Shollin

First sniff: It’s perfume and dirt. I can’t get my nose around what the non-dirt part smells like, because the dust blows up all around it and subdues whatever else is there… but it might be a vanilla floral, deeper than Antique Lace.

 

Wearing: The dust seems to vanish on my skin, and the rest of it is really nice – rich and not-too-sweet, a bit fruity.

First sniff: Lavender and cinnamon! Herbal-sharp and spicy.

Wearing: Ack. On my skin it morphs instantly into Big Red gum. Fortunately there seems to be no throw at all – I’ll just avoid sniffing my wrists for a while. It got a bit more lavender-y before it vanished, but overall I was underwhelmed.

First sniff: Hovers right on the line between aquatic and medicinal. It’s joltingly refreshing. My nose is cold.

 

Wearing: I really can’t get a handle on this one. It’s sweet and light, but maybe a little too sweet… hey, is that apple blossom? Interesting!

First sniff: I have a hard time pinning this one down. It trips my men’s-aftershave trigger immediately, but it’s (of course) more complex. Bright aqua-blue and chilly.

 

Wearing: Hrm. From men’s aftershave to aquatic floral, sort of an ozoney turquoise. It wore off fairly quickly, but I’m used to that with aquatics. Very nice while it lasted.

First sniff: A fantastically soft blanket of deep purple blossoms. I could happily roll around in this.

 

Wearing: Oh BABY. Orchid is one of my favorite floral scents, and this is just gorgeous. It’s very close-clinging, not much waft… someone would have to get right up to my neck to smell it, but I’m OK with that.

TEH SMUT! I’ve been dying to try this one. (And my label shows two lovely ladies canoodling. Woohoo!)

 

First sniff: Wow. OK. When a scent immediately makes you go slack-jawed and drooling… Mother of Pearl, this is fantastic. It’s quite boozey – I wonder if my label ladies had a bit of the liquid courage before they scampered off to their corner – but the booziness is gliding on top of something deep and dark and sensuous and wonderful.

 

Wearing: This is way boozey, but holy wow, the base is incredible. The booze burns off quickly, hallelujah! leaving that gorgeous rich deep sugared musk. Love.

First sniff: This… may not work. It appears to be utter jasmania in the bottle. It’s rather restrained for jasmine, in that it isn’t attempting to climb up my nose and shriek its jasmininity into my brain, but it’s still quite sweet.

 

Wearing: Serious jasmine. Jasmine, jasmine and more jasmine. I was going to write it off as just too much jasmine, but… it seems to be a rather nice noncloying variety, more Alkmaar than Flying Fox. It still isn’t one I’ll wear often, but it’s nice enough to hang onto a wee bit. Yay for restrained jasmine!

First sniff: This is… this is… confusing the hell out of me, is what it is. Roses and resins? Two of the most hit-or-miss scent categories ever. So why do I adore this? It smells delicious. And juicy. A ripe fruit with the scent of the most perfect rose.

 

Wearing: I’m still getting that inexplicable juiciness. The roses are definitely there, but the scent is so oddly fruity. It’s very strange for a rose scent, and I really, really like it.

First sniff: Oh, this is lovely. (And it’s by far my favorite of all the Valentine labels, naughty pictures in black-and-white notwithstanding.) It’s softly, sweetly floral, shadowed but glittering.

 

Wearing: Hmmm. Very, very white-floral, and a little bit soapy. Dang. And yet… after a couple of hours of sweet-soap-flowers, it settles down into a gorgeous calm whiteness. I’ll have to try it again and see if the end result is worth the wet stage…

First sniff: This is utterly feral. I know Beth has an official Lykanthropos scent in the big upcoming list of joy, and I know the Luperci have nothing to do with werewolves (wolves yes, weres no), and maybe this is just because I’m smelling it on full moon, but… this scent very much says werewolf to me. Earthy and woodsy and musky and wild.

 

Wearing: The sun-dappled heart of the forest, and a brush of honeyed musk. Unusual, beautiful… and dangerous.

Every time I see this bottle now I end up whispering “’Cause you’re a ho!” to myself and giggling. Thanks ever so to whichever Labbie brought us that particular pronunciation.

 

First sniff: Ooh. I saw flowers upon flowers upon flowers and was a bit nervous, but this is lovely, rich and deep and sweet.

 

Wearing: Thoroughly rich and round and wonderful. It’s an enveloping hug of a scent that leaves you wondering about the hugger’s intentions towards you. The floral is entirely afterthought – the ’ho is more gourmand than anything else, though it’s not something I’d describe as “foody.” It’s just rich and warm and happy.

I was lucky enough to receive a bottle of the unreleased BPAL version of Arabian Nights. I haven't tried the TAL oil, so I can't comment on any similarities... but this stuff rules.

 

First sniff: This is so cliché, but the one word that comes to mind is: exotic. Spices and powders and maybe a little rose? It smells like faraway and reminds me a bit of Silk Road, minus any hint of almond.

 

Wearing: It’s still a bit rosey, but the primary floral note feels more like carnation – there’s a lot of spice under the surface. It makes me think of Aladdin’s marketplace. And it dries down to a glorious red-musk warmth. I adore this.

 

NOTE: This topic is for an unreleased, "perfume-only" prototype. If you're looking for the Twilight Alchemy Lab oil of the same name, those reviews can be found here.

First sniff: *happy sigh* I don’t know how a scent can be so plain and still so gorgeous. Roman Chamomile is thoroughly plain-Jane. It’s calm and quiet and understated. There’s a bit of a “cleanness” to it, but overall, it’s decidedly neutral. And yet it’s utterly lovely.

 

Wearing: Understated gorgeousness. I love.

First sniff: *cower* I’m sorry, Lady! I didn’t order you with your sisters at the Muses’ debut, because it sounded like you wouldn’t love me as much as they would… and you’ve obviously developed a grudge, because several months later you’re trying to beat me to death with lemon peels!

 

Wearing: Very high-pitched insistent lemon. It reminds me of the soprano frozen lemon of Yuki-Onna. The orris and rosemary are what kept me away from Poly back in November, but lemon is definitely the villain here.

First sniff: Dark, dark brownish-green. It seems no one else is getting vetiver, but that's what it reminded me of. There’s a cooler, lighter note on top, but vetiver almost always ruins scents for me.

 

Wearing: Resins and mint? Dark and bright. The mint is quite strong when wet, but as this dries it doesn't make much of an impression.

First sniff: Very fruity! Fruity and wet and crisp. Wow.

 

Wearing: I’ve always rather liked the Hanged Man… sure he’s in a bit of an awkward situation, dangling upside-down by one foot, but he seems to be pretty cool with it. The scent very much reminds me of his attitude – it’s very laid-back. I can’t pin down specific notes, but it’s slightly sweet, fruity and round. Very nice.

First sniff: I saw the violet and rose and shied away… but the primary thing I smell in the vial is MINT. Ubermint with a very wet background that reminds me of cucumbers.

 

Wearing: It’s impressively minty, but the flowers are beginning to peek out around the edges. It settled into minty roses before it faded completely, which happened too fast because I didn’t trust it to behave and only put it on one wrist. That’ll show me. It was quite nice.

First sniff: Very reminiscent of Cathedral and Aureus – strong woody incense. I hereby predict that it won’t work on me as those two didn’t.

 

Wearing: Yerk… immediately sharp-sweet, headachey incense. Sometimes I hate being right.

First sniff: It feels like Budding Moon should smell more like flowers, but this is all fruit. Early-season green fruit just barely beginning to swell. It’s cool and refreshing and really gorgeous.

 

Wearing: Budding Moon = love. Soft plum and greenness and spring breezes. It’s phenomenally beautiful.

First sniff: Darkness and resins and… is that cinnamon?

 

Wearing: I’m officially weird. Malkuth smells like cinnamon apple incense.

First sniff: A heavy aura of rose soap.

 

Wearing: Soapy roses. Bleah.

First sniff: Lily-flavored bubblegum. …What? I swear that’s what it smells like. It’s mostly lily, but there’s something in here that makes it very sweet and very PINK.

 

Wearing: It’s just really really sweet. No soapiness, as I usually get with lily, but it’s too sweet for me to wear.

First sniff: Rosey! Wow, imagine that! They’re very green roses, though, as if they’re not quite ripe. The rose equivalent of a green-tinged banana.

 

Wearing: Green roses on my wrist, which was rather nice, but I had a weird sickly-sweet aura hanging around me for most of the day. However… I showered with Villainess’ Datura Smooch! this morning, and I remember odd scent-happenings last time I did that, ‘cause it clung like mad and turned everything way-too-sweet… so I’m putting Chuparosa aside to try again later, and I suspect we’ll get along better next time we meet.

First sniff: Rather unfortunately, this smells like nothing but cherry cough syrup, right down to the sharp edges.

 

Wearing: There’s a very strong cherry-almond edge, but fortunately the center is less sticky than it was in the vial. It’s bright, bright red and just this side of sickly-sweet. And it didn’t stick to me for more than a couple of hours, so the drydown never really got a chance to redeem itself.

Along those lines...

 

I've just pinned a topic in the main Reviews forum with links to all the too-short-to-search review threads. Alas, because of the setup, it's down at the very very bottom under all the subforums... so I figured I'd put a pointer to it here.

 

Hope you find it useful.