surlygurl

I got a decant of this because, well, radishes? Gotta try it. Novelty scent at it's best. Fresh on my skin, it's: Holy crap! This is delightful! I feel like a 4 year old running around chasing butterflies in the garden. I get sweetness. Waves of sweetness, probably from frankincense, cucumber, chamomile, and spikenard (I recognize this from other scents). There's a tiny bit of juniper dancing around, which gives the impression of clear & strong. This stage is crazy good. As it dries, the sweet backs off a little and a soapiness comes in. Not a bad store bought soap, but what soap root might smell like - something natural. Sniffing up close I still get the crazy sweet smell, but the (very limited) throw is less sweet & a bit soapy/earthy. Still, I like it. Unfortunately, the scent is a fast fader. The soap does go away/ blend in eventually, but the throw is less and less until I barely catch faint whiffs when moving my arms. It's an absolutely lovely scent; I just wish it lasted longer. Do I need a bottle of a scent that fades this fast? But it's so pretty!!!

This was a bottle purchase from the get-go because I Love Gold Scents. Truly I do. When I think of gold scents, I think of Mr. Jaquel & Faustus - scents that are resin heavy & deep. So I applied from my Gold Phoenix bottle: When I first read the description, I thought "hey! This sounds like Sol Invictus!" and it kinda is. If you take sol invictus, remove the saffron & any other 'exotic' bits, and then add in lemonade, you get this scent. As it dries it softens. Less overt lemon, more lemon-tinged amber. It's very light and clean. A 'fresh out of the shower after using lemon scented soap' clean. But it's not gold. It's a powdery yellow. I like it & will definitely use this in the warmer months.

On my skin, this starts off with a high pitched floral and something fruity. The 2 merge and other florals come out to play. The blend of scents do combine into something light & airy, with a little moss holding it all close to the earth. This is still a high pitched floral, but it's playful like small gusts of wind that blow your hair in every direction on an otherwise calm day.

This starts out as Proshitapathika light - *super* herbal lemon. As it dries the herbal lemon lighten up & make way for a clear metal & ozone notes. There's something keeping it grounded. This will be lovely in the summertime.

Now, ya see, I've never smelled TKO, so I can't compare, but I'll assume there's lots of lavender. I do like the soft bpal lavender smell, which this has. This scent would be a winner if it weren't for the cologne aspect, which is really all I get after it starts to dry down. While I do like masculine scents, this reminds me of the job I had at a bookstore where teenaged boys would slap on cheap cologne & stroll into the porn mag isle (because all grown up men smell like cheap cologne. Such a clever ruse.)

This was the scent I thought would be the big loser, the OMG-get-it-off-me! scent. Boy was I wrong! On my skin the dragon's blood shows up, but a cowed & humbled dragon's blood in the company of Big Ginger. Myrrh sweetens this right up. Sweet clove cozies up to the ginger, pushing the dragon's blood even further in the background. (I have a hate/hate relationship with DB, so I'm obsessing). On drydown the basil pokes through, lending some dark green into the swirls of red & brown. I love this. eta: on extreme drydown it gets quite sweet from the dragon's blood. I prefer the earlier stages, but I still love it.

Fresh on the skin I get astringent cypress and herbs. Then little bits of plum come out and are joined by tobacco. The other notes are just names to me so I can't identify them. But through all the variations of the dancing herbs, I get that sharp cypress smell that's threatening to give me a headache .

This is a really pretty luminescent blend. But silver? Try 'frosty violet', because that's what I get. Choward's Violet candies and some sort of powder. The florals keep it from being straight violet (does orris=violet?). This scent glimmers & shimmers in a demure sort of way. It's really quite pretty; it's just not a 'me' scent.

Looking at the scent list, I thought this would be a lovely blend. When I put it on, I got fruit. Lots & LOTS of fruit. And incense? Yeah. All the little nuances that others describe were just not there. Instead, what I got was fruity incense, like the kind you buy at 7-11. It didn't change much as it dried. I'm glad it works on some people.

This was a last minute "oh, I may as well get a decant". Glad I did. Fresh on, it's POW! FIZZzzz... and baby powder. Mostly the labs fizzy cola note. I'm constantly sniffing my wrists trying to pick up the notes other reviewers have mentioned. There's a teeny tiny bit of forest, but no Ivanushka musk that I can tell. So I let it dry & sniff again. Hmmm... The baby powder is now slightly musky. Overall, it's really pretty but I don't need a bottle. I'll try it again, tho, just to be sure!

In the bottle, it smells pretty and light, like something a young girl would wear. On my skin, I get pikake, citrus, a light mixed floral blend, aaannd...... soap. Is there moss in here? No? Don't know what could be doing it, then. This smells like very pretty soap. And there it stays. Oh well.

Last summer I was toying with the idea of swapping/selling this one away. I remembered it being heavy incense /resin that didn't work on me that well. Now that it's winter, this is the most glorious scent!! Dark green cypress, yellow-green olive, frank & myrrh - a dream come true. Luckily, the blood accord must be just a rumor because I don't smell it. As it dries, the 'roman flora' comes out and I smell spices (?) but I can't identify the florals. They may just be there to color the resins. Gorgeous, gorgeous scent! If you like the Penitence-type scents, you owe it to yourself to hunt down a decant of this.

Sugar cane, blue musk, mahogany, black orchid, black currant, violet, blackberry leaf, teak, strawberry, and dusky rose. In the vial, it's burnt sugar & plastic. On me, it's fresh white sugar and a touch of plastic. Oops! There goes the plastic! And here comes something tart.... probably red currant. There is a leafy green in here, maybe strawberry leaf. Musk shows up a bit later to ground the scent. I really like it. It's sweet/tart and pretty, like Tiki Queens prepubescent niece. eta scent description.

This is very high pitched. Floral? White floral? Maybe lily of the valley? A teensy bit of violet? Light leather, like a purse. This scent reminds me of my mother. She used to wear (it's no longer made) this old-lady hand cream that ended up on *everything* - door knobs, remote controls, etc.. And her purse. OMG I smell like my mom!!!! I may put this in a roller ball with a carrier oil & give it to her for christmas.....

Oh wow! This is sooo pretty! Fresh on, it's "OMG Peach!!" A wonderful bright peach with smooth dark clove. Some sort of resin in the background keeps the scent from floating away. As it warms up, I can identify my nemesis, Red Musk. Damn. So, of course, the lovely peach burn off and red musk takes over the show. I can occasionally smell *other things*, but nothing identifiable. Just the big red musk. Pphhhhttttt. Time to buy a scent locket, 'cause this is lovely (just not on my skin).

Rose & I don't usually get along, but the name sounded so cute that I had to get a decant. On my skin, it's 98.7% snow white - the remainder being the faintest pink rose. Maybe the rose in place of a different floral in snow white. Whatever role it plays, it's barely there. On me, it's not that big a deal. Oh well.

Ok. Now that I've read other reviews and am pretty sure there wasn't a decant mixup..... On me this is snow white, but better. I get snow white plus some mint and just a tiny bit of eucalyptus. Cold, most definitely. Sweet florals from the snow white part are kept in check by the seriousness of eucalyptus. And it lasts & lasts.

This scent isn't as scary as I'd imagined. The eucalyptus & jasmine are nowhere to be found, and it smells clean & clear. In fact, ya know what it reminds me of? Knucklebones. Same transparent light brown not quite fizzy scent, but not as masculine. Like knucklebones' streetwise little sister. I like it.

Hmmm.... something like Nuclear Winter, with a touch of floral. Cold but very bright, even a bit sharp. It's pretty for a while, then just disappears. Not really me.

Frost-limned, ice-bejeweled branches, scattered blood-red maple leaves, a few camellia petals, red peppers, and nacreous, multi-colored musks that shimmer like gently-beating cicada wings. The first thing about this scent I noticed was the peppers. It smelled the way bell pepper seeds taste, that slightly bitter oil. Everything else here is an undefinable blur. This is closer to what I expected Raven Moon to be - shimmery & sleek. This does become something very unlike other bpals, something like department store perfume. But high end department store perfume. It's a bpal for people who say they don't like perfume oils. I do like this - clean, unisex, not very sweet. Not (full) bottle worthy, but I'm definitely keeping the decant.

Doing a little testing today...... Fresh on: EEEEK! It's Black Annis without the delicious anise parts! Moments later I get a sort of yummy musk thing coating the outside of the feral core. When I move my arms waaay away from my face, it's wafts of yummy musk. Up close, it's *scary feral thing*. I can't help compare it to eating a rancid peanut m&m. The coating on the outside is tasty, but that big ole rancid thing is the middle is just..... no. Once it's dry, the feral bit goes away and it wafts a sweet soft brown musk. Then it disappears. Interesting scent, but something I'll save for, um, special occasions.

When the decants came, I sniffed this one - the most expensive, coveted, etc. bpal so far - and was "Eh. This is nice. No biggie". Then I put it on....... I was suddenly in the middle of a forest. It had recently snowed, and everything was white & fresh (the labs mint/snow note). I could smell the trees in their chill. The sage & wood remained frozen while an amber warmth played in the openings of the forest. Eventually the sun warmed up the woods & this scent generated a sort of melancholy warmth. Wow. A definite bottle buy.

This is lovely on me. As soon as I read the scent description, I knew it would be MINE. I agree with the Deserted Village comparison. This is sweeter and deeper. I'm getting mostly labdanum, and the throw is quite sweet. Too bad the clove is understated; the sage & pimento berry are apparent. This is lovely and may be a bottle purchase.

In the vial, this threw me a little. It smelled "off". Still, I braved the smell & applied. Immediately I got a pinky-orange vibe from it. Right underneath that was Lilith & the Jarocho, like someone took a batch of the leftover oil & scribbled on it with a pinky-orange scent crayon.

You guys wanna heard something freaky? This came in the mail today, and I thought it would be all cocoa & musk with tobacco (you know, like advertised ). So I applied it and got cocoa. Then that went away within seconds and you know what I got? Khandita from the Faces of the Heroine series. Seriously. It must be the same "severe" black musk, because that's all I smell. I'll do a side-by-side comparison later, but it's so similar it's almost scary. eta: after drydown, the cocoa comes out a bit and blends with the musk, making it more complex than before. Still, that black musk is fierce!