bodegaselkie

Jazz Funeral appealed to me particularly because of the bourbon aspect and the Spanish moss, which I love in Zombi. In the bottle the Spanish moss is strong, but on me, the moss is mingled with the flowers -- which are a wee bit too floral for me. As it dries the bourbon and rum come out, but everything else fades ... until about an hour later it's just sweet, powdery bourbon, and only very faint. Jazz Funeral is quite nice, but doesn't last and is too floral for my taste.

In the bottle Midway smelled a lot like Milk Moon to me -- sweet, creamy and a little coconutty. But once I put it on, it smells almost entirely vanilla-cakey. I agree with others here who say it smells similar to other cake-like scents on the market. It's pleasant, but I'm not sure how unique it is. I wish it smelled saltier, and I also wish I could smell the caramel-apple scent mentioned in the description. On me it's pleasant enough but doesn't have much depth. I can't decide whether I like it or not. :-/ ETA: Several hours later, it smells like amber. Sugar and amber. This is not a bad thing.

Inferno was included as a free imp from my Harvest Moon order. I've liked other cinnamon scents (Mars, Wrath) but didn't love them. I don't love Inferno, either, but for different reasons. This turns into a cologne-y scent on me, very masculine. It gives me a slight headache. But it is pretty and the almonds, neroli and orange blend quite well together on me. (I wonder if my dad would like it?) This, to me, is what I thought the "Bay Rum" aspect of Baron Samedi would smell like -- add cloves to this and it would be a perfect bay rum.

I finally got around to trying Dorian. It didn't appeal for a long time because 1. the hype, 2. the musks and 3. tea scents have for the most part not worked on me. But I figured I should give it a whirl, given how popular it is. I like it on some levels, but Dorian is honestly too sweet for me (which is odd, given my fondness for Milk Moon, O, Alice and Dragon's Milk). I wish it had *more* tea and less vanilla, and before very long it fades to just the musks, which are nice enough but not what I want to smell like.

Wow. I hadn't expected to particularly like Embalming Fluid, but it was included as a free imp in an order I just received, and I liked how it smelled in the vial. In the vial, it smells cool and citrusy and slightly sharp. Wet on, it goes strongly lemony for a bit, then fades and the green tea comes through. Like Mel_K said, this is a lot like Healing Garden's greenteatherapy, except I liked that line (I used to have the perfume spray, and basically used it all up). This is more citrusy, and has the warmth of the white musk underneath. I'm not a fan of white musk most of the time but in this instance it's working simply as an anchor. I'm not sure if Embalming Fluid will turn out to be a "me" scent, but it sure is lovely.

I need to learn that any perfumes with wine in them really don't work on me -- they are too perfumey. Harvest Moon smells entirely like florals and wine on me, whereas in the bottle I smell the apples much more. But once I apply the fruits are barely there and all merged together. No spices, no brown sugar, no verbena, nothing crisp, this is just warm and muddled and giving me a headache. :~(

I like the simplicity of Malediction - the first thing I noticed was how thick it is compared to many of the other oils. It really clung to the imp wand and I wound up applying too much! Wet, it's strongly patchouli and vetiver. As it dries, the two harmonize to become a scent much like cedar, as many others here have noticed. I would have liked Malediction more if it had stayed heavy, but as it moved into "cedary" the scent became thinner and sharper, rather than rich and earthy. Still a very good scent, but these are two of the base scents in Umbra, which I like much much more.

White geranium, calla lily, cedarwood and black orchid. A gentle floral bouquet masks a sinister and black-hearted core. In the bottle and on skin, Goneril smelled like sharp soap. I didn't let it stick around long. I don't even like soap that smells like soap, for heaven's sakes.

Depraved is so lovely - I applied it to my wrists last night before bed, and sniffed and sniffed as I fell asleep. On me, it's a nice balance between the apricots and the patchouli, which smells less like patchouli in this case and more like earth, like walking through an apricot orchard where some of the fruit has fallen to the ground and split open. I like other apricot blends: Yerevan started out beautifully, but the fruit faded and it just became musky, and March Hare fades on me within a few hours. This one lasted last night, but I slathered it on my cleavage this morning and it's already fading a lot. Sigh.

I can't describe how Mata Hari smells in the vial, but on me, wet, it's jasmine (or as someone else said, almost like gardenia) with roses faintly in the backround. Roses are usually quite good on me, but jasmine much less so. Wet, the coffee/vanilla/tonka/fig thing is entirely absent. As it dries down I can smell the coffee VERY slightly; I think the vanilla and tonka are primarily anchoring the florals, rather than emerging on their own in this blend. Where is the fig? I'm glad it isn't here since I don't really like it. Mata Hari is a very glamourous scent -- it reminds me of how the ladies smelled when I went to the symphony with my parents in the 1970s and 1980s, or perhaps of one of the perfumes my mom had on her dresser. I'd put it very near Black Dahlia, which is also lovely but not very me. But I'm not much of a florals girl, with the exception of rose blends like Kurukulla, Alice and Zombi.

Immediately upon applying Queen, it turned strongly earthy and peppery, which I love. Now, about half an hour later, a musky scent is beginning to peep out, sweetening Queen. I like this very much! ETA: I went to bed with this on my wrists last night and had hot, sexy dreams.

Tintagel smelled like a balance of green woods/juniper and dragon's blood in the vial, but once on, it was mostly the dragon's blood with a small touch of spice/leather/wine. The dragon's blood warmed and nearly overwhelmed almost all the other scents. Very nice, but I have other mostly-dragon's-blood BPAL scents that I like much more. I'll likely swap this.

In the imp, this smelled like lovely apricots, a little lighter than March Hare to my nose. It was wispy at first, so I reapplied. Over a half hour or so, it morphed so that the fruits and musks were perfectly balanced -- and then the fruits faded and the musks/florals took over. It still smells pleasant, but it's not a *me* scent, whereas I'd like the fruits much more. Alas.

Not sure about cranky, but when I'm feeling vulnerable, Dragon's Milk is my best friend.

Dried roses, rose leaf, Spanish moss, oakmoss and deep brown earth. Zombi is gorgeous. It's the elegant decay of a New Orleans cemetery, wet with rot and moss, with mist and roses and upturned soil. It's the scent of graverobbing, or someone rising out of the grave. At first it smells slightly rotten -- and then the roses and moss come in and take over. When I put this on my wrist it turned entirely to rose (then faded to very slight moss), but when I put it in my cleavage it stayed rosy and mossy. So elegant. I liked Burial, but I love Zombi.

In the bottle and wet on my skin, Tombstone was beautifully evocative of the old west -- wood, dusty roads, heat, and sasparilla. It reminds me a little of visiting California's Gold Country in the summertime. As it began to dry down, though, it started to take on a plasticky smell. I wasn't sure Tombstone would be a keeper anyway -- it's lovely, but not something I want to smell like often -- but that definitely clinched it.

I like Perversion wet and straight out of the bottle -- it has a depth and richness that I thought I would really love. But as it dries down and fades, it turns into just chardonnay, coconut and leather, which to me smells much more like suntan lotion or something than like the perfume it is. It also, as it wears, smells a lot like my grandpa in some way I can't put my finger on. I almost put Perversion down for a big bottle, but I don't like how it fades.

I was hoping to really like Two, Five, and Seven, but I tried it after I tried Kurukulla, and well... I have to say I like Kurukulla better. The three roses in K. don't go weird on me, but the grassy smell in Two, Five, and Seven, combined with the fact that at least one of the roses in it goes all soapy on my skin, makes it the runner-up. I liked it quite a bit, but it was just a bit green and acrid and soapy, not just fresh rose, which is what I was hoping for. Alas. It's lovely, but not lovely enough to compete.

I wanted to like Sudha Segara so much, given that I love the taste and smell of sugared ginger and milk. In the vial, it smelled sharp and sugary, but also quite perfumey. On, it was the same thing -- very sharp and perfumey, not what I wanted it to be. I was hoping for much more of a soft honey-milk scent with a spicy ginger smell, but the ginger was only sharp, not spicy, not fresh-smelling at all to me. Sudha Segara also never smelled milky on me, unfortunately. Off to swaps, I suppose.

Tiger Lily smells a great deal like tiger lilies themselves -- one of my favorite scents in the world, given that they smell slightly spicy to me. When I tried this on, my skin felt itchy -- much like my nose does when I sniff these lilies -- although I didn't appear to have any other allergic reaction on the skin. The perfume stayed true for about 10 minutes, and then where I put it on less strongly, it began to develop ... a pee smell. Oh well.

A twisted teatime tart: apricot and sweet clove. March Hare smelled absolutely lovely, although the spices were subdued on me and the scent faded utterly within about three hours. Still, I think I'll hang onto this one -- it cheered me up, smelling it, and maybe if I apply more (or at a different time of the month) it'll be a fuller and more lasting scent on me.

*falls instantly in love* Kurukulla is, as the others have said, the smell of wet, juicy roses. I love cooking with roses, making jams and teas with them, and this to me is not just the scent of roses but the flavor of them. Just yesterday, after trying Kathmandu, I was wondering if I would find a lotus-based BPAL scent that would last more than a few hours on me. I put this one on and went to bed, and still smelled of it in the morning (and had some deliciously naughty dreams during the night, which seems indicative of Kurukulla's/Red Tara's nature). I want to smell like this all the time.

Kathmandu is very cedary on me when wet, and as it dries the lotus comes forward. I love the balance of the lotus and cedar, but lotus scents almost always fade on me quite quickly. I never really got the incense notes. After the first hour, I could detect only the faintest hint of Kathmandu. I like this one a lot, but wish it had more staying power.

I applied Kostnice about 10 minutes ago and, alas, it has already turned soapy on me. It almost smells soapy in the bottle, to my nose. I can't smell any of the proposed notes in it. Very disappointing.

After trying a couple of things with Dragon's Blood in them -- Blood Amber, Blood Lotus and Dragon's Bone -- I thought I would probably like Dragon's Milk best of all of them and so far, I'm right. Like the others, this stays fairly true on me from the bottle to skin to wearing it for several hours. It has the same fruity, spicy sweet smell that others have described. It smells strongly familiar -- though of what, I don't know -- and it is quickly becoming a "comfort" scent for me, as it feels very warm and safe. I can see myself getting tired of Dragon's Milk, as it's almost achingly sweet, but it has an exotic edge that keeps me coming back. If this were a color, it'd be dusty rose.