Thaleia

Sigh. 'Sigh' for my slight disappointment at how Snow Moon turned out on me (eucalyptus/pine floor cleaner, but to be fair, I'm giving it another go in a couple of weeks), so I'm hoping for the best now. Compared to Snow Moon, I definitely like Snow Bunny better in the bottle. I like the berry sweetness underlying the pine and snow. It's sweeter and less astringent, which is also much better. Girlie! Berries and flowers in the snow, like dots of red on white. I'm getting a floral top note I can't place, mingling with a chilly aquatic - it's something I know I should know, but I don't - if it helps, I'm seeing a pale lavender in my mind when I smell it. Snow Bunny is very lighthearted, and while it's still chilly, it doesn't make me want to retreat indoors, it makes me want to go outside and play. It's still got a very vague astringency to it, which makes me wonder if pine is wreaking havoc on my skin chemistry, or the other way around, so I may have to try this one in a week or so as well. But yes, it's just so cute, so I give Snow Bunny a 4. I'm so glad I picked up a bottle before it went away.

It's high time I tried and reviewed this scent. Go me for being away for a month and not getting this order until now. I spent the month away reading everyone else's reviews and wishing I were back here because Snow Moon sounded so good. And the label art? It's one of the best I've seen, in my limited experience, but one of the best all the same. Now, I don't know what Skadi smelled like, and I wish I did, but either way, I really like what I smell from the bottle: a resinous piney scent that evokes Christmas. It smells similar to this room freshener my mom used to have that we used around Christmastime. Initially on, it changes completely. I don't know what this is, but instead of pine, which has retreated to the background, I'm getting this herbal/medicinal astringent smell that smells like floor cleaner. Eucalyptus? I don't see it listed among the notes, but it kind of smells like that. Finally, the fir/pine comes back out and the florals (I guess that's what they are? - winter flowers?) retreat a little on the drydown and it turns into the smell of chilly winter that makes you glad you're indoors. I think I need some hot chocolate. I wasn't too fond of the drydown, but once it's dry, it's really quite nice. It could stand to age a bit, or maybe it's me. I'll give this a second try in a couple of weeks. For now, 3.75, and I'm going to try Snow Bunny for what I hope is instant gratification on something similar.

I have decided to wear Alice today, because I feel like today's going to be stressful (I have to take care of some stuff at the Graduate School, because they messed up my registration AGAIN), and I need something comforting, so why not review before I leave? Let me preface my review by saying that I ordered this on recommendation from a dear friend of mine who enabled me. She describes this scent as 'crack'. Lots of other people seem to like Alice, too, so I'm doubly excited. My first reaction was, "I don't smell 'crack' - just milk and carnation." I was momentarily unimpressed. It's sweet and innocent and makes me feel really young. If I were as young as Alice makes me feel, I wouldn't be worrying about graduate school, now would I?! Oh God. OhGodohGodohGod. I just put this on and it smells exactly like Snowcake soap from Lush, or Smitten hand cream, with an added rose undertone. It's lovely! The bergamot comes out after a while, and now I smell like Earl Grey tea just the way I like it - with milk and honey. I smell like afternoon tea, complete with the vase of roses and carnations on the table. I'm wearing a blue dress with a white pinafore and black Mary Janes, and I'm sitting at a table with fine china and a pot of Earl Grey and a plate of pastries. This is crack. Spreading the Alice love. Down the rabbit hole I go! 4.5.

I had to wait a month for this, and my friend's already gotten herself a second bottle, so I must be missing out on something really good. Well, the wait is over. Finally. I sniffed this in the bottle after trying Bon Vivant yesterday, and thought that I was getting into the same thing, but now I find that it's definitely not that. This is wonderful stuff, man. It's the same strawberry, but I can smell the honeycomb that smells like the Cadbury's Crunchie honeycomb candy bars that I used to get when I was on study-abroad in England. Oh, weeeird. When I put it on initially, it smells like ... medicine. NOOO. I don't want my Pink Phoenix to smell like cough syrup! Stopitstopitstopit. And it does. The strawberry mellows out, thanks to the vanilla, and I smell pear sweetness and sweet pea! This changes a lot over time, and that's what makes it interesting. What happened to my Crunchie bars, though? It's a very pink, girlie scent, for those days when I need a pick-me-up or just want to feel silly (which is more often than you'd think). I find that I can't put too much on, otherwise I'll go around smelling like cough medicine. In small amounts, it's heavenly. Who was it who said you can never have too much of a good thing? Hey, at least I won't run out as quickly. Pink Phoenix gets a 4.

La Belle Dame is green! And strong! Not in a bad way; she's a beautiful woman without mercy and it shows. The scent wafts up to me from the open bottle on my desk and, after not being able to smell Queen Mab or Jacob's Ladder in their bottles, I am glad to say that I haven't lost my sense of smell after all. This is a clean, green scent - aquatic and evocative of nature at the same time, without very many flowers. It's very sharp, too, like freshly cut grass by a clear flowing river. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to get florals from this, like everyone else has been, but - Hey, daffodil! There are a bunch of big yellow ones growing by the river now, and Bridal Crown double daffodils, the ones I loved when I was about five. It's definitely an early spring scent, when the snow's just melting and the first spring flowers are beginning to peek their heads out. The daffodil then gives way to a hint of rose. Wild roses in the snow. La Belle Dame is cold and calculating, and yet she's still a woman deep down. It's the cold of winter giving way to spring. La Belle Dame sans Merci hath me in thrall. 4.25.

In the bottle, Regan is a warmer, darker Queen Mab. The same orchid's there, but warmed by vanilla instead of lightened by roses and florals. She wants you to believe she's just a nice girl, until you turn around and she stabs you in the back. She's a bitch, alright. She says, "Come and get me. I dare you," the second she's on. The orchid's sharpened by stephanotis, which means business, and the vanilla lends enough sweetness to keep me believing that Regan's my friend and means well. After a few minutes, the stephanotis takes center stage (my skin likes jasmine, apparently), and there's no question anymore about who Regan really is. She's screaming, "YES, I AM A BITCH." She ends as a combination of vanilla and jasmine, with Queen Mab's orchids lurking in the background. Maybe she's not so mean after all. I love her. She's the kind of bitch I could only hope to be. 4.5!

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. Oh yes. Yes, she has. In the bottle, I'm smelling something warm and floral, but I can't place it. It's also really not very strong, and this happened to me with Jacob's Ladder last night as well - so it led me to wonder for a second whether I'd lost my sense of smell entirely from being surrounded by so much BPAL loveliness. Well, I did an in-the-bottle comparison test with Regan, and they smell similar, so I'm guessing that's the orchid I'm picking up. I also smell a hint of roses, so that's good. My mom keeps orchids at home, but I didn't know they smelled like anything. Guess you learn something every day, right? This is a really light and fresh scent once it's on - not aquatic-clean fresh, but more of a floral freshness, like a springtime garden. Very complex; I can't pick up the different notes just yet. I didn't know what to expect from orchid, but it smells nice, so I guess my skin likes orchid? The rose comes out after a minute or two, and so does the jasmine, with a trace of musky warmth underneath. I don't know the difference between musks yet, but since it has a bit of an Asian-eastern feel to it, I guess that's what Chinese musk does. I don't get much sandalwood, but I do get a nice rosy-floral bouquet that isn't as light as it was when I first put it on, but darker and complex and yes, just a little bit fierce. This reminds me of something I used to wear when I was younger, and while I had misgivings about it when I opened the bottle and couldn't smell anything, I really do like it a lot. 4.5!

This is the scent I'm wearing to bed tonight, so I think I'm going to put in a review for this and call it a day. I picked up a bottle of Luna because I read all the lovely reviews - even though my personality's more Mercury than Luna, I love jasmine, so I thought I'd go with this one instead. Sure enough, jasmine and ylang ylang, like everyone's been saying. It's a sharp, fresh jasmine. I could definitely fall asleep to this. Very evocative of the moon, particularly if the jasmine is night-blooming, but the Lab doesn't specify, so I'm just going to assume it is. I'm initially getting the funny cherry-almond that some others have mentioned, which is strange since I didn't smell either in the bottle. After about thirty seconds, the cherry and almond go away and I'm surrounded by jasmine flowers! Lots and lots of them, and I love jasmine (flowers, tea, everything). My mom has two huge jasmine plants at home, and I can't go by without smelling the flowers if there are any. On the drydown, I smell even more jasmine, less heady now. I feel like I'm walking in a field of jasmine flowers in the middle of the night. (N.B. Don't sniff your wrists up close. You won't get the beauty of the jasmine scent if you do - it'll just smell too strong.) (If I mix this with Holiday Moon, will I get jasmine tea?) In the Philippines, where my family's from, they weave jasmine flowers into necklaces and place them around the necks of religious statues either in church or at home. I'm reminded of that now, and I've associated jasmine flowers, since I was much younger, with church. It's not just a moon scent for me, it's also very solemn. For Luna, and its evocation of so many memories, 4.5. I'm not just going to wear this for bed, because it's too beautiful, but I will keep it on my nightstand.

I'd heard a lot of good things about Jacob and his Ladder, so I decided to give him a go. I also really like Macha's artwork on the label. When I open the bottle, I can't smell anything. At all. (It may not help that I've got The Bow and Crown of Conquest on my hand right now.) I tried smelling it earlier as well, and didn't get anything. Sniffed the cap - not much of anything, just a faint fragrance that's not even strong enough for me to place. Sniffed the bottle - a sort of faint incensey something, but not much of anything. How strange. When I put it on, though, hello incense. Hello vanilla, hello amber, and hello costus, which is a ginger variant, it turns out. Jacob's Ladder really golden-light and comforting and warm, perfect for a winter evening like this one when it feels like it's ten degrees out and all you want to do is lie under a huge blanket and keep your feet warm. There's a sort of sweetness that's not vanilla that I'm smelling now. Rockrose! I guess that's a rose variant, which means that my skin will pick it up like crazy, and it does. I'm not sure what to expect from benzoin, only that I know it's used in Lush's Snowcake soap, so it's got to smell something like that. I'm getting vanilla, tonka, and resins on the drydown, with a hint of (rock)rose. Yum! Meeting of Heaven and Earth, indeed. I give Jacob and his Ladder a 4.

Rrrarrr! This is one sexy Antichrist. I liked a lot of the notes in this one, so I thought I'd give it a go. I'm trying out all four Come and See scents, but so far, this is the only one I've got. (Macha, the label artwork is amazingly awesome.) The first thing I smell in the bottle is something herbal with underlying wood and leather notes. The sharpness has got to be the lavender - I've smelt it before and it is love, so I'm feeling good about this so far. I'm not really one for masculine scents, but I feel like I've been trying 'masculine' scents all evening (Titus Andronicus, Mad Hatter, Jolly Roger), so this very well may work on me. It's lavender and cedarwood initially on, plus a warm sweetness which I'm guessing is the vanilla. Definitely a haughty and noble scent; it exudes "I'm better than you and this is why." The musk comes out after a while and softens the dark wood and herbal/astringent lavender and sage. Now I can detect the carnation, which to me has always been a sharper floral, and it blends in nicely with the rest. I will wear this on days (switched out with Pride and The Peacock Queen) when I want to feel confident. I'm already holding my head a bit higher and feel like I can face whatever's coming to me - and it's two in the morning and I'm wearing pj's. It makes me feel like my grotty pj's are elegant. It's wonderful. It encapsulates so much in such a little bottle. 4.5.

This is probably the only one of the Dark Elements that didn't entirely scare me, but now that I see there's lotus in this one, I may be a bit wary after all. Lotus doesn't do well on me - it turns into this sickly sweet thing that gives me a headache. I am, however, a fan of aquatics, so maybe they'll cancel each other out. In the vial, it's a very sweet mint, like those chewy sugared green mint leaves you can get at the candy store. It reminds me of the green one in the rainbow pack of sugared jelly candies I used to get when I was younger. When it's on, it's very minty in a lighter, non-Mad Hatter sort of way, but it soon gets darker and is intensified by the aquatics/juniper, so that it smells like a sweet cocktail with a mint twist. This is one lotus blend I don't mind, because the mint really keeps it in its place, and they complement each other nicely. I think I might be able to wear it without getting a headache, after all. Because it sort of changed my view of lotus, 3.5. I'm still wary of lotus, though.

This is on my wish list and since the Lab loves me and I love the Lab, they sent me a frimp with my order, so thanks, guys! I love all of the notes listed for this scent. In the vial, I can pick out violet, muguet/lily of the valley, chamomile, and rose. I'm guessing that my skin's going to pick up the rose over everything else, because that's just what it does. It's very evocative of loss and the transience of time, hence the name, obviously, so I should stop stating the obvious and try the scent already. Ohhh. I really like this. It's a pale white floral, similar to Ode on Melancholy, only a bit sharper and less sad. I'm guessing this sharpness comes from the muguet (my mother would be so pleased - lily of the valley is her favourite flower), like it's saying 'remember ... ' about the things that have come before us. It's clean, fresh, and innocent - while those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it, it just goes to show that nothing lasts forever, bad or good. 4.5. It may very well become a favourite soon.

I picked this one up because I love Robert Herrick's collection of Carpe Diem poems of the same name (which includes "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" and "Corinna's Going A-Maying"). Not to mention I love apple. When I first opened the bottle, I had to stop and think for a second. It smelt like overripe apples, or something like Calvados or similar apple brandy/liqueur. It's apple with a bit of alcohol astringency to it, and a bit of wood underlying it all. I can smell it from where the bottle's lying open on my desk. It's pretty strong. Green apples are the first thing I smell when it goes on initially. Green apples and autumn leaves that have been sitting there for a while, and something strangely boozy. I gave it a little bit to dry down and now it just smells like fake plastic apples. Sniff it several times in quick succession, and then you might get apple blossoms underneath it all, but right now it just smells weird to me. Plastic, pre-packaged, weird apples, like apple-scented lotion that's been sitting around. I am trying really hard to like this, seeing as I bought myself a 5ml, but I don't know that I do right now. Maybe I should give this a few weeks and try it again before I write it off completely. I let Euphrosyne age for a month and now I like it, when I didn't initially. I only hope that I can say the same for The Hesperides. For now, I'll give this a 2.25.

Arr. Thank ye, Labbies! In the vial, it smells like the high seas and a hint of sweet spiced rum. Should it really be this sweet? It's about the same when it's on - sweet, aquatic, and then it becomes a sea-salty floral. Like someone's died out at sea and they've thrown flowers overboard where that person had a sea burial. Or, a beautiful damsel in distress has just been made to walk the plank, whichever you prefer. I wasn't sure about this one, but I love the idea behind it, and I'm glad I tried it. I can taste the salty sea air - literally. That's amazingly cool. I don't get much of the other notes until the end, when the leather finally peeks out, but it's very faint under the floral-aquatic-ness of it all. Completely dry, it gets this weird, vaguely Band-Aidy smell under the floral. That is the strangest thing. I liked it up until now. 3.25, because of the drydown. Why, oh why did you have to go all weird on me at the very end?

My frimp has no little tab thingy on it, so it took me a while to get it open. Titus Andronicus, in the vial, is what I'd call a classy men's perfume. It's woodsy, citrusy, and elegant all at the same time. It does call to mind its warrior-nobleman namesake with a penchant for the worst form of revenge possible. For those of you who have seen the film version, with Sir Anthony Hopkins in the title role: [[I have to laugh, though - I can't help but think that this could've smelt like morbid baked goods, after seeing the scene at the end where he's going around the kitchen baking those pies, with the accordion music playing in the background, like it's out of an Italian pasta sauce commercial or something.]] Anyway. *cough* When I first put it on, it smells like my mother's favourite after-dinner drink - Earl Grey tea with honey and a slice of lemon. There's a hint of sandalwood lurking in the background, but it's mainly bergamot and neroli. It stays that way for a while, which is nice; it gets a bit more citrusy as it dries down, but that's alright. Then, it gets sweeter and more musky, and I'm liking it more and more as it dries down. Man, I wouldn't mind smelling like Earl Grey tea. I wouldn't mind smelling like I mean business. I give this a 4.25. I may have to get a big bottle of this once my non-tabbed imp runs out. This is definitely what I'd call a "step off, bitch, or I cut you" scent. Titus would be proud.

The Lab gifted me with a (really full) imp of the Mad Hatter. I nearly spilt it all over my desk trying to open it, it was so full. Ooh, mint! I can smell it from where it's sitting on my desk in front of me. It's not light minty-fresh, like Lick It or similar, but it's a dark, men's minty fresh. Tasty. It's a gentlemen's cologne with a minty-fresh after-scent (if that's a word), and I like it. I might even be able to wear it. It's dark and minty - I'm guessing that's the pennyroyal, which is a species of mint, apparently - and quite sexy, indeed. It gets a bit astringent after a while, which I guess is due to the mint, but it's still fresh and cool all the same. Now ... why am I smelling leather? Am I supposed to? I didn't know the Mad Hatter was into S&M. When completely dry, it's a soft mint with a dark, manly background ... comforting, actually not bad for me to wear. Really different. I'm more into the florals myself, but for something completely different, I'll have to say this one's a keeper. I give this a 4. Rawr. If a guy smelt like this, I might have to lick him.

The Lab was kind enough to send me an imp of this with one of my many 'last orders'. Rhododendron and bellflower? That's new and interesting, especially for BPAL blends. I'm not sure what bellflowers are supposed to smell like, but we had a huge rhododendron bush outside the house I grew up in, so I'm kind of excited to see what Beth's done with it. I'm also a fan of aquatic notes. Oooh. That's kind of neat, what it smells like in the bottle. That's the rhododendron bush next to my living room window, alright. It's a sharp floral, made sharper with the aquatics. It's a really fresh, clean scent - not soapy clean, but Germany-in-springtime clean. I've never actually been cruising down the Danube River, but I'd imagine that this is what it'd smell like at the height of spring. I'm imagining standing on the bow of a ship on a sunny day, watching the green fields dotted with purple flowers pass by on either side of me. The drydown makes the floral come out a bit more and makes the aquatics recede. Ah, very European. Dry it's a very clean spring-fresh floral, like freshly laundered clothing on a clothesline hanging outside by a garden. I don't know that I'd wear Danube very often, as often as my other favourites, but it's well worth keeping the imp and I may very well get a bottle eventually (if I don't receive another imp in the mail!).

Frimp from the Lab. Thanks, Lab! I'm a bit wary of this, because of the lotus - the only other lotus blend I've tried, Black Lotus, was very strongly sweet despite the amber and sandalwood and myrrh. Anyway, this has a spot somewhere on my wish list, and I know better than to let frimps go without trying them, so here goes. Ah, the trademark lotus sweetness in the bottle. It's kept in check by the roses, which my skin tends to love, so I'm hoping for the best here. I can barely smell rose under the lotus; it actually smells like some kind of candy. Once on, the candy-lotus smell comes forward for a couple of seconds, and then yay! Roses come in and save the day. With each sniff, I get a sweeter version of Marie at first, and then it turns into lotus with a rose background. I think I'll have to give this a second try after a couple of weeks and see if it changes. I'll have to go ahead and give this a 2.75 for now. Definitely better than Black Lotus. Roses are great, but sweet roses? I'm not quite sure yet how I feel about those.

Since this is the one I'm going to be wearing today, I may as well review it now ... it literally came out of the box and went into my handbag. I'm going out for drinks later with a good friend of mine who's had a bad week, so why not go smelling like a martini? It smells EXACTLY like a straight-up gin martini (Beth, HOW do you do that? It's awesome!) in the bottle, complete with lemon twist. This is good, as I'm not a fan of putting vermouth in my martinis. (The vermouth-y scent may very well be there, I'm just not getting it right now.) When I told my mom I was getting a scent that smelled like a martini, she said to me, "Why would you want to smell like a martini? People are going to think you've got a drinking problem." On the contrary. It's clean, junipery/citrusy fresh, and it doesn't smell like I've been drinking at all. I just smell like a bottle of Tanqueray 10 or Bombay Sapphire without the astringency of alcohol, with a small bowl of lemon and lime twists waiting to be put into martini glasses. Once it dries, however, the lemon comes out more and mingles with the gin. Lemon martini, maybe? I don't know, but it's really good. I love martinis (gin or vodka, doesn't matter), but I don't actually have a drinking problem. I wouldn't mind smelling like one. This is fantastic. I give this a 5. (By the way, I saw the Dorothy Parker poem that's in the Lab description on a set of coasters at Restoration Hardware. I may have to pick up a set now.)

I received this imp in a swap from lorajc - thanks, darling! I love aquatic scents. I always have, along with rose scents. Aquatic/ozone scents are, for me, for those days when you want to feel peaceful. Sea of Glass smells like peace in a bottle: cool, crystalline, a lake in winter that's not quite frozen over but no waves break the surface. Initially, I smell something green, like juniper, underlying the aquatics. It lends a freshness to this scent that brings to mind the woods on a cold day - flowers dotting the ground here and there, but it's cold, clean, and fresh. As it dries, the greenness goes away and the aquatic note comes back to the forefront. It's like a second-skin scent for me; it fades quickly to this soft freshness that I can catch whiffs of here and there - just enough to keep my mind at peace. I think I'm going to need a 5ml of this soon. This is lovely. Rating: 4.5

Frimp from the lab! Whoa hello, Christmas baking. It reminds me of my best friend from high school's kitchen when she and her family are making Christmas cookies. It smells like this all through the month of December. Having just tried out Bon Vivant, I'm especially hungry now. When I put this on, my first reaction was, 'Wow. This is really sweet.' Imagine a huge banquet table, with every single dessert in the entire world that you love, sitting on it. In large quantities. I might use this as a room scent, because I'd be chewing on my arm if I wore this all day. As it dries, the bakery settles down and stops production for the day, the sweetness goes away, and I'm left smelling like a spiced brownie. Or chocolate cake with a cup of mulled cider sitting next to it. Either way, I think this'd be wonderful to scent my apartment with, on those days when I'm not baking. This is definitely inspiration for anyone to become a glutton. Rating: 3.75

Received in a swap from the lovely lorajc - thanks! In the vial: 'Uh ...' was my first reaction, because I smelled something super-sweet, then I realised it was strawberries. It's better if you don't smell it up close, because it'll be too strong then - but if you hold it a few inches away and sniff, it's really delightful. Now that I had a second sniff, it smells like strawberry shortcake. I'm hungry, man. Wet: Eee, strawberry! It's like Victoria's Secret Strawberries and Champagne, which is really a hit with boys (trust me on this one), only the strawberry smells fresher and not so 'packaged' - and this'll be a perfect complement. Drydown: More strawberry. It's not like standing in a field of strawberries, like at those strawberry farms, but almost. It then gets a sort of underlying creaminess to it. Strawberry shortcake. Strawberry ice cream. Strawberry champagne. It sparkles. Dry: Finally, champagne comes out and makes an appearance. It keeps the sweetness of the strawberry in check, but allows it to stay sweet. Bon Vivant is the journey of a strawberry, from strawberry patch to kitchen to romantic evening for two with a bottle of champagne. Rating: 4.25. This is really fun and girly. AND, I'd imagine, a hit with the boys. I'll try it out with my guy friends, and let you know.

Thank you, lorajc! In the vial: Ooo, jasmine and rose with depth. Very similar to B Never's Two Hearts, which is what I was looking for. I just opened my bottle of Wicked, which has the same three elements in (myrrh, rose, jasmine) and that's definitely more rose. Wet: Rose and jasmine are fighting for domination. I'm really liking this scent. Drydown: Oh. My God. Soft jasmine and rose, and I can hardly smell the myrrh, so it's a nice and light scent, exactly what I'm looking for. I sprayed some Two Hearts further up on my arm, and Two Hearts smells more astringent and weird than Nyx. I think I'm in loooove. Dry: How wonderful is this, I've found my duplicate of Two Hearts, only it's BETTER! I think I need a 10ml, RIGHT NOW. Rating: 5!!

In my quest for a dupe of B Never's Two Hearts, I got myself a 5ml of this. In the bottle: I'm actually trying this at the same time as Nyx, which has the same three elements, and I'm detecting more rose than jasmine. Wet: Rose and myrrh. Almost like All Saints, which is a deep, incensey, somber rose-in-church on me, only this one's less complex. I think this might be a decent substitute for All Saints, if I run out before next year. Drydown: A dark, sinister rose - like a shadowed, deep red rose that's staring at you and cackling evilly. Dry: The jasmine's sort of coming out now, but it's in the background and I can hardly smell it. This is perfect for days when I want to be wicked and kick some ass. Rating: 4. In my quest for a Two Hearts duplicate, the award goes to Nyx, but I still like this one a lot.

Oh wow, Medici, thank you for posting that! I'm so excited to get my bottles of Pink Phoenix and Snow Moon - that Snow Moon label is gorgeous! (... how do you like the scents themselves?) I'd love to see the Come and See label art, too. My Bow and Crown of Conquest won't be coming for a while ... *sigh*