klio

Quick sniffy impressions: My grandmother's candy dish, those jelly-fruit wedges with the crystallised sugar, sharp and sweet and sour altogether. An undercurrent of stone porch scrubbed clean with lemony bleach. Sunlight on wild fruit trees.

2006 iteration I vaguely recall ordering this because someone mentioned a cinnamon note in it. I love cinnamon, usually. That was before I started having some weird results with the lab's cinnamony scents, some of which fall into bad ways around me, others of which stay fluffy and cookie-like. I am ever hopeful. In the bottle: Cinnamon sticky-buns, cinnamon rolls, cinnamon candy, cinnamon booze, made into a cake and drizzled with sugary frosting. Hot cross Uranus buns. (Ooo! That sounds naughty!) On, wet: Still cinnamon, but there's a burgeoning overtone I'll have to describe as full and creamy (not necessarily a good thing), and a leathery undertone. I am nonplussed. On, drying: Still leathery and spicy—in fact, it smells precisely like new shoes. High-quality new shoes. Brown Mary Janes, with a low heel. I love new shoes. But do I want to smell like new shoes? This oil is spreading across my wrist in a shiny swath, as some of the oils do, sitting at the surface. I'll want to make sure I've rubbed it in a bit if I were to wear it, so I'll do so now, in case that changes the scent any. On, rubbed about: Cinnamon and shoe leather, and that is all. The cinnamon (I could be coaxed to call it clove, and now that I've thought "clove" I smell both) is staying strong, the leather (or whatever note suggests leather to me) is keeping it from burning out of hand, becoming too foody or sharp. I've wanted a cinnamon I can wear and not feel like a box of Red Hot candies or a package of chewing gum. This may be a keeper. Throw: I'm going to say medium-y. Lasts: and lasts, I'll bet. After an hour, it is still plenty strong. Overall: I could see myself wearing this while setting out defiantly on an adventure in a whimsical electric vehicle of my own invention to bring humanitarian progress to a lawless land through the magnetic force of my own personality, which tends toward the satiric. I am a bit of a paradox. And a wee bit clairvoyant, depending on the day of the month.

In the bottle: Rubber bands? Wet: I badly wanted mandarin and maybe some angelica and was hoping for some flowery overtones. I get sandalwood and... rubber bands. Drying: More cinnamon-ythe cardamom, I think. Still not a drop of mandarin. The cardamom keeps switching places with the patchouli. Dry: Slightly pine-y, and very slightly itchy. When the patchouli is at the top, I get hint of hippie-ness from this, but the other scents mute it and push it aside. It smells like something else I tried recently, but I not one I've written a review for yet, apparently, because I can't figure out what it's reminding me of. Maybe Al-Shairan. Yes--it's very close to Al-Shairan (clove, peach and orange with cinnamon, patchouli and dark incense notes) on me. Al-Shairan, likewise, had no fruitiness at all. After a while: Yikes. It's turned into pesticide. The kind that comes in one of those old-fashioned metal cans with the long arm you have to pump. Okay, not quite that awful, but that is where Alone sends my imagination. If I snort at my wrist long enough, I can almost smell a bit of orange. Almost. Now that I've sniffed a bit of what might be orange, another thing this brings to mind is stale tea--a Constant Comment teabag that's been sitting at the bottom of a paper cup on my desk all day. Overall: No wonder you're alone, you smell like a hippie whose granny skirt trailed through bugspray. I got this bottle through a swap, and I'm sad to say I'll be swapping it onward right away. On the plus side, sniffing these sharp notes cleared my sinuses. Coincidence? Or the spooky magic of bpal?

I got a little confused in my ordering, and have an imp of Sugar Skull 04 and two imps of Sugar Skull 05. Bad thing or good thing? Let's find out. SUGAR SKULL 04 In Mr Imp: Maple syrup (more the real thing than the fake thing) and pancakes, a little buttery, a stopover on a road trip at a surprisingly good diner (hey, they have real maple syrup). Ever-so-slightly boozy. On Mr Wrist: (Why is my wrist a mister instead of a miss? Who can say.) I'm a bit puzzled, as the moment I put this on it becomes flowery with a hint of spice. Eh? Dry: Flowery pancakes, the breakfast-food scents beginning to fade away. It reminds me of an old jewelry box of some spicy wood that I kept on my bookshelf as a kid. The box was lacquered black, with Japanse artwork and delicate saffron-ribbon drawer pulls on its many little compartments, and the wood itself exuded some sort of soft spiciness. Let me amend that: This is precisely the smell of the bookshelf in my room in high-school on which that jewelry box sat, whatever that combination was of perfumes, sachets, jewelry box, wood polish, and paperbacks. With a dollop of maple syrup in the middle. Half hour (and more) on: The scent is long-lasting, but does not have much throw. That might improve if I were less sparing in application. Verdict: Wearing it would be a nostalgia experience, once the scent gets out of the diner. But I wouldn't want to walk around constantly reminded of that particular era. I might consider it as a room scent for a library; it would be nifty for a library to smell of sweet woods and gentle spices and brand-new paperbacks. The more I think about it, the more nostalgic I get. Paperbacks just don't have that scent anymore--there must have been some global change in glues or inks or paper manufacture. Hmm... Could I turn this into a book scent, and spritz my commuter-train reading with it? SUGAR SKULL 05 The imp says: Gloriously liqueur-filled candy. Fine chocolates without the chocolate. Wet: Fruity boozy love! The burst of liquid on your tongue when biting into a cherry-liqueur chocolate--without the chocolate and with a fruitiness that is subtler than cherries. A hint of herbs mingles with the booze. The throw seems weak. Dry: The scent intensifies and the throw actually gets stronger the longer I wear it. The scent stays boozy-sweet: a touch of rum, a hint of stewed and slightly caramelised apples. I would wear this when feeling quirky or to a dinner party. At 15 minutes, my wrist began to itch a little bit, but that passed. Odd. Half hour (and onward): The musty sweetness of an empty cognac glass. Conversation lingers at the table long after the bottle has been emptied and the dessert plates scraped clean. The company is too good to part, the guests are too content and charmed by the food and one another to retire from their seats, prolonging the experience of the meal after the plates are removed. A few remnant pieces of silverware gleam here and there on the white linen tablecloth; someone twirls their wineglass by the stem, everyone gets to know one another very well and friendships are sealed. Every now and then the twirling of the wineglass whirls a bright scent of booze back into the air. The night stretches long into the a.m. And in conclusion: Yeah, I think I'm keeping both imps of this. Might even have to hunt down a bottle.

In the imp: Carmelised sugar? Wet: Arrr! This be the scent of... Grog? Dry: A yummy nummy sugar cookie. Doughy and warm and chewy in the middle, and golden crispy at the edges; maybe just a little overdone on the bottom, because not every batch of cookies is perfect. Good throw, long lasting, hard to wash off. It's spectacularly foody, wavering now and then at the edge of Play-Doh but not crossing it. It's so accurately cookie-ish I think I want to keep it, but when am I ever going to want to smell like a cookie? Maybe I'll use it on an oil warmer to give the house that I-just-baked smell, without all the actual baking work.

Why do others get booze from the boozy scents when I seldom do? [insert pirate cuss words here!] In the imp: Arrr! Hot buttered rum! This be the scent of the office holiday party! Wet: Gooey butterscotch candy. Dry: Hot buttered toast, with a coating of sweetness--like the cinnamon toast my mother used to make with lots of sugar mixed into the cinnamon. The throw is pretty good. But where has all the rum gone? As far as I can tell, it was never there at all.

I'm so out of control, I've confused myself and doubled up on buying imps from folks. I'm pretty sure I'll end up with two imps of Fee Verte and two of this, so I was hoping I'd love these scents for their booziness. I'll try Fee Verte again before I review it, because so far: eh. Here are my thoughts on Twenty-one. In the imp: Extremely sharp, bright, like a razor. A pure, unidentifiable hard liquor. Stings my nose a bit. Wet: Still sharp, and something weird is bobbing underneath the distilled spirits. Could it be an olive? Dry: Crisp and dazzling. Smells like tonic with a twist, though those are the wrong ingredients. Ten minutes: The crispness is going mushy, and this is acquiring a strong juniper smell. Not the smell of cheap gin,though. Like spilling juniper berries across the floor and crushing them under the high heels of your pumps. Half hour: Juniper, but it's also acquired a distinct sawdust smell. Now, that's a little bit too dry a martini. Throw: Pretty good distance, but not overpowering in strength. Six hours later: I can still smell it, and I didn't apply very much. Go figure. Overall: Too much juniper on me, too much unfinished-wood aisle of the Home Depot. I'm having no luck with scents that should have some vermouth overtones. I get no vermouth here at all. Just juniper, juniper, sawdust, and perhaps an unwelcome olive. I'm glad I tried it, but I'll pass it along to someone else.

I am in Mad Love with Al-Araaf. First try: Folks have been recommending honey scents to me, and I've heard wonderful things about Al-Araaf. Sampling it, though, I was surprised that--on the first sniff, wet, dry, and hours later--it was a uniform, generic perfume much like anything handed out on a department-store sniff card. Even with the scents I absolutely don't like (yes, you, De Sade), none of them were so uninteresting. I seriously considered just passing this along to somebody else. Thank goodness for the... Second try, a few days later: In the vial: Honey and a hint of vanilla. Wet: I'm wary of vanilla, but this is a boozy vanilla extract I can really get behind. I can't get enough of boozy scents--my favourite part of drinking is being surrounded by the aroma of a really good, complex wine or liqueur. Oops?: The description says nothing about vanilla. Where am I getting vanilla from? Dry: The generic "I am perfume!" smell still hovers at the top, but beneath it is a creamy honey/vanilla mix. Weirdly, the perfumey smell is strong on my left wrist, and the honey/vanilla is more prominent on my right wrist. Throw and longterm: I've had it on for about 6 hours, and all the while I've been sitting here at work I've been catching whiffs of this remarkable scent. It has perfect throw on me--not overpowering, but I don't have to attach my nose to my wrist to smell it. It has not altered in any way except to get a bit fainter. It's a little dessert-y, like a nouvelle-cuisine confection of hand-milled ice cream, vanilla beans, and flan, under a delicate webwork of spun honey rising like a golden net above a white china plate. A small crystal glass of honey liqueur, something lighter and brighter than the sort of mead I would usually order, has no doubt been set beside the plate. The waiters here are very attentive. Overall: It's a fascinating blend, distractingly delicious. I wish for a dozen bottles of this, to be able to scent a bathing pool with it and soak in a bath of floating lotus flowers while Egyptian handmaidens tend me.

I was posting my bright-eyed newbie reviews on LJ while the forum was down, but I'm trying to get into the habit of posting here. So, here's a (re)start. My experience with this scent is a lot like some other reviewers'. I wanted to love Rome, since Roman history has been the passion of my entire life. I'd wear Antony all day long, because of his behaviour during the end of the Republic. Yep, I'm 100% Antonian. But we were talking about Rome the scent ROME Sniff sniff sniff: Minty, woodsy, and very manly. Wet: A little powdery. There is definitely cypress and juniper in here—I remembered that part of the description, from the scent, without having to look it up. There's something of a household cleaner feel to this, but not in a bad way; more like something that should be of Victorian vintage and come in a beautifully decorated tin. Dry: Woods, woods, woods, piney. A little soapy. It doesn't magically evoke the ancient city to me, the way Athens evoked 3000 years of history. But if a guy wore this, I'd be all about that. More dry: A complete change. That soapiness was, I believe, the rose, which has come up insistently and is now much stronger than all the other notes. Now I'd call it very feminine--a mature, reserved femininity. I may detect a bit of sweet chamomile in the background. I wish it would stand up for itself and blend with the rose. Throw: Seems weak. It also has faded a lot over a half hour. Overall: I'd wear this when I want a graceful rose scent in a situation where I'll be very close to other people and don't want to overwhelm them, but still want to make a statement about myself. It's distinct from the other muted roses I've tried. Rose Cross is more vibrantly rose than this; this is more vibrant than Whip; that crazy Two, Five and Seven is not muted at all; Whip, to me, most gives an air of maturity. I agree that one of the main qualities of this scent is austerity. But it's not distinct enough for me to want a big bottle of it. I wish the other notes were more persistent--I love the idea of re-creating ancient perfumes, but a rose is a rose is a rose. What not to layer: I'm wearing Athens on my other wrist. They are having a spat. Something about all those cheap Pompeiian knock-offs of statues of naked athletes.

There are scents I have no interest in trying, not because of the description but because of the name and my personal associations with the name. Things like Embalming Fluid, Shroud, Juke Joint, Malice, Othello, De Sade... and Depraved. Thanks to frimps, I'll end up trying some of these anyway I was shifting imps from a nifty little cardboard box into a less nifty but more sturdy wooden box, and Depraved was the leftover imp that wouldn't fit, so I gave it a try. Its caramel yellow colour does suggest something not entirely savoury. After five or so scary experiences I'm now able to open imps without spilling them all over myself, so I was able to sample this one carefully. I sampled and sniffed and jotted down initial impressions before going back to read the description, and discovered that my great big nose is not as clever as I thought it was. In the imp: Coconut and... cocoa bean? Wet: Bitter chocolate and burnt nuts. Drying: Yummy homemade brownies with a crunchy crust on top and a sort of creamy taste underlying the chocolate, my favourite kind of brownie. Dry: Turns very fruity underneath (I'm crazy for apricot), and somehow suggests a supple leather coat and a burgundy leather library chair, the creaking of leatherbound books opened on a large desk, a bit of mustiness. After about a half hour: The lovely fruitiness has faded to faint traces, but then, so has the rest. This one hasn't spread across my skin the way other scents have, and its throw is weak. Overall impression: Patchouli smells like brownies on me? Can that be right? I do want to think of this scent as depraved, salacious, leering, and rife with lecherous promise. But instead I get "third grade bake sale" and a bowl of apricots in the library.

This seemed like a safe one to apply as a brand-new, never-tested, never-before-smelled imp this morning. In the imp it has a light, sweet, gardenia-like quality, hence I figured it would be safe to try wearing to work. My imp is filled to brimming, so of course I spilled it down my thumb, and thus was committed to it. Wet on skin: Still sweet, more sugar than fruity, but very faint. Hit by a spark of madness, I decided to open up Rose Cross and try sniffing the two scents together. Because I am not well trained in the art of opening imps, I spilled Rose Cross on top of Bon Vivant. Bon Vivant x Rose Cross: Roses and champagne! This made a lovely combination. Within about fifteen minutes, the Rose Cross had flowered so exuberantly, the Bon Vivant was almost lost, except to add a bit of sparkle underneath. I headed to work. Some unknown fella' smiled at me on the elevator on my way up. 5 hours later: Rose Cross is still flowering strongly and Bon Vivant has almost, but not quite, vanished, and I have to wash up after a big lunch in the conference room. Rose Cross is eradicated by nondescript dishwashing liquid (after surviving several previous hand and wrist washings during the course of the day), so I reapply Bon Vivant. Wet, again: Much more fruity now--not definable to me as strawberries, but as some sort of generic sweet pie. There's a musty undertone as it begins to dry that hints at the champagne. Drying: I find that when I apply this (and Rose Cross) to my thumb (from spilling the imp) and wrists, it diffuses rapidly across the palms of my hands, until I feel like I'm cupping palmfuls of fragrance. Nice, but distracting. Dry: The flowery fruitiness is subdued and blended into what must be the champagne; it's still quite sweet but not quite as "Look! Over here! Sweet stuff! Ha cha cha!" I'm not enveloped in scent the way I was with Rose Cross, but I catch the fragrance on and off. Overall impression: I feel girly and pretty in this. It's not right for me today--I'm going more for power-executive mode at the moment--but I see it for afternoon parties, going bowling with the gang, lighthearted activities. In this, I should be wearing casual clothing and doing something fun and frivolous. I was hoping for "black dress and champagne flute" evening vivacity, but this strikes me as unsophisticated in a happy, light way, bright and airy, young and guileless. As with the other scents I've tried so far (all two of them!), I can't stop smelling myself.

A profound symbol of an individual’s personal initiatic process, spiritual refinement and evolution, synthesis, grace found as a result of trial and suffering, and the alchemical process by which we transform the raw essence of our souls through light in extension. This is a holy oil, a representation of the triumph of spirit over matter: purest rose with sacred frankincense. This is the second scent I've tried (the first was Fortunato, which nearly did me in). I'm having trouble opening the imps, but I was determined to have something nice to smell on going to sleep tonight, and a rose scent seemed a safe bet. I finally wrenched the imp open and spilled it all over myself and itself, on the laptop, and into my newly arranged little box of unopened imps and frimps. Rose Cross smells exactly like my grandmother's bedroom. Like snuggling in old-fashioned blankets, like running my hands across a bureau topped with a silken cloth and laid out with silver hair brushes and combs and boxes of Victorian jewelry, with delicate photo frames and a print of Maxfield Parrish's "Daybreak." Of staring out the window at the stars while curled up in bed with my mother and her mother. None of which, I realise, describes the scent to anyone else--but, think "old fashioned." Powdery roses, and what must the hint of frankincense--not burning in a censer right next to me, but the lingering incense that clung to her hymn book and prayer book after decades of Sundays. It's powdery in just the right way, like sinking my toes into a fluffy pink rug in front of the bathtub and knowing I can sit in the sun all morning with nowhere urgent to go. After about a half hour, it hasn't altered on me much. A richer, deeper rose is wafting through, but the original scent is still strong. So: certainly old-fashioned, and not (for me) for wearing. I'd like to scent the linen closet with this and dream of summer. ETA on 3 April: Contrary to what I said above, I now wear this all the time. Usually layered with Bon Vivant. I can't get enough of it--and I've ordered a 5ml bottle. Only the fact it's GC and readily available kept me from ordering more.

Hello, everyone. My very first order ever arrived today--24 imps, 5 frimps, and the bottle of Fortunato I took a chance on because of my mad devotion to Poe and to this particular story. Now attempting my first review. Watch out below. In the bottle: I've died on a barroom floor with my nose stuck between two floorboards sticky with old, spilled alcohol, and rancid chewing gum up my ear. This is a terrible way to go. In the bottle it is too strong, too sweet, and I am massively disappointed in my first bpal experience. I wonder if it's a bpal characteristic, though, that such concentrated oils are overwhelmingly intense in the bottle, and hope this is so. 'Cause this bottle is killing me. On, wet: First an overwhelming cloud of patchouli blooms, too fast and too insistent. But pretty quickly the orange is growing stronger, spicier. It's mixing badly with the mush on my fingers from unpacking the imps, and I still have this chewing gum stuck in my ear. Also, it's beginning to remind me of this guy from college who always had spicey orange room freshener. Which is not necessarily bad, except for the part where I feel like I'm lying on a barroom floor, wishing I were dead. On, dry: After about a half hour, I love it. Love love love. Well, like quite a bit--it is my very first scent, and I should pace myself. It's mostly orange now, but not in an overpowering, Florida-sunshine way; it's closer to some sort of exotically spicey sherry (but not a hint of amontillado's almond smokiness). I am very taken with my wrist. I have become a tasty liqueur. I would take me home from the bar if I weren't walled up in this tomb. From a tiny, timid application on my wrist the scent has diffused across the palm of my hand and down my arm. I can't smell it unless I bring my arm within a few inches of my nose, but I'm too stuffed up for that to be an accurate assessment of throw. Not what I'd consider a day-to-day scent or a for-work scent; I could see brushing my arm casually across someone in passing at a winebar to make an impression and get a little attention. Also, I kinda want to lick my arm. Can't wait to start opening imps...