pekeana

JackII is goooood. In the vial, it's buttery like you've just baked up a pumpkin, cracked it open, and slathered butter and cinnamon on it. Yum! *bounces* On me, the pumpkin and peach wage a war until peach is the winner, with pumpkin taking a backseat and almost giving a stale scent to the mix. The cinnamon is very, very light and just kind of sits there until it disappears.

In the bottle, Harvest Moon is a very rich, buttery scent with just a touch of sugar. I'm really groovin' the way this melds together in the bottle -- so very enticingly! On me, it's all pumpkin and narcissus at first. I know it's narcissus that'd giving me the slight BO twang to the blend, because my chemistry hates narcissus with a purple passion. After about 30 minutes, I get the vaguest hints of woodsmoke and wine beneath the rapidly-fading pumpkin and the overpowering narcissus. *weeps* And then, boom, the pupkin's gone, and I'm left with narcissus, smoke, and wine. But about two hours in, the pumpkin's back and some apple is rising up to mix with the wine and smoke, but the narcissus is still very strong. After that two, two and a half hour mark, it's very very balanced and sexy, even with the narcissus still being really strong -- the narcissus is finally starting to fade, though, so it's all good. I'm really loving the way this ends up, but those first two hours just make me go "gaaaaaah!" I'll fight it to the death, though, to smell as good as I do right now.

*falls over in the throes of a scentgasm* I don't know where to start -- in the bottle, Mabon doesn't seem too promising to my nose, but I put a little bit on anyway. It starts off very much sage and ivy, but as it dries down, the apple cider pops through and I get the apple blossom, too -- just a tiny hint of floral to deepen it and sweeten it. Somewhere in there, there's a note that's very clear and sweet airy, which lends the whole blend the feeling of the first soft, cooling breeze of Autumn. This is divine and I will relish using the whole bottle up. YAY!

I'm probably weird, but most days, I don't have a subjective way that I actually choose my scents. It varies because of my mood, or I can instinctually feel how my chemistry is going to react to something, and I unconsciously pick that one out of 20+. The only time I actually think about what fragrance I'm going to wear is if I'm drawn to either Blood or Snow White -- Blood because it gives me a wee touch of a headache, and Snow White because I have so precious little of it and do love it so much.

My bottle of The Hesperides has a reducer cap on it, but my bottle of Chaos Theory does not. I'm a klutz. I freely admit this. Thus, I'm scared to death to use my Chaos Theory unless I decant it out to an imp, because of the lack of a reducer to prevent spillage when I put it on. However, with The Hesperides, usually all I have to do is turn it upside down and jostle it ever so slightly -- not shake, usually just twitch -- to get a drop or two of the Precious out. So, um, yeah -- I either decant Chaos Theory or I get one of my brother's porcelain chopsticks out of the cabinet and use them to apply. I prefer the reducers simply because I am a klutz.

*inhales wrist* Snow White is fabulous. It's soft, white, clean, creamy and delectable all in one sniff. It's decadent and at the same time mellow and soothing. And, strangely, it started off so very weak and floral, but the longer I have it on, the stronger and sweeter it gets -- and the more clean air smell comes through over the top of the floral. It's crisp and warm in one breath, and cool and mellow in another -- truly a paradox of scent. I wish that Beth would bring this back one more time so I could stock up on it. It's without a doubt one of the best of her perfumes that I've tried.

Mmmm.... What to say about Undertow? I get the mint and the lotus in the vial, with just a hint of the juniper beneath it to stabilize it all. It's a very chilling, cold water fragrance, much like the name would suggest. On me, the lotus takes over and it all becomes very fruity. I inhale lotus and exhale mint -- and alas, the stabilizing juniper doesn't stick around. However, it's very nice and I shall be keeping it.

I only sniffed pkwench's The Star - didn't try it on. But the coconut in The Star is very warm, creamy, and sweet in a naturally soft way. It doesn't smell at all like that horrid artificial coconut scent that's in so many sunscreens. It smells more like you've found a ripe coconut on the beach and cracked it wide open in the sun. And the coconut in Sudha Segara starts off sweet in the vial, but my chemistry sucked up all the sweet almost immediately, so I was left with a delightful toasted coconutty smell under everything else. So your milage with the coconut note might vary.

I've tested Dana O'Shee and Sudha Segara -- and have an imp of Alice coming in my Mabon/Queen of Spades order. So far, at least for me, there hasn't been anything really comparable even between Dana and Sudha -- there might be common ingredients, but the tone and texture of the scents are completely different. Dana is smooth and almondy, whereas Sudha is smooth and softly tropical in an understated way. I would sooner compare Tarot: The Star and Sudha Segara because I instantly picked up on the coconutty twist. That said, my nose is kind of strange. And so is my body chemistry. So you should take that with a grain of salt.

According to legend, the birthplace of King Arthur. The scent of a castle's great hall in the midst of joyous feasting. Spicy mulled wine flowing through the musky heat, warm leather and bright clash of armor, the damp branches of Cornish hawthorn, blackthorn, juniper, English elm and bayberry, and the magical tingle of dragon's blood resin. God, this is so good. I can't stop sniffing myself! In the vial, this is very sweet and well-rounded wine and dragon's blood. On me, for the first hour or so, the dragon's blood is very strong and spicy, then some of the woods come through. By the time it's completely dry, it's softened in tone and carriage so it's sweet wine with spicy dragon's blood. I breathe that in, and exhale leather. So. Damn. Good. It's almost completely faded away now [9-3:30 staying power], but there's just the softest wood and sweet wine scent right now. I will definitely be using this imp all the way up.

I love that! It's even funnier when you know that there's a grand total of $0.30 in pennies in there and not much else. [Hey look, is that a twenty in my pocket? Why yes, it's right here next to my ID, discount card, Best Buy rewards card, bank card, credit card, and about 3 other twenty dollar bills! Haha! Who needs a wallet, anyway?] Hmm.

God, tell me about it! I can't justify the shipping on soaps, but I'll give anything for the BPAL Empire. *empties out my wallet on the table* Beth, just take it all! I want to smell like a goddess! *spaz*

Because International Shipping and Domestic Shipping have different rates. I know that it would have cost my parents $45 to send a medium-sized package priority mail in the US. The Lab ships domestic orders via priority mail, which is $3.95 for the first pound, and goes up progressively from there. Plus also, they might be using any money not used on the actual price of domestic shipping to pay CCNow fees, Paypal fees, or even to purchase more oils for more products. Oui? ETA: I don't know international rates, priority or otherwise, so I can't quote back on those.

I swapped with pkwench for this one -- and boy, am I glad I did! In the vial: Blood Amber is dragon's blood, thick and heady, spicy and floral with an undercurrent of soft, sweet base amber. On me: the dragon's blood goes very spicy, almost like a hint of spice has been thrown into the mix -- but that's what dragon's blood tends to do on me. The amber comes up beneath it and makes a soft base that keeps the dragon's blood from going too floral or too spicy on me. The amber doesn't go powdery [finally!!], and the dragon's blood makes it stick around for hours of gloriousness. Right before it disappeared, there was just the faintest hint of nutty amber and spicy dragon's blood resin. So yummy I can't believe it!

pkwench let me try this out in a corner of Jose Pepper's Mexican restaurant today while we were stinking the place up with BPALs. In the vial, this is a spicier version of Dana O'Shee, but without the almond twist of Dana. It's smooth and creamy, and I definitely get orange and coconut along with honey. On me, there is no sweet and no creamy -- just orange peel, burnt coconut, and twisted, corruptive ginger. It's very soft and only lasts about an hour, but it's so damn good that I have to buy at least a 5ml of it for frequent application.

Unseelie is one of the ones I counted out because of the florals. But someone sent me an imp of it, and oh! In the vial: I get the grasses and some herbal greenness -- with a hint of floral. But it's all very sweet. On me: *dead from bliss* It's a soft floral powdery scent that's grounded with a hint of something dark and woody-herbal beneath it. There's also a hint of sweet across the top that keeps it from morphing completely into baby powder. Unfortunately, the grass and floral scents are all but gone. But it's so divine that I can't help but keep it! It's light and airy, perfect for those days when I want to smell good, but not like I'm trying too awfully much.

Hmm, in the vial, it's very floral and sweet -- almost fruity. What fruit, I can't tell you, but I get a fruity sweet from it. On me, it immediately goes bright green and screams "smell the floral", but then quickly relaxes and fades into something soft and soothing. It vanishes very quickly, but I'll be keeping it because it's very nice after the five minute floral head-rush.

In the vial, Cathode is minty and mossy. It's a very sweet, clean, invitingly invigorating scent. On me, it retains that soft sweet moss scent... for about ten minutes, then turns to a horrible herbal soap gone bad fragrance. *hangs onto Cathode and sobs* Alas, on me, it tends toward suckage.

*twitch* I don't get along with this -- it's trying so nice to play well and nicely with my skin, but it's just making me sick. Saturnalia in the vial is very dark -- it smells like you would imagine someone burying a dead body in the middle of the woods would smell like. Kind of like you've disturbed a nice, fresh patch of violets by upturning all of the earth beneath them. And, oddly enough, there's a clove-like scent behind it all that smells, yes, like the tang of blood. This is an interesting, dark and menacing scent, and unfortunately, it's just not me. At all.

In the vial, French Creole is all clove, with a hint of something else playing beneath it. Something floral and lemony. I inhale clove and exhale spiced lemon. On me, the clove comes out for a while, then retreats completely to be replaced with something soapy and musky. Eh. Not fond of it, but I'll test it out one more time before I decide to keep it or not.

Dana O'Shee is... Heh. In the vial, it's almost all almond and honey, much like Queen of Sheba, but without the kick of spice. On me, it takes on a peanut-butter-putty scent for a while till it dries down completely and mellows out to a soft almond, milk & honey scent. It's not bad, but it's not utterly earth-shattering. It's not very strong, and I guess that's the way I prefer my scents -- strong and with great personality. I'll keep the imp and use it up, but may or may not get more.

Random guys go nuts for Old Morocco on me. But, strangely, the one scent that actually got me asked out [albeit by someone I've been turning down for 5 YEARS] was Bliss. He said I smelled divine. [And even that didn't get me to go out with him. Heh.]

I second the nod at Queen of Sheba -- but QoS tends to alternate between very sweet and very bitter depending on cycles, etc. I think Greed would be a good one -- the copal is dark and smoky, the frankincense is resiny, the patchouli isn't as strong as in some of the other blends... Masabakes is another good one, as is Blood [oh, yes, BLOOD!], and Velvet.

In the vial: Whoa, that's sweet -- it's almost as sweet as Dragon's Milk and O. I can distinguish the sandalwood and patchouli, but I cannot figure out what's so candy-sweet. It doesn't smell like rose at all -- strangely enough, I usually get a headache with rose, but that's not the case as of yet. On me: The sticky-sweetness stays for about a minute, then the sandalwood asserts itself with force. I can feel the patchouli in the back of my throat [i know, weird place], but it's not entering into the gag-worthy stage yet. Then all of a sudden, here comes the rose -- but it's not heavy and strong as all of the other rose blends I've tried. My arm is itching a little where I applied it, but I'm going to tough it out if it doesn't outright burn, because this is incredibly gorgeous. The sandalwood keeps this all reigned in and keeps the rose and patchouli from overwhelming me and making me want to cry. I'll have to try this a few more times, but this could be a keeper for when I want to feel super-exotic and sexy beyond belief.

In the vial: I get the patchouli, I get the clove, and I definitely get the myrrh... but the ylang ylang is nowhere to be found. On me: Let me preface this by saying that I hate patchouli, despite being a Capricorn, and it makes me feel horribly dirty when I wear it. However -- Myrrh and clove are some of my body's best-loved notes, and they manage to beat the patchouli into submission until this is a very earthy, warm, dark, spicy wood scent on me. For some reason, it's also very light -- I have to literally put my nose to my wrist to smell it at all. I will definitely be using this imp up -- and much thanks to andrabell for giving it to me!