undream

This is gorgeous both wet & on dry down; a beautiful, sun-warmed, golden scent, and the cinnamon that I detect within the first ten minutes or so excited me! I just recently tried Love Me and fiercely fell in love with it, and so the cinnamon in The Lion called up Very Pleasant Associations[tm] to the cinnamon/floral blend of Love Me. Yummmmm. Not much throw for me, so I kept having to sniff at my arms, and . . . uh oh. Once dry, something in this turns kind of . . . sharp? Unpleasant. It hits me a little bit harshly in the back of the throat, and I'm starting to wonder if it's more to do with where I'm at in my cycle than the perfume itself, because the same thing happened with The Sluggard, which I tried just yesterday, and always happens with any bpal scent containing jasmine - it turns to hairspray on me - and COME ON. Seriously? I am not The Amazing Turns-Beautiful-Scents-Into-Hairspray woman. Also, I'm starting to get a little embarrassed mentioning hairpsray in every single review I write. ANYWAY, will give this one another go in a couple of weeks, but as is, I think it'll be off to swaps.

This is almost entirely gardenia on me, a gorgeous, big, beautiful, humid gardenia. And I L-O-V-E gardenia, so I'm having many happy moments(!) until a note I only register as the hairspray note I usually get from jasmine pops up, and then it is a big sad fest on my face. I am not getting any scent other than gardenia and this weird, acrid, prickly thing (aqua net!), however after an hour or so the pear does start to peep out? And the whole thing turns into the sort of "candy gardenia" or "candy floral" that I saw an earlier reviewer experience. Altogether a beautiful perfume and a definite keeper if it weren't for the unpleasant hairspray thing. Boooo for my chemistry.

sweet, incensey myrrh, powder & honey. a very warm, comforting scent. i don't get the "skin after looove" scent, unless you all roll around in powder & incense after the deed , but it IS beautiful, and though i am so grateful i was gifted the chance to try it, i desperately wish there had been more than just a drop in the imp i received! i would definitely like to try this one again.

oh my sweet lord. this is one of those scents that I love so much I almost feel like crying. previous reviewers have said this oil is both like "moderately chewed bazooka bubble gum" with a touch of cinnamon underneath, and an "incensey coca cola," and both are right on. it is incredibly warm, spicy, exotic. i can't say that i am getting ANY jasmine as jasmine tends to turn into a nasty hairspray scent on me, and i am not getting any such note, thank god (although this could be the one bpal jasmine, out of all the bpal jasmines I have tried, that finally works on me!), but I do detect *some* kind of creamy, sweet note. vanilla & spice and just an all around delicious, sexy party on my wrists. love me? more like LOVE IT, amirite? *so* profoundly grateful to the cherished friend of mine that gifted me with a 5ml bottle of this! ETA: after an hour or two of wear, i did actually begin to detect jasmine in this(!). the oil as a whole became slightly more golden to my nose, heavy with jasmine & honey. as per usual, jasmine took a hairspray dive, but it is surrounded by such a gorgeous cloud of thick, golden lusciousness & frisky spice that i love it regardless. (and i do love me some jasmine; it, sadly, just does not love me.) KEEPER.

i wish that i was getting some of the beautiful notes that other reviewers are experiencing - i adore loamy, earthy, air, grass, water - but unfortunately, this went from evoking a cool, aquatic perfume feel on application to a choking hairspray scent on drydown. off to swaps.

as a previous reviewer noted, i too am surprised there are no flowers listed in this beautiful perfume! i detected a subtle but very specific clean note that i usually associate with lily. application & drydown morphed into a very sweet, warm, exotic & powdery (musk) scent, but that clean, humid note remains, very demure & almost creamy. overall a gorgeous perfume.

Ohmygod, this is gorgeous; sensual, rich, warm & sweet, a beautiful soft incense with, as a prior reviewer noted, a powdery, pleasant drydown. I couldn't keep my nose away from my own wrists. Lovelovelove.

wet from the imp, a sweet candy-like scent, what i'm assuming (based on other reviews!) is the lotus. on application, it morphs into a gorgeous spice, very exotic & dark; the amber & myrrh? (: an overall beautiful scent. a possible big bottle purchase(!). definitely a keeper.

an early reviewer described this, aptly, as "cologney, masculine, very clean, verging on soapy." it's the kind of delicious scent that gives me butterflies in my tummy when i smell it on a boy. too masculine for me to keep & wear, so i will be passing it on via swaps, but i love it for you men out there!!

My first thoughts were, "Incense & dirt!" (A good dirt. A good smell.) This is a beautiful blend, very musky, very earthy. There is a sweet feel to it, but when I tried to hunt down the note responsible it ghosted away(!), and all I could detect was that gorgeous incense, that lovely, subtle bite (that translates, to my nose, as dirt). Overall an incredibly calming, sensual oil: a definite keeper.

wow. this one was a strange & wild ride, for me. wet, it smelled of a pleasant though strong and somewhat non-descriptive perfume? once on, it immediately turned masculine, a delicious kind of . . . cedary scent? something which made my nose want to put this on the BF and devour him. unf . . . it didn't take long, however, for this to morph into ALL OF THE SPICE. it smelled of cinnamon, orchid, carnation, christmas, craft stores, any & all things autumnal and spicey and just. gorgeous. (reading through the description and reviews, i clearly amped the spiced rum & cloves, though i had no idea at the time that this was what i was smelling. i genuinely thought this was a cinnamon/orchid floral blend!) ultimately, it was a peculiar morph of male & female which settled & bloomed - once on my wrists & nestled in the hollow of my neck - into a beautiful, exotic spice. strong, heady. lascivious. a new favourite.

marie antoinette holds court in the pantheon of "others" that i adore, and so i was intrigued & very much looking forward to trying this(!). as is my modus operandi, i went into it without refreshing my memory on which notes would be joining me (preferring to test my little nose and discover what i discover without power of suggestion, as it were!), and from the get-go i thought, i could have sworn, this was mostly, if not all, lilies! as soon as i opened the imp, it exploded into that gorgeous tell-tale lily scent, just very heady and beautiful and clean, almost soapy? (after reading several other reviews, i am suspecting now that it is the violet giving me such a lily feel, in which case, oh lawd! i love me some violets!) i fell immediately in love (i love lilies), and fortunately it stayed fairly faithful on application & drydown. will definitely have to try again to see if i can't recognize the rose & violet-which-is-not-lily next go-round, but whatever, i adore it. lovelovelove. definite keeper. EDIT: on second application, ohmygod, how did i ever miss this as rose?? it is as lush as life, big and wet and juicy and beautiful. as a rose lover, i am astonished i did not pick up on this the first time! i recognize the violet this time 'round as well, having read a few previous reviews, and together these florals create a gorgeous enveloping scent which is going straight on my "big bottle covet" list.

sweet and dusty and almost a little bit powdery? i went into this not having re-read the description and so was unsure of which notes i was picking up, but it was generally a soft, sweet, subtle scent; a pleasant floral, i thought, definitely more feminine than masculine, on me. i'm guessing i amped the musk and heather. i also did not get a forest of any kind, which is, i am certain, what made me want to initially try this one. i'm thinking my skin/chemistry just bypassed the moss entirely. i may have to try it again, but i'm thinking this one may have to be sent off to swaps. it's quite lovely(!), but i've many other imps which love me more, and something tells me that this one just does not sing on me the way that it could (or that it seems to for others!). alas!

A full & beautiful singing rose. What else is there to say? A keeper for this girl!

A lazy, warm deep green scent with a thick aquatic undertone: Spanish moss, evergreen and cypress with watery blue-green notes and an eddy of hothouse flowers and swamp blooms. BEAUTIFUL, this is just one big ol' gorgeous humid floral(!), and ugh, i love. it. i had thought this scent was largely & simply just a beautiful blend of huge white lilies and hazy southern heat, everything lush & humid and thick with heady floral. it is absolutely gorgeous, and for a southern girl with a soft spot for new orleans, this one may just have to go on my big bottle wishlist. love.

god, this is gorgeous & i love love love it. reading the description (after trying it!), i would not have guessed at the notes in this oil at all; i absolutely thought it was mostly cedar! (and perhaps something loamy? as it has that lovely, earthy dirt scent up close to the skin.) it's just a beautiful warm, woodsy scent, a sexy earthen goddess type oil. perhaps i'll be better able to pick out the carnation et al the next time that i wear it, knowing now that they are in there, but whatever the alchemy, it is gorgeous, and a definite keeper.

whew! very sweet!! it at first smells like some type of candy i can't quite recall, a very sugary, fruity candy (or type of sugary drink!). it remains pretty much so even after application & drydown, although a lovely spiciness & a subtle creaminess does come out. waking the next day, it's taken on a sweet powdery scent, and really, the entirety of this perfume oil is quite beautiful. still, although i love each of the notes in this scent individually, together - in this blend - they are just far too sweet for me. off to swaps.

musks, roses and a bevy of Middle Eastern and Indian spices are everything essential in my heart, so i had enormously high hopes for this one. to my disappointment, othello was, on me, very distinctly a men's cologne (a beautiful men's cologne - perhaps that of a soft, sensitive man! - but a men's cologne nonetheless). i detected zero rose, which crushed my spirits somewhat, although over time it did morph into a more unisex/feminine scent. (still no rose, however!) an hour or so beyond that it smelled simply of cheap vanilla. this complex blend just did not play well with my chemistry. lovely scents(!), but definitely not me. alas.

starts out unbelievably light & fresh and beautiful(!). warms into a very soft, slightly powdery, very subtle floral scent yet remains light & fresh. i'm not getting any overt peach note, just maybe a whiff of vanilla and an overall delicate whisper of Spring. morning rain, flower petals in the river, the barely there ghost of a girl's innocent first love. it's not really a "me" scent, and i will likely be listing it for swap, but it is lovely nonetheless. (:

oh my god. for me, this is all honey at first, but then goes very winey and grapey and honeyish, all these notes i love, and all in the perfect amounts; not too much honey as to be too foody for my tummy, not too grapey as to be too sweet. someone said this conjures the image of "a sexy girl who is really really bad news," and yes. i had not had that thought, but yes, it's perfect. just an all around plump, thick, heady, sweet, somewhat smokey/incensey scent. absolutely gorgeous. love.

this one, on me, starts strong & resiny but warms over time into this thick, wafting sweet scent that just wraps itself around you and promises to never make you cry. though as lovely as the dry phase is, i remain undecided on this one! that initial application feels a bit sharp and biting to me on occasion, though i'm suspecting this might be one scent that is very mood dependent for me. overall a beautiful scent, and though i'm placing it in my "maybe" pile, i will happily try it however many more times i may need to to make up my mind!

as is usually the case when i try various impies these days, i went into this one not having read the description (for some months, anyway); it interests me to find how close my nose can get to the actual notes, all on its own. (: ostara, at first, is a very perfumey scent; lovely & strong but with that typical, general perfume feel? it quickly sorts itself out, however, and becomes a calmer, pleasant floral, although i am extremely hard-pressed to pick out any single note(!). after some little while i also notice a creamy note shyly stepping to the fore. and am i detecting violet? a creamy, lightly powdery violet? the last stage, for me, is a very fruity plum or berry, which i actually quite like, though i have several other similar bpal scents. overall a lovely LE, although i think i will need to try again before deciding if we were meant to be. (:

on first sniff, this one is very "men's cologne"-y. once it hits my skin, it turns into, for me, allll cedar. (bpal has single-handedly turned me onto cedar, so the amped cedar is a good thing, but moreso a thing i'd like to smell on the boy than myself!) after a little while, i detect vanilla, and cedar and vanilla seem to be the only two notes wanting to come out and play until about 20 minutes in? when a very assertive, smokey note comes to the fore. a biting, acrid kind of smoke; a forest fire, a home burning . . . (the name of this one, at this point, makes sense.) fortunately, that acrid bite calms down before long and becomes a beautiful musk and cedar, a sort of perfumed powder? i really wasn't certain if i liked this, but i noticed that i could not stop smelling my wrists all night. still, i will likely send this one off to a new home, grateful for the chance to have tried it. it truly is a beautiful perfume, just not exactly me.

As everyone else has said, this is exactly the scent of a fresh rose. Additionally, I am thrilled that some people have said it's a rose red duplicate as I've wanted to try rose red for some while & never had the chance. All in all, a gorgeous find!

in the imp, this is clear, sharp and green. definitely a tangled earth & roots kind of scent. once on, it immediately sweetens and warms; there's cedar and an almost ... caramel feel? a kind of creamy, foody note? (i'm seeing others mention chocolate, so i'm reassured that i'm not smelling wrong!) it's interesting, unique and really rather quite beautiful(!), although it is becoming more powdery on me through the drydown, and combined with the whole foody feel, i think it may just be a little too sweet for me. off to another loving home!