Shollin

First sniff: Floral edged with… lemon?

 

Wearing: Powdery floral. Violets and I just don’t get along.

First sniff: Pure almond extract in the vial.

Wearing: Yup, still just smells like almond… but darker, shadowed. This is very interesting, and very pleasant.

First sniff: This is not going to be good on me. It’s all sharp resin.

 

Wearing: Hmm. At first touch, resin and mint? Mint incense? No, it’s iris… how very odd. Iris is always so powdery on me, and this is no exception. The inspiration is lovely, but Dance of Death is not my thing.

First sniff: A faintly sweet, slightly floral scent, backed by dryness… but all very faint and subtle. “Dismal green” had me worried, as it’s a perfect description of what vetiver does on my skin, but there doesn’t seem to be any here.

 

Wearing: I put this on a few hours after washing with Villainess’ Killer Beez soap, and when it hit my skin, it exploded into honeyed flowers. It toned down quickly, as always happens when I get a scent explosion, and the wrist-scent is again soft floral backed with dryness. It’s very pretty – I just hope it doesn’t go powdery as it dries.

 

Several hours later: Oh me of little faith. This stayed thoroughly gorgeous all night.

First sniff: The rakshasa I’m familiar with are weretigers, and there’s a certain feline slyness here, a contrast between cold rose and warm wood.

 

Wearing: When first on my skin, it’s very very rose. At a closer sniff, the wood comes out… they aren’t playing too well together, and that’s probably a skin chemistry thing.

First sniff: Loud cinnamon and sweet almond.

Wearing: Mmm. Delicious sweet almond and slightly less-loud cinnamon. Ooh, this smells edible. I like. Very much.

First sniff: White florals and vetiver – two things that are generally horrid on me. Sweet and swampy.

 

Wearing: The aura of Highwayman is quite a bit nicer than the vial scent – it’s all jasmine and gardenia. On my wrist, though, it’s very vetiver, and there’s an almost alcoholic note. Yup – not for me.

First sniff: Vetiver and cinnamon. Swamp spice?

 

Wearing: It’s a very true cinnamon, but it’s just mired in the green darkness that is vetiver on my skin. Sigh.

First sniff: Lemon and patchouli. Very, very definite lemon and patchouli.

 

Wearing: Lemon and patchouli. And the tiniest tingle of cedar – but for the most part, lemon and patchouli. I like patchouli almost everywhere I smell it, and this is the happy non-Pledgey lemon, so I’m enjoying this scent. Alas, over the course of the evening the cedar just took over, and cedar and I are not the best of friends.

First sniff: Whoa pear. Soaked in liquor. But it’s a soft scent – not in strength, but in feeling. It’s a drapey, flowy evening gown.

 

Wearing: Oh, that’s just wrong. How can a drapey, flowy evening gown turn into pear-flavoured bubblegum when it hits my skin?

First sniff: As nonsensical as it sounds, Blood is a dark, dangerous cherry.

 

Wearing: Hot damn. Why oh why did this one keep getting pushed off my wishlist? Was it the name? Or possibly those crappy reviews on MUA lo these many moons ago? I should have known better. Dragon’s blood loves me. On my skin, the resin takes over, toning down the sweetness of the cherry and giving the whole thing a fantastic kick of slink. Oh yeah, this one is getting worn a lot. The clove is just barely there, adding just enough sweet spice to make things interesting. No one ever asks me what scent I’m wearing, but I’m hoping they do today, just so I can answer.

First sniff: I like the vial-scent quite a bit. Crisp white mint that almost smothers the powdery floral base.

 

Wearing: Minty minty minty aura – the ultra violets take over when I sniff my wrist. (Also, you don’t want to wipe this stuff in your eye by accident… ow.)

First sniff: Fae has a hard-candy texture to it… it’s sparkling fruit, but with a very strong edge.

 

Wearing: Fruity and sparkly! It’s quite a bit sharper, or firmer, or something, than Imp. The aura has a wonderful peachfuzz warmth. I’m on a tea kick at the moment, and I’d love to find a tea that tastes like this.

First sniff: Dry woods and herbs. Magus is a confident scent, but somewhat withdrawn.

 

Wearing: The scent on my wrists is almost all cedar, but the aura is a gorgeous blend of woods and herbs.

Thanks to roesmoker for the swap, and to kellia for the entirely unexpected decant!

 

First sniff: A clean, chill emptiness. Yog-Sothoth reminds me of scenes from sci-fi shows, or documentaries about space travel, where the astronaut in his magnetic boots is standing on the hull of the ship looking up into… nothing. Just cold, distant stars and vast blackness. Stargazing from the ground is fun, and safe, but there’s something about the idea of looking out at the stars from Up There that freaks me out a bit, and Yog-Sothoth captures that perfectly.

 

Wearing: Perfectly crisp, clean and cold, and still more than a little freaky. I'm having the same trouble describing this scent as y'all are... it's so entirely indefinable. I think Northernminx's mention of "crystal" is right on the nose, though - it is vaguely reminiscent of soap or detergent, but there's a definite sharpness to the edges.

First sniff: So. Very. Pine. The essence of all that is pine. For any Buffy fans who remember Anya’s discussion of the world with nothing but shrimp… this is the world with nothing but pine trees. It’s the resin and the needles and… oh so pine.

Wearing: Yeah, I’m getting redundant here, but… pine. The description mentions “haunting,” and that’s a lovely word for this scent… it’s a dark, spooky forest, not actively menacing but still twitch-inspiring. It’s not as cold on me as the more wintry pine scents (Skadi, Mistletoe et. al.), and there’s a very intriguing something-else wrapped around the pure evergreen that tickles my nose.

First sniff: I’m a raving Celtophile and most of the Irish-inspired scents are wonderful on me… I think this is the second one (after Dublin) that won’t be. This is purely an assumption, based on the heavy soapy-floral fragrance I’m getting from the vial.

 

Wearing: Yup... heavy soapy flowers. I guess it’s the sweetpea that’s ruining everything else, because white musk and tonka are wonderful things, and sage doesn’t generally bother me unless it’s all I can smell. Sorry, Aeval... this just isn't gonna work out.

First sniff: Fresh and astringent, but dark, too.

 

Wearing: Chilly. Chilly and green. I’m amazed that the anise hasn’t come out screaming yet… I like the wet scent quite a bit more than I expected to. (See, this is why I want to try everything!) I’m getting the faintest hint of mint, too. As it dries the licorice does show up a little more, but it isn’t overpowering everything like Kabuki did – the chilly greenness is still the primary note, and the only thing I can smell in the scent-aura.

First sniff: Jaysus, Mary and Joseph. I’ve been trying to find a coffee scent for my caffeine-addicted Seattle guy… Gluttony wasn’t quite right, but this… this… gbgnrmmm. And in this amber bottle it almost looks like coffee, too.

 

Wearing: Come to think of it, I might not let my guy out of the house wearing this… people might try to lick him. I’m a little worried about wearing it out in public for fear I’ll get the overwhelming urge to lick myself. Miskatonic University is one of the most delicious things I’ve ever smelled. The downside is, it had me craving chocolate all day… I think this might be one I’m content just to sniff on him.

Thanks to Finny for the decant!

 

First sniff: I’ve never smelled anything that was so bright and fresh and yet so ominous at the same time. It’s a bit soapy in the vial.

 

Wearing: An explosion of wet green bamboo hits my skin first, and the pepper follows a moment later. It’s still decidedly soapy, alas.

Thanks to chopchica for the decant!

 

First sniff: Standing on a cliff over the angry ocean, under low, heavy clouds. It’s a far cry from the fresh-air sea scents… Dunwich broods, even more than the previous stormy-sea scents. Something is not right here… this place harbours secrets.

 

Wearing: Brooding is the word… the clouds lift a bit when it dries, but overall it's very dark.

Wearing: Resiny-sweet in the vial and on my skin. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to sniff and analyze this, as I had a phone interview this morning and had to slather quickly... and they’ve offered to fly me to Washington for an in-person interview.

 

I called the other papers I've applied to in hopes of getting an interview while I'm out there, and one of them responded within a couple of hours to say "come on by."

 

And I managed to rearrange the flight I would have taken, extending my trip by a day to talk to the second paper and avoiding a redeye with two plane changes... AND getting into Seattle... on my guy's birthday.

 

Sure, all that might have happened anyway, but who can say? Yeah, I'll be keeping this one.

First sniff: Whoever described this as “pink Sugar Skull” wasn’t kidding. Wow. It’s almost butterscotch in the vial.

 

Wearing: Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet! Pink Moon is more of a girly-sweet than a caramel-sweet. It’s a bubblegum lollipop pink-flower sort of sweet. And when it dries, it’s so very, very strawberry.

First sniff: Resinous. Incensey.

 

Wearing: Hrm. Hrmhrm. There’s something green and funky in here, and I have to wonder if it’s vetiver. It’s going a bit powdery too.

chopchica decanted this one for me and WOW.

 

First sniff: Utterly delicious. Sweet and creamy and pure. If really good vanilla ice cream (the wonderfully rich kind, with the little brown flecks [aka vanilla seeds]) could be warm and still be ice cream, it would smell like Chaste Moon.

 

Wearing: Now that just ain’t right. A scent called Chaste Moon should not send me into an eye-rolling moan when I put it on. Such moans are reserved for decidedly unchaste activities… or, now that I think about it, really good dessert, so I guess this does qualify. I can’t remember now why I didn’t get a bottle in the first place, but I want to go back to February and kick myself for it.