my chocolate cravings in the bud, so, maybe, this, with Sugar Skull, will help cure me of my sugar addiction. After an hour and a half, this has calmed down considerably. It no longer wafts, and is light (relatively speaking), on my skin. If I liked vetiver, I would love Bluebeard. Unfortunately, I don’t.

Cherry cola. Yum. The cherry cola gets flat, and a few minutes later, it’s in the transition stage between cherry cola and baby diapers, thus giving it a slightly medicinal smell. In its baby diapers stage, it doesn’t actually smell like baby diapers, but it’s something very brown and not pleasant, and since some people have mentioned it, that’s what I think of. This is what sniffing the recesses of slightly old, unused cloth diapers, pre-poop, would be like—oid, musty, bordering on mold (not mold, though). Half an hour, it bounces back to that transition stage. It goes back from the transition stage to that funky brown-scented stage for several hours before it settles on the brown stage. I really wish my body chemistry could have kept Horn of Plenty in the cherry cola stage…that would have been divine.

In the bottle, this is really sweet (dragon’s blood). However, after application, this settles down to a watery rendition of dragon’s blood. This is sweet, with watery undertones. It made me think of chlorine in that it’s wafts to become a bit of a “nothing” scent. Plus, it’s a bit watery, yet not quite made of water. After a half hour, the sweetness seems to give off the impression of white florals. A few minutes later, this is turning to be a wafty scent that smells very light when I stick my nose to my skin. It is a sweet, watery scent (with a tad bit of floral) in the vein of Danube sans citrus/grapefruit, like a crystalline, clear stream of water. Two hours later, the stream of water impression is gone. Dragon’s Tears is now less sweet, tempered by the aquatic notes (although it doesn’t seem very watery), giving a slight impression of lotus. Over the next few hours, this impression remains the same while the scent fades.

I rather expected something different for this. When people post about Dragon’s Heart on the forums, it’s usually to say that it’s a scent they turn to when they’re looking for strength. I also remembered someone posting to say that it was like a worn in heavy wooden seat. Initially, this is dragon’s blood. Very sweet and red and just not what I expected for something that speaks of strength (plus the wood description). After a few hours, the sweetness recedes a bit to reveal some floral scents—a sweet floral. A few more hours later, the sweetness swirls around, revealing a bit of the worn in wood aspect that I was expecting—the solidness that comes from great strength—with a bit of the florals. It’s still really sweet, which makes sense, because this is a dragon’s blood scent, but still doesn’t seem like that much of a strong scent.

Initially, I get quite a bit of orchid. Mmm, it reminds me of Queen Mab. However, the white florals come out, eventually completely dominating (practicall) the orchid. On the one hand, it's quite lovely, but on the other hand, it, combined with my sleep deprivation, is giving me a slight bit of a headache. When I re-read the description of Phantom Queen and Shollin's description, it all made a lot of sense. This is a bit like Bewitched, because this isn't a straight-up white floral scent. This seems a bit more wild. It doesn't have a berry smell or a grassy smell, but this makes me think of rolling in the fresh grass, with the wind blowing the floral scents over. This is lovely, but not my thing. I so do like the initial orchid stage, though. ETA: This makes me think of Queen of Hearts, in that this is a white floral, but while Queen of Hearts is a refined sort of scent, this is the white floral out in nature. This also fades in and out. It's faded after five hours.

Whoa, I just read a review that said there was carnation in this. I suppose, now that I think about it, there is something floral. It really makes sense. I was expecting Snake Oil sans vanilla, but that isn't what Morocco is about at all. Sure, Morocco is spicy, but it's not pure spice. It reminds me of Scherezade in that it's really smooth. When I think Snake Oil spice, I think of flecks, not something of a smooth consistency (because, y'know, spices have several small particles in them). However, Morocco is smooth and has something holding it together, which makes me think of saffron. Now that someone's mentioned carnation, I can say that Morocco's also a very sweet sort of spice. Actually, I wouldn't really want to use that word, because this is just a scent that has a Middle Eastern feel, which made me automatically assign the word "spice" to it. I don't really like the sweetness of it....

This is a really dark scent. It made me think of a cross between Darkness and Snake Oil. It has the smooth, spicy incense of Snake Oil and the blown-out candle quality of Darkness. It really does make me think of a haunted house, not in terms of rotting wood, but of the smell of the air--dark, musty and haunted. Initially, when I put this on, Haunted and I don't get along. It smells like Darkness, musky black amber, with the sharpness of something that smells like/makes me think of ginger. It's really very, very strong upon application. It fades a bit over time. After a few hours, Haunted and I get along a bit better, because it really smells like a drier Snake Oil at this point.

I forgot to add a review before I sent this off to Laurel_the_Woodfairy, so this review is based on what I remember of it when I tried in back in September. To me, this is a yellow scent. It's not yellow in that it really strikes me as a floral or citrus scent, but in that it's yellow in the way that a lot of things turn slightly yellow over time (photographs, lace, etc.). It's really hard for me to describe the notes. I think there's a tad bit of citrus, because I think there must be some for me to have gotten the yellow imagery. This is a white floral, but when I smelled it, that's not what came to mind. It smelled like--well, more like it made me think of--looking at something through slightly yellowed plastic, plastic because it shows more aging over time. I suppose I got that imagery because it's an aloof scent. It is a bit cold, especially in the way that it distances itself from others.

*you know I love to continue hijacks* You noticed! *feels warm and fuzzy like...mold? No, no, not like mold, but like--crap, need to get the mold in a petri dish out of my head--the hair on a baby's ass* *hijack over* I'd love to wear some Samhain on Halloween, but even if it got to my home in time, my dad would have to send it to China, so no hope there.

They don't celebrate Halloween in China. I'll probably wear both Jacks with a slathering of Vanilla Bean. Oh, how I love Vanilla Bean. I'll try to find some candy corn to eat, even though I don't really like it that much and they probably don't have it here.

Queen Gertrude and Queen Mab have jasmine in them, and they're both amazing. I don't think the jasmine's very strong, though.

I rather thought this would be like Hollywood Babylon--a light, grounded strawberry--since both are strawberry scents. However, once I put this on, it really popped. It's very bright and sparkling. It's a frivolous strawberry, but you can really smell it, so at the same time, it's deep. It reminded me of Dewberry from The Body Shop. A nice scent, if a bit too bright for me.

Woody, spicy, with a hint of something...is it berries? This smells like the damp forest earth--fallen wood underneath other wood, with some green scattered on top, and the stray fruit.

I think this is the closest I’ve come to really liking a rose scent and that’s saying a lot. Initially, I was offput by Moon Rose, because the roses were quite apparent. I just don't like roses, but they were very beautiful. White, clear crystalline. Ghostly describes it beautifully. In two or three hours, it doesn't seem so much like a rose scent. I can tell it's a white floral, but it's so soft and beautiful. It makes me think of a beautiful woman in a white floaty dress, standing in a moonlit garden. The non-rose smelling hour could have just been a fluke, though.