Merrill

In the bottle: Dusty sarsaparilla! Wet on skin: More sarsaparilla. Which I thought was one of the notes, until I checked. Dry: All clove all the time. Not clove cigarettes clove, oh no. None of the tobacco is coming through for me. Just pure, sweet clove, like the clove drops you get at Christmas. This smells exactly like those taste. Verdict: I'm glad I got a decant, but I'm not sure it's bottle worthy.

L I've never smelled Penitence, and if I was smart, I'd have gotten an imp with this order for comparison sake. But recently I've discovered that resins work very well on me so I decided to give this a try. In the bottle it smelled vaguely sweet and fruity. On my wrist it smells like green apple bubblegum. Exactly like the green apple bubblegum I got in Greece on a school trip, and have never been able to find again. So it's great from a nostalgia standpoint, and it's growing on me, even if it's nothing like anything else I have, or was hoping for. As I was writing this, I kept returning to my wrist to sniff. I think I like it <sniff>. I think so. Let me check again... (Expect a second review sometime after Tracelina get home, that starts: "Merrill's crazy." She's much better at picking out notes than I am.)

My gf got me bottle of this as a surprise, since I took a course on intellectual freedom last semester, and Miller was mentioned practically every other sentence. In the bottle: Berries and cream. On second sniff, there's something behind it, probably the cognac. Wet on skin: Still berries and cream, with a boozy note. I'm getting hints of leather and paper, but the sweet notes are predominate. Complicated, but in a good way. Dry: Sweet, but not overly so. It's a deep scent, and I'm not sure I can pick out individual notes. Everything's blended together really nicely. I really like this. It's a lot sweeter than what I usually wear, but it's a nice change of pace. It'll be nice for warmer weather. I was worried about the cream note, because Ichabod went really sour on me, and the cognac, because i sometimes find the boozy scents overpowering. But this is lovely.

Sniffing after applying: "Hey, this is pretty subtl-WOAH!" Three seconds after sniffing, it's like a stuck my nose in a bottle of cinnamon: I can feel in up in my sinuses. There's other spice besides the cinnamon, but the kick is hot the way cinnamon is. Dry: Still subtle, with the delayed spicy kick. I love this so much. Two hours or so later: This has calmed down a lot. It's not as spicy, and a little sweeter (I guess it's the dragon's blood). Overall. Love. Complete and utter love. Ifrit is brighter and less dry than Mr. Jacquel, my other spicy love. Definitely bottle worthy. I'm having a hard time detaching my nose from my wrist.

I'm from the oakmoss school of Mole, apparently. No soft moss for me; it's all patchouli and a little sandalwood, and very, very spicy. I thought it was softening a bit on the drydown, but it's just as strong as it was wet. Maybe a couple hours from now, it'll be different. We'll see