lady_pandora

A few years ago, I'd never have even given The White Witch a chance, so sure was I that vetiver was bottled doom. And I would have missed out on something really great--I love The White Witch, and I don't even smell a smidge of vetiver anyway. I'm so glad I got a bottle of this. The dominant notes on me are the red musk, rose, and pomegranate. The throw is incensey, while close to the skin I get the juicy pomegranate on top of some red musk and a really lovely rose cloud. The amber, I think, is doing the same thing on me that it does in Spellbound; it doesn't really make itself known, but adds a warm roundness to everything and also sort of acts as a fixative, getting the lighter notes to stick around longer than they ordinarily would. Comparing oils to a fave like Spellbound is kind of a double-edged sword; if it smells like that, I like it, but if it smells too much like it, it's redundant. White Witch really hits the sweet spot. It's enough like Spellbound to be in the same scent family, but it's distinct and makes its own name for itself--plus I think this is a different rose note, a lighter one. I think it's the pom that does it. I think I'll be wearing this a lot. And it's not heavily seasonal at all--you can wear this year-round. It's also not dark or gloomy. If I were to associate it with a color, it would be pink.

This isn't an androgynous story but pops to my mind when I think of androgynous scents. It's one that doesn't work on me, but The Sea Foams Milk. It reminds me for all the world of one of the CK unisex fragrances. I'd also agree with Dorian, and of course the story was written by Oscar Wilde who was nonconforming in so many ways.

Darkness has several really distinct stages. I was out and about for a lot of the day and didn't really time any of this, so any times are estimated. When it first goes on, it's Johnson's Baby Lotion, not the powder but specifically the lotion. Incredibly so. I would not have known I remembered what that lotion smelled like until Darkness brought it back. I think this note is the narcissus, because in the next phase, the narcissus takes center stage and I can smell kind of a continuity between the two, like it goes from baby lotion to a lush, almost drinkable floral that also still kind of smells like baby lotion. But adult baby lotion. Somehow. In this phase, it reminded me of some of the Conjure Bag oils for love, in that like them, it's the kind of perfume a woman might have worn to be sexy 100-150 years ago when synthetic ingredients hadn't been invented yet. Opium gets its star turn next. On me, sometimes opium smells like hairspray and sometimes more like a powdery incense. In Darkness, it kind of does both at once. And it's not unpleasant. A little more hairspray than I'd like, giving it kind of a 1980s vibe, but not bad. I can still pick up the lotion/narcissus in the background at this point. At about 6 hours, narcissus is gone and myrrh comes out to play. There's still a dusting of opium hanging around too. And then myrrh is the last note left, unsurprisingly as it's a resin, and I can still smell a little of it the morning after. What I was going to say about Darkness was that I like it, but it's kind of Event Horizon's little sister--I feel like the Lab was aiming at the same thing with both oils, and that EH is darker, richer, and more perfected. And I still think that, but, um, I also had a really good time last night , and so I kind of want to praise Darkness's smexy powers. I'll have to try it again sometime. For Science!

I didn't actually mean to test this last night. I'd tested Some Strangeness in the Proportion earlier in the evening, it had mostly worn off, and now I was just sort of milling around the apartment and thought, "Hey, why don't I put on one of the other oils in this order, just for kicks." Blacker than the Raven Wings of Midnight smelled the best in the vial, so on it went. Initially, wet on my skin, there was something almost minty going on. I then proceeded to forget about it, wander into another room, and then WHOOMP, I was hit by a gorgeous cloud of awesomeness. It was mostly black tea (with no lemon, and lady_pandora sings for joy), with sweet incensiness in the background. It's a little smoky too. Like Strangeness, it's really well-blended, and it's hard to pick out all the notes at a casual sniff because they're harmonizing so well. This is a sophisticated lady, but she's kicking back. I can't shake a mental image of an alternate plot for "Ligeia," where Lady Li sits smoking in an elegant tea shop, dishing with Rowena about how that mopey boy was never really worth it anyway, and they should go paint the town. The black tea is the earlier stage on me, and then the later stage is mostly the patchouli and vanilla. The patchouli is so soft and round, not dirty at all like patch can sometimes be. Hell, it had the biggest excuse in the world to be dirty, given that the scent is based on a scene where a woman rises from the dead, but it's more of a sexy skin scent here. It blends so well with the vanilla that you can't really tell where one ends and the other begins. I can't make out sandalwood as a separate note. I mean, I don't doubt that it's here, but I can't pick it out, a far cry from Strangeness, where I amped it hard. What's most surprising about Raven Wings is how comfortable it is. I'd been expecting something really heavy and oppressive, again, based on the scene from the story as much as anything else, but instead this is just so damn wearable. It's a goth tea house in the beginning, and cuddly in the end. And more than a little decadent. And relaxing. When I went to bed last night, I didn't even feel the urge to put on my usual sleep oil; I just curled up with my Raven Wings-scented arm close to my face and snuggled in. I really like this. I really like Strangeness too, but intuition tells me I'm going to wear this one more.

When I first opened the vial, I smelled a big whiff of white sandalwood. Some years back, I decided white sandalwood gave me headaches and quit wearing it (which involved giving away my supply of Underpants and Hymn to Proserpine, for which I've kicked myself more than a few times, ha). So I was a little hesitant as I put it on, though I've wondered in the intervening years whether the headaches were really coming from stress or some other factor. Here's another piece of evidence toward that conclusion: Some Strangeness in the Proportion is not giving me a headache. Woohoo! Wet on my skin, I get a lot of the sandalwood and also some vanilla. I can't really "smell" the pink pepper, but I think it's there as a tickle in my nose, a milder version of what happened recently when I tried She Whose Handmaiden Was Love. This pepperiness drops out quickly, though, and after it's gone the scent doesn't morph much on me. What this settles down to is a really lovely golden cloud of mostly sandalwood. The throw, especially, is dominated by the sandalwood, while I can smell more vanilla as I get my nose closer to my arm. This is not a foody vanilla at all--like if I compare it to Mini Mag, which I was wearing earlier, the vanilla note in Mini Mag is way foodier (and Mag isn't really even all that foody). There are occasional wafts of a lovely sweet resin that I think is the labdanum. I am not yet all that educated in oud, and I can't tell you if I smell it or not. It's all really well-blended and sophisticated. This is one of those BPALs that smells like it could be really expensive. It also was really, really familiar to me, and I was racking my brain trying to figure out what it reminded me of. I finally had to dig through my old reviews to figure it out. Aha! I think it was Mr. Ibis that smelled a lot like this on me. For reference, in Ibis, I amped the white sandalwood, vanilla, and musk; and like this, it was a non-foody vanilla. This is really beautiful. As of right now, I think I'm probably good with the imp, but this has the potential to age really well and I may be DISO it on the forums a year from now, lol.

I've really been enjoying When Thy Will Stung the World. It won't really fit heatherovka's question, because to me it is a little smoky, but I really love it after the first wet stage. it starts out a little overwhelming to my nose but ends up mostly DB and red sandalwood and a little coffee, mmm.

Frimp from the Lab Kyoto starts out mostly anise (licorice) when it's wet, then as it dries, the cherry blossom comes out and blooms next to it. I get no sandalwood. The blend is soft, pretty, delicate, and not me, but I think I know someone who'd like it.

So, hedione/hedoine is apparently a synthetic compound that is derived from, and resembles, jasmine. I apparently don't amp it to the exclusion of all else, the way i do regular jasmine, so hallelujah for hedione! She Whose Handmaiden Was Love is an unusual blend, and its start wasn't promising. Smelling it in the vial, I almost didn't want to try it on, and the pepper note gave me a burning sensation in my nose when it was wet. Along with this burny note, the early stage smells like a combo of citrus and jasmine. The hedione starts to come to the fore and is a little powdery, actually reminding me a bit of the Follow Me Boy I tested yesterday, and the peppery kick stays around. I can't so much smell this pepper; it's only present in my nose's physical reaction to it, if that makes any sense at all. When I sniff too close to the skin, I feel a sneeze coming on. It continues to develop, and the scent close to the skin remains jasmine/pepper while the throw is more frankincense/rose. I do love the combination of frankincense and rose, and this is really nice, even if I do have other oils that do this. But at first, these two combinations don't seem to mesh. It's like I'm wearing one perfume on my arm and the other hovering around me in the air. And then--this takes a little over an hour--suddenly it works. It all comes together. It's frankincense, a misty floral blend that doesn't really smell like any particular flower, a sort of bubbliness, and a little bit of pepper that is finally working as a perfume note rather than as an irritant. And that's where it stays. It's really pretty and sexy. Unfortunately, it's not very strong on me. I'm not quite sure what to make of this one. I really love the dry stage! But it takes a while to get there, and it's kind of nose-irritating along the way.

This starts out smelling like straight up jasmine to me in the imp, and I'm thinking, if it's this jasminey before I even put it on, there's no hope for my jasmine-amping skin to do anything else with it. But in fact it did morph, and it makes me wonder if maybe the jasmine note in Follow Me Boy isn't actual jasmine but maybe night-blooming jasmine or some other similar-smelling flower. My amping power is usually so absolute that its absence here is weird. So anyway, when it's wet, lots of jasmine and an occasional whiff of lemon. After about 10 minutes, a powdery note starts coming in, maybe with rose, but it's strongly reminiscent of baby powder. The lemon gradually fades out, leaving a combo of the jasmine and the powder. After about an hour, the powder smells like it might be partially made of honey. In the drydown, Follow Me Boy is rather faint and mostly powder. This wouldn't be one of my first choices as a perfume, but I've been getting in touch with things magical this year, and so I'm wanting to hang on to Conjure Bag oils that come my way. And unlike, say, High John, I would wear this as perfume even if it wouldn't be my first choice. It's in the "pleasant and inoffensive" category for me. I'm hanging on to it in case I decide to try it out magically.

In the bottle, wet on my skin, and for hours thereafter, Hell of Great Heat smells like one thing to me: GC Sin. I think there may be some differences, but I don't have any Sin here to compare, and I can't see past the similarity. I get that same warm cinnamon note and the wet funkiness (this sounds gross, but it's not, and I can't think of another way to describe it) of the patchouli underneath it. It doesn't morph and doesn't fade. It's Sin. This is actually pretty handy, as I've always liked Sin and am out of it. And when I run out this decant of Hell of Great Heat, I don't have to hunt for more--I'll just buy more Sin from the Lab! ETA: It's still here this morning and it's still Sin. I smell amazing.

I like Lights of Men's Lives because it makes me think of being in a warm room with candles, and like Mokiefraggle, I'm sure I'll end up using Mini Mag for the same thing now that I have it. I also like foody scents better in the cold than I do the rest of the year, like Misk U, and I reach for heavy resins a lot too (I've been wearing Event Horizon a lot lately). Once in a while I feel like being one with the arctic blast rather than insulating from it, and for that I'll wear Talvikuu.

Phantasm is the battle of two amps: lemon and jasmine. I often have trouble with "tea" scents because I'll amp the lemon too much, and also have trouble with almost anything containing jasmine because the jasmine won't share the stage. But this was a frimp from the lab, and if there's anything I've learned in BPAL, it's to try anything once, because you never know. Wet, Phantasm is a huge sharp burst of lemon. I've seen softer lemon (or lemon-esque) notes lately: the lemonade scent I got from Delirium, or the soda scent I got from Gnome. This is sharp, sharp, sharp, cleaning-product-y, Lemon Pledge kind of lemon. I can smell a little jasmine lurking in the background too. Drying, the two notes share the stage for a while. When sniffing, I get the lemon first in each sniff and then the jasmine rolling in behind; if it were food, jasmine would be the aftertaste. The throw is more jasmine than lemon though. And then by the half-hour point, jasmine is victorious. It's not quite single-note, because it smells tarter than jasmine usually does, so I can tell there's still a little lemon hanging around. It continues to be mostly jasmine the rest of the night. This isn't me; I don't like the initial lemon burst, and I have other jasmines that work better. However, I can see how it evokes the concept of Phantasm. The first sniff of it is such a bright, sharp shock to the nose that it's reminiscent of the "green flash" (think PotC), only yellow rather than green.

No I didn't get to try it! I thought it might be too basic. I think it's still up for a few more days.

Hekaerge is an interesting morpher, and then finally settles on a nice comfortable scent that I like. Like milo, I was sure there was vetiver in this when I smelled it wet. Here are my best guesses: (a) I have no idea what gurjum balsam is, so it might be that, or ( lemongrass is apparently actually a relative of vetiver. Last time I saw lemongrass, it was lemony and over-amping in Angeronalia, but maybe this is a different aspect of it playing up. I don't know. Anyway, wet, I smell this vetivery note along with a little citrus (probably the lemony aspect of the lemongrass) and a sharp floral that's probably the lavender. Drying, it's very woody. Still making me think vetiver. It's smoky right on my skin. The throw is sweeter; the honey seems to be making its move. At 10 minutes, honey is coming out on my skin too. The other notes are still strong. The combo is chemical-y in a non-perfume way. Medicinal, maybe, like an ointment. But I'm also starting to feel like it's reminiscent of another oil I tried recently, Wild Indigo Duskywing, I think because of the smoky honey and because of the vetiver-that-isn't. 20 minutes: Honey amping everywhere. The medicinal quality is mostly gone, but smoky wood is still present. 30 minutes: Slightly smoky honey in the throw, somewhat smokier honey on arm. 1 hour: Smoky honey. When I saw "smoky honey" in the description of Wild Indigo Duskywing, I think something like this is what I was hoping for. That was more smoke-with-a-little-honey; Hekaerge is more honey-with-a-little-smoke. At this point I start to get a little woodiness again too, this time identifiable as red patchouli. Approaching 2 hours, it's still smoky honey and a little red patch. Seems this is where it's settling. I really like it! I don't feel the need to build a time machine, go back to 2011, and buy five bottles, but I'm glad to have this decant. ETA: Tested this last night, just woke up in the morning still smelling like it, so good staying power. I smell honey, patch, and maybe a little myrrh--I can't smell the myrrh much, but I think it's helping hold it all together and give it all this staying power.

My first thoughts were Coyote (I have no idea what the planty stuff in it is, but it's definitely a cuddly scent and has amber and musk) or maybe Golden Priapus (it's got the eucalyptus juniper; this blend went way wrong on me but a lot of people love it). Edit because I typed the wrong note One more edit for a disclaimer: I haven't actually tried Sweater Weather

High John starts out with a big cherry blast (I read up a little on High John the other day, and it sounds like it really does smell kind of cherryish) and then morphs quickly into manly, green soap. As perfume, I'm not really into it; it isn't bad, but not my thing. However, I'm going to keep it around for its magical uses.

This was a frimp from the Lab. I tested it with a little trepidation, given my history with lemon--I tend to amp it, and it's not really a note I love. As for the other two notes in Delirium, I amp and love apple, and love but often anti-amp rose. Wet, this is a really well-blended mix of the three notes. When you smell it, you don't necessarily think of any one of them individually. But if you go looking, you can pick out each of the three. They're very balanced in the wet stage. As it dries, at first I get my usual lemon-amping issue. For a little while, it seems like it's going to dominate the blend. But rose has a resurgence and catches up to it. It cycles back and forth between two stages: one that smells like rosy lemonade, and the other that's sort of a spicy rose potpourri or maybe a rosy spiced tea. Unusually for me, the apple is the least prominent of the lot, but I think it may be what I'm picking up as a spice note. Dry, rose is the most prominent note. Rose? Holy crap, guys. I don't think I've ever had rose outlast the rest of a scent before. Maybe my skin has finally stopped just deleting it? It's the soft girlish rose from Persephone. Now I want to retry Persephone. Delirium is mostly gone at about the one-hour mark, except for some lingering hints of rose. That said, I like it. I often say that I'm going to wear this oil or that oil in the summer, and often I never actually get around to it, but I think in this case I mean it. This is a light, breezy blend but with just enough decadence to suit my fancy. Not a bottle as of now, but keeping the imp.

I really want to start doing this too. I figure, into the diffuser/oil warmer can go some of the lovely scents with jasmine that go all jasmine when they hit my skin, and also all the tea scents--I have several, and as it turns out, I don't really want to smell like tea myself, but I think they'd make nice fresh room scents.

I started my test of this when I wasn't online and didn't have access to the notes list, and only remembered it was supposed to have dragon's blood in it. As it turns out, I guessed almost all of the notes wrong, yet looking at the notes list now, I can make clear connections between what I thought I smelled and what each thing actually was. When Thy Will... is a complex blend and a morpher. There's a lot going on here, and especially in the early stages, it changes fast. This first goes on as something that called to mind "expensive perfume counter." I wasn't really satisfied with this impression, so I tried to make out what I was smelling, and finally guessed it was a little of the dragon's blood along with neroli and rose. I now think the sharp citrusy tang is from the ginger, and that the rosy scent is the geranium. They all blend together really well, and like I said, it smells "expensive." The next stage is mostly the dragon's blood and the geranium, with the dragon's blood gradually becoming more prominent than the geranium. I still get occasional whiffs of citrus. It becomes a little powdery in a good way. When the geranium has mostly faded, it becomes more woody, and this note I did correctly guess as red sandalwood! it mixes really well with the dragon's blood to create a scent of incensey wood. At this point my left wrist and right wrist start smelling different! My left wrist stays mostly DB and sandalwood with occasional wafts of geranium. My right has started smelling more burnt, not in a bad way, like woodsmoke. I had thought this might be a vetiver, but I think it might actually be the coffee bean. It's a very perfumey coffee bean, not much like the drink, but adds the roasted and bitter properties of coffee to the scent. (I kind of made up a story in my head where there's this orchard, and a dragon comes along and lands there, and at first it's just kind of milling around smelling the fruits and flowers, but then decides "eff it, I'm burning all this" and lets loose with its flames. The poem is apparently referring to ancient Rome, so maybe there's a "fall of Rome" metaphor to be found here?) ETA because I realized I forgot to finish off with the drydown: left wrist continues to stay DB and sandalwood; right wrist cycles periodically between the burnt scent and a DB/sandalwood combo like the left wrist has. The throw isn't huge but the scent hangs around. One more edit: Much later, after everything else is mostly gone, dragon's blood is the last note standing on both wrists. When Thy Will...is a really unusual blend, not like anything else I have, and I like it.

I decided to try O Love and Time and Sin because of the reviews comparing it to Spellbound, which is an all-time favorite of mine. The comparisons are really accurate--the rose and musk in this are a lot like those in Spellbound, and both have a resin component as well--the amber there, the opoponax here. I admit to not really being a connoisseur of opoponax--I've mostly tried it in blends that had a million other things going on. So I think I've learned a little about it by trying this! I have a much better idea of what it smells like just by smelling the difference between this and Spellbound. The opoponax is incensey, husky, a little bitter. This doesn't really morph much and is well-blended with none of the ingredients over-dominating. It's Spellbound played in a minor key. It's beautiful, and yet there's also something that makes me uneasy about it, more in a sad way than in a scary way. It may just be the power of suggestion, I don't know, but I get a sense of sadness from this. I feel the desire to keep it around, and yet I'm not sure how often I'll wear it, just because it's so close to its happier sister. But a scent experience I'm glad to have had.

This was a frimp from the Lab, and like Djinn last night, one that I might never have gotten around to if I hadn't been frimped it. Thank you, Lab, because this is utterly beautiful. I'd been expecting something like Khephra, which was also really beautiful but which skewed masculine enough that I pretty much never wore it. But Cairo was nothing like what I expected. Opening the vial, the predominant note was a wine note. This was a little surprising to me, as I came in blind and hadn't read other people's reviews or a description of what was actually in Kyphi (Bad witch! Bad!). But definitely wine, I think the same wine note that's in Excolo Lilith. There's something a little camphoraceous, too, when I first dab it on, which thankfully calms down to an incense scent. I think I smell myrrh and also a lighter resin, and some spices, maybe a little cinnamon. As it dries, the wine and incense hang around and then...rose? Is that rose? Yes, it's rose, and it's so soft and pretty. I love rose with resins--resins seem to be the only things that keep rose from flitting away off my skin. It was at this point that I decided to look up the ingredients of Kyphi! From Wikipedia, wine was definitely in it, so was cinnamon, and myrrh and frankincense and a variety of other resins. So apparently my sniffer is mostly on target. There was also a mysterious "thorny shrub" that no one has identified. I wonder if the rose is the Lab's stab at what it might have been. If so, I'm really glad they put it in there, because it's gorgeous. Dry, the lighter incense resolves into something more obviously frankincense, and comes to the fore. Rose is still there but fainter, wine is also still there, and I think there's some myrrh holding it all together. This is seriously amazing. It's the scent of a world where the sensual and the sacred are one. I want to use it ritually, but I also want to wear it just to huff myself all day. I definitely need to keep my eye on how quickly i use it--it might well be a bottle purchase. I LOVE this. Thank you Lab.

Blessing of Isis reminds me, a bit, both of Anne Bonny and of the in-vial and drydown stages of Djinn (the middle part of Djinn, when it's all smoky, is really different).

You know how Facebook has a setting where you can view your page the way it looks to your mom or your boss or a total stranger? Defututa is one of those moments when I wish perfumes had that setting. I'd just click "Smell this perfume as: Someone who doesn't amp jasmine to hell and gone" and then I'd get to smell all those other lovely notes. I love the concept of Defututa and it sounds wonderful from the notes, but I can really only smell the one, and dangit, I still have an almost full bottle of Corinna around here somewhere, so I'm probably full up. :cry2: I can see why someone mentioned Flying Fox. It does remind me of that, and would probably smell great layered with it.

Score another for "things I never would have tried, but I got a frimp, and I liked it!" In the imp, this is a strong herbal incense that reads as Middle Eastern. It reminded me a little of TAL Blessing of Isis. I also have Cairo in this order, and I thought for a moment I'd picked it up by accident while meaning to pick up Djinn. Wet on my skin, it's mostly smoky wood. There's vetiver here, behaving maybe not quite as well as it does in Sloth, but almost. The rest of the smoky wood is made up of, I think, red sandalwood and pine. There's a slight hint of something minty. It might be cinnamon. A few times while it was drying, I thought I smelled wax, but I think it was a bit of throw from the Mini Mag that I have elsewhere on the same arm. But...it worked? I may try them together on purpose sometime and see what happens. Mini Mag could soften Djinn, and Djinn could accentuate the wood-and-smoke parts of Mag. Dry, it's really not smoky at all, but a woody mix of red sandalwood and some vetiver that smells more herby than smoky now. So it's a bit like I'm watching the fire in reverse--first the smoke and fire, then the intact wood. There's a little incense too, but I can't define it. This is a scent of power, I think--I could wear this if I needed to stand up for myself in a difficult situation. At the same time, I think Djinn would feel at home around a campfire with some beers. It's like nothing else in my collection, and lots of thanks to the Lab for sending it--otherwise I'd never have known I'd like it. FWIW, it comes across as gender-neutral to me.

Single Note: Lemon Lime Soda. This was a frimp from the lab, and it sounds like the old version. I haven't decided yet if I'll wear it. It's definitely one for hot weather if I do.