Shollin

First sniff: This is a seriously heavy floral that smells like an expensive-bath-stuff store. It reminds me of Crabtree & Evelyn.

Wearing: A heavy, oppressive floral that very quickly went powdery. I’m not terribly surprised, as violet hates me.

First sniff: Oh yeah. Soapy and hollow. I suspected sweet pea was the culprit that messed up Juliet and Aeval on my skin, and now I’m positive I was right.

Wearing: Yech. Just yech. Plain icky soapy soap.

First sniff: This is the note I most often recognise as lily. It’s also, I suspect, the lily note that most often goes soapy on me.

Wearing: Well, there was a moment of strong soapiness, but it faded very quickly into a gorgeous rich floral sweetness. And yet there’s something in most lily blends that goes straight to soap on me. Maybe someday I’ll track it down.

First sniff: Definite cherries! It’s softly sweet, not bright in-your-face maraschino.

Wearing: After a moment on my skin, it goes softly floral, and a teensy bit soapy – which fortunately stays teensy. It ends as a soft-sweet floral happiness.

First sniff: Oooh. It’s a men’s-cologne-aftershave ozoney sort of fragrance, but the really good kind. Very aqua-blue.

Wearing: Yup, it really is a salt-air scent. I smell like the ocean. Love it.

First sniff: In the vial, it’s all rose. A big pile of soft roses, with maybe the tiniest hint of something darker underneath.

Wearing: Hasn’t changed much from the vial-scent. I’m surprised the leather isn’t coming out more. The final drydown is a glorious wet rose, velvet-soft and quite reminiscent of Rose Red… which I adore. A keeper.

First sniff: I’ve blamed ylang ylang for ruining a few floral blends for me, but this doesn’t seem to be the culprit. The vial-scent reminds me of frozen roses. It’s greener than rose, colder and not as soft, but their scents seem to be related the way cherry and almond are.

Wearing: Well, maybe it’s the culprit after all. It’s quite sharp on me, and much less rosy.

Incidentally, I have a very hard time seeing the name of this scent without bursting into song. "He's so fine (ylang ylang ylang), wish he were mine (ylang ylang ylang)..."

Ahem. Back to your regularly scheduled insanity.

First sniff: Super-light, super-soft and very sweet. I tend to think of wisteria as this crazy purple plant that tries to take over the universe – I’ve seen it growing rampant over old buildings on the Eastern Shore, and my mom had a vine that was hellbent on eating our house, thwarted only by the siding – so it strikes me as deceptively soft and sweet.

Wearing: Oh yeah, watch out for this one. It’ll lure you in with its alluring soft sweet scent and seduce you into its plot to rule all of Metropolis. (Yes, wisteria is very pretty, but I still think it’s evil. Or at least overly ambitious.)

First sniff: It’s so light and shimmery I can barely smell it. I might have guessed it was some kind of pale citrus if I hadn’t looked at the label.

Wearing: Oh, what a difference my skin makes! It’s still light and shimmery, but now has a fantastic presence. Like the Siberian musk I tried on earlier, I have a hard time distinguishing “what this smells like” from “damn, I smell good.”

The lighter musks really do seem to be perfect skin scents on me – I sometimes have issues with black musk, but I’m pretty sure every other kind I’ve tried has been truly swoonworthy. (Now I just gotta get my hands on the red musk SN…)

I’m wearing five different scents right now (see here for a rundown) and this is the one I can’t keep my nose away from. Man, this is good.

First sniff: Blue cough drops. It’s way medicinal, with a tinge of funkiness underneath. Not gonna like this one.

Wearing: Hey, whaddayaknow, I was right. Though now it smells more like wintergreen gum and whatever the funkiness is. Very wintergreen. I’m not a fan.

First sniff: Clear blue-green water, and the flowers that grow along its banks.

Wearing: “You got your sweet floral in my aquatic ozone!” “You got your aquatic ozone in my sweet floral!” I can’t figure out which is dominant, and it’s not quite me, but it’s pretty nonetheless.

For whatever it's worth, I got no vetiver at all, and vetiver usually goes majorly swampy-gross on me.

First sniff: Oh, swoon. This is a warm soft bearhug musk, just dark enough to remind me of body heat.

Wearing: It’s a perfect skin scent. I can’t explain what it smells like – I just know I smell really damn good.

First sniff: Salamander is a contradiction in a bottle as far as my nose is concerned. To me, it smells cold… cold enough to burn. Coldly spicy. Arrogant, astringent cold.

Wearing: It’s still just bizarrely cold. I think the astringency is what’s making me think that, because it affects my nose (physically, I mean) the same way mint does, that odd tingly almost-numbness just inside. And as it dries… wow. From ice to fire. The drydown reminds me very much of my sister’s spice mix for chai – sweet cinnamon, ginger and black pepper. I like this. I have to send it back, sadly, but it’s made me want to revisit Eclipse and Chimera to see if I can recapture the same sort of idea.

First sniff: Knowing Pulse Points has civet, I approached with caution. But it’s pretty mellow – more of a soft dark musk scent, with more dark softness on top.

Wearing: I’m actually not getting much of an impression, which is a very odd way for civet to behave on me. Just a close, heavy darkness.

First sniff: Happy for SAD! This is the bitter citrus note in Lush’s purple shower gel.

Wearing: It’s quite bitter, but somehow without being sharp. As it dries it shifts into more of a quiet floral and gets quite a bit more perfume-y, though not in a bad way. The end stage is lovely, soft and sweet and floral.

I think the imp I got is having a really bad hair day, because it's nothing like what y'all have described. And I'm ever so jealous.

First sniff: Oh. That’s… um… *chokes* I’m glad I haven’t smelled this in anything else. Madrid was awesome on me, though I know a lot of people had problems with it, and if this was dominant, I… well, I can see why. It’s… yeah, it’s pungent. Strong and sharp and pungent.

Hopefully y’all will appreciate this. I have a policy of trying everything on. Yup, everything. But I didn’t want this stuff anywhere I’d be smelling it for long, or by accident… so I swiped a little bit on my left ankle. And so…

Wearing: Gah. Just… yech. No skin-chemistry miracles for this one. I’m very thankful it doesn’t take over the blends it’s in.

First sniff: The Magician is… mysterious. Citrusy and herbal, but shadowed.

Wearing: There’s a very strong, almost sharp wood note in the background during the wet stage, but it fades quickly. There’s a faint licorice scent, too. And – ooh, this is fun – it appears to be having some kind of adverse physical effect on my wrist. It’s stinging a bit. First oil that’s done that to me, and as far as I can tell there’s no cinnamon or anything else that generally bites people. The Mage and I are not destined to get along, it seems.

First sniff: Wet bubblegum! This is exactly the fake-sweet scent I get from a lot of the lotus blends.

Wearing: Yup, very much bubblegum. Pink juicy bubblegum.

First sniff: Light, fresh and airy, with a little bit of soapiness.

Wearing: Lightly, sweetly floral, and slightly powdery. It goes pure violet powder for a little while as it dries, but the final version is gorgeous. Softly sweet and almost foody.

First sniff: Chilly incense, and a little bit of spice.

Wearing: I’m thinking the darkness underneath might be vetiver, but it’s nicely restrained. Very much cinnamon on top.

Not having access to the powder and incense in question, or to white and pink candles, I couldn't use this properly. But I did try it on at night.

First sniff: Sweet, green, herbal mint.

Wearing: This is almost crème de menthe-y on my skin. It’s a gorgeous sweet mint with a hint of darkness underneath.

First sniff: Dark green, deep brown. Pine and earth. So very evocative.

Wearing: This is what I wish Burial had smelled like on me – dark, brooding pine and earth.

First sniff: Silken-soft, airy, billowy, light-pink floral.

Wearing: It’s just very, very soft and airy. Floral mousse (not the stuff you put in your hair, but the stuff you eat). Very pale and very pretty, and just sweet enough.

First sniff: This is so familiar. It’s bright and fizzy and breezy and light. It’s lemon-lime soda with a smidge of peppermint.

Wearing: Mintyfizzybright. I really like this. Even though I never did figure out what the heck it reminds me of.

First sniff: Red berries and caramel. It’s warm, sultry and sweet.

Wearing: It’s still predominantly caramel, but the fruitiness stays underneath. After the initial wet scent-burst fades a bit, the amazingly gorgeous coconut shows up.

My guy’s reaction: “Can I get my nose surgically attached to your neck?” So yeah, I think this one’s a keeper.