Shollin

First sniff: Wow. I’m normally not a huge fan of sandalwood, but Tushnamatay smells so much like the sandalwood massage oil my first serious boyfriend and I bought a zillion years ago… it’s very evocative of the warm, intoxicating, forbidden atmosphere of the hotel room we rented when he drove up to college to see me. It’s very slightly sweet, and has that raspy-dry feel sandalwood always has to my nose, but mostly it’s just heady stifling warmth and the intimidating but thrilling prospect of our first night alone together. (Apologies for the TMI implications.) Wearing: On my skin this is very soothing, which I wasn’t expecting after the scent-in-the-vial. It’s a deep, relaxing warmth – again I’m reminded of the Tayledras Vales from Mercedes Lackey’s books, the smooth stone and almost – but not quite – unbearable heat of the soaking-pools. I can’t pick out specific notes, and I’m quite possibly wrong about the sandalwood, but the colour of the scent (not the oil, the scent itself) is a deep, clear golden-brown, and it’s very smooth – no rough edges at all despite its somewhat incensey overtones. I really, really like this, and it might go into my “soothing scents to wear to bed” pile alongside Oneiroi and The Apothecary.

First sniff: Titania is fruity/floral – like someone cut a white melon in half and used it as a vase for a flower arrangement. It’s very juicy and just sweet enough. Wearing: Delicious – the initial aura is the scent of a perfectly ripe cantaloupe, and if I smell my wet wrists there’s an overlay of soft flower petals. I imagine this is the sort of scent that might linger even in daylight over a ring in the forest where the faeries dance.

First sniff: Djinn is a combination of midnight Mass incense and my parents’ fireplace when it isn’t lit. Dark grey and crumbly, with an odd lemony/soapy note hovering in the background. Wearing: Still grey and crumbly, but I agree with jj – this is far more a wake-of-destruction scent than the fireplace that needs to be cleaned. It’s making me think of ashes on snow – there’s no heat to it, the flames have long since died out – and once it dries past the old-fireplace scent it’s actually quite nice, and much lighter than I thought. I’m not sure I like it enough to keep, but I’ll try it on at least once more before I pass it along.

First sniff: Cold white fruit tossed on the banks of an angry river. Wearing: Grapefruit is what I smell strongest, and I swear there’s a whisper of white rose around it, though it’s not in the description. As it wore on, Megaera warmed up a lot and developed a beautiful round plumminess, which I enjoyed immensely. I might stage a face-off between Megaera and Kitsune-Tsuki one of these days, but for now it’s a keeper.

My favourite clean scents are Phantasm (soft misty lemon) and Oberon (which is more of a woodsy, rain-washed clean). Mad Hatter is another fantastic mint scent, if you liked Pain. There are several clean fresh "storm at sea" scents - Tempest, Lightning, Jolly Roger and, to a certain extent, the new Szepasszony all fall into that category for me.

First sniff: Nephilim confused the living heck out of my nose. It’s dry almost to the point of being astringent, with a breath of chill, lingering somewhere between greenness and woodiness. There’s definitely something in it that makes my nose cold, the same way Pain did, but I can’t pin down any specific notes. At the second “first sniff” the fig is very apparent, and I’m not sure why I couldn’t pick it out before – I suspect my nose was overwhelmed. Wearing: I still smell fig very strongly, brushed with dry lemon. Fig fig fig! Liking this much better on me than in my first first-sniff. It reminds me quite a bit of the flowiness of The Apothecary. After the first few minutes there’s something very dry and pungent under the fig… I suspect this is the frankincense asserting itself and reminding me that we don’t get along.

First sniff: Green wood and incense – very quiet with a touch of spice. I’m hoping the almonds will show up on my skin. There’s a roundness to Queen of Sheba that makes me think it’s fruity when it’s not. Wearing: Wandering through a crowded bazaar, pausing by the spice merchant’s stand and slipping into the shade of the tent to breathe in barrels full of ground spices from all over the world. The almonds are hiding somewhere in the midst of all that – not the sweet almonds of Seraglio and Voodoo, but a more straightforwardly dry nutty note. It’s pleasant enough, but I’m not blown away by it and wouldn’t mind swapping.

First sniff: Green herbs, almost citrusy in their sharpness, and something cooler flickering over the top that might be mint. I seem to smell the taste of lavender. Wearing: Definite greenery, and very cool. There’s a faint hint of lemon whispering underneath… getting stronger now that I’ve noticed it’s there. I like Arcana quite a bit – it’d make a fantastic shower-gel scent to wake you up. The lemon keeps crescendoing. I lost track of the scent for several hours while playing Magic… :sheepish grin: and by the time I sniffed my wrist again it had turned to something warm and furry and spicy and the lemon had faded altogether. The end result is very nice, and I’ll be wearing this again.

Aiya. You get everything sorted out and then something else blows up! Hope it fixes itself soon (and rather selfishly glad I got my Gloom order in Wednesday!)

Phantasm is my favourite wear-when-it's-too-muggy-to-be-legal scent. Phobos might be even better - it's cold on me rather than just crisp. Blood Rose is very juicy, but I wouldn't call it refreshing. Do you like mint? Pain or Mad Hatter might be worth a look. Cheshire Cat is very juicy and since it tends toward citrus it's more what I'd think of wearing in the heat. Let us know what you pick!

First sniff: The High Priestess has almond and mint, and there are other things here I can’t pin down. It’s a cool, shaded scent, and one I really like. (My bottle leaked a bit in transport and this is definitely the gorgeous cherry/mint scent I kept smelling while sorting out the package.) Wearing: It’s very crisp on my skin, an effect I always like. I can’t tell whether the thing I thought was almond before is almond or cherry – my nose often confuses the two. It’s greener and darker on me, and has the chilly-but-welcoming aura of an old stone church. The mint is a greener mint than I’m used to – more like the leaf-scent of the mint in Envy than the peppermint-stick mint of Mad Hatter. Sadly, on the way to work – less than an hour after application – it turned very weird on me, and not a good weird like Voodoo. It was like it had fermented. Pity, too, because the bottle is so ridiculously gorgeous I’m tempted to keep it just to look at. I might try it in my burner to see if it stays truer to the bottle-scent, which I really do adore.

Enjoy your vacation, Nella, and travel safe. And bless you for your part in my recent windfall - I'm flabbergasted!

First sniff: Everyone was SO RIGHT about Old Morocco. I haven’t even put it on and I love it. It’s warm without being overly spicy, exotic without being weird, sandy but not dusty, subtle but not shy. A while ago in a fit of wanting to get away from chemically-smelling stuff (this was before I met Lush) I bought an overpriced body lotion from The Thymes – the scent is called Filigree, and Old Morocco is what Filigree aspires to. Wearing: It’s sweeter on my skin, a sweetness of spices rather than honey or fruit. If the spice of Arrakis smells like this, no wonder it’s the most precious substance in the universe. The aura is just glorious, burnished bronze and smoky-warm.

First sniff: A rich cool berry scent, much more restrained than Bordello and cooler than Bewitched, with a whisper of green and craggy stone and an undertone of the sea. Wearing: Chilly… it’s reminiscent of the deeper-than-physical chill I felt at Culloden. A cold, remote winter-evening purple. It’s somehow not fruity even though the core is berry – what I call fruity scents are much sunnier than this, and Old Glasgow is all low-hanging clouds and wind-shredded wisps of mist around the mountains. This is not, at all, a bad thing. I LOVE the brooding Highland chill.

First sniff: Bright honeyed flowers – Old Athens almost smells like mead. Wearing: This is really beautiful, very sweet but not unpleasantly so, and definitely mead without spices. Very smooth and golden. I kept sniffing myself at work and smiling. Definitely a keeper.

First sniff: Cordelia is white rose embraced by a sweet kitchen spice… a really interesting combination. I can’t tell if it’s cinnamon or clove or something else similar, but it’s a sweet mulling-spices sort of scent dusted over the rose. Wearing: It’s more of a Red Hots cinnamon on my skin than the true cinnamon-bark scent in Harlot. I’m a bit confused because there’s nothing remotely cinnamony in the “ingredients” list, but apparently I’m not the only one who’s smelled cinnamon in this, so maybe my nose isn’t crazy after all. Both the cinnamon scent and the rose scent (of course there’s no rose in this either) faded quickly and left a pretty watery-flowers scent, somewhat reminiscent of the nonrosy part of Ophelia.

There's a Magdalene! I'll browse and drool properly when I get caught up on posts, but Magdalene must be mine. Beth, ke'chara, I'd ask you to marry me but I think Ted might object. I cannot WAIT to try all your new bits of genius.

Ooh ooh! Will the new scents be up next week? Really really? Damn. I'm going to be in Geek Heaven. Harry Potter, the new Magic expansion AND new stuff at the Lab... :swoon:

First sniff: Chilly white crispness of mint, colder, darker and more regal than Mad Hatter. If it’s possible for something to be white and dark at the same time, Pain is it. Wearing: There’s a sharpness to this scent that gives my nose a chilly tingle. I’m not in love with it immediately. The scent itself fades very quickly, but if I put my nose to my wrist I can still feel the tingle – I can’t smell anything, but it still makes my nose cold.

First sniff: PINE. Dark, stalwart, unmovable pine, just on the very edge of dusk – Loup Garou is not a sunny scent by any means, but it’s not quite mysterious enough to be a night forest. Wearing: I’m not entirely sure I like pine as a me-scent… it’s too dark and cold. There’s a hint of sweetness underneath, but it’s not me enough. (And clearly I can't tell the difference between juniper and pine. Oh well.)

First sniff: A fruitier, drier and sharper version of the plumeria I’m familiar with, which is not at all a bad thing – plumeria is usually too loudly sweet-floral for me. Kitsune-Tsuki has a touch of smoky mystery to it. Wearing: There’s a touch of fresh crispness, which is very nice and not something I was expecting from a round-fruity scent like this. It’s more floral on me, sweet and smooth and quietly beautiful. It doesn't leap out and grab me by the throat and demand YOU WILL LOVE ME NOW... it sits back waiting to be noticed, and keeps surprising me with its introverted beauty. (I'm quite the introvert meself so I appreciate these things!) I like muchly.

First sniff: Cherry lollipops. Very bright, very sweet, very fun. Kabuki is decidedly less sophisticated and rich than Old Kyoto – these are just cherries for cherries’ sake. Wearing: It tones down quickly on my skin, yay. There’s an odd dryness to it immediately – it switches from Extreme Juicy to desert air very quickly. I didn’t notice it very much at work, but before it faded off it developed an odd licorice-y aftertaste that I couldn’t really get into.

My mailbox was all mint and cherries when my last box showed up. Quite a different scent from the previous orders, and really lovely.

First sniff: Pure, sweet, gooey, drippy honey over a big bowl of fresh fruit, apples and blueberries. YUM. Wearing: Why oh why did I wait so long to order Jezebel? It’s absolutely decadent. Warm and gooey and not too screamingly sweet. Amazing staying power, though it’s a bit odd – if I’m sniffing my wrist it's very faint, but every so often even after twelve hours or so I catch a whiff of the utterly intoxicating aura. This one’s a definite keeper.

Hey lady! Do we need to bug you about it if they didn't spill much, just so you have some idea of how widespread the problem is? I know my High Priestess' label came off, but there's barely a dent in the oil level...