Mehitobel

In the bottle: warm spice rack that made me want to cry with pleasure. Wet on skin: same, bliss, hopped my butt over to DD prepared to buy more. Half an hour later, dry: gone. This? Breaks my heart. I'll wear it in a scent locket, for sure, but after the knee-quaking joy of the bottle/wet, I'm so sad that it didn't work on my skin.

I'm baffled, because today I wore Tisiphone (one of my regular daily scents) and lo, my right wrist is now blister city. It's my right wrist that blistered with El Dia, too. There are no cinnamon/cassia notes listed for Tisiphone, and I know from pre-BPAL run-ins with cassia that I react badly to it. I refuse to stop wearing this scent. I guess from now on, I'll be sure to slick some grapeseed on my wrist before using it. And why is it just the RIGHT wrist? Hmph.

This is an absolute eyes-roll-back-in-the-head, mouth-water, wanna-cry knockout of a scent. I LOVE it and am hoarding like a hoarding hoarder. In bottle: cool fruit dusted with powdered sugar. On my skin wet: it's as if I'm got my nose in a snifter of strong, sweet red wine while sitting at a table with sugar-dusted pastries and lit candles. The wine note is no joke - is that what you guys mean by fig? I don't know a thing about figs, tried one as a kid and hated it, never looked back. It's possible that bright red scent is the pomegranate, though that's not really what it smells like to me. On my skin dry: the pastries and wine fade out after an hour or so, and give me a scrumptious couple more hours of olivey candle fragrance.

I absolutely love this scent as a bedtime fragrance - on me, it smells like spiced hot chocolate for *hours.* And then the edges of my blankets smell like hot chocolate the next night, and just yum. I haven't gotten the coffee from it, but the chocolate scent, for me, is a little edgy rather than being pure milk-chocolate sweetness, so maybe that extra depth is the coffee. Throw is strong, longevity is great for me. I will say that my second bottle arrived yesterday, and I celebrated with a HEAVY slather. I was rewarded with a cassia/cinnamon blister-rash on my wrists when I got up this morning. I'm pretty dang sensitive to those oils but the last month's worth of wearing normal, non-berserk-slather levels of EDDR didn't bother me - just wanted to mention this in case others are sensitive as well. I'm going to continue wearing it, just not the obscene amount I did last night.

I knew I was allergic to cassia (after a bad, bad, stupid experience adding cassia essential to bathwater a few years ago...) but learned this morning that the cinnamon in El Dia de Reyes causes a reaction. I've worn it frequently this past month, but yesterday my second bottle arrived and I celebrated with a ludicrously decadent pre-bedtime slather. In normal doses, I was fine. This morning I woke up with a blistering rash on my wrists. Lesson learned for me - leetle dabs of Dia will do me (or I can glop it on my dreads or in my scent locket if glop I must.) Heads-up for other cassia/cinnamon sensitives.

In bottle, wet, and dry: this is a men's cologne that makes me huff wrist and drool. It smells familiar, like "that guy," but there is no IMDB for fragrance, so I'm lost. I don't even know how to describe this. This can't count as a review. It's metallic, sharp, and hot. After a couple hours' worth of drydown it smells like the one night stand you'll regret but never forget. This is a cold gigalo fragrance, and yeah, I want more.

There is NO reason I shouldn't like this, and I was so excited to try it - I'm glad I didn't do my usual thing and just nab a 5ml, though. Glad, and sad, because I was so sure this would be perfect on me. I love all the components, I love dark, incensey oils, I love cinnamon and spices, I love burnt scents, so yay! But, nay. Wet in bottle: it smells like swirling blackness. Wet on skin: black patchouli madness. Dry: it smells like scorched pipe tobacco, and makes the far back of my palate feel dry and itchy. I never got any cinnamon or amber from this, just sticky-heavy black patchouli. I enjoy black patchouli in other blends, like Tisiphone (one of the bottles in my daily-wear rotation) but the weensiest dab of this has given me a headache. SO depressing! I wanted so badly to love Sin! *eta: I just realized what this reminds me of - one of my bottles of essential oil, Texas Cedarwood, Juniperus Mexicana. Same stickiness, itchy-throatness, etc. Don't know why I felt compelled to include that bit of info, but there you have it. In light of this, maybe what's bothering me is the sandalwood? Hmm.

In the vial: this smelled so much like biting, floral drugstore perfume from one of those Xmas gift boxes that I very nearly didn't bother trying it on. Wet on skin: see above. Regret sets in. Imp inaugurates my swap box. I consider washing it off but am lazy. Dry on skin: Well, now, that's unexpected - it's become rather nice! I don't get any creaminess or vanilla, it's still far more floral than is to my taste, but it's a more mellow floral with a toasty sandalwood foundation. Imp comes back out of the swap box.

This is a hoardable scent for me - I adore it. It smells hot and candy-sticky, like smoking wet hay, wet old grass turned underfoot, and slightly scorched caramel. It makes me feel slightly feral and quite powerful, like a werewolf watching a Halloween bonfire from the edge of the woods. One of my top three scents, no question.