oatmealneko

I had to wear this a few times to even be able to review it. I think it was mostly because it's very sweet, candy sweetness in the initial wet stage that threw me. I wasn't expecting it, so I stopped paying attention to it because it smelled too sweet. Then at some point, it smelled like it was going to turn into soap, & I was convinced it was another one for the sale pile. I got some Annabel Lee on my sleeves of my sweatshirt, & couldn't remember where I got the nice nice scent until later. It's smells different in the bottle, wet, & dry. In the bottle - a little sweet, cucumber's right there. Wet - sweet candy scent, sweet pea, probably - light floral, a little bit of green, but hard to pick out. Dry - Sweet pea with green, ripe cucumber, & sage, peony is very light, delectable floral. er, it's actually a lot similar to Empyreal Mist - fruity/sweet like comparison. Bleh. Confused my scents again.

It started out sugary sweet, a bit musky - then it smelled like a bit of coconut. Dried down to a plasticky sweet scent. Ahh not working for me.

I am rolling in fruits. ROLLING. No specific notes pop out, but this is like swimming in the bountiful summer harvest of ripe & luscious fruits. In the tropics. It's a mango, kiwi, melon, papaya blend. Ripe & very fragrant. YUM.

Let's see if I can remember here... I loved Bearded Lady. Surprise here, because this one contains two notes that work to ruinous end for me. Rose + jasmine.... I get some rose, but more jasmine. It wasn't overpoweringly floral. It was floral, & more of a white floral at that. Light & lovely, not clingy, a bit of vanilla. Beautifully crafted oil, though. Most definitely a keeper.

For some reason, Bed of Nails reeks of lavender to me. Wet & in the vial is when this lavender scent is the strongest. I blame my sniffer. Dry - dark, dirty metal. Ozone, like in HoM, but it's grittier version than most BPAL blends. A keeper though.

I got an impression of white florals during the wet stage... weird, because I was expecting an ozoney type of blend. The citrusy ozone didn't hit 'til House of Mirrors dried, but it doesn't have as much tang as Lightning's ozone. It's a light tangy ozone, but it could be mistaken for white florals as well. Crystalline scent, I think I'm keeping my imp.

Buttered. Popcorn. Skin only, in the vial it smells disgusting.

In the vial, I smelled cedar & pine, & something else that was oddly sweet. It remains more cedary than pine, but the odd sweet smell hangs around for awhile. Dry - the cedar gives way to leather, the sweet scent is there in a tiny amount, & the greens poke through now. Geek is very leathery.

Freak Show kicks you in the teeth with a strong plume of cocoa & pomegranate right out of the vial. The cocoa remains very dominant during the wet stage, but mostly fades by the dry stage. The pomegranate fades very quickly as well. Dry, it was a gorgeous mix of lemon, bergamot, with hints of sweetness (tonka). It dried down a light citrus, a bit floral, complete 180 from where it began. I thought I would like this because some people had indicated it was similar to Intrigue, but it's very different, yet I enjoyed this scent a lot.

Starts off with a zing of ginger, tobacco, & a bit of opium. Green & gingery, very good. Dry - Ginger & tobacco fades. Rosewood & opium are the notes that surface, & rosewood is by far the strongest note. The two get together & give me a horrid opium-rose soap murk, which gets stronger over time. Ugh.

Midway smells like a mixture of cake, cotton candy, & caramel. The buttery caramel is the only scent hanging around once it dries. Buttery caramel sweet, similar to the buttery cream in Milk Moon, but it lacks that weird edge of mint. It's sweet & foody, doesn't change that much at all.

It's like another Living Flame, except this time I can't pick out specific notes. In the vial, it smells "floral". When I put it on, it's still floral, but nothing I can pinpoint. It's floral & spicy around the edges. It's almost similar to the spicy scent I picked up in another blend....oh crap. It's going to soap. Spicy soap. Ugh.

Torture King started out reeking of lemon peel, leather, & smoke. It remained very citrusy throughout, lemon peel, then mandarin, then finally lime. It also retained the smoky, leathery, musky scent without becoming overpowering either. On me, it's perfectly balanced, in the end, I get lime, musk, smoke, & leather, a little from each, not too much overall. It has fairly good throw & lasting power, definitely a keeper. Usually I get a lot of vetiver from any blend that contains it, this time I didn't. NONE.

I know for sure mine is Snake Charmer (received imp part of decanting circle). Wet, I can see the definite comparisons to Snake Oil with plum & coconut, because it does smell similar. But I had one of those extremely horrible experiences with Snake Oil (everything smelled burnt), so I was a bit hesitant about the outcome. Upon drying, it's more musky, incensy, with a slight hint of vanilla. The plum comes out a lot more, while the coconut fades away completely. Snake Charmer smelled like light vanilla Bathsheba. Good, but not great, I don't mind that I didn't order a bottle of this.

Wow! Carnivale started out berry sweet, kinda spicy, sweet similar to Akuma, but not candy sweet. Very berry sweet, then as it dries, the berries faded. Less berry, more something else I can't place. By the time it dried off - cleaning product! I highly suspect amber & heliotrope in this case, as Carnivale started off wonderful & turned into a stomach-revolting scent. Yes, I scrubbed. Hard.

er, edit. I tried it again a few days ago & it smelled better. Go fig. Still fruity & floral in the beginning, but the drydown is completely different this time around. I definitely get the incensy rose scent. Sweet incense, not so much smoke, more spice & rose. The rose, however, doesn't go ROSE!, it seems like the incensey scent dampened that down a whole lot. Carnation does wonders for me & roses. I liked this a lot more than Snake Charmer, really.

I've held off on my review of 13, but after some thought, I don't think that aging it is going to make 13 any better... so, the review, at least from this cursed neko's point of view. Bleh. I will say right off the bat that chocolate & I have a history. A bad history (chocolate = dirt; see Centzon Totochtin, Vice, exception - Spooky). Yet I purchased 13 anyway. Orange, white chocolate, lily? Hmmm, intriguing, but kinda scary. Sniffed the bottle, & it smells like those orange chocolate balls with a hint of lily. Dabbed some on - the first 10 minutes, orange chocolate, swell, ya? (Note: I've been playing a lot of FFX lately, & I think Wakka's accent is starting rub off on me. Or maybe it's the lack of coffee this morning.) Citrus. Chocolate, though it's not a true milk chocolate, but a white one, which I love. However, it's bordering on dirt again. Hovering near the dirt. The citrus is yummy. Then it dries & the scent goes to thirteen kinds of hell. Ahh, lily. There you are. Chocolate = dirt. Lily = soap. Orange = orange (less citrus, fades so fast drying off). Let's see... cursed, ya? Bad luck, ya? Oh ya. Dirt, dirt, orange, dirt, soap, orange, SOAP, DIRT. Soapy dirt! Dirty orange soap! Soap! Dirt! (Chorus swells, reaches climax...er, never mind.) Shortly thereafter, I scrubbed 13 off. No, aging isn't going to help that my skin chemistry despises 13.

Bottle: Sweet orange candy. Wet: Sweet orange candy - after a bit, it splits into two layers. Tart orange sherbet with some cherry sweetness underneath. Dry: The sweetness disappears entirely. The orange becomes even more tart than it was earlier, but it still reminds me of an orange dessert. Orange sherbet is the closest I can think of. It fades quickly though (20 minutes total, approx.), but it's very fruity & I think I will probably order a bottle.

I had originally skipped this blend because my previous experience with strawberries & BPAL blends wasn't great. Then the reviews started to trickle out & I swapped for a bottle of Strawberry Moon. Bottle: Sweet candy strawberry alcoholic drink. Wet: Sweet strawberries, the alcohol note fades & then it turns into strawberry-scented Bewitched. Identical, except the berry note being different. Dry: The scent softens quite a bit, I think the cream pokes out around here. It still reminds me of Bewitched, but the berry note here is softer, the green tea note is still sharp, but overall.. LOVE! I don't pick up any ylang ylang or lotus, which tends ruin scents for me (especially ylang ylang, lotus gives me a 50-50 shot).

Frimp from a stray bottle re-ship. Vial: Lavender. Wet: Lavender, started out strong, but it's beginning to soften. I think I smell some violet as well. Dry: The lavender has faded completely. It's somewhat soap-like, very soft violet-tinged scent. It's a soothing scent. Perhaps Peace would work better as a room scent than something to wear.

Undertow was an odd experience. Wet, there was some ozone, but not a lot. Then it started to smell fruity, I think this was the lotus acting in some weird way on my skin, it did something similar with Blood Lotus. Then I caught a whiff of mint. By the time it dried, it was a strange mixture of fruity ozone swirled with a light mint.

Black Forest means exactly two words to me: Pine Sol. And I scrub off very quickly.

Imp: Lightly floral. Wet: Lightly floral, with the scent of crisp, clean mountain air. No wood notes. Dry: Ahh, there you are, my nemesis, lilac. Lilacs everywhere, a bit of rose, & crisp air. Lilac overpowers anything else in Ouija, & this is going into the swaps.

Woody & green. Initially, I got a lot of green leaves out of this, then the woody notes started pushing forward to front, which is weird, because normally I get lots of wood, then green. Green, woody, lots of trees, that's what it reminded me of.

Vial: Rosey & somewhat fruity. Wet: Rosey & still fruity. Morphed into ROSES with a slight fruity smell. There was scrubbing soon afterwards. My skin amps up rose notes like you can't believe, but I was still curious about Two, Five, and Seven enough to try it.