tempete

I was going to pass on Gladdener because I don't always do well with BPAL milk notes and I'm not so fond of powdery notes, but the Will Call reviews convinced me to give it a shot. Unfortunately, while it's not overly powdery on me, Gladdener smells like lavender-y sour milk on me.

Musky white tea laced with soft, powdery violet and a touch of mandarin. I'm a little sad that the opium poppy note isn't stronger because it's one of my favourite notes. But Lady Lilith is gorgeous nonetheless, and I am considering breaking my no-hoarding rule to find another bottle.

Spellbound (three roses, radiant amber, and sensual red musk) is very feminine and utterly romantic. Fenris Wolf is the masculine equivalent of Spellbound (rosewood, amber, red musk and a dribble of red sandalwood) as it replaces the roses in Spellbound with wood notes. LEs that contained red musk and amber include Red Moon 2007, The Ecstasy of Passion, and Midnight Kiss.

I adore red musk, but seem to have very different tastes from all the other red musk lovers in this thread! My favourite red musk scents are Snake Oil, Chrysanthemum Moon, Red Moon 2007, Scherezade, Spellbound and The Contract of Theophilus of Adana. Midnight Kiss is much better aged than fresh. Red musk and certain fruit notes seems to go waay too sweet on me, so I didn't enjoy Hollywood Babylon or Kabuki. I think that the fruit issue also came into play with Marianne - I loooved this scent at first (it smelled like a better behaved Smut on me) but I couldn't wear it after the initial test. I still can't figure out why Mme. Moriarty doesn't work on me. It's full of notes that I individually love, but for some reason it smells really green on my skin when fresh and of nothing at all when aged.

Freshly applied Lune Noire smells like a really yummy liquor that bartenders use to make exotic drinks. The pear note is dominant in this stage and makes the scent sweet, but it doesn't push the too-sweet boundary for me. Lune Noire gradually loses its sweetness and acquires a creamy note as it dries down. Fortunately for me, gardenia (one of my archnemesis notes) doesn't make a headache-inducing appearance. Black Moon didn't work on me at all but I think that Lune Noire is a keeper!

Kubla Khan starts out a bit soapy (perhaps because of the jasmine), but quickly settles into a gloriously complex opium scent that is sweeter and much lighter in feel than Event Horizon. I normally avoid scents that contain tobacco and leather because they tend to smell dirty and overly smoky on me, but my skin apparently loves opium more than these two notes. I'll have to wear this a few more times to be sure, but I can forsee a bottle of Kubla Khan in my future.

I love opium scents, so I was really excited to try Event Horizon. It starts off as strongly soapy opium, but the soap gradually gives way to deep, dark resiny notes. During the transition from soap to resin, the scent manages to convey a sense of hollowness, like it's a shell around a void, which is very apt given the name and description (the only other scent which has evoked this feeling for me is Nuclear Winter). As the resins settle in, the scent becomes heavier and yes, oppressive feeling. At this point, I'm not sure whether I'll graduate to a bottle, but I'll keep the imp because I definitely want to wear this scent again.

The Queen's Salon is initially a fruity rose, somewhat reminiscent of Persephone except with a different, juicier fruit instead of pomegranate (identifying fruity notes is not my forte). I don't really get overtly aquatic notes from this scent, which is good because I tend to dislike aquatics. Hours after the initial application, the floral, fruity and aquatic aspects have receded and resin and musk notes have emerged, giving the scent a much darker tone. I agree with growwild's comparison to Queen of Spades - the drydowns of both of these scents are similar on me and invoke a very proud, regal image.

I love the name of this scent! I usually detest foody blends, but this one is pretty nice. I've never smelled a freshly baked crumpet, but what The Crumpet Rebellion does smell like to me is blackberries and baked cakey goods like cobbler. This scent has astounding throw and lasting power, because it lasted through a scrubbing with hospital-grade antibacterial soap (so that I could go back to the BPAL booth for another round of scent testing).

The Unheavenly City is definitely my fav of the three Convergence scents that I've tried so far and has earned itself a place on my Top Ten scent list. The only note that I can positively identify is red musk (which Beth kindly confirmed for me). This is probably the main reason why Unheavenly City is so stupendously awesome on me, since my skin seems to have a natural affinity for red musk. The creaminess in the blend smells like vanilla to me, but I'm not sure about that. And if there's gardenia in here, it's well blended because I am really good at amping gardenia (whether in a GC or LE scent) in a bad way.

I bought an imp of Euterpe because I have a strange weakness (obsession?) for violet/iris scents. It didn't hurt that Euterpe contains carnation and poppy, two other florals that I love. Unfortunately, there's usually one note in violet/iris BPALs that simply does not work on me, and Euterpe was no exception. This time, I didn't reckon with the honeysuckle, which took over and turned Euterpe into a cloyingly sweet scent. I did get a whiff of iris on the drydown, but it wasn't enough to make me want to go through the honeysuckle dominatrix phase.

Terpsichore is nauseatingly sweet on me when wet, for which I completely blame the sweet pea note. (Same thing happened to me with Aeval and Annabel Lee... I should just learn to stay away from the sweet pea blends.) The drydown is not as sweet and more complex as the other notes battle valiantly against the sweet pea, but it does have a funky undertone. I suspect the vanilla note is the culprit here since my skin seems to have issues with general catalog vanilla scents.

Gah, I don't know what I was thinking when I ordered a bottle of Red Lantern... I should've been more wary of the caramel note (since I hate super sweet foody scents) and the blonde tobacco note (since I can amp up tobacco to the point where I smell solely of cigarettes). Naturally, when I applied Red Lantern, there was an all-out war on my skin between the cavity-inducing sweetness of caramel and the uber-smokiness of tobacco, and it was not a pleasant olfactory experience. Red Lantern eventually dried down to a not-quite-so-sweet 'n smoky scent that was more palatable, but I wouldn't be able to endure the initial caramel and tobacco blast every time I wore this scent, and it also doesn't evoke impressions of an Asian bordello for me, so my bottle has been passed onto a more loving home.

I get the refreshing tea scent from Spirits of the Dead that has been previously mentioned, but the light woody notes take over when the scent dries down, plus the scent doesn't last long on my skin. I think that I'll hold onto the decant, but I'm not sure about getting a bottle despite my love for non-lemony tea scents.

Evening Star starts out as a burst of sweet florals, which I think is largely due to the moonflower note. But as it dries down, the sweetness dies down and the poppy note (perhaps backed by some musk) emerges. At this point, Evening Star reminds me somewhat of Vechernyaya; however, Vechernyaya doesn't include the very sweet floral opening, so I think that I will pass on my decant of Evening Star to someone else.