Elspethdixon

So many imps, so very many. GC Imps - Keepers: All Night Long Antikythera Mechanism (travel imp)* Bastet Bensiabel The Chicken-Legged Hut Chimera (travel imp)* The Deep Ones Eclipse Elf Half-Elf Haunted (2) Jack Jezebel orange blossom honey & okay-ish rose on hair. Will trying it on skin produce bad!rose sorrow? ETA: No! Is also okay on skin. Miskatonic University No. 93 Engine (2) Obatala* Paris Red Rider (2) Redoul Honey* Skuld Smokestack Tamora Tenochtitlan Tezcatlipoca Titus Andronicus GC Imps - To Test Anathema (tested - honeysuckle & vetiver take a while to play nice together) Centzon Totochtin Chokecherry Honey Daphne Honey Dragon's Milk (sweet & cloying, must re-test) Grog Harlot Hedylogos - alas, Hedylogos is the bad rose Scarecrow Snake Oil (re-test after aging) LE Imps - Keepers: Mars Ultor Two Old Men* The Avenue* Beanman and Beanwoman* The Gift* Hidden Pearls* Priala the Human Phoenix Saw-Scaled Viper Boomslang (must test on wife) Australian Copperhead Western Diamondback Death Adder (maybe will improve with age?) LE Imps - Not keepers Impressions of the Floating World Faiza the Lady of Serpents Behemoth GC Imps - Not Keepers Alice^ (gone) Al-Shairan^ Beer from the Marsh Woman's Brewery Bewitched Black Rider^ (aged) Blood Rose Bon Vivant Brown Jenkins^ Calico Jack^ Cheshire Cat The Coiled Serpent A Countenance Forboding Evil Dana O'Shee^ (gone) Death Cap^ Deep in Earth^ Defututa Destroying Angel (aged) Dragon's Heart^ (aged) (gone) Dragon's Musk (aged) Embalming Fluid (aged) (gone) Endymion Evil Fire for thy Stepmother's Daughters^ Gaueko The Ghost Gomorrah Hedylogos^ Kali Laudanum Mary Shelley (gone) Masquerade Mata Hari (2) Neutral (2) The Night-Raven Nyx Queen Alice Queen Gertrude The Raven Satyr Sherlock Holmes (gone) Sin Squirting Cucumber Somnus Sybaris (gone) Vial of Holy Water (aged) (gone) Wicked (aged) *Also have bottle ^Tested/Used

All bottles bought from the lab unless otherwise specified. Pink text for faves. Bottles Owned: GC: O (aged 4 years) Tombstone (aged 3 years) - Tombstone backup (aged 6 months, BNNU) Velvet (aged 3 years, nearly empty) empty Black Pearl (aged 2 years, nearly empty) - Black Pearl backup (aged 6 months, full-to-shoulder) Chimera Drink Me Antikythera Mechanism (aged 1.5 years, 1/4 bottle) Light of Men's Lives - Light of Men's Lives (back-up) Redoul Honey Cockaigne Obatala (2016, full-to-shoulder) Mouse Circus (2016, BNNU) LE: Pumpkin II 2014 She Perishes That She May Live (burns skin) El Dia de Los Reyes 2014 (1/4 bottle left) - El Dia de Los Reyes 2015 (backup, BNNU) Lovers and a Fan ('15 Lupers) Mars Ultor ('15 Lupers) Clement I's Phoenix Bartholomaeus Angelicus's Phoenix Dead Leaves, Vanilla, and Myrrh (triggers asthma, must get rid of) Gone! Frosted Pumpkin Spice Cookie ('15 Weenies) Satan Summoning His Legions ('15 Pickman's Gallery) Thirteen (13) November 2015 (TOL) Palmyra Channukiyh 2015 Giljagaur ('15 Yules, TOL) - Giljagaur backup (BNNU) Stekkjarstaur ('15 Yules, TOL) Adrastea (Moons of Jupiter Jan '16, TOL) - Adrastea backup (full, bought from forumite) Love's Philosophy ('16 Lupers, TOL) - Love's Philosophy backup (BNNU) Dark Chocolate, Black Tobacco, and Vetiver ('16 Lupers, TOL) - Dark Chocolate, Black Tobacco, and Vetiver backup (BNNU) Beanman and Beanwoman Climb Genital Mountains ('16 Lupers, full-to-shoulder) - Beanman and Beanwoman Climb Genital Mountains backup (full, bought from forumite) Volcano in Springtime ('16 Lupers, full) Blossoming Vulva ('16 Lupers, full-to-shoulder) Hidden Pearls ('16 Lupers, full-to-shoulder) The Avenue ('16 Lupers, TOL) The Initiation ('16 Lupers, full-to-shoulder, like but don't love) The Bride ('16 Lupers, full) The Two Old Men ('16 Lupers, full) Bunraku Theater ('16 Lupers, full-to-shoulder) Pumpkin V (2012 Weenie, half bottle, bought from forumite) Wooden Bullet (OLLA line, 1/3rd full, bought from forumite) Mommy Fortuna (Last Unicorn, age unknown, just below top of label, bought from forumite) Fresh and Blooming as a Rose (Trading Post 2015 Yule, full) - turns into soap on skin, swap/sell The Strange Old Woman (Trading Post 2015 Yule, full) Bulgarian Tobacco single note (full) Thirteen (13) May 2016 (full) Europa (Moons of Jupiter, May '16) BNNU Ganymede (Moons of Jupiter, June '16) Full-to-shoulder Guatemalan Coffee Bean single note BNNU Amicitia (Liliths '14, bought from forumite) Callisto (Moons of Jupiter, July '16) top-of-label Meshkenet the Vulture Maiden (Carnival Diabolique '16, 1/4 bottle, from forumite) swapped SN: Haitian Vetiver (1/2 bottle, bought from forumite) The Malignant Dreams of Cthulhu in Love (1/4 bottle, from forumite) Giant Vulva (2009 Lupers, TOL, from forumite) swapped Priala the Human Phoenix (Carnival Diabolique '16, full-to-shoulder) SN: French Vanilla De Vos's Unicorn (Unicorns '16, BNNU) St. Clare (Unicorns '16 BNNU) vanishes in minutes on me, need to swap swapped Allegory of Chastity (Unicorns '16 BNNU) Wulric the Wolfman (Carnival Diabolique '16, full-to-shoulder) Lilith and the Four Sons of Horus (Liliths '16, full-to-shoulder) Honeyed Apple ('16 Weenies, full-to-shoulder) Caramel Apple Cookie ('16 Weenies, full-to-shoulder) Samhain ('16 Weenies, full-to-shoulder) Disc. GCs: Tobacco Honey (partial, age unknown, bought from forumite - chemical/cleaning fluid smell, not the honeyed tobacco of my dreams) GC Bottles Needed: Antikythera Mechanism backup Bensiabel? Velvet Mouse's Long and Sad Tale? (Delicious vanilla & sandalwood) Bow & Crown of Conquest (snuggly vanilla-leather) bought! CD bottles Needed: Wulric the Wolfman bought! Unicorns Needed: Allegory of Chastity bought! GC Imps Needed: Tested, need more, contemplating bottle- - Moar Jack - Moar Miskatonic University - Moar Titus Andronicus - Moar Paris (is fresh as good as 4-year-aged? Will it last longer than 1 hour? fresh not as good as aged, still short-lived) - Moar Smokestack (do Black Tobacco & Vetiver, Priala, and the new 13 fill the smoky resin spot enough for me, or do I need more?) -Moar The Lotus Tree - Moar Bow & Crown of Conquest (delicious but do I need a bottle or do Tombstone & Blood & Judgement suffice?) - Another Old Demons of the First Class(why did I give it away to my cousin before retesting?) Never tested, want to try - Brown Jenkins (coconut husk) No coconut on me, only musk Shub-Niggurath ("evil gingerbread") Shoggoth (coconut & lime) Too much lemongrass. Gave to my mother. Robotic Scarab & Galvanic Goggles (because there seems to be no Steamworks blend that isn't amazing except Aeliopile) Hellfire (tobacco & leather) Hellcat (gourmand to end all gourmands, apparently) All almond, all the time Bordello (plum, currant, wine) cherry musk and bakewell tarts, like but don't love Intrigue (black palm, cocoa, wood) inexplicably smells like stale sweat Athens (honey, wine, flowers) Eden (honey, almond, fig, coconut) cloying - damn you, almond, you do this every time Dragon's Milk (vanilla/milk,but will the dragon's blood ruin it?) tested unsure about Bard (cousin scent to Antikythera Mech?) Gnome (ginger ale/rootbeer, nutmeg, machine oil?) tested - mostly ginger ale, effervescent and crisp but not for me Halfling (pastry) oatmeal raisin cookies! Good (sugar/honey/vanilla, but reviews mention baby powder, also worrying mentions of lemon) Faustus (frankincense & cinnamon - GC cousin to Priala?) Roses, Pearls, and Diamonds (will it be the good rose, or the bad rose?) (good rose) How Doth the Little Crocodile (chocolate and mint, for wife) Mouse's Long and Sad Tale (vanilla) Delicious vanilla & sandalwood. Bottle-worthy? Tlazolteotl (cacao, copal, maize) Kurukulla (rose & lotus, is it the good rose or the bad rose?) Lawful (fruity oak, tried at NYCC but need to get imp for full-day test) Katarina (apricot) GC Imps - To Test: Eat Me(cake!) Centzon Totochtin (chocolate & wine) Perversion (rum/tobacco/leather/champagne/tonka) - tested, leather takes over Penitence (frankincense & myrrh) - tested, starts off funky but becomes soft/powdery sweet and comforting (but similar to Clement I's Phoenix which I already have) Baron Samedi (bay rum) GC Imps Tested (Liked but don't need bottle): Bengal (glorious but burns skin) Elegba Eclipse Kill-Devil (meh when fresh, improves with age) Bastet Red Rider (leather single note) Jezebel (good/okay-ish rose & orange-blossom honey, glorious on hair) Tezcatlipoca Tenochtitlan Tamora Haunted Fighter (harsh, new leather) Halfling (delicious oatmeal raisin cookies) Chicken Legged-Hut (horse feed/hay/sweet feed) No. 93 Engine Hunter (Neverwhere) half dry grass and dusty-warm cat in the sun, half lovechild of The Lion and Bow & Crown of Conquest GC Imps Tested (Okay, but not *great*): Queen Alice Black Rider The Lion Al-Azif Elf Half-Elf Dragon's Heart Dragon's Milk Morocco The Deep Ones - an aquatic I can actually wear! Azathoth - weird combo of orange & vetiver. Not sure I like it but can't stop sniffing it. Antony - amazing when wet, vanishes within half-hour Bordello - half sexy leather-tinged berry wine, half bakewell tart Penitence - morphs from weird stale/funkiness through decent church incense and into cozy soft/warm powder Perversion - leather with hints of rum and tonka, dry-down is entirely leather Door (Neverwhere) - gentle honey-chamomile-scented LUSH bathmelt GC Imps tested (Disliked) Aeliopile (orange-scented dish detergant/floor cleaner) Alice Endymion Dana O'Shee (too cloyingly sweet even for me) Spellbound (the bad rose) Defututa (jasmine ruins everything) Al-Shairan Dragon's Bone Calico Jack (aquatics = not for me) skekNa the Slave Master (harsh leather) Sudha Segara (raw, fresh-sliced ginger, no milk) Fire for thy Stepmother's Daughters (starts out lovely fruity white musk, ends up dryer sheets) Intrigue (smells weirdly like sweat) Shoggoth (lemongrass too strong)) Y'ha-nthlei (soap and dryer sheets) Great Sword of War (citrus and red musk take over everything, avoids floor-cleaner effect but still not great) LE Imps Tested - liked: My Baby and a Baby Goat (wonderful! Snuggly fur musk and honey!) The Vine (smells like fresh, juicy pear when wet, turns into delicious sweet/sticky BPAl honey as it dries) Boo (vanilla cream and clean laundry) Mother Shub's Spiced Lait de Chevre (goes on tangy yogurt, dries to warm milk with clove syrup, gentle and soft) A King Pursued By a Unicorn Good Morning London (lavender & amber) My Little Grotesque (sweet/creamy cardamom SN) O the Joy of My Spirit (hazelnut/tonka/pine) First Cry of the Warbler on the Plum (wisteria, plum, and honeyed green tea, lovely spring floral) Poor Monkey (pleasant creamy fig/lotus/ylang-ylang that almost smells like there's coconut in it, but bad during shark week) LE Imps Tested - (Okay, but not *great*): Joyful Dalliance in the Underworld - dead ringer for pit barbecue Faiza - surprisingly pleasant for a white floral-type scent but burns my skin Australian Copperhead (all acia-berry, all the time) Leda (like a less complex De Vos with strawberry instead of apricot & more white musk) St. Clare (too faint & fades too quickly, not as sweet as I'd hoped) Himalia (like a less-sweet Chicken-Legged Hut) Spiced Apple Cider ('16 Weenie) A Commentary (apricot and vetiver and red musk, like a less-barbecue-ish Joyful Dalliance) LEs Tested - Disaster: Delight and Consternation - horrible floor cleaner/cleaning solvent scent The Unicorn Rushing... - Lovely in the imp, turned feces-like on my skin (first jasmine to do so) LEs and Discontinueds I'm Curious About: Blood and Judgement so Well Commedled (really nice and pleasant) Avunculus Apple I In the Time of Plague (buy before it's out of stock or be strong?) All That I Possess (buy before it's out of stock or be strong?) Amicita (everything sounds good except the carnation) - glorious! Tarantula Fascinator Captain Cully The Lilac Wood The Last Unicorn Mommy Fortuna (The sexiest BPAL I've ever worn. Sticky honey & salty gunpowder) Aristocratic Couple Arana Haloes (as a Dark Delicacies blend, might as well be a disc./LE for me) (like the lighter, spring/summer version of Antikythera Mechanism!) Adante con Fantasia (why did I not order a decant when I could?) Ivory Vulva/Glowing Vulva (haha, good luck!) Katrina van Tassel (yeah, like that's gonna happen) Question Mark Atlas Moth Gypsy Moth Grievous Swarm - wonderful gritty vetiver/myrrh, my holy grail vetiver scent Bjugnakraekir Perilous Parlor Notes that ruin things: Jasmine (star jasmine is apparently a different plant) Dead Leaves note/accord Carnation (except in Bow & Crown of Conquest) Ozone/aquatic notes Narcissus (the most cloying white floral of them all) Lily of the Valley (except in Audumla) Patchouli (very occasionally okay if the other notes drown it out/you can't smell it in the blend) Nag Champa (bad "headshop" associations) Hemp accord/Weed (reeeeaally bad associations) Lemon verbena (horrible lemon cleaning solvent of doom) Notes that are iffy: Rose (wonderful in Adrastea and Lush's Rose Jam, okay in Jezebel, Roses, Pearls & Diamonds, and Allegory of Chastity, awful in Hedylogos, Harlot, The Rose, and some other rose blends) Ylang-Ylang (sometimes okay, sometime too white floral-y) Orange Blossom (same as Ylang-Ylang) Champaca (will it be too reminiscent of Nag Champa?) Lily (high risk of soap) Lavender (will it remind me too much of my mother's bath products?) Dragon's Blood (was this the note that rendered Dragon's Heart too perfume-y?) Red Musk (or was it this one?) White Musk (high risk of dryer sheets) Black Musk (possibly what turned Black Rider into baby powder?) Basically all musks except "skin musk" nope, all musks White sandalwood (similar effect to white musk) Most florals "Dirt"/"Loam" etc. All citrus notes Oude/oud (can smell sour/fecal) Notes of Win: Vanilla Marshmallow Honey Coconut Tobacco Myrrh Amber (black, golden) Teak Benzoin Cream/milk Goats Milk Nutmeg Notes of Like: Leather (like but amp) Vetiver (would be under "love" if Joyful Dalliances in the Underworld hadn't smelled like pit barbecue and Death Adder hadn't been... weirdly and inexplicably unpleasant) Cocoa (love but can vanish or be cloying) Almond (like but can be cloying) Cake Cinnamon (love but amp liek woah) Clove (love but amp) Coffee Pumpkin Peach (like but skin eats it) Pear (hard to find, often paired with icky florals) Lilac Frankincense (like but skin eats it) "Resin" "Smoke" "Spices" "woods" Beeswax Hazelnut Orris/orris root + coconut Sage Fig Oak Lotus (possibly the glorious crisp, fruity note in the wet phase of Paris, possibly also what caused Paris to vanish off my skin in under an hour) - confirmed, Lotus is the wonderful crisp/juicy sweet fruit note from wet/freshly applied Paris. Notes I Amp: Leather Cinnamon Possibly Rose Possibly Clove Possibly Honey? Possibly Jasmine (or maybe I just hate it enough that any jasmine is too much jasmine)

In the imp: I can smell both a strong dry, grey leather, and a slightly floral-tinged fruit note. They're really distinct, separate notes, with the leather slightly stronger but the fruit very present as well. Here's hoping it doesn't become leather single note on my skin. Wet: freshly applied, there's a brief period of slightly stale funkiness, as something in the blend threatens to go unpleasant on me (or maybe it shares an ingredient with Skuld or the Gift, which both did the same thing). After five minutes/on the drydown: The stale/funky whatever it was vanishes (just like in Skuld and The Gift) to be replaced by a strong leather with an overlay of fruit and something fresh and slightly floral. Half an hour in: The silage/throw has more of the fruity freshness (though still with a leather tinge), while close to my skin the leather dominates, as I expected. I didn't realize at the time that Bensiabel has lilac in it, but testing it a second time after going back and reading the notes, I can definitely smell the lilac as well as the plum juice. By the second hour, the plum has faded except for faint whiffs of it in the silage/throw. On my skin, the leather has triumphed, but in the process it's blended seamlessly with the lilac, making it a fresh, floral-tinged leather that's perfect for spring. This is a light, grey-violet leather, as opposed to Two Old Men's grey-green leather or Red Rider's intense brown leather (or Fighter and Skekna the Slavemaster's harsh leather). I think I may need a bottle of this. I really like it and am definitely going to quickly use up my imp.

I'm not a patchouli fan, but I can definitely recommend Bengal for spiced honey. It gave me a very strong "raised red welts" skin reaction, though, so you may want to be cautious. Kil-Devil is very molasses-rum with hints of something green from the sugarcane, and improves with aging (my imp was rather meh at first, but when I pulled it out to retest after a year, it was lovely). You might also want to check out a few of the Carnival Diabolique snake pit blends; all of them have a the same snake oil base as Womb Fury, with a variety of different additional notes (Saw-Scaled Viper reminded me a little of a non-skin-burning Bengal before my cinnamon-amping powers turned it into red hots candy).

If you like the aquatics + moss + wood + "hothouse blooms" in Bayou, you might want to check out Kumari Kandam (which also has "hothouse blooms" and aquatic notes, though with clay and incense rather than moss and cypress), and Ogygia (notes includes cypress and "sea air"). Both are from the Wanderlust collection. Smokestack is one of my favorites and is all woodsmoke and wood/resin on me; I'm pretty sure that it has a strong Vetiver note and possibly some tobacco, so you might want to check out other blend with tobacco, Vetiver, or "smoke" listed as notes. Starting with Antikythera Mechanism (tobacco plus beeswax and wood, which means it also has similarities to Bard with its beeswax and wood notes). Dark Chocolate, Black Tobacco, and Vetiver is an LE from this year's Lupers and not a GC, but it has a "warm resinous wood" smell that's similar to the later stages of Smokestack. And if you like Bard, you may also like Mr. Nancy, which has a similar bay rum component plus tobacco, sugar cookies, and lime.

2016 version. I've never smelled the old version of any of the snakes, so I'm coming at this a snake pit virgin. Snake Oil on its own was not really my thing when I tried it a couple years ago (I should probably retest an imp now that I have more experience with BPAL, but my fear of patchouli stays my hand), but the snake pit is so beloved that I knew I had to try decants of them when they came back around. Since I adore cinnamon and am pretty sure I amp it at least some of the time, I decided to start with Saw-Scaled Viper on the theory that the cinnamon would drown out any potential patchouli cooties. In the imp - I can smell the cinnamon the moment I got the lid off. Lots of cinnamon, backed by a sweetness that reminds me a little of Bengal's spiced honey (which could be either very good because I love the way Bengal smells, or very bad, because Bengal gave me raised red welts wherever it touched my skin). Wet - delicious buttery cinnamon baked goods - Boomtownrat's "sexy cinnamon cookies" is the perfect description. I immediately slathered it all over my wrists/forearms and chest, and am either going to be very delicious, or very sorry. Dry - fifteen minutes in, and there are no welts, redness, or stinging/tingling. Another cinnamon-heavy blend that doesn't irritate my skin! Rejoice! (Thus far the list consists of Saw-Scaled Viper and Chimera). Unfortunately, the delicious sexy cinnamon cookies have turned into pure cinnamon red hots. I smell less like cinnamon baked goods and more like a craft store cinnamon broom. I *like* craft store cinnamon brooms, but I have other perfumes that already make me smell that way. Then I went out with friends, forgot to keep checking my wrists, and didn't remember until hours later when the perfume was basically gone. I'll have to retest Saw-Scaled Viper again in hopes that the sexy cookies come back at some point during the dry down.

Gattepefur was the bread and jam fellow. Stufur is like medieval carrot cake, to me, so also worth mentioning! And not to forget BPTP, The Strange Old woman is like a delicious cinnamon pecan roll....mmmm. Moons of Jupiter: Adrastea is also really foodie on me - like warm pastry with honey and cream - yummy and comforting. Those are the only ones I can think of right now that may not have been mentioned up thread, as they are fairly recent. ETA: Pumpkin Cheesecake Cupcake! How could I forget it, it's so delicious on me. Agree about Adrastea. The rose note dominates on me most of the time, but in the bottle and during That Time of The Month, it's cream cheese pastry with honey and a hint of rose. My favorite baked-good BPALs are El Dia de los Reyes (smells like a pan of brownies baking in the oven), Cockaigne (sticky-sweet honey-cake), and Frosted Pumpkin Spice Cookie/Pumpkin Cheesecake Cupcake, but I have a bottle of The Strange Old Woman on the way that I have high hopes for. Jack is amazing cinnamon-spiced peach pie hot from the oven for approximately five minutes until it's finished drying on my skin. Whatever element it is that creates the hot/baking peaches smell, my skin eats it immediately.

In the imp: a strong leather single note, like walking into a high quality leather goods shop. Wet on my skin, it briefly becomes more complex and less leathery,as if red musk or the moss and balsam were fighting valiantly to make an appearance, but within a few minutes my skin chemistry has defeated them, and the single-note leather returns. Dry: From five minutes after application through to seven hours later (at which point it was still going strong on my skin, though without as much throw as it had at first), I'm enveloped in the smell of fresh leather goods. This isn't an aged, soft, leather - it's the smell of fresh, brand-new leather, but not quite the harsh "brand new motorcycle leathers" smell of Fighter. It's more like a leather goods booth at a Renfair, the one you wander into in order to lust after the corsets and jerkins and belt pouches and leather-bound journals with hand-worked covers and epically expensive leather cloaks you can't afford before finally leaving with a wrist bracer. The only reason the scent went away after seven hours was because I took a shower. Otherwise, I suspect the leather scent would have lasted all day and through to tomorrow morning.

According to Lush's website, Yummy Mummy is geranium oil, "Brazilian Orange oil," and tonka absolute, but is supposed to smell like strawberries. So I'd look for either something with a strawberry note or with tonka + citrus. The Small Harem (https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/shop/limited-edition/lupercalia-2016/small-harem/) from this year's Lupers, has both strawberry and tonka, as well as bergamot, which is a citrus note, so it might smell similar (bearing in mind that I've never smelled either Yummy Mummy or The Small Harem).

If you like vanilla, honey, and candlesmoke, you definitely should try Light of Men's Lives. It's a GC perfume, and while it has no listed notes, it basically smells like vanilla-infused beeswax and candlesmoke. Several reviewers have compared it to No. 93 Engine, though they smell very different from one another on me. For honey/vanilla/patchouli, have you tried Womb Fury? It's a combination of Snake Oil (which is patchouli and vanilla) and several honey notes. It's one of this year's Lupers, which just came down, I think (though it's worth checking the lab's site just in case), but it's a recent enough LE that you can probably find some on the forums.

I would be interested to the answer to this if it also include Olly/Dig/Curtis/Lance/everyone ever on the show On a related note I was wondering about Jessica Jones characters, Jessica, Kilgrave, Luke, Hope, Trish Walker, Wil Simpson? Kilgrave would be something debonair/sophisticated and masculinely sexy, in keeping with his outward persona. Luke Cage smells like Old Spice. (The Old Spice Guy once recorded a video of himself as Luke Cage, "The superhero your superhero could smell like," and had it played at NYCC. Since then I haven't been able to envision Luke as wearing anything else)

Adrastea reminds me a lot of Rose Jam (or rather, Lush's Rose Jam massage bar reminded me of Adrastea, which is why I now own one - Rose is an iffy note on me, but the milk and coconut in Adrastea turn the white rose in it into something comforting and delicious and the massage bar gives me a similar "yummy good kind of rose note" feeling.

Seconding (thirding?) The Bride. And not just because it was my wedding day perfume. It's the white floral for people who normally avoid white florals, very feminine and delicate. And if you want to take it from romantic to sexy, you can layer it with O to amp the honey musk.

Plunder layered with Giljagaur (the sheep's milk Yule lad) is very chai-like to me. I get mostly cinnamon-spice and tea from Plunder, very little tobacco (or possibly I just like the lab's tobacco notes enough that there's no such thing as too much of one in a scent). Giljagaur is cream/milk and coconut with a hint of cinnamon rather than pure milk/cream, but if you drink your tea with coconut milk instead of the lactose-having kind, this combo is a dead ringer.

In the bottle/wet: sweet/fruity grape juice rather than the boozey wine note I'd expected/half-feared. Agirlnamedfury is right about this being a Manischewitz-type wine. (If this stage stuck around longer I'd be wearing the heck out of this Friday night at my in-laws Seder, to fill the sweet-cloying gap left by the fact that my father-in-law is a wine snob who refuses to serve Manischewitz at his table, Passover or not) On the dry-down: The wine note fades almost immediately on contact with my skin, and after a few minutes and a brief, slightly worrying moment when it seemed like some note in it was threatening to go sour, it morphs into a soft/sweet slightly-foody/slightly-fruity amber (possibly from the interaction of the tobacco flower and vanilla) with light hints of something floral. I can't pick any individual note out, but the whole effect is delicious smelling. More feminine than most of the blends I usually wear, but a lush, orientalish kind of feminine rather than the heavily floral kind. A hour or so later: Amber isn't listed as a note, but my skin has said "amber, omnomnom" and proceeded to devour it until only a soft, powdery-warm.sweet "your skin but better" scent is left close to my skin, the scent-ghost that's usually what's left at the end of the day any time I wear a blend with amber in it. Reapplying it more heavily at lunch brought the rich, sweet well-blended scent from before back, and I got a good two-three hours of it this time instead of only one. Clearly, the Initiation is a scent I'm going to have to slather and reapply throughout the day, so I'm glad I sprung for a blind bottle.

The Avenue, from this year's Lupers, has a strong clove note.

I feel like Katara needs to be one of the lunacies, just for thematic reasons. Preferably one of the ones with ice or snow notes, like one of the Hunger or Wolf moons. Appa would be My Baby and a Baby Goat. I'm tempted to say that Sokka ought to be Tenochtitlan because it has prickly pear in it and prickly pear is a kind of cactus, but really he should be something a lot less floral and preferably with a leather note.

My general go-to oils for summer are coconut blends like Lovers and a Fan and Black Pearl, or light/fresh smelling scents like Elf and Tenochtitlan, but when it's super, verging-on-triple-digits, 90% humidity, the-East-Coast-of-the-US-may-possibly-be-serving-as-one-of-the-circles-of-Hell hot, I go for really thick/heavy honey scents like O, which hold up better when I get all sweaty. (If only Snake Oil didn't contain patchouli, Womb Fury would probably be the perfect sweltering heat scent, but alas, all the honey in the world can't cover up the fact that Womb Fury has Snake Oil in it, and Snake Oil Is For Others and not for me).

Despite the hazelnut and honey/caramel in the description, this isn't foody at all on me, but neither (after an initial bast of leather during the wet phase) is it all leather the way Two Old Men was. The leather plays nice on me for once, and somehow combines with the hazelnut, cognac, and vetiver (which also plays nice - no overwhelming BBQ-pit-smoke phase) to produce something almost like coffee to round out the leather scent. I would have sworn there was coffee in this blend until I checked the listed notes. Coffee grounds, leather, and smoke. Most of this year's Lupers seem to have a relatively short wear-length on me, and this one is no exception. I put it on around 10am, and by 1:30pm it was pretty much gone. Now, about five hours after application, no trace is left except a faint ghost of ground-coffee-ness hovering just above my skin.

Wet, this smells a little musty/sharp and not at all sweet - like slightly chemically wood polish, maybe? - It's the first honey blend other than Skuld that's gone slightly unpleasant on me when wet, though nowhere near as unpleasant at the horrible wet stage of Skuld. Thankfully, knowing that Skuld morphs from sour, musty horribleness to honey-drenched floral sweetness once it dries gave me the hope to persevere in case The Gift did the same thing. *spoiler* It totally does the same thing. After a few minutes drying on my skin, the sharp sourness morphs into a sticky-sweet honey note that's amazingly realistic. I get no Frankincense and very little wood, just honey, honey, honey. Not much throw, but that might be a good thing or bees would start following me around. (Not actually a joke - my parents keep bees, and my mother has had to abandon several floral-scented shampoos because they caused bees to try and and land on her head to fetch nectar from her hair) Sadly, the honey fades after only an hour-and-a-half to two hours, leaving a very faint, close-to-the-skin amber-powder (the sweet-warm, barely detectable without pressing your nose directly to your skin, scent-residue most amber tends to fade down to on me) with just a hint left of honey. Reapplying it more heavily at lunch time got me about an hour-and-a-half more of the same delicious sticky-sweet honey, and proved that putting it on my clothing doesn't produce the same "cracking open a beehive" effect that applying it on my skin does. Wonderful while it lasts, but I'm going to have to deathmatch this against some of my longer-lasting honey scents like O before springing for a bottle.

Hidden Pearls from this year's Lupers is very, very similar to Black Pearl. A little more complex/sophisticated, but still very close.

In the imp: Rich and smokey, and I think I can smell a bit of the black pepper. On my skin: The moment this hits my skin, even before it's dried, it becomes a dead ringer for woodsmoke. A thick haze of woodsmoke with hints of something almost BBQ-like (maybe that's the brown sugar and cognac reminding me of the whiskey and honey that often go into barbecue sauce?). Sadly, it doesn't last long on me - after about half-an-hour to an hour the smokey campfire/BBQ pit smell has changed to a faint, sweet/smokey scent that has already begun to fade away. About a centimeter away from my skin I can smell a ghost of fruity-sweet smoke, and if I touch my nose directly to the skin I get a delicious smoked brown sugar. If the smoked brown-sugar-and-fruit phase this dies down to on me was stronger and lasted longer, this would be a must-have, but as it is, I mostly get a half-hour of woodsmoke followed by almost nothing. (I bet if I put this on my clothes/in my hair I would smell just like I'd spent the evening sitting around a campfire grilling delicious things and gotten the smoke smell all over me - I may have to try that with the remains of my decant). Edit: Forgot to mention that I got very little leather out of this scent, despite leather often amping and taking over on my skin. It was all slightly-foody smoke, all the time.

In the imp: Cologne-y, with a hint of coffee Wet, I got mostly a musty sort of smell, but after a couple minutes it opened out into leather overlaid/blended with something fresh and green. It's a very soft, clean leather smell, not the harsh leather I get from some of the other leather scents I've tried (the "whip leather" that took over skekNa the Slave-Master must be black leather). I don't get any teakwood or cacao, but maybe they'll emerge after I've had it on longer. I'll report back after a few hours. Three-four hours later: I was hoping the coffee and teak would come out, ideally some of that gorgeous teak note from Antikythera Mechanism but without the vanilla sweetness, but it's stayed all soft, clean leather with little-to-no morphing, except for gaining a slight powdery sweetness around the edges. It wears very close to the skin and smells more unisex than masculine to me, not at all men's cologne-like. Around the three-hour mark it started to fade, and now around hour four it's traces of soft, powdery amber with just a whisper of leather. So no teak or coffee or cacao (sadness), but I did get a good three hours worth of very wearable soft leather from this.

In the imp/wet: Hot, dry, and acrid. It has a similar 'feel' to Dragon's Bone (which is thin, dry,and acrid and which I dislike), but I don't know whether they actually share any notes. I doubt I'll want to wear it if it keeps smelling like this, but it's certainly an interesting and evocative scent. As it starts to dry, it turns into a sort of general "perfume-y" scent. Still not up my alley, and also less interesting than the wet/in-the-imp version. After a few minutes (ten-to-fifteen? I wasn't really keeping track), the perfume-y smell fades into a subtle skin musk with a hint of spices. It's faint/soft and very close to the skin, and fades quickly. About two hours after application it was completely gone. A shame - the 'spiced skin musk' stage was lovely.

In the imp, it was almost cloyingly sticky sweet. Wet on my skin, the sticky-sweetness changed to something stale and musty, and I was strongly tempted to wash Skuld right off. But I reminded myself that I was testing and persevered, and within ten minutes, the stale mustiness had disappeared to be replaced by a delicious sweet and heady ylang-ylang & honey blend that smells like masses and masses of honeysuckle on a warm spring/summer day. Either it doesn't have much throw, or my girlfriend has a cold or something, because I could smell it all over myself in wafts of honeysuckle deliciousness, but she swore she could't smell anything even with her nose right next to my skin. Two hours on, it has pretty much stayed sweet honeysuckle without much morphing (except for the musk finally starting to emerge a bit), but has faded to be much closer to my skin. I don't know that I need a bottle, but I'm definitely keeping the imp.