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Coconut, white amber, hazelnut, and anise. bottle: coconut & hazelnut. wet: beautiful. a sweet blend of coconut and hazelnut touched with a tiny hint of anise. the amber is just tying the whole thing together and just sings on my skin. dry: as this dries, the notes blend perfectly. it's a smooth, lightly-nutty blend that i will wear all spring.

The observer's space within a partial eclipse. Rich purple musk, moonflower, red sandalwood, black amber, oakmoss, copal, lavender, neroli, tobacco, and pomegranate. bottle: this smells herby, lavender and oakmoss. wet: lovely. the sandalwood amber and musk warm the herby oakmoss scent. dry: this dries to an ambery oakmoss with a hint of sweetness. keeper.

Rice paper, white gardenia, and raw honey. bottle: this is pure, sweet honeyed gardenia. wet: this is mega-sweet, almost too sweet for me. i don't get rice paper just hyper gardenia slathered in honey. dry: as this dries, it really does take on a light, tissue-y sort of feel. the honey fades to make this a more tame gardenia

Chrysanthemum, marigold, golden sandalwood, vanilla, cinnamon, and amber incense. bottle: i get light sandalwood and a sweet vanilla-y amber scent. wet: this is very light on the chrysanthemum, the sandalwood and amber wake this a warm golden scent. and i normally have a terrible reaction to cinnamon but there is absolutely no burn here (whew!). dry: this dries to a sweet and faintly spicy amber scent. very lovely.

THE BUTTERFLY Then one afternoon the butterfly wobbled out of a breeze and lit on the tip of her horn. He was velvet all over, dark and dusty, with golden spots on his wings, and he was as thin as a flower petal. Dancing along her horn, he saluted her with his curling feelers. “I am a roving gambler. How do you do?” Fuzzy brown tonka bean, golden amber, bergamot, and petitgrain. imp: getting pretty strong bergamot from the imp. wet: this sort of reminds me of sol invictus, but with bergamot. very bright citrus and amber. dry: as this dries, the bergamot fades so a nice understated note. this is mostly amber on my skin with hints of tonka.

GINGER SKULLS Zingy crystallized ginger candies with quince and Asian pear. bottle: reminds me of sugar skull. very sweet, lightly flowery but with a zing of spice. wet: once applied i can really smell the quince! this is really lovely! soft and fruity, a bit sugary and just the right amount of spice. dry: as this dries, it gets a bit less sugary yet a bit more spicy. it's a nice quince and sweet ginger scent on my skin.

Soft moss, vanilla musk, and cherry blossom. bottle: i'm getting mostly cherry blossom on first sniff. the moss is more of an afterthought here. wet: very nice. the moss is much stronger once applied, mixing beautifully with the cherry blossom. i'm not getting anything in the way of vanilla musk though. dry: this dries to a soft moss and very light floral scent. it is less cherry blossom-ish than, say, hanami but still very nice.

A month of bounty, when the fish are plentiful and the corn grows high. This is the scent of breezes passing over the Great Lakes, mingling gently with traditional lunar herbs. Sandy shores and sweet fresh water, lichen, green algae, and whitestem pondweed, with benzoin, cyclamen, moonlit musk, cucumber, blue poppy, and agave. bottle: a very, very sweet green scent. this is much more fresh water feeling than aquatic. probably the cucumber. wet: this reminds me a bit of both green phoenix and garden path with chickens. it has that same sweet, grassy scent. dry: the grassy feel/scent fades quickly but the overall green feel remains. a surprisingly long weartime on my skin.

THE NINTH CAGE The unicorn hardly heard him. She turned and turned in her prison, her body shrinking from the touch of the iron bars all around her. No creature of man’s night loves cold iron, and while the unicorn could endure its presence, the murderous smell of it seemed to turn her bones to sand and her blood to rain. The bars of her cage must have had some sort of spell on them, for they never stopped whispering evilly to one another in clawed, pattering voices. A claustrophobic blend of iron and oak. imp: strong metallic and wood, though not specifically oak... wet: very oak-y, strong and true. this will probably layer well. dry: the metallic note is pretty tame on me, blends nicely with the wood which, while quite strong, is pretty nice.

The baby moon, a canoe, a silver papoose canoe, sails and sails in the Indian west. A ring of silver foxes, a mist of silver foxes, sit and sit around the Indian moon. One yellow star for a runner, and rows of blue stars for more runners, keep a line of watchers. O foxes, baby moon, runners, you are the panel of memory, fire-white writing to-night of the Red Man's dreams. Who squats, legs crossed and arms folded, matching its look against the moon-face, the star-faces, of the West? Who are the Mississippi Valley ghosts, of copper foreheads, riding wiry ponies in the night?-no bridles, love-arms on the pony necks, riding in the night a long old trail? Why do they always come back when the silver foxes sit around the early moon, a silver papoose, in the Indian west? Snow-blanketed wild grasses, sage, swamp tea, cedar, giniminagawunj, copal, rosehip, juniper, clover, elderberry, sweet flag, butterfly weed, wood sorrel, and pine. bottle: i get sweet pine, sage and a spicy grassy woody-sweet scent. wet: this has a cold scent to it, sort of a slushy-sweet pine scent. there's a definite crisp berry sweetness in the background. dry: this dries to soft, spiced woods on my skin. this puts me in mind of the kodama forest in the film mononoke hime. (edited because i forgot to put the dates in the title)

TEATIME IN ROSWELL Weather balloon? No. An alien autopsy, A cover story. In July of 1947, the US Air Force recovered the crash debris of multiple alien spacecrafts from a ranch close to Roswell, NM. Several aliens survived, but many perished. Both the living and the dead extraterrestrials were transported, in secret, to Hangar 18 at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, along with the flying saucer wreckage. The US government performed a quick, efficient cover-up: witnesses were silenced, and a press release was issued the next day claiming that the fallen craft was a weather balloon. Aliens at high tea: Earl Grey, biscuits, Battenberg cake, and strangely-glowing cucumber sandwiches. bottle: very sweet (yet light) cucumber, tea and faint cake. wet: yummy! a nice cucumber cake scent. very light and fresh. the tea is somewhat faint but i catch pleasant wafts of it now and again. dry: i get a more bread-y (i suppose "biscuit-y") scent as this dries, less cake-y sweet. the cucumber is very soft. lovely.

ARACHNE OF LYDIA Rukh was standing before a cage that contained nothing but a small brown spider weaving a modest web across the bars. “Arachne of Lydia,” he told the crowd. “Guaranteed the greatest weaver in the world — her fate’s the proof of it. She had the bad luck to defeat the goddess Athena in a weaving contest. Athena was a sore loser, and Arachne is now a spider, creating only for Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival, by special arrangement. Warp of snow and woof of flame, and never any two the same. Arachne.” Strung on the loom of iron bars, the web was very simple and almost colorless, except for an occasional rainbow shiver when the spider scuttled out on it to put a thread right. But it drew the onlookers’ eyes — and the unicorn’s eyes as well — back and forth and steadily deeper, until they seemed to be looking down into great rifts in the world, black fissures that widened remorselessly and yet would not fall into pieces as long as Arachne’s web held the world together. The unicorn shook herself free with a sigh, and saw the real web again. It was very simple, and almost colorless. “It isn’t like the others,” she said. “No,” Schmendrick agreed grudgingly. “But there’s no credit due to Mommy Fortuna for that. You see, the spider believes. She sees those cat’s-cradles herself and thinks them her own work. Belief makes all the difference to magic like Mommy Fortuna’s. Why, if that troop of witlings withdrew their wonder, there’d be nothing left of all her witchery but the sound of a spider weeping. And no one would hear it.” Soft brown and Tyrian purple: dusty clove and blackcurrant. imp: this is a beautiful clove scent. wet: perfect blackcurrant over clove. this is so wonderfully simple, yet lovely. dry: the clove fades a bit but not much while the black currant stays sweet.

Hail to thee, O Nile! Who manifests thyself over this land, and comes to give life to Egypt! Come and prosper! Come and prosper! O Nile, come and prosper! O you who make men to live through his flocks and his flocks through his orchards! Come and prosper, come, O Nile, come and prosper! Akhet: the advent of the rising of the Nile floods -- the heart of the fertility and prosperity of Egypt. As Sirius climbs the horizon, Hapi begins to collect the tears of Isis, causing the waters of the Nile to rise. As the flood ebbed, the waters left a rich, black silt that was integral to the fecundity of the land. Sweet, black silt mingled with holy myrrh, melilot, hyssop, spikenard, balsam, cedar, and a hint of melting snow from the Abyssinian hills. bottle: very sweet, moist dirt. wet: i get a bit of myrrh as this warms on my skin, myrrh over dirt is lovely and warm. there are some sharp florals in the background, but they do rather enhance this scent. the snow must be the watery, moist feel of this blend. dry: this is the most beautiful dirt scent. not as dusty and dry as zombi, or simple dirt like graveyard dirt. the flowers are a lovely soft backdrop once dry.

Apple blossom, champaca, fir needle, cistus, myrrh, Peru balsam, and Tan Xiang. bottle: mostly champaca with a touch of myrrh and a bit of sweet apple blossom. wet: there is a rich, creamy woody/piney note with the champaca now, the apple blossom has vanished though. dry: the apple blossom has resurfaced! this has a rich woody feel with the sweet softness of light flowers. this is a beautiful early spring scent.

Mandarin, black tea, yuzu, tuberose, labdanum, tonka, neroli, ambergris, and lime peel. bottle: i get mostly tea and citrus. it's most likely the yuzu. wet: this is heavy on the citrus and neroli, it's now more lime than yuzu and i'm getting a pleasant whiff of tonka. dry: this dries to a mix of the different citrus scents and a light tea scent.

Spiced Satsuma orange, tangerine, rich amber, black licorice, teak, cinnamon, and vetiver. bottle: spicy orange and light smoke. wet: rich, ambery orange. the spices are very tame, making this seem like a nice spiced chai with orange. the vetiver is pretty light on my skin. dry: the orange fades a bit but the spicy amber scent endures for a while. very nice.

Look how the pale Queen of the silent night doth cause the ocean to attend upon her, and he, as long as she is in sight, with his full tide is ready here to honor; But when the silver waggon of the Moon is mounted up so high he cannot follow, the sea calls home his crystal waves to morn, and with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow. Silver-dusted lotus, white amber, rose otto, passion flower, white sandalwood, buttonweed, and white poppy. bottle: this is a very light scent but i can catch a bare hint of sandalwood. wet: both the amber and the sandalwood warm up instantly once applied, while the lotus stays gently in the background. dry: this dries to a sweet soft amber and lotus scent on my skin.

i got this as a freebie with my latest ebay winnings from the lab. it's a light fruit and spice scent with touches of greenery. it's hard to tell precisely as i keep making little clouds and then walking through them trying to get impressions. it's a very nice room scent, not overpowering or cloying.

bottle: this has a deep aroma, almost like a musk with an undertone of something fruity. wet: something lightly spicy is warming here, like a softly spicy flower, sort of the way voodoo lily or cobra lily smell like a spicy florals without smelling like lily at all (on me at least). dry: this sticks very close to the skin, very little throw, but stays a good while. this has a lightly spicy floral musk scent, absolutely lovely (especially considering i don't care much for florals!).

bottle: glorious, beautiful dirt. wet: rich, loamy dirt. very mush like graveyard dirt but rounder somehow. this is wet and rich, very nice. dry: this is straight dirt. the drydown is almost identical to graveyard dirt on me.

wow! this is incredible! leathery leather and gorgeous tobacco. not getting any booze to speak of but i don't care! this is perfect as-is! i'm spritzing this around my place next time i hold a red dead redemption lan party!

bottle: lemony tea, very fresh and clean. wet: very, very, very lemony. brisk, crisp and clean. dry: instead of tea with a twist of lemon, this is lemon with a twist of tea. luckily, i like lemon.

bottle: i can catch hints of patchouli with an herby sweetness. wet: this is a very sweet, very soft patchouli. it's not terribly strong but patchouli lovers (like myself) will like it. dry: this has a clean, herbal scent over patchouli and amber. incredibly gorgeous.

bottle: creamy pecan with spicy bergamot. wet: this is far nuttier once applied, lots of pecan, hazelnut and tonka. the clove is a delicious backnote. dry: this stays pretty true to the wet phase as it dries.

bottle: vanilla musk. perfect. wet: this is such a delicate musk, such gentle vanilla, such dainty sandalwood... very feminine. dry: as this dried i finally get hints of rice wine, very faintly though. this is a very soft sandalwood musk with only the barest touch of vanilla. to me this gives the feel of clean, cool skin perhaps touched by the sunlight of a late spring morning.