ashtoreth

First sniff of Hellfire is all tobacco. Since I love the tobacco in Santo Domingo, I am prepared to adore this, despite the leather notes that the description purports. Wet, I can smell expensive booze and tobacco, and something powdery, which I identify as the leather - as the only thing that goes to babypowder on my skin immediately is whatever blend is used for leather. Dry - It's not unpleasant, but the powdery scent is dominating. Every now and again I catch whiffs of the tobacco, but mostly... it's a spicy babypowder. When I test a scent for the first time, I always plan for a full day of wear - I put it on in the morning when I go to work, and generally don't wash it off until I take a shower the following morning. Talk about staying power! By the following morning, my sinuses had clogged up and I had a terrible sinus headache that went away after I took a shower and had steeped myself in Roadhouse for half a day. I'm not entirely certain, but I think I may be allergic to something in Hellfire. Further tests need to be conducted to determine if it was just a fluke.

Wet, this was definitely a highly medicinal smell - very herby, and about precisely what I want a Victorian era doctor to smell like - or at least his bottles. Drying, it became darker and sweeter, the nutmeg and myrrh dominating on me. It reminds me of something, and I'm wracking my brain trying to determine why I'm feeling high nostalgia. Several hours later: I'm sitting at work in the front office, entering bills into Quickbooks. The owner of the company comes in, takes a sniff, and says, "is somebody wearing Old Spice?" Oh, right. That's what that scent is. It smells like my father after he shaves, and while the scent isn't unpleasant, I'm not sure that it's what I was looking for. --Ashtoreth

Let me paint you a picture: Somewhere in the California central valley, it's late summer. The hills overlooking the interstate are covered in tall, dry grass, although the fields on either side of the long, straight strip of asphalt are as green as you could want. On one of those hills, a girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen, long limbed, tan and clad in denim cutoffs that show more than they conceal and a halter top that belongs to an era long past is sitting on the tailgate of a battered ford pickup. A young man's muttered curses interrupt her reverie, and she looks back to see only the ass of her boyfriend sticking out of the cab of the truck while he rummages around in the little stadium cooler looking for a beer. "Where the fuck did you put my beer?" he calls out to her. He's a cowboy in the way that only Californians who have never actually been near either a cow or a horse can be. He's shirtless, glistening with sweat, and a cowboy hat perches on his head. "Didn't bring any. Mom would have noticed," she says by way of xplanation. "Hand me the green bottle that's in there, though." He swears again, but takes out the bottle. The girl takes the keys out of her pocket with their attached swiss army knife, botches the job of getting the cork out of the top. Bits of cork fall into the bottle, and her boyfriend snickers. "Like to see you do a better job," she shoots at him, and takes a swig. The girl's parents are hippies, and as such, they have hippy tastes. This bottle of wine has been sitting in the back of the fridge for years, for as long as she can remember. The label is faded; only whitish yellow splotches on a green background are left. It doesn't taste like the box wine that they normally drink. This is sweeter, like taking a mouth full of sugar and alcohol, but with a bitter aftertaste. She takes another swig to wash out the bitter taste, only to be rewarded with another flash of bitterness. "You gonna drink all of that yourself?" he asks, pouting a little bit. She rolls her eyes. "Here, take it. It'll get the job done." He comes to sit next to her, the truck creaking a bit under his added weight. He takes a mouthful, swallows, spits out the cork. "Huh. Dandelions," he says, examining the bottle, and showing a level of sophistication that was, until now, completely unknown. "What?" She looks at him like he's grown a second head. Or maybe a third one. "It's dandelion wine." His lips twist into a smile as he pulls his girl closer. She resists for a moment until he hands the bottle back. She takes another sip, sets it on the edge of the tailgate, and kisses him fully on the mouth, letting the sweet-bitter liquid flow from hers to his, tasting his warm tongue and the tobacco swirling in it. ------------------ And this is what "Roadhouse" smells like. Dandelion wine on a hot summer afternoon. It smells like a lazy summer Sunday, of not really innocence, but a drunken naivete. It is sweet and warm, and god, I think I'm in love with it. I've been catching whiffs of it all afternoon, and it makes me want to go out and reenact the idyllic scene described above. I can't smell the sleaze [from the description]... to me, it just smells perfect.

I know better than to actively buy floral scents, but I thought "well, blackberry is a fruit, and heather isn't a super-floral. I should be okay." In the imp, I was nearly bowled over by the scent of berry, and moreover, by the light touch of something lightly floral. So far, so good. Wet, the scent took on richer notes - still heavy berry notes, but it reminded me of wearing a berry cobbler. Tasty, but not what I had in mind. Drying and dry, it finally dawned on me what this scent was evocative of. Some years ago I owned a car that had, prior to my taking possession of it, been used by someone who smoked heavily. To cover the smell of stale smoke in the vehicle, the prior owner had dumped febreeze all over the upholstery and proceeded to stick car air fresheners into every spare corner. And sadly, that is what Glasgow smells like on me - a heavy, permeating smell of carfreshener. The best thing I can say about it is that it has staying power; I smelled like a carfreshener until the following morning when, after some serious scrubbing in the shower, I managed to finally rid myself of the scent. I will likely be offloading this one soon. --Ashtoreth

At the risk of sounding like the goth I am most adamantly not, I was really excited to see Asphodel as one of the offerings, since I have always loved the flower (it has a very unusual bloom) and the mythology surrounding it (sacred to Persephone, planted around graves as it was the favored food of the dead). In the bottle, this is a very floral scent, but light and surprisingly refreshing. I was a little worried that it would be too heavy, but this looks like it might be one of the few florals that I will be able to wear with impunity! Wet on the skin, the florals quickly start turning to baby powder. A light and refreshing baby powder, mind you, but powdery nonetheless. A little disappointing, but I'm willing to cope, hoping that the dry will be better. Drying and dry, the scent has nearly disappeared already... and four hours after application, it is all but gone, the barest ghost of the scent still lingering on my wrists. This is disappointing, but not altogether surprising. I keep hoping for a good floral scent that will linger as more than a breath, but Asphodel isn't it for me. --Ashtoreth

Anathema: In the imp, I smell a lot of opium and vetiver, making for a very interesting combination. It’s spicy and robust – nothing subtle about this. I’m not catching much from the honeysuckle; I think that it may be overpowered by the opium. Wet on the skin, the Honeysuckle is starting to play, the vetiver is fading quickly, leaving the opium and the sweetly-sick flowery notes of the honeysuckle to mingle. At least, I’m assuming that the oversweet note is the honeysuckle as described. It actually reminds me more of the wisteria that hung heavily on my back porch at an apartment I lived in with my then-boyfriend many years ago. On the dry down, the opium is still strong, as are the sweet flowery notes, leaving it as a strange flowery and decadent scent. As the evening progresses, the opium fades and the lingering flower scents remain, subtle and unassuming. When putting nose to wrist, it smells almost like baby-powder, but the occasional gust of cold air on the clear evening bring the scent wafting through my hair and to my nose, reminding me of time not yet spent on other matters. -=-=-=- I decided to try this scent for a new character I was playing for a LARP (someone just shoot me now). Interestingly, I didn’t have a real idea for the character other than a name and a character sheet – the costume put itself together from things in my closet that I’ve been looking forward to wearing and a desire to be warm on a cold Sonoma county evening – however, once I had the costume on and the scent in my head, a voice for the character emerged. I don’t think that I would wear this scent on a day-to-day basis, but it’s certainly perfect for a character. I’ll likely be buying a bottle in the nearish future.