ereuyi

I picked up a decant of the Candy Butcher hoping it would break my losing streak with the lab's chocolate note--it tends to smell somewhere between burnt and rancid on me. Sadly, I can start to get hints of the wonderful chocolate smell everyone else must be getting with this one, but it once again turns to musty burning on me.

I'm not normally one for light, clean sorts of scents, but there were so many appealing notes in this that I got a decant of Gennivre to try out before going for a bottle. At first this was freshly brewed, minty herby tea. It actually reminds me a bit of Celestial Seasonings' Tension Tamer--it's not creamy or rich per se, but something about the herbiness and the mint makes you feel like it is. Not something I'll be reaching for enough to justify a bottle (I'm far to attached to my dark scents), but I'll be hanging on to what I have for certain.

I got this as an extra due to a snafu with a Trading Post order, so here I am so review~ In the imp this smells like lavender and some other very green herby stuff I can't identify. Lavender and I almost never get along, but this isn't bad enough to rule out a try-on. On, it smells like straight up lavender soap. No shifting, no nothing, and I had a low-grade headache by the end of the evening from being stubborn and not washing it off. Peace is gonna have to go find someone else to love it.

Sadly, this smelled way too much like licorice jellybeans (which constantly challenge swedish fish for my least favorite candy ever) for me to look for more of the sublteties in the scent. If only it would smell like one of the anise-free absinthes... but then I knew I didn't like anise and had to try this anyways, so I guess it serves me right.

I picked up an imp of this along with a few others and for some reason I had to try this first, despite the fact that I was sure it would be too sickly sweet. At first, it was definitely sweet, but there was something deeper keeping it from being sickly. I wanted to call it maple syrup, but that's definitely not it. It's almost got an edge to it, like caramelized sugar or molasses. There's something else on top of that that's rounding it out a bit, maybe the fruits or a touch of creaminess. Once it's dry, the edge almost completely goes away, and it just acts as a slight shadow to the nice round, almost creamy sweetness that it was showing up earlier. This doesn't have much throw on me, but it definitely left me with my nose glued to my wrist and a desire to lick myself. It lasts forever on me, too--I put it on at noon and I could still smell it when I woke up the next morning.

In the bottle this was a slightly floral, green, clean scent. On wet, that clean went soapy and the slight sweetness that I'd noticed in the bottle was completely eclipsed. It came out with the greeness after the soap went away, which was thankfully very quickly. Not being familiar with any of the notes in here except the tea, which I don't recognize at all in this, I can't tell what's going soapy on me, but once that's done doing its thing I love this!

The first time I tried this on, it was basically a fruity punch in the nose. Something in it went SUPER kicky on me, and I was glad it didn't have much throw, because every time I caught a whiff of it, I honestly flinched. Maybe that was the pepper? It didn't seem peppery to me, but that might have been because of the orange-y note (I'm not familiar with blood orange, though I assume that's what that is). Today, I got absolutey none of that kick. In the bottle, on wet, and as it's dried this has been a slightly dark orange with a hint of something else fruity. It's not light or cheery at all, just juicy and beautiful. It's gotten darker as it dries, and whatever it is underneath the orange comes out more. So far it's lasted well on me (seven hours and counting), though only as a skin scent--exactly how I like 'em.

I just got myself a bottle of the '05 version, and wow! At first, I thought this would be a not-so good wow, since I could smell my bottle even before I finished getting it out of its nice bubble wrap home. There and in the bottle it was super floral, though very dry and a little smoky. It's not any floral I recognize, I don't think. Despite the fact that I'm very much not a floral girl, there's something hiding under the floral that I can't place that leads me to try it on right away so I can see if it'll come out and show itself. On wet, it was still floral and smoky, but there's something there that made me seriously want a snack. I was really confused for a while--I don't eat flowers, darnit! But I decided to stop sniffing and go get that snack, because tummy grumblings aren't condusive to good reviews. Once I'd gotten my snack and given Dia De Los Muertos a chance to dry down, I could smell the sweet stuff in it! It wasn't really a sweet I recognized, unless it's maybe caramel. The smokiness was more in the background and something--I'm not sure wether it's wetter or juicier, it blended so well with the sweetness--makes things overall less dry. A lot more interesting than I expected, and it looks like a very wearable floral-ish blend for me!