LadyCrow

Amber-musk blends are generally winners for me, so I had to try Bastet. In the imp, and wet: Who threw their amaretto in my face?! Drying: The amaretto (I'm guessing the cherry note makes the almond this sweet) backs off fairly quickly, letting the musk, resins, and especially spices do their thing. Like the felines who own me, the oil captures the contradictory soft, regal, sharp, and playful natures of cats. With the amber as a background and the spices almost switching off dominance, the resemblance is uncanny. True story: While this was drying on me, on just one arm, my male cat -- neutered though he has been for many years -- could not stop following me and licking his lips. What stayed longest in the drydown for me was the myrrh, the amber, and a return of the sweet almond. I wished it had lasted longer (or that I had more than a tester, so I could slather), but this was definitely a could-not-stop-sniffing-my-arm scent. Yum!

Scentwise: I love this. I get the same lavender, clove, something nose-clearing, something creamy. The scent by itself is comforting, sweet, clean, even mildly sedative. As aromatherapy alone, this would be useful to me and my PTSD anxieties, and that's some heavy-caliber relaxation! As a TAL: For the last couple of years, since my mother died, the week or so around her birthday and Mother's Day has been like being dragged over little sharp bits of glass. Even with the small amount of TV I watch, the "Buy your mother a ___" commercials from that, and the print ads in the newspaper, are torture. So I tried this both on white candles and on pulse points to create a soothing aura. I don't know what principles of aromatherapy or whatever else were used when creating Anthelion; all I know is I'm damn grateful for it. It didn't make either day exactly perfect, but it made it easier to detach, meditate, and look at the beautiful things my mother so enjoyed about this month -- many of them flowers! Using the scent to bring myself back to calming thoughts turned out to be a highly useful technique, because the scent itself had such an inviting, insistently positive presence. Something that can make a hard time just a little bit easier is really all I ask at this point -- and Anthelion does that. Thank you, Lab. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

In the imp: Weird, weird cookies. Not normal cookies -- something the narrator of Poe's story would eat. Odd, but enticing! Initial application: Still with the foody, but the other notes are starting to come forward. I tested this without reading the description first, but on coming here, I'm not a bit surprised by the dragon's blood -- both because of the deep color of the oil itself, and because my skin really likes that note. With the vetiver to temper it, it's not overly sweet here in combination with the cocoa. While Tezcatlipoca, which I also love, is "POW! Cocoa and SPICES," TTH is sneakier (again, befitting the story) and sweeter, while also having the kind of strong throw that I like. (Some oils which have notes that ought to work perfectly on me get eaten by my skin nearly instantly, e.g. Othello. This is not one of those oils.) As TTH dries, the musky and other notes continue to complicate the still-robust sweetness in an enjoyable way. Foody, but not distractingly so, like Gluttony or a Monster Bait. Complex, but not as insistent as Mama-ji. I would wear this in situations where I wanted to be buoyed by smelling pleasant, but where I wouldn't end up sitting there constantly sniffing myself (except on surreptitious trips to the ladies' room for that purpose). Dear Beth: Please make this a GC. All I have of TTH is a quarter-imp for testing purposes. Now I want to roll in it! Thank you.

Mama-ji is causing me to part with hard-earned dollars. She may be the matron in the red sari, rather than the full-on raging goddess of destruction, but she's a damn persuasive old lady! *sighs deeply, examines empty wallet* I was curious to see (smell!) how this scent would differ from Kali, since it's the same goddess. For me, wearing Kali, the spices are strong but still ultimately subordinate to the honey; Mama-ji smells richer, more layered, more complex. That said, I still fall into the category of people who can smell the florals in the imp but who don't get them with skin wear. I do get a trace of something vanilla-like, and it's not that there's no sweetness to Mama-ji -- it's just that her sweetness is more like that in a proper chai masala tea, not like a Starbucks "chai latte" (note: I'm not comparing Kali to the former). That is, the cardamom, for example, doesn't vanish. I don't know why Mama-ji makes me think of dark woods, like mahogany, but that's definitely part of the overall impression I get. That may be more synaesthetic (or even influenced by Gaiman's character?) than related to the actual notes, but it's there. Rich, dark, deep, spicy, complex, lovely. Mama-ji is a superb example of perfumery as art.

This Fenris Wolf is a slightly shifty guy. In the imp, and to a slightly lesser extent wet on skin, he was predominantly sweet in a way that had me thinking of dragon's blood. Shortly after, however, he immediately started throwing like a major-league pitcher -- is it the combination of the amber and the red musk that created an immensely strong, smoky note reminiscent of Debauchery? Only on the drydown did the woodsy notes emerge at all for me. Regardless, I love this one (despite the need to reapply a little oftener than I'd like). People seem to love or hate the really feral scents. Me, it's the former. When I awoke, the Dire Wolf, Six hundred pounds of sin, Was grinning at my window; All I said was "Come on in" -- The Grateful Dead

Wet: Thick, heady, sweet, strong, with the dragon's blood and vetiver prominent. Drying: Muskier as it ripens, with almost a men's-cologne feel to it -- but not obnoxiously so, the way The High Priest Not to Be Described is on me. I don't get the cinnamon at all here. Drydown: Long-lasting, with a good, strong throw. The sweet resin and powdery end of the vetiver hang on longest, but close to the skin, the musk definitely sticks around too. Apparent effect on Lady Crow's private life: Positive. This one is now up there with Blood Amber on my short list of "strong, sexy, grr, more of this please" scents. I was already a fan of a lot of the notes in this, and I don't think I'll be able to hate anything with dragon's blood in it, but something about this one is just -- did I mention "grr"?

Wet: I immediately thought of my grandfather's roses. Drying: No -- not roses, but a closely related, very positive scent memory -- what is it? It's... it's my great-aunt's lilacs! Same positive, sunny association, just the house next door! As it dries -- whoa, lilacs still. Goddamnit, I already claimed I didn't like florals! How can I like a scent that's a floral? I hate florals! (Well, except Crow Moon. And the Raven. And the poppy in Mi-Go Brain Canister. Etc.) But it just smells so good! Drydown: As the lilacs fade a bit, as if in the sun (although my skin is still very strongly grabbing hold of this note), the spices come out and give that mustiness some people have mentioned. This is a big, gentle wolf, lying around protectively -- a well-mannered beast that wouldn't so much as startle my great-aunt. Woo-woo: I have no idea whether it was the oil, or the intention, or the placebo effect of having recently found Anthelion very useful. I'm just sayin' -- not too long after I applied this to my wrists and the crooks of my elbows, I phoned a bookstore I've been meaning to call; reintroduced myself; and reiterated that I was a local poet with a new book, and would be delighted to come do a reading. The woman I spoke to was receptive and promised to call back tomorrow. Then, I arranged for a ride to a meeting of a writers' group that my boss started -- an act that flew in the face of my off-and-on social anxiety. Artists, business, goals?

The good news: this didn't smell remotely like cat pee on me. Being a newb, I had not, until just now, experienced the horror that happens when my skin did the Wrong Thing ™ with a BPAL oil. Naturally, it happened with a scent with a really strong throw -- and of course, I jerked on opening the imp, soaking the label and my thumb with a few fat drops. I bemoaned the reduction of the still-nearly-full imp to frimp status, should I have to part with it (in my eyes, anyway), and applied as usual when testing these. Within a few minutes, I smelled like tobacco. No, I think I need to bold that: I smelled like TOBACCO! Fresh tobacco, not burnt, but in that "I am standing inside a humidor" way. And I don't like to be within three feet of Mr. Hubby when he's had a cigar, so this was not pleasant. I struggled through the initial drydown, but it was still so unpleasant that pretty quickly, I went for the soap and then the alcohol. Edit, quite a while later: I've had a 180-degree turnaround from my initial reaction, or maybe my hormones were in a flurry when I first tried Debauchery, or maybe it's one of those blends for which a little goes a long way. But now I've come to appreciate it a great deal, particularly layered under other oils (Urd or Dance of Death come to mind) to cut the sweetness. In fact, all you haters can send your unused Debauchery to me!