lady_pandora

I got a sniffie of Lead Phoenix a while back from a lovely forumite as an extra, and it turns out there was just enough oil for a skin test! It starts out plum and dark incense, and then the plum fades and a note I can't identify takes over; it really does smell like metal a bit! It's faint on me, but that may just be because there isn't much oil. Glad I got the chance to try it!

This starts out with a citrus that has a green and bitter tang to it, and reminds me a lot of the opening stages of 51. I cross-checked 51's note list in an attempt to narrow down whether the mandarin was doing this or the neroli, but 51 shares both notes! So I'm no closer to figuring it out, but at least I know why they smell similar!

The bitterness recedes somewhat over the wear-time, and the sweet notes bring up the rear in a quiet, subtle blend to balance it out. I can't pick apart the amber from the honey from the vanilla, as they are low-key and in perfect harmony. A certain tang remains, and surprises me with tart little wafts from time to time--this is not the super-round orange of something like Haunted Palace! (Which I also love--they're just totally different!)

This is a really great summer scent, and it does throw "flashes" at me throughout the day! I'm starting to figure out that I really like BPALs that surprise me periodically throughout the day--"Hey, what's that really interesting smell?...Oh, it's me!"

Last night I tried Alecto and thought I smelled pine instead of vetiver, and tonight I'm testing a scent with fir and I thought it was vetiver.

Anyway, starts out as a dark green blast and then becomes woodier, and at that point I like it, but then I start amping the musk way too much and it becomes overpowering. Alas.

Alecto was a frimp from the Lab! Thanks Lab!

Wet, this is kind of smoky for just a few minutes, and then settles down into a really nice pine scent. It doesn't smell like vetiver and it doesn't smell like cedar--somehow, the two are making magical alchemy together and smelling like pine instead. I'm not sure exactly what raspberry leaf smells like, but if it bears a resemblance to the fruit, I think that's what creates just a little bit of sweetness on the back end here. It reminds me somewhat of Christogenniatiko Dentrophobia, except without the tobacco phase that I didn't like in C.D.

Alecto is surprisingly comforting, and has kind of a wild innocence about it. I feel like this isn't the kind of Fury who comes for you when you kill your relatives, but one of the Black Furies from Werewolf the Apocalypse, guarding a long-lost temple out in the woods against evil logging companies or something. And in fact, I'm wondering how this would layer with Wolf Moon 2016. This one's wood with a tiny hint of berry, that one's berry with a tiny hint of wood--I feel like it could work!

This starts out plum with woods, and then the plum dominates for a while; it's a really "purple" scent in the vein of Oya/Purple Phoenix/Bathsheba/Morgause. As the scent develops, I begin to pick up what I think is the mulberry along with the plum; it's sweeter but less loud, and reminds of of the Lab's blackberry note. There's also a subtle sensation of "cold" when I sniff close to the skin. I'm not totally sure if I'm imagining it based on other reviews or if there really is a bit of menthol here. Anyway, the scent is really pretty and I like it.

I've tested Zorya P twice now, and gotten basically the same result. It starts out a super sweet vanilla on me, kind of oscillating between a "waxy" candle-type scent and a "foody" scent that reminds me of white chocolate, or maybe it's just a waxy white chocolate! From about the one-hour point on, I can sniff out a delicate floral amid the vanilla, if I'm looking for it--I think this is moonflower, based on my experience with Long Night Moon, but I wouldn't swear to it. It doesn't fade super fast on me, but has little throw.

This is a sweet scent, and a snuggly comfort scent, though so far it's not as transcendent on me as what others have described. I felt like I wanted some kind of contrasting dark note, like a wood or incense note, to balance out the sweetness, though conceptually I get why there isn't such a note here. I bet it'll age beautifully, though!

ETA, 1/27/18: I really love the way this is aging. There's something kind of smoky about it now, giving it a bit of a noir feeling and that edge I was wishing for when it was fresh.

I had to buy Ascendancy because the word itself earworms me with "My Shot." Ritually, I'm using it for sort of a long-term project, so it'll be a while before I can report on its efficacy, but so far I can report that it does indeed have a warm energy to it, and that it smells like maple freakin' syrup. This is definitely one that I'll enjoy for the scent even though I'm wearing it for Reasons.

ETA, 5/23/2018: Almost a year later, and I can say now that the long-term project mostly worked, and also that I wore this for a test for promotion at work and aced the thing even though I was hung over and sleep-deprived at the time. Powerful oil!

This review is going to be a shameless testimonial, because Veils and Mist totally works.

I'll start by saying it also smells lovely. I want a BPAL that smells like this too, because it's a super pretty aquatic floral, I think mostly water lily. Putting that together with the "Mist" in the name, I think it might be an Avalon thing.

My first experience with V&M was a while back when the vial itself sneakily hid from me--I'd transferred all my TAL to a new box, was sure I'd gotten them all out of the previous box, and months later realized V&M was still hiding in there!

But on to what I did with it. I wanted this vintage dress from Etsy, and I couldn't afford it yet. Obviously, being vintage, it was one of a kind, and once it was gone, it would be gone. I was sitting there thinking, "Huh, I wish I knew some magic to hide it till I can afford it," and then I was like "...Wait, I have Veils and Mist."

A couple of rules I set for myself:

• I had to put something in the petition to keep the seller's business from suffering while I was mojo-ing the dress. So I added in a line about redirecting other people's eyes to different things she was selling.
• Also to keep from harming the seller's business, if I did this working, I was absolutely committing myself to buying the dress if it was still there on payday. No takesie-backsies.
• I wanted to avoid looking back at the listing as much as possible. Partly, this was practical--I was worried that every time I looked at the listing, Etsy's algorithm would bump it. But it also seemed like a good superstitious thing to do. Trust that the spell is working, and don't look back at it every minute! As it turned out, I only looked back at the listing once after I started the working, and that was because it occurred to me to print the listing and put it with my candle.

It was about ten days. I got a gray candle, and every day, I would anoint the candle with V&M and burn it for an hour. I improvised the words I said, but by the end, they'd gotten pretty consistent. It was something like this: "May the mists surround the X dress being sold by Y. May the eyes of others glance away from the X dress. May the eyes of others fall upon the other wares of Y. May the X dress wait in the mists until I come to buy it on (Date). So mote it be."

Today was payday, and overnight I kept dreaming about it. I had one dream where it was still available, and one where it was already sold. I woke up at about 3am and I just had to know. So I fired up the laptop, first checked to see if my direct deposit had landed (it had), and then checked the dress listing.

And now it is coming to me. Thank you, Veils and Mist!

It smells like I put on Winter, My Secret and then went to the BDSM shop. I really like this!

On me, this is pretty much all iris. Appropriately, it has a ton of lasting power, but is almost a single note. The resins may be why it sticks around as long as it does, but I can't pick them out--this is just a straight-up, delicate floral that lasts all day without morphing, on me.

Oh, this is lovely. It smells kind of like a decadent caramel, but also kind of like incense, like someone made an incense caramel. I think it evokes the concept really well--in the middle of winter, this warm cuddly little secret, whose time has not yet come to be revealed. Close to the skin and totally comforting.

I almost didn't get to test this one, because I had a brain fart. For some reason I read the label as "La Belle au Bois Dormant," which I've tried before and was meh on because I amped the plumeria too much, and was getting ready to throw it into swaps unsniffed. And then I got another look at the label! Well, The Lady of Shalott is a story I've always had a soft spot for. I love how she chose to turn and face the world even though she knew it meant invoking the curse. So of course I had to try it.

And yay, I like the oil! First wet impression is greenness and water lilies. Then it turns into pretty much lily of the valley single note for a while; I am not a LotV expert by any means, but this is familiar from Belle Epoque. The sense I get from it is cool, dewy, green-white, creamy. Very pretty. Later, I get some gardenia too. It doesn't smell quite as "damp" in the later stages, but it's still white-green and cool. A lovely scent for a hot day, or a rainy one.

Tea rose!

I swear this is what that old Body Shop tea rose used to smell like. I hoarded a bottle of that and got it back out to test against London, but WOE, the Body Shop one has gone off, which really should not surprise me because it's probably 15 years old and really I should wear my pretties and not stick them in a box for 15 years. But this is what I think it used to smell like. It's my early 20s in a bottle.

I get the wickedness for just a few minutes, maybe at about the 15-minute mark, and then it goes away again and we're back to Tea Rose. I think the wickedness may be some sort of wet wood note, I don't know. It doesn't stick around or amp up enough for me to identify it.

I really like this. Definitely an imp keeper at least. Do I need a bottle? IDK. I do have a lot of BPAL roses, and big bottles of many of them. On the other hand, this passed the #1 keeper test, which is that if I test an oil in the evening, and then wake up the next morning wanting to wear it as the scent of the day, it's a keeper. And I've got it on right now.

 

I'm not a patchouli fan, but I can definitely recommend Bengal for spiced honey. It gave me a very strong "raised red welts" skin reaction, though, so you may want to be cautious. Kil-Devil is very molasses-rum with hints of something green from the sugarcane, and improves with aging (my imp was rather meh at first, but when I pulled it out to retest after a year, it was lovely).

You might also want to check out a few of the Carnival Diabolique snake pit blends; all of them have a the same snake oil base as Womb Fury, with a variety of different additional notes (Saw-Scaled Viper reminded me a little of a non-skin-burning Bengal before my cinnamon-amping powers turned it into red hots candy).

Wow, thanks! I'll be sure to look out for burning when I test Bengal, cinnamon or something similar has done that for me before (specifically in Arcana's Queen Crossbones) that aging doesn't seem to diminish.

 

Thanks for the tip on the Snakes, aged O and Snake Oil are my all-time-GC-faves, of course. I actually own/owned the entire old Snake Pit but never got around to testing anything other than Boomslang (the story about why I own tons of aged BPAL that is unworn is so long and boring), which I've used up roughly 3/5ths of that bottle, pending this return. I also traded or sold away Green Tea Viper on the old LiveJournal community a while ago, so I've already stocked up on the 2016 replacements for both of those. The entire rest of the old Pit (minus Anaconda, which I have tested gently) are my top testing priority for next week because really, what better time if I fall in love?

 

Yup, Bengal is pretty awesome, but I can't put it on right after I shower or the application site will get all red. If I wait a bit for my pores to close back up, it's fine. I also thought Saw-Scaled was a relative.

Wet, this is a soft pretty rose with something sweet; at this stage I thought it was reminiscent of a fruity note, like the pomegranate in Persephone but not. Soft, slightly fruity rose.

The sweet note gradually becomes more vanilla-y and the rose note reminds me of the one in The Waltz. Once this has settled, I get all three notes in beautiful harmony: rose, vanilla, wood. Super pretty. There's also something really clean about it, really fresh. It's faint, though.

It fades within about two hours on me, but it's lovely. I need to do some death matching to decide if I need a bottle.

Update 3/27/18: Re-testing after almost 2 years of aging. Wow, this is pretty! The louder, gothier Crimson Peak scents kind of overshadowed this one at the time, but this is simply lovely. It's a sweet, effervescent rose scent perfect for spring. Now I'm bummed I only got a decant!

Djinn was very woodsmoke and wood for me--IIRC it kind of went like a bonfire in reverse, starting out with the smoky smell and morphing into the still intact wood smell.

Bard is nearly a dead ringer for Lights of Men's Lives on me--I amp the beeswax to the moon apparently.

How about Do The Dancing Maidens Sleep from the Trading Post? hyacinth and snow-dusted honeysuckle, sweet with asphodel and honeyed vetiver. It took me a while to figure it out, as I wasn't familiar with hyacinth or asphodel, but my process of elimination, I am now certain this is hyacinth dominant on me. If you read the review thread, it seems to be hyacinth dominant on some and honeysuckle dominant on other. I think it's gorgeous.

I love it. I have no idea what hyacinth smells like, but asphodel is a lily and I know honeysuckle; I get lily and honeysuckle and some other flower too, so the third one must be the hyacinth. I've been wearing it so much this spring.

Orc! (Field grey courgette musk, roughly cured leather, and vetiver.) Courgette being zucchini.

I realized my last post in this thread was early enough that I didn't mention a couple of newer vetiver favorites--Anathema and Do the Dancing Maidens Sleep. So apparently I like vetiver with honeysuckle! The vetiver adds the green-bitter thing LiberAmoris mentions and it kind of grounds both blends and keeps them from being too sweet. I'd say the vetiver is stronger in Anathema and less prominent in DTDMS, but I think it works for the same reason in both.

And then I also like Black Moths, another case where it's smoky but the smokiness just fits the concept really well.

Blood Kiss, Salome, Morgause, Lady Lucille Sharpe, and Obsidian Widow are some of my favorite evil seductress blends, all of which have a darker, incensey edge. Crimson was a heavier Scherezade on me, and I could see it as a femme fatal scent.

 

Question - I see Countess Willie listed among the femme fatales, and I 've long eyed her with interest as plum, DARK chocolate, and ginger sound deliciously sexy, but I've also seen her compared to Bordello a lot, which was total yuck on me. No depth. No sexy. Just sticky, syrupy almond. So should I give up on the Countess or is she sufficiently darker/ heavier than Bordello to be worth a try? Any advice?

Countess Willie didn't remind me much of Bordello. It did remind me of, oh what was that Shojo Beat vampire one? Midnight Kiss? Except Countess Willie worked better on me of the two. I amp red musk though, which the Countess has and Bordello does not, so that's probably why they were so different on me.

!

 

I think you'd probably like Dorian and The Lights of Mens' Lives based on the types of smells you said you were interested in.

Yep, I was going to suggest Lights of Men's Lives too--to me, it smells kind of like vanilla and kind of like honey and kind of like the smell candles have when they burn. O might be another good one to try.

There aren't a ton of GC scents with pomegranate, but Persephone is super pretty, even though it doesn't have any of the other notes you mentioned.

I can smell this oil through the vial before I even open it, and it smells great. It reminds me of Spellbound--rose, red musk, and incense. That's how it smells in the first wet stage on me too. Spellbound with a little spice.

Well, rose isn't listed, and I don't keep smelling it for long, so I guess it was some kind of olfactory illusion. It next morphs into red musk and some spices that I perceive as foody.

At about 20 minutes, I get kind of a sweaty note. Is it cumin that can smell sweaty? I can never remember. Or maybe this is a weird thing the musk is doing.

The sweat note fades out about 10 minutes later and I get spicy red musk incense, and that's how it stays. It's really sexy! Definitely a keeper.

I tried one of the prototypes of Baba Yaga a loooong time ago, and this final version is somewhat different. It's a morpher in the early going, passing through high sharp floral, to cinnamon, to department store perfume with a bit of spice, to a really stunning lush floral (orchid? lily?), and then finally settling on a faint, pretty floral with some oakmoss. It's pretty, but too faint on me and not really blowing me away.

My mental concept of femme fatale often seems to involve a mixture of fruit, floral, and incense notes. Lady Lucille, Morgause, Spellbound, Lilith are some of my go-tos. White Witch always seems like it should be--it's got a lot of the same notes as these others--but on me it's too heavy on the patchouli, which brings it farther down to earth. It's sexy but more hippie sexy.

To me, the scent of Astral Travel oil is a soft citrusy scent, I'm going to guess neroli, followed by the creamy ambery note that's in Charisma, which I think is ambergris.

I'm not sure if my astral practices are as advanced as what others have talked about, but I will say that I'm able to go deeper into trance when I use this oil. I get further down the rabbit hole--the corollary is that it takes longer to come back up afterward. It's a valuable addition to my practice and my TAL collection.