knudbrox

I really wanted to like Carnivàle. It was one of the few girly-sounding scents that started out well on me. At first, it starts out really good -- kind of warm and spicy and a little sweet, with all the amber and musk coming out with just a hint of the carnation. It stays like that, too, for a few minutes. A little sweet but pleasantly non-girly. But after less than ten or fifteen minutes, the sweet berry comes out, the carnation turns very floral, and the musk -- which was previously balancing the froofy aspect -- runs off and hides. All that remains is a sweet, sweet floral. Probably other people will love that, but it's to the swap box for me.

In the bottle, Gnome smells like trees, eucalyptus or pine or cedar or something; there's a spicy layer and at the bottom, a streak of dirt. On me, it goes entirely to spicy grass -- green grass and vetiver, perhaps, with something else distinctly. There's got to be a bit of black patchouli in there too. Unfortunately, whatever the 'something else' is, it warps and mutates the deliciously-earthy green grass and dirt and spice to something not so good. And it doesn't fade away. Maybe it's gnome body odor or the stench of their tiny horses -- I dunno. But it entirely spoils the good earthy thing that Gnome had going on. Why, Gnome? Why?

I'm back and forth on this scent. Part of me loves how simple and sharp it smells, the other part is bored with the simplicity. Lex Talionis is a very black-and-white scent. In the bottle, it's all about the black notes--patchouli and myrrh--with a sharply-delineated edges, the clean note that I can only assume is the grapefruit. On my skin wet, it doesn't change much. Still strong patchouli, but with a spicy note that I think is the vetiver. As it dries, the patchouli fades. It takes fifteen minutes to a half hour for the patchouli to nearly completely leave. Lex Talionis turns spicy and a little floral-sweet--vetiver and violet and grapefruit with a bit of myrrh, maybe the cardamom or black pepper poking out. I barely smell the cedar, except as perhaps a faint woody base under the black notes. The grapefruit never asserts itself as a foody or citrus scent--mostly it stands as a white note to put sharp edges on the scent. My girlfriend keeps mistaking Lex Talionis for Torture King, which makes a little sense--they share some smoky, earthy notes, vetiver and patchouli--but it's not very accurate. Lex Talionis is very chiaroscuro, sharp edges with layers of black at the bottom and white at the top, whereas Torture King is much smokier, much less defined, much more mutable with many more colours muddling together.

I got this as a frimp with my last order. After having a friend try it and love it, I too had high expectations. I said to myself, as I was trying this, "I like lavender, I like pain... surely I will like this scent." Oh, how wrong I was, friends. In the bottle, it's gorgeous. It's sharp lavender with a green undertone--probably the hints of pennyroyal. It's clean and crisp and lovely. On me, within moments--seconds--all the lavender turned and fled, leaving only the horrible mutant stench of pennyroyal. I could not get to the bathroom to wash it off fast enough. On my partner, who tried Pain moments later, it came up purely medicinally antiseptic smelling. Poor luck.