cinderfallen

I fell in love with this in college, and it's been long a year since then and I still love it. Black Lily really does smell of lily, corrupted by a darkness.

So many new blends to track down and try!

Goes on bubblegum sweet, cherry-sour and dries down Snake Oil spicy vanilla, clear and pure Dragon's Blood--slightly floral, candy cherry hard candy, wet and mouthwatering. Perfect batch. Edit to say Eureka!: This smells exactly the first couple seconds of a red fruit candy chew, when it's the most tart and juicy and mouthwatering.

This smells exactly like Haus of Gloi's Elevenses, described as: "Not quite breakfast and not quite lunch, its the little snack in between. Tiny, little fluffy orange cakes, sugar coated toasty almonds and a wee steaming cup of black tea!" Wet, a big punch of butter--and yeap, smells like toast! Dries down to smell like a cozy house with throw pillows and cross-stitching hangings. It's not a clear, delineated scent but rather definitely the blended scent of buttered toast and milk tea, maybe if you had them together as a snack?

A good scent for guys! My boyfriend sampled my imp and ordered a bottle for himself a couple years ago. Mild amber and vanilla. He actually really liked Mouse Circus as well, so I gave it to him. He's got a little Mouse collection going now. =)

Fresh from lab, it's very reminiscent of Serge Lutens Rahat Loukoum, a very light and pleasantly sweet, soft, cherry almond (and not the cheap kind!). I've gotten this before in imps and bottles, and I remember it to be a little creamier, which I'll hope it gets with a bit of age. It's a very light scent on me and almost disappears after applying, which I like as I hate cloying sweet smells.

A toodle oodle of pink cotton candy noses, vanilla spun sugar fur, scattered kernels of popcorn, and a touch of polished golden wood. Actually, surprisingly, Mouse Circus dries down to smell very similar to Midway after the initial popcorn blast. Not a fan of popcorn (SUPER not a fan of popcorn) but the note fades away within about 10 minutes to a light vanilla.

Whew, this is one strong, piercing scent! Knocks my nose out. Kind of smells like Christmas, that cheery holiday candle scent inlaid with a whisper of dry leather. But mostly, from one dab, this is just giving me a headache. I'm going to need to VERY sparing with this because of the strength of the scent! Diluted, this wafts so much more delicately. This is a almost edible fruit and a slight hint of light cream, with the leather note not much visible--it just keeps a papery backbone to the prettiness.

Queen Mab is an amazing fruity-floral--I think you'd like it!

Tobacco doesn't smell evocative to me. It actually smells like Asian medicine. It's what I get most out of the scent, plus wood. Then it smells kind of like pancakes. Not for me.

A light and airy Dorian, that is, an Earl Grey tea without the heavy cream/musk notes. There's something about the blend that smells a bit like leather, but it's just a hint! Overall, this smells like a great unisex perfume, not just one-note black tea, but a whirling eddy of airy citrus, light fougere, and Earl Grey tea leaves that are tannic enough to insinuate leather without toe-ing over the line. The slight hint of vanilla is just a perfect touch. It's a sophisticated, gorgeous blend and I can't stop sniffing myself! This is what I wanted Dorian to be (it was just way too heavy and foody for me). I definitely want a bottle of this.

Oh man, so much thanks to the lovely samarablackcat for sending me this! It's so lovely! I love the smell in the bottle--the ripe plum is *perfect*--exactly the wet, sweet, and glistening flesh of a fruit, with none of tartness of the skin, with just the barest hint of cream. Unfortunately, at first, my skin amps the dry and dusty wildflowers and the cream, and though the plums do come through, they're not as ripe and juicy as it is in the bottle. WOE. The cream dies down and becomes more of a supporting player to round out the scent, and give it fullness, and the three notes balance each other wonderfully, with the cream dying down more and more as the scent wears on, lending mostly its sweetness without the overwhelming foody quality. (The same cream as in Zarita and Left His Nurse In a Crowd.) I get more of the skin of the plum, as the scent dries down, and actually, now I'm sure that the Will Call frimp Daya had plum in it, because this is very reminiscent of it (minus the resins). There's a very faint aura of spice and/or flower that reminds me of Lady Una--I wonder which note that is? I think I'm going to try this scent again on absolutely clean skin, as I think the vestiges of yesterday's perfume is lingering and causing a potpourri sort of vibe. But yay! Interesting smells! And the *waft* is lovely! Totally slightly boozy plums, green-stemmed wildflowers, and cream.

This is coconut lemon verbena with the sweet tuberose rounding off any harsh edges without actually entering the scent itself. The smoke and incense is very subtle and tinges at the edge of the blend. Specifically, the lemon flower is the lab's litsea cubeba, aka May Chang, so people who have problems with straight lemon might want to try this. Soledad is right--this smells very much like a velvet Oriental, with the bright lemon flower in contrast. It makes sense! The City of Angels is a very bright and sunny city, and the Carnaval shrouds it in a little opium and smoke.

I think I like black musk--it always strikes me as clean skin, I think. I think I need to more aggresively try more things with musk in it, as my skin LOVES them, and my nose loves them, too! I really love the white musk in Dorian. There's a couple in there, but one of them is the exact same "crystalline" musk I adore in Ice Queen. The other white musk is the very one I love in Queen Mab. So...basically, I love musk.

Apparently, I amp litsea cubeba, AKA the lemon flower aka May Chang from Carnaval Diabolique, because that's mostly what I get from this scent. LOTS of a spicy, herbacious, sharp lemon...which turns into a slightly softer and sweeter herbacious lemon. And maybe something slightly resinous underneath. But mostly, this smells like Carnaval Diabolique before the musk, tuberose, opium--basically, the rest of the notes kick in. Maybe I'll try this again another time.... Tried again--oh, this is nice. Lots of resinous musk coming through, reminescent of The Lion, with spicy saffron that works very well with the sharp brightness of the litsea cubeba. The cedar just offers a hint of golden wood quality, smooth and harmonious with the resins. I'm pretty sure I am loving the golden musk the most, and the rest I could take or leave. But yes, herbacious lemon flower, sappy green notes, grounded by resins, with a diffused "furry" and golden musk. Still too spicy for me as saffron takes the front stage and *then* it's the lemon flower. (Don't be afraid of the cedar. I've found that when people say they smell "cedar" or "hamster cage" they are really referring to red sandalwood!) On the other hand, it makes the Carnaval Diabolique I have on my other wrist smell mostly of sweet flowers and vanilla in contrast! The blast of lemon flower knocked my nose right out for the comparatively softer lemon in CD!