Lin Swanson

The patchouli in this is pretty dirty on me, and I love it. Dirty, like picking the strawberries right out of the ground, not dirty like unwashed hippie. The strawberry is sweet but not like lip smackers - it just brightens the patch up. Definitely not for the patchouli -hesitant, but it's going to be a favorite for me!

My yard contains more "weeds" than grass, on purpose, and this smells exactly like stepping out on the lawn on a rainy day. Wet greenery, very evocative - I look forward to trying this in the winter when I am dying for a little green outside.

A light, sweet, candy strawberry. It opens bright, but without detectable eucalyptus, and softens to a strawberry vanilla musk kind of situation. It's like a slightly more polite, grownup version of that strawberry shampoo I used as a kid.

Wet, wet flowers. Mossy, rainy, damp - I had to read the notes and other reviews to realize that the reason this doesn't smell woody to me is because all my forest experience is northern CA - redwood, pine, Monterey Cypress - and this is decidedly a deciduous forest. Or more, an enchanted wildflower garden in the middle of a deciduous forest. I was expecting Arkham to be a creepier town, honestly. If I had to place this smell in a fictional world it would be Alice in Wonderland - right at the edge of the Red Queen's garden, where it's less formal than the painted roses but before the creepy forest begins.

I have worn this four times now. I kept putting off a review because every time I have gotten something different! This is a confusingly delightful scent. First test: woah, I didn't think I ordered an all-rose scent this time? (Consults notes) Second test: bay leaves? Did I mix up which perfume I put on? Third test: rose incense! Fourth test: ooh, it's sharp, like pine or cedar? Reader: I give up. The wet stage is anybody's guess. As it dries down, I get a more of the red musk and honey. It's spicy and interesting, in a mysterious way. The scene of this smell: you have entered the private parlour of a person with questionable motives, who later in the book will turn out to be the villain. They bid you to make yourself comfortable amongst the plush draperies, they'll take good care of you here. You attempt to apply your attention to the papers on the desk, but you keep getting distracted by a bird cry, a slither of leaves, a reflection off what turns out to be startlingly erotic art. The air in the room feels increasingly heavy, almost narcotic, as if the incense burner in the corner is drugged - wait -

Honestly, I probably would have bought this just for the hippo on the label, but happily it also sounded good! Wet, this is all violets. Sweet and nostalgic, and reminds me of a bath oil I had in Paris (that sounds fancy but it was a study abroad situation and is mostly memorable because the lid wasn't on tight enough for the flight home and I ended up with everything in my carry-on violet scented and oily. But I digress) After just a few minutes on the skin the fruit comes out, and I would be hard put to name exactly what fruit but it's definitely purple and a bit tart, and balances the sweet flowers well. Half a hour later, the fruit is gone and the violets are mostly a memory (did I wash this scarf after the Oil Incident? Surely I did) leaving a low, round, dark, slightly bitter musk. It stays pretty close to the skin, and if I reapply I get the sweet flowers and the tart fruit and the bitter musk all at the same time, which is lovely. I think this will age well.

Figs, honey, saffron, check check check. Wait, it's amber and not honey? Okay then. If honey does the indolic thing on you and you don't like it, this might be a good one to try. The saffron isn't as bitter as I was expecting, it just darkens the mix up enough to keep it out of fig jam territory. It's really lovely, and I predict people are going to react to me with "you always smell so delicious" rather than "what perfume are you wearing?"

As if absinthe, in all its anise-minty-bitter-wormwood glory, was cooked down into those little hard Christmas candies and rolled in sugar, to add to your grandma's dish of striped ribbon and those raspberries with liquid in the middle. If there's any champagne in this, it has already been made into a fancy cocktail with absinthe drizzled over a sugar cube. This is a very suggestive perfume, in that when I wear it it almost always leads to a drink containing actual absinthe, so buyer beware.

A big snuggly bear of a cherry scent. This is not cherry pipe tobacco, but a cozy oakmoss/tobacco situation that just happens to be in the same bottle with a dark, dark cherry. This is Winnie the Pooh drinking cherry juice at Kanga's house on a rather blustery day. It's a fuzzy blanket of tobacco that you are holding around your shoulders with cherry-purpled fingers. The initial cherry burst, alas, doesn't last long, but the part you want to bury your face in lasts longer and somehow retains just a hint of fruit.

So, right off the bat I spilled some of this on the counter and soaked it up with a stray washcloth, which per standard procedure went into a knitting bag. So my review is mostly based on how my yarn smells. I agree with the above reviews, this is a fizzy tangy raspberry tipsy elf passed out in my half-finished shawl. Whatever he's been drinking, I'm here for it, it smells delicious. For what it's worth, as yarn perfumes go, I have been enjoying this one. Sometimes when I do this the project ends up being so heavy with scent that it slows down my progress (I'm looking at you, Tattooed Woman Embraces The God Of Thunder), but this play isn't a tour-de-force, it's a farce, where I think someone must have spread jam on my wool but there's a little spicy carnation and tobacco that pops up with a little song and dance to retrieve it from Dessert Land.

This was the surprise standout of this year's Yules, for me. I mean, not surprising in that I love all these notes, but in that it's the one I keep reaching for because the sum of the parts is greater than the (something something math-adjacent metaphor). The cranberry is shouty up front, but somehow magically this is not a foodie scent. It's sexy, because sandalwood/patch/honey can't help it. It's Rizzo, from Grease - sexy and tart but sweet on the inside. Wear this when you want to flaunt your opinions all over the place while simultaneously attracting more flies with honey than with cranberries.

This is so fruity and sweet and happy! Mostly pineapple at first, with the other fruits as backup singers. I sadly don't get much lemon blossom, but I like it anywas. It lasts a little longer than most citrus does on me, and then fades to a very close to the skin hint of sandalwood. A great spring/early summer scent, and one I would wear in situations where maybe Big Scents would be a problem. I gotta admit the first time I wore this, my first thought was that it reminds me of walking into the blessed air conditioning of the Tiki Room with your icy Dole Whip, prepared to have That Song stuck in your head in exchange for getting out of the sun for 15 minutes. Those of you who went to Disneyland in August, back in the day, will feel me here.

Red musk here is the tall, handsome seductor hand-feeding you bits of juicy fruit in a swoony scented garden at midnight. He promised you the pleasures of the flesh and they are: warm nectar dripping down your chin, an impossibly soft gardenia brushing against the back of your neck, the distant buzz of contented sleepy bees, a hint of intoxicating incense clinging to your lover's velvet jacket. You may not remember how you get home, but when you wake up the smell will drift up from your hair to assure you it wasn't a dream.

My first wearing of this was so confusing and surprising I had to wait to review until I could repeat it a time or two. I get aggressive gunpowder and mint, with backup herbs. It's so shouty! And yet, I kind of like it, it's a smell that says "back the F up, I'm dangerous" It takes a while to settle down into the skin, but first comes more warmth - the tobacco and leather, maybe? - and then more herbs, and now finally I am smelling the whole kitchen. Leather apron, cauldron of potion stewing over an explosive fire, somebody brought a gust of cigar smoke in with - dammit, Gytha, you're smoking your pipe back there, aren't you! The morning after I wear this, I get strangely intriguing hints of smoky herbs. Something interesting happened at this abandoned campsite, for sure. Long lasting on me. This is a scent for days where it's my way or the highway. You may like my way by the end, but I'm not making any promises, nor will I wait around for you to decide.

Does what it says on the tin. Wet, it's a bright juicy tart pomegranate, and dries down fairly quickly into a suspiciously fruity oud. I don't tend to get toilet oud, and I'm not getting it here, but it's not a sweet woody oud for sure, so caveat emptor. I'm sitting here huffing my wrist and "suspiciously fruity oud" is still the best I can do with it. This is a strong "F You And The Horse You Rode In On" mood. I like both these notes and anyone who doesn't can just move out of sniffing range.