phantasmmysteria

You can satisfy both your needs with one scent: Eat Me! This is my favorite GC -- delicious, slightly boozy currant cakes. This is a sweet scent, and new imps do have a buttery note that I'm not too crazy about, but the butter fades quickly (and a little aging almost eliminates it). Eat Me is definitely worth trying! I don’t get the cake or butter notes, but depending on my chemistry, I get a currants and cream, or Snake Oil, minus the amber. Vanilla tends to vanish on me, so I really only get the berries, but Hollywood Babylon’s another berry-vanilla blend. (: It's funny you mention that -- sometimes the comments I get from other who smell Eat Me are that it smells like sweet incense. Since I usually can't do resiny blends, this suits me just fine (though I often wonder how my skin does such crazy things ).

My berry scents, let me show you them! Akuma: Bright and fizzy! This is a fun, light scent. Australian Copperhead: Acai berry plus Snake Oil. Rich and complex, this is one of the scents I wear when I do want people to recognize I'm wearing perfume as opposed to just smelling good (not that "just smelling good" is at all a bad thing!) Dionysia: If you can wear resins, this is a lovely dark incensy berry blend. Eat Me: This is definitely foodie, but the currants are quite prominent. Delish. Lady Una: Blackberry wine! The green tea plays counterpoint to the honey (musk) and blackberry -- it's a beautiful blend. As far as LE's go, Blue fire is an amazing blueberry scent, and is pretty easy to find second-hand.

I was also looking for a strong vanilla note in my first order. Didn't quite find what I was looking for though. O, snake oil and the others are very spicy, as you may have noticed (which can be delicious, sometimes). Other than that Mouse's long and sad tale was perhaps the most vanilla-vanilla of those I tried (O, snake oil, lyonesse, Antique lace was the ones I tried). I also want more berry-scents! Perhaps it's because of my lovely, most loveliest bordello-imp. Tell me what you thought of the others. You can satisfy both your needs with one scent: Eat Me! This is my favorite GC -- delicious, slightly boozy currant cakes. This is a sweet scent, and new imps do have a buttery note that I'm not too crazy about, but the butter fades quickly (and a little aging almost eliminates it).

First of all? Cinnabon musk made me roffle. Oh man, you're right! Blood Moon '05 would definitely fit into the musky cinnamon category, but it's not a sweet scent. If you don't mind the lack of sugariness, I think the old Blood Moon might be your best bet. Barring that, I would also suggest Chimera as the closest match to the scent you seek.

It's funny that someone mentioned that Marianne was "raunchy," because I find her to be extremely ladylike. It does have a Smut-like vibe to it (the red musk in both smells the same to me), but Smut is a 10-dollar streetwalker while Marianne is a royal courtesan. Sure they're both whores, but the latter knows which fork to use during the fish course.

Halp! My costume this year is Jessica Rabbit, but I'm not sure what scent would be best for the character. I was thinking maybe Australian Copperhead (since I cannot do Snake Oil), but since Jessica is so very 40's, I wasn't sure what sort of perfume would evoke that era.

Three words for you: NOM NOM NOM. In the bottle: Rich, fattening, and utterly decadent orange pound cake. I feel it going to my hips just from smelling it. Wet: The butter comes forth when this is first applied, but that note doesn't last long on my skin. Actually, the orange starts coming out more strongly as this dries down (unusual for me as orange notes usually fade quickly). This is definitely the cake note from Eat Me, but it's not as strong as in Eat Me thanks to the orange. The anise starts peeking out just a bit as this begins to dry, but it never takes over. It just sort of blends with the orange and makes the scent a bit more complex. Dry: Ah, I do get a floral component to this! I don't do well with flowers, but now and again I get a whiff of something that might be a spicy floral -- carnation, maybe? -- but whatever it is, it's way in the background Again, the floral element just mixes with the cakes and making this scent multi-dimensional. During late drydown, mostly I just get cake and a hint of anise. This scent is much lighter than I expected (I get about a mile of sillage from Eat Me), and it also fades faster. Verdict: I wish this lasted longer, though it does very well in my scent locket. This is definitely my favorite Halloweenie tested so far! Don't be afraid of the floral or anise components, this is a beautiful and fun scent that makes me want to start my fall baking!

It's not terribly rare, as a lot of people bought bottles and then thought it smelled like wintergreen (I sort of got that from the saffron when the oil was fresh, too). an post in the Wanted forum should turn up a response fairly quickly, I'd think.

As a fellow vanilla-lover who amps incense, I feel your pain! I hear people swooning over the gorgeous vanilla in Snake Oil, but it never shows up for me. My favoritest vanilla blends: Love's Philosophy (creamy, almost savory vanilla... this stuff is wonderful, and should definitely be tried) Eat Me (as foody as this is, most people who smell this on me claim to smell incense among other things. So this is my go-to scent when I want to smell a little like incense and a little like cake) Australian Copperhead (The only Snake Oil variant from the CD I can wear, but I like fruity scents. I DO get the vanilla in the drydown of this Snake) Monsterbait: Underpants (I know, I know! Rediculously hard to come by, and when it's wet the sandalwood can get a little aggressive -- but the drydown! Oh Mah Guh! )

Fire Pig is definitely lovely, but does have a strong floral component to it -- I found it too strong when it was HOT though YMMV. OMG, Blue Fire!! It's the perfect juicy-sweet blueberry scent. Katharina is also amazing during hot weather -- I get white musk and apricot primarily, and it's a lighter scent. Marianne, despite the red musk, is incredibly light and is a beautiful fruity floral. I get quite a bit of currant from this. Tanuki wasn't up my alley, but it's similar in feel to Fire Pig but is more citrusy. Knucklebones, which I haven't tried myself, has been said to smell like Sprite in reviews! Sounds pretty refreshing to me. Akuma is totally fruity in a fun way. Nice for layering, too. Kuang Shi was, again, not a perfect fit for me, but the mandarin note is nice. Rangoon Riptide is my second-favorite Tiki blend. It is a little rummy, though!

No, they wouldn't get it, but that's yet to stop me in my Halloween shenanigans.

I'm so tempted to pick a beloved BPAL and base a costume around the concept. Currently, top choice is Priala and some sort of phoenix theme. This is genius! I've been lacking any inspiration for my Halloween costume, but an outfit based around Crypt Queen? :swoon:

While an LE, the Illustrated Woman is my never-fail sexy scent. It's definitely earthy and exotic, though if you don't like pine tar it might not be for you. Another to try on your golden god (awww, so cute!) would be The Antikythera Mechanism. It's not overtly sexy, but it makes a man exude the sort of sophistication that really gets my engine going.

When I first saw this one in the update, I was like, "Oh, Beth, I guess we have to let you throw a few crazy ones in there," then the more I thought about it, the more I HAD TO TRY IT. I really like that herbal carroty quality that I can pick up in last year's Virgo blend, I love the scent of the hay absolute Beth's been playing with. And then I thought about the combination of the molasses and maple oats and red apples and I just went cuckoo from there. I didn't grow up riding, I have probably ridden a horse 3X in my adult life, but my best friend from college is a lifelong rider (and her mom as well) and the smell of a (relatively clean) barn is just lovely to me. (Once I read that a horse produces 25 pounds of manure per day on average, I kind of stopped thinking I wanted to live in the country and have a bunch of horses, though. ) I don't think I have a clue what silage smells like, but fresh horse feed smells SO GOOD (which I'm hoping is what will come of the combo of molasses, maple oats, and hay in Gunpowder). It's sweet and tangy and a little oat-y (powdery?), and I want to roll around in it.

CCLXXIII (273) In the bottle: Mmmmm, fruity! It smells like red fruit punch. Wet: Acaiiiiiiiiiiii!! How exciting -- this even has the little smack of greenness which is also found in Slippery Poppy Tincture. SPT unfortunately gets entirely too green on my skin, however, and though this starts to gets there for a bit there is another red fruit (which is most likely strawberry) and a creamy/tanginess that really helps reign this in as it dries. Dry: This is Beaver Moon 2007 with acai berry in place of the cherry. Verdict: This isn't actually the bottle I ordered from the Lab (which I could review had I not already sent it off to someone else and forgotten the number :lol) but I'm so happy that this bit of Chaos made it into my hands. This bottle tickles me to no end, and I have the only one EVAR!

See, I was so psyched to try Crawdad after hearing all this luscious foodiness from reviews, but it's not sweet and foody at all on me! There's nearly no blueberry/currant at all upon drydown and the other elements are much more prominent, though it's quite berrylicious in the bottle. Blue Fire, on the other hands, is just yum! THAT smells more like blueberry pie filling to me than Crawdad (the papaya really sweetens it up on my skin).

Well, I certainly wasn't expecting.... whatever it is that I got from this! Bottle: Mmmmm, berrylicious! Wet: I get a wet smack of something sharp underneath the blueberry/currant (yes, something even sharper than the blueberries), maybe the ginger or red musk? This is sweet, but I usually love sweet... this is definitely sweet in a very unsettling sort of way. As this starts to dry down, it actually starts to feel a little watery.... it's so bizarre! I think it's probably the green tea doing that trick, and the coriander isn't particularly helping. It works itself up to the point where it's almost too much and I want to wash it off, and then suddenly it slacks waaay back. Thankfully. Dry: Slightly green, a little sweet.... some musk here and there. Luckily the coriander has calmed down quite a bit. This does fade faster than a lot of blends, but the throw is kind of nice and it leaves behind a faint trace of benzoin/vanilla -- which is fine, but it's one hell of a trip to get there! Verdict: This is like fragrancing oneself with Salvador Dali juice. This is what Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumblebee smells like. It's unsettling, it's bizarre, and it's not entirely pretty... but it is fascinating.

In the bottle: Oh, hai lily! I'm glad you could make it... Wet: This does start out quite floral with a quick burst of musk, with the lily playing up front and the honey myrtle in the back -- I'm sure the sunflower is around somewhere, but I'm not able to pick it out of the crowd. It's not a sharp floral at all, though -- in fact, overall the scent is very subtle. Still, it's floral, which isn't usually my thing. Dry: While it's not the same syrupy-sweet nepalese amber which I adore, in the drydown I can certainly catch hints of it in the drydown. It's very soft, vanillic amber. Verdict: This is pretty, and does indeed invoke the feeling of summer. But this has no throw on me whatsoever! Still, in the dog days of August perhaps this would be a good thing... no one likes to make other people choke on their perfume when it's stupidly hot outside, right?

You ladies already covered my two main choices! Havana and The Antikythera Mechanism.

It's funny, because I though the same thing about my Xia Smooch! From sniffing it and Kill-Switch, I definitely think the blackberry in Xia would go very well with Crypt Queen, but I got much more salty sweat from Kill-Switch. I also think Xia and Dionysia would be quite :swoon:-worthy. Trauma is definitely love, and is going to eventually get layered with Aglaea! I also think it would go well with O.

Once again, this act of the Carnaval throws me a curveball, and one of the scents I had little expectation of working out for me does. In the bottle: A great deal like Smut! But the bergamot and patchouli are peeking out as well, adding some complexity I don't find from Smut. Wet: That's funny... the lotus root and orchid come forward first, and I get a candylike sweetness from the throw that actually reminds me of Tiki Queen. How crazy is that?? Up close, the bergamot (which can be a little iffy on me) and currant mixes with the red musk and a smidge of patchouli. This is a shimmering, ever-changing scent... like silk shantung. Dry: And just like that, it's gone. This really vanishes on my skin! The red musk is about the only thing I can catch a whiff of if I press my nose to my skin, though sometimes others around me can still smell my perfume even if I think it's been completely eaten by me skin. I'd best figure that out before I have the urge to slather myself in this stuff. Verdict: Smut has been an old standby for layering when I want to feel sexy, but it's not a scent I can stand to wear by itself. Marianne, however, is beautiful and intriguing and very, very sexy. It's not so overwhelming that it makes me nauseous, and that I think will also layer well with other scents. So, dear Smut... I'm afraid you've been replaced, though you'll always hold a special place in my heart.

I was going to search the site, but it seems to be broken. I will update once the search function is active again. Barring that I can recommend The Great Sword of War, very gender-neutral orange(mandarin actually) that blends really well with the musk and herbs, etc... I did manage to do a bit of searching for orange and amber, which as I mentioned was rather fruitless (LOL, a pun). I will definitely keep The Great Sword of War a try, though!

HALP PLZ! I have a bottle of L'Occitane Feu d'Orange which I think is total love, but it doesn't last two seconds on my skin. I want a BPAL equivalent! Ideally, something predominently orange and amber would just make my day, but the catalogue seems to be pretty short of that combo. So, any suggestions of scents or scent combos to try would be much appreciated! (For the record, Feu d'Orange is an orange topnote with middle/basenotes of woods and amber. It's very gender-neutral.)

Wow. This was a weird blend on my skin! In the imp: Sweet coconut! I get just a teeny bit of the patchouli in the background, making things interesting. Wet: Still lots of coconut... this is nice! Maybe this is THE coconut blend I've been searching fo--- WHY HELLO THAR PATCHOULI! WERE YOU FEELING NEGLECTED?? Dry: I usually do okay with patch in a blend -- it tends to like me. But THIS patchouli does turn into a body-odorous funk, and then smells like I attempted to cover it up with super-sweet coconut. Such a shame!

In the bottle: It's a little sour, with a background of something... odd. I'm not familiar with the old OFF!, but this is strange just the same. Wet: Hmmm, I get the lemony note people mention, but I don't really think it's lemon -- more of a phantom note than anything (I wonder if it's the honey doing that?). There's a brief second when I catch the hint of Anactoria another reviewer mentioned -- something interacting with Hay Moon's amber the way kush does with Anactoria's. There's still something slightly sour when I sniff my arm, but the throw is this lovely ambery-grassy-mallow thing... yum. Dry: This is very soft on drydown, and is indeed mostly amber. The hay ab. and the other grassy notes add some dryness (and a touch of powderiness) to the amber. Sadly, I'm not getting any mallow now. Verdict: I've tried this scent 3 or 4 times since I received it, and every time has been different. This particular time is kind of iffy, but overall this does invoke the memories of hot Tennessee summers, lugging bales of hay onto a truck and then into my grandfather's barn. And that's what I was hoping for!