oatmealneko

Reviewing the original Carnaval Noir blend. I bought this bottle back during its original release and haven't opened it in some years. Wet: The oil itself has thickened up a lot, so it comes out in a large droplet that can be smeared on and rubbed into the skin. The oil has gotten somewhat darker as well. When it's dry, it smells musk and spices and vanilla, but a deeper version of that. Like it's been sitting in a basement and plotting together for 10 years. Which is mostly right except for the basement part. Also, I put this on about six hours ago and the scent is still going very strong.

This review is for the 2009 version of Berry Moon, which I haven't opened since 2010. In the bottle, it smells heavily of orange blossom and berries. Dry and well seven hours later...it runs around screaming ORANGE BLOSSOM with a squeak of honey in the background. The berries got ditched around hour 2.

My review is for a 12 yr old bottle of Fruit Moon - originally purchased in 2006. The original review probably contained words like "fruit" and "very fruity." Perhaps "tropically fruity." Many years later, I can safely say it is still very fruity. The oil is mostly unchanged from when I wore it many years ago. It smells nearly the same, except the fruit notes aren't nearly as sharp.

This is a review for a 10 year old bottle of Lunar Eclipse, because my stash is old and I felt like wearing it today. I have completely forgotten what this smelled like when I initially purchased it, but now it smells like orchid incense. It has a strong floral note and it's still going strong two hours after I put it on. The frankincense, red musk and black orchid are at the forefront on this oil and if there were fruit notes, they have long since faded away.

My bottle of Lightning Storm arrived yesterday, so here's my review: Wet: I rubbed this into my hair while it was wet last night. The scent was very strong citrus (mostly yuzu and lime), ginger, and tea. The ginger scent was amped to a thousand in my hair. The scent remained quite strong as my hair dried, and the yuzu and ginger pushed through. I barely smelled any mint at all in my hair. There might have been a trace amount when I applied the hair gloss, but none after. Dry: The scent is still in my hair, well over a half day later. I pick out yuzu, a hint of lime, ginger, and tea. Right now, it reminds me of Embalming Fluid after it has been on my skin for a few hours. Less citrusy. But bolder. Just as a note about the hair gloss itself: I've never tried any of the BPTP hair glosses until now, and I was amazed at how soft it made my hair feel. As soon as I put it in WET, my hair just soaked it right up. However, my hair is dry as hell during the winter, so...YMMV. And my hair is soft the day after, too.

2007 version Unlike the previous years' (2004 & 2005), this year's is a little different. I do smell florals in the wet stage, which hasn't happened before. Then it goes to a fruity, semi-floral on the drydown.

I can't stand patchouli either, I swear it reminds me of a hippy shop. Two scents that I've worn where it didn't stink to high heaven on me - Red Phoenix & Tweedledum. In both cases, it was earthy-spicy, didn't stink, made an otherwise good scent into a great one. I think Tweedledum would've been too fruity w/o patchouli. The key is to age both scents, Red Phoenix aged is wonderful. Tweedledum is only about 4-5 months old, but it's definitely getting there.

Blood Countess is strong though, my experience with it - it was a strong perfumey floral with hints of fruit. Veil is somewhere near there, a bit lavendary though.

Bottle: Lime with aloe & musk. On me: Starts off aloe & musk, a bit of green tea. Very light & refreshing. Morphs into light mint with ozone layer, & a bit of aloe or green tea. I barely smell any musk in this. Scent best if sniffed away from the wrist, otherwise, it's a bit strong on the nose. When the scent wafts around, it's a bit minty, very green & ozone-ish (light ozone similar to The Ghost & not Neo-Tokyo).

Tweedledum is an earthy spicy mango tea. It starts out with a lot of patchouli & fig at the start, but it tones down to a balanced fruit-spicy scent. I'm glad it didn't turn out as fruity on me as it did on others.

Slightly fruity in the bottle - I ended up comparing this side-by-side with last year's. First I get a whiff of apples, which fades quickly. Green tea takes over fast - it's green, slightly floral (crysanthemum or the rice flower) - light floral with tea. I got a second hit of the apple at the end, but it's weird. This year's Harvest Moon is more of late harvest after the fruits are gone. I preferred last year's, as it was more berry spicy cider than this. This year's probably could smell nice if layered with Hungry Ghost Moon as the scents are rather similar in composition.

Smells like sweet ginger candy in the bottle. Goes through various layers of sweet, woody, fruity - ahahaa...grapefruit scent I can smell for once! Green & musky - it's similar to Embalming Fluid, minus the citrus, but much light than that. Ghostly sandalwood lurking behind a grapefruitish musky-aloe-something something...uh, it's wonderful. There's nothing overpowering here, & the rice wine gives it a lot of lasting power on me (go go alcohol notes!).

It started off with a weird sweet dirt note to it... some herbs, some greenery, reminded me of Nosferatu (w/o the wine note). Then floral soap soap. It might have been partially due to Eris being on my other arm, but it was still fairly floral soapish on me.

Smelled kinda fruity in the imp, & got a hint of the mimosa at the start, then it turned into floral floral floral soap soap. Blah.

It starts off sweet & heavy with buttercream, with a bit of berry mingled in. Kinda similar to Milk Moon... drying down - most of the buttery scent burns off fast, got a ton of blackberry bourbon. Definitely bourbon, because normal berry scent doesn't amplify nearly as much unless it's in the presence of a booze note. Yummy.

Let me preface this one by saying I don't have a lot of high hopes for it since cherry blossom has reacted badly to me in the past. Bottle: Cherry blossom with a hint of dragon's blood resin. Wet: Cherry blossom. Hoo boy. Getting stronger by the second...um, I'm washing this off now. It's very very very VERY STRONG. Dry: (didn't make it) ...*sigh* Cherry blossom + me = fucked.

Machu Picchu was every bit of a rainforest - humid climate, bountiful florals, greenery. Storm Moon (past LE) reminded me a tropical rain storm, Lightning is similar, though sharper. Nosferatu was dirt, but there is a wine note in it you may want to be aware of.

A friend of mine said Peony Moon reminded her of Kitsune-Tsuki. Boy, we had two different reactions there. Peony Moon is very very VERY floral on me. I wasn't expecting this at all. Peony is normally a mellow, yet fragrant flower, I haven't had a bad experience with it before. In this blend. Extremely floral, especially with these notes (no clue why). On me, it's a very intense fragrance. Much to point that I can't slather it (seems to be the theme for this year's lunacy blends), & it's a tad overwhelming. I thought Holiday Moon was STRONG, but Peony Moon is a fairly close second. I'm going to have to give it another go later, just to check, because I swear I started to smell the dreaded ROSE scent.

Spring-ish scents for me: Embalming Fluid Mi-Go Brain Canister Empyreal Mist Whippoorwill I'm still wearing a lot of winter scents because it's been raining non-stop here & I've barely seen the sun.

I got a lot of fruit out of Budding Moon right from the start. I don't notice every single stage anymore, I tend to sniff at the end - evenly plummy, lots of peony, very musky as well. Exactly what I hoped for.

One piece of advice about Holiday Moon - "Don't slather." Seriously. This blend is "Chuck Norris roundhouse kick in the teeth" strong. Green. Very green. Tons of bamboo, oude, & tea. Similar to Aizen-Myoo, both lovely, but they've got a quality in them that screams "don't slather me, or you will be smelling my shadow for a month."

If you compare Embalming Fluid & Spirits of the Dead side-by-side, they smell incredibly similar in the bottle. Wearing Spirits of the Dead is a lot different. The big difference is that Spirits has an amped citrus note that stays constant - citrus & sour. Very sour. It's not lemon or lime, just a sour citrus note, with tea leaves & light floral note. Hmm...I was wearing this last night & couldn't remember for the life of me what it reminded me of - Kumiho. It's nearly dead-on. (Embalming Fluid has a sweet, juicy lemon with green tea & white musk. Which is completely different from Spirits.)

Far frutier than I had expected, which is a good thing. Patchouli & I don't mix well. Plum & mandarin first & strongest, it's fruity when wet, I detect a bit of musk & cassia, but it's just not there. In between wet to dry is where I thought it was going to go all musky/spicy/earthy - fruit fades, then it returns, the drydown is different than what I thought it would be. Definitely mandarin/plum, cassia (spicy but not so much), red musk - fruity/spicy/musky, if the patchouli is there, it's slightly earthy, but it's far far in the background. Overall, very pleased with it. Didn't disappoint, but it's probably not going to work with everyone. It's a lot more complex than I thought it would be.

Cathode's very minty though - not sure if your friend likes mint, so you might want to beware of that. I'd second a vote for Yggdrasil.

Definitely what I expected from Numb & I didn't get. Mint is always & will be very strong on me, so take anything I say about the mint with a grain of salt. Your skin chemistry will obviously vary. Bottle - Minty ozone. Very minty. Wet - VERY VERY VERY MINTY. Not peppermint, probably wintergreen or wintermint if I had to guess. A stark white floral is tagging along for the trip. It's quite strong, nearly nose-searing at this point (boy, I guess this is another for the aging pile). Dry - Still minty, not VERY VERY VERY, but minty. The same stark white floral is there, but also keyed down a bit. It's almost sweet mint, with a little bit of ozone I think. Annhilation? Woo! The mushroom cloud label is very cute.