septima_pica

Well, O ("Amber and honey with a touch of vanilla") is the classic amber-and-vanilla scent 'round these parts...you could try layering it with whatever rose you like best. However, that latter might take a good bit of investigation, because there are tons of them!

And the Grand Inquisitor's Heretic's Fork from Wunderkammer, although that's dried blood.

Finally -- a vanilla I can wear! I guess it's all that heavy wood and sweet tobacco that keeps it in check and not smelling like yucky fake dessert, and finally I know what all the vanilla fuss is about. Very seamless sort of blend, extremely classy and androgynous. This may be the first hideously popular GC that is really a total win on me. Rather exciting really. Will edit further when I get to try it under non-Will-Call circumstances. Edit: OK, got my imp pack, now I can evaluate it properly. I think I got a pretty accurate bead on it the first time: this is vanilla for people who can't wear vanilla. If Dorian and Antique Lace and Snake Oil and all their vanilla buddies smell like cheap vanilla soap or canned frosting, this may be better. The wood keeps it from getting too sweet, and the tobacco gives it a dark edge that keeps soap from threatening. Really awesome. Classy, dark, almost sexy but not overt about it. Reminds me of Dee a little bit, which is definitely a good thing, but it's out of the library and all dressed up, possibly for a night at the theater. I'll have to see how much I wear the imp, but I'm glad this one is GC because I suspect I'll want more of it at some point.

First time I sniffed it I was inside at Will Call and couldn't smell a damned thing. Then in a few minutes I went outside and sniffed again and it made me plotz. I could see myself wearing this every day. Hell, I wish I smelt like this naturally. I don't think I'd ever get tired of it. Cardamom is very faint; this is mostly sweet hay and golden balsam, with that smooth rich wood note holding it all together. But I applied it at 8:30 and it's still there at 1:15, so it's got deceptively good staying power for its mildness. I would wear this on its own or layer it with other things -- as I said, it's pretty much what I'd like my actual skin to smell like all the time. ETA: The scent is stabilized now after a week or so of not being in the post. I think it'll age fabulously. Dammit, this right here may be my first multiple bottle purchase. Oddly, I almost smell leather after it dries down. That's certainly OK though...

Are there any caves in Florida? I thought it was all swamp. That said, I'll also have to try Kumari Kandam now -- I was afraid of all the flowers going BOOM like they did in Isles of Demons, but this makes it sound awesome. Mmm, clay. Definitely going to try it. There are many of us out here who like the caves smell...

I swapped for this and then reread the notes and said "Blood musk? Uh-oh...!" Luckily, this turned out to not be one of the ones that hates me, I guess. The leather's the main thing going on here, along with the incense, and cypress plays the same role it does in Nemesis, that of a grounding, green woody sharpness. The musk is a faint powderiness in the background. For some reason I get the feeling that this would smell a lot better if I was sweating. Definitely worth keeping a hold of this one. I may edit this later once I wear it on its own. Edit: Well, I was sweating today AND wearing it on its own, and it makes the musk go WHOOSH for the first hour or so. This was disappointing. However, after that it got much nicer. Something almost citrusy hiding in there behind the leather; I suppose it might be partly the white pepper. Very nice, if not a total wow, but I'll probably hold onto the imp. Maybe even get another one after it's gone. Never going to wear this one enough to warrant buying a bottle of it, though.

At first it's straight GINGER plus lemon. Then some spices show up...yeah, I get the Atomic Fireballs thing a little bit here -- and there's definitely sweet resin down there, probably my old buddy myrrh again. Not foody, phew. I was a little worried in the bottle, but the buttery baked-goods smell went away as soon as it hit my skin. It's almost a little potpourri-ish, but I don't know...maybe it needs to age a bit? The ginger's being shouted down by the assorted plant material, amazingly. I'll give it an hour. Later: It's gingersnaps now, and it's still got some cinnamon going on -- quite a bit foodier than it was. Nothing funky and powdery though, which is definitely good. I'll try this on its own too. Wow, I'm 3 for 3 with the Lovecraft scents today...good stuff, and I've got Shoggoth in the mail. W00t.

WIN. Oh, man. This is like Zombi but even better, since I'm not usually in the mood for roses. The yew makes it a little bit ozoney, actually...pretty interesting. I was going to be SO disappointed if I didn't like this. Luckily I do...we'll see how fast I use up this imp. And after reading filigree_shadow's review above, I wish I had her skin chemistry. Sigh. Edit: This is...not as good as it could be on me. There's something here that just keeps swamping the dirt out. After several hours the stuff smells more like Thanatos than anything. Dirt, come back! :-(

Mandarin, tonka, saffron, black tea, cocoa, tobacco leaf, sanguine red musk and five classical herbs of conflict. Wow, citrussy! But not sweet. More like lemongrass than mandarin really. Let's hope that cocoa and red musk don't make this one superfunky. This is pretty crazy because the high citrus/herbal notes and low tonka and tobacco notes seem to be fighting for dominance, and the red musk is just kinda crazy redness in between. I don't smell any cocoa at all, which I suppose is probably good, considering that it spoiled several other scents for me. Maybe the tonka just beat it up and shoved it in a locker or something; thanks, I appreciate that. Unfortunately the tea isn't showing itself at all either -- or maybe that's my coffee breath talking. LOL. This is some crazy shit. I like it a lot. Thank goodness the musk isn't such a big player as I was afraid it would be. Definitely going to get its own full-test day.

Wet: LOL, flavored coffee! Like a big whiff of hazelnut-flavoured coffee with sugar, cream and a shot of whiskey. It's damn sweet, but I actually...kinda like it. Huh. I usually don't like foody much, and I don't even like DRINKING flavoured coffee (urgh). And there goes the sweetness. It's just coffee now. Smells like I spilled flavoured coffee on my arm. Where are the books? I got this for the books, dammit! ...Oh, there they are. Wow. This is amazing. The coffee's actually getting a little bit oxidized-smelling -- you know, old and musty and sour? Not a bad thing, I've always kinda liked that smell. (Full confession: I had a crush on a teacher once, and he always smelled like clove cigs and coffee breath.) And it's boozier and boozier, but not overly so -- I like boozy scents. It's a little dusty, but there's something weird there -- spicy, almost? I'll have to give this a full-body test drive. Interesting. For once, I really like one of the uber-popular foody BPALs. Just have Shub-Niggurath to try now, hah. Edit: OK, this is officially up there with the best scents. It turns out that when I apply more of it, that "old books" smell comes out waaaay more, and the sweetness never gets too heavy. Old books and coffee breath and faint caramel sweetness. And it's still going strong 15 hours after I applied it. Then again, I have been in a library all day, drinking coffee, now that I think about it. I can't help thinking that applying this and Dee together would make me smell like Clement Hollier from The Rebel Angels, in the best possible way. I'll have to try that sometime when I want to get my Respectable Academic hat on.

The summer I turned 13, I had a friend at summer camp who gave me a present. It was a little tiny bottle of some kind of Chinese medicinal oil. It smelled like all sorts of things -- wintergreen and pine and fennel and various untranslatable herbs. I eventually figured out that it made a great headache cure. And then I lost it. It smelled EXACTLY like this. Win.

Fsck. There's red or black musk in here somewhere, isn't there. ::weeps, curses:: And it was so good other than that. Maybe I'll try it with a bit of Death Cap over the top -- that usually damps down unwanted diapery-powderiness for some reason.

Uruk, maybe? Although that's got a strong almond that doesn't sound like it's in your Moschino.

Ouch, unfortunate. X_X Have you tried Dracul?

This is the one I've been most wanting to try out of the Lupercalias. It's got nutmeg (the only one besides Laudanum, IIRC) and clove, and I like all the other notes too. Managed to snag a decant of it (thanks, Apple!) and try it... ...OMG, it's AWESOME. Oddly, of BPALs I've tried, this most reminds me of Kostnice, now DC'd, but it's even better. The rose, sandalwood, and cedar make a strong showing first. Then it starts getting a tiiiiiny bit sweet, and just gets better and better. It goes way down in intensity after an hour or so, though, unfortunately. Do I need a bottle of this? Maybe. It's pretty awesome.

Octopod: Ooooo. Starts off sweet, dark, and ominous. I like it. It's edging on soapiness, but not quite hitting it. The musk is behaving itself too. This smells oddly old-fashioned somehow, I'm not sure why. A scent of heavy, sweet, wet, smoky tropical flowers. I actually like this a lot, even though I can't smell the volcanic gas and igneous rocks I was hoping for. Hmm. We'll see how I like this after my cold's gone, but for now it's a keeper.

Octopod: Hoping for something as good as Nemesis, here. What I get is fig and...latex? Dude, WTF? Luckily, this goes away after a few minutes. Now it's pretty much fig and subtle spices. Damn, I love BPAL's fig note. Oddly enough, this is much subtler and milder than Nemesis, less forward. I think I like it -- but I'll have to wait and see what it smells like after I'm over this cold. EDIT. Now that my pipes are clear again, I can assess this a little better. Oddly enough, I can smell the vetiver in the imp but it vanishes as soon as I dab it on. It was enough like Nemesis -- the identical sticky maroon dried-fig note -- that I dabbed on a bit of each to compare. Nephilim is woodier; it's got a dry undertone in common with, say, Magus, where Nemesis has tarry green cypress. This makes it much less sharp, more muted. It's also got a bit of something reminiscent of Kostnice and The Clod and the Pebble. I suppose that's the frankincense. It gets darker and sweeter as time goes on, losing the high notes of lavender and now I can smell the tamarind. Hah, it smells like it tastes, dark and sweet-sour. This scent is pretty close to Nemesis, as I'd predicted, but is much more sweet, incensey and laid-back, where Nemesis is totally balls-out and almost bitter behind the sweet fig. Something as if you wore Nemesis together with Sri Lanka. Much less throw too. Still, I like it. In summary: Nemesis's philosopher-stoner big brother. I think I'll keep it.

(Octopod) Amber hates me. I know this for a fact. It always gets this weird sour-funky smell about it. Red (or black) musk also turns into baby powder. So why did I try this one? Because I'm an absolute sucker for leather and myrrh. In other words, this one's pretty much a tossup. The verdict: It starts out blasting musk (the way it should smell) and leather. But after 5 minutes it's funky baby powder, and stays that way. No myrrh, ever. Woe is me. >_< I'll give it to Kalirren and see what it smells like on him, though, because amber DOESN'T hate him.

Italian parsley is an entirely different thing, very similar to curly parsley. It smells nothing at all like cilantro, but it does kinda look a lot like it, I guess. Maybe Tenochtitlan? I got a little of that feeling from it -- probably the epazote.

Maybe Madrid? That is, if the wine doesn't go as sweet-grapey as it did on me.

A second vote for Bengal. I thought it smelled exactly like baklava.

(Octopod) Hmm. This goes on with a weird cacophony -- there's mint, roses, leather, something dark orange and reminiscent of Xiuhtecuhtli, something powdery? I'm confused. In about a minute, though, it turns into an incredibly well-blended scent, I'm not even sure what all the things are, but it's lovely. And now it's gone. Poof. All gone. WTF? After a bit, I realise it's not gone. It's just reaaaaally subtle. This is pretty nice...I'll have to try wearing it for a day before I decide. It's not as feminine as I'd been afraid it was going to be, what with the roses and lilies and vanilla, but it's still much lighter than I was hoping for. Less like a scent than like the memory of a scent. Edit: And a few minutes later...BAM, it's baby powder. Damn! >_< Oh well...

Anubis, definitely. "Spicy desert gold" nails it exactly. It's kinda like Ahathoor, but substitute myrrh for the amber and tweak the incense up a bit.

"Notes include honey, musk, leather, incense, tobacco leaf, hay, sugar, amber, iris, rose, sandalwood." I love scents like that. However, nothing comes immediately to mind to match the notes here, probably because I avoid amber like the plague. I'd note, though, that anything with tonka is probably a good bet if you like the sweet hay note, because the aromatic molecule coumarin is the notable scent in both hay and tonka bean. I'm a huge fan of tonka, so I'll recommend a few to you that kinda fit into this family. Dee is not terribly sweet except for the tonka, but also has lovely leather and incense notes. Nemesis is one of my favourites but the cypress is probably too green for you. Perversion is quite sweet, with tonka, tobacco, and coconut, but also leathery and a bit sharp from booze. Sybaris is a good tonka if you can wear violet. Anubis and Athens are also recommended, for sweet-sharp incense scents.

Well, Gap's Heaven is "jasmine, muguet, tree moss, and musk"...