Shollin

First sniff: Oh, swoon. Gloriously spicy vanilla flowers. Wearing: Hod is so amazingly beautiful… warm and enveloping and carnation-spicy, with a vanilla undertone. Love love love.

The embodiment of Classic masculinity. A warrior's scent: the green hills and grasses of the battlefields, the resinous incense from the prayers to his Gods, and a touch of the musky leather of his armor. Ambergris and frankincense with sage, and basil. First sniff: Not what I was expecting. It’s a bright but gentle lemony-herbiness. Wearing: There’s no question this is a man’s scent, but it’s not the typical cologney/aftershavey sort of thing. It’s deeper, more self-assured. I haven’t tried on anything with frankincense in quite some time, because it always hates me, but this time it seems to be behaving. I like this quite a lot and will add it to the “try on my guy” pile.

First sniff: In the vial, it’s… not particularly promising. There’s a hint of cinnamon underneath something dark that my nose really doesn’t like. Wearing: Oh, this is better. It’s gone all nutty. Maybe even hazelnut, with still a dash of cinnamon underneath.

First sniff: Men’s cologne, with a lovely subtle freshness. Wearing: I generally feel slightly out of place wearing these sorts of scents, as if I should be wearing a suit and tie. There’s an odd whiff that smells almost like chlorine if I sniff my wrist, but for the most part it’s very nice.

First sniff: Hmm. Apparently swallows and dragons have very similar-smelling blood. Who knew? Wearing: As I may have mentioned once… or twice… a minute… all summer (with apologies to the Weasley twins), I’m moving across the country in a couple of weeks, and I intend to dab this on the St. Christopher medal I have hanging in my car – and possibly on the bulkhead of the moving truck, if I can be sneaky about it. And now that I’ve tried it on, it’s going in my suitcase and coming with me, because on top of its mystical properties it smells Really Damn Good on me. I my dragon’s blood. There’s a bit of powdery-flowery-ness in here too, but it’s not overwhelming… at least until it dries, and then that’s all it smells like. Ah well. I only have a little driblet anyway – I can probably use that up in the move.

First sniff: Many different kinds of soft spring flowers… at twilight, when all the colours wash out and they become the same shade of pale. Wearing: SO very floral, and slightly powdery – here’s hoping that slightly doesn’t go more pronounced as it dries. It’s a me sort of floral, not too girly, and it’s much less pale on my skin than in the bottle. I can pick out rose and jasmine, but they’re not screaming at me.

First sniff: This is very interesting. I was expecting fire and brimstone and I’m getting the Elysian Fields. It’s a light, warm, herbal resin. Wearing: This is really nice – it’s resiny without being too incensey, with the slightest touch of sweetness. Unfortunately, it gets sweeter as it dries, and I’m fairly certain it’s responsible for the headache I had all last night at work.

First sniff: Deep, rich, moist earth, earth that feeds the roots of a plum tree bursting with low-hanging fruit that smells ever so faintly of vanilla. Her Majesty is going to be an interesting experience. Wearing: Deep rich red-purple, velvety-smooth but with the faintest alcoholic sharpness. It’s primarily a fruit scent, but there’s a lot going on here.

First sniff: Dark, dark mint. Gomorrah makes me think of walking through an herb garden in the middle of a moonless night. There’s something ever-so-slightly anise-y in the afterscent… I’m hoping that stays in the background. Wearing: The fig is very present on my skin, round and ripe and almost syrupy. Fig always does weird things on me. I can’t tell what it is until I know it’s there, and then it seems to be the dominant note. Fortunately, I like it.

(Note: I wrote the "first sniff" review long long before an official description was posted...) First sniff: Pick three or four different things you can eat at a carnival or an amusement park or a festival… three or four things that are absolutely horrid for you and have no nutritional value whatsoever, like cotton candy and funnel cake and those massive buttery soft pretzels with the big chunks of salt… blend them up and stick them in a bottle, and you’ll have Midway. It’s the perfect blend of sweet and salty, with a healthy dollop of vanilla, and I want to roll in it and put it in an oil warmer and make my whole world smell like this. But at the same time I’m a little afraid of it, because things that smell like this always make me hungry for things I shouldn’t be eating. Wearing: It’s such a warm, round, glorious scent – not too buttery, not too sweet, just so, so rich.

First sniff: Floral, oh my yes – Seduction reminds me quite a bit of Wicked, because the primary notes seem to be rose and jasmine, but there’s a lot more going on in this one… just beneath the surface of slightly powdery flowers, this scent smoulders. Wearing: There’s one note in here that’s a little bit “off” to my nose right when this is applied… not sure what it is. But overall, Seduction is a much fresher floral than I expected, less powdery on my skin. Very pretty.

Corazon made me capable of going to work when I was having a truly craptacular day several weeks ago.

First sniff: Oh, this one makes me smile. Lustration is very happily herbal, with a tinge of mint but mostly just undefinable green herbs in the sun under a lemon tree. This makes perfect sense as a purification blend… it’s wonderfully fresh, clean and refreshing. Wearing: This is a more lemon-drop-y lemon than the fresh citrus of something like Phantasm, but I’ve yet to smell a Lab blend that did the Lysol thing, thankfully.

First sniff: Pinestraw. How very odd… Succor smells to me like nothing so much as pinestraw mulch – that heavy, earthy, almost pungently sharp scent. (I wrote down my “first sniff” impressions quite a while before seeing other reviews – sniffing it again, yup, that’s olive all right.) Wearing: Boy howdy, is that ever olive. I don’t like eating olives and I don’t like smelling like them either. I can’t really speak to the aromatherapeutic properties of Succor – the olive scent is just too distracting.

First sniff: Tangerine! Or clementine, or some other citrus fruit that’s related to an orange but isn’t quite. That’s by far the sharpest note. There might be some grapefruit peel in here too. Moxie is seriously gorgeous. Wearing: I’m just sitting here smiling. No wonder Josey talks about this one in big orange letters.

First sniff: WINE wine wine wine wine wine wine. Did I mention wine? Madrid is superboozy. Wearing: Bright, boozy, fruity WINE… though it doesn’t smell like any red wine I’ve ever tasted – it’s way too bright. Actually, if I could find a red wine that tastes like Madrid smells, I’d probably like red wine a lot more – it’s usually too dark and dry.

First sniff: Blast. All I can smell in the vial is vetiver. I was hoping the other ingredients, all of which I adore, would dominate. Wearing: Well, this is more promising… the immediate wet aura is nothing but dragon’s blood. And as it dries, the vetiver lives up to its swarthy reputation and takes over. Mrf.

First sniff: Lemon and mint? Lime and mint? Some kind of citrus and mint. It’s very bright, and decidedly showy. Wearing: No, it’s not mint, it’s juniper – which always smells like pine on me. Lime and pine. Interesting combination, and still very very bright.

Got this decant from the lovely blackrayne. First sniff: A dark, ominous floral. Wearing: Rosey and deep – the aura is just beautiful, rich and enveloping. I’m very glad The Coveted Black Widow works on me, 'cause florals are usually a toss-up.

First sniff: Prague is a cold floral – brand-new spring flowers shivering under an unexpected April snow. Wearing: Flowers and snow and chill breezes. It’s ever so slightly aquatic, and sadly, goes soapy after just a few minutes.

First sniff: Very, very subtle. Santo Domingo is very faintly green, and very faintly lemony, but in the vial it’s only a suggestion of a scent. Wearing: It’s stronger on my wrists… unfortunately, it’s also less pleasant. Too sweet-floral.

Butterfly Effect CXXXIV (134): First sniff: It’s so pretty. Very much fruity, with maybe a tiny hint of mint, and I think there’s white musk in here too. Wearing: Combine a spearmint Tic Tac with a fruit-flavoured hard candy. That’s the closest I can get to what my Butterfly Effect smells like. As it dries the fruit overtakes the mint - I smell grapes at this stage, white ones. And I was right at first sniff – definitely white musk, dewdrop-shimmery. I’m decidedly pleased. Will update later if it changes or I think of anything else.

First sniff: Slightly powdery, sweet floral with lotus. Wearing: Eh. It’s OK, but not something I’d choose to wear. Just too floral and too lotus-y. I don’t get any citrus.

First sniff: So incredibly not what I was expecting. Knowing Satyr was once lumped in with Czernobog and Puck as a “penis-oriented” scent, I figured it would be black musk and civet and would smell like animals in rut. What I’m getting is… cinnamon and incense, and maybe a little bit of grape? Wearing: It’s a very odd soft spice scent. I say “very odd” only because it’s SO not what I was expecting… for the most part it smells like a spice-based herbal tea. And once it dries a little, creeping in around it… gosh, what could that be, a thick black funk that I seem to taste as I smell… ah yes, my old nemesis, we meet again. Oh well. It surprised me for a good ten minutes, at least.

First sniff: A tentative sniff… “Oh,” I exclaim wide-eyed, dipping the wand back to sniff again and again. “Oh, that’s really nice.” Florals don’t do this to me, people! I know a tea rose is a specific type of the flower, but I swear I smell white tea in here. Um, yeah, so I look back at the description and the reason I smell white tea is because it’s the first note listed… I must have been thinking of London with the tea rose. Yes, so… tea and flowers, apparently, make my nose ecstatic in a way that flowers by themselves don’t. Wearing: I never expected to like Maiden as much as I do. It’s a very gentle scent, but with the tiniest kick of spicy carnation. The tea seems to be dominant. It’s very pretty, and very feminine – without being too girly.