Janegodzilla

So far, this has been the most feminine of the Steamworks scents. The rose does its usual thing on me and amps like crazy, but the jasmine is a nice counterpoint to it and keeps it from going too crazy. I noticed the wine note mostly when the oil was wet; once it dried down, I didn't get much wine at all, which made me kind of sad. A scent locket might work really well to keep the pinot note around. Overall, this is surprisingly pretty and feminine, with the non-floral notes giving it a little more depth and complexity than I think it would've had otherwise. I don't know that I'll need a whole bottle anytime soon, but the imp will certainly be nice to have.

Like most of the Steamworks scents, No. 93 Engine is warm and pleasantly unisex. It's a bright, busy sort of scent -- the word "bustling" comes to mind -- with different notes zipping in and out to play. The balsam, cedar, beeswax, and sage are the notes that stand out the most on my skin, with everything else merging into a rich, busy backdrop that tosses up a hint of smoke or sweetness every once in a while. It's a lovely blend overall and I like it a lot, and the only thing that gives me pause is how strong the balsam gets after it's been on my skin for some time. I'm not sure if it's a one-off thing based on the particular day I was testing it or if it's because I'm prone to amping pines and firs and the like, but I'm definitely going to hold off ordering a bottle until I know for sure. The first hour of No. 93 Engine was amazing.

Well hello there, vetiver! How nice to see you! Alecto is an odd little scent. In the bottle, it smells overwhelmingly of wood, dirt, and greenery, all of which are completely overwhelmed by vetiver the second it hits my skin. Thankfully, the vetiver calms down after a while, and what emerges is wood and something that's kind of dry and leafy, like a tangle of bushes in high summer. There's also a sweeter note that comes out after a while, which I guess is the blackberry leaf? It smells exactly like a tomato plant to me. It's a sweetish green pulpy scent, like the way your fingers smell after you've touched tomato leaves. Alongside the cedar and dry greenery, it makes for a really interesting scent overall, but it's definitely not me.

This one was sent to me as a gimp from arboretum on livejournal, and I absolutely adore it. It's the most candy-like of all the scents I’ve tried so far, very bright and pretty and golden. In the bottle, it smells like sugar and honey, but the second I get it on my skin the musk comes out to play, and as it dries the ylang ylang emerges alongside the honey. The way Skuld develops is just lovely – when my nose is close to my wrist, I smell tropical flowers and musk and honey. But every once in a while I’d catch a whiff of the oil throughout the day when I turned my head or whatnot, and to my surprise I didn’t get flowers or musk, but pure honeyed CANDY. Deliciousness. One a minor note, I like how long Skuld lasted as well. I haven’t had much luck with staying power when it comes to the sweeter scents, so I was pretty delighted when I hit the end of my workday and Skuld was still floating around me in a pretty cloud of golden candy goodness.

Coyote would smell SO GOOD on a guy. In the imp, it struck me as being rather sweetly masculine, like a combination of hay, sunshine, grass, and men's cologne. There's a hint of meadow flowers in it once it's dried down, but the cologne and golden grass are really the scents that dominate. In my head, this is what a cowboy would/should smell like. It's a smidge too masculine for me to wear, but I'm definitely keeping the imp in the hopes that I can someday convince my boy to wear it. I think it would be swoonworthy on him!

I was really excited about trying this one, especially after reading all of the reviews, but...I'm feeling pretty "meh" about it. It's nothing against the oil itself -- in the bottle and on my skin, Miskatonic U smells like sweet, creamy coffee liqueur, with just enough wood to keep it grounded. But even though I've been dying to find a good coffee scent, MU is just a little too sweet, boozy, and creamy for me, and I think I was hoping for something a little darker and richer. It's an utterly delicious scent, but in the end it smells like something I'd rather be drinking than wearing.

Arboretum on livejournal gifted me with an imp of this when I expressed an interest in foodie scents. I’d read all of the reviews exclaiming that Shub-Niggurath smelled like cookies, but I had no idea that they’d be so accurate! Shub is pure gingersnaps, and those gingersnaps have TEETH. It’s a little less sharp when it dries (my usual imp whiff cleared out my sinuses and made my eyes tear up, it’s that biting), but it’s still a bright, snippy, zinging sort of scent. It never struck me as being particularly lusty; rather, the ginger in it feels playful to me. It’s the kind of thing I’d wear when I was feeling cocky and irreverent – not an everyday scent by any means, but fun when I’m in the mood for it.

Dragon's Heart is one of those weird scents where I started off not liking it at all, but after it had been on for about twenty minutes I realized I was completely in love with it. I'm not sure why I didn't like it much at first -- in my notes, I just wrote "argh, soap" -- but it doesn't smell remotely soapy to me now. I've never tried a Dragon's Blood scent before (this one came to me as a frimp) and so it's hard for me to pin down what exactly this smells like. It smells oddly floral to me, but no specific flowers stand out; rather, it smells more like the idea of flowers, overlying something much richer. It's feminine, but not in a girly way. It's sophisticated and grown-up, the kind of thing you'd wear with razor sharp heels and a no-nonsense attitude. I never would've thought to try any of the dragon's blood scents on my own, but this made me want to sample them all.

Oh my god, menthol! This scent came to me as a frimp, and I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be for me when the whiff I took from the imp nearly burned out the inside of my nasal passages. Even once it was on my skin, it was all menthol, all the time. A few other things emerged as I wore it -- there was something that smelled like dry, gray stone, almost like pumice, and at one point I caught something kind of swampy and brownish-green -- but for the most part this was just a blast of pure, unadulterated menthol. I have to admit that it made for an interesting experience scent-wise, because I've never smelled anything that was so fiery and cold at the same time (it's like a volcano erupting in Antarctica, basically), but it's still not for me.

ROSE. ROSE. ROOOOOOOOSE. ROOO--okay, now something else is showing up. Whew! In her first thirty minutes, Ophelia is almost unbearable to me. A lot of the really pronounced florals go straight to my sinuses in a really unpleasant way, and Ophelia was like an icepick right to the brain. I'm not sure if it was the rose or not -- it's a pretty likely candidate considering it dragged all of the other notes off the playground and kicked them in the ribs before grudgingly allowing them back to play. After those first exquisitely painful thirty minutes, though, Ophelia mellows out and becomes quite soft and pretty. Even once the rose settled down, it was still strong enough to keep me from identifying the other floral notes involved, but that actually worked for me. Whatever florals I was getting formed a quiet, melancholy base for the rose, and there was just enough warmth there to temper it. I don't know that I'll wear it very much, but I'm glad I have it on hand for the days when I'm feeling a bit floral.

This smells so good in the bottle. It's all creamy chocolate and minty goodness, with just the barest hint of cedar and moss. It smells the way you'd think an enchanted forest would smell. To my complete and utter dismay, however, the cedar completely overtakes it once it gets on my skin, and after about twenty minutes you'd never even know there was supposed to be mint or chocolate there in the first place. As forest scents go, it's quite pretty, but I wanted to smell like an enchanted mint chocolate forest and not, you know, the regular boring sort. Alas. I've noticed that cedar is kind of a jerk on my skin and likes to take over everything, so maybe a scent locket will be a little kinder to this one.

This is such a pretty scent! It's very warm and gentle and clean, and the honey gives it just enough sweetness to make it feminine without being overwhelming. The chamomile is very pronounced on me, as is the honey, and the combination is soft and sweet and comforting. There's something very warm in the background (the tonka or the hyssop, perhaps? I'm not really sure what either of those smell like), and whatever it is keeps the honey from being too sweet. I can definitely see this being bottle-worthy. It's lovely!

This isn't the most complex scent, but it's definitely a solid one! I get so much tobacco from this that it's not even funny, so it's probably a good thing that I really like tobacco notes. This is another one of those oils where the scent is different depending on how close you are to it (or maybe it just depends on where I'm applying it...I'm not sure!). On my wrists, it smells like herbs and tobacco leaves, with barely any sweetness at all, but when I'm not trying to sniff it directly off my skin it's a cloud of exotic, spicy vanilla. I was holding off on trying any of the Snake Pit scents because I wasn't sure I was going to like Snake Oil, but Snake Oil's awesomeness is making me fear for my wallet.

Ahahaha, oh my god, this smells like honey and sex. I thought everyone was just exaggerating! I thought I was really going to like O, because I love honey scents and amber has been pretty kind to me so far, but ultimately I think it's too sweet for me. The amber doesn't ground it enough, and without something musky or spicy to cut the sweetness, I find that the super-sweet honey or sugar scents like O give me a raging headache. If aging doesn't temper it at all, I think I'll have to pass her along to someone who will appreciate her.

Oh, YUM. I can definitely see why everyone makes a fuss over Dorian. I'm one of those people who gets a lot of lemon from this, but it's a sweet, creamy lemon, like what you'd get in a lemon meringue pie. Dorian is sweet and subtle, all musk and sugar and lemon cream with just a hint of vanilla and tea to round things out and keep everything from being overly sweet. The lemon makes it feel very fresh, and the musk and sugared tea are weirdly sexy together. I don't know. I really, really like this. Bottle for sure!

I got this one as a gimp from arboretum on livejournal. In the bottle, I loved it – Thaleia smelled almost like SweetTarts to me, fun and bright and candy-like, very very sweet. When I put it on, the “sweet” clarified into honey, flowers, and fruit, with a zippy hint of citrus lurking around in the background. It was very pretty and girly, and I liked how happy it smelled. Unfortunately, Thaleia faded fast on me, and it seemed like the citrus notes I liked were the ones to go first. The florals went next, and before I lost her entirely Thaleia smelled like peaches and baby powder on me. Not unpleasant, exactly, just not very me. I suspect I’ll need to give her another try, just because I’ve realized that I’m the sort of person whose skin chemistry is strongly affected by hormones and monthly timing and several other fruity/flowery scents I tried around the same time went completely bonkers on me in a similar way.

This is very very very very very very VERY sweet on me. I mostly get creamy apple blossoms and caramel, with maybe the tiniest hint of musk. For a while, it smelled almost boozy, which was a little odd. I think I just associate some of the super-sweet caramel scents with boozy notes? Anyway, Agrat-bat-mahlaht is quite pretty and I love the apple blossom note in it, but right now I think it's a little too sweet for me to wear. I'm going to see if aging cuts the sweetness some. She seems like she would work beautifully when layered, so I'll try that too.

Wet, this oil is absolutely delicious: crisp, juicy apples and sticky caramel, with a dab of creamy butterscotch and splash of coconut rum. Once it dries, however, the rum kind of takes over and I end up smelling like I dumped a bottle of Malibu over my head. I'm going to see if a scent locket works better for Creepy, because I simply can't get over how amazing it is when wet. If that doesn't work, I fear Creepy may not last long in my collection. Sad.

Sigh, yet another scent that takes forever to settle into something wearable on me. In the bottle, this was nothing but vetiver, "spice", and some weird chocolate note. Which is odd, because there isn't anything even close to chocolate in the note list. Once on my skin, things didn't improve much -- vetiver continued to overpower absolutely everything else, and while the weird plasticky chocolate note faded after a while, it took a depressingly long time before anything close to cherry or wine emerged. It's a lush, dark scent once the vetiver calms the heck down -- in my spreadsheet notes, I wrote that it was "feminine in a hungry sort of way" -- but there's no way I'll be able to wear it much if it takes that long for it to settle. I'm hoping that a little aging will make a difference.

Chilly and medicinal and electric. I'm assuming the dry, powdery, vaguely floral note is the violet; the rest is just straight-up eucalyptus, no mint whatsoever. It's a clean, cold scent. It reminds me of the way the air feels on those biting cold winter days when the sky is a clear, chilly blue and everything is iced over. I don't know that I like it, exactly, but it's certainly interesting.

Leanan Sidhe is the scent that convinced me to keep trying green florals. I love this. There's something very wild about Leanan Sidhe, something wet and electric and green. It's sudsy, but not soapy, if that makes any sort of sense; rather, it's a very clean smell, and when it's on my skin I have just an overpowering impression of the color green. The flowers in this provide just enough sweetness to counteract the sudsiness. It's lovely, and I definitely need a bottle.

This was crazy sweet in the bottle, almost to the point where it hurt my head. Very juicy, with lots of rose and fruit and flowers. The second it hit my skin? Poof. Gone. All I got from it was a hint of rose, and then that faded as well. I think I'll have to come back to this one, because I've never had a scent disappear like that before.

Cake Smash is pure deliciousness. On the surface, it's pure cream cheese frosting and sugary goodness, but there's a warmth and spiciness beneath that grounds the scent enough to keep it from giving me the sinus equivalent of a toothache. Up close, it has that herbs-and-tobacco Snake Oil thing going (which might also be the Doc Constantine, although I've never smelled that one), but as soon as you get farther out what wafts around is vanilla and cream cheese and cake, and it's pure magic. I find myself reaching for it every time I'm in the mood for something comforting, and I'm just sorry I never ordered another bottle while they were still available. I have a feeling I'll use every last drop. Also, the bottle art is absolutely adorable. What a cutie!

I'm so glad I took a chance on The Girl. She's soft, cold, and ethereal, and smells absolutely amazing. The flowers here provide some sweetness, but they're so pale and white that they smell more like the ghosts of flowers than flowers themselves, and the musk offsets the sweetness enough that I can't for the life of me consider this a "floral". It's too translucent for that. And...I honestly can't figure out how the lab managed to bottle the scent of birch trees, because it's such a weirdly specific and subtle note, but...yeah, they totally bottled the smell of birch trees. Of everything I've tried so far, The Girl is one of my absolute favorites.

Yeah, so Mircalla pretty much broke my heart. I'm holding out hope that a scent locket will work better for her, or perhaps some aging, but I'm pretty sure the problem is with my skin and not the oil. In the bottle, Mircalla smells delicious. Lots of red musk, tonka, clove and balsam, FAR more muted than I expected after reading all of the reviews. Once she was on my skin, the patchouli came out to play, and for a little while I smelled of sultry, musky incense. If the scent had a color, it would be a deep, dark, smoky red. Aaaaand then the balsam decided it didn't like sharing the spotlight and proceeded to beat up everything else except for the clove, at which point the two of them started throwing down and my sinuses were Not Happy with the proceedings. So disappointing. If the scent locket doesn't work, I hope some aging will make a difference, because I desperately want Mircalla to like me.