cosmicjellybean

I agree with the "stout" assessment. It's not very heavy, per se, but it'll linger. To me this smells like a hippy-dippy, rose-based perfume I once bought at a mall in Oregon. I'm not feeling the aquatic undertones, but it does alright with just the green topnotes. Not something I would buy in a bottle (since I still have that hippy-dippy rose stuff), but worth a shot if you're looking for something relatively long-lasting, light and non-musky.

It takes a very special kind of floral perfume that is able to be wearable on me. Most florals and I will not explode together in a righteous fit of rancid ashtray-ness and washcloth attacks. Normally a floral perfume will do one of two things on me: 1. fade completely after an hour or 2. go straight to a nice soap/shampoo smell on me. It's not bad, except that I don't want to smell like shampoo. Suspiro, unfortunately, is not the special kind of floral that can avoid doing one of two things and make me melt into a puddle of girly-girl femininity like Queen Mab did. *sighs* This one made it into the second category along with Beatrice. My wrist now smells like shampoo. A really, really nice shampoo, mind you--would that all the shampoo I've ever tried smelled even this nice--but still shampoo. I think it's the lillies, honestly. I can smell the jasmine in the background trying to fight against the lillies for something better, but it's losing the battle, sadly. Otherwise, I can definitely say that this is a very, very smooth white floral and on a person with more floral-friendly skin than I have would probably be heavenly. It's not very spicy or dark (from what I can tell, anyway). This is a very pure scent, not looking to cause any trouble at all. In the bottle it's quite nice, though--everything I've said already minus the shampoo part--so I think I'll hang on to this one and use it in the bath if I ever score an apartment with a decent tub. XDDD

I have to agree with the other forumites that this scent, were it a color, would be purple. A dark, rich purple. In the bottle I don't smell much other than a vague muskish, flowerish scent. On me...well. As a floral, I didn't think it would be anything spectacular on me, or if so it would fade within an hour. Queen Mab was nice enough to stick around for at least three or four (darn this dry winter skin...and it's only October ). Even nicer is that she didn't go powdery or soapy on me, although I can easily see her doing so on other people. On me she's mostly the flowers: jasmine, orchid, rose and a little musk, with the sandalwood just barely peeping out, and very little change from going on wet to the drydown to a very long and subtle disappearance. Mab is very steady and creamy to me, and I quite like her a lot, both as a day scent and even more as an evening scent. I wouldn't call this scent powerful, by any means. Mab is very smooth and calm in my opinion. An early summer night is what she most reminds me of, when the flowers that bloom later in the season are just beginning to do so. Someone earlier, I think, said that this is the perfume that the generic, grocery-store stuff attempts to be, and I quite agree. Mab is much prettier, softer and more complex than those perfumes. If I ever have the means again, big bottle for sure.

Ooooooh, this one is angry. In a rage, almost. As well it should be, since it's always a nice thing when a perfume oil lives up to its name. Unfortunately, Bloodlust took its anger out on me. Sigh. Thankfully, I got this one as a frimp from the lab. In the bottle it was earthy and musky, but on me? Pure and distilled cigarette smoke. I hate smoke of any kind, but cigarette smoke is the worst (er, no offense to any smokers out there, btw) and it eclipsed everything else to the point where I had to wash this one off before any sort of drydown because it was so foul. It's still sort of lingering, but whatever note that induced the live ashtray smell that got stuck in my throat every time I inhaled (*glares at the vetiver*) is mostly gone and I can smell what I think is the musk and dragon's blood that was under it. It's nice and sexy in a very primal way here, but the initial hit is so bad that this one is gonna have to off to a better home.

I must be in the minority here, sadly, because the minute I put Snake Oil on, it went FOUL. Seriously, this was the first oil I ever had to wash off my skin while wearing it. There wasn't even a moment of spicy, sexy goodness--just straight to something vaguely citrus-y (wha...?) and rotting on my skin while making an attempt to strangle me with its sheer horridness. I can't even describe the foul smell, that's how badly it went on. *sighs* And I was so looking forward to it because of the hype. Now I don't even want to give the scent a second go because it turned out so badly during the first. Oh well.

Velvet: I recieved this as a frimp from the lab, so I'm happy to say that it didn't fail to live up to expectation because I didn't really have any for it to begin with (*cries for snake oil*) In the bottle, it was vaguely vanilla/chocolate-y, but the chocolate was of a non-Hershey's bar variety and I didn't smell anything spicy at all. I can't make the comment that the scent changed a whole lot on me, but that's more due to my own wacky skin chemistry than anything else, so be warned. Once Velvet was actually on, it got pretty foody on me--more of the cocoa and vanilla, very edible, with a hint of the myrrh and sandalwood, although I've read that this isn't the case on other people. I'm not so sure it's an edible foody scent, but I can imagine this scent being expelled from a high-end confectionary factory easily enough. It smells old, but not of old velvet, however. (Maybe that's a good thing, though--old velvet clothing tends to smell absolutely repugnant to me.) Well-aged, I'd say, and in that respect maybe not for everyone. It's almost like the smell you'd encounter in the attic or master bedroom closet full of old-but-still-shiny weird things in your eccentric grandmother's 1910-built house, only minus the old clothing smells. Overall, definitely a three and a half to four out of five. Well-rounded, not too overpowering (that would be most citrus scents for me, gah!), but not enough of my thing to make me go out and get a big bottle. If you like foody scents, I'd say give this one a go.