odalisque

Very, very pretty. Mama-Ji took me on this little journey of discovery where I kept comparing it to different oils in my collection. It opened with strong cardamom that reminded me a lot of Clemence (and am I the only one who got something deep like patchouli or tea out of Mama-Ji, too, like Clemence?) only flowerier, developed something a little less spicy but more resinous that might have been daemenorops like the drydown of Egg Moon. When it was fully dry I swore, but swore, it had a gentle musk in it, almost (but not quite) like Morocco. Powderier. Very late drydown is soft nutmeg. What a trip! The "character" of this blend does remind me of a grandmotherly woman -- I think that's the powderiness -- who feels safe and comforting partly because she opens her arms for a big hug and partly because you know if anybody messes with her she'll open a fierce can of whoopass on them.

I was going through my backups of Eisheth today and it reminded me that I bought a partial last year that could not have been anything *but* Eisheth and yet was different from any Eisheth I've known before or since. It was a rich brandy color (all my other bottles, even the prototype, are watery pale) and it smelled like there was maybe more cocoa and peach in it than usual. Pretty, but odd. Has anyone else experienced this same batch?

I have to say this is one of the interpretations that really wowed me. It's panther in a bottle. Wet it's a little smoky and spicy. The champaca is there and I think I can pick out the ambergris doing that slightly salty, resinous thing. It's earthy too, must be the mandrake. As it dries the black musk emerges and sweetens it up. It does a good job of not having the black musk turn to baby powder, which black musk is prone to doing on me. It's very well-blended and seamless. The star anise is a problem for me -- the more it dries down the more apparent that anise is, and I start having unwelcome associations with root beer. I know some people love the idea of smelling like root beer but I am not one of them. The champaca gets stronger too, and it's lovely, but that anise ...! Almost everything else in this blend is bound to age well, I wonder whether the anise will get quieter or louder with time.

Yikes! I was NOT expecting bubble gum.

Mr O is an aficionado of De Sade and to me the leather note in Sara Pezzini is very different. It's like a clean blond leather as opposed to wicked black leather? De Sade is too harsh for me, but I find Sara to be much easier to take. Definitely the most feminine leather I've ever smelled. The musk seems to be the same skin musk as Les Bijoux, which I love and am happy to be able to smell more prominently in this blend. The honey is a very light honey and the overall scent reminds me a lot somehow of Gennivre without the mint. I keep wondering if there's sugar cane in it somewhere. It's not a powerful scent but I keep catching wafts of it that seem stronger than the scent of it with my nose close to the skin -- can't wait to try this one in my new scent locket! Bottom line, it's light and slightly sweet, slightly salty, sexy in an understated clean, feminine-but-not-vampy-or-girly way, and I really love it -- I was doubtful the first time I wore it but I found myself wanting to wear nothing else all weekend.

I didn't get any cherry, which is strange because usually cherry takes over and makes a blend into cherry candy or cough syrup. What I did get was lots and lots of sweet marzipan. I love to eat marzipan, but not smell like it.

This scent succumbed to the Red Musk curse for me. It was a jumbled and really obnoxious WHY HELLO THAR, I AM PERFUME. HOW ARE YOU TODAY? I had to wash it off.

I knew before I ordered this blend that I would like it -- it reads almost like a Greatest Hits list of notes from some of my favorite scents. And I was right, but I didn't anticipate how much of its own beautiful character it would have -- more than the sum of its parts. The apple note is sweet and juicy, and the peach is lighter and sweeter than the peach in Les Bijoux, the nearest equivalent I can think of for Cupid Complaining. The honey is really beautiful, and it blends seamlessly with the apple blossom like a very light, floral-infused honey. I'm still not very good at picking out fig, but it provides a bit of juicy depth that the apple is too top-notey to provide. Overall the effect is lighter and ... airier? than Les Bijoux, without the lushness of rose and the almost citrus-bright of the frankincense that oil has. I had my doubts about the thyme but it's brilliant, the slightest bit of herbal tang to sharpen the edges of all that sweet fruitiness and honey. And the sandalwood tends to stay in the background, I haven't been able to pick it out by itself yet, but after a good long drydown it definitely is in there working on the honey to keep it from being unadulterated sweetness. Because I mentally see fragrance notes as colors, I really enjoy the Salon and Beth's interpretations of the colors in the artwork. With Cupid Complaining the artwork is very close to the colors I would pick for the notes. I think I would describe it as being a little pinker -- the pink flush of apple blossoms, not the super-pink of cupcake frosting and cotton candy -- but the shade of pale European skin in outdoor light is closer to it than the glowing, candlelit skin of Les Bijoux. The fig is brown almost like the tree bark in the painting, and the thyme is the deep green of the turf under Cupid's feet. The only difference I imagine is that these are red apples instead of golden. Pale pink and translucent petal-white, golden brown, deep green with a touch of red.

Hmm, on the other hand, if other "green/leafy" scents go bad on you, Glasgow may not be the best choice. I wish I got "absolutely organic and non-synthetic" from Glasgow but it was straight-up fresh glacier meadow rain mountain air dryer sheets on me. But all green or "grassy" scents do that to me. OP, if you can get a decant of Cupid Complaining to Venus, that is a fabulous floral with peach and apple. It does have honey, though, and maybe that's what makes Les Bijoux go too sweet on you?

Yours might be a case in which hanging on to every imp that crosses your hands might be a good plan. I know I tend to clear things out quickly, which can be inconvenient when I smell something in a new blend that reminds me of another blend I smelled in the past. My solution is to keep notes of what I smell and the note I guess it to be, but it would be handy to be able to pull out that other imp and compare them to determine what the familiar note is.

I can't fully review this. Maybe half a review? A demi-review? A mini-review? I had only to open the imp to know I couldn't put Death Cap on without my sinuses slamming shut and screaming in pain. As I feared, it contains the dirt and dust notes I'm gradually narrowing my allergies down to. It was deep, rich, slightly damp, very true dirt. Not for me.

Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I do believe there's red musk in here -- and yet I don't reek. That would be a first. This scent has also achieved the impossible in that the dragon's blood doesn't overwhelm everything in clouds of lily-like floral. Wet, it has a floral and very slightly resinous dragon's blood edge with lots of faintly powdery, rich muskiness. It's a sweet, perfumy musk (I think this is the red stuff at the forefront). As the dragon's blood fades, the musk shifts closer to the warm musk notes in Morocco and Anactoria. It's a long-lasting scent and the last phase is hours of lingering, gradually blackening musk that eventually whispers away into sweet babyish powder. This is powerful stuff and I'm not sure exactly how "me" it is but it packs a wallop. It's immensely, ridiculously, headily sexy. I can see how in the right situation, someone exposed to it wouldn't know whether they were coming or going (words like "helpless" and "babbling" suggest themselves). This is the big guns, ladies and gentlemen.

Wowwwww. This is one fantastic honey blend. I could smell the honey note faintly as I was unwrapping my package, through the bubble wrap and everything. I can distinctly smell the daffodil. I never would have thought I knew what daffodils smell like, but there it is: it's kind of, um, a yellow smell? And kind of daffodil-y? Yeah, sorry, that's all I got, you're on your own. Also, bluebells, swear to Maude. The honeysuckle has much less of a starring role in this one than it does in, say, Eos (which is similar in that it's a sunny spring floral but not in much else). Somebody mentioned that it was "dry and grassy" and I agree -- not dry in the sense of being un-sweet, because it's definitely sweet, but even though it has early spring flowers like daffodils I get a sense here of not wet green spring grass but slightly dried-out meadow grass in the summer. The honey is really, really similar to the honey in Hetairae. It's a less voluptuous scent than Hetairae over all, though; I know I use this kind of analogy a lot, but if Hetairae is a candlelight banquet then Flower Moon is a morning picnic. It's a very rich clover-honey scent, I thought that the clover-blossom quality was something the ylang in Hetairae did, but now I suspect it must be inherent to the honey note itself; of course, I can't rule out that clover is among "a mix of California wildflowers". Anyway, this isn't a floral blend, really; the flowers flavor and infuse the honey, but the honey itself is the star.

Aeval reminded me of Eos, although I couldn't put my finger on why -- more a similarity of feel than of actual scent? Maybe the scent of skin Eos is supposed to have is a similar ote to the pale musk in Aeval. Anyway, if Eos is dazzling and sunny, Aeval is mistier and pale. It didn't impress me as a bold scent at all, very light and delicate. I didn't find any sage, more's the pity. Sweet pea always makes me think of hand lotion, so once that came out it was over. But this is a light and unprepossessing scent, inoffensive, feminine without really being overtly floral.

The lavender definitely led on this for me, in fact, I made the mistake of thinking it was going to be all lavender and added some to my cleaning spray. It wasn't so great later when the amber and mosses emerged for a result that definitely said "gentlemen's cologne" all over the walls and furniture of my bedroom. Yes, this is definitely a refined scent, but not the kind I would associate with someone in an impeccable three-piece suit; more the kind I might expect to find in the clothing press of a gentleman many, many years ago, clinging to his linen shirts with flowing lace cuffs and fronts. A manservant takes those shirts out and folds them into the master's valise for traveling in a big black hansom with four horses. It's probably a slightly dark errand he's traveling for. Something about it suggests a whiff of horror to me, but that may be because the scent and description of Saint-Germain combine to remind me of the elegant sorcerer-gentleman in the miniseries version of Gulliver's Travels. He speaks smoothly and offers gracious hospitality but his purposes are sinister. It joins The Apothecary as one of the few BPAL moss scents so far I'm not allergic to; something about these mosses seem to be moist, slightly green and fresh rather than dry, dusty and aged.