Quinara

MLXXXVI (1086) I'd resisted thinking about my CT, because I knew it wouldn't be what I expected, and it's more fun to find out! Anyway, so in the bottle it seemed vaguely sweet, but in a slightly alcohol-type way. Very pleasant, in any case. Putting bit on my skin, it was a very pale yellow, and still oddly sweet, now slightly floral. Then, as I sniffed on, it flickered between something like frankincense and detergent - the stuff from Dirty. I can't shake of an association with LUSH, but I can't remember what scent I'm thinking of. Whatever it is they're pretty much dead on the same. All in all, I'm not quite sure what to think, because I dabbed a bit of Fearful Pleasure quite near to it, which is affecting it somewhat. Still, I'll edit this with any further revelations as it settles and I try it again! I'll probably keep it though - it's not repellent (YAY!), and, you know, it's mine.

The main thing I don't understand about that guy's post is what the difference is between working with one set of ingredients or another. I'm pretty sure CB doesn't create all the chemicals himself (and why should he?) instead of buying them from elsewhere - in fact I think when I was in the New York shop he was chatting about getting in some really exciting new rose absolute. I know next to nothing about how Beth creates her perfumes, though from what I've gathered she prefers absolutes and bouquets from more natural sources like EOs, rather than completely manufactured chemicals. The thing is, I don't think that makes any difference (from a difficulty-to-craft perspective). Both BPAL and CB buy in hundreds of ingredients from different sources and work with them to produce the effect they want, and it's the fact they're good at doing that that makes them perfumers. I mean, to take another art, I could record a CD of myself playing something on the piano (with the necessary equipment), but it wouldn't be nearly as nice to listen to as one I bought from a professional - who is a professional musician because they make good music, not because they have the ability to record it. After all, to go back to perfume, I doubt there's anything to stop people buying in some chemicals and perfumer's alcohol and trying that at home as well. *tries to be on-topic* Um, as for the Lab stating in the FAQs that they're 'all-natural', I wouldn't be surprised if there was some tricky legal issue involved in that (say proving sources or something). It's enough for me that they try. *shrugs*

Wet, this is all cassis to me. In fact it's almost exactly the scent of crème de cassis, which is quite lovely - a very dark, slightly heady blackcurrant. As it dries it lightens up a bit, with the rose and the petitgrain cutting into the blackcurrant with a hint of floral-y dryness. Eventually it ends up with with a patchouli/benzoin woody-dark scent that's familiar from Goblin, but instead of coconut over the top there's a lovely memory of the sweet, blackcurrant-y beginning.# All in all, why isn't To a Woman getting more love? As time goes on, I can imagine the bezoin, patchouli and cassis just getting deeper and sweeter and tastier. Give it a go!

Zomg! The Yule labels are gorgeous!! Thanks for posting, Delirium1009. I can't wait for mine now...

The first thing that comes to (my) mind is Pulcinella & Teresina, though that's more of a rose-resin (labdanum, I think, and there's teak and cedar in there as well). I amp the rose so it's not as balanced on me as I think it could be, but I absolutely adore it all the same. It and Lilith are tied, I think, for the best roses I've found.

For me Blue Moon is a light woodsy blend. I can't really pick out notes, but I think I can smell the juniper. In the bottle it has the slightly worrying scent of PVA glue, but that completely diasappears on my skin (Yay!). I was worried about the cucumber in this, but really, the only aquatic thing I can smell in here is a sort of cool lightness right at the back. Basically, Blue Moon combines lots of different ideas into something I think I can wear. It's got the light blue sense of an aquatic, but without the slightly sour turn I always associate with them. It's got the natural sense of dainty florals, but without any soapy overtones. It's got the green of herbs, but without any of the sharpness (Delphi, I'm looking at you). It's got that yellowy slant of Asian woods, but not that one that hates me that's possibly ho wood. And finally, there's just the subtlest hint of incense that reminds of the Snakes, but it's almost hidden amongst everything else. It's a morpher, this one - I keep on smelling my wrist and getting another aspect. It definitely comes across as a sort of night scent, which is odd, because it seems quite light. But you definitely want to be under the moon somewhere. It fills a gap in my collection completely, though for the sake of it I'd say that a scent it reminds me of is Vinland, even though it's so much different. Ooh, and the green note reminds me slightly of that one in Meskhenet, though in here it's much, much, much lighter.

No problem! I so know that feeling...

I'm surprised no one's mentioned this, but, even though it's not in the notes, a lot of people (including me) have got melon from Iambe. On me it was sort of honeydew-ish, and pretty much overwhelmed everything else.

I'd second Penny Dreadful as an interesting one to try. To me it smelt just like Africa/the red earth that gets everywhere in Tanzania. Though my interpretation of it was drier than a forest. Mandrake is a gorgeous wood on me, and I'd say definitely gender neutral. Several other reviewers of it say it smells like cedar, so it might be one to check out!

I should have reviewed this a while ago: Mandrake has an odd place in my heart. Receiving this as a frimp, I wasn't really sure what to make of it. It smelt woody, but also dirty and kind of sweet (I don't know what cedar smells like, so I don't know if I agree with everybody else). With an initial test on my skin I didn't think it was particularly wearable. I did notice though, just how thick the oil was - it was like syrup, thicker than maple maybe, though not as thick as golden (for people from countries without golden syrup, it's thick stuff: you try to use a spoonful of it and it'll coat the spoon with a thickness of at least a few millimetres). Anyway, I put it to one side. But then, one day, I just couldn't resist the gloopiness! So, I put some on, and it was all right. A bit sharp, but not unpleasant. But, as the day went on, it developed into a really lovely and rounded woody scent. Definitely weird, but definitely nice - what I've always wanted from BPAL. It's been in rotation ever since, and is on my mental list for bottles.

so it sounds like hawaian 'Aloa'? A bit (at least the way I would reckon), but without any emphasis on the last A and with a more H-y beginning. So, basically, the middle syllable's the same. (Is 'Aloa' pronounced the same as 'Aloha' but without the H? That's what I'm imagining...)

My ancient Greek isn't amazing, but looking it up the 'o' is a stresed omega, so it would be something like Hah-loh-ah, where the As are short (as in 'happy') and the stress is on the 'oh' (which is like the O in 'crone'). There isn't actually any H in Ancient Greek, it's just created by a difference in breathing, so the 'hah' would be more of a breathy 'ah' than a conscious 'hah' sound. Heh, and I've just realised that this really isn't how I've been saying it in my head. *fixes brain*

I'm in the UK too and my last CnS from Sara came from grazzt@mail.pixeled.net. I don't know if that's the address they always use, though.

This is the '06 version. I was a bit wary of Samhain to start with, because on first sniff it reminded me distinctly of Karvol (which, according to the website, would make me have been recognising menthol, cinnamon and pine). I quite like that smell, but didn't want to smell of it. But! It's a couple of weeks later now, and Samhain has developed into something utterly gorgeous. It's sweet, but as Bagfish says it's darkly sweet, and makes me think of spiced, stewed apples. I get barely any woods, but I think they're definitely at the back, serving to make the blend even warmer. The best thing? I put nothing like an excessive amount on this morning - that's about eight hours ago - and I'm still sitting in a soft cloud of it. Plus, people around me have been commenting on 'this really nice cinnamony smell' all day and I've had to resist yelling 'It's me! It's me!'. Seriously, this stuff rocks.

In the vial this is so very pretty: tea, mint and light honey with several other subtle notes. On me it's slightly less pretty, or at least less complex, and the tea dominates (my mum thought I smelt like a cup of cold tea... but she's generally pretty scathing about BPAL - not going 'blegh' straight-out is a compliment). I like Gennivre a lot, though it fades quickly to a skin scent. I'm very glad Kourika sold me her decant, and depending on how much I reach for it I might look into a bottle.

In the vial I get a hit of smoke, followed by some lovely sweet, lemony notes. On my skin, though, the smoke and the musk overwhelm the sweetness making it sharp and almost... rotting? I don't think this likes me.

To me, White Rabbit's mostly vanilla, though coming out of the bottle there was also tea bags and milk (they smelt separate, as opposed to being milky tea). I got a random whiff of linens about an hour through wearing it, but then that kind of vanished... It settled down to a very nice vanilla smell, kept from being too sweet by the other notes and also possibly my skin (which, in most of my testing so far, seems to have enjoyed making sweet notes go into stealth mode ). It's definitely foody, but not so much that you smell like a cake, or as if you had an accident with a bottle of vanilla essence - which is good. I think it lasted properly for about three or four hours, but it's still detectable now, much later. On the whole, the Rabbit's not a scent that makes me want to sing my adoration from the mountaintops, but I definitely like it.