Diana

Wet: This is a mish-mash of floral notes, but with something resinous and golden in the background. Initial dry: The flowers are omnipresent, but they are all ones that I'm rather fond of. Something goes a little sour on me, kind of like Red Phoenix did, but that only last a few minutes. Drydown: The incense aroma intensifies, and the floral notes are pushed to the side. This reminds me a lot of Sybaris, but without all the violet. Very nice!

As to how much civet is in Black Annis, I'm sure only the lab knows. I've never tried it myself, so I can't even guess. Most of the civet blends have been discontinued. The only other GC scent with civet is Debauchery, which also has red musk. You can still get your hands on Morella, which was rereleased as part of the Maelstrom, but I can't smell civet in it at all. Here's some other civet perfumes that have long since gone away, but maybe you can find an imp or something in trade: Puck - rereleased fairly recently as a Limited Edition, the civet note (at least in the resurrected) was pretty tame. Oakmoss, sweet sage, juniper berry, civet and a drop of grape. Allegory-A sinuous, vibrant scent, striking in its boldness and complexity. Juniper and white cedarwood entwined with orange and raw civet. Deimos-Son of Ares, twin to Phobos, Deimos is the personification of dread. Murky ambergris and civet with dark musk, sharpened by orange, bergamot and frankincense. Entropy-The perfect distillate of decay, death, and damnation. Blood red patchouli saturated with black poppy, civet and a hint of rose. Glasya-Created in honor of the fiery, vicious Princess of Hell and bloodthirsty general who governs thirty-six legions of infernal warriors. Her lust for bloodshed and manslaughter is matched only by her love of the classical arts and sciences - definitely a woman that we respect. A seething, fiery blend of dragon,s blood, deep myrrh, red and black musks, civet and thick red patchouli, glistening with drops of rose and ylang ylang. Pulse Points-A profoundly erotic, lascivious scent. Black poppy, narcissus and civet. Bacchanalia-A boisterous, belligerent, festive blend that lends to mad revelry, overindulgence and excess. Perfect for a weekend bender. Earthy musks combined with a beastial civet bouquet, a hint of sweet grape and orange blossom.

In the bottle: berries. fruity something or other. Wet: waxy smelling, berries. Like berry potpourri and berry scented candles. And berries. The heliotrope is kind of berry-smelling to me too. Initial dry: Oddly enough, this starts to smell like ecclesiastical incense. But fruity. It's almost like a very dry frankincense infused by wild berries. Later drydown: It still smells like berry candles + church incense, but it smells a little less like it may contain frankincense, but rather like it has a lot of dark resins. It has a dry spicyness to it, most likely the amber + carnation combination. This is quite funky. It's not what I expected it to smell like, but it's nice. If you like dark scents with a twist, you should hunt some of this down & give it a try.

In the bottle: cinnamon-ish aroma Wet/application: omg! MINI COFFEE CAKES. Spongey cake with cinnamon crumbles on top. That is exactly what this smells like. Initial drydown: the coffee cake aroma is still there, but just a smidgeon of the coconut peeks out. it's like a platter of coffee cakes & coconut macaroons, all blended into a cakey vanilla smell. It has a really nice cakey throw. Yum. I wonder if my perfume is making strangers think about dessert. Later drydown: the cinnamon is softer, the coconut is also less, and it becomes more of a generalized cake with just a bit of spice to it. The throw is lesser too now, but I can still easily detect it. This is what I wanted Sugar Cookie 2004 to smell like! It's like that, without the overwhelming play-doh aroma. Later still: Hmm. The cinnamon is pretty much gone, but the coconut has come back a bit. Kind of like a bundt cake with creamy cononut filling. Yes? yes. The throw is a bit more noticable now that I've walked around outside & it's heated up with my body temp & the sunshine. This? is love. YUM.

In the bottle: Warm, chocolately, spicey notes. Wet: This goes on with a strong rush of the cocoa. The dragon's blood is definitely evident, adding a level of sweetness to the warmer cocoa. There is a very brief appearance of the vetiver, which lasts maybe 15 minutes, but it totally disappears after that (vetiver-haters take note!). Drydown: The cocoa never lasts through the drydown on me, sadly. The chocolately goodness has been replaced by the blood musk, which is a bit on the perfumey side, but not bad. The dragon's blood has died down in intensity quite a bit, but it adds a powdery softness to the basenotes. This is really pretty. =)

This is the first TAL I've ever really tried, and can I just say... WOW, This stuff WORKS. The scent isn't that pleasant. I didn't buy it for the smell, though, so I am not going to comment other than it is earthy-voodoo-oil-smelling. I actually only used a wee bit and anointed a few chakra points (throat & heart & head, for communication and being seen as a good person, etc... I was lazy and didn't do all of my chakra points, though). I wore it under other perfume because I really didn't want to smell like... that. I wore this because I was meeting up with someone I know, but she's one of those "I-don't-know-if-she-even-likes-me" type of friends, because we live hours apart and don't talk all that often. She was also bringing along a few of her friends whom I haven't met, and I generally tend to be shy & reserved around new people. All throughout the day, complete strangers were insanely nice to me, calling out to say hi or comment that I looked beautiful (not something I hear that often from strangers!), I had every makeup artist in MAC swoon over me, I saw Sarah from ANTM on the street, and tons of people complimented me all night. I had such a good day, all day. Nice coincidences and things that made me smile & feel good about myself. And I had a blast with everyone I met up with, and had a completely great time. LOVE this stuff!

In the bottle: sweet, foody Wet: Oh holy god. It's like a rush of sweet berries, lush red velvet and sweeeeeet. YUM. Dry: The berries don't last too long, and the red velvet cake is replaced by a generic cake smell. But CAKE. I cannot loose with something that smells like my favorite food group! I am thinking I need like 35 bottles of this, STAT.

In the bottle: This smells mostly of tea, but not very strongly. Wet application: Tea, with just a hint of citrus. Barely a breath of mint is detectable. Initial dry: This starts to smell like the "clean/herbal" types of oils, like Zephyr, Apothecary, Dirty or Embalming Fluid. The tea is weakening. I'm not getting much other than minty-very light tea. Hours later: Just a soft mint, slightly herbal. It doesn't ever have much throw. It's a nice, clean scent, when you don't want something heavy or floral.

In the bottle: lordy, that's some jasmine wet: yes, still jasmine drydown: still jasmine. however, as it continues to wear, the jasmine becomes less screachingly sharp, and mellows out to a softer floral note. the juniper berries aren't as strong as i'd like, but they seemed to add a short-lived burst of something semi-citrusy.overall, this is way more floral than something i'd wear on a regular basis. ah, jasmine. i love you, but i hate you.

In the bottle, it smells flowery. I don't have that much experience with peonies as flowers (my mom grew them, but I never really noticed a smell to them), so to me it's something like a tea rose crossed with freesia. wet: very pink and sweet, full-bodied blossoms. dry: as it dries, the super floral explosion dies down a bit, and it smells more herbal (probably owing to the reeds & woods). It's more of a muted pink at this stage. Both stages are nice, but if you're afraid of the initial application scent, this dries down wonderfully to a much softer scent. Good throw, too.

I get an almost-soda smell out of Black Phoenix when it's wet.

I thought this was going to be the dealbreaker of the Maelström scents. Actually, it's quite nice. I usually can't wear iris because it ends up overwhelmingly loud & screamingly cloying, but it's a nice soft floral blend. The iris I think is in part tempered by the softer, sweet, powdery orris, and there's just a touch of the herbal essence of the sage. I'm not really smelling civet at all, which is probably more here in a fixative sense rather than a scent component. This is really nice & clean smelling. Not as fresh & wonderful as Berenice, but I can actually say that I would definitely wear this again.

In the bottle: it's powdery, sweet, mostly the sandalwood with a tinge of floral notes Wet: ambery, sandalwood. It's warm and slightly powdery. There's a touch of the jonquil. Dry: glorious ambery/sandalwoody/tobacco. Dry, warm, slightly incensey, with just a touch of sweetnest over the top. I can pick out the carnation a little bit better now, and just barely the rose. I'm not getting any patchouli really, so if you're afraid of that note, you might be able to wear this. This is SO good. I want all the bottles I can possibly hoarde.

... Bittersweet bay rum, bourbon, and a host of funeral flowers with a touch of graveyard dirt, magnolia and Spanish Moss. I had serious trepidation wearing this. I even bought a 5mL, so it must have /something/ I like in it... but I put off actually wearing it for so long. Wet: sweet florals, vague sugary alcohol notes, mossy/earthy basenotes Drydown: the flowers don't go too wild, nor does the alcohol. The alcohol smells less like booze after a while and the floral + sweet + dirt notes smells vagely like the Apothecary or some other more herbally brew, and it definitely has a memory-trigger type of effect. Overall, it doesn't seem to last very long on me, but maybe next time I'll try mixing it with perfumer's alcohol to see if I can get better coverage.

This was a bad experience for me. I had an imp, I thought I liked it, and bought a 10mL. I wore it and really couldn't remember what attracted me to it. It lists tons of things that I love to wear: rose, citrus, spices, almond and sandalwood. This on me turned cloyingly sweet. The neroli didn't soften like it usually does, the rose & sandalwood and spices were no where to be found, and the neroli & almond teamed up with every thing else to turn into EVIL. And to top it off, I had a migraine the day I wore it, so I couldn't ever smell it again without thinking MIGRAINE. So I got rid of my bottle. Maybe one day I'll get an imp of it by chance, and I'll change my mind about it. But for now, this is one of the few BPAL scents I don't want anywhere near me.

My initial notes on this say "spiced champagne." I never really tested out again, or thought about it until I heard that it contains coconut. THEN, my friends, I was on a mission! This starts out sparkly notes of alcohol (which is were I presume I got "spiced champagne" from), rum is the most evident. As the alcoholic notes fade away, it stays sweet, and the coconut and tonka come out to play, and there's just a wee touch of tobacco in the background. This is sweet, but sexy, and yummy all at the same time. I think (hope) that now I've actually tried this, I've ordered a 10mL. I can easily see myself making a nice spray and layering myself in a coat of this stuff!

Another of my favorites that I've neglected to review. What can I say? This is a blend of 4 of my 5 favorite notes (add red musk and I'd never leave the house). It's spicey. It's incensey. SEXY. Dark, mysterious, sultry. I love this scent. Most would consider this a wintery scent because of it's heavier & warmer notes, but I like wearing this all year round. In the summer, the scent just rolls off in dripping waves of luscious aroma. LOVE. And? Add a touch of DeSade and you might just hump your own arm!

Two Ways to Smell like Bubblegum by Diana, age 33. First method: walk into a drugstore. Buy several handfuls of "Bazooka Joe" bubblegum. The kind wrapped in colorful waxed paper. Go home. Undress. Chew several pieces at once. Once all the gum is sticky and wet, rub it all over your body, paying close attention to the pulse points. Then, take the waxed paper, and rub it over top, making sure you get all that powdery residue off the paper and onto your skin. Second method: Buy a bottle of Jailbait. Apply. This is the smell of pink, juicy, wet, sticky, powdery bubble gum. Nothing more to add. It's a great scent when you're feeling especially girly or silly. =)

I can't believe I haven't reviewed this... d'oh! This is one of my top 5 scents, too! This is like smelling a pitcher of ice cold, sugary sweet tea and a plate of sugar-coated lemon cookies sitting on a table, with a light breeze coming in through a window. It is sweet, and my overuse of the word "sugar" might have you believe that your teeth will fall out if you indulge in this scent, but it's a soft, cool sweetness. Underneath it all is the white musk, which has a (yes, this word again) sweet, almost creamy, skin-like softness to it. This is just gorgeous. Everyone compliments me when I wear it. And I've gone through almost an entire 10mL bottle in a year (I admit it, I'm a slatherer), even with over 200 other oils to choose from. This is just a classic, and one of my default, no-nonsense scents.

The first 10 imps of this that I'd get from the Lab or in swaps, I couldn't get rid of fast enough. For a good year and a few months, this to me was nothing but the scent of bandaids. Yes, plastic bandaids. Not even the fun ones with the little cartoon characters, or the glow-in-the-dark kind, either. Then I just decided, oh hell, and put some on, and mixed some together with Sin and Bengal. Well, I'll be damned. It *does* smell like leather. It's actually quite nice, too. I bought a 5mL to use as a basenote to layer with other scents, but this would do fine by me all on its own.

This is a scent that is quintessential autumn. It is very pumpkin-y. Like the scent of jack-o-lanterns that have sat outside all night, their orange flesh warmed by candles. When we were little, I'd always sprinkle the lid with cinnamon, and stick cloves into the underside so it would all warm up and have a nice spiced scent. This reminds me of that so much, but even richer. This scent has a definite "buttery" aspect to it. And unfortunately, my skin eats clove, so it's not exactly the same. But this is definitely like a jack-o-lantern in a bottle to me. edit: grammar

In the bottle: Whoa. Sweet. Wet: Almost overwhemlingly sweet from the honey & vanilla & dragon's blood. Drydown: The dragon's blood calms down and turns softer & more powdery and resiny rather than fruity/floral. The vanilla & honey mixture stay fairly sweet, but turn a bit more creamy with wear. It's very yummy smelling. It's not what I'd consider "foody," but if you're not a fan of the sweeter variety of vanilla blends (like Regan), you should probably give this one a miss.

This is my favorite Ars Draconis blend. in the bottle/wet: it's sweet; you can really pick up on the "fruity" notes from the dragon's blood drydown: omfg wow! the fruity-sweetness from the dragon's blood dies down a little bit, and turns into the soft powdery-sweetness that matches so well with musk. If you like heady, musky, sweet clouds of musky aroma, this is amaaaaaaazing. I am positive that one of the "five deep musks" is RED musk, which is my absolute favorite variety. (If you like Scherezade, you really should give this a try).

In the bottle: it's dry & powdery smelling Wet: subtle, powdery. It smells of amber, really. Drydown: still subtle, powdery. Like amber + dry herbs (or bark? I guess?). I don't really get a lot of "woodsy" or "green" out of this at all. The musk must be a pretty light one, or maybe it needs time to age a bit? Musk usually stands out on me really well, and I'm only barely detecting it. This is a lot softer than what I expected. It smells almost like an amber oil that I bought ages ago to mix with other oils to make my own scent, one which I wore constantly. It's ... pretty. I was expected something heavier, boozier, wilder, scarier. But my Old Man is tricky one to explain, as is this scent. And no, he's not an Orisha. One caveat: I had to put on a LOT to get any kind of throw off of this (which makes me glad I got a 10mL off the bat). tiny fixing edits.

P&tP isn't really like any of those, to my delicate noseholes, at least. It's more of a flat out resin with just a touch of a woodsy note to it. I think it's most like Midnight Mass out of any oil, I've tried. I am not sure how it compares to Cathedral, though, since it's been a while since I've tried that. To me, Scherezade is more of a red musk/saffron cloud, and Sin & Lust are heavier on patchouli and spice notes, not very resiny, either.