lady_pandora

Burial (deep, brooding forest scents, including juniper and patchouli. The scent of upturned cemetery loam mingling with floral offerings to the dead.) I vaguely remember feeling that way about The Apothecary (Tea leaf with three mosses, green grass, a medley of herbal notes, and a drop of ginger and fig.). But it's been a LOOOONG time.

Not entirely the same, but Lyonesse or Morocco may have some of the same vibe and appeal that you're looking for. Yeah, Morocco.

I've never used either, but I think some reviews of Ask the Nearest Hippie drew a comparison.

It does happen sometimes! There was a batch years ago where the caps sheared off too. And I had a pile of decants from like 2007 that all leaked. I think sometimes the vial company has a bad batch. :/ No, it's not normal--I have lots of imps that have survived for ~10 years with no issue.

I'm also going to put in a plug for BPTP Do the Dancing Maidens Sleep, which is hyacinth/honeysuckle/asphodel/honey/vetiver. Mostly because I just love it. It's up right now, but probably coming down pretty soon, as it's basically a Yule.

Sjofn is apple bubblegum on me, and fades to faintness pretty quickly. It's sweet and pretty, but I have other apple BPALs that do more for me.

Early on I get spiced rum close to the skin, and this really lovely "rain" note in the throw--it reminds me of an oil my old roommate used to burn in her oil burner in college that was really ethereal and soothing. Unfortunately, though, I lose that note and the scent settles down into salty-spicy-rummy-men's-cologne. It smells really nice, but I want to slather it on a guy rather than wear it myself!

Shadows and Reflections definitely has a shadowy, smoky effect! The two most prominent notes on me are the poppy and myrrh; I can't really pick out the other two. The poppy is dominant at first, and it's a little "chemicaly" in the early going, but calms down shortly thereafter, and as the day goes on, the myrrh comes out to sit alongside it, sweet and incensy. This is a lot like Event Horizon. I like it, but I probably don't need a bottle because of the immense amount of Event Horizon that I have. But it's a well-blended scent and it suits the concept well.

Wet: WOOD! Soooo much cedar. 10 min: Cedar and I think amber? Also some black patchouli. 20 min: Cedary patchouli. 30 min: Slight cedar at the first sniff, and then all black patchouli. 1 hour: all black patchouli, and so from there on out. There's nothing objectively wrong with this--it's actually quite pleasant--but it's not me.

Holy good grief amazing. I am going to wear this so much in the spring. Wet, this is honeysuckle and something that smells like lily. Asphodel is a kind of lily, so this makes sense. It's a little soapy at this stage--not unpleasant, but soapy nonetheless, but wait for it... It resolves pretty quickly, on me, into its full glory, and what I get is a well-blended floral mix (I can't pick out any individual flowers anymore) with honey and a very gentle version of vetiver. There's a scent memory at the edge of my mind, but I can't place it. But in any case, this is pretty much an ideal non-rose floral for me. I want to bathe in it. There's something a little wild about it, like it's tempting you to your doom, but you're going to enjoy said doom. Sooooo beautiful. Kind of Snow Whitish waaaay into the late hours, must be the snow note. I decided to buy this because I like Anathema, which is also a honeysuckle/vetiver combo. They only ended up being distant relatives, but you still want to check this out if you like Anathema, because that means you'll probably like the vetiver-juxtaposed-with-sweet-florals thing.

This is a seriously beautiful rose scent. I get the rose, obviously--it's white rose, and I think I can smell the kinship with the other two white rose blends I've worn recently, Symmakhia and The Waltz--along with a light amber and a slight bit of what I think is the snow, which is a little almondy and a tiny bit minty and reminiscent of Snow White and kind of shampoo-y. It really does feel both blooming and chilly at the same time--maybe this is just the name and story talking, but it does make me think of an innocent maiden blushing in the cold air. Just lovely.

I'm not really knowledgeable about chypres, but I know they traditionally have oakmoss, and so I suspect that's one of the things I'm amping here: a green, herby, pleasantly bitter note. The other thing I'm getting is amber. This doesn't really morph much on me, and the oakmoss and amber are dominant enough that I can't pick out the other notes, but the overall effect is sophisticated, unisex, a little mysterious. I feel like I should be a dame in a noir film and probably have committed the murder. This isn't like anything else I have, and I'm definitely keeping this decant at the very least. I might need more.

My skin picked out a random assortment of notes from this and turned it into a close sibling of...Fairy Thorn. It was the same kind of ethereal greenery/sharp sandalwood/vanilla/floral thing, and when I compare the note lists, I get it! They both have vanilla (or vanilla orchid), they both have white sandalwood, they both have moss, and they both have tuberose. I'm amping all of these things, which makes them very similar on me. I like this, and it's really beautiful. But with a full bottle of Fairy Thorn, I don't think I need more of it. The sandalwood also comes out too sharp for me to use it as a sleep scent, and I don't get any lavender.

Early on, this is straight-up rose, a pure and perfumy rose, I want to say tea rose but I'm not always good at telling roses apart from each other. Gradually a hint of wood starts to show up, and it smells like a rose incense stick. There's a big and sudden turning point at around a half hour, on me, where the oud wood suddenly stands up and says "I'M HERE!" and the smoky wood aspect comes out more dramatically. But by an hour, it's really well-blended, rose and the woody oud note in roughly equal measure. Hours later, there's an interesting twist where the oud seems to take on a patchouli-esque tone, like the sexy funk of Sin or Lust, much more carnal than what came before. The rose is still present and pure. This is really interesting, and I'm so glad I ordered it! It's not quite like any of my other roses. ETA: Way way way down in the drydown, like 8 hours after applying, I get the same weirdly sexy oud scent that I get from Sinus Amoris, and amazingly, the rose is still hanging out. Mmmm, nice.

Beth is a sorceress, because this smells like a perfumy version of moldering house. I can't quite break down the accord--I think the perfumy element may be coming from some type of musk? It's sweetish, cloying in the first few minutes but then mellower afterward. And there's definitely a wood note but I'm not sure which wood. I can't decide if I like this as a skin scent, or if maybe I want to try it as a room scent, or if that'll just make me feel like the room is musty for real! But it's just fascinating, and a really cool experience. Hanging on to this decant for now while I figure out how I feel about it!

Try Lullaby, and Fairy Thorn if you can get it.

Jasmine and lavender, yup. The combination comes out smelling kind of like dish soap to my nose, but darned if it doesn't work like a charm. Conks me right out. I'm probably going to get a big bottle of this; I think it works better for me than TKO. ETA: Aaaand I think I'm allergic to something in this. There seems to be a ton of overlap between "nights I wear Somnus" and "mornings I wake up with my eyes puffy and watery as all hell." Dang it. ETA II: Guess not, after all! I had the same reaction this morning while not using it, so I guess I'm reacting to something else.

Oh yeah, d'oh! How did I not think of the four horsemen?

Oh, Talvikuu for another icy one, but that's another old LE. Event Horizon for your black hole needs; it's got some notes in common with the aforementioned Final Darkness.

I've never sniffed it, but Nuclear Winter is one idea! It's up right now in the Yules. If you think the world ends in fire, not in ice, I recommend Djinn (smells like burnt wood to me), or if you can get it, another one that has that association for me is When Thy Will Stung the World Into Strife, though that one's an old LE. It also smells kind of burnt to me, though not in a bad way, and it makes me think of empires falling (the poem that goes with it is about ancient Rome).

This starts out wet lush floral with lily and what I thought was narcissus at first, but then that note resolves into the night-blooming jasmine. And hooray, I apparently don't amp night-blooming jasmine quite as much as regular jasmine, because I get more than one note here! But between the lily and jasmine, they totally take over. It kind of morphs back and forth which one is dominant--the night-blooming jasmine, or the Dove-soapishness of the lily. The light musk may be involved too, though I can't pick it out specifically. I don't get everything I hoped for, but it's pleasant and pale and innocent, and I like the symbolism, and I don't think I have anything else quite like this in my collection, so keeper, at least for now.

Lemon-lime, then shading into orange with herbs and maybe something a little anisey. It doesn't totally disappear, but it does go faint after a few hours. I used this today because I slept badly and really needed to be competent at work. It took about an hour to kick in after applying, but I did find that it worked; I felt energetic. For the first hour or so of the effect, I was actually a little bouncy, and then after that, just a normal level of energy (which was an improvement over how tired I'd have been without it). I didn't find that it made me any more or less focused than usual, just pepped me up for the day. ETA 6/16/2017: Tried it again to prod myself into working out this morning (I usually do it later in the day when I'm more coherent). It worked--just the scent of it helped clear my mental fog and get me moving--and I was able to exercise without issue. Also noticed sort of a "cola" scent about it this time--it smelled fizzy and cola-y, or maybe Dr. Peppery or root beery. As that reminds me of caffeinated drinks, that seems appropriate!

Spicy amber, a little orangey in the beginning, snuggly-musky later, a little powdery. Simple, and really psychologically comfortable to me--it feels like "me," it feels like a second skin. This is a little black dress perfume--you could wear it anywhere. Definitely will need more of this!

Palmyra goes on as soft incensey leather, and then I get an incensey cloud with a light dusting of cinnamon and still a little bit of leather. There's something sweet, somewhere, that makes me think "incense cookie." And something in it is reminiscent of the Lab's tobacco note, to me. Why does this remind me of Cafe Mille et Une Nuits? They only have one note in common. But it does. It continues to be incense/spice/a little leather/a little whatever smells like tobacco for a while. Then, gradually, I start getting more sweetness, kind of a honeyed aspect to the incense-cloud. It starts to remind me of beeswax, and I go to the notes list because I can't figure out where this is coming from and d'oh! I had forgotten there's vanilla in this. Anyway, it's complex and really pretty. I'm really glad I jumped on this one!

The scent of this oil is kind of citrusy and herby, but I don't really recognize it. If I've smelled these notes before, they were combined in a really different way. I rubbed this for a few nights on an area of my body where I had a concerning pain; I used it in tandem with Wolf's Heart, actually, to ease my anxiety about it. I was checked out tonight and it was just a muscle strain. So I used Healing again in my ritual of thanks.