fiddledragon

This is lovely...I'm not sure exactly why I ordered it, as I amp cinnamon and jasmine to the exclusion of all else, but this appears to be the blend that breaks that rule :-) Everything blends together very smoothly, even fresh from the Lab. It's a nice languid, sweet blend, no doubt due to the honey and vanilla and champaca. There's a hint of harsh floral (olive blossom? I haven't had problems with it before. Or maybe the cinnamon being weird?) right up close to the skin, but that doesn't last very long, and I suspect it will wear off with a little aging. This isn't really distinctive, but is very nice. It might be a good replacement for anyone in love with Svadhinaopathika from two years ago's Lupercalia.

Cute label! In the bottle: Roses and...apple cider? Did someone mix in some Fearful Pleasure by mistake? On me: Wet, it's a very true rose, but a very perfumy one. I think this may be the rose that doesn't work on me. This is the same rose in Persephone, but it's behaving itself here without the corrupting influence of the pomagranate. The honey and cream is very soft around the edges. I'm not sure I'm in love with this, as it isn't the rose that loves me, but it might grow on me with time. If not, there seem to be many people who will be happy to take it off my hands :-)

In the bottle: Orange sherbet. Rather nice, but unexpected. On me: Wet, the aformentioned orange sherbet, plus faint beeswax candles. As it dries, the beeswax comes out more along with a sort of warm, rich scent that might be the olive very faintly backing up the beeswax. It's sweet an cozy and warm. This isn't at all what I'd pictured, but I like it very much. It's a scent for cuddling up by the fire in. Edit: That's what this smells like! This smells almost exactly like a richer version of Burt's Bees Honey-Beeswax lip balm. Luckily, for me that's not such a bad thing.

Wet, it's sort of that generic BPAL smell, if you know what I mean. As it dries, it smells more and more smoky, until it smells mostly of vetiver and campfire, with just a touch of black pepper. It's quite nice, but I was really hoping for the spices to come out more. Maybe the campfire will die down a little as it ages.

Namaste was almost pure lemongrass on me, but it has a lot of other notes. Lustration from the Panaceas was similar as well, if I remember correctly.

Wet, this is a bright rush of tanginess that isn't really identifiable as any single note. As it dries, the lavender comes out more until that's the predominant note. There's a very faint hint of warm sweet chocolate peppermint behind it...that doesn't turn to pepperminty evil on me! I would never have let this touch my skin if I'd remembered it had peppermint in it! (I'd mainly gotten it for my boyfriend, on whom it is in fact lovely sparkly citrus-lavender). The lavender isn't the heavy, sultry, almost jasmine-like lavender that I get from, say, TKO. This is a light, airy, more herbal variety. It's overall a very awake and refreshing scent, without being all cold and sinus-attacking. Yum! My only quibble is that it doesn't have much throw at all and fades fairly quickly. This would make an amazing linen or room scent, or for putting into one's morning shower products, where its relatively short half-life would actually be an advantage since you wouldn't be locked into smelling like it all day if you didn't want to.

Definitely Cathedral and Midnight Mass...I'm not that familiar with the incense as it's used in Catholic churches, but I also found Penitence to be very close to Midnight Mass, especially when both are aged.

There's both a TAL Yemaya and a regular Yemaya. I haven't tried the TAL, but the BPAL one is very, very melony. I've seen someone here use the exclaimations "Sweet holy mother of cantelopes!" Besides being just the best exclamation ever, that pretty much sums up Yemaya.

Given the notes, I didn't want this within 50 feet of me. I *hate* the smell of rum, and both butter and almond notes go weird and cloying on me. But it was a frimp in a swap, so I had to try it. And it smells like......carnation?? A lovely gentle spicy carnation; I also agree with the above reviewer that it's kind of similar to Roibos tea. Lovely. I'll be wearing this often if it keeps smelling this good! Yay for frimps! edit: After about fourty minutes it mellows a bit and becomes more obviously mead...normally mead can do apalling things on me, but this is just a gentle spiced honey. I guess the "carnation" must be the mead doing really weird (but happy) things.

Wet: Maraschino cherries, so strong and accurate that I can practically taste that artificial-red-color tingle at the back of my throat. Dry: After quite a while, the cherries finally back off, and some dry-but-rich woods emerge. They meld very nicely with the hints of cherry that remain. Not a favorite, but quite nice.

On wet, this is cookies. Buttery flaky sweet cookies. With maybe a hint of currant and rose. As it dries down, the cookies recede and the rose and current come out. It becomes a beautiful fruity rose with a hint of pastry. I'm really liking Beth's "stuff with a hint of cookie" scents -- Haloa, Ostara, and now this. And the rose works on me! Almost no rose notes work on me, but this is like the one in Rose Cross!

This is a smooth, slightly warm, masculine scent. It feels distinguished and a bit stand-offish, despite the warm note. It's a warmth of a living thing, rather than of warm emotion, if that makes sense. It feels masculine, but not so much so that it wouldn't be utterly stunning on a woman. In terms of notes, I'm definitely getting the musk, plus a touch of aloe and papyrus, and maybe a hint of the vanilla blossom. It clings close to the skin. This would be a great scent to wear to a job interview or something like that. That said, I'm not really ever going to wear it, since I don't have any kind of appropriately formal events to wear it to; it should go to someone who will give it more love :-)

Wet, this is a very soapy floral, with a hint of resin behind it. As it dries, it becomes a little warmer and a little less soapy, but the amber never really takes off. *sad puppy face* Amber can sometimes be like that on me. And I guess I should put apple blossom on the "risky florals" list. This would be amazing on someone who can either wear apple blossom better or enjoy smelling soapy.

The only TAL that's really worked for me scent- or ritual-wise is Temple:Chthonic. I find it to be quite similar to Kephra or other very dark earthy (but *not* evergreen or strong patchouli) incense blends.

Wet, this is very sweet milky chocolate with Snake Oil. The chocolate is an almost Hersheys-kiss kind of scent. It's not as powdery as Bliss. As it dries, the chocolate goes away, leaving something very close to pure Snake Oil. I don't wear SO all that often, so there's probably some difference I'm not detecting. I quite like the scent, but it's just not really my kind of thing, so no bottle is in my future. I'll happily use the imp, and if it grows on me, maybe I'll get a bottle before it goes away.

Breathtaking darkness, a vision of grace in shadow. I continue to love BPAL's straight-up lily scents. This is Tiger Lily's grown-up older sister. Where Tiger Lily is a very polleny fresh-cut-flower with bright bubbly honey, this is still true lily, but more muted, smoother, creamier, and without the honey. It doesn't have much throw, but clings to the skin for quite a while. I can see the "black" connotation, but it's an elegant dinner black, not a sinister black.

Ostara! For me, also Eos, Kumiho, Tiger Lily, and Thaleia.

Has anyone found a GC scent similar to Svadhinopatika? I have two bottles of the stuff, but just want to find other variations on it. On me, for the record, it's mainly light but heady honey and champaca flower.

Mmmm....vetiver. That mainly sums up my review of this scent. Vetiver can be hit or miss on me, depending on the variety and what else is in it, but this is the nice earthy kind of vetiver. I get a touch of cedar, too, and otherwise pretty much everything else is overpowered by the vetiver. Saffron tends to take some aging to come out strongly, so I'll see what this does when aged. It's a fairly sweet vetiver, which I attribute to the tamarind, though I can't actually identify tamarind as such. Maybe that will come out when it ages, too? I do really like tamarind. Predictably, my skin devoured the tangerine so that not even a trace remains. It's in the same general family as Brimstone for me...earthy and strong. I don't think of it as overtly masculine so much as gender-neutrally powerful. This is a scent for putting on the stompy boots and *getting things done*.

Initially, this was very sweet pine/ceder. The cranberry got lost, but might have been contributing to the sweet/resinous evergreen effect. But after a minute or two of drying, this was almost pure tomato leaf! I *adore* the scent of tomato leaf...it's the smell of gardens and getting real tomatoes at a farmer's market and summertime and growing things. After a while, it dries down to a faintly sweet waxy evergreen again (all evergreen does that on me eventually), so I think this is more of an "aromatherapy" kind of scent for me, one to wear and sniff and get reenergized, then wash off. It's also kind of an odd scent as a perfume on me; I really do smell exactly like a tomato plant! I can see it also working very well layered with something that would add some complexity and provide interest once the tomato leaf had dried down. Maybe something like Luperci?

In the bottle, Ostara is a fresh, faint floral. Wet on me, it's mainly faint, green, polleny flowers...at this point I was getting disappointed, but as it dries some of the honey cakes come out. They're very similar to that cake note in Haloa that I liked so much. The flowers turn a bit spicer and richer, though still very faint. This is like a springtime version of Haloa, or possibly a cross between Haloa and Et Lux Fuit. I still wasn't thrilled at the strength, as it's hard to distinguish notes at that level and I wasn't timid with my testing amount. But for hours afterwards this wonderful sweet honeyed floral scent clung to the backs of my hands. I'm guessing that, just like early spring, a little waiting will do this scent a world of good :-) Conclusion: A beautiful portrayal of the season, sure to become one of my warm-weather favorites if it ages as well as I suspect it will.

Another one in the nutty-foody camp, here! Especially in the imp, it's a very muted gingersnap-hazelnut scent. On me, there's a brief flash of something sweet and clear that I really like, then it dries down to that same murky foody scent, plus a little bit of wood and a soapy floral overtop. These notes just aren't playing nice with each other, and not in an "interestingly chaotic contrasts" kind of way. It actually reminds me a lot of The Great Sword of War, but with the soapy floral in place of the lemongrass. I can't pick out the vanilla or dragon's blood, despite those normally being strong notes on me. I'll give this one some time to age.

I *adore* the artwork for this one, so I was partly hoping this would be a winner just so I could justify ordering a bottle and getting the trading card But as usually happens, it goes to nothing but cinnamon. It's definitely cinnamon *bark*, though, not cinnamon red-hots -- harsh, fiery, unyeilding. It goes through a lovely phoenix-like cycle, starting myrrh, then blazing into cinnamon, and drying down again to myrrh after quite a while. As also expected, luckily, once it's dried down for a few minutes it's just lovely on my boyfriend. Interestingly, on him the myrrrh and cinnamon combine to produce an almost clove note. It's not going to replace the poor lost cinnamon-cardomom Cairo, but it's close.

Wet, this has the unmistakable sharp sour-sweet scent of Chinese Grocery Store. I have no clue what's causing it, unless it's hyssop gone horribly wrong. All these notes normally work on me, except oppoponax and that just has the tendancy to go kind of "cold". Once it dries, it's pure Snake Oil hippy-store with the spices maybe a bit amped up due to the additional resins. I'll let this one age for a little while and see if the notes make friends some more. I really thought this one would work :-(

In imp: Bitter, herbal resin. On me: Very very bitter, foresty, herbal-resin. Productive angst in a bottle. Not a pretty scent, but potentially useful. This is one pissed-off herione :-) ADDED 11/12/08: I'm pretty sure I reviewed this fresh, but I pulled it out today just to give it another whirl because I wasn't feeling well and this seemed like a sort of cleansing kind of scent. A year of aging has made such a difference! Now the oil is dark and thick, and the benzoin (at least, I assume that's what it is) has sweetened and come forward into cozy warm incensy goodness. There's a slightly floral overtone that might be the remains of the hay note. It wasn't at all what I had in mind when I put it on, but it's just what I needed!