almeda

First Sniff: There's mango there, but it's calm and quiet. The rest is too faint to characterize. On: Mango and patchouli? Dry: It's turned into gentle, round-smelling fruitiness. Like a particularly subdued teenage lip balm. Long-Term: Gets fainter and fainter, but doesn't change further. I should try it again with a heavier application.

First Sniff: Butter & spices. On: Floral and ... citrus? Sweetness, anyway. How odd. Dry: Now it's musk and sandalwood. It's weird, no note is remaining from one stage to the next, yet. Long-Term: I like it -- sandalwood and musk, with a little teasing now-there, now-not floral floating overtop.

First Sniff: Harsh, faintly orangey chemicals. On: Even fainter than in the vial; some kind of nose-aching 'floral' volatile. Dry: Barely-there generic florals, with some kind of dark bottom note. Long-Term: It's giving me a headache, so I'm washing it off. Disappointing -- I really wanted to like this one!

First Sniff: Chemicals and vanilla. Very unpleasant. On: No vanilla; lots of dusty bright florals. Dry: Incense, florals, and just the ghost of an aromatic wood, if I concentrate while I sniff my wrist hard. Long-Term: Just florals, and annoying ones. Not a keeper.

First Sniff: I don't really smell anything. On: Eucalyptus/juniper? Still faint. Dry: There's definitely eucalyptus in here, plus something else I'm finding it hard to characterize. Long-Term: Juniper/eucalyptus/galangal/something. Smells rather a lot like Loup Garou, only fainter.

Seconding Danube heartily. Not only does it smell like a perfume my great-grandmother used to wear, it also smells like what her flower fridge (she was a florist by trade) smelled like right after she misted it. Very green and wet, with a gentle touch of lily and some other stuff too backgroundy for me to distinguish.

First Sniff: Grapefruity? On: Less sweet, more nose-tingle. Less recognizably grapefruit. Dry: Argh, it's a very distinct scent I've smelled before, but I can't put a name to it. It smells like ... some scented object or substance I've run across before, like a shampoo or a deodorant cake or something. Not in a bad way. I like it. Cheerful; not sure I'm going to keep it, but will certainly short-term keep. Probably never own a bottle.

First Sniff: Fruit juice? Some kind of grapefruit cocktail, maybe, though I have to think about it to find the citrusness. On: Turns more sharply/obviously citrus once it warms. More like a shampoo. Dry: Definitely a 'crisp and refreshing' shampoo smell. A 'wake up smiling' smell, they might call it in soaps. Not actively annoying; I'll leave it on and see if it changes any. Long-Term: It has in fact mellowed and un-sharpened (though not dulled!), and a note has crept in that I could call 'yummy skin,' or if I wanted to be verbose, 'your high school boyfriend's letterman jacket's lining'. I like it. This may become another 'buy a bottle' scent, after another couple of unconnected days of long-term road testing. I like it, but I have to be in a bright and bouncy mood for it. On my comfort-scent days it just annoys me. :->

First Sniff: Chemical and generically floral. On: Warms up nicely, and de-harshifies, becoming richer but still unidentifiable. Pleasant, though. Dry: Definitely incensey, and no longer 'chemical'-smelling at all, to my nose. Some florals in there somewhere, down below. Long-Term: Interesting -- it's gone kind of dusty-incense-smoke, with florals. Alas, no leather. Fades in 3-4 hours. Keeping it to try more, in heavier or lighter applications, to see what happens.

First Sniff: Vanilla, with something sharper and almost piney overlaying it. Kind of harsh. On: More aromatic sharpness crowding in over the vanilla. Shame, I like vanilla. :-> Dry: Smelling more and more like deodorant, sort of. Vanilla nearly gone, alas. Still very sharp and 'bright'. If only I liked florals better ... Long-Term: Dusty bright florals. Darnit. If the vanilla had lasted more, I would be keeping it, but as it is it doesn't do much for me.

* First Sniff: Juniper and mint, all right -- which is a really bizarre combination, but not unpleasant. * On: 'Warms', adding something that makes my nose tingle like right after I put on my Burt's Bees lip balm. Overall impression: somewhere on a spectrum between mouthwash and cough syrup. Very strange. Most definitely not baby powder, though, which is good. :-> * Dry: Strong wintergreen/mint toothpaste. Washing it off now. I'll give the Lab this, though -- "Clean and purifying, but menacing" is a very good description. Interestingly, on my husband it turned into guest-room soap, the kind that's herby instead of floral. His skin is usually warmer than mine, for what that's worth.

* First Sniff: Richly floral and rose-y. * On: Got some serious throw on it immediately. It also baby-powdered a bit. Uh oh, that time of month already? I'll let it mellow to see if it passes. * Dry: The powder DID quiet down, thank goodness. Some lavender is showing up; I'm waiting for the rest. * Long-Term: Lots of floral and rose, and nothing else, even hours after application. Not for me, though I bet it's someone else's total favorite.

I only had a sniffie of this, so I had to work to get enough on my wrist to test. Will definitely be getting more. :-> * First Sniff: Spice and incense. * On: Very heady -- lots of nose-tingling, same basic scent. I like it. Kind of cinnamon-and-incense, only the hot kind that comes from South Asia, not the sweet, curly-barked South American stuff. * Dry: Slightly baby-powder, but I think that's my (hormones') fault, and not permanent. * Long-Term: Didn't last terribly long (3-4 hours strong enough to smell from 8" away), but I attribute that to the paltry size of my sample. Definitely a winner, though.

Someone upthread said it smells like "flowers in the rain," and I think they're right, though it didn't occur to me until I read it. * First Sniff: Smells like perfume. How very specific, I know, sorry. :-> * On: Volatilizes quite a lot, and ... changes, becoming more floral? Something. * Dry: It's become a wonderfully rich and quiet/subtle old-fashioned floral perfume -- the kind that isn't rosewater. My great-grandma (who was a florist) used to wear things that smelt like this. Greeny, pleasant. Maybe that's the rhododendron? It's been a long time since I sniffed a real rhodie flower. * Long-Term: Remains subtle, with not much throw. A perfume just for me, not for the whole room.

* First Sniff: Grapefruit. * On: Less stringently-citrus, more floral? * Dry: Interesting. It's now a sort of drifty mildly-citrus floral thing, with a faint ginger undertone. Decent throw. I like it, though I can't explain why -- it's exactly the sort of 'perfume-smelling' floral I ought to detest. * Long-Term: It turned into a pretty standard 'perfume or air freshener' scent, but again, it's like the Stepford Perfume, because I SHOULDN'T like it, but I do. It also seemed to fade really fast, but that may be nose-numbness on my part, I don't have anyone else to get input from. Almost certainly a keeper.