shadowsong

very green and floral... the ozone is probably what makes the green smells so sharp. it's nice, but definitely not me. too floral. i like my scents to have more kick to them and less soft floral sweetness.

slightly powdery rose made a little more interesting by the amber and the musk, although i can't actually pick those notes out. good for when i'm feeling flowery, which isn't very often.

this smelled like spice to me - the cinnamon and clove were more prominent, with a little musk and resin backing it up, and a faint sharp green note, probably from the vetiver. this is like a more complex three witches to me. the cinnamon is just a component instead of punching me in the face (not that there's anything wrong with that...) i like it, but i'll have to try it a few more times to get a better idea of what exactly i think of it. edited to add: the last few times i wore this, there was something a little weird about it. i don't know if it was a sour note, or the musk or what, but it just had a weird little twist to it that annoyed me. on the other hand, my boyfriend hates scents of any kind, pretty much, and he said i smelled nice when i was wearing this.

this is sooooooooo nice. everything else i tried was too sweet, or too powdery, or nice but not outstanding. this... i had a really crappy day and was instantly happier as soon as i put this on. i didn't get much of the clove and the pepper - i presume they were just rounding out the cinnamon scent. some people got cinnamon red hots, but i didn't get candy out of this at all. this was pure cinnamon bark. i would chew my arm, but i've tried chewing cinnamon bark before and this smells like it would taste just as woody and dry as that does. it smelled like good potpourri - the kind that isn't made by adding fragrance to things, but by using good quality things (pine cones, rose petals, cinnamon bark) that already have a scent. i don't wear perfume often, and a little goes a long way, so i'm hoping my imp will last until beth can get three witches reformulated.

this smelled like chai, without the actual tea leaves. milk, honey, vanilla, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves. and a little bit of sandalwood and musk. as it dried off the vanilla became more prominent - it was creamy spicy vanilla with sandalwood. i was hoping for more spice and less vanilla, but it's still definitely a keeper.

it didn't really smell like leather at all to me. i couldn't pick out a single note in the whole thing. all i know is that it made me think of shaving soap and brush and straight razor and strop. i'm not sure it even smelled like those things, but that's what it made me think of. definitely masculine, and definitely confusing, but i like it.

very vanilla, and i think the floral scent i'm getting is the violets, rather than the gardenia. it's a very sugary floral (which is interesting - usually i think of things as either sugar-sweet or floral-sweet, not both). on the drydown it gets a little powdery and a little less vanilla, and stops throwing itself around the room quite as much. a very nice scent... unfortunately i don't like sweet florals, so into the swap pile it goes.

annnnd my body chemistry strikes out yet again. i got nothing green from this at all - not heather, not even blackberry leaves. what i ended up with was a "blackberry flavored" smell - the sort you get in candies and drinks that are supposed to taste like blackberry. despite that description, it was more of a perfume-y than a food-y smell. i can't for the life of me figure out what candy/drink i'm thinking of, but i remember smelling something remarkably similar to this and being afraid to eat it, for fear it would taste like perfume instead of just smelling like it. there was none of the tartness i love about blackberries... it was both sugar-sweet and floral-sweet, neither of which are really my thing, unless paired with incense scents. to the swap pile with ye!

well, i'll have to come back to this one and fill in the rest of the review later, because i got distracted after putting djinn on, and there was nothing left of it after about 2 hours. wet, i definitely smelled the smoke. acrid, like something was burning that shouldn't be. once it dried off, the smoke was mostly gone and i was left with a green scent with a little citrus. so far none of the blends i've tried have gone quite the way i thought they would. i was hoping for more woodsmoke on this one, but what i ended up with was also nice. second try: like cathedral, i'm smelling lush's "tramp". this one is everything except the harsh note, though, unlike cathedral. it's basically the scent of broken stems oozing green sap, with a hint of citrus and a little smoke and wood/resin added in. it went just a tiny bit powdery, nothing near as much as cathedral did.

when first applied, i get the floral orris, a hint of sweetness from the dragon's blood and just a bit of sandalwood. as soon as it dries off, the sandalwood is gone, and it smells like violets (real ones, not just floral perfume). after about half an hour, even the orris is gone. not what i was hoping for, but nice nevertheless while it lasted. if my body chemistry doesn't straighten up and play nice with bpal, i am going to be very disappointed.

well, i've tried 3 out of my 14 imps so far, and this is the only one that worked - and even it wasn't quite what i was expecting! i got slightly sweet incense out of this. it wasn't the sort of harsh incense you get when it's just been burned or when a lot of sticks are uncovered in a store. it was the sort of scent you get from oriental junk shops - the stores that sell chests and boxes and knickknacks from places along the silk road. it was the smell of things that have been near incense for a very long time and still carry the warm residue. i don't have a good enough nose to tell frankincense from amber from patchouli from sandalwood, but i do have a good enough nose to tell that i like this scent. given the pirate thing, i was hoping for a lot more salt sea out of this one - it smelled very land-based to me. not quite desert, but definitely no water involved. maybe i'll be able to find a good water scent and layer. edited to add: in further tests, i do get a bit of salt sea. it smells like driftwood that's dried out in the sun.

i really wanted to like this one, but it turned all powdery on my skin. my first thought was of motels and other people's clothing - it smelled like fresh linens washed in a detergent i'm not used to. there was something sharp and green in there too - like the note i didn't like about lush's "tramp". i didn't really get wood or incense or any of that out of the oil at all. it sounded so cool! why are bpal and my skin not getting along?

well, this definitely was Not My Thing. i think it's probably the musk. that makes me sad, i had really high hopes for some other scents that have musk in them and they probably won't work. this had a little too much throw on me, and something (musk or mango, probably) smelled too sweet for my taste. i felt like i'd be overwhelming anyone i stood near. it's a good scent, just.... not for me. too strong, too "perfume-y".