TrailerTrashPrincess

i was hoping for a green and woodsy scent... was hoping the tears would be a bit of an aquatic touch. sniffed from the imp: breath-stopping, choking smoke. charred vetiver. on skin, after it settles down a bit it smells exactly the way our house did the day after the fire... all wet ashes, charred wood and water everywhere. that being said, it might smell delicious on a man.

sniffed from the imp: parsley and jasmine (i hate jasmine. it smells like poo!) on skin: salty, unwashed BO with overtones of gardenia and parsley. i just KNEW i was gonna love this. but noap. off to swaps.

y'know. if i didn't know better - because i bought this bottle last February - i'd think i was wearing Snow Glass Apples right now. this smells nothing like Snake Oil. i had been thinking of selling this bottle, but i think i'll keep it, it has gotten better as it aged! eta: although the gardenia does eventually do the icky-sour-BO thing that it does on me. but still... not snake oil.

i've had this for ages but realised i've never reviewed it... since i decided to wear it today, it seemed like a good day to review it! i love chypre scents, but this is nothing like what i normally think of as a chypre.... and it has changed some as it has aged... it doesn't smell the way i remember it smelling when i first got it. today, on my skin, it smells exactly like Merle Normal makeup used to - and may still, i don't know, it has been at least a decade since i had occasion to smell any. but sortof a generic cosmetics smell - like your big Caboodle full of all sorts of different brands of makeup items. kinda sad, really. in the bottle, it still smells like a more masculine counterpart to Spirits of the Dead... so i guess i need to wear this in a locket or try it out on the boy!

ever had banana Runts? or sniffed "Ladyboy" from Lush's sister company, B Never? there's the tangy-candy banana (not the outer, sweet shell... but the inner sweet-tart bit) but it is laid on top of a cheap industrial air freshener (urinal cake, gas station air freshener). as it wears, the banana gets more faint and the generic industrial bathroom air freshener smell takes over. what i get as "air freshener" might actually be lotus or ylang ylang, some of the Lab's florals go wonky for me. overall verdict... this is much too much like Ladyboy (Banana and Violets) for me.

so, i almost didn't buy this one because it just sounded like it'd be awful on me. but the completist in me couldn't handle the thought of skipping a Lunacy, so i got it anyway... see, i don't like the Lab's Dragon's Blood. and i hate peppermint. don't like cedar or lavender. don't much care for frankincense. sage is okay. love magnolia. tolerate bergamot & sweegrass. see where i'm going? this just looks like all kinds of awful for me. and yet it turns out i like it enough to do a review for it! on my skin it is very herbal-sweet, all sage and sweetgrass. and i guess it is the magnolia in it making it feel creamy and giving it the same sort of milk-leftover-from-a-sweet-breakfast-cereal thing that The Oval Portrait gives me. i am honestly quite shocked at how much i love this blend. i never, ever would have guessed it.

would you believe i've had this since the Pumpkins were live on the site and never even opened it until a couple of days ago to decant some for someone? sniffed from the bottle: salty-buttery-apple cider and popcorn (yeah, it sounds bad, but it smells good to me) on skin: concentrated spiced apple cider, buttery pie crust and a creamy richness that makes me think of spaghetti squash but must be the pumpkin. this wears VERY well, and is deliciously foody but in a subtle way. i can see guys really liking this on a girl. i'm so glad i bought two bottles [=

Thick, sugared and bloated with sweetness. Dark chocolate, vanilla, buttercream, and hops with pralines, hazelnut, toffee and caramel. jeez, another scent i've had for over a year but not reviewed! sniffed from the bottle: not what i was expecting. this isn't the bright sweet smell of granulated white sugar and icing and Bakery.... this is the darker brown sugar, raw cane sugar, caramel and molasses. more savory than sugary. no chocolate, vanilla or buttercream... maybe pralines. on skin: it gets sweeter, and occasionally i'll get whiffs of something that's very Cracker Jack like, but still no chocolate/vanilla/buttercream. i think i'm interpreting the hops in this as popcorn. this seems to be more of a butterscotch incense than anything else. it is a very interesting scent, but it isn't sweet in the least. not to me. i remember REALLY wanting to try this and when i swapped for my first imp of it i was so incredibly disappointed. i was really hoping for SWEET out of this...but i don't think the Lab really does sweet.

sniffed from the imp: AlmondLavenderRoses on skin: marzipan (not unlike SnowCake) with a hint of citrus and beeswax....and furniture polish verdict: don't think i'll ever reach for this as a fragrance, and the boy has no sense of smell so i doubt i'd ever try it again for any....additional benefits the oil might have.

i've always kinda liked this painting, so that's why i ordered this. i've had it for quite some time (bought it when it was first released) but hadn't opened it until just now. sniffed from the bottle all i get is a faint whiff of a rather generic soft floral on skin this has a whole lotta throw for about two minutes and then it becomes a can't-smell-it-unless-i-smoosh-my-nose-right-up-against-my-hand type of scent and all i really get out of this is waxy honeycomb and roses with the painful bite of citrus zest in the background. roses and citrus? eh, not for me. i think there's just too much going on in this blend for my taste.

to note: i LOVE chypre fragrances, and i also love the way Davana oils blossom on me. amber tends to hate me and wtf is green musk, radioactive or otherwise? (that's the reason i had to try this blend, though, so i don't mean it as an insult!) sniffed from the decant: i smell very little. really. smells sortof like alcohol - gin or vodka, maybe. on skin: i dunno if it is the power of suggestion or what, but i DO get a chypre type note out of this, and the davana develops into a tobacco-blossom-esque scent at first... and it gradually becomes something exceptionally masculine, although it does remind me a bit of the green Suave shampoo i used to use a million years ago (it doesn't exist anymore, sadly. it was "extra cleansing" or something like that.... been gone for well over 10 years) after a couple of hours an odd waxy sort of scent comes out... but the first hour is worth it.

sniffed from the imp: holy hellfire and brimstone, batman! beyond that... ever opened a very old bottle of cheap perfume? (i'm talkin' 30+ years at least) and if there was any fragrance left, it is just a thick resiny-syrup at the bottom of the bottle?... those always smell the same to me, and it isn't good. in addition to the brimstone, i get that old-evaporated-perfume-bottle smell. on skin: same as when wet, only the brimstone has burned itself out and now i just get the old-perfume smell.

sniffed from the decant: honey and tobacco on skin: frankincense, tobacco, honey (like O or Lush's Honey Waffle soap) somehow this turns into a sweeter Herr Drosselmeyer more than anything else. which is exceptionally odd. and i have plenty of that, so i won't need a bottle of this. i'll keep the decant, though.

sniffed from the decant: this smells familiar but i can't quite place it. not BPAL, but just something from my life, but a very long time ago. in BPAL terms, it is sortof like Hope and Faith -- but mixed. on skin: the geranium and lily bloom stronger than they seemed from the imp... but the violet and something else are mixing to blend into something almost bitter and medicinal. FYI: ume blossom is an Asian plum that is "more closely related to the apricot" which all makes sense, because on me plum turns bitter and i HATE apricot. overall? kinda nice when wet, but nothing i'll ever reach for again.

sniffed from the imp: OMG, how have i never smelled this before??? this is beautiful! this is the backbone-scent from sooo many of my favourite BPAL oils! i can't remember who frimped me this, but i owe them!! someone read my most-loved scents list and figured out that since they're nearly all LE i needed a GC i could splurge on. on skin: i can't describe the notes in this-nothing leaps out at me...this is the scent of quartz crystals. of glass. of swarovski crystals and diamonds. of cool starlit nights with a full moon sitting so low in the sky it could be sitting on a nearby hilltop. nothing floral, nothing sweet, nothing but a cool, clean, crisp and crystalline *pure* scent. i LOVE this. after finishing my review, i was reading some others -- i got to this and laughed so hard i woke up the cat. so in appreciation, i must repeat it. because i get it. except, of course, this is very much in my genre of scents.

i love this, i can't believe i haven't reviewed it yet! sniffed from the bottle: a display of apples in the grocery store - lots of apple scents blending together (some real, some "enhanced") and a little bit of plastic, with a wood-crate base. on skin: on me, the really strong apple high note fades off pretty fast, and there's a wierd plasticky phase that lasts for a bit until the dirt-oak scent comes out (i guess "dew-kissed leaves" translate as dirt to my brain?).... the apples linger, morphing between "real" and "fake" (but nowhere near that "Green Apple" flavoured crap). a very unthreatening, friendly sort of scent... my friend Kelly has a little boy who always tells me i smell like "Appa" when i wear this.

some of the notes in this intrigued me (spanish moss, sweet sage, cypress, cigar tobacco, lime, dark musk and caramel), some terrify me (vetiver and lilac) and a couple i have no idea wtf they should smell like (the others)... this is... strange. earthy-sweet and peppery-bitter all at once... i don't think i need to keep this bottle. quick edit: unless i can get the boy to try it, i think it might smell really good on a man!

sniffed from the imp: cola? maybe an eensy bit of lime (but then again, lime is one of the major ingredients in the "cola" flavour) and... Graveyard Dirt or potting soil. i only have the eensiest bit of this, so i'm only using a tiny droplet from the tip of the plastic wand to test - that may affect my perception of some things. on skin: i still get the Graveyard Dirt type note and the cola is becoming the Clove Cola that was given out as a promo with one of the The Crow movies. within an hour or so, the clove note has mellowed out, and gotten sweeter if that's possible, but there's still a faint occasional hint of cola that will fade away and be replaced by King's Hawaiian Sweet Bread which will fade and come back as Cola with a medicinal lean to it. this is a very odd scent, and frankly i'm glad i don't adore it because it'd be impossible to get more of. it seems very intense and brooding -- and considering i lean towards the pink and fluffy most days... not very me.

i got a decant of this as a surprise extra from a decant circle i was a part of... and being that the decant is imp-sized, i wouldn't think that'd do anything for a bath. however, it is more than enough to test it out for scent purposes. and i really, REALLY wish i had never opened this little vial of frustration. (cuz i can't get anymore, not cuz it doesn't smell good) it does smell more like BPAL Mistletoe than anything else, though, to my nose and on my skin... but there is a sweeter note in there, too... i guess the Crystalline Musk & Lily bring the creamy-sweet along with the evergreen scent. this really is pretty...and it doesn't scream "i'm a christmas tree!" in the way i was afraid it might.

i've half a decant of this left and before it goes to a new home, i thought i'd review it - so i can remember to get more later. TAL oils aren't used for their scent - but it is always nice when it smells good... and this one does! i can't describe it, but it is creamy and rather like strong tea with lots of sugar, and i can see how there might be some lavender in here, too. the blend doesn't seem to want to stay mixed, it likes to separate out into three layers, but that's common enough with other BPAL blends that i don't think anything of it. as far as if it works? i don't really know. i used it for a premature baby - i'm a Leo and his daddy is a Leo and the baby himself is a Leo... so i was drawing on whatever strength i could get to help him through. and he pulled through.

i've half a decant of this left, and before i swap it away i thought i'd add my thoughts here. as others have stated, it smells quite distinctly of lemon verbena and vaguely medicinal. i used several decants of this, and other TAL oils, last summer when my best friend's son was born WAY too early and too tiny... mostly because my friend's body wasn't handling pregnancy well and she spent a week in the hospital - because every hour they could give that baby before he was born was important. so i got rid of "hospital smell" with healing herbs and oils, and my friend wound up having to have a c-section instead of the natural birth she'd been planning. anyway, the baby was as healthy and strong as he could be for as tiny as he was - within a day he was breathing on his own, even though he was hooked up to tubes and machines for about another month. my friend got to go home a few days later... they both healed faster than anyone thought they would and within a few months the baby was all caught up in growth and size and shows no problems. i can't say this oil, or any of the other TALs i used, are the reason why. but i firmly believe that they *helped* and for that i'm grateful.

the first time i tried this, way back a couple years ago, i remember it being boozy spiced leather. tonight as i try it again (albeit just a teensy droplet from the end of a pipette after making a sniffy) it smells like Samhain ('05) with some leather on the side.

sniffed from the imp: dragon's blood, grape jolly ranchers, musk and liquid tylenol for children. on skin: grape jolly ranchers mixed with Smut very interesting, i'm glad i got a decant before i got a bottle... this reminds me of Urd...and i have no idea why...this is also quite faint, i slathered it on and in less than half an hour it has faded nearly to oblivion. to note: i hate almond, and i don't get any almond out of this -- so yay!

it was the "Crystal Musk" that sold me on this one. with most of the other notes also being positives in my world. lavender and lotus being the main ones that could go wonky. sniffed from the bottle: oh yum! this is in the crystal/glassy family that i love so much! on skin: this reminds me a whole lot of Berenice and Spirits of the Dead. clear and clean, almost powdery, with a perfumey note wafting around. i can't really pick out any individual notes from this - thankfully not even the lavender - but it is very pretty.

JASMINE, cedar and lemongrass. i think the sandalwood, rose and patchouli were frightened and ran away. eventually this turns into a lemon-oil furniture polish on a cedar chest... i had expected more from a blend based on the "all that is holy and sacred in me acknowledges all that is holy and sacred in you."