minervaish

Like someone earlier in the thread said, these Yule scents are making a foody out of me, when I never thought that was possible. Egg Nog works far better than I expected-- it's not overly sweet, and the nutmeg jumps out on me, with the hint of booziness in the background. It fades after a couple hours, but not so fast that it's just not there. I might try making this into a lotion or a solid perfume in hopes of getting it to stretch a bit.

There's a really authentic hay-field smell to Scarecrow that I love! Unfortunately, it battles on me with a harsh chemically smell. Oddly, through the first hour, they both get equally stronger, continuing to fight between being really really good and pretty awful. After about an hour, they both start fading, turning into something that I would mind smelling on a guy, but nothing that particularly catches my interest.

Of the two ladies, Helena is my favorite. Sadly, her scent refused to work on me until it have dried down for about 4 hours. The roses turned to ultra-sharp soap on me immediately. Actually the jasmine might have had something to do with this too, but certainly the combination wasn't working for me. Eventually, it died down to the point where something (I'm guessing the amber?) tempered the sharpness enough that it became a beautiful soft rose smell. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem reasonable to wait 4 hours for the payoof, so this one is likely on the way out the door.

When I first put this on, it was strong enough that I thought I wasn't going to like it at all. However, as it dried, the dry tree/moss smells started to get quite nice. My favorite point though, was when the heather started to come out and add a sweet night smell that evoked MND pretty well. I don't know how I would use this-- it's not really the sort of scent I'd wear, but it's nice enough that I'm loathe to just let it go.

Like other people in the thread, I mostly got a sweet dark foody feel at first from Lysander, which wasn't really good for me, since sweet and foody aren't favorites at all. The middle period (about an hour in, for a couple of hours), the sweetness died down a bit and it wasn't too bad. The dark woods were vaguely pleasant, though I still was getting the sense that Lysander was a rather preppier boy than I'd really find interesting. Eventually he faded to something a bit plastic-smelling. Sadly, the lime never showed itself to me. One the other hand, the Lilac musk didn't make me sneeze like Lilac general has, so that was a nice discovery!

Illyria's one of my favorite categories of BPAL because the scents are so consistently evocative of Shakespeare's characters, and Antony is a great example of that. This is definitely the smell of Shakespeare's Antony, not (if you happen to be a fan) the Antony of TV's Rome series. The Frankincense and ambergris convey the smell of a patrician who was at the baths in the morning with scented oils, but the grasses and leather let you know that he's been out in the field with his troops since then. Something, I think it was the basil, read as anise-like to my nose for the first hour or so, but in a really nice subtle way. Definitely makes me want to try it on a certain nearby man!

In the imp, this was a little sweeter than I care for. Once on, though, the pepper just jumped out and balanced the sweetness a bit. As it dried, there was some mellowing of the pepper, and the sweetness came back. It's exceedingly pleasant, but too pert and girly for me to be interested in actually wearing it. As some folks on this thread have been making height connections, I'll add that I'm far closer to 6 feet than I am to Hermia-height (though, sadly, Helena didn't work for me either.)

For me, the Salon's Penitent Magdalen is a lot like O, but with a slightly darker, more contemplative feel. It's got a floralness that O doesn't have, and isn't as sweet, but the amber, I think, acts very similar.