bpalscentsual

Pink grapefruit, peppermint, orange blossom, bitter orange, juniper berry, cumin, tuberose, and lemon balm. This? Is fantastic. It does exactly what it says it should. No caffeine in the house this morning, put this on to jolt myself awake, and I have to say, it works. At the beginning, there's a stronger peppermint presence, but it's still subdued under the citrus. It's mostly a lot of grapefruit and orange rind, with some lemon thrown in there as well. I don't get any strong cumin or tuberose. This is a very bright citrus, but I wouldn't say it's restricted to just spring/summer wear. It burns off fairly fast, but it smells great, and it really does wake you up.

I get those reducers off with pliers. Gently. Very gently. For me, they're just downright annoying. -Leslie This is a super necro-reply, but this was the only thing I could find on basically the entirety of the Internet of how to get reducer caps out of bottles. I prefer the polyseal, shaking oil off the top of the cap if it's super-strong and slathering most of the time, but Conjure Oils bottles come by default with reducers. Kinda takes a little bit of force and careful balancing to make sure you don't accidentally slosh the oil around, but you can just get a set of needle-nose piers in there, grip the reducer, and tug. Leverage around the rim doesn't work.

Chocolate, fig, cardamom, and clove, and I can pick out some chamomile, too. This is wonderfully unisex, and with the mixture of spices, it 'feels' like cinnamon on my skin without my skin amping it and turning it into Red Hots. I am pleased. Perhaps not enough to keep an entire bottle of this, but like a few of the other 13s that I've taken a chance on, it's turned out marvelously.

... Whoa. I have a feeling that, a little fresher, this would have been more cakelike. As it is, it's this strange... red velvet cake and musky cream cheese over plastic? What in the... Strong, too. I'm not liking what this is doing on me. Where the hell is the musk coming from? I have a feeling that this aged very poorly, or maybe my skin is just doing bad things to me again.

Yes, lemongrass and mint. I'd say pure lemon, but it feels more herbal than that. And it's helping to keep me focused today, on a day where a migraine is determined to leave my concentration by the wayside. I also have a feeling that this will layer well with Embalming Fluid, which is my GC love, and so it makes me happy that I'll be able to wear a TAL blend, especially a utility blend, on possibly a daily basis.

Licorice and Red Hots. I love the way this smells! I anointed my computer keyboard with this before doing some collaborative writing, and it was amazing how the barriers between me and my character just... broke down. I was able to channel her effortlessly. Whenever I need a boost, I anoint my fingertips. This works. It really does.

On me, this was sweet, powdery resins, soft and cuddly. Reminds me very much of the Strength Tarot card, the feel of combing your fingers through a lion's mane and trying to harness that power to work for you. I could have had a very crappy day, but Lionheart made it better. That being said, this is strong, scent-wise -- a little dab'll do ya.

Ah. That's what it is. The bitterness of the cranberries was reminiscent of apple blossom, which left me in dread that this would go soapy on me. But no, it's just staying a rather bitter grounding of the entire scent. I can actually smell the leaves in the apple orchard, and the cider is full of cloves. I also want to note here that, though I have to really slather some other scents, I only had to knock the bottle against my wrist twice, and it's clinging to my skin and really staying strong. This is great. In my mind, I'm viewing this as sort of a 'back-up' of Autumn Cider. Cider, of course, is much more 'true to life' and much more foody, but this is still absolutely great.

Guess what I amped out of this? If you guessed patchouli, you are right. Guess what note haunts my nose, makes me feel slightly sick, and doesn't generally please me all that much? Again, if you guessed patchouli, you are right. Patchouli, my old enemy, we meet at last. I am sending MB: VD off to better pastures. Someone else is going to love this like I don't.

Mm, this one started out SO GOOD. It smelled exactly like a gin and tonic with pieces of mango and pineapple floating around in it. Alas, I think my skin chemistry is doing something stupid this week, because it went straight to plastic on my skin after an hour. Woe! I'll be testing this again to make sure that it's just my skin, because when it's good, it's very, very good.

At first, I got what everyone else was talking about: fruit salad, with a lot of mint. This generally eased off into a more sugared-mint-leaf feel with some sort of sweet resin behind it... then to a mint feel with wood... then to a mint overtop of plastic... and then, yes, to straight plastic. Mint is a bad note for me. Plastic I can't stand. Someone else will lovethis like I don't.

IXHV37: Uhh. It started off as a mug of coffee on a summer morning while someone was cutting the grass. Then it turned pretty herby and somewhat bitter. Now it's plastic. I can see pumpkin, but... Eh. Uhh. What? Okay. Well. Hmm. ETA: I know exactly what this is. This is Pumpkin Latte. Holy crap. No wonder it went plastic on me, so did Pumpkin Latte.

At first, this went on all sharp ginger, with a slight dusting of rock sugar. Sweet, but mostly biting ginger. After a while, though, this went a little musty/dusty and lost all of its sweetness. I think, over time, my bottle has lost the quince and Asian pear and is trying to be all-ginger all-the-time. After about eight hours, the musty/dusty resolved itself into a floral. ... What? I'm really confused as to what this is doing on my skin. Might swap away this half-bottle and keep the decant I have, just to make sure that it isn't weird skin chemistry issues.

This is aquatic and stone. Very clean stone, though, not the way patchouli can get on me (dank stone covered in dirt, filth, and mulch). This is the smell of rain on cobblestones at night. Not asphault, but stone, real and true stone. Wow. This is great. It smells so clean! Very unisex, definitely a new favorite/go-to when I don't have a specific idea in mind for how I want to smell but I want to smell 'good'.

Jareth is beautiful, yet masculine. I get a base of tonka, for sure, and the leather isn't exactly worn-in but more smooth/gleaming. Layered over those is the perfect amount of white musk, and then the lilac fougere on top is just to die for, especially mixed with the tea! Although I would categorize this as masculine, it's definitely accessible enough that I feel that I can actually wear it instead of just appreciate it. A definite keeper. For me, it's well within the Severin/Theodosius family that I adore, and Jareth is even better in that I can get more of it whenever I want!

So Itemizer turned out not to sync between my iPad and my new iPhone, but I found another app, MyStuff2, with much better support and syncing. Two apps for the price of one, too, one purchase covered both devices. It doesn't have a desktop companion, but it's great as an inventory device. (Also works well for my other collections, like video games, DVDs, books, and jewelry. Reads barcodes!) I really wish I had a Mac to justify Bento, but so far I haven't found a good equivalent for PCs. The other app that I use to take notes is AwesomeNote, which has my SotD, diary setups for post office visits/received packages/sales/swaps/purchases, reviews, and contacts. I also keep track of my expenses using Numbers/Excel. Plus I have a set of binders, half-size. One of them holds a one-page-per-day calendar with monthly dividers, and the other has room for all of my notes. I pretty much keep quadruple-redundant systems to keep me from spending too much... and it still doesn't work, because I just want to smell all the smells. I also took the time to make a full catalog available to me offline through an app called Outliner. That way, when I see a wishlist scent available and I don't remember why I wanted it, it's easy to look it up, and also easy to copy-paste the information back and forth between apps. Also nice to indicate my wishlists. So, if any of you would like outlines of those, I can export in .txt and .opml formats, but it looks like the spreadsheet's nicely kept-up-with.

Lemon poppyseed cake without the cake. Very sweet, and the lemon threatens to go industrial-cleaner on me constantly, but for the most part, it's behaving itself. I say poppyseed because there's a seed-like note in here that I can't quite ferret out, but if I don't come into this with the scent name in mind, this smells faintly of sugared anise -- that is to say, black licorice. The other thing it really reminds me of is lemon herbal tea. I'm not sure I get the 'iced' note in here at all, because I read 'iced' as the drippy kind of glaze you put over cakes, but there sure is something that's a little 'cool' about this whole blend. (Maybe that's where I'm getting the anise from.) Delicious. Like Ops, but available -- and y'all know how much I love Ops.

In the bottle, this is LET ME DRINK YOU levels of authentic apple goodness. On my skin immediately, as in the first five to fifteen minutes, it's literally a green apple. I have opened my refrigerator and I am looking at a green apple, perfectly ripe, and getting the scent of it -- including stem and skin. Very nice. An hour later? Not so much. For a moment it went into smoky plastic (?? the poison??), but now it's soapy-clean, like a floral version of apple skin if that makes any sense. Small, white, slightly waxy. I may edit this later once I find and test my imp of Poisoned Apple, but as of right now, I'm undecided on whether I'll keep this. I already have soapy in Stinky and I already have apple in Autumn Cider. However, I think this will make a great summer scent for me. I love fruit scents, but later in the day, I do want to smell clean, so this will morph perfectly for me. It's light and airy and fruit-blossom floral after that initial, perfect slice of green apple. Perhaps the poison in this apple is the soap suds.

Stinky and Gelt are my go-to powdery blends. Gelt may be a little easier to find, as it was released multiple years... Stinky is freshly-washed skin, milk, honey, and baby powder, and it goes straight to milky powder on my skin. It's very pretty-smelling without being offensive or floral in the slightest. Gelt is powdered cocoa and golden amber, and amber goes straight to powder on me anyway. It's a little deeper and slightly more festive.

Somehow, this smells like chocolate-covered rose petals to me in the bottle. On my skin, immediately it loses half of that cocoa goodness and turns into a cocoa dusting over rose petals. Fifteen minutes later, I get nothing but a very sweet floral. Honey tends to go pollen-like on my skin, I see there's orchid in here, and the massoia bark probably isn't helping. If I really breathe it in, I can get the nuances, but my skin just hates florals, and my nose isn't a fan of them either. This reminds me a lot of the floral notes in Pink Moon 2012, only with chocolate (just a little!) instead of strawberry (a lot). I don't know if this is just how this has aged, but I was hoping for more fruit, more clove, and definitely more chocolate.

Straightforward, just what it says on the label. Also note that this dark chocolate note definitely has a creamier, saltier truffle "feel" to it, more like whipped chocolate than a straightforward chocolate bar. The key lime note is tart and sweet at the same time, very accurate. This scent can get a little faint. I wish I would have slathered more on. And despite how delicious I smell... I'm not actually craving chocolate, which is actually a plus. Yes, this is a foodie, but I would almost call this accessible to people who don't like foodies as well.

Oh my God, this is the perfect fruit scent that I've been searching for from the Lab. Move over Fruit Moon, Pom II is here to take your place! It helps that I absolutely love pomegranate as a food, plus white musk and citrus as scents. This is effervescent, almost sparkling with a kind of zing, and I can tell that it's going to be my go-to fruit for summer. The throw and staying power are also fantastic. In short: YUM.

Wow. This'un's booooooooozy. This is heavy on the sangria. Very much a red-wine-citrus type of scent that's carbonated, not so much half-and-half sangria-and-champagne. It's amazing how delicious the sangria smells, though. (I love sangria. This is making me thirsty.) I still like this very much, but I don't think I like it as much as Mango Lychee Champagne. I may trade this for more of that, or for Peach Champagne.

So I've realized that I'm in love with red musk... but only under certain conditions. For whatever reason, red musk is just very sugary on me, like just a musky sort of sugar cane. It's delicious, as long as I can remember what it does on my skin and don't expect it to be too 'musk'y. I also tend to amp it to the detriment of other notes in the blend, as seen by the fact that Spawn of the She-Demon and Io (moth) smell the same on my skin after a few hours. I really liked Io, though, since because of the sugary thing red musk does on my skin, it turned into Skittles for a while before it settled down. I'm also a fan of cinnamon and other spices in that family. So, does anybody have any good recommendations for red musk + fruit and red musk + spice? I need to hunt down my decant of The Infernal Lover, because I'm sure I'm going to love it and it'll turn into a deeper sort of red musk SN on my skin.

In the bottle, and fresh applied, this was fantastic. The cherry came through most obviously, as I didn't recognize the very specific Lab strawberry note anywhere in here. It was like a cherry cheesecake, because I definitely got something cakey as well as a graham cracker crust. Delicious. An hour later, now that it's dry? Disaster. Plastic. I blame the vanilla cream, which occasionally does this to my skin. (May also be because it's Shark Week.) Swap swap swap.