Czarina

Some musings about this ritual oil: Glamour mostly smells like a single note rose scent to me: very pretty, although not my usual cup of tea for a perfume. My theory about Glamour is that has had a kind of "stone soup" effect on me. What I mean this is the following: After I ordered Glamour, I found myself looking in the mirror and thinking, "Tisk, my gray roots are showing. Someone who is casting a glamour certainly shouldn't have gray roots." So I went and got my hair colored before the bottle showed up. Then on Friday morning I was running late but looked in the mirror again and thought, "Tisk, I look tired. Someone who is casting a glamour certainly should put on some eye shadow." And on it went. I've been using it since Friday, putting a little on the palms of my hands and then running my hands over my hair. This is a pretty perfunctory ritual as rituals go. So far nobody has paid me any more compliments than usual, so this may be a slow-acting TAL for me. In particular, after applying Glamour I looked in the mirror and admitted to myself that I really need to lose some weight, which is a slow process. Really I think 99% percent of the game of beauty is intention anyway, so I look at Glamour (the TAL) as "merely" a tool to focus my intent. Time will tell how effective a tool this will be.

There must be something wrong with my body chemistry, or this imp is stale (or perhaps too new). I catch a faint whiff of aldehydes, and that's about it. It had little throw or wearlength. Strange. And very disappointing, because I want scents with violet in them. I love violet. But I can't smell violet in this. Meh. To the swaps wi' ye, lassie!

In the bottle: has virtually no scent at all. Kind of watery. I paid how much for this? Wet: wow! An explosion of sweet fruity goodness. I can pick out the cherry, and orange, and something that smells like lotus, and the bamboo. Drydown: very well blended fruits and flowers, sweet and slightly tart (the persimmon?). Note: not a single whiff of the pine can I detect. Pity, because I love Beth's pine scents.

A blend of sinuous violet and elegant tea rose: the chosen scent of France's Demigoddess of Debauch: Marie Antoinette. In the imp: sweet generic floral (sorry! I have trouble picking out scents in imps!) Wet: rose. Not full-blown roses but soft white rosebuds. Hm. And green leaves. Drydown: the violet rises up. This is a very nice mix of rose and violet. There is a faintly acidic scent to this underneath the sweetness. It almost makes it smell like sweet tarts. As time goes by the violet seems to obtain an edge. Good throw. Average wearlength.

Lab frimp. In the imp: whoa grapefruit! Wet: grapefruit. then wisteria. then honeysuckle. This be one All-American wholesome vampire. Drydown: I can smell the grapefruit, a lemon note, and the honeysuckle florals. I'm getting a hint of the jasmine and ginger as well. This is a pretty light gingery floral on me. It smells like something I would buy in a tourist shop at the Honolulu airport. It is quite pleasant but not at ALL what I would associate with vampires.

In the imp: soap and patchouli. Wet: strong soapy patchouli. Drydown: nice musky scent, but strong. This has great wearlength and incredible throw--but I have a migraine today and my nose is extra-sensitive. On normal days this might seem like a normal scent and not overpowering.

How can I not like a scent of Red Tara? In the imp: deliciously sweet. Wet: sweet floral without being able to identify specific notes. Drydown: marvelous sweet blended floral. I had to look it up to find out it was roses and lotus (I don't know what lotus smells like--I was guessing calla lily). Below average wearlength, medium throw.

Vanity in extremis. The scent of rabid hauteur: Moroccan rose and narcissus. Can smell the rose, can't smell the narcissus. Not very interesting on me, sorry. Bleah. Adding Bonfire Night to it, now that was interesting. Burnt roses.

I tried this one without reading the description first. In the imp: whoa patchouli. Wet: Holy Headshop! It smells like patchouli. Really really strong scent. Drydown: very nice, strong incense/musk/opium. Imagine my surprise to learn this was a civet scent. Lovely, but not for when I am trying to be subtle. This is a knock-you-down-with-my-boobs kind of a scent.

In the imp: WEIRD. Sorry I can't be more specific. Wet: Honey beeswax and lemon. Drydown: honey incense with a lemon chaser. ETA: as drydown continues, I'm getting a spice--coriander or possibly cardamom. Yeah, I see where people are getting Lemon Pledge (beeswax+lemon), but I'm not quite there. I like it well enough to keep the imp, but not to buy a bottle, I think, unless it morphs considerably over the next two hours. Good throw.

Bittersweet yet powerful: salty aquatic notes and bursting with dragon's blood. In the imp: red. Why do I always expect these to smell like cinnamon. Wet: salty floral. Drydown: laundry soap. Arrrrgh. It is the Laundry Soap of Death! This is sooo not going to work on me. Sigh.

In the imp: lime and grapefruit Wet: citrus lavender. Drydown: I can smell every note in this but the zdravetz. WTF does zdravetz smell like, anyway? ETA: Here is some information about zdravetz, which is apparently a fairly well-known perfume component derived from a form of geranium. Who knew? Obviously not me. Fun fun fun. I should buy a bottle for the concept alone, which I adore. It smells nice enough that people ask what I'm wearing, and I just adore telling them, "It's Schrodinger's Cat--or perhaps it isn't."

Got this as a decant from a forumite. In the imp: sweet violets. Wet: violet-flavored Sugar Skulls. Drydown: OMG sugared violets. Just like the violet pastilles one finds occasionally in drugstores. For me this one is made of win.

I bought this from a lovely forumite. I haven't really been into the astrological oils at all but I figured I should have the oil for my sun sign as a part of my growing collection. In the bottle this has virtually no scent to me other than generic (and very faint) aquatic. Wet: a brief moment of something terribly nasty--just a flash--and then this scent became strikingly herbal. I think that must be the wild lettuce, chamomile and mallow. What the hell does mallow smell like anyway? Drydown: herbal floral. I smell nothing that I think of as "watery" at all. I don't think this will become my new favorite scent but I'll certainly keep this and use it, at the very least, around midsummer.

Lab frimp. In the imp: chocolate-covered cherries. Wet: cherrywood. Drydown: cherries, wood, and tobacco. Very sweet scent, but well-balanced. Average throw and wearlength. ETA: After several hours, the cherry morphs into more of a cranberry scent--I am reminded of Lampades, and the patchouli peers out, but faintly. Very very nice.

And if you don't have Eat Me try Cockaigne for the cake part of the scent.

Lab frimp. In the imp: sugary. Wet: orange cake batter. Drydown: disappointing. I think my skin just ate all the notes. After the strong mandarin note faded, I was hoping and expecting all the other exotic scents to come zooming up, but all I could smell after ten minutes was the remnants of Blace Lace from several days ago clinging to my outfit. Unless it isn't Black Lace I'm smelling, but Kubla Khan. If so, the tobacco notes make them very similar. ETA: Tried this one again. Pure nail polish remover.

For the cherry note you could use Beaver Moon (at least the 2007). For the boozy note maybe Pruno, which don't get no respect.

In the imp: violets, sweet violets. Wet: OMG violets and a tiny hint of...aldehyde? Doesn't smell like clove. Maybe that's the tonka. Drydown: oh, lovely, creamy violet and clove with a hint of something that I assume is the tonka. I will have to do a wrist-by-wrist comparison of this with I Died For Beauty, which also has violet, which I tried yesterday, and which I think smelled very similar. Between the two I think I have found my Holy Grail of Violet. Good throw, fairly short wearlength (applied @ 8 a.m., gone by noon). It never turned powdery on me, however, before it left.

I can't believe I haven't reviewed this yet. Cockaigne was my BPAL gateway scent, the first imp I ever tried of a batch I bought on another forum. In the imp: butter and spices: clove/cinnamon/cardamom. Wet: butter, sugar, cake batter, spices. Drydown: divine buttery spice. I detect a hint of rum. This has excellent throw and wearlength. Since discovering this scent I can tell you that Gluttony and Eat Me are similar and have similar exhiliarating effects on me.

Look in the Limited Edition section. It is one of the Yules and should be available until 1/15/08. I just looked in the LE section and it is still there. I have a bottle and it is very nice.

The Snow Storm. Also, Ultraviolet is mint, eucalyptus and violet, and the eucalyptus-mint combo is as bracing as Ice Mint Listerine.

In the imp: something nasty. Wet: Hall's Mentholyptus cough drops :shrieks: Drydown: toilet cleaner with a very faint violet overtone. If this were a boyfriend I'd have to get a restraining order against it. Oh, well, at least I know now. ETA: after about an hour the eucalyptus and mint have faded and the violet has come to the fore. So I don't want to go roll myself in coffee grounds any more to get rid of the smell. Still, I can't see putting myself through that first half-hour or so to get to what I think of as a fairly standard violet scent. Meh.

In the imp: violets (thank goodness). Wet: violets and moss, but not wet moss, as in Saturnalia. Drydown: achingly complex. I smell the violets, the hyssop and the resins, and the graveyard loam. I'm just not picking out the ylang-ylang on me. On me this is a mature and sophisticated scent. The throw is good, I'm not sure about the wearlength because I went to bed fairly soon after I tried this. After so many disappointments this could be my Holy Grail of violet scents.

In the bottle: powdered sugar-covered fried pastries. Wet: oh, yeah, buttery pastry. Drydown: pastry-olive-oil-beeswax. Below average throw and wearlength. Lovely while it lasts.