marared

Fir and mint - natural mint like the herb, not the sugared mint in candy and chocolate. I kept wondering why I smelled mint when there isn't any in the notes listed, and thought maybe I'd gotten a bit of Lick It on my finger from sniffing it just before testing this, but obviously I'm not the only one! Fir, mint, and just a whiff of berry. There is a bit of cedar and sandalwood when it's wet - but it fades almost immediately into mint.

Rain and dust. Not cold rain, though - warm rain, on a path somewhere in Thailand, Vietnam, etc, with a vague hint of incense in the distance. I can see how the scent translates into grapefruit for some people - it does have a mild tang to it that's almost citrus, but it's part of the rain scent to it. It's a very pleasant and mild scent, and I think it would be best for evocative purposes - meditating, sitting down and writing, activities along those lines. Oof, gotta edit - it ended up going sour on my skin after about an hour. Very sad.

Glasgow is my favorite berry scent, although it is not especially blackberryish eight months after purchase - fresh, though, it's like walking past a blackberry bush.

Frimp from the lab, which sent me several fruity type things this time around. I liiiike this one. I wouldn't say it smelled like a martini so much as a pomegranate *soda* -- I don't really get any booze in this scent (which is good, because booze and I generally don't get along), but it has the dry sweetness of a good pop that hasn't been overwhelmed with sugar. I almost even smell lime in this. I'm not suuure I want a bottle, but it's going on the tentative list.

Man, I was so disappointed - I had such high hopes for this and it smells terrible on me. It's a very bitter woodsy smell, and it isn't the balsam, so maybe it's the cypress or the artemesia -- the latter of which is described on wikipedia as also being "bitter," so that might be the culprit. It's also very hard to wash off - I still get a whiffs after scrubbing. I'm going to let it sit for a few weeks, as I do with all scents that don't work on me right away, but I'm pretty sure this is going to hit the swap pile.

Fresh decant. This is leather and sage and no Snake Oil that I can detect yet -- it's definitely an *evocative* scent and calls up lots of interesting images, but not really a *perfume* scent for me, and consequently not a bottle purchase. I've read many comments noting that this gets substantially better with age, though, so I'm going to hang on to the imp and check it again in a few months.

Testing a fresh decant. Oof. I've heard of scents turning to soap on people, and I've occasionally gotten a vague soapy whiff from other scents, but this is the first time I've had an oil go straight to Ivory soap on my skin. I put it on, and it was initially a nice woody Snake Oil with a tiny bit of floral in the background. Mild and hangs close to the skin, but very nice. Within five minutes, SOAP. Wow.

I've had this on my wishlist for a while because the notes seemed like something I would reeeeally like - patchouli and pomegranate? Should be made of WIN on my skin! Alas, on my skin the cassia has stampeded all over everything else, almost obscuring even the dragon's blood (which is a pretty loud note in its own right), and it turns to overly sweet cinnamon incense. This makes me sad, as it confirms that I need to avoid cinnamon and cassia.

Snake Oil with sugar cane, frankincense, champaca, opoponax, labdanum, and hyssop. Decant. Holy champaca and sugarcane. This one is totally the diva of the Snakes that I've smelled so far - it sashays right up and smacks you in the face. I don't get nearly as much of the incense as everyone says, but I think that will develop in the scent as it ages. As strongly floral as it is, I'm surprised I don't dislike it. I'm definitely going to get good use out of the imp over time, but I don't really want a bottle.

Decant. This is bright and fruity right out of the imp, but not obnoxiously fruity, which is a good thing. It dries to smoked vanilla with a bit of fruit in the background - the astringency of fresh Snake Oil probably makes up a significant portion of this particular scent right now. I'm debating whether or not to get a bottle, because I really like it and it has the potential to age amazingly well, but it also has the potential to start turning sour. It keeps reminding me a bit of Gunpowder without the maple, which unfortunately did sour on my skin.

I was a little afraid of this one due to the booze, because I could smell it in the background in the imp, but on me, surprisingly, there was no booze at all that I could detect. It smelled like a nice light mint for about ten minutes, and then it ... disappeared. This one might be interesting for layering purposes, though - I must experiment!

Antikythera Mechanism, without question. It's the most "masculine" vanilla I've smelled so far, and it's SO good.

This is SO yummy, and that's just the fresh bottle. It's a nice DARK chocolatey aroma, not the milky sweet stuff. I can't wait to see what this smells like in two months...

A frimp! I had never considered this for myself because the notes didn't sound like something I'd like - dirt and booze tend to be dealbreakers. In this, I can smell the dirt on immediate application, but it's quickly relegated to the background behind the flowers. I can still tell it's there, but it's not *dirty* -- nor is it boozy. Booze oftentimes goes really sour on me, but so far this comes off as a bitter floral, which is actually kinda cool. I don't think this is going to be a bottle purchase, but I'm definitely going to enjoy the imp from time to time.

This was a frimp. I normally haven't done well with the Excolo scents - I've tried a few of them, and there's invariably something that's turned me off, or they just weren't suitable on me to wear as perfume. This might be the exception to the rule - it's like Lightning/Tempest but with cotton in it, and I like cotton, but it's hard to find one that doesn't go straight into my sinuses. I can smell fruit sitting in the background, but it's a light sparkly fruit that doesn't demand your attention. I'm not sure I'd call this salty; saltwater smells are not this heavy, and they tend to have a background aroma of decay, especially near harbors and piers. This would be great for dryer sheets, I'd love it if my laundry smelled like this.

I just got a backup bottle of Mead Moon, and the background color of the label is brown, whereas my original bottle - the background color is black to the point that the honeycomb is very hard to pick out. The bottle currently on ebay is also a black label. I was going to ask how often that happened, and it seems from this thread that it's not uncommon at all to get slightly different labels.

Frimp from a few weeks ago. This doesn't smell like smoke or ashes or anything burnt, at least not on me; it smells like old pine or one of those other particularly fragrant trees/shrubs. It smells like I took a walk through wet woods hours ago, pushing branches out of my way, and the sap/resin left behind on my skin has dried and faded. I understand the Comet cleanser reference, although it doesn't quite have that same overwhelming chemical smack.

Freebie imp, and this one has a huge throw -- I opened the box and went "hooooooly jasminehoneysuckledragonsblood" (not being entirely sure which it was). It immediately reminded me of Ladon, without the apple. If there are spices in this, I can't really smell them, because the flowers are so overpoweringly sweet, almost to the point of cloying. It's a very pretty smell, but it's way too strong and way too flowery to actually wear.

Bottle: totally lavender, but the herby lavender rather than the floral lavender, which is generally softer and gentler. On me: I am assuming that's Dorian that I smell, because there's not a trace of Snake Oil that I can pick up - of course, it being fresh, that may not be the case in two months, but right now it's mostly sweet (but not syrupy sweet) lavender tea with a gentle background of vanilla. This is very interesting. Into the aging box with this one...

08: This unfortunately does not work on my skin. It starts out nice enough - lots of sugar, fruity syrup, fun to sniff. It progresses into burnt sugar after a little while, but still tasty. After about fifteen minutes, it goes SOUR. Like, ewgetitoffme sour. I tend to avoid super-sugary scents, but don't have much BPAL-sugary experience, so this was kind of an experiment, and I think I shall continue avoiding it!

There's rose in this? Huh. I can't smell it at all, which is a first for any blend with rose in it. All I can smell is a light floral and the sandalwood - no tobacco, no chocolate, no resin, no rose, maybe a bit of frankincense. Yeah, the frankincense starts ripening after a bit. Sweet and pretty. Oops - THERE'S the rose. Took a few minutes for that to come out. The other notes hold it down and keep it from becoming overwhelming on my skin, though, as rose is wont to do.

Just as an FYI, Fearful Pleasures should be on the caution list for anyone with spice sensitivities. I do not generally have any issues with the oils (other than breakouts on my neck), but I found that FP caused a burny sensation inside my elbow that was slightly uncomfortable and stingy for a good five or ten minutes. It seems to be okay on my wrists, but be careful with more delicate skin!

Frimp from the lab. The musk and the spices are very good, but as usual, I amp the rose to immense proportions and that's ALL I can smell - even two hours later, there's a persistent cloud of rose stamping down everything else that might lurk in the blend.

For all the notes in this, all I got right off the bat was pumpkin and strawberry, which was kinda neat. Once it had time to dry, my skin has started pumping up the rose over the pumpkin, and now it's just strawberry rose. I can sort of pick up the red musk as well. It's no surprise that the fig can't fight its way through all the stronger scents, but it's odd that I can't smell the jasmine, which is usually heady enough to announce itself. It's definitely an interesting scent, and I kinda like it, but I don't think I like it enough to keep. I'll check it again in a few weeks, though.

Right off the bat, it smelled like carrot cake to me - carrot and sweet molasses and maple. As it dries, the carrot is less prominent and less sweet. The molasses/maple went to the background, and I now get the hay and the chaff -- in short, it turns into slightly sweet grains, kind of a good maple & brown sugar oatmeal just out of the pot. There's almost no wood in this that I can detect.