Splendid Molerat

Marie makes an interesting progression from sweet innocence to cruel depravity. I'm amazed at the stories Beth can convey with just a few notes. In the vial and fresh on the skin are the dewy soft tea roses, sweet as a child. As the violet warms up it seems to overtake the roses, they dry and decay in a matter of minutes. The violet remains, very pretty, but with a hard, metallic quality. This would be a scent appropriate for when you want to convey precisely how little you think of someone. [sets the time machine for New Year's Eve 1998...]

R'lyeh is about water for me, so it seemed appropriate to mix up a batch of bath oil with some of it. Letting my head float in the bath with the water over my ears, steam hanging over me, I absolutely got some Lovecraftian horror from this blend. I could taste metal. There is a saltiness to R'lyeh, and the grapefruit has a cold, oily quality that made me think of deep water, dense and black. I also got something vaguely green in the background, enough to make me think of kelp forests. After the bath I felt as if I'd washed up onshore from somewhere far away -- which is pretty much the sensation I've had from Lovecraft's better stories.

Rosalind has been sneaking up on me, I'm really getting to like this one. It's like the softest green grass, with tiny bursts of the early lawn flowers (clover, violet). Under that there are tart wild strawberries. Overall the impression is very fresh and new, and it's going to be a nice reminder of Spring while the snow is falling.

Amsterdam didn't really grab me the first time I tried it -- sort of became an indistinct floral on my skin, and was kind of sweet and grassy in the oil burner. Yesterday I tried adding Amsterdam to the suds while hand washing delicates, and wow! Combined with water this blend was full and pretty, just like the description. The clothes dried with a light fresh-water scent, and I'm considering getting a bottle of Amsterdam to make linen spray...

Unseelie has a very light warmth on the skin -- if you could make a shawl of spider silk, it would be that kind of feeling. The combination of notes reminds me of Emeraude; there's plenty more depth to Unseelie, but they both give the impression of a pale green cloud of pollen. And I've always liked a bit of pollen on a spring day.

Ah, crème brulée... Specifically, Chimera reminds me of the mango-ginger crème brulée I had several years ago. It was so good I wanted to roll in a shallow pool of it. This also has some of the albumin/fresh sex quality of O. I need to mull over getting a bottle of Chimera.

Kathmandu has a soothing, medicinal quality on me. I get very cool beech-nut and wintergreen initially, followed by the woods. I would feel this way in a mountain retreat with tall cedars, and a steady drizzle keeping the woodsmoke close to the ground.

This was a "keep me sane" oil I brought with me during the most recent trip to visit my mother. Kuang Shi is like a wide bowl of the brightest, freshest fruit, and the scent from the fruit and the smoke of incense rise invisibly into the air. Behind the wafting perfume I have the image of a white wall, unbroken, impassive, high and wide. Kuang Shi is beautiful, and cold, and no one gets inside. I felt well-defended by it.

The Queen of Hearts is a very Wonderland scent. It's a place where the lawns and green things are hurt-the-eyes bright, and every bloom is perfection. When I applied this one I got a very fleeting scent of Red Delicious apples, followed by a blend of sweet and regal white flowers. The tart cherry (or is it cherry tarts?) hides behind the flowers, saving them from becoming too sweet. This would be a fine scent for Spring, or on a perfectly white Winter day.

For me La Petite Mort is a dark and smoky version of O. Top notes burn off quickly, and there's a layer of buckwheat honey and ginger that stays close to the skin, imperceptible to anyone whose skin isn't pressed against your own.

Spellbound is a powerful fragrance, with a genuine hypnotic quality. Red musk and the darkest roses -- somehow I'm getting the impression of the whole rose, as well. Blooms, leaves, sap and thorns, you just know there's something spiky and green behind the intense red. The roses waft for a while, and then the amber and musk cling very close to the body, not unlike a well-loved cashmere sweater. This is the sort of perfume that would have bought me a whole lot of trouble in my younger days.

I've been enjoying the 10 mL Queen of Sheba for a while now. This scent is warm, elegant and inviting, and creates an envelope of home and comfort that hovers softly for hours. All the elements are there of butter, almonds, sugar and spice. It's like remembering the day that you first met the person who was going to become your lifelong friend, both in how captivated you were by the other person, and in how you watched your own depths unfold. While Queen of Sheba is lovely on me, we've discovered it's mouth-wateringly luscious on the husband. I was biting his shoulders at odd intervals throughout the day.

I do pick up some of the battlefield nuance in Phantom Queen. Imagine crushed clover after the soldiers have moved on, and the delicate but resilient flower heads slowly popping back up one by one. Or it could be clover crushed by the weight of two passionate lovers, to recall the fertility aspect. The apple blossom and moss make for a very dry sweetness, and I don't find this syrop-y at all. The overall impression is of a woman with dignity, and quiet resolve.

Heliotrope, bergamot and peach make Fae a truly unearthly blend. The opening notes remind me very much of toasted Italian fennel cakes. Sort of like stepping into your back garden to discover the fairies have laid out a table with hot Earl Gray tea and warm little cakes and bright peach jam. It's darling and winsome, and you probably shouldn't try to eat any of it.

Bloodlust took a few tries to grow on me. There is a mouth-watering fullness to this blend, and it rises off the skin like pulse-pounding heat. I would want to bite a man wearing this one. The cinnamon makes this a cousin to Faustus, but without the icy intellectual hauteur. Bloodlust is a fragrance for being present in your body, and screw your beautiful mind.

For me Eternal is like a crown of heavy white flowers. The roses and heliotrope remember sunlit days, but the overall impression I get is loss and distance. I would use this oil to work through mourning, but it isn't a place I could go to regularly. I'm impressed with how clearly Eternal can move the emotions.

With Phantasm I get a mist of green tea and lemon verbena. This oil is distinctly cool when it hits the skin, and reminds me of the kind of light fog that dissipates as soon as the sun rises. As it warms there's a wisp of jasmine, and the neroli makes it darker and darker as the minutes pass. Aptly named, Phantasm disappears into the earth not long after the initial stunning effect. I feel some affection for this fragrance.

Dabbed Eidolon on Mr. S.M. -- gingersnaps and hot lemon tea! After a while the scent unfolds, and there are slim stands of cedar trees, and wild herbs throwing off fragrance in bright white sunshine. It has a dreamy, reserved quality, like looking through lightly frosted glass.

I get a very clear image from Hemlock: walking the green forest edge on a cool morning, plucking at the dew covered plants. And this is the one I went out to gather. Peeling off a top branch, I can hold the pale green new growth across my thumbs, and snap the sprig clean in half. The spray of sap from the break hangs in the air briefly, glowing poison in the sunlight.

Olive leaf, raspberry leaf, vetiver and cedarwood. Alecto and Tzadikim Nistarim both share the olive leaf note, but Alecto takes it in a different direction entirely. The cedar and vetiver turn the olive leaf into something cold and thick -- like oil poured on water, the surface is calmed, but the depths boil. There's a sharp heat to the raspberry leaf, and something else (cinnamon leaf?) that has a dark red feel to it. Alecto does remind me of the shudder you get walking into a room where someone is silently angry.

Photos of the Bone Church amaze me. What would it feel like to handle the dry bones of someone who lived and was loved, and assemble them into art? The lily in Kostnice comes out strongest, a glowing greenish white. It's dry and light, almost like wax, and the resin notes create shadows in the background. I can imagine a resemblance to powdery dry bones, incense and flowers all around, and damp marble in the far corners.

Cripes, I could have ordered this one. (Smacks forehead). Yes, India Bouquet has the misleading curry note in the vial. On wearing it instantly becomes a soft cloud of mountain fennel. And then,... You know those days in late summer when crews are out mowing the tall grass, and the air fills with wild herbs (sweet grass? sage? thyme? parsnip?) Carolinian grassland. I'll have to go fishing when this imp runs out.

March Hare is, as advertised, an apricot tart. I'm getting equal measures of apricot and clove, and I'm being reminded (power of suggestion, perhaps) of dry alfalfa, clover pollen, and general rabbit-ness. Oddly, I'm eating some dark chocolate with burnt almonds, and sniffing my wrist after a bite of that really makes the rabbit come hopping forward. This particular apricot is more sour to my nose, so March Hare won't be displacing Depraved as my favourite apricot perfume -- but it is fun to visit.

Hollywood Babylon: Heliotrope likes me, for some reason. I've got Glitter on one hand and Hollywood Babylon on the other, to remind myself what the common note is about. I'm getting the sunny innocence of the heliotrope, strawberry and vanilla (like a corn-fed farm girl just getting off the bus). This impression lasts for a long while. The fragrance is a faint ghost of itself before anything like musk and black cherry make an appearance. It would seem my corn-fed farm girl simply disappears in the desert before actually getting corrupted. The last dark notes are no more than the ink fading from her Missing poster...

Tamora is golden, sweet and understated on me. The heliotrope calms down almost instantly, merging with the peach blossom. vanilla and amber into a light sugar-caramel combination. This reminds me of a more civilized version of Thierry Mugler's Angel -- it's like being dabbed with pixie dust, versus being rolled in a vat of something sticky.