paperdoll

Initial Sniff: Honey wine and bay. Wearing: This is lovely! The honey wine and the bay make a lovely balanced sweet/green scent. As it dries, the honey note wins out, leaving only a memory of the green... Final Impressions: I'm surprised that so many people have described this as masculine... on me, it is a sweet green scent that I would describe as "pretty."

Initial Sniff: Flowers dripping with honey. Odd. Wearing: When wet, this smells like berries and honey - toothachingly sweet. As it dries, the rose comes out and the fruit scent recede. I was expecting this to turn to pure rose on me (like everything with rose), but oddly enough, the honey was strong enogh to hang in there. The drydown is a sweet honeyed rose. Final Impressions: Rose has been surprising me this month, and this is no exception. Nice.

Initial Sniff: Very minty. Like toothpaste. Wearing: This starts off minty, but it quickly fades into a slightly minty mossy bouquet. It is actually very pretty. The ambergris softens this further, leaving a very mellow mossy drydown. Final Impressions: Lovely! I might try wearing this one to bed, as I find it to be very mellow and relaxing.

Initial Sniff: Strawberries flambe... booze and all. Wearing: This starts out as a very boozy berry, but it very quickly becomes less boozy and more like... real fruit. It is not just sweet - it is slightly acidic and crunchy. As it dries, the sage and tea notes come out with the ripe strawberry. This is my favorite stage - the red and green stage! The final drydown is sweet strawberries and cream. Final Impressions: Not what I expected, but very, very nice!

Initial Sniff: Honey and green herbs. Wearing: When wet, this is very herbal and green and surprisingly not sweet. As it dries, it is the strangest phenomenon... this glorious honey scent wafts up to my nose, but when I put my nose up to my wrists to smell, it is all green meadow. Very strange! After several hours the green goes away and just leaves honey behind. This also has amazing staying power! Final Impressions: This is amazing.

Initial Sniff: Very dark. I can smell the opium and narcissus. Wearing: The myrrh comes out almost immediately. The smoky sweet opium is still there, and the dark narcissus too. Unfortunately, this fades very quickly. Final Impressions: This is the scent of oppressive warm humid darkness. brilliant, but not for me.

Initial Sniff: A little warm, a little flowery, a little fruity - I can't pick a single note out! Wearing: This starts out as a sweet tea, amber and gardenia scent which is just lovely! As it dries, my archnemesis rose appears and slowly takes over. Final Impressions: Bah! Rose!

Initial Sniff: The Bloodhound Gang said it best: The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. We don't need no water let the mother%$&*er burn! Burn, mother%$&*er, burn!! *ahem* Wearing: This is some potent stuff. It seriously smells like a building on fire. As it dries, it becomes a smell reminiscent of a dirty hippy on fire. The drydown is vetiver on fire. Final Impressions: This scent is a bit overwhelming on me. It is a masterpiece, however.

Initial Sniff: Citrus - bitter rinds and sweet flesh. Wearing: For the first half hour, this stuff is really intense. Bitter and sweet citrus (and the tea and a little cherry blossom) waft up to my nose. As it dies, the citrus fades. This ends up smelling like... melon? So odd, yet so true. A honeydew drydown. Final Impressions: This would be great if I liked melon. But I don't.

Initial Sniff: Dragon's blood... with something dark and animal lurking in the background. Wearing: At first this is lovely - dragon's blood with a dark side. Then... well, for some reason I'm not loving the drydown. It's almost musty instead of musky. Final Impressions: This one makes me sad. I had such high hopes!

Initial Sniff: MINT!! There is a spicy kick of pepper in the background. Wearing: This is very minty at first, but as others have said, the mint quickly fades into a lovely sweet, fresh, slightly peppery scent. This does not have great staying power. Final Impressions: So refreshing on a muggy day!!

A modern incarnation of the Queen of Pentacles, or Disks, the Queen of the Thrones of Earth. Nurturing, warm and kind, she is practical, quiet and domesticated, and yet still ambitious, and possessed of the sensual lushness of Mother Earth. Soft, deep earth notes with myrrh, amber, pomegranate, dark incense, red currant, rose and vanilla. Initial Sniff: Fruit, myrrh, and amber. Wearing: This starts out very myrrh-y, with the currant and pomegranate plying second fiddle. As it dries my archnemesis rose comes out to play, but just when I think she is about to take over and ruin the party, she vanishes. I am left with a slightly fruity, slightly warm resiny sweet incensey drydown that is just lovely. Final Impressions: I've never had rose behave this way before! I'm so glad I took a chance on this one, as the drydown is truly exquisite.

Initial Sniff: OMG. Dark musk and earth with almond. OMG. Wearing: Unfortunately, the vetiver takes over on my skin almost immediately. This becomes single note vetiver, like so many lovely blends before it. Final Impressions: I will try this on my man. It is too too sexy in the vial to swap away.

Initial Sniff: Sweet wildflowers with a hint of pine. Wearing: This one stays true to the bottle scent all day long. It is just slightly fruity, slightly foresty, and very flowery (in a meadow kind of way). Gorgeous. Final Impressions: I agree with the parallels to Skadi - this is her springtime sister. I'm not sure, but this might be my favorite Arkham scent.

Initial Sniff: Yummy, creamy chocolate with a hint of something citrus and something floral. Wearing: At first this is a yummy creamy chocolate orange. After 30 minutes or so, this turns a little funky in an indescribable way. There is almost something chemical-ish about the smell. That stage lasts about 30 minutes, then we are back to chocolately goodness without the chemical or the orange. Final Impressions: Very bizarre - I'll have to wear it a few more times to see if the good stages outweigh that odd stage.

CCCLXXIII Initial Sniff: Mostly pear, with some berries and flowers in te background. Wearing: When this is wet it is mostly pear, but when it dries the floral really comes out. The drydown is sweet pea. Surprisingly, this has great staing power. Final Impressions: In my pre-BPAL life, I went through phases where I wore BBW Pearberry perfume and BBW Sweet Pea perfume. This is like the luxury version of those two combined.

Initial Sniff: Water. Ocean, to be more specific. Wearing: This is cool and refreshing. It truly brings to mind an early morning stroll on the beach during a drizzley, misty rain. It doesn't have great staying power, but it lasts for a few hours. Final Impressions: This makes a completely refreshing spray for the muggy summer days... very cooling!

Initial Sniff: Beautiful wildflowers under the soft light of a full moon. Gorgeous. Wearing: This starts out delightfully as a jumble of beautiful wildflowers in full bloom under the light of a silvery moon. Then the violet starts beating all of the other flowers into submission. It conquers all, transforming beautiful flower moon into a powdery violet abomination. Final Impressions: The things my body chemistry does to this oil makes me want to cry. I WILL figure out a way to wear this... I will!!!

Initial Sniff: In the vial, this is woods with a spicy citrus kick. Wearing: The lily comes out briefly, but this quickly morphs into something closely resembling the bottle scent. As it dries even more, it starts smelling like straight patchouli. After a few hours, it goes back to spicy woods, but this time there is a slightly sweet floral scent too. Final Impressions: The straight patchouli phase lasts a little too long for me. I do love patchouli... in small tempered doses. The final drydown is nice, though.

Initial Sniff: Very dark, green,and dirty in the vial. No flowers. Wearing: When this is wet, the flowers come out to play for a minute or so, then disappear into the wet loam. This is very wet and earthy on me. As it really dries, a touch of smoke appears over the wet earth, and eventually a faint sweet floral smell replaces the wet earth. Final Impressions: This is totally different than I expected - very complex and interesting.

Initial Sniff: This doesn't smell like much in the vial - slightly herbal, slightly fruity. Wearing: Woah! When first applied, this is like a really weird mix of buublegum sweet lotus, sharp mint, and peppery ginger. I didn't faithfully record all the stages of this one (and there are many - I do remember a distinctly watermelon stage), but it seems to settle finally on a slightly fruity incense smell. Final Impressions: Amazing!!!

Initial Sniff: Green and weedy. Wearing: This stays rather true to the bottle scent (is that dandelion?), but as it dries a sort of sunlight note appears, basking our green weedy field with its rays. Final Impressions: More than anything Beth has created, this smells like summer in the Deep South. Hot, green, and lush. I would call this almost fresh - it is a bit too... humid... to be completely fresh. I love it.

Initial Sniff: Slightly fruity jasmine. Wearing: No fruit, just jasmine and/or gardenia. This is very feminine, and has great staying power. Final Impressions: Girly. I like it!

Initial Sniff: In the bottle, this smells just like the end of my meal at Taj India in Birmingham, AL. I still have a little of the my sweet lassi left in my glass and they bring a little dish of gulab jamun with its super sweet honey sauce. Wearing: Again with the food association: there is a coffee shop in town (Expresso Royale) which makes hot milk with honey. This is that smell. It is sweet, but has lost the yogurty tang that I smell in the bottle. This one fades fast, and does not change much. The lunar oils never really peak out. Final Impressions: I think this will make a fantastic bedtime scent! It is comforting and yummy. I was very apprehensive about this one, but I'm so glad I ordered a bottle!

Initial Sniff: A dark smell in the vial - incense that is heavy on the frankincense. Wearing: When wet, this smells like a citronella candle. As it dries, it becomes more apparent that the citronella is actually frankincense (I think). There is a incense note here as well, but it is in the background. Final Impressions: This is... less dark than I expected the crawling dark to be. But expectations aside, I found this to be a very pleasant and wearable perfume.