LadyCrow

This is honestly my best possible description: The Centzon Totochtin and Fortunato are having a bit of a smoke, using strawberry-flavored rolling papers. Oh, okay. In the imp I really got the patchouli, then a WHOOSH of booze. The sweetness is what dominates on my skin -- and it's unfortunately hard for me to pull out the various notes, because it has just enough nicotiana (here, I agree with another reviewer's comparison to Kali) to sting my eyes. Dammit. I wanted to like this, but apparently I really am that sensitive. [insert off-topic rant here about the last two updates being chock-full of tobacco/nicotiana.]

I am so very, very glad to be getting a bottle of this scent from a fellow LiveJournaller. In the vial: Deep, dark, resinous. Wet: I get the wormwood and basil as top notes very sharply, in astringent contrast to the dark musky base. The resins predominate very quickly. Drydown: O HAI. I CAN HAS DRAGONZ BLUD! In fact, this makes me think of a much more complex, and very smoothly blended, almost Salon version of an Ars Draconis -- say, Dragon's Musk amped up like The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed With the Sun -- in that my beloved note is readily detectable, but shares center stage quite nicely with the opoponax, galangal, and musk. The Dragon's Blood Diva Decrees: I was predisposed to like this based on the listed notes. Then everybody started raving about it and making comparisons to Schwarzer Mond, prompting me to seek out a bottle even before my decants arrived. I don't think those comparisons are so crazy (although Brian used some wacky ingredients like zdravetz, which would make a fabulous Scrabble play if you had the Z and a blank tile), and I think this is some damn fine stuff indeed. Strong throw, with the greenness oddly lending an almost root-beer-ish tone to the resins at times. This is why we all go nutsy and spend so much money on this stuff (and time acquiring it, decanting it, etc.) -- this sort of blend could validly be described as "Gothy," I suppose, but is so very much better constructed as a scent palette than any simplistic description implies.

In the bottle: Fruit candy and ginger. Wet: I got the rice wine here, and I almost wanted to say that both yuzu and lychee had to be present. Drydown: As I have stated in other threads, I am a ho for ho wood. I get the musk and woods a bit, but the strongest and longest-lasting notes for me are the aloe and fruit, which outlast the very green herb-y notes that initially surround it. I can't believe I've found a fruity LE that likes me that isn't Mi-Go Brain Canister! Strangely, like a couple of others, I want to put this in my "comfort" scent category with Dove's Heart and Water of Notre Dame. I felt feminine wearing this, in a very classy way. You would earn a lot of merit by dabbing a hungry ghost with this; it would probably feel much cheerier.

In the imp: Perfumey floral. Ooh, will I even like this? Wet: Suddenly very rounded, indeed fruity, and much softer. Then there's a wham of green floral. A soft wham, mind you, since this scent is overall soft and gentle on me. Drydown: The incenses stay close to my skin. In fact, so does the whole thing. This isn't a throw-y scent -- but for a soft floral, I find myself liking it a lot more than I thought I would. Verdict: It's overall a bit traditional-perfumey for what I'd normally wear. Ordinarily, I'd go to The Raven for a subtle floral. Yet it has an understated classiness that would be great for warm days, or any on which you want to be scented but not kill the person sitting next to you with your Debauchery. Very "ladylike" -- whatever that means! (I had expected Nefertiti to be a bit more kickass, but for what this is, it's lovely.)

In the imp: Strongly vanilla, with a buttery note (or combo of notes). Wet: Immediately, the woods and resins dominate. Drydown: Then the florals come up and fight it out a bit, but then things quickly retreat to a buttery blend -- probably assisted here by the amber. The throw is only moderate on me, but after the sweet pea burns off, I return to something I truly love: O HAI. I CAN HAS DRAGONZ BLUD. Verdict: This has that lovely complexity associated with the Salons in general, and really is becoming one of my favorites of that group, along with Smiling Spider. I will be seeking more of this, oh yes.

This He-Goat is, well, great. But then, I lurve vetiver and patchouli. In the imp: Patchouli. Wet: Patchouli and vetiver dominate the strong throw. After a while, the pomegranate comes up through the heavy, dark patchouli -- is it Mme. Moriarty I'm reminded of here? Drydown: The ginger and musk remain faintly in the background. It's still patchouli city on me (which, luckily, I am very fond of), with sharp vetiver. This is definitely different from Malediction, though; maybe the amber and musk keep everything smoothed out, and indeed, the drydown gets that powdery-amber thing fairly soon. Verdict: Hate patchouli? Avoid the Goat. However, this is a complex blend with good subtleties in the notes closer to the skin, and this isn't your Dead Head parent's patchouli by a long shot.

Bourbon vanilla, benzoin, caramel, Mysore sandalwood, aged black patchouli, carnation, and iris florentina. In the imp: Hmm, quite obviously foody! Wet: Caramel and vanilla dominate. Sweet, sweet. After sniffing a bit, I can tell these notes are backed by benzoin. Drydown: Amazingly long-lasting on me, with good throw. Once this is dry, the sandalwood comes through and makes a lovely combo (others have already compared this to Underpants); very late in the wearlength, I finally get a bit of the dry, almost burnt patchouli. I have a really hard time getting the carnation or iris, but then my skin tends to eat florals. This is probably the foodiest Salon I have tried, and a potentially addictive one at that. The strong caramel reminds me of that note in Misk U.

Dab a bit behind each ear, and you'll be instantly inspired to alter street signs, shake fruit from your neighbor's trees, and hide your roommate's car keys. Black coconut, gnarly patchouli, and sweet benzoin. Oh, I am so glad this is a GC... right? Because I now have a new favorite Lab patchouli, even better than Malediction. This went straight from "test and sniff" to "ZOMG I must slather." In the imp: Straight patchouli. Wet: Patchouli but with the foody coconut and sweet benzoin sneaking in. This combo almost goes fruity/winey on me, which is a nice complement to the dryness of this particular patchouli. Drying down: GREAT throw. The coconut retains its nature, but, as others have said, isn't as sweet as in other blends -- Obatala always makes me feel like a piña colada, for example. (Er, feel like I am one, not like I need to drink one.) I do get that dry woodsiness, almost pencilly, but then I like the smell of pencil shavings, so YMMV. I think the benzoin is the great balancing note in this that makes the other two, seemingly disparate, ingredients work so well together. It's a nice smooth note, close to the skin, a medium-sweet creamy note. *sigh* One more for the "I can has 5ml pls?" list!

Straight out of the imp, and for a good long while after application, this is almost SN lavender -- like a Panacea, rather medicinal when the rosewood starts to come forward. Tonka starts to dominate next, followed by amber; the throw is low for me throughout, but the amber is very long-lasting. What I don't get, which is weird, is the patchouli. Nice enough -- very clean; I can see where wearing this in the summer would have worked -- but not the stuff of my dreams.

The Tibetan goddess of love and wealth. Her scent is a harmonious, sweet, enchanting blend of three lotus blooms and three roses. Unfortunately, the rose in this amps up after the oil dries on my skin. I say "unfortunately" because... well, this is part of the saga of Me and the Wrong Rose Note. Kurukulla smelled very rosey in the imp; it was sweet and winey when wet; and now that the lotus has backed off, I just get a really unpleasant chemical smell. I keep seeking the approval of BPAL rose, and it keeps rejecting me! Too bad, because I liked the name and the lotus part.

It's funny that Grifyn should mention Centzon Totochtin, because this behaves on me kind of like Centzon's LE twin -- or, to compare another LE, a much dryer Montresor. I'm afraid, therefore, that this is simply going to be one of those "ILU, Beth" reviews... because I get a marvelous throw, with the sweetness of the wine tempered by the coppery blood. The dusty, powdery notes (and I think another previous reviewer is right in suspecting the help of amber in this) live closer to my skin. I get cocoa, too, and much like the effect when I wear Centzon, it's really difficult to stop sniffing myself. I can also smell the "cellar" note -- the damp undergroundness in Shanghai Tunnel. What really dominates on me, though, is sweet, dry cocoa-and-wine... and I love that. This might have to be a 5ml. It's that good.

In the imp: Sweet, sweet floral; ginger; and something tickly. (Here I go again with all of those really technical terms.) Wet: The above, plus an upsurge of musk, and -- if I'm not very much mistaken -- sandalwood. Drydown: I'm getting the green tea note very strongly in the throw, but close to my skin is, I hate to report, the same clingy, cloying peach that's driven me nuts in Jack and Pumpkin Queen -- or so it seems. Here, it seems clearer, as in Yerevan, because obviously it isn't being muddled with pumpkin -- but on me, the fruitiness overrides the complexity of the other notes, and gets muddled... with the skin musk. I'm not even very far into the drydown on this, and I'm starting to get a perfumey, almost aldehyde note that's like headache in a can. Verdict: Man, talk about the girl you fall in love with and then discover she's a giant two-tailed kitsune.

I can truthfully say now that Beth is responsible for addicting me to opium! First I tried Debauchery, which I hated... and then, abruptly, loved. Now, I've just tried Darkness. In the imp: Almost pure narcissus. Wet: Narcissus and opiummmm. Drydown: Darkness falls into that category of oils that lies on top of my skin for a long time before being what I would call "dry." Thus, opium, still tinged with that sharp narcissus, predominates, and then finally sinks to a narcissus-myrrh that's much subtler, but still sexy. Verdict: Debauchery ended up being a 5ml purchase. Arrgh! Darkness might too, for situations where I want something maybe with less wearlength, but a bit subtler and less likely to leave me actually smelling like I've recently been... well, debauched.

Like Nightbird, I got melon at first, and thought my olfactory brain was completely scrambled. I'm still getting a light, nearly soapy, fruity floral... and who knew that Satan smelled like Bath & Body Works? Even more bizarre, on my previous test from the same imp, I seriously thought there was dragon's blood in this (the light-floral aspect it sometimes produces, anyway). Ah, well. The fewer discontinued scents I fall in love with, the more room I have left in my virtual pocket for Smut.

In the imp: Predominantly violets with some amber. Wet: Musk emerges strongly on my skin, and up close, so does the vetiver, which nicely cuts all the florally sweetness (can you tell I'm not usually a florals girl?) and balances out the amber. Drydown: I have the amazing Sandalwood-Eating Skin. This doesn't just happen with BPALs -- it's any sandalwood. I could marinate in a tub of pure sandalwood oil for a week and still come out with no particular scent. So it's not particularly surprising that I don't get it here. What's most pleasing to me is the complexity; on drydown, the relative positions of the various notes shift around a little. I was actually hoping for a bit more of the violets, similar to The Raven (a larger, noisier cousin of mine, but that's another story), but on me, Fallen is pretty much HELLO MUSK and then the familiar powdery amber drydown in its last stages. Verdict: I've fallen into a complex, musky scent, and I'm pleased! This warrants further investigation. It's not making me phone up friends and frantically beg for a ride to ECWC so I can see whether Shelldoo is currently stocking 5mls of this, but I'm keeping the imp.

Okay, my skin and I are having a bit of an argument here. I say that, given the black musk, the teak, and especially the patchouli, this ought to be great. My skin says that this was predominantly sweet neroli fresh on, and then set a new BPAL record for going straight to powder. Moreover, I am currently several hours into the drydown, and the pulse point on which I tested Desire smells like nothing so much as... I hate to say this... a teddy bear I got at Hersheypark years ago who came (and still is) scented like "chocolate." (Here, I'm sure the vanilla is the culprit.) With utmost respect to Beth (and, for that matter, Shelldoo), a Hershey's teddy bear does not remind me of desire. It kills me when a patchouli blend doesn't work for me, but this one is off to swaps.

It's sweet, almost in a head-shop cheap-incense sort of way, at first -- but not only that. The great thing about Gomorrah is the way that, on drydown, the vetiver and other herbs rise through the fig-currant layer to bring in that earthy crunch that reminds you that figs don't just show up at the market -- they're grown, and plants grow in, you know, dirt. I am forced (with no reluctance at all!) to concur with previous reviewers who find Gomorrah surprisingly sexy, especially given the listed notes. I almost get something dry and leafy out of this near the end, and a fairly strong throw for a fruity scent. Win!

In the imp: Sharp florals and resins. Wet: Leather wraps around all of this -- leather and the citrusy whiff of orange blossoms. Unfortunately, the rather generic-on-me florals keep surging forward. Drydown: Now, leather and amber really work together, once most of the floral evaporates. But then the amber recedes again and the florals come back rather faintly for one last combined fling with the leather before it all goes traditional-perfumey. Verdict: Not for my skin chemistry, sadly. I may have to stick to pure De Sade for my leather fix.

In the imp: Foody; something like cherry. Wet: Cinnamon. Having been forewarned (thank heavens for this forum) about the intensity of the cinnamon, I applied this to the tougher skin on my knuckles, and I'm glad I did; I think the crook of my elbow, for example, would be burning by now. Drydown: I don't get any of the honeysuckle. I do get a true, foody vanilla, definitely not tonka; we're off to Cinnabon, by and large, with the myrrh and copal way in the background and only available after a considerable drydown. Verdict: There are foody scents I like better. I tried this hoping for the resins to come out more on me (and the poor, absent honeysuckle!), but my skin likes to play with fire.

In the imp: Clove! Bright, clear, bitter clove. Wet: Clove! Oh, hey, my skin is kind of burning. There's supposed to be patchouli here, too, but wet, this is almost a clove SN. Drydown: The clove gets smokier, and, as some have observed, fuzzier (yes, that's a highly technical term, I'm sure) with wear as the musk warms. Weirdly, it seems to me like the patchouli is more present in the considerable waft than close to my skin. If this is indeed as accurate a scent experience of Djarum Blacks as others have indicated, then as an asthmatic, I'm grateful that I didn't actually have to smoke any to get this scent combo... because it's nice. With time, this becomes really friendly. That's an odd word for a fairly Gothy perfume inspired by a large, creepy painting, but you know, the spider is smiling. Gorram it, now I need more of this!

Thou art false, O moon, as the hearts of men. I will not, will not love again. Bulgarian rose, tea rose, violet leaf, opium poppy, Bois de Jasmin, patchouli leaf, honey, blue lilac, balsam, woodruff, and lemon peel. In the imp: Sour rose. Wet: Oh, deary me. The Bulgar rose is doing that "bug repellent" thing on me. Okay, wait... wait... look at all the other notes, and all the other people who love this... just wait.... Drydown: I can pick out the tea rose, the one that doesn't go disastrous on me. I can pick out the citrus, and the honey. I even get tantalizing hints of the patchouli leaf... but I just wait forever, and the dratted Bulgar just sits there being awful. I tried! I really wanted to like this! But I'm getting slightly less opium out of this than I would if I showed up at the ER with a hangnail as my presenting symptom.

In the imp: Perfumey. This is bright red; I'll eat my hat if it's not based on my beloved dragon's blood. Wet: Kind of grandma-floral, then goes through a stage of generic red candy. Drydown: A tangier, spicier floral emerges, supported by, yep, the dragon's blood. It goes a tad light for me to think of it as really sexy or sultry. However, Lord Husband keeps following me around the apartment. Hmm!

In the imp: Buttered-popcorn Jelly Bellies. Wet: YAAGH! I see I have found the less-pricey GC equivalent to the peaches'n'cream-oatmeal note that attacks my nostrils in Pumpkin Queen. I get the nutmeg, especially at the beginning, but otherwise it's all fake peach. At least my wallet should be safe this October...?

In the imp: Sweet, juicy apricot. Wet: And who knew patchouli could be juicy? Drydown: Okay, I don't normally go for fruity-sweet scents, but I think we have a winner. I would swear there was cedar in here as well as patchouli, but either way, it's a very layered scent on me: the fruit floats on top, with a woodsy note next, and the earthy patchouli deepest. The apricot that failed on me in my first test of Grand Guignol is joyous here; after its first fine careless rapture, it becomes subtler and closer to the skin, more like a juicy preserved apricot, if that makes any sense. I may have to try road-testing this on some warm night before deciding whether to add this to the 5ml category of my wishlist, but it definitely catches my attention.

In the imp: Dark florals and clear resins. Wet: There's a Tonka truck full of patchouli in my virgin pina colada! Drydown: I can see why some find this perfumey -- it's very heady. The throw is huge and magnificent, really using the almost bristly note of the datura to advantage. The patchouli remains present, but isn't overbearing. During drydown, the blend continues to smell damp, almost as if the Lab's "rain" note were involved somehow -- not that this is aquatic, but that it is entirely consonant with the thunderstorm remnants outside my window as I type this! I love the way the fruit gums are used. Come to think of it, there really isn't anything in this I don't like -- I mean, who hates sultry smokiness? Ah, the wonders of twoo wub.