suileach

For some reason, Intrique smells very similar to Love's Philosophy on my skin.

Apparently rose and I remain incompatible. Step 1: Skin amps rose Step 2: Rose goes baaaad. Step 3: Sandalwood, et al, run for their lives. Step 4: In short: I get nothing from this but a tomb full of rotting roses.

In the vial, this is a grassy amber. On me, things get strange. There's a sour note at first -- almost metallic in nature -- and then a sweet note begins rising above the metal (which has begun to rust) . . . What is that sweet note? Why, it's moldering hay. This is the scent of a circus lion's cage, of a sad old beast kept behind bars. Hm. Definitely not a scent that works right with my skin chemistry.

Opening the vial is like being clobbered in the face by a wall of vetiver and dirt. Yikes. On me . . . WHOA BURNING DIRT. *Wow*. This is smoky, which I wasn't expecting. It smells like a brushfire and swirling dirt rising in the smoke. With a bitter-sour pinch of something else - crushed evergreen needles. This stayed strong on me for hours, becoming mostly cedar and vetiver, and had a good deal of waft. But smelling vetiver for hours on end makes me feel ill. I attempted to shower it off, but it wouldn't budge! I still smelled vetivery. ugh. Points for being amazingly stubborn (which is thematically accurate, of course!), but this was not for me. Sad Cappy.

What this reminds me of: Old Moon, Doc Constantine, Wolf Moon 2007. What this does not remind me of: Hexennacht 2005. The fir is piercing, and there's a powderiness that I usually associate with 'snowy' scents. On my skin, it warms up, the amber shining through the veil of evergreen, becoming warm, sweet, and a bit grassy...but it's just a scent. It doesn't evoke any of the feelings or memories that old Hex did. Sad I am.

Ugh! I love it, and I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to review. First off, the label is absolutely gorgeous. I know I should be storing the bottle somewhere other than my bathroom, but it just looks so darned good on my mid-century reminiscent shelf. The smell is strong eucalyptus at first, but after it's on the skin, the citrus and rosemary come out. I thought the scent might be too astringent for bedtime, but it's actually quite relaxing once it's warmed up by body heat. It has a fantastic slippy texture. I massage it into my neck and shoulders before bed when I'm having a particularly bad day (I have chronic myofascial pain syndrome), and while it does leave fragrance behind on my collar, it does NOT leave behind any grease or sticky residue. The one thing that I always think when using it is how absolutely perfect it would be to use for the aches and pains that come with a cold or flu. Well, that and I think about how much better it smells than my plain ol' arnica gel, which smells of feet. I've had it for a few months now, and I've barely put a dent in it... I'd better start getting more massages!

NOM. In the vial: luscious, fudgey chocolate. This gets very interesting on my skin. There's a fruity, creamy, candy-like smell under the chocolate. It's almost rhubarb-like, and there's a faint greenness to it. It reminds me of the pantry of an older woman I used to know, full of canning jars and tins of homemade molasses cookies. I daresay there's something a bit floral about it, too. Turkish delight, anyone? While the morphing is interesting and mostly pleasant, it's not really what I was expecting when I smelled the vial. I was hoping for something more like Lump of Coal (le sigh), and unfortunately, that's not what my skin chemistry lets me have.

Spicy...baklava? It reminds me a little of Monsterbait: Underbed, but it's richer, creamier, and much less 'Cassia SN!' on me. It remains much the same on me after an hour, though it's now a clear ginger vanilla. I agree with the reviewer who compared it to Shub!

Just sniffing the imp, unopened, I get a Manly Man scent. Opening it, I expect cologne! Aquatics! Chypre! Bay rum! And I get...peanut butter. There's a faint hint of trodden upon rose somewhere in there, but it's a rose well-coated with peanut butter. I don't know what to blame. The amber musk, perhaps?

Okay. help. Why is there a giant flying pineapple shooting a laser into the dude's ear on the Hexennacht label?

In the vial, it smells a bit like hot honey... I put a jar of wildflower honey in the microwave the other day to decrystallize it. I left it in a bit too long, and it got very hot and runny. Honey SN in the vial smells like that nuked honey did. On me: now there's a familiar smell! Now I understand some of what I'm getting in scents with honey as a note and why they're never quite what I thought they'd be. This is much spicier and buzzier than I would have imagined, and there's a definite floral tone to it. More complex than I was expecting.

This is...unique. Unusual mixture of sharp, sugary peaches and dry patchouli. Bit boozy, too. It never quite coalesces into a coherent scent on me. Dissonant. Tickley. STRONG. Has a ton of throw, equally as strange as the up-close scent. It's not a *bad* scent, but to be honest, I'd like to wash it off. I think my overall impresion of this is that it smells like someone tossed a bunch of canned peaches and dirty rags into a bonfire.

Fruity sake and...tea? And...citrus? Bzuh? Oh, but it mellows and smooths out beautifully. Lovely, creamy, boozy citrus. This is *heavenly*. The 'citrus' reminds me ever so faintly of the one in Bastet's Laughter and Cairo. I'm not sure what note/s my nose is interpreting as citrus. Over time, this develops a hint of a floral about the edges, so I'm going to wager it's the cherry or plum blossoms. This is one of the few Lupercalia scents that has worked on me so far...but I'm going to pass on a bottle, as I think it's a little too sweet for regular wear. Still feeling a bit conflicted about it, though.

Sweet, sweet, glorious honey. *swoon* There's a blackberry or raspberryish edge to it; it reminds me of a flavored honey stick. . ..NO. Cat pee! Why? Cursed skin chemistry! Well, that was a short-lived love. This scent is confounding me. The 'cat pee' smell went away, and there's this lovely, if very light, vanilla honey left behind. The strange middle stage that occured with this scent unfortunately keeps this from being a winner for me.

Whoa. That's..interesting. It really is a bright green scent. This is amazing, but I just..can't describe how it smells. It's this green, fuzzy, woody, sweet, boozy, sparkling smell. But that just doesn't *capture* it. It *pops* and *tingles*. Drydown, hours later, is a dusty musk. A bit of a disappointing ending to an amazing, unique start.

A super-sweet, glittering mountain of crushed hard candy: watermelon, pink lime, lemon, strawberry and piles upon piles of crystalline sugar. Like many others, I get watermelon Jolly Ranchers and Nerds from this, like they were squashed up into a big, gooey ball together. Sweet, tart, and very...clear smelling. Ultimately, it's cute, but not something that I particularly desire to smell like.

OMGWTFBBQ. For real. Smells like BBQ sauce. There was a burst of something astringent and reminiscent of eucalyptus at first, and then it turned into astringent BBQ sauce. And...I don't think this one is for me. At all.

Pretty and clear, like sweet water. There are a couple of scents that register in my mind as 'clean running water', and this is one of them. Smelling it more, there's an apple-like hint, but it's unlike any of BPAL's apple scents. Exquisitely lovely and ethereal. It's the sort of fragrance I wanted but didn't get from Fae and Mag Mell. It gets very bright and lavender-y as it wears, as more folk bustle into the market and the day gets hotter. Flowers are trampled underfoot, releasing their scents to the sky. Wait... and now there are baked goods, too? Fascinating. After a couple of hours, sadly, I mostly get the trampled flowers note from it.

Resinous, spicy, soapy. Sometimes sandalwood does go soapy on me - I suspect that when combined with carnation, as in this blend, it is inevitable! But oh, does it become lovely after a while on the skin. I'd forgotten I'd applied it, and kept getting these dark, spicy whiffs of something gorgeous. A-ha, 'twas Morocco on my arm...now resembling something rather Smut-like. What the? It's like a polite version of Smut!

This presents me with a bit of a conundrum. In the vial, it is truly glorious and smells like creme brulee! On my skin, though, my sweet amping quality goes to town, and turns it into sugared orange. Tooth-achingly sweet sugared orange, at that. It is creamy and bright but, at this stage, way too sweet for me. Then I start getting the same sawdust sensation that I got from Haloes. It's not a scent, but rather a feeling in the back of my throat and sinuses that makes me feel as though I've inhaled sawdust or paint fumes. Very odd indeed.

...Oh my fudge. Dark, GOOEY, evil brownie! I don't think any other foody scent has ever made me this ravenous. I LOVE this, but I don't think I could wear it frequently. Because it. is. making. me. HUNGRY. I made the mistake of putting this on shortly before bed, because I thought that perhaps, like Spooky, it would be a comfy-cozy scent. No. It just made me restless, because I craved a brownie so much! Still, I'd kind of like a bottle of this one.

I haven't had a whole lot of luck with the Snake Pit blends. I seem to amp the additional ingredients in many of them to the detriment of the snake oil itself. To wit: Australian Copperhead: all acai berry! Temple Viper: all frankincense! Death Adder: all vetiver of doom! Saw-Scaled Viper: holy spices! The only oil I've ever had an adverse skin reaction to, also. Coral Snake: all fruit! Habu: all bamboo! The exceptions have been Green Tree Viper (my least favorite by far; it smelled like penicillin to me ), Western Diamondback, and Banded Sea Snake. Western Diamondback is my absolute favorite. It's amazingly sexy and warm, and I definitely need to get a 5ml before it goes away. Banded Sea Snake, when applied to my skin, smells like Snake Charmer minus the plum. The plum was what made Snake Charmer too sweet for me, so that's a good thing. Inexplicable, but good nonetheless!

I originally wasn't interested in either of the B Movie scents - scents with a long list of notes don't tend to work for me, and both of them had notes I am afeared of. However, I smelled both bottles at a Meet and Sniff and decided I had to try them! As I opened the vial of Vampire, I got a bit on my fingers - may I swoon? Just the little on my fingers has major throw, and smells like grapefruit and orchids. Trying it for real, now! This is so bright and happy smelling. I guess it's a friendly Vampire From Planet X. where they drink flower nectar instead of blood, and sink their teeth into grapefruit rather than necks. I get not one whiff whatsoever of the leather, myrrh, darker musks, or 'cologne'! It's just a gorgeous, spicy citrus on me. Since my initial trial was so successful (I consider any scent that has me continuously huffing my arm a success), I upgraded to a bottle.

Wow, this is pretty. There's a strong boozy note at the start, tempered by strawberry plants (berries, stems, leaves and all). And there's something kind of dark and murky about it. Conceptually, the smell of this reminds me of Bewitched... hidden underneath sweetness are thorns and darkness. This is *not* an overwhelmingly sugary, sweet scent on me. The currant is tart and the leaf notes are strong and bring the dusting of sugar down to earth. Scent-wise, it reminds me a bit of the beginning stage of The Jersey Devil - that beautiful, complex, fruity-earthy-leafy smell, which thrills me, as The Jersey Devil went quickly into potpourri territory on me. But Sugar Moon remains tart and leafy on me for quite a while. Love it! Rose-haters, fear not. I don't smell the rose at all.

*inhale* Ahhhhhh. Gorgeous! In the vial, I smell a gentle, dry sandalwood-like scent. On me, it's delicate honey, currant, and that dusty-dry note. Flashes of musk come and go. This is exceedingly delicate on me, with little throw. It's very much a close to the skin scent. It reminds me a bit of O, but it's much less..smutty on me. 15 minutes later. Whoa, dragon's blood! Later later: And now this is really pretty again! It wasn't a bad dragon's blood at stage 2, but it's not something I would have chosen to wear. Now, I'm not sure... The dragon's blood has blended with the musk and honey, and it's become lovely. Soft, verging so close to powdery but not quite there. *looks at note list* Apparently there is not actually any sandalwood in this... Is it the kush that smells all dry and woody, I wonder?