myoubi

Hmm-mm-mm. I'm not quite sure what to think of this one. Two things stand out: 1) it's very well-blended; and 2) it's quite a morpher. In the bottle and at first application, I couldn't stand it -- it smelled horribly "perfumey", too strong, tooo dark. Like someone trying too hard to be vampy and sexy. After about 20 minutes, though, it settled down into something I could stand and actually kind of liked -- green without being acidic, floral without being overpowering, dark without being bitter or super-sweet. I left it and went about my business. Four hours later it's dried down to a marvellous sexy blend with a base of white honey. I wish the white honey came out much more prominently earlier (and I might just try layering it with O to see if that helps...) and I don't like the beginning stages at all; but now it's this delicately swirling, very sexy scent that's dark without being heavy (!!!!) and that hugs close to my skin without being invisible. I love the dry-drydown. I just loathe the beginning. We'll see. I'll have to live with this one for a bit. But as far as the eventual outcome goes. Faiza is yummmmy.

A lot of people said they were surprised by what they got in this inquisition, but the Ecstasy of Passion fit my story perfectly By fragrance alone I was hoping for True Love, but now that I have this, I'm not disappointed. In the bottle this kind of scares me -- the red musk is very prominent, and something about the red musk combined with the clove has an almost patchouli-like feel (I don't know, all right? my nose is weird.) On my skin this is still very spicy red-musk-y, and the clove is definately picking up -- a smudgy, sweet clove, not agressive. This is very well-blended, and I'm having a lot of trouble picking out individual notes, but it's a warm spicy blend... unfortunately, warm spicy blends are rarely my cup of tea :S The drydown, however, makes it all worthwhile. Curiously I get no vanilla until after about half an hour (vanilla usually amps like crazy on my skin) -- the rich dark bourbon vanilla isn't really present from close up, but from about half a foot away the scent of it begins to hover, mixing with the petitgrain and a hint of clove. Right up against my skin, it's still warm and spicy but the red musk is no longer eating everything else, and the amber is beginning to come out -- not as powdery as it usually is on me, more the creamy amber I've heard other people talk about VERDICT: I like Passion a lot, particularly after it's had a while to settle down. However, I'm much more comfortable in light, cool, slightly silvery scents than warm spicy musky fragrances, and so I don't think I'll reach for this one often. When I do, though...

This review is for Snow White 2005; I'll tack on my review for 04 when I test it out. Unlike most reviewers, this one doesn't morph a lot on my skin. It's a cool, fresh scent with a hint of florally sweetness, but it's nontraditional -- I'm not fond of florals /or/ "fresh" smells usually, but this is lovely. It's creamy without being thick, heavy or foody, and there's something dewy-fresh and slightly rosy to it. It hovers close to the skin, and there's a dash coconut in it, but again, it's not heavy or foody, just a touch of sweetness. Snow White 05 is a very unusual scent, and I'm glad I managed to snag a bottle. If you like light, sweetly clear scents a la La Fee Verte (my personal BPAL favourite) Snow White 05 is a must-try. ---

PRECONCEPTIONS: This was the blend I was most excited for in the entire update, by a long shot. Although Snake Oil itself was iffy on me (straight-up vanilla) I nontheless had high hopes for the Viper. IN THE BOTTLE: Mint! But not a cold mint like Snowblind or Lick It. It still has that freshness and kick but it's rounder and less nose-clearing. WET ON SKIN: Still mint! Green mint, though. This is complex -- beneath the mintiness is something warm and subtle. DRY: The mint is backing off now, and the other notes are coming out. There is a bit of vegetal green tea, but no bergamot as yet. After about ten minutes, the Snake Oil base starts to noticeably peek out and mingle with the other notes. 30 minutes later: This blend is at its best about half an hour after application. The mint, while it doesn't evaporate like Lick It Again, is much reduced to a slightly-buttery hint flitting round the corners. Once again, Snake Oil does its supervanilla thing on me, but here it's complicated by the dry Snake Oil spices, which miraculously I can detect here. I can still smell the green tea but it doesn't have combat boots on. No bergamot for me, though. I love this blend. I need a hoard of this so that i never ever ever run out -- I'll vacuum-seal and freeze them to preserve 'em if need be. My only caveat is that this blend doesn't last that long on me. While initially it's a solid medium-to-strong, after four hours this is mostly disappeared and after five I can't even smell it with my nose against my wrist. Since I don't carry bottles around with me for reapplication, this is a pain in the butt. Even so, this snake is yummy.

Snowblind is prettymuch as described. I like it enough to keep, but fortunately it's not something I'll die without. In the bottle, Snowblind is prettymuch 50-50 mint and vanilla. As it touches my skin, it becomes a rounded, creamy vanilla with just a touch of mint -- drying down, the peppermint mostly wafts off, leaving a cool, creamy and delicious vanilla with a hint of buttermint. It's very lovely, and as vanillas go quite tolerable (normally straight-up vanilla and I have Problems). It will live happily beside my dwindling bottles of Lick It Again and Green Tree Viper, and when it is gone there will be no need for more. -- An aside: I feel so ostentatious wearing this -- like a woman wearing big diamonds out to the grocery store. I put it on when I really feel like treating myself... then go splurge on something huge and creamy.

in the bottle: quite sugary. Wet on my skin it smells abruptly of champaca, then morphs within minutes to something strangely medicinal. For the next few minutes this smells reminiscent of cough syrup. This dries down to -- Snake Charmer. Darker, less sweet, and slightly stronger/heavier Snake Charmer. I've already got two bottles of that, so I don't need Temple Viper too.

Ugh! Bubblegum and candy, that's it. Sickly sweet and cloying and won't leave me alone! It lives up to its name, and it's a great concept scent; I, however, never want to smell it again. Someone else can love it. I'm not even going to write a proper review because I need to wash this stuff off. Yuch!

opium and narcissus with an undertone of myrrh. A beautiful perfume, but I'm not a narcissus fan and it's not something I'd ever wear. Also, this stuff has throw! I'm wearing six different scents on different parts of my forearm and narcissus is the only thing I can smell right now. This made my skin lovely and soft in the area that I applied it. I can tell that on someone else, this would be dead sexy.

At first, Nemesis goes CYPRESS ginger fig patchouli (...rose, tonka). After about five minutes, the ginger and the cypress settle down and it mellos slightly into a cypress-patchouli blend. Not sweet and rahter too patchouli-y for my liking. Swap for you.

This smells like lemons. Ashy, faint, slightly chemical lemons. ...and something else -- maybe something musky? that I can't name. But definately not smoke. Not for me.

all of the yule labels this year looked the same -- I can't find a pic of Lick It Again specifically, but the label design is -exactly- the same as the other yule labels, like the Krampus label pictured here Also I'm soo glad that this year's Smut labels look the same as last year's. They're so cute!

IN THE IMP: I sniffed the imp wand and thought "Yep... definately Snake Oil family." With a sense of dread I realised that even though I hadn't smelled Snake Oil in months this was almost exactly the scent. WET: More complex; I'm getting more incense than I remember there being in Snake Oil, and there's a smoky/powdery feel that makes it likeable. Snake Oil was almost straight-up vanilla on me, so *anything* more complex is good news. DRY: mmkay, nicer. There's plum, but not too much, making it sweet; the vanilla is behaving, mostly. Spicy, rather sweeter than I like... DRY AFTER A BIT: My roommate says it smells like baby powder. That would be the amber. It smells very close to Snake Oil on me, but more complex -- vanilla is stomping on the notes a little less, and it has a delightful smokiness to it. It is ultimately elegant baby powder. Fortunately I've come to like the smell of baby powder, so I'm not sorry I have this. I don't feel the need to forfeit my Starbucks budget for more, though. (how did I end up with 8mL of this unsniffed? I think I just kept forgetting I'd already bought decants of it...) ETA: a note... this is not light. Leastwise, not on me. apply with caution.

[copied and pasted from my notes] NOTES: dayyy-um. Spicy, earthy, incense-y - lots of patchouli on my skin. This stuff has throw, I could smell the bottle from two feet away when it was closed and taped up. I smell clove -- maybe cardamom too? A little dusty as well. It's not what I was expecting, and surprisingly I'm not getting a lot of tobacco from it -- in other blends, tobacco amps on me like no tomorrow. From farther away I get a sort of berryish sweetness -- I can't reiterate enough, this stuff has throw, I put a very teensy dab on my wrists and they're a foot and a half from my nose and it's quite fragrant. It's definately not a tame blend. After about 10 minutes the clove dies down a bit, revealing something dark and dusty-sweet. Beautiful. It has some notes in common with Trick 2, that much I can discern, but my nose isn't sensitive enough to know what they are. I'm very glad I got to try this -- it's so different from everything I normally wear, but still very lovely. COMPARISONS: The comparisons to Perversion were what sold me on the blend, but on me this is nothing like Perversion at all -- Perversion is much sweeter on my skin, and more tobacco-y. This is dry and dusty with a twining dark sweetness underneath. It's very compelling, and if I had to I'd compare it to Trick 2 and maybe even Schwarzer Mond (although Mond didn't love me, they have at least one ingredient in common, methinks). It's not like Smut on me at all, which is universally good. Something about it reminds me very vaguely of Mme Moriarty, although I didn't love her either -- it has that same dusty-but-sexy tone. If there's vanilla in here, andI think there may be a bit, it's deeply buried because my skin usually amps it like crazy. CONCLUSIONS: this was a long review because this scent deserved it! I like it. I'm not head-over-heels for it, but it's in my top 10, and I'm keeping my bottle because there's nothing else like it in my collection. 4/5

verra sweet. Rather too sweet, actually. I smell all four notes, but mostly the pear -- with the white wine to make it alcoholic. I wish I could give a better review, but I washed it off after seven minutes because it was giving me a headache. If it helps, during that time it didn't really change much. Peh. Must give up on the fruity blends, they just aren't for me.

Sweet Orchid, with a hint of something dusty-musky underneath -- but mostly orchid. Mmmph. Way too pretty-femenine for me.

Three out of three testers agree that Siren smells like slinky goodness. And when I was wearing Blood Pearl, two male friends felt the need to hug me even more than usual...

agh *choke* why?? Why is it that all the phenomenal scents that everyone else loves smell nasty on me? On me, Hellion was a too-spicy, headshoppy mess that dried down to a pungent musky plum. I was really looking forward to Hellion because the other reviews were so lovely; sadly, this pulled a Mme Moriarty on me, enticing me with promises and then ending up smelling faintly of spicy kitchen dust.

Surprisingly, I like this fragrance -- surprising because it contains coconut, a note I usually find cloyingly sweet, and blood musk, which is usually too dark for me. This certainly isn't a perfume with universal appeal. It's a deep velvety-lush scent that has throw but doesn't scream its presence; on someone else it could be vampy and sexy, but on me I find it oddly comforting. Like having a big fuzzy pet monster that's scary to everyone else but nice to me. I can smell all the component notes, they're distinct, but the combination takes the edge off of all of them -- the coconut isn't sweet and cloying but velvety, the blood musk doesn't have the nails-on-a-blackboard feel it usually does on my skin, but growls rather than stinks. The orris makes it more delicate. I'll keep the imp, although I doubt I'll need more.

I had a good feeling about this blend, and it paid off. My skin amps powder like nothing else (except vanilla), but this turns into a lovely silvery gently-sweet powder with an underlying carnation kick. I'm surprised that I like the carnation in this because usually carnation makes me cringe and reach for the soap... This is lovely. Although there are blends I like more, I could wear this every day for the rest of my life and not complain too much a big bottle is necessaary.

I personally like MB: Closet, but for without fruity Underbed would be your best bet. Or Eat Me, which is not LE and still smells pretty durn foody.

Fleh! Damp greenery with a sickeningly sweet ripple. Not for me.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of this one. On balance, I think I kind of like it. It's gotten cautiously favourable reviews from most of my sniff-testers so I think I'll keep the imp... IN IMP: Mm, lovely! Very sweet, not at all what I was expecting. WET ON SKIN: Okay, now I'm getting that kind of stale milk smell that other people have written about. Yet, somehow it's still attractive-smelling -- I can't stop sniffing my wrist. DRY, 10 MINUTES LATER: **snffsnff** h'mm, this is actually nice. If anyone's ever tasted Japanese milk-flavoured candy, that's what this smells like. I won't reach for it often, but I'll definately go through my imp.

Body Shop strawberries. with a hint of something fizzy trying to fight its way through the suffocating plastic fruit. fruity blends hate my skin, apparently. not for me.

I'm not sure what to think of this one. I get mostly ginger-vanilla with a hint of something cutting it [jasmine, I think]. I don't know how old this imp is, but the oil is certainly viscous, and my skin feels softer where the oil has touched it... I don't get any apricot at all, except when my nose is about two inches away from my skin -- any closer or farther, and there's no fruit at all. don't ask me why. she has nice throw -- even my crippled nose can smell my wrists from about a foot and a half away, and I applied lightly. Sweet and enticing. I'll keep the imp for when I'm in the mood, but I don't need a bottle of this. ETA: Forget 'bottle', I want to bathe in this. I don't know what I was thinking -- this dries down to the most gorgeous apricot-vanilla that blends very well with skin. Yumm.

IN IMP: Yep, restroom handsoap is right. DRYING: Lily! I think the frankincense is trying to fight its way through though. Who will win? DRY: Generalised floral with frankincense screaming to be let out. Meh. Not for me.