methodmaven

I also work out at home. I usually take my gym time as a "stress test" opportunity for scents that are potentially iffy or likely to be strong, especially if my body temperature were to spike at work. It's a good way for me to force myself to give a scent a chance to morph, as I'll have to put up with it for 2 hours or so (day off workout). When not testing, I'll treat myself to aromatherapy with something I know is too powerful to slather. My "me" time, away from my husband's or the world's sensitive nostrils, I'll stink if I want to! Red musk and dragon's blood are especially marvelous when I run hot, but I seem to also reach for woody and smoky/vetiver blends a lot. Things in which I have deliberately bathed: Smokestack / Antikythera Mechanism (both STRONG, sweet polished woods to me), Greed, Brimstone, Aureus, Anne Bonny, The Infernal Lover, Bloodlust... * Lesson learned the hard way: Snow at Noon had low throw when tested sitting around at home, but turned me into a green supernova in the middle of a lecture.

Sweet, dark musk, through and through. Dangerous and sensual. I wasn't able to distinctly pick out vetiver, honey, or lemon peel due to the powerful musk, but that's just fine by me. This is in the same category as Old Demons of the First Class for me, and I just might have to get a bottle of Qandisa as well.

Disclaimer: I generally abstain from reviewing scents unless I have a discordant opinion to contribute to the conversation. Otherwise, I feel as though others more adept at verbalizing their olfactory impressions have already said all I could offer and more. However, I cannot let Tlaz sit with so few reviews. Bottle: Smoky cocoa. The oil is dark and viscous, but the cocoa has a tendency to form a stubborn sediment (I try to walk around with the imp upside down in my bra for a few minutes before rolling it around.) Wet: Predominantly cocoa and vetiver/chapapote. Acrid smoke, with a cocoa note bitter and dry. Definitely unsettling - the first time I tried this (minutes before going out!), I had a "what have I done?" moment of panic. Dry: The harsh, bitter elements smooth out as a slightly sweet element, bordering on floral, comes to mingle with the cocoa and smoke. I could not label this development as either the lab's typical honey or cotton blossom, but the result is a pleasant yet unusual, full-bodied scent that follows me for some 8+ hours. Completely dry: I swear there is a hidden patchouli that only comes out to play when Tlaz is but a memory, if not gone altogether. If I applied it the night before, I will catch a whiff the next morning. This is the sweet, mellow patchouli I also recognize on Tezcatlipoca's drydown. Idiosyncratic categorization / fuzzy impressions: A dark, summer evening scent. Exotic, sultry, but in a dangerous and slightly off-putting way. I am struggling to describe how I would gender-type this one: to me, this is blend is a woman with sharp, angular features; not a tomboy.

This seems like a separate issue and it confuses me thoroughly... I opened one of my flip-top ammo boxes and noticed 4-5 oily rings inside the lid. Although there is nothing visibly wrong with the caps, they appear to be oozing oil out their tops, one of these enough to form a drip when the lid is open and make the entire cap seem stained yellow. The mouth of the vials seem fine, and none of the labels have gotten oily. I don't quite understand how this would happen, especially as the ammo case sits upright inside a dresser drawer and does not get disturbed save for when I open it.

I bought a bunch of vials on Amazon because a friend and I were having cap issues and also going to decant amongst ourselves, but have plenty more than I need. I found myself trying to see I could get away with mailing a single empty vial in an envelope for the cost of a stamp. Alas, my understanding is I'm looking at around $2.75 for shipping because of the shape of the object. Am I wrong? I'm a little hesitant to suggest this because the lab is already extremely generous with their imps (and generally feel bratty even hinting at how someone should run a business when I have no idea how that works), but here goes... Would it be feasible to add empty vials to the lab store (priced approximately at cost?) that can be added to orders including minimum X vials or somesuch, at least until the issue is resolved? I am sure more of us would purchase empty vials on our own dime, if not for the fact that the tiny quantities an individual (who doesn't decant) aren't cost-effective. Thoughts?

Very disappointed. Ordered a whole bottle of this based on reviews and notes because I couldn't secure a decant in time. Sadly, this has no presence at all, much less throw. Even minutes after slathering liberally, I have to hold my wrist up to my nose to even pick up on a faint whisper (a memory, even) of some sort of leather, booze, and apricot. I am sure the fragrance per se is lovely, but this bottle seemed to be almost all carrier oil and not much else The whispers I picked up were enticing enough that I might snag a decant from someone else, in the off chance I just received a bad bottle.

Disclaimer: I am still training my nose to tease apart and identify individual notes in various contexts. I therefore usually refrain from reviewing scents, especially when someone has expressed my impressions better than I could (which is almost always, at this point). Yet here my impression was so dramatically different from everything else in this thread - save for a corndog reference? - that I thought I should post. I received this as a freebie imp (unknown age) in a trade from a forum member and, upon reading reviews, saved it to try after a long day of work. In the imp: Smoky, with a slightly moldy undertone. Feels familiar somehow. Wet: WAIT I KNOW THIS. This is the opening salvo of Tlazolteotl (which I previously assumed to be chapapote), only here it doesn't act as backup to cocoa. No, it stands alone as an acrid plume of smoke and wet ash. It's almost too much, but strangely captivating. I don't want to wash this off, in fact I keep sniffing my wrists, but I wonder about smelling like this around other people. Drying down: The smoke goes from acrid to simply bitter and grows almost sweet, gentle, and incense-like at last. I'm not sure if these are other notes rising to the top; if so, they are so well blended it that they seem to flow from the same bitter smoke and are reminiscent of it. (Does this sound like a review for Djinn, or perhaps Smokestack? I certainly does not sound like resin, vanilla, and sandalwood blend with a hint of some unknown floral.) While I prefer Tlazolteotl for its complexity, I also like this quite a bit. Analogous to a jolielaide woman (it's a quantifiable thing), I love it while also acknowledging someone else might find it foul, which might make me appreciate it even more. Surely I am not smelling the same Tushnamatay as everyone else in the last 7 pages of posts...

No worries, the Labbies fulfill all the orders even after ltd ed oils are pulled down. Oh wonderful! In that case, take your time, labbies!

I wasn't sure where to ask this, but what happens when an order is placed while a LE collection is still active, but is still "Processing" by the time the LEs get taken down? Should I commence weeping for Aries, Thebe, and Joyful Dalliances?

Received this as a frimp and wow, I could not smell any of the notes listed. Though I notice some posters mention baby powder, baby wipes, or diapers, I get... baby oil. Johnson's baby oil. I'd like to think I would at least be able to pick up on the presence of patchouli or rose. I could have sworn this contained frankincense as I had a similar impression of Tzadikim Nistarim, so color me confused.

Working through a large set of imps ordered for myself and a friend. Had my first cap break upon first trying Thanatopsis (sent in late Feb, was from Conifer imp pack if that matters). Glad I saw this thread beforehand. I tried transferring the contents of the imp to a contact lens case -- not sure it'll be tight enough to prevent the oil from evaporating, but I thought it was worth a shot. ETA: Had two more break. Second cap was from Black Forest (also conifer pack from February, see above), third was Hollywood Babylon from a late April order. I'm curious if the other imps from the conifer pack would also break, but those won't be seeing any use until next Fall/Winter and I'd rather not tamper with them just to see.