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scent is a strange thing -- 1

I wonder sometimes why I like some scents that should probably seem overpowering or obnoxious: gasoline, used engine oil, wet paint (high VOC, yeah baby!), fresh asphalt, just-snuffed matches, hot metal. Especially hot metal and black engine oil. My ideal mate would probably be a mechanic (though I was seriously considering being a mechanic myself 20+ years ago). Why would any of these appeal to me?   Scent is so deeply wired into our brains, that you'd think the only scents that would appeal to us would be the ones that somehow enhanced our chances of survival (and reproduction). We're quick to pick up the scent of a pending storm, decay, lack of cleanliness, etc. Granted, many scent likes and dislikes are purely psychologically-driven. You could argue that my liking for oil and gasoline had to do with watching my dad work in the garage when I was very young. I don't know that to be the case, but I'm positive we all have associations that invite instant like or dislike, but that we can't necessarily put a name, face, time, or place to.   What about sour, bitter, acrid, or chemical smells? I like the smell of hospitals. How weird is that? I like quite a few natural scents that are, apparently, generally disliked, like bruised marigold foliage (astringent, chemical). Love! But everyone I know who smells it recoils. And tomato foliage (astringent, oppressively herbal). I could seriously see wearing a perfume that had tomato foliage at its base. Oddly, I also like the smell of damp, dusty places, like old houses or barns that have been abandoned. How could the latter possibly be a benefit to survival? It's probably not, but I remember often playing in an old abandoned barn when I was a child, and so must have positive associations with the smells inherent in such a place. More psychological underpinnings. I'm beginning to think that psychologically-based scent preferences easily (and sometimes completely) override the hardwired ones.   My animal scent likes and dislikes are pretty distinct. I like the smell of cats, but not dogs. Horses, but not cows. Allow me to rephrase: it's not that I dislike the smell of dogs (except wet ones) or cows, but that I get no reaction from them other than internally taking note of their scent. Cats and horses give me a real physical reaction, a pleasant one. (Don't read too far into that; I'm talking warm fuzzies here not Catherine the Great.) I also love the smell of many objects that are found around horses: leather, wool, denim, hay, and weathered wood. I'll categorize this as psychological. I grew up around horses and cats. Childhood = good, therefore ... etc.   I have a few scent dislikes, but none that drive me out of a room, with one exception: citrus mold. Agh! And the odd part is, I can smell it before it's even evident. I'll start smelling this nauseating scent a day or two before the first powdery bloom appears on an orange or lemon. And I can walk into a room and instantly tell if there's newly-molding citrus in it, even if I can't see the fruit. The strong scent usually goes away (for me) on fruit that started molding some time ago, even if there's mold still on it. This scent ... it isn't just unpleasant, it's something I really can't take. I have to get away from it. This has me wondering if I'm allergic to the type of mold that forms on citrus fruits. Why else would I have such a strong visceral response to it? Do we finally have here an example of a survival-based scent preference? I haven't done a proper scientific study of the reactions of other people, but my significant other can't smell it at all, whereas I can smell it in eensy-teensy-parts-per-million at a hundred paces and it gives me an instant headache.   Continued ...
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Darkness

Bottled gloom; the essence of oblivion. Blackest opium and narcissus deepened by myrrh.

in the bottle: Clean scent, some kind of wood. Slight smokiness. Pleasingly warm and dry in a resinous kind of way. Something smooth running behind.

on wet: Incense. More incense. Truly, incense. But somehow not obnoxious.

drydown: Still wood-y. Still incense, with a hint of sweetness behind; a kind of fresh, floral sweetness that isn't perfume-y, but more warm and heady.

one hour later: The slightly resinous, dry quality has returned, but I can't pin a scent on it, it's more of an impression. The light but warm and heady floral is still there. This is turning into what I would think of as perfume in a more classic sense, but not like any perfume I've smelled before.

end of day: Dry, resinous floral, with the floral barely in evidence. The dry quality is more pronounced, to the point of making me feel like I have a catch in my throat. Gives me the urge to drink water. I believe that the dry, resinous quality comes from the same component that I was reading as smoky while still in the bottle.

compared to official description: I don't get the morbid bleakness suggested by the official description; but then again, I'd be hard-pressed to describe the smell of oblivion.

notes: I'd have to say that, overall, I like this, but being ridiculously picky, I'm not convinced I want it. It doesn't scream "wear me!"

I commented in my last review that I don't know the scent of myrrh well enough to identify it. I wonder now if the slight smokiness I smelled in the bottle would be the myrrh, since Velvet had a smoky quality to me and also contained myrrh. Having said that, the smokiness wasn't pronounced, and may have snuck in later as more of a dry warmth.

A number of times during the day when I was moving around I picked up a wafting scent which made me think of a faintly sharp, non-spicy lily, but I could never smell it on my wrists, only when my hands were moving around at a distance. Except for the odd waft every now and then, this stayed exceptionally close to my skin, but didn't fade completely. Another potentially good second-skin type scent I think, but not for me.

ETA: This one is really variable on me. At certain times (ahem), like when I reviewed, it's too strong and floral. The rest of the time, that wonderful smokiness really comes through and it becomes a scent I enjoy. I'm waiting on receiving and testing the dozen imps currently on order before I decide to get it, though. This is close, really close, but I'm thinking that if I can get this close, I can get even closer. I have high hopes for some of the oils described as smoky now.

ETA, again: I mixed the whole imp with a vanilla-based after-bath oil and got something that makes me feel naked in my clothes. After I've spritzed and smoothed it, I get the urge to ruuuuub against everything, like a kitty demanding affection.

added to forum reviews
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what I have

Imps: (bold entries are linked to reviews within this blog) Velvet
Coyote
Hell's Belle
La Petit Mort
Dirty
Zephyr
Strangler Fig
Darkness
Shub-Niggurath
Embalming Fluid
Dracul
No. 93 Engine
Antikythera Mechanism
Centzon Totochtin
Perversion
Mary Read
Les Infortunes de la Vertu
Dragon's Hide
The Apothecary
Lightning
Queen of Hearts
Ava Maria Gratia Plena
The Reaper and the Flowers
Hairy Toad Lily
Lilium Inter Spinas
Dragon's Milk
The Last Squished Jellybean
Czernobog
Tenochtitlan
Thanatopsis
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Velvet

Envelop yourself in the soft, sensual embrace of gentle sandalwood warmed by cocoa vanilla and a veil of deep myrrh.

in the bottle: Cocoa! Dutch-processed with a touch of vanilla. Hint of sandalwood. Something (or some things) else that I can't identify: smooth, a little smoky, a little sweet. Also, a creamy sensation, maybe the vanilla again.

on, wet: Cocoa and a bit of sandalwood. After about 10 seconds, strong suggestion of smoke.

drydown: This will sound strange, but my left wrist retains the cocoa scent, where my right has gone completely smoky. And not just a little smoky, but full on sitting-in-front-of-a-wood-fire smoky (with a hint of vanilla). The cocoa-y vanilla scent on my left wrist is starting to seem a little food-like to me. Overall, I prefer the smoky effect.

one hour later: Sandalwood and vanilla, both wrists. A ghost or two of scents in the background, but almost completely hidden by the sandalwood.

end of day: Sandalwood and vanilla. Enduring scent, not unpleasant, but nothing like what I smelled in the bottle or through drydown. There remains a hint -- just a suggestion, really -- of other scents way in the background that are completely homogenized, but which lighten the sandalwood and give it a certain dusty sweetness.

compared to official description: Not sure I'd recognize myrrh, as I'm positive I've never smelled straight myrrh, and would therefore have trouble picking it out of a lineup. I know the lab doesn't necessarily list every component, but as the only three listed are sandalwood, cocoa vanilla, and myrrh, I'm wondering if the myrrh carries the smoky effect, since that's the only thing in this blend that stands out to me other than the other two listed.

notes: Not for me. Smells like a my paternal grandmother's house, somehow. In fact, I get a strong scent-memory of being put down for a nap as a very small child on my grandmother's bed, and drifting off to sleep with the faint drone of nearly-inaudible adult voices drifting up the steep, narrow stairs and slipping under the thick, dark, heavy wood door. Pleasant, but I'd want my house to smell this way, not me.

afterthought: I was initially disappointed that this perfume didn't retain its original character, but after rereading my description I realized that there's no reason velvet should smell like cocoa. In the end, I believe the cocoa stayed there but hovered in the distance to give the whole thing a bit of smooth dryness, and that some other element, in addition, pushed the effect over to dustiness. While the hours-later effect was very different from what I smelled straight out of the bottle, I'd have to classify the later scentsation as being more akin to how I'd define velvet (from an olfactory standpoint), since velvet (the fabric) makes me think of dusty places and the satiny-smooth skin of my grandmother's cheek. In the end, this could very well be velvet, at least for me.

added to forum reviews
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Coyote

The warmth of doeskin, dry plains grasses and soft, dusty woods warmed by amber and a downy, gentle coat of deep musk.

in the bottle: Strong, but not oppressive musk (light); very familiar, almost soapy background -- amber?

on wet: Amber, I think, almost 100%.

drydown: Mostly amber. Slightly soapy musk, not unpleasant; this is a scent that suggests warmth and would be an excellent "enhanced skin" scent for someone. (Not me.)

one hour later: Warm and sweet. Musk and amber. Some other very subtle but warm and ... airy? light? dry? ... scents.

end of day: Amber, period. On me, soap.

compared to official description: My nose probably isn't good enough to identify subtle woods and grasses. I will say that there are definitely elements other than amber and musk, but whatever they are, they're very close in scent temperament to the former two, and I can't break it down into individual notes. if there's wood, it's very harmoniously combined and disguised by its neighbors. Near impossible for me to pick out anything individual, but after the drydown and through the first part of the day I detected something slightly spice-like in a non-foody way. Cinnamon? Vanilla? (Or coumarin, perhaps -- as in dry grasses; just a guess.) FWIW, the warm sweetness strikes me as more feline than canine. Canines, to my nose, have a drier, muskier scent.

Also, no hint of doeskin, which I will assume is meant to be a light leather scent.

Having said all that, I'll say again that the stated elements may well be there in enough quantity to affect the character of the oil, but I'd need to smell Coyote sans doeskin before I'd be able to properly state my opinion of how things like doeskin (dry grasses, soft woods, etc.) work for the whole. Right now, it's a homogeneous mix that, for me, defies dissection.

notes: I think I tend to read amber-based scents as soapy or powdery depending on the surrounding scents.

ETA: Months later, I've tried Coyote again and I get a different impression. On my wrists, recently dried, it's still very much amber with dry wood, but in the bottle it smells completely different than it did the first time: Now I get light leather and hay-like scents very strongly, with a little amber underneath.

added to forum reviews
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run-up to my first reviews

So I received my first imps some time ago and am just getting around to putting my impressions into words. I've decided to be quasi-scientific about it and do the one-scent-a-day-noting-all-impressions approach that I see so many people adopting in the reviews section. But first ...   I'm a little frustrated, when reading the reviews of others, to see descriptions of people's impressions that basically rewrite the lab's official write-up, or that seem to hinge entirely on the name of the scent. For example, Coyote: We get lots of descriptions of warm fur smell, lying in grasses in the hot plains sun, etc. I almost wish the lab would release the scent unnamed, let us review it, then tell us what it's supposed to be. And without revealing the notes.   There's no doubt that we all smell things differently, pick up different scents, completely lose others, and turn scents on their heads on our skin (or amp up particular ones). Having said that, it's not helpful to read a review of a scent with the notes described as "cedar, bergamot, black tea" and to see someone say "I'm standing in the woods sipping a cup of Earl Grey." Now, that might be exactly the impression the person got, but I can't help but believe their impression was affected by the description. We humans are nothing if not mentally malleable.   I'm not sure where I'm going with this. This isn't intended as a rail against people's review styles, and I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from writing reviews in a way that expresses their sensations most meaningfully. However, I feel the process is tainted by the marketing. (Bless the lab, they do what every good business does.) Just my take on things.   Last note: I've already smelled an imp or two that had the main notes stand out most strongly as the ones listed by the lab, so I'm not saying that people are incorrect to fix on those elements and write about them. All I'm saying is that I will try very hard to review scents based on how they smell, and even though I'm sure I'll be influenced to some degree by the words, I really, really will try to be objective.
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