baranoouji

I loved Skuld in "Ah! Megami-Sama!" so I had high hopes for this. This is pots and pots of gooey, sticky honey. Instead of O's glittery, powdery amber, the ylang-ylang adds indole into the honey. Maybe when Skuld and Noble Scarlet get a Goddess First Clas license and start breaking hearts, this will be her smell. Unfortunately, my skin goes crazy with sweet notes and there's just not enough bitterness/darkness in Skuld. :sigh: It's really very good for what it's supposed to be, if you get my drift.

Wet on skin: At first, it's all pure alcohol on my skin. Sexy in that scientific way. Dry down: Berries: cranberry and juniper. Both scents that my skin promptly amps to "almost drank so many of these cosmos that I'm going to hurl!" sweet. The scent is very true and very interesting. Unfortunately, I am learning that my skin turns berries into berry bombs!

I now know that moonflower is one of those "Danger, Will Robinson!" notes for me. Oh skin, why must you amp white floral notes so much? Beth could have put sulfur in this and I wouldn't be able to tell, with the moonflower note peaking.

At first, I smell like flowers slathered in butter! Then, I smell like flowers and gingerbread. (I cannot get over the BUTTER EATER smell!)

Rose and narcissus (white, pointy, herbal) duke it out almost continuously on my skin. Eventually, the roses give up and head for home. Narcissus stands on the platform, waving his trophy in the air.

[frimp from filigree_shadow] There is a very strong first blast of honeysuckle. Eventually it wears off a bit, and lets something leathery (the vetiver?) through. In the long run, the smell is big big big big flowers and leather. It smells very interesting, in the same way that I can't resist reading something inappropriate.

[frimp from filigree_shadow] On me, no chocolate, no cocoa, nothing remotely related to a nib. But I've noticed that BPAL's cocoa note does strange things on my skin. However, the wine and blood smell is there, which while true to life... kind of freaked me out a bit. I felt like I had accidentally bitten my tongue all day, and kept checking to see if I had. To avoid that weird "did I injure myself?" train of thought, I'll probably send this to someone else. Thumbs up for the "verity" of the scent!

Midnight Mass is less woody and more sweet than Cathedral, but not foody sweet like All Soul's.

In the imp: someone earlier joked about saying "pine" 1500 times in their post. I see what they mean: pinepinepinepinepinepine. Wet on skin: Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. Again, pine trees, pine forest, pine-sol cleaner. Dry on skin: Uh-oh. Houston, we have a berry problem. More specifically, pine tree has vacated the way for the waxy-fruity berry smell. (As opposed to the fruity-fruity berry smell.) I smell like one of those BB&W blends, but in Winter Berry. (Don't be worried: I suspect that my skin amps up berry and white flowers like nothing else.)

In the bottle: whoa! Minty! That must be the pennyroyal. Wet: Unsweetened mint, in fact, it has a quasi-medicinal aspect. This is the sort of mintiness that you find in BenGay or those Tiger Balm things. Dry: Still that bitter mint smell. Overall, the smell is very Mad Hatter-y, but also more of the Crazy Grandma.

Iago made me think of the closet at the boathouse: cold, damp, slight mildewy, full of leather laced boat shoes and component parts oily with slide grease, and the pungent funk of unwashed teenage rowers. Academically, it's certainly an interesting smell and one that made me grin. Those were some of the best times in my life. But... dear god, the funk. And not in the George Clinton and the P-funk sort of way.

In the imp, it really does smell vegetal! On me, it's violet and iris. The other components didn't even stand a chance. Eventually, the violet turns powdery on me, and I smell something waxy and thick stomping around. Eventually it dries to a darker musk. Not bad, but not unique with regards to what I already have. For the most part... It's very strong, very in-your-face, and probably not something for me. Will I keep it? Awk! Nevermore!

The first thing I got was a jumbled white flower explosion. Woof. Way too heavy and headachey for me. I think my skin must just broadcast white flowers, because flower scents just become overwhelming on me. Ode to Melancholy settles down to a lavender + musk = soap in the guest bathroom smell for me. Eventually, it's just a sweet smell of faded wisteria. Soap and wisteria isn't a bad smell, but it isn't very melancholic for me.

Dove soap?! No cinnamon, no exotic spices, no hedonistic incense, no burning winds across my face. Just crazy-assed amounts of Dove soap. Fine, Silk Road. Be that way. See if I don't send you to the cornfield.* *By which I mean, swap pile. Edit: So having realized that I tried this while my skin was doing strange things, I thought that I would give it a second take: It smells like cinnamon and something oily/soapy, and something bready. I can see where I thought that it smelled like Dove, but it's more defined with other smells. I can't tell if I want to eat it or put it in a bowl in my bathroom.

I didn't start out wanting to like Dr. Seward, but I do. It smells like sweet smoke and spicy wood. I really like it, but I wonder if I'll get sick of the sweetness in time. I'll probably wear it for a few more days before I make up my mind about finding more.