hadaverde

The reason "Xiutecuhtli" doesn't follow the usual Spanish pronunciation guidelines is because the word origin isn't Spanish, it comes from the native language of the Aztecs, prior to their being conquered by Cortez and his fellow Spaniards. ETA: here is a good page containing info on how to pronounce Aztec words -- at the bottom there is a table showing pronunciations for quite a few Aztec names, including Xiutecuhtli.

Scylla -- In my last order I got a 5ml of Bewitched, and I still have a half-full imp of Bewitched from my first BPAL order. I'd be happy to send the imp to you so you can compare. This thread has gotten my curiosity up, I'd love to help solve the mystery! PMing you about this...

I suspected it was something like that...it's similar to how the UPS tracking site will show "manifest received" or something similar when they're received the electronic shipping list, but haven't yet scanned the physical package. I didn't really read much here in the forums before I'd received my second order, and when I saw mention of the click & ship notifications I was like "Wait a minute, I'm supposed to get an email telling me it's shipped? Why haven't I gotten one?!" Thanks for the clarifaction!

Does anyone know how it is determined whether one of those click-and-ship notifications will be sent or not? Is it totally random? I have placed a total of four orders, two of which I received some time ago, one that I anticipate arriving any day now, and the last of which was just placed a couple days ago. I have never received any shipment notification messages, either in my inbox or filtered into my spam file, so I was just curious as to how it works.

The first scent that springs to mind for an autumn-specific themed collection is: Jack.

If you like Gonesh #4 incense, you'll adore Carnivale.

This was a scent I selected in my second order of Imp's Ears -- I was very excited about this one, since I adore spicy scents, and my fiance loves the smell of cinnamon. In the vial: The clove note was the strongest to me upon my first sniff, but the cinnamon and pepper were definitely in there as well. Smelling this in the vial made me hungry. This is a very warm fragrance. On the skin: The cinnamon note came up a bit more once this one was on, but the clove was still easily detectable. I was pleased with the fact that the cinnamon smelled genuine, not like the fake red cinnamon-bear scent, but more of a cinnamon-stick. Although this scent faded a bit as time passed, it didn't do so terribly quickly, nor did it fade down to undetectable. Over the course of several hours, I didn't notice any real change in the qulity of he scent, just the intensity. Final decision: I love this stuff. I will definitely be getting a larger bottle when finances allow for it. I commented in my LiveJournal some time ago that I wished there were a perfume oil that smelled like Bengal Spice tea, and this is pretty darn close -- all it's missing is the vanilla undernote.

Psyche was one of the complimentary vials included with my first order of Imp's Ears. In the vial: Despite having pretty much no similarity in components, Psyche strikes me as very similar to Tabu by Dana (which is described as containing notes of rose, orange blossom, jasmine, vetiver, oakmoss, amber and musk) -- not identical, but close. Psyche has a slightly more incense-y undertone, resulting, I would imagine, from the frankincense. On the skin: I was a bit worried about how this one would wear on me, and whether I would be able to stomach it after the first 30 minutes or so. The main reason I don't wear most retail scents is because within the first half-hour after applying them, they start to smell to me like a mixture of unpleasant chemicals, and make me queasy -- I've found that I rarely have that problem with oils. The fact that my initial impression of this scent was its similarity to Tabu, which always caused me bouts of the aforementioned queasiness, concerned me. My concern was baseless, I am happy to say. On my skin, the floral notes became a little more prominent, which mellowed out the Chinese white musk/frankincense combination nicely. My main complaint with this scent was that it seemed to fade very quickly -- within the first two hours, all that was left was a faint pleasant musk/frankincense scent, which I was only able to detect when I actually put my wrist to my nose. Final decision: I'd be a little more impressed if it had a little more staying power -- but that could just be my body chemistry. This isn't a scent I would have chosen of my own accord (I generally like spicy, fruity, or woody scents over florals or musks), but it's not bad. I don't see myself buying a 5ml of this one, but I will have no problem finishing off the sample vial.

I received a complimentary vial of Nephilim along with the last set of Imp's Ears I ordered, and I must admit I was expecting that I wouldn't like it before I ever opened the vial. For starters, I am a bit skeptical about any scent containing so many different components -- they tend to strike me as overly busy or just unpleasant, for the most part. A second strike against this scent, just from the description alone, was the fact that it contains patchouli, which I generally don't like. In the vial: My immediate impression is that this scent is far too heavy. Surprisingly, I didn't find the patchouli note completely overwhelming, as I usually do with any scent containing patchouli, but it was still recognizable. I am also not the biggest fan of frankincense, so between that and the patchouli, I lost any interest in actually testing this one on my skin. This scent also strikes me as being very masculine, possibly simply due to how heavy it is. On the skin: n/a Final decision: Definitely not for me.

The accent should be on the second to last syllable: Mah-sah-BAH-kehs Multisyllabic Spanish words are always accented on the second-to-last syllable, unless an accented vowel (é, í, etc.) appears elsewhere in the word.