myoubi

that's interesting... I'm a Cancer, moon in Aries and Aquarius ascendant, so I've basically got everything but Earth in my chart, but my fragrance likes seem to be all over the map. I like resins but hate woods; I like amber in moderation, but I absolutely loathe cinnamon and almond; and vanilla (the underrepresented element) is something I'm quite drawn to. I've always associated resins with earth rather than air -- there's something wonderfully grounding about them, myrrh to me is like being wrapped in a blanket rather than feeling floaty or airy or off the ground. I'm not sure what to think. maybe i should start trying more florals...

This is the second Salon blend I've tried, and it's two for two. They are, so far, stunning -- on a different level than the rest of the catalogue, and that is no mean feat. I can't pick out individual notes in Lucretia, but it just makes me want to stick my nose to my wrist and inhale. It's a woman's perfume, and (being eighteen) I don't have many of those -- it smells rich and sophisticated and a little haughty, it's not sweet or wispy at all. It would be quite at home on a neck dripping with diamonds. I wouldn't call it sexy, per se, but docile and demure it isn't. I wouldn't wear this every day -- it would rather be like wearing a mink coat to go buy groceries -- but it's so beautiful that I'm tempted to get hold of a bottle for those (very) few occasions when I would wear it. Lovely.

How beautiful. This is my favourite currently-available blend I've tested so far, and lands at number two on my overall top ten, just below the inimitable La Fee Verte. It's a warm, dry scent, and while it's certainly not definitively femenine, I don't get the cologney vibe a lot of people have mentioned. It's very subtle, slightly sweet, and it has body without being -heavy- (a problem for me -- I can't wear heavy fragrances, they just don't love me back ) I get velvety resin-smells with sandalwood, and the amber and the red musk come out to play about 20 minutes after application. So glad I found a bottle. Will be ordering more post-haste.

IN BOTTLE: Good Lord, strong! Umm... booze. Lots of alcohol. and sweet. WET: I smell like a bar. A smoky, slightly sweaty bar. DRYING: ...now I smell like musky charcoal. THis is - interesting. DRY: waah! I wanted this to love me I'll give it another try later, but right now I smell like smoke again. It's not unpleasant -- just not smutty enough. ETA: okay, after a while it sweetens up, and I smell kinda hot. I like Trick 2 more as my sexy scent, though... I'll sit on this for a while, but maybe swap it for something I know I like more.

In the imp: mmph, rose, lavender. meh. soft floral. On skin: ooh! frankincense! lovely. florals in the background, the musk is developing.. Dry, on skin: It's quite delicate and femenine; really, very lovely. sweet and floral but not cloying. The frankincense 'grounds' it and prevents the rose from soaring over the top (yecch). I'll keep the imp since I can't bear to part with something so lovely and well-blended; unfortunately, I'm not a florals girl, so I won't end up wearing it often :/

A twisted teatime tart: apricot and sweet clove. In the imp, it's a nice apricot-clove blend, although the clove is dominant. Wet, it's allll clove. As it dries, it's clove with a hint of sweet apricot... I wanted so to like this one. I'll keep the imp around, but I it might be a little too clove-y. nice for winter months, rather. very light throw.

Rose. Still rose. Yup. Still rose. My, what a lovely delicate flower! Too bad what I was looking for was leather. --- EDIT: SO glad I tried this again. After over a year someone frimped me some of this. I wanted to wear it yesterday, and was reduced to lying down and tipping the vial upside-down on my neck to get the last drops of it out. The leather cuts the sweetness of the rose and makes it fresh. It goes /everywhere/ -- I wore it to class, to a semi-casual dinner, to a rave on NYE. It's a very subtle scent, but one that I think I need a 5mL of.

I dressed up as Monster Bait for hallowe'en (so of course I wore my Closet. but yeah. BPAL was the inspiration for my costume.)

I need a boy so I can make him wear this! She of the Busted Sniffer detects... mm, tea mostly, but not sweet at all. Vanilla underneath, but it's not femenine, just sexy. A touch of jasmine underneath. There's something anchoring all that, it's not at all girly. As it dries, the vanilla becomes more apparent and the musk comes out to play a bit. Sadly, it's far too masculine for me; but I like it so much I think I'll keep it until I ensnare my next boy, and then make him wear it

DISCLAIMER: world's worst nose etc. etc. PRECONCEPTIONS: thought I'd hate this because I didn't want to smell like booze... IMP: minty-mint. sharp, slightly unpleasant. DRY ON SKIN: ooh. nice! gently sweet, buttery bourbon-smell that doesn't make me smell like I'm just coming off a week-long binge. This is quite pleasant. I don't get a lot of mint, but there's a little if I'm looking for it; mostly just gentle buttery-sweet, reminds me of Kentucky. Maybe this will be a nice summer scent... LATER:...and we have baby powder. alcoholic baby powder. I'll keep the imp in the desperate hope that someday this will work. the rational part of me says it never will. Gah.

I'm bad -- mostly I bought Midway for the pretty label I didnt' expect to really love this one -- by and large I try to avoid smelling like a confectionary, but everyone else seemed so hyped about it that I figured I'd give it a try. it is yummy! sweet and sugary without being sickly at all, for the first time a candy scent that doesn't make me gag. It's surprisingly wearable as well, it's not too much of a 'concept scent' to wear out and about. It's my standard Silly Day scent. thank God for superficial girls and lovely bottle art.

You know, it's not actually as heinous as I was expecting. I saw the name and thought 'Oh god no...' I didn't remember the notes, but I remembered reading the description and thinking Not Ever in a Million Years. It also looks absolutely vile and dark and murky in the imp. In the imp -- vetiver. vetiver and I are not friends. and... bogwater. And yet! It's heavy -- but I get an odd sweetness to it, which is lovely. Less is more with musk, IMO, but this manages to pull it off. It's quite vanilla-y on my skin. I don't get any of the stinkiness a lot of people seem to be getting -- this one comes off as, really, quite sweet on me, maybe even a little too sweet. Weird. Sort of nice, but way too heavy and rather too sweet. I'll hang onto it for a bit, but probably off to swap.

Holy staying power, Crack Van. This stuff lasted through four rounds of soapy scrubbing, and I can still smell the faintest tint of it on my wrist. What do I have to do to get this stuff off me? As for the review: it was weird. It was just weird. it was both icky, slightly nauseating and then perversely nice to smell, even though I was offended I kept sniffing my wrist every five seconds. I don't think I can take that much schizophrenia from a perfume. Basically, it was more complex than the straight-up I-am-a-bakery scent that I'd expected, and it was even a little spicy and interesting; but just not for me. Very weird.

Heavens! Must-hoard-never-be-without-it-again... Before I switched to buying BPAL, one of my favourite scents was YSL Cinema. My only complaint was that it was a bit too heavy for me; but otherwise it was perfect, sexy without being a come-on and jim-dandy with my skin chemistry. I got attention whenever I wore it. Lots of lovely scents, but I never found anything to replace it. Melisande is Cinema without that heaviness; it's a little sweeter and it's rather more subtle, toned down enough to be a daywear scent instead of just an evening one. Versatile enough to be worn anywhere if I just feel like it; subtle but not meek. My most discerning sniff-tester took a whiff, thought, took another sniff, and said in a surprised tone, "Actually, that's quite nice. That... smells quite nice on you." That's the first time he's ever made a positive comment without any reservations about any of my scents. sold.

PRECONCEPTIONS: I wanted a come-do-me scent, and this seemed to fit the bill, according to prettymuch everyone... IN THE BOTTLE: mm, spicy... spicy is good. okay, this is promising. ON SKIN: Attack of the Vanilla! oh my goodness, this is far sweeter than I expected, and i've been really moving away from sweet scents lately. I was counting on a lot more spice here, and right now I smell like poor-quality Essence of Vanilla perfume. Oh please don't let this be another let-down... ...but wait! about 20 minutes after application it starts to change, and by half an hour the balance has shifted. The vanilla-sweet is still there, but it's just the mellow base to show off the spices. mmmm, I can't stop sniffing my wrist. It's not sharp or piercing in any way, and it's not aggressively sexy as I expected - but it does have that heavy-lidded languor. I'd say that it's not a girl walking out in a thong, more like a woman stretching her arms up lazily, and somehow without ever doing anything overt, making that movement incredibly sexy. Mmmmmm. keeper. ETA: So aged Snake Oil is a totally different animal altogether. I recently acquired a 6-month-old bottle, and it's completely lost that SuperVanilla stage. It's a lot richer and hugs closer to my skin, and gets to the murmuring spices almost right away. Yum.

I want to wash this scent off as fast as possible so this will be brief. aquatic - yes. dark - yes. vaguely floral - yes. But something about it reminds me a little of syrup of Ipecac. It really ought to be lovely, but my skin is turning it into.. something else. I wish I could've liked this one

This smells like insect repellant on me and then after a while it turns into lemon soap. Swap!

Okay, I gave this one a second try because I figured, well, everyone else loves it so... and I do like it. I'm not over the moon, but I'm certainly happy I have a bottle. A little Dorian goes a very long way, but this time I'm getting a bit more lemon, which is nice -- it cuts the sweetsweet of the vanilla -- and while I don't get as much musk as I'd like (and a little more vanilla than I usually am a fan of) the musk comes out more on the drydown. It's a very comforting scent, and it's very English major-y on me (don't ask me why, that's just the feeling I get from it). This is good, because I am in fact a lit major. I wouldn't call it debauched, but there's definately something demure about it, the particularly manipulative way some women have of pretending ignorance of their own sexiness (which is, of course, all the more attractive). A good one for the chillier months.

at first when I smelled this leaky frimp I thought 'oh! it must be one of the voodoo blends.' then I saw the label and realised no, it's supposed to smell like this. oh. I didn't get to actually try this on my skin, as the entire frimp had leaked out of the container. but based on the scent of the vial and the rest of my package, I'm not sure I'd want to.

The first time I used Hymn to Pan I wanted to tap into both sides of the scent; I was entering a new social situation and so I layered it with Road Opener, as an experiment. Didn't have time to focus properly; even so, it did something. I put it on the back of my neck (for the base of my brain), and my third eye with Road opener to see a little ahead of the curve. As I was walking there I felt kind of badass, in a way I haven't felt much before -- not in an on-edge way, like you're psyching yourself up for something, but this perfectly stable sense of self-satisfaction. I sat down and was instantly more present and less shy than usual; what's more, a friend's boyfriend who'd never particularly noticed me before perked right up, and started flirting a little until she gave him a Look. At several points in the evening, I got teeny bursts of ideas of things I Should Do to enhance a certain dynamic or get a better result from the situation. I was a lot more out-there and flirty and charming than I usually am, and I also felt a lot more attractive. So glad I bought a bottle of this -- I can't wait to see what it does for creativity.

On me: vaguely soapy. a whiff of tea, but mostly soap. blahh, must wash off. On a friend's boyfriend: sex. unpushy, discreet, pure sex. when you're in an upscale lounge in New York and in walks a drop-dead gorgeous gentleman in an impeccably-tailored black suit, who glances around coolly and then goes to sit at the bar. he doesn't say anything, because he doesn't have to; all the women in the room have instinctively gone mrrrrow.

IN VIAL: quite sweet, but warm and a little spicy. Surprisingly, I quite like this! unanticipated. Smells a bit heavy though. WET: still sweet, smells a bit like plum. ooh! opium! DRYING: spices coming out more, the sweet is leaving. cinnamon-y? there's almost a dusty note to it. distinctly less enamored. DRY: lilac, berries, opium. turns very curious on my skin -- there's an unpleasant undertone to it, a whiff of something vile or dirty-laundry esque underneath. really, really not for me. OVERALL IMPRESSIONS: goes absolutely disgusting on my skin, smells quite rank. absolutely must go.

IN VIAL: sweet floral. delicate, with lots of violet. WET: has a little more spunk. the violet makes room for something that must be the tuberose. Hints of something softer underneath.f DRYING: tuberose is drifting away; the lilac is coming out a -lot- more. surprisingly, I'm losing the violet. DRY: pleasant, soft lilac scent, not obnoxiously floral. the violet is there, but lilac is the topnote. OVERALL IMPRESSIONS: sweet, soft, delicate floral. Nice to smell, but I don't like soft scents and I'm not a florals gal. Will pass this on to someone who will love it better.

EDIT: My skin does -weird- things when it's that time of the month again. Glad I waited -- I tried CD again today and it smelled lovely, lemony-smoke cream with enough floral to make it interesting but not enough to make me hate it. Unfortunately, my skin ate it in less than fifteen minutes. I am in hate with my body chemistry. -- Old Review WET: still lemon verbena. I was hoping for something more complex. Please change! DRYING: the lemon is still very much there, but other things are coming to the surface -- okay, lightly floral. I'm getting a bit more of the smoke here, but not as much as i'd like. DRYDOWN: elegantly floral lemon pledge. oh, wait, there we go -- vanilla/coconut with apricot, all of a sudden, without any sort of escalation or warning. Rather sweeter than anticipated, although I suppose that was a bit silly of me. Verdict: I'll let it be for a bit, but probably sell/swap.

PRECONCEPTIONS: I had high hopes for this scent - envisioned something light and fresh, anise-y, but not too sharp. Something for daywear. IN BOTTLE: citrus! goodlord. and minty, too, and something vaguely anise-y... but mostly citrus. WET: citrus. herby herby citrus. I am not happy. DRYING: the drydown makes it allll worthwhile. the citrus fades, although it doesn't disappear entirely. the scent is still cool, but it doesn't have the citrusy bite it had in the first few moments. something a little richer is coming out underneath.. DRYDOWN: people give you funny looks if you wander down the street inhaling deeply from your wrist. This scent is exactly what I was looking for, both from La Fee Verte and to fill a 'daywear' spot in my collection. it's cool and subtle, and lightly creamy with a hint of unobtrusive spice. I can smell a bit of the hyssop too; there remains a herby current that makes it complex. Perfect for me. I absolutely love it. SO glad this was a 10mL.