septima_pica

Wow, so in the imp...yeah. I've never smelt anything quite like it before, but the closest I get is some combination of Tibetan buttered tea, unidentifiable flowers, and potting soil. Well, there's dirt in it so I'm game. I put it on. Wow, that oil sure is viscous -- what's up with that? Thankfully the butter goes away, but the tea's still there...I'm not complaining, either. Still can't pin down those flowers, but I like it much better now; the dirt's more like what I remember in Nosferatu, and less like a sack of potting mix. Unfortunately, within half an hour -- poof, all gone. DAMN.

Me, I'd go with Absinthe or Whitechapel. Not so dark or dominant or sexy, just sharp, energetic, cheerful and odd. Then again, I've never been terribly good at flirty, FWIW -- cheerfully odd is about the closest I'd be likely to get in any case, scent or no scent. aedes, up above, pretty much captures my sentiment toward most of the scents in this thread.

It would seem that the most important thing, as the previous poster suggested, is to wear something that smells like the person you want to be for the interview -- that is, the person they'd want to hire. Since I got going on this crazy perfume thing, I've been increasingly aware of how much my scent influences my acting ability.

Yeah, it seems that whether a scent is powdery is entirely a question of body chemistry. Even the Enraged Bunny, which was specifically made to be powdery, in some people failed to do so. I had Black Opal and Morocco go to powder, which maybe one other person did. So whatever you try and get for your friend, you'll probably have to just reckon by probability based on the proportion of "powdery" reviews on the forum...good luck with that.

(as of 7/17/08) Italics=swap pending BOTTLES IMPS GC: Against Idleness and Mischief Aug-09 Anathema Apr-09 Bewitched ? (taped) Black Dahlia Oct-08 Black Rose Mar-10 Blood Amber Jan-09 Blood Rose Apr-09 Bruised Violet Compound ? Catherine Oct-08 Djinn Jan-09 Dragon's Reverie Jun-09 Eos Jul-08 Erato ? Event Horizon May-09 Grand Guignol Oct-09 Hermia Jul-08 Horreur Sympathique ? Kali ? (rolled and taped) King of Hearts ? La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente Jun-08 La Belle Dame Sans Merci Jun-09 Lucy's Kiss Jul-08 Lucy's Kiss May-09 Marie Jun-09 The Miller's Daughter Mar-10 Miskatonic University ? Oberon Jan-09 Othello May-09 Othello ? Phantom ? Phantom Queen Jun-08 The Pool of Tears Mar-10 Queen Gertrude Mar-10 Rosalind Jul-08 Seraglio ? Sheol Aug-09 Suspiro May-09 The Unicorn Oct-08 Tweedledum Nov-08 Villain Jan-09 Viola Mar-10 Wings of Azrael Apr-09 LE: Faunalia Dec-09 Gacela of the Dark Death Dec-09 Old Man Ackerman's Instructional Toys Dec-09 Yule Cat Dec-09 NON-BPAL Violette Market: Cathedral Sep-09 Violette Market: Scottie's Blend Sep-09 Goth Rosary: Black Wings ? I can decant from the following: (no decants right now, I'm out of empties) Absinthe Anubis Athens Bess Death Cap Death of the Gravedigger (swap for Salon scents only please) Gaueko Laudanum Nyarlathotep Perversion Whitechapel

Well, damn. Iblis, the Great Enemy, the Whisperer of Lies, He Who Despaired of the Mercy of God, smells like...cinnamon bubble-gum. There's a little of something patchouli-ish in there too, which salvages it slightly -- this changes the impression to "hippie chewing cinnamon bubble-gum" -- but that's really not a huge improvement. I can't even smell the cloves or incense. Damn, damn, damn. I was looking forward to this one, too, with those notes...I guess stone-fruit and I are just not meant to get along. Ah well. ADDED 12/20/07: Octopod already tried and reviewed this. Kalirren: The complexity is actually coming out, as it didn't on Octopod. Hurrah! Slightly soapy at the beginning, but the cinnamon and clove are also apparent, plus something unidentifiable, and orange makes it sweet. Not too sweet, though. Gets better as it dries -- warm, smooth, and spicy. Unfortunately a bit potpourri-like for a little while, but it's still really good, and that goes away.

Oh, man. This is astonishing. All the alcoholic scents I've tried (except Madrid, for some reason) have been absolutely awesome, and this one's no exception. The wine is rich, fruity, pungent, a little sour...just perfect. It reminds me of Delphi, except it replaces the strange dusty green herbs with deep spices and florals...and the honey is so sticky-sweet and perfect to cover the sourness of the wine. Also, I think myrrh loves me. Athens is kinda how I wished O would have been, except for the part where vanilla and amber turned into ick -- apparently what I needed was honey-myrrh, not honey-amber. This scent is STRONG, too, with a lot of throw. At least three people have commented on it from a distance of probably 30 feet, although thankfully they all liked it. It lasts amazingly long too -- after six hours the wine/spices/flowers are gone, but the deep sweet smell of beeswax and myrrh remains as strong as some blends have been immediately upon application. I wore this to a class today where we ended up discussing the pre-Socratic philosophers and the roots of Aristotelian logic...it was awesome. This really does have an ancient feel to it, classic and evocative and unembarrassedly sensual. It jumps right into my top ten list. I may like Hetairae better when I get a chance to try it, but if not I'm definitely jumping for a bottle of this -- though with its strength, I'll probably take a loooong time to run through it.

Bottles to acquire Shrunken Heads Diable-en-Boîte Aperotos Eros -- or Ekhidna? The Chicken-Legged Hut? Azathoth (have Miaiphonos) Mary Read Rumpelstilzchen (have Hell-Gate of Ireland) Yorick (have Badger) The Malignant Dreams of Cthulhu in Love Ü Graveyard Dirt (will always take more) Imps, or to-try GC The Coil Cthulhu De Sade Drink Me Eclipse Envy Ephemera Fire of Love Gomorrah Incantation Intrigue Kumiho Lear The Mock-Turtle's Lessons Moscow Nefertiti Night-Gaunt Pannychis Phantom Prurience To a Woman Troll Yggdrasil (aged) Carnaval: Hand of Glory (aged) The Blood Garden Salon: Two Monsters Orpheus Bat-Woman The Death of Sardanapal The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun Three Gorgons The Smiling Spider La Mort Qui Danse LE: Glukoprikos Melainis Whirling Wind Moon Gold Phoenix Countess Willie Crib Girls VT: The Fool VT: The Magician

Much sweeter than I expected, and much less dirt. It turns out that all the alcohol blends are astonishingly good on me, except those which have other notes that don't work, and this is no exception. However, I don't smell the dirt at all (or hardly at all), which is a bit of a disappointment as it's now my favourite BPAL note. (Along with tonka, of course, and nutmeg.) I wonder what the sweet note is? It reminds me vaguely of the lotus in Black Lotus; maybe it's the magnolia, since I recently found out that what I thought was magnolia is actually "tulip-tree". All in all, though, it's a nice blend though not one of the Lab's most distinctive. I'll probably go through the imp and not buy another -- though after the complete change of heart I had regarding Zombi, I'll have to wait and see what I'm saying about it in a couple of weeks...

Wow, grapes! Like, real fresh sweet fruity grapes! I didn't know you could even do that! I mean, I don't think I'd ever want to wear this -- it's TOO grapey, really, even though not fake -- but it's still super impressive. It doesn't smell like wine, though, the way Nosferatu did -- just grape syrup, like the walnut-and-grape-syrup candies. I'd like to get something with this kind of cloves in it, though. Oh, but I was hoping that "wine and cloves" would be more like Nosferatu after a night spent having cloves smoked at me...bah.

Reminds me first of Nyarlathotep in its pale citrus notes -- lime and citron, I guess. A bit cologney perhaps. However, it lacks the black smells in Nyarlathotep and replaces them with lilac, which is both distinctive and unexpected. The overall effect is just as the description suggests (that's unusual) -- that is, exactly what I was hoping initially to get from Dorian. It's sharp, light, clean, incredibly unisex, and I keep finding myself sniffing at my wrists. Today's the first day I've noticed the real summer heat, and much as I like that, it's nice to have something this cooling to wear in it sometimes. Wish the lime had a little more throw, though. I'm a fan. A bottle of this is going on my to-buy list for sure.

Hey, wow, what is that? It's tingly! Lots and lots of wood and incense, with some straight-up cedar too. Oh, and here come the patchouli and myrrh. Oh, man, I love myrrh; it makes it just sweet enough, but not overpoweringly so. The patchouli's the good kind, too, not the one that smells dry and funky -- I gather this is black patchouli, as opposed to red. Like a cedarwood chest full of incense and nice clean silks, kinda like a Tibetan import store. This smells like I wished some other scents had -- like Anne Bonny with more complexity, Tombstone with less sweetness, or Silk Road without the part where it smells like potpourri. Gorgeous. I should get one of these for my dad, I think he'd like it -- he wears patchouli and sandalwood, normally -- but I might prefer just to keep it myself, and I might get a bottle for it.

Aquatic, soapy, something of the sweetness of Szepasszony and also for some reason cucumbers. Very subtle, almost the smell of a classy deodorant or some sort of confusing beauty product for application to the face. Pleasant, but not something I'd particularly want to wear myself. Slightly sneezy, as Dirty was.

The vanilla here is kept down by the cedar and (my old friend) sassafras. Not sure I know what balsam smells like, though, and I can't pick out any unidentifiable scent here... The boy said "yum", though, when I accidentally sent the lid flying through the air and he got oil on his fingers picking it up. For no reason I can name, it *does* evoke the high Colorado Plateau deserts -- power of suggestion, or is there some common smell?

Cherry and cedar. So tasty...like eating black cherries in a hot sauna. Similar to Madrid, though, I don't think I can wear this, 'cause although the cherries sure are yummy I don't really want to smell like I've bathed in cherry juice. Seems vaguely unsanitary.

Pepper and honey, with a suggestion of the spice rack in the Armenian food market. After a few minutes, a dried-grass sweetness comes out. I like it.

This scent is kinda fruity, maybe even apple, but definitely *black*. Unambiguously so. It's reminding me of something, the way scents do, but I can't quite say what. Not particularly flowery, but lotus tends to be like that. Somehow this manages to be almost sickly sweet at the same time that it's black and echoing. Overall quite nice, except I don't think it agrees with my chemistry -- could smell REALLY HOT on the right girl, though.

Ooooh, it's so green! Like, straight-up chlorophyll. There's some mintiness too, but mostly it's that BRIGHT chlorophyll scent you get from crushing spinach or miner's lettuce. That, plus spearmint which is getting stronger now. Huh. Reminds me a little bit of Absinthe, but with mint instead of the anise; I think I'll stick with Absinthe. This is just a touch too toothpastey.

The disaster that is cocoa is somewhat muted here, and fades away nearly completely within five minutes. All that's left of it is something that suggests somewhat singed tonka. There's a fruity-flowery smell that reminds me of Xiuhtecuhtli -- maybe the "ritual incense" in the description is the same incense? Actually, this is less girly than Xiuhtecuhtli, and I think I like it better for that hint of leather and patchouli that makes it so. In fact, this is bumping Xiuhtecuhtli from my top 10...

All powdery, resinous roses. Bleah. I can't even smell the fruit. After half an hour there's a suggestion of berries, but still no fig -- dammit, I wanted figs. Oh hell, there they are! Nearly an hour after I first applied it, it turned into something I can actually wear. Really, I think I should just avoid dragon's blood, except for Dragon's Bone which inexplicably works. Oh, but it's so nice now!I wonder what scent could do this for me without the looooong interval of nasty-ass powdery plastic roses?

Almost all cinnamon and ginger, with maybe a touch of musk and almond. This scent is warm and cuddly, with a hint of baked goods -- the most vivid memory I'm getting here is of an outdoor market somewhere, some August, where my parents and I bought cinnamon bread and then went and had a picnic in the sun on the grass...second one in ten minutes, oddly, that's made me think I ought to get my dad an imp of it. That's never happened with any others. Twenty minutes later -- aha! there's that sour thing from O! It's not nearly as bothersome here, but still -- I think it must be amber that's going bad on me. Good to know.

Immediately: lemon, vanilla, and (I think) lavender. Unfortunately, the tea (always weak, for me) vanishes completely, and the combination of the other three ends up smelling not so much of elegant cologne as of the sort of soap you find in the better sort of seaside tchotchke shops. Not unpleasant, but not the sort of thing I'd really like to wear -- too pastel for me. After 15 minutes or so, it's warmed up to something much nicer; I still don't think it's quite my style. The vanilla is much nicer now, though; it seems I just need to give vanilla a little while to start smelling good, not rule it out entirely. In fact, everything but the vanilla vanishes after an hour or two and then it's pretty nice. Again: it might be generally a bit sweet for me to wear with a straight face, but it would be totally hot on a pretty boy... ::ponders:: (I'm putting this, along with Black Lotus, on the "I want to smell this on a hot boy/girl" list.)

Man, this REALLY smells like laundry. Nice, clean, freshly washed laundry, drying in the sun. Nothing else is evoked, just precisely this image. Also, it was gone after an hour. However, when I sniffed the spot, it made me sneeze though I didn't detect anything.

The pinnacle of wealth, luxury, self-indulgent pleasure, voluptuousness and sensuality. Bright violet with sweet clove, Mediterranean incense notes and tonka bean. Alright, that's it, I officially LOVE tonka. In fact, that's definitely (now I know!) the note I love so much in Dee. And with clove, it's super awesome...but the violet, not so much. It's meek and old-ladyish and just doesn't do the scent justice. The incense, though, tips the balance in favour of this one. The scent is heady, sweet without being foody, and just a touch spicy. I'm going to try and find something with which to layer it to muffle the violets a bit. Edit: Nope, this is not working. The violets are just too much. Bah. Also the cloves vanish after a half-hour or so -- off to swaps, hopefully in exchange for other tonka blends.

I'm amazed no-one has yet mentioned Laudanum.