Shollin

How odd... this wasn't minty to me at all.

First sniff: Holy mother of all that is coconut! And there’s a hint of rum in the background, and a tiny bit of citrus. It’s a tropical drink.

Wearing: After I put this on, I got a little worried about wearing it to work. The rum is just too sharp on my skin – it overpowers the coconut and smells rather like I splashed Myers on myself.

First sniff: A very soft, pretty floral.

Wearing: Super-feminine. Gentle flowers that make me feel like I should be wearing a billowy dress. As I’m not a fan of billowy dresses, or of feminine florals, this Grace isn’t really me, though she’s lovely.

First sniff: Sharp. Severe. Dark and angry. I’m a little afraid to try this on.

Wearing: There’s a hint of mint or licorice around the edges, but the center is dark, dark, dark. I’m pretty sure there’s vetiver in this, based on the overall murkiness, and dragon’s blood, based on the colour. It reflects the card very well, and as such, is not something I want to wear.

First sniff: Sweet and gentle with the tiniest hint of sharpness around the edges. It reminds me of herbal tea.

Wearing: Oh, this is beautiful. Honey-sweet, flowing, slightly floral, with a tiny hint of spice underneath.

First sniff: <ahem> COUGH DROPS!!! That is some serious eucalyptus. Hoo boy.

Wearing: Well, I don’t think I can wear Jabberwocky as perfume, but I’m definitely keeping it around for when I have sinus trouble. This stuff is better than Vicks. Smells better, too.

First sniff: Sigh. I really wish this smelled like sex-with-a-bad-boy the way some of y’all have described. Instead, the vetiver – as it usually does – turns it into a swamp. And not sex in a swamp, either. Just a swamp.

Wearing: OK, this is better. On my skin it’s less dank, more leathery. There’s even a weird hint of chilly mintiness floating around the edges… dunno what’s up with that. This leather seems to be more Dead Man’s Hand-ish than De Sade-ish; it’s the smooth saddle kind rather than the rough jacket kind. I do prefer DMH to this one (and I can't even wear DMH - I keep it around for nostalgic sniffing purposes), so it’s off to swaps… but I’m glad I got to try it, and glad the vetiver reined itself in when it got out of the vial.

First sniff: Like Tiphareth, this is a very dark scent… but where that one was herbal and resinous darkness, this is a feral darkness. <irreverence warning>Perhaps God’s feminine side is a bit of a wild woman?</warning>

Wearing: The darkness in this reminds me a little of the dark-plum/prune-juice scent of Masabakes, when first on. There’s a bit of floral sprinkled over the top, too, just a touch that feels powdery. It’s interesting, but not really me.

First sniff: Tiphareth is dark, mysterious and powerful, with a definite woody-resin overtone.

Wearing: It’s more of an herbal scent than a resin scent on my skin… dark and deep and full.

First sniff: Reviews of the voodoo blends don’t seem to stick in my head, for whatever reason, so I had no idea what to expect from Van Van… and I definitely wasn’t expecting bright happy bouncy citrus. It’s lovely and uplifting. Might be one to wear when the world is driving me nuts.

Wearing: Well, blarg. Instant baby powder. I re-sniffed the vial to make sure I wasn’t nuts before, but no… it’s definitely bright citrus in the imp, and then goes all baby-powder floral on my skin. Stupid chemistry!

First sniff: SweetTarts! Powdery and fruity.

Wearing: Tenochtitlan smells wonderfully exotic on my skin. It’s warm and fruity and the powder has disappeared.

First sniff: Oh my goodness. I was expecting pencil shavings, based on a comment elsewhere, but this… this is a tree. A soaring, ancient tree, bark and leaves and even a bit of the soil around its roots. I’m blown away. I don’t know yet whether I want to smell like a tree, but I could see using this in an oil warmer to turn my apartment into the Muir Wood.

Wearing: This is one of those scents that you can taste as you smell, and it tastes like the woods. My skin generally doesn’t get along too well with wood scents… BUT redwood is different. It’s not at all sharp, like cedar and white sandalwood get on me… it’s not aggressively cold, like pine and juniper… but it’s not warm and soft either, like red sandalwood and whatever kind of pine it is that works on me (the one in Golden Priapus). It’s an entirely different beast, and it’s thoroughly wonderful. I CAN smell like a tree and be quite happy about it.

Despite being very well wrapped, the imp I swapped for managed to break in transit... so instead of a gentle waft for my first sniff, I got the full force of Saturnalia in all its green glory.

First sniff: When I opened the envelope, all I could smell was vetiver. And, as y'all have no doubt gathered from reading my other reviews, vetiver and I really don't like each other.

Wearing: Vetiver… and how. There’s a bit of a powdery sweetness around the edges - from the violet, I’m guessing - but it’s dominated by vetiver’s swampy greenness. Sounds like it was much better on some of you, and I'm a bit jealous... but given my experience with the notes, I didn't have my heart set on this one.

First sniff: Evergreen piney cedar. Cold and aloof.

Wearing: It’s not overly sharp the way cedar can be on my skin, but it’s too masculine to be me. I bet my guy will smell great in it though.

First sniff: Very white, very fresh and very cold. I always misidentify bergamot as grapefruit at first sniff, but it’s softer and less sharp-edged.

Wearing: Much like in the vial… the aura is a chilly white glow.

First sniff: Contrasts. A light green scent… dusted with cinnamon. It’s fresh and airy and yet somehow still reminds me of church.

Wearing: There’s definite cinnamon in here, but I can only smell it if I sniff my wrists directly. It went decidedly resinous over the course of the evening, in a less-than-pleasant way.

First sniff: Hrm. Love Me is definitely an animal scent. Here’s hoping it’ll behave on my skin.

I did a second “first sniff” quite a while after the first, and now it smells like dragon’s blood and patchouli. Much more promising. Whatever animal note I was smelling before definitely isn’t showing up now.

Wearing: The aura is dragon’s blood and sweet almond! There’s something earthy or woody underneath, I can smell it on my wrist but not in the scent around me. I put off trying this for a long time based on the first first sniff, and boy was that unwarranted. I like muchly.

First sniff: This is soft and floaty, and the tiniest bit astringent – medicinal, even. I’m having trouble identifying any of the notes.

Wearing: It’s floral on my skin, a very soft floaty floral. I think I smell jasmine in here, but it’s very restrained. As it was drying, it reminded me quite a bit of Blue Moon. It’s subtle, but pretty, and I think I’ll hang onto it.

First sniff: Honeysuckle. White and yellow blossoms growing rampant, tumbling down the length of a fence in summertime in the South. Pure, luscious honeysuckle.

Wearing: Sunwarmed summer heaven… the scent that lures you to pick the little flowers and put them in your mouth and suck the nectar out of the end, ignoring that Mom-voice in your head nagging you that you don’t know where that flower has been. It’s fresh, it’s sweet, it’s clean. If I had more than the implet I’d try to figure out how to make a linen spray out of this stuff – I can imagine curling up in a nest of honeysuckle-scented sheets in early summer, and it’s giving me happy shivers.

To sum up? I LOVE THIS. cupide430, you are on my happy list forever.

First sniff: Very soft, pale floral.

Wearing: Still a very soft, pale floral. It’s nice enough – the jasmine doesn’t fight its way screaming to the surface and drown everything else out, as it is wont to do on my skin – but it’s just not me.

First sniff: Sweet almond or cherry, dusted with… nutmeg? There’s an odd kitchen-spice note in here that caught me off guard.

Wearing: It’s a very bright scent with a weird soapiness underneath.

First sniff: What an odd scent! I can’t pin down anything about it – it’s just a warm presence in the vial.

Wearing: It’s sort of musky, vaguely soapy, but it really doesn’t smell like much – it’s more of an aura. I can smell the warmth (and I know that makes no sense) but can’t track down any particular fragrance. I do like the aura effect though.

First sniff: Happy scent! This smells fruity and earthy, though I know there’s no fruit listed. It’s very warm and rich, and I really like it.

Wearing: Ah, now it’s floral. A very light, sweet floral scent that goes sweeter and floral-er as it dries. I liked the vial scent quite a bit better – wish the amber and patchouli had stuck around.

First sniff: Very, very sweet. Syrupy-sweet. This doesn’t smell like any flower I know of, but I’ve never smelled heliotrope in person.

Wearing: Still seriously sweet. It’s just at the very edge of being cloying. As it dries, it becomes less sweet, but also starts to go powdery. I’ve noticed heliotrope and gardenia paired together in quite a number of scents, and now I’m wondering if the sweet-white-flower scent I identify as gardenia is really a combination of both. At any rate, it’s not me.

Sounds like it was a lot sweeter on me than on most other folks. Odd.

First sniff: Ooh, this is nice. I can’t pin down any of the notes, but it’s fresh and bright with maybe a hint of fruit.

Wearing: Good stuff. There’s a little bit of spice in here too, but it’s mostly fresh and fruity – more like pear than anything citrus or berry.

First sniff: How lovely. This scent is so gentle, so elegant, so understated… and so amazingly beautiful. Soft flowers and the barest breath of vanilla.

Wearing: Antique Lace is a soft-spoken, genteel lady. A wonderful warm, gentle, rich scent that lasts and lasts.