Chrysantza

While I love love LOVE rose, I also have a problem with it going soapy on me in some blends. My solution is to choose a rose with some musk or resin note to balance out the sharpness. Black Rose is a very true rose on me and I think it's because the amber and musk tone down any sharpness, leaving the rose note much more full and round. I do not know what the sekrit ingredient is in Peacock Queen but it rounds out the rose, de-soaping it and leaving it a true and pure rose. Rose Cross - also a very true rose on me with the frankincense as ballast. Spellbound, All Saints - same with the prominent musk and resin notes. Less of a pure rose in this case, but no soap, thankfully! Finally, Euphrosyne is one of my very very favorite scents but I get much more of a gardenia from it and not rose - but in any event, it's not soapy. If you like rose but find that it goes to soap, seeking out roses with the secondary ingredients of musk, amber, resins, or a VERY sweet rich floral like gardenia or frangipani (which is in Delight) can help, IME.

Years ago MAC cosmetics put out perfume oils (maybe they still do but I haven't been able to find them since). My very favorite was called Asphalt Flower and was very violet-y. I am pleased to report that Le Serpent Qui Danse is very, very similar and makes a most satisfactory substitute.

Another voice in the pro-Euphrosyne chorus. If you love gardenia you will LOVE Euphrosyne. I used to wear gardenia oil from TerraNova and I find Euphrosyne is even better and more gardenia-y.

This is a soft floral - mostly lilac in the bottle. On me, it dries down with a green note that I'm not sure I like. However, I do love the sweetness of the florals. This is a soft and gentle, rather melancholy, perfume and it doesn't have much throw. Still, I really like it despite the green note.

I like most of the ingredients that go into this (except maybe neroli!) and thought I'd try the frimp I got. Wet: very sweeeeeet floral Dry: Surprisingly light, and not as heady/sweet as I thought it would be (not nearly as heady as Euphrosyne for instance). This is a light, springtime floral. The one disappointment is that the carnation, which I love, is not a more dominant note, but overall this is in the category of sweet florals that I like. A keeper.

If you like sultry, spicy scents like YSL Opium or Shalimar by Guerlain, you'll love Morocco. I enabled a friend who loves Shalimar, and she squee'd over Morocco like nobody's business.

Normally I love rose scents (hence my user title! ) but 2, 5 and 7 was the one I couldn't wear - I think it was the grass note. Rose Cross is a lovely rose - the frankincense balances it out but on me, at least, it's very rosey. Another wonderful rose - and the closest GC equivalent to Peacock Queen - is Black Rose. The musk and amber add a deep, dark, velvety note to the rose, but it's still mostly roses (unlike Spellbound, same notes, different proportions, and much more musky amber).

I love carnation! Morocco is my favorite carnation-y GC. It's floral, woodsy and spicey all at once. Imagine a sandalwood spice chest filled with spices and carnation flowers. Moscow is another one I love - it's amber, rose, and carnation but for some reason on me it smells mostly carnation. It's lighter than Morocco, and less spicy. In the LE's, The Masque and Gypsy Queen both have carnation and I adore them. I haven't tried Maiden, but I think I'll put it on my wishlist!

I got a frimp of this from the Lab. Since it's so popular, I was dying to try it even though I'm more of a floral girl, just to see what all the fuss is about. Wet: Sugary sweet vanilla tea - very nice. Drydown: Oh oh, deodorant! Something has come up and smells like a generic "fresh" scent, deodorant or dryer sheets. Verdict: If only it stayed vanilla tea, I might be able to wear this. As it is, it's nice but not really "me."

Yay for my PQ arriving! In the bottle: Warm, buttery pumpkin with spice Wet: Satiny-smooth, buttery pumpkin Drydown: Oh no here comes the citrus in a big way! The mandarin and orange peel are amping up and going all vinegar. Thankfully, after about an hour I get pumpkin, amber and cardamom again. I'm going to save this and try it again in a week to see if the citrus stops amping up and smelling acrid.

Thirding Morocco. Also, suprisingly, Loralei. On me, at least, the florals dry down to a very nice sandalwood.

The one BPAL I've made everyone squee for is Morocco. I think it's because it's warm and spicy, but not too out-there or unusual. I enabled one of my best friends with an imp pack (Bastet, Brisingamen, Loralei, Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo, Cairo and Morocco) and she simply squee'd over the Morocco. She's not the only one who has flipped for Morocco - it was one of the first imps I got when I was first enabled and I love it too!

Et Lux Fuit and The Lion are quite similar - and I would add, Et Lux Fuit and Brisingamen. It's the amber, I'm sure. I just got my order of Kindly Moon and, to me, it's not identical to but in the same family as Pele. KM is like a more aquatic, less sweet version of Pele, but it's the same kind of damp white floral.

A friend of mine, who has a bottle, frimped me an imp to get me through a hard couple of days, bless her heart. On me, Strength is a green citrussy blend, almost like Prescriptive's Calyx. Alas, it fades to a sort of minty vinegar, but my body chemistry Does Not Like green or citrus scents much. Still, it's a nice light cheerful scent and it worked for the purpose intended (giving me inner strength on a tough couple of days).

As befitting its name, Kindly Moon is a kindly scent - very fresh, gentle, and pale. On me, it's not nearly the Sweet!Floral! I was expecting from the gardenia and ylang-ylang. Rather, it's reminiscent of damp spring flowers after a rain, with just a touch of underlying greenery. It's one of the rare scents with aquatic notes that I can wear. There used to be an occult shop called Curios and Candles in San Francisco. They sold planetary oils. This is the closest I've ever smelled to their Moon blend (minus the camphor that was in C&C's Moon oil). Of all the lunacies I've tried, this is by far the most lunar of them all. It's as lunar in feeling as the Luna Celestial, but a lot softer. The only drawbacks to KM are: 1) It fades fast! For those of us who are scent-eaters, this is a good one for the locket. 2) The time of year - this is not really an autumn scent - it's one I am thinking of putting away and breaking out for the spring and summer. But it's very lovely and I'm glad I ordered it.

I got this as a frimp from the Lab, and the notes (except for the peach) appealed to me. Alas, the peach amped up and smelled like narsty week-old been-sitting-on-the-kitchen-counter fruit preserves. No flowers, no amber, just cloying fruit. Too bad, as I really wanted to like this one.

This smelled fecal in the imp and, on me, smelled like I rolled in the dirty cat box. I had to wash it off, stat. This goes in the swap pile.

I swapped for this one - I wanted to try it even though it has The Dread Patchouli in it. What do you know, despite the patchouli it's lovely on me. The patchouli is not obtrusive and dirty-hippieish, it and the sandalwood are more like anchors for the sweetness of the rose and palmarosa. This turned out to be a lovely woody "flincense" and I really like it a lot. And it's not obtrusively sexy either. It's alluring, and womanly, but still worksafe. An unexpected winner!

I swapped for an imp of this. Most of the ingredients (amber, musk, etc.) in it are usually good on me - but alas, once I applied it, Lucretia morphed into something that smelled like burning rubber doused with baby powder! Something in it went badly, badly sideways. A pity, since it smelled nice in the imp.

I bought this because I liked the ingredients, plus the concept. I was not disappointed. This smells like the distillation of a lovely golden late summer/early fall day. Warm and spicy with an undercurrent of dried grass and daisies. The perfect pick-me-up scent.

This is a yummylicious sweet cinnamony spicy cocoa with hints of angelfood cake and coconut. Mmm! Really delicious. Unfortunately, it burns my skin. Blends that are heavy on the cassia or cinnamon tend to do that. Underbed is so delicious that I'm saving the rest of the imp as a room scent. A few drops in the oil burner and my kitchen will smell like I have a cake baking!

In the bottle: VERY sweet, decadent, and rich boozy cake On me: This starts off very sweet, a chocolate/berry/booze/buttercream blend that is cakey and sweet in the extreme. Partway through the drydown, about 1/2 hour, something bitter came up - cocoa? the berries? - fortunately, this dissipated and I was left with the sweet. Incidentally, this lasted AND LASTED on me, which is a miracle, as I'm normally a scent-eater. Twelve hours, and only a good scrubbing in the shower took it all off. I like this one a lot, even though I prefer floral to foody. This is like Midway, a sweet dessert-y type of foody scent. I plan to use it as a room scent because one little drop in an oil burner and your whole house smells like cake!

I love Blood Rose! The wine note isn't really overpowering, it just adds a fruity/juicy undertone to the rose, at least on my skin.

I got this as a frimp in a decant circle (Thank you, Originalwacky)! It is not something I normally would have chosen but I decided to try it and see. It's much softer, lighter and greener than the scents I normally go for. The musk saves this one, I think. The scent does not go sideways on me like many of these light ones do, it stays very soft and true. It reminds me of a warm spring day and clean sheets dried in the sun. I will keep and use up my imp as this is a beautiful and soft warm-weather scent.

On me: Black Rose is very much like The Peacock Queen. Both share that same velvety rich red-rose aura. Nuit + Le Serpent Qui Danse = an approximation of Bearded Lady.