Lady_Ell

Well. I'm glad there's so many fans of this, so I can swap mine away. The ingredients sounded perfect for me, and I loooooove Seance. I was hoping it would be a more sultry Seance. Well. While Seance is a soft, fresh, dewy, pink, sugar-coated rose, Parliament of Foules is a wet, rancid, rotting rose that wafts over salty, rotting wood that's been soaked in Bactine. There is some resin in here that does not work on me (the salty rotting wood Bactine smell). It's the same resin in Anne Bonny and Jolly Roger. I will stick to Seance for my rose scent. You can't top perfection, I guess. And I'll swap this one away.

Darker and smokier than Snake Oil. Less powdery and more sophistocated and slinky than Snake Charmer. I llllloooooooovvvvvvvvvveeeeeeee it.

I LOVE this. Cinnamon and cardamom and something gingery-hot, and dirt. I love it love it love it love it love it! The gardenia thankfully keeps its stanky self in the background, leaving me wrapped in patchouli goodness. Did I say... I LOVE THIS? I do. I love this.

Well, call me mystified. I just tried on some Dorian - I hadn't ordered it due to the "blend of three musks" or however it was described because I was afraid of getting what I can only describe as That Musk Smell (which on me ends up like cat butt and a loogey) but I don't! I get a gorgeous and slinky vanilla sugar tea thing going on, with the dusty essence of an elegant fur coat in the back of the closet and a hint of lemon zest.

I had grand hopes for this (tangerine, saffron, etc.) but it makes me smell like a 14-year-old boy who bought his first bottle of Drakkar Noir and spilled it all over himself.

Butter, butterscotch, and then a puff of light girly flowers. Like honeysuckle. Something about this makes me uneasy, because it reminds me strongly of something I wore in early high school. But I'll get over it, because this is really very pretty. It dries down to a nice powdery vanilla after a few hours. I do feel quite chaste when I wear it, though. Not sexy at all, but light and bright and pretty.

OK, now that I've worn it nonstop for a few days, let me give a formal review of Shub-Niggurath. Starts off kind of astringent-hot-ginger, with a floury undertone. Not flower, but flour. Burns for a bit, then settles into the absolute most gorgeousest hot-spicy-ginger-cookie-candied-ginger-thing you would ever want. Like a mix of freshly ground dried ginger, crystallized ginger, and fresh ginger to give it that extra bite/kick, and bit of sugar to balance things out. I say this all the time, but this is probably my favorite oil blend so far. I mean, it's seriously amazing. I can't stop smelling my arm, I forgot to put on deodorant when i went to a show tonight and it goes totally well with my own stink and I was glad I forgot to put deodorant on because the oil just matched me so well and made the whole package feel *right*. Sorry if that's more than you all wanted to know, but it's true. WHY did I not order like 100 bottles of this? Shit.

I think Helping Hand will have to be a room scent for me. It smells nice and minty sweet with a bright pink edge in the bottle but once it's on me it goes papery-chalky and reminds me of the bubble gum toothpaste grit they use on your teeth at the dentist's office.

I almost didn't try this on, because I thought that roses all went soapy old lady on me. I am wrong about this and I am glad that I am wrong. In the bottle this reminds me of Rose Red; a very wet, dewy rose. When I put it on, the rose sweetens up a bit and still stays cool and damp. There's something else in here that keeps it from getting soapy and overpowering, though, and I don't know if that's the rosewood or the hazel (I don't know what hazel smells like). Once it's dry it smells like a cool, damp rose with the barest hint of vanilla caster sugar. This doesn't go old lady or ghostly or attic-y or potpourri or dry or dusty on me at all. I am about to head my ass over to the Swaps area to see if anyone has a bottle they're willing to trade. I adore this.

OK, so I had to try this because I used to wear a generic version of this combination of oils from some hippie store back in high school. From BPAL experience, certain rose types amp themselves up on my skin and become soapy, and sandalwood goes straight to powder, and patchouli smells great. Put these together and all these things occur, although not in an unpleasant way. This is a STRONG blend that has throw and persistence. I ended up getting it on the sleeves of my sweatshirt yesterday and today it's still there, smelling much nicer (i.e. like what it's supposed to smell like - no powder, no soap) on my clothes than on me. This has lots of nostalgic appeal, and when I wear it again it'll be applied to my clothing rather than to my body.

I am so glad I bought this for Mr. L. He wears DeSade and Severin pretty much exclusively, and they smell terrific on him. Dead Man's Hand is like the brown, dusty, worn, casual leather compared to DeSade's black, fancier, newer leather and Severin's pale and delicate leather. Even though they are all leather, they all smell very different. Dead Man's Hand is for when you feel a little manlier/grungier than DeSade's stern austerity or Severin's foppishness. Very sexy.

The sublimely beautiful, fiercely independent, impeccably cultured, fascinatingly worldly and witty courtesans of ancient Greece. A seductive and dazzling blend of golden honey, fiery patchouli, sweet fig and clove, and a blushing touch of ylang ylang. I had such hopes for this - it contains all of my favorite elements in the description, but Hetairae is quite different than what I expected. So far it smells like soapy dandelion greens with a hint of spice. It's settling down a bit and there are ominous hints of That Craft Store Smell starting to appear, but I'm not certain they will make their full debut. The jury is still out on this one; I'll let you know in a few hours. A few hours later: Hetairae doesn't go totally craft store, but it does disappear within an hour and the soapy dandelion smell doesn't go away. Poo. Maybe I'll try it again in a few weeks and see how it goes then.

Huh - I thought I reviewed this a year ago. Guess not. I love how this smells one me (apricot and clove, exactly) but it tends to go a bit Yankee Candle on me after a while (the apricot changes to general-fruit-sugars and the clove changes a bit to Generic Spice). I still like it, but me smelling like a candle in a grandmother's house tends to creep Mr. L out, so it's not in rotation. On my mom this smells just like Play-Doh. I think this is one that will smell better when it isn't touching me. I'd like to try it again, but in an oil burner.

In the vial: sweet sweet sweet with a touch of grape. On skin: this smelled like smushed Concord grapes and sugar, just starting to turn moldy and alcoholic.

Severin is a nice citrusy leather. If citrus goes sweet on you, it could work.