MautheDestroyer

In the bottle: Again, very foodie. Almost like honey cake...the fig is incredibly strong as well as the sufganiyot...hardly getting any of the other listed scents. Wet applied: Oh, this is beautiful! The food smells really abate (though they never go away) and the olive oil and beeswax come out more, balanced out by the amber and the sweetness of the sufganiyot and fig. At the same time that it smells like an expensive perfume (the type you drop a couple hundred on), it also smells like a homey meal: I am wiping up the olive oil with my latkah and admiring the beeswax candles. My (hypothetical) uncle the rabbi holds the pomegranate in his hand and tells us about the mansions in God's House, as my aunt, his wife, fingers her amber necklace. My plate is loaded with cakes and foods, figs and dates and sufganiyot. Smelling my wrist, it's like no two smells are the same. Drydown: Very mellow, very light. It's the remnants of dinner, it's the memory of better times, it's the incredible lightness you feel when you spend time with the ones you love. It's wet sugar, fruit remnants and amber perfume. Lovely! (This is for the 2014 scent.)

In the bottle: Okay, when I first opened this scent, I wondered if someone had sent me the wrong perfume in the wrong bottle. There was something light and aquatic in the scent, but also something deeper, like a cross between a resin and a food...like fig, caramel or cake. (My god daugther smelled caramel.) I was mystified. Freshly Applied: WOW. What a change! There is a deep mellowness to this scent that is quickly overtaken by something soft and clean. It's a snow-scent without being snow. I'd say it's like a flower, but it's not flowery- it's close to linen, but it's not linen. It's just smooth, bright and clear, like walking out into a morning after a night's snowfall, and all you can see is the sun reflecting on the snow and all you can smell is the literal scent of cold, winter air. Drydown: About the same, just more subtle, more coy. Much less depth but more brightness- we've got the sled and we're running out to play. A lovely scent!

In the bottle: The white winter musk and the white chocolate is very strong- all the herbal and floral notes are undertones. It evokes clean, pure skin and sweetness, with the promise of spring just around the corner. Freshly applied: Similar to in the bottle, only the floral and mint notes are stronger...the chocolate and musk dominate. It very much evokes a virginal yet sensual woman, someone who is innocent as a dove but beginning to grow in the wisdom of the serpent. A woman who gently breaks the spring flowers out of the snow drifts, who always has a smile for playing children and a wary but wide-eyed look for a man. The scent is soft, white and nearly ethereal, with the musk and the chocolate holding it down to earth. Dry: White musk and white chocolate are strong. Musk usually goes powdery on me unless it's got other scents to mellow it out. This one works very well and is one of my favorites. This is actually my god daughter's favorite, too.

In the Bottle: I was really, really looking forward to this (being a practicing Catholic). The Bottle is very resiny- frankinsense and benzion. First Application: The scent really becomes multifacetted. It smells smoky, like the smoke from the candles at mass. There is a deep cedar or wood smell, like the pews and the wood beams holding up the roof. There is still the resiny insense smell, as well, the frankinsense and benzion and (maybe my imagination) the very tiniest sliver of myrhh. It isn't so much the smell of the church during the mass, but that blessed and wonderful time when the only light is what comes through the stained glass windows, the dust from the night has not yet been cleaned, morning mass has recently let out and you are alone with God in the Blessed Sacrament. Truly, truly lovely and evocative. Drydown: It very much becomes more woodsy, reminding me of a traditionally carved church that I saw and attended mass at in Poland. The church is old, but well loved and cared for. This is your head leaning down on the pew, honoring God. This is the kneeler as it hits the floor. This is laying prostrate with the smoke from the extinguished mass candles lingering in the air. Big bottle list!

Freshly applied: Just wonderful! It's the smell of funeral roses and salty tears long withered and dried, with the earth somehow still freshly turned and the moss inundating the cemetery air, wet and rendolent with decay. It's wonderful, just wonderful! Drydown: The roses are really coming out...they're not fresh and powdery, but dry and almost stately: it reminds me of a Victorian countess' funeral photo. The earthiness promises what will soon come- the fresh turned loam and the yawning depth in the grave. Later: It fades quickly on my skin, a dead leaf and petal smell. I can still smell it strongly in my hair, though. Overall- wonderful, just as described. Will definitely keep ordering more!

This is one of the rare times I have NOT liked a BPAL scent. It just goes to show that even the best have some that just don't fit for you. (And BPAL *is* the best, IMHO.) Imp: Cat pee. On me: Cat pee, just more mellow. Didn't keep the imp. I think it was the combination of the tangerine with the musk (which tends to go powdery on me), and vetivert tends to either be awesome or hate me, and this time, it hated me. Don't think I'll get this one again.

In bottle: Astrigent, strong, sharp. I smell mostly the cognac and the pepper which comes across as cinnamon, with a very faint floral note paired with leather and smoke smell. Not sure where the leather comes in, but it's very faint. Freshly applied: It smells like an Atomic Fire Bomb- those cinnamon candies that I used to love/hate as a kid. They'd burn my mouth off! Under that is a delicate flower scent, so it's almost like spicy candy and flowers- maybe an almost Aztec incense, tobacco flower and cassia? Later: The perfume is faint, still with that cinnamon candy smell with the tobacco flower and smoke undertone. I like it! I've read the Pretty Deadly material and while it doesn't really remind me totally of Ginny, it does remind me of a woman with a hot temper, a cold gaze and who is always walking through the swirls of smoke- either cigarettes or burning buildings, I don't think she cares. It almost smells too much of candy, but the tobacco flower saves it, along with the smoke. I don't get the alcohol or the amber scent much, though that must be what mellows it.

One of my favorite scents! I had this in an imp and it wasn't long before I HAD to get it in a big bottle! In the Bottle: Sharp and spicey. I can smell the saffron really strongly along with other spices...something warm and earthy like patchouli, but not patchouli and something like nutmeg. On me: Spicy, but musky and soft! The red musk really comes out now, and the spicyness is more like cinnamon mixed with the saffron. Many people pick up amber and while I think that is the red musk, I can see how this can be said. It goes on smoothly, and I can use good amounts without overdoing it. There is even a hint of smokiness which seems to fade in and out. It makes me feel like I'm a spice trader, napping in the hot sun and smelling the different spices as they bake and leak from their burlap sacks. Or like a dancer, my skin slick with body musk and perfume, retiring from the stage and breathing in the smoke of a hundred hookas laden with different flavors of shisha. Or I'm indolent in the tent of my husband, the braizers burning and loaded with insence, the tables with foods, and he's just starting to close his eyes as the story starts to wind down.