fiddledragon

Ok, I apparantly can't wear (or just don't like) pennyroyal. This is a lot like Utrennyaya on me -- the mints blending with odd floral things. I like lavender, and it's under there somewhere, but the pennyroyal goes weird and band-aid-ish on me after spending a long time being nauseatingly minty. I've heard this blend can be excellent for migraines...I'll keep it around and see if it helps. At least it'll provide strange disturbing scents to distract me from the migraine! And I was all set out to like this one

This one morphs a lot on me as it develops. Wet, it's appropriately enough a lot like Lilith, with lots of myrrh, musk, and fruitiness from the dragon's blood standing in for Lilith's wine. It goes through an almost bread-like cinnamony stage, and dries to this marvelous chilling cassia-dragon'sblood-smoke state with a hint of myrrh. This is the first "smoke" blend I've tried that actually smells like smoke. It's far away from what I usually wear and is just too peculiar to be a favorite, but it's an amazingly crafted blend and will go into the "costume" pile.

Especially before it's had a chance to age, this hits me with a blast of gardenia at first that isn't entirely pleasant, but it's worth it for the drydown. It's bright and citrus-honey without being overly sweet or foody, and happily floral without being generic perfume. This is an innocently sensual blend -- the smell of running naked through a field of flowers and citrus trees. So happy.

... His scent is dry elm bark, amaranth, warrior’s musk, and Odin’s Nine Herbs of Power. Oatmeal. Manly, manly oatmeal. Go figure.

Fresh, this is bowl-you-over sweet marzipan-y almond until it's had several minutes to dry. But dry, or even wet once it's aged a few months, this is the most glorious saffron scent! Saffron takes first place, with a beautiful soft musk, sweet lotus, and all sorts of wonderful unidentifiable things in the base somewhere. It's very evocatively fierce and sensual and loving. Layered with something honeyed like Sudha Segara, this stuff is Sex on a Stick.

On me, this smells like hot stone, chocolate, and blood. The blood I'm assuming has a violet component, as that's what violets do on me, but I have no *clue* what's doing the hot-rock thing, especially as that doesn't seem to be what its' supposed to smell like. The rum never pokes its nose out, which makes me happy; rum is one of my least favorite smells. But the whole blood-and-hot-rock thing is *really* creeping me out, especially after studying Aztec religion for class, so this imp is going to go away now.

This is strongly wine and myrrh and musk, with the roses around the edges. This is scentwise a second cousin to Kali, somewhat appropriately. The black musk is dark and enveloping, and the myrrh cuts the sweetness of the wine. This is a beautiful scent for feeling strong and sexy.

In the imp: Giant cantalopes and honeydews! On me: an overflowing mound of ripe dew-kissed fruits. I smell like a fruit salad. This is very much a fertile mother-goddess sort of a scent; very evocative, but not the kind of thing I usually wear. Into the costume pile!

This is one of the few red musk scents to work on me. The musk is sex-in-a-bottle, the myrrh adds darkness, the leather is sweet and rough, and the rose doesn't go musty on me. This is really more of an outright seduction scent than I'm ever in the mood to wear, but if I get an imp of my own, I might keep it for a costume.

Interesting! Before reading the reviews I had no idea what was traditionally in Kyphi. In Beth's blend, there appears to be cardamom. Lots and lots of cardamom. Which also appears to love me and almost nobody else. Well, the cardamom and I can have our own special little love affair :-) There are some other spices and resins in there making it more complex, but mostly it's "hi, I just dumped cardamom on my wrist!" But despite the associations of cardamom with various foods, this isn't at all a foody spice-scent. It smells a bit sultry, a bit ritual. Beautiful. Edit: on my boyfriend, it goes to a wonderful dry cinnamon with honey. It's warm without being candy-like, and perfect for snuggling in cold weather. Must get more of this!

On me, this smells like raw cinnamon raisin bread dough. It has that grain-flour smell, some sweet dried fruits, cinnamon, and a yeasty bread smell. It's not a bad smell, but not really one that I want to smell like. I've put it in my "to age" box since this was fresh from the lab, and hopefully that grain note will calm down a bit. The cinnamon's probably going to do its spice of doom thing, but I can always hope for a miracle.

This is unexcitingly sweet floral on me, but as a room scent, it glows. The heather and floral form a wonderful dusty outdoors sort of scent, and the blackberry adds a lovely tartness without going all syrupy. I swapped it off for something I wanted more, since I don't use room scents very often these days, but I should try to snag another imp some time.

I seem to be one of the few people who really *likes* civet. On me, it's like a sexier white musk. It's the scent of sex after a shower -- all the sultry musk with none of the sweaty smell. But I can't actually wear Black Annis: Beth did entirely too good of a job on it and it smells creepy. I wore it last year as a costume scent for a lycanthrope assassin in a roleplaying campaign and it fit her pefectly. I keep the imp around to sniff it and bring back happy memories of the storytelling we did. Maybe eventually I'll lose some of that association and I can try layering it with something warmer...the civet and anise are lovely, but just...brrr...

This is beautiful -- I'm enjoying seeing how differently it works on people, given how many notes are in it. On me, it's strongly tamarind, which I adore. The frankincense and rosemary and fig are in there somewhere, and it ends up being a warm dried-fruity sort of scent. It's actually a lot like a fresher, less actively-sultry Gomorrah on me. Sometimes it goes kind of sharp and vetivery until it dries; seeing how many notes are in it, I'm surprised it's as consistant on me as it is.

Oh, wow. This is exactly what it says. A giant armload of lilies and sweet, golden honey. The lilies are real fresh-cut flowers, with that chlorophyll edge to them...I practically want to try to wipe the pollen off my nose! The honey is beautiful, but honey works in almost every blend I've tried, so that's not such a surprise :-) This is really where I like florals best...drenched in honey, and only one or two at a time so that they don't combine and produce Generic Floral Fog.

I use this for an aromatherapy scent rather than as a perfume, but just putting some on my palms and inhaling works better than caffeine. The pine is real crushed pine needles, the eucalyptus hits your sinuses like a brick, and the orange adds a lovely bright sweetness.

Wet, this is bouncy fruity spiced carnation. Dry, however, the cinnamon (or something cinnamon-like anyway) takes over and that's all I can smell. Sigh. Such a wonderfully nonsense-critter smell dry. I tried this through the GC Circle Swap, and if I ever end up with an imp of it, I'll send it to a friend of mine who adores and can wear cinnamon scents.

Wet, this is gorgeaus spiced apricot The cloves don't go crazy, and the fruit is just dripping with sweet tartness. Alas, as it dries, it turns a bit sour and artificial-smelling on my skin. This might work in a scent locket for me.

This is quite lovely. The carnation at first strays into generic-floral-perfume territory, but ends up having character and spice. The musk is soft and beautiful, and the plum doesn't end up being overripe. Not something I'd reach for every day, but this is one of those silk-underwear perfumes -- you feel gently sexy without broadcasting seduction. I can't wait to see how this ages!

Mmmm.... This is pure resiny gooness. It's very similar to Midnight Mass on me, though possibly slightly less sweet. It makes me happy that it will be there as a replacement once the LE bottle is gone. The myrrh isn't too dark or overpowering, and lets the beautiful sweet frankincense shine through while keeping the scent grounded. This, somewhat like Rose Cross, is a beautiful perfume but has too much potential to play with my head to use it for that very often. This has a strongly ritual feel.

This is waaaay too much patchouli on me. Between the patchouli and the oakmoss it ends up smelling very dirt-like, but not in a way that works for me. I prefer the vetiver-based dirt blends to the ones that are more predominantly patchouli. I'm not detecting any copal, which is probably a good thing as I'm pretty sure that's what's going cold on me in Sheol. Luckilly, I'm also getting no cedar. If I were in a really dirty-hippy-ish mood, this would be appropriate, but that just doesn't happen often enough. Off to swaps!

This stuff is red. It dies my wrist pink. This is a pointy, angry cinnamon-clove-pepper spice. No air freshener dried petals here. The dragon's blood sweetens it and adds its distinctive fruity resin to the blend. It's very evocative of wrath. That said, I'm just not a wrathful person. This has gone to someone who loves it more than I do, I'm sure. Oh, and keeping it in my little styrofoam cup of swappable imps, it leaked a little and *melted a hole in the styrofoam*.

The violets, which I've since discovered that I dislike in most blends, don't even get a chance to do their distressing blood thing. The cinnamon takes over and I smell like red-hots. I really *like* the smell of cinnamon, but I'd rather get a chance to smell like something else along with it. The nice warm frankincense never had a chance against the raging inferno that is cinnamon.

There are beautiful, beautiful resins in this -- definitely frankincense and myrrh and maybe some other things I'm not as familiar with -- but the wood notes take over and cover them up; my skin amps them unreasonably. This is going take second place to less woody incenses like Penitence or Midnight Mass for me.

I'm not getting any florals from this, just lots of dark, cold resins. It's actually not unlike Geek on my skin, but less evergreeny. It's that same cold resinous feel. The tonka tries to warm the blend up, but it's just not enough. As with Geek, this is a scent that's going to work wonderfully on me on a cold misty day, but be just too offputtingly chilly any other time.