TrailerTrashPrincess

this was the only Tiki scent that sounded even remotely appealing when the series was out....
but my skin interprets it as cedar, so even though i've hung onto this decant in the hopes that it would improve on me with time... nope. no go. so glad it is going to a better home.

gardenia overload. not for me!

i love, love, LOVE the original Strawberry Moon. i can't ever get enough of it.

so, when *this* Strawberry Moon came out, i didn't even stop to think - i just ordered as many bottles of it as i could afford. the bottle i'm basing this review off of came in yesterday's mail, so it has had over 24 hours to settle in from travelling....

and as it turns out, i should have just gotten one bottle.

 

sniffed from the bottle, i smell something bitter. the first thing that springs to mind is boiled grass clippings*, but i've never actually smelled that so i dunno why my brain tells me that's what i'm sniffing. (specifically the grass in my daddy's yard, which has lots of bitter weeds and wild onions. so i'm not talking about the pretty green grass smell...but a much more earthy scent)

 

once it settles in on my skin this smells like a strawberry Bonne Bell Lip-Smacker lip balm. all plasticky and artificial, with faint overtones of the scent of an inflatable pool float fresh from the package. or maybe plastic doll-head-smell. or the plastic twist-up-tube that the Lip Smacker comes in.

 

after a few hours, the vinyl and artificial strawberry scent morphs back into bitter boiled grass.

 

this makes me SO sad.

 

quick update: another day of settling in hasn't improved this at all, but layering it with Beaver'Versary did wonders for it!

i've had real, fresh home-made rootbeer... i don't particularly *like* it at all, but i've had it. and that's what this reminds me of. super-sassafras-y (now i've got Steven Tyler singin' "kiss your sassafras" [from Love in an Elevator] ringing in my head).

and there's some mandrake creeping around in there, too. it might be blending with the fig to give it the earthy kick that's almost enough to make me wanna keep it. almost.

this was the only Bat that i was really interested in and i'm happy to say this bottle is going on to a happier home!

a sweet, red, juicy apple slice.... dunked in fireplace ashes.

if honeysuckles smelled of lotus, and grew on trees instead of vines... then this would be their nectar.

 

however, thankfully, they don't.

almonds and fruit - something with coral-peach coloured flesh (mango? peach? apricot?). interesting, but not for me.

i'm actually shocked that i haven't ever reviewed this! 'cuz i like it!

 

old wood, dried flowers and the ghosts of a thousand daily scents. smells so familiar but i just haven't ever been able to place what it reminds me of!

two notes i like, two i don't : but overall this turns into orange-blossom & carnation. not for me.

one of those wrapped-in-orange-foil orange-flavoured chocolates (yuck) mated with a chocolate-covered-cherry (also yuck) and this is their child - simple and true to the description: chocolate orange cherry.

if that sounds like your cuppa, you'll prolly love it.

Yngwie Malmsteen probably smells like this.

 

y'know, i can TOTALLY imagine that he would smell like this.

it is earthy. dirty. masculine. full of *uNF* and grunts and growls and getting leaves in your hair and mud on your knees.

 

 

yeah, i like it.

love patchouli, hate vetiver. tried this anyway. i feel like a public bbq pit smells - burnt meat, ashes and cedar.

i don't eat meat and i don't like the smell of ashes - so now i'm gonna go wash this off.

 

sorry, patchouli, you weren't strong enough to overpower the rest.

i bought this with such high hopes - Linden Blossom! Calla Lily!

but by the time it settles in on me, it is all narcissus and passion flower. boo!

in all the time i've had this bottle, i've never done more than sniff it. so it is time for it to move on to a better home, but first a quick review of the one time i tested it:

a strong cuppa chai, a lily and a white rose. reminds me a bit of Lush's Potion, which i don't much care for either.

i ordered an imp sixpack of the new GC scents, with the intent to split most of 'em with a forum friend... so i wasn't looking at the scent descriptions when i was doing up her half-imps, i was just sniffing things as i came to them.

 

i was SO excited when i sniffed this one that i had to skin test it right then. this is so, so lovely! i couldn't wait to let it settle so i could review it! now that i've been wearing it for an hour and have decided that i MUST have a bottle of this ASAP.... i come in here and read the description and i'm so confused. because based on the notes, i have no idea how i'm smelling what i am.

peach tends to go icky on me, as does orange blossom. but apparently everything else is strong enough to fight off the ick because i LOVE this.

 

fans of Berenice, The Premature Burial, Oblivion, Epitaph - and TP'd Tree - should seriously give this one a sniff.

when i first bought this bottle... uh, two years ago? i didn't look at the label, i just opened it up and took a big, deep sniff.

and it was awful! i may as well have huffed black pepper up my nose, it burned and smelled horrible and was just generally unpleasant. so i put it away for a couple of years. then blast it if i didn't do the exact same freaking thing again! but this time, i gave it a week and then remembered. and tried a few drops on my skin.

aaaaaha! that's the secret to getting the whiskey and oak!

still really, really, sinus-burningly, gag-reflex-inducingly strong. but at least now i can get the other notes... something almost like maple syrup, and something that is probably cinnamon-y or cassia-ish

after about half an hour, i get a sweet hazelnut or irish cream coffee scent for a few minutes... but then by the time an hour's gone by, i smell like cheap booze in a plastic cup. so, so not for me!

i remember ordering this as soon as it came out - because the scent description sounded like it had sooo much potential for awesome. i also remember being afraid of the jasmine... and as it happens, that fear was justified.

because even though the lovely sandalwood and herbs and heartbreakingly beautiful orchid is there... it is all overwhelmed with the jasmine. so much potential! so much fail.

Snake Oil with red mandarin, myrrh, and almond.

 

the almost-cherry-almond-y scent in regular Snake Oil is amplified by about a jillion here with the addition of almond, and so that's all i can smell here. i feel like i must reek of Jergens.

way too cinnamon-y for me! even just sniffing the bottle makes my mouth burn.

CXCIV i think, the silver writing is fading and wearing off quickly.

 

to begin: i don't really care for Snake Oil or any of the variants.

this, however, is like Snake Oil and cake batter. and sugar. i really, really like it and hope it doesn't go funky as it ages!

 

editing to add the bottle i picked up at the DirtySouth Will Call last night:

 

CDXXIII

Snake Oil Coconut Cream Pie. totally. there's a dry pie crust (not a graham cracker crust or a real, home-made crust, but the cheap pre-made kind with a faint almondy taste {remember, i hate almonds}), that almost-oily creamed coconutty filling and toasted peaked eggwhites on the top.

this isn't the coconut i've tried (and liked) in a bunch of the Lab's blends, that's more of a dark or black coconut, this is the white coconut, like a pina colada.

 

CLXXX i think - the silver paint pen is coming off pretty bad, and everytime i touch the label it fades a little more.

 

sniff: Dorian plus what smells like lemongrass and apricot

kinda reminds me of the scent of Lush's Humango. i can't wait for this bottle to find a better home!

 

editing to add the bottle i picked up at WC last night:

CCCVII

Dorian and a mid-range musk (not white, not red), i think. but it reminds me of The Oval Portrait a whole lot, so maybe it is the "vanilla musk" instead. it feels like a mix of Love's Philosophy, The Oval Portrait & Dorian. interesting!

i finally caved and decided i had to try this since someone whose opinion i trust really loves it. that being said, i can't stand grapefruit or carnation, so i'm still very much afeared.

 

sniffed from the bottle: sweet strawberry-cream and something bitter and green.

on skin: the bitter-green scent briefly morphs into something that smells almost like Graveyard Dirt (!)

on skin, once it settles in: headache-inducing plasticky strawberry and still something that smells bitter.

on me, this is a very fruity red rose, with the addition of peach and apple.

interesting, but not very me.

sniffed from the bottle, this smells yummy and earthy-sweet. but once on my skin, the carnation blooms into full focus - and i can't stand the scent of carnations. without the bittery pepper of the carnation, this would be something i'd hoard! but as it is, i'm glad this bottle has gone off to a better home. although i had forgotten how much i love the label, so now i'm gonna hafta find an empty, just for the label!

according to wikipedia:

The stems of the Daemonorops are harvest for their cores, which is used for everything from canes to furniture. The fruits of certain species, in particular Daemonorops draco, produces a red resin known as "Dragon's blood".

 

so that means four notes from the Lab that just don't work on me, and two that can go either way.

 

but all in all, this is a honey-dragon's blood-dark musky-smoky-sandalwood sortof scent. not as awful as i had expected it to be, but nothing i'll ever reach for.