tartchef

Oh huzzah - more florals I can wear! Abejita describes the osmanthus really well - it's like apricots & white blossoms, fresh & clean & lovely. Harikata is much lighter, more innocent than I'd expected - the honey & musk are background players, not the dominant notes, adding a golden glow behind the osmanthus & what must be vanilla flower, another sweet white floral note... The ginger is barely noticable, just a bit of zing at the edges. This is so pretty & fresh & lovely... not exactly capturing the lable art ( ) but absolutely beautiful. Dare I say it... it'd be a perfect scent for a spring bride...

Oh wowowowow. Oh wow. I had to really steel myself to apply this - in the bottle, Glowing Vulva is hideously sweet & cloying, all heavy cream & sticky sweet lotus. As soon as it hits my skin, though, Glowing Vulva is miraculous - cream & this incredible teak note, resiny & spicy, underscored by the sweetness of the amber & lotus. For once, amber's behaving on my skin - slave1 nails it when she describes it as almost pettable, just a film of powder gliding over warm skin, lit by candles on teakwood boards, swathed in cream satin... Whoo... is it hot in here? :fans self:

Whoa, caramel! I knew this would be a foody explosion, but hoped the patchouli & sandalwood would be enough to cut through the sweetness. Turns out its the iris I should have been worried about - Arrival... dries down to a very workable burnt sugar & incense scent, pierced by a horrible aerosol floral note. The end result smalls for all the world like a men's grooming spray my dad used when I was wee - aerated alcohol, benzoin & cloying iris. Bleargh. NDcent kindly sent this to me, and I know it's one of her favorites, but I just can't wear this...

Oh golly, this is pretty... In the bottle it's all honey, but an herbal, natural honey, not the unctuous stickysweet honey of O... On my skin, it deepens & the blackberry emerges, lending a dark juicyness that balances the vanilla & spices that lurk at the edges. I don't get tea, per se, but I suspect it's the green-ness that grounds the whole scent, keeping it from veering into cloying blackberry jam territory. Lady Una is so far from my usual repertoire of deep resins & smoke, but I swapped for her on a whim & am eternally grateful to nursekins... this will be spectacular as the warm weather approaches & my thoughts turn to floaty frocks & pottering in the garden....

The Lady Of Shalott & Euphrosyne come to mind, in terms of GC offerings, but my money's on the retail-only Mad Kate: Honeycomb, red currant, freesia, vanilla, rose geranium, thyme, and gardenia. Gardenia's the last note listed, but is definitely the dominant scent on my skin. Judging by the reviews, a lot of folks get the currant & honeycomb first, though, so it might be worth tracking down a decant before committing to a big bottle... Check out this older gardenia thread, too...

2007 release: I have mixed luck with Beth's foody scents, particularly caramel, but wanted to give Red Lantern a whirl, as it's got two of my go-to notes, tobacco & opium. Besides, black currant? Yes please! Wet, it's hellooooo, Congo Bars! Sticky caramelized coconut, super foody & pretty cloying. Gradually, I'm getting traces of tobacco cutting through all the sugar, but it's a strange scent - I suspect it's actually the delphinium adding what reads to me like a strange curry-like, almost vegetal note. There's something similar in Jolasveinar... Alas, as the coconut & caramel finally fade to wearable levels, this funky biryani note amps to the exclusion of everything else. No black currant, and amazingly no amber, which tends to amp like crazy on me. I'll put this away & try it again in a week or two, to see if it's hormones causing all the trouble, but I suspect Red Lantern & I are not meant to be...

Well hellOOOOOO, cassia! As earlier reviews have noted, Plunder comes out of the gate with both barrels blazing, loud loud cinnamon bark & cassia to the exclusion of any of the other notes. Thankfully, it settles down pretty quickly & the rest of the spices come out. It's much drier than Bengal, but very much in the same vein. And Winterwind's spot-on comparing the drydown to Morocco - there's a trace of tea & wood as well, but the similarities are striking. Ultimately, there's just not enough tea & wood & pepper here for me - clearly I amp the sweeter spices... Glad I just got an imp, but Plunder is a gorgeous scent in its own right.

To my nose, Bathsheba is a very sophisticated carnation with just a bit of plum & musk to dress things up - all pearls & cashmere twin sets, if you know what I mean. Frumious Bandersnatch was much heavier altogether, with a lot more plum & lots of spice. Less cashmere, more hand-dyed super-bulky I was, however, one of those who referenced "craft store" in my reviews, so you may get a very different reaction. And seriously, you have got to try Hod.

Oh rose afficionados, help a girl out? I have awful, wretched luck with most florals, and rose is the prime culprit. It smells lovely in the bottle, but as soon as it gets within my personal gravity, it explodes in a cloud of stale "tea rose bouquet", like the bottle of rose eau de toilette that you got as a gift from your friend's Avon-selling mom back in 4th grade & promptly spilt all over your bed. (yep, true story) So far, I've just categorically avoided any BPAL that mentioned rose. I like resins & incense, so it's been pretty easy so far, but then I get things like Parentalia, The Clod & the Pebble & The Passionate Shepherd doing the come-hither dance & I waver... so I appeal to you, the experts of all things rosa, to help me overcome my fear & find a rose I can wear with confidence. Rose scents I've tried so far, with no luck: Rose Red, Khajuraho, Euphrosyne, La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente, Phantom, Nemesis, Thanatos (with all the resiny goodness, I thought for sure this would work...), Ostara, Hymn & Zombi... Pontarlier was so close, but went triple-milled soap in the end, and Spellbound was gorgeous in the vial but an awful powdery mess on my skin. Now that I look at this list, most of what hasn't worked so far has problematic notes beyond just rose (jasmine, gardenia, amber, lily). That was precisely why I tried Rose Red, to get a feel for rose unfettered - alas, it was soapy & sharp straight out of the vial, to my nose. :sigh: So, any recommendations as to where to go from here? I'm tempted to try 2, 5 & 7, hoping the grass note will temper things; Pulcinella & Teresina, as labadnum & woods work well; Rakasha, Persephone & Rose Cross. I also have a bottle of Lotus Moon sitting on my desk, daring me to give it a whirl... Thoughts?

Wicked and vicious! A sharp, cruel blend of lavender and pennyroyal. I can see how this could be off-putting - there's an anisey green backnote that comes out once it's dried down that puts my teeth on edge a bit. My headache, however, has gone whimpering into a corner, so I'll definitely be keeping this on hand. I'm thinking of making an inhaler stick of sorts, something I can sniff as needed but that doesn't require me to actually wear the scent all day... ETA: Pain has quietly worked its way into my must-have collection. I get stupid nagging sinus headaches this time of year, and a swipe of Pain on the back of each hand goes a long way towards making my days more comfortable... It was also invaluable when we had a minor flea invasion - a few dabs on the ankles to keep the biters down, and an imp's-worth mixed with Borax & worked into the rugs. The fleas were gone within days, and our house smelled lovely & bracing & clean

Phew! On me, Mechanical Phoenix is all Man-fume - hyper-masculine ozone, amping to 11. I can appreciate it intellectually, but on me, it just smells all wrong, like I'm trying to jam my Rubenesque curves into boy-cut jeans 2 sizes too small... On DH, there's that same ozone punch, but his chemistry brings out the oil & hot metal that I so sadly missed. It's still manlyman, but very wearable. We have a friend who teaches welding that really needs to try this...

Oh, this is interesting... wet, there's the predictable smack of sticky almonds, but Queen of Sheba almost immediately morphs into a surprisingly non-sweet blend of spices & faint flowery incense. There's a soapy trace to it, but not the nose-searing soapiness I often get with florals - this reminds me of a jojoba & honey soap I bought at Kew Gardens when I was very young. As it dries, the bitter almond re-emerges, and the end result (on me, at least) is a near cousin to Scherezade - a similar incense base, but much quieter, with traces of noyeaux & honey. Ultimately very pretty, though I don't think it's something I'll wear very often.

Mwahaha, stalked you I'm the decanter in question, and I thought I'd share what I just PMd to Wwindy... long PM short, HL & EL separates out like no other oil I've seen. I'd decant, and barely a minute later the heavier darker oils would slide to the bottom of the imp. I didn't realize this til I'd decanted a few vials & shipped them out, so it's very likely that Wwindy got a badly-blended imp. Bad decanter! I'm hoping the color of Wwindy's vial will help us figure out if hers was an earlier or later decant, as thus heavier on the ambergris/sandalwood or the teak/frankincense/myrrh. (I'm betting the latter) Aging may well have something to do with it, too - IIRC, I decanted for Wwindy back when the RO oils were first released, so her oil's had the benefit of a few months of aging...

Um. Yeah, what she said! And, it lasts for-EVER... it's still lingering on the cuffs of my husband's hoodie, even after multiple washings. Lucky for me, he thinks it's pretty damn sexxxy

It may sound odd, but the old Yule LE Herr Drosselmeyer smells just like hot buttered pannetone to me... sweet, but not cloying, toasty & brown with a trace of salty richness & just a hint of candied peel. It is teh YUM. I recall browsing through reviews a few days ago & coming across something the invoked "OMG cinnamon rolls!"... I'll go trolling & report back. As for buttercream, the ever-elusive MB: Underpants is naturally my first thought. On a more realistic note, though, Eat Me might work for you - I got very little currant from it, mostly just cake & icing. ETA: Might be worth a browsa through the Uber Foody Recs, too...

Oo, this is well-timed - I'm in the process of enabling a dear friend. Alas, she has markedly different tastes from my own, and I'm finding it hard to recommend things. She'd mentioned a recent interest in the old classics, esp Chanel No 5, so I'll be monitoring this thread for ideas... So far she's liked Marquise de Merteuil, and I'm on the lookout for imps of Ozymandias & Dance of Death.

Thanks, black*cat & hackess - I've got an imp of Smut '07 on the way, but you've both confirmed what I'd suspected (& what my PayPal account had hoped), that teh Smut doesn't need a place in my bottle box

I think we're in much the same boat Joseybird - I have horrific luck with most florals. Carnation is a surefire success, though, so I've been slowly working my way through the GC catalog. Morocco is top, so far, but Bathsheba was really lovely (all cashmere sweaters & pearls), as were Masquerade (lots of patchouli but lightened by carnation & orange blossom) & Queen Alice (strangely fresh, despite the cider & wool). How are you with violet? I find if it's blended with something green or resinous, it's lovely on me. The Darkling Thrush & Crow Moon are my top picks, and I know the Raven & Sybaris are forum favorites. What else... Libertine (Rosewood and chamomile with bergamot, violet, red sandalwood, primrose and Arabian musk), Belle Epoque (Sweet opium, Lily of the Valley, vanilla, mandarin and red sandalwood), War (all honeysuckle & mild musk on me, alas), Pontarlier (went soapy, but it was a gorgeous lilac & fern soap), Pele (this almost worked on me...) & Xiuhtecuhtli (orange & cocoa, but the plumeria & "jungle blooms" come out at the end) all come to mind. Finally, it's nigh impossible to find, but the Hermit broke every no-florals rule in the book. I get paperwhites & narcissus, with a touch of orange... it's not something I wear often, but it is gorgeous.

Wet, this is very sharp, all lemon pith & soapy geranium. The more piercing elements of the saffron & myrrh are out in force at this point, and I very nearly regretted testing this today... Fortunately, given an hour or so, all the pointy edges disappear & I'm left with an amazing blend of tangerine, musk & incense - deep red & glistening, juicy but in no way cloying, just beautiful. Oddly, I get no patchouli whatsoever, save a faint waft of something vaguely earthy if I'm waving my hands around a lot... Lot & His Daughters bear a very strong resemblance to Mme Moriarty, actually, but with citrus instead of plum. Had the Mme not won my heart already, I'd be contemplating a big bottle of Clan Lot.... ETA: Whoa, this lasts for-ever! I was still getting whiffs of patchouli (it finally showed up after about 8 hours) in the shower this morning!

Not sure if this is the right place for my question - mods, please relocate me if necessary... Can anyone give me a compare/contrast of Smut & Devil's Night 2006? (Yes, '06 specifially - '05 is super mild & innocuous on my skin) DN '06 is one of my favorite blends - boozey, spicy, sweet & smoky, with a healthy smack of musk. I'm contemplating a bottle of teh Smut because, well, I mean come ON. But if it's going to end up DN minus the spice & smoke, I don't know that I'd need to splurge for a bottle... Thoughts?

:ptooey: There's something in here that goes to utter dreck on me - it's a lemony/banana-esque solvent, somehow sickly sweet & industrial at the same time. I had to wipe it off after barely 2 minutes...

I approached Christmas Rose with a bit of trepidation, having very mixed success with any kind of florals... Wet, it is beautiful, a sweet & juicy floral aquatic with none of the "mountain fresh" scent that kills most of these kind of blends for me. I'm getting wet snow, and something almost violet-y, crocus-y, or buttercup-esque. It's very similar to my beloved Crow Moon, minus the evergreen notes... But then... Dude. Seriously. Once Christmas Rose dries down, it's a powdery soft scent with a distinct undercurrent of Cel-Ray. In a styro cup, no less. I'm going to hang onto my decant & give it a whirl in the scent locket & see if that won't keep the celery at bay, but this is definitely off the big bottle list. Which is a damn shame, because I adore obscure botanicals. :sigh:

I totally see where AEris is getting sandalwood & patchouli - this is a very dry, woody patch, very that comes roaring out of the vial. When I first put this on, I had to try very hard to not scrub it off right away - the orange blossom & patchouli clashed horribly, deep dry & woody vs sweet & powdery orange. Blech. Given 10 minutes, though, it's mellowed considerably, and the almost fizzy ambergris surfaces. There's still a big stretch between notes - the low bass of the patch & the high orange blossom & ambergris - but it works surprisingly well. I don't get any carnation outright, but I suspect it's adding that spicy little undercurrent I keep catching whiffs of... Masquerade is really interesting, and the name very fitting for such a black feathers-&-gilded lace kind of scent...

I, too, looooves me some fruitcake, and Beth's creation doesn't disappoint! Wet, it's OMGBOOZE, sweet & sticky, cheap brandy & almond extract. Once on, this really heavy cake note comes stomping out - it's akin to Eat Me, but browner, like cake that was left in the oven just a bit too long & got nice & dark brown & crispy at the edges. Just when I think it's going to get too overwhelming, a magical candied cherry comes peeking out - it's spot-on, down to the waxy plastic texture. In its final throes, Fruitcake is strangely akin to Bonfire Night - there's that same treacle-&-smoke note, perhaps the burnt raisins at the bottom of the oven Honestly, an imp of this is all I need - it's far too foody & heavy for me to wear on a regular basis. But it takes its place in the annals of the Super-Evocative BPALs... huzzah for Beth!

Well put, ivyandpeony. The cautionary note isn't there to panic you, engelvonblut, simply to alert you to the fact that pregnancy + BPAL = one great unknown. Congratulations, and I'm very envious - I wasn't able to stand most BPAL while I was pregnant. Meanwhile, back at Grape Central, I'd recommend Cairo & Blood Phoenix, for sure, and Midnight Kiss. Depending on your chemistry, opium may read as grape for you, so Parliament of Monsters & Dr John Seward might be worth trying.