skyelyric

I never thought I'd buy a bottle of a floral, but this did it. I had a tester of I'm guessing aged Marcilla, which ended up a gorgeous creamy lily-of-the-valley scent. My new bottle is much more complex. When wet, the first thing I get is nectarine with a little of the beeswax, it's almost like an orchard with the floralfruitypollen thing going on. It settles into a beautiful complex creamy floral centered around the lily of the valley to my nose.

When first applied, Dorian is sweet, rather foody. I get granuated sugar, a tiny whiff of lemon, creamy tea, and something faintly cake-ish. However, as I feared, pale musk=white musk. Half an hour in and all I can smell is the foul, cloyingly sweet haze that is white musk on skyelyric. I could even catch hints of the musk haze after several hours and a shower. Le sigh. It *was* a pretty, edible scent...

<runs off to look up the Raven> Body chemistry is some crazy stuff...Like on me, Bastet is a lovely rich spiced almond, Asp Viper's a good almond too...Queen of Sheba? Corn chips. /hijack

Kumiho is a good example of ginger. This was actually one of my a-ha! blends, because I picked up Sudha Segara and went 'this smells really familiar...ooo...Kumiho! Ginger! Got it!' Tombstone is a good drywoody blend to get a feel for. Dracul is good for piney-type woods. I'd say Phobos is a more straight-up lemon than Embalming Fluid. Ultraviolet is very strong on the violet (go figure) if you want to try for that flower scent. In general too, remember the old standard 'your mileage may vary.' Some things smell very distinct but not like they're supposed to due to skin chemistry. You might start recognizing notes by realizing that X and Y perfumes both do something absolutely godawful on you. I found out what white musk was when Katharina, Phobos, and Whitechapel all turned into the same nauseating haze around me. Mostly it's a good idea to test and cross reference, figure out what has a similar smell, then look at the notes, and start figuring out what they have in common.

Ooo....or something like Havana comes to mind. And damn, I wish I had the legs to wear that. Love it.

Ordered an imp of this because I love palm in other blends, and I wanted to try some of the leathery/tobacco blends. I don't get much in the way of leather, well, at all, really. I get some tobacco, sweet woods, and something a little plant-like, but in a humid-breeze-with-a-hint-of-something-tropical-blooming-in-the-distance way. The floral tainted breeze note dies off over time, and the end result is just smooth and mellow. Havana might be going on my 'love' list in short order. There's also something very nostalgic about it, to me this is a hot summer night back in Florida.

Wow. I amp the living hell out of this. I put like a pinprick sized drop on my wrist and WHOAPERFUME. I smell a lot of tobacco in this, but it's like sweet, rich vanilla-scented pipe tobacco. Overall this is a very oppulent scent, I get the woods blending in behind the tobacco. I'll have to hide my imp for a while and see if it mellows out any, I have a feeling it would be stunning if it weren't trying to climb up my arm and kill me.

On me at least Habu is heavy on the bamboo, as is Autumn Coolness. I personally love Embalming Fluid, but my favorite mainstream perfume is Elizabeth Arden's Green Tea, which is almost a perfect match for it to my nose.

Anyone else get sweet grassy meadow out of The Gibbous Moon? I just happened to try some on and went 'whoa, cut grass and flowers.'

This is such a fascinating scent on me. It's syrupy sweet/tart in the bottle, but as it dries down the tobacco and some spicy notes come out to play and it turns into something goldenand...guava paste and sweet spices! Autumn Moon *almost* strikes me as a holiday scent, but not quite, and it's definitely not like anything I've smelled before. I think I love this.

in the imp and wet this is like good spiced rum with pieces of fresh coconut and a little sugar. on the drydown the rum fades, the coconut gets richer and sweeter, and the scent gets really warm and rounded, which i'm guessing might be the tobacco? i think intrigue is still my favorite summer island scent, but elegba's a brighter, equally pretty cousin to it.

The East out of the Stardust series.

This totally makes up for the Clytie decant epic fail. In the imp and wet there's something sharply herbal and astringent, it's like piney tree sap in the sun to me. I tested this as soon as it got here, and it was more of the same, gorgeous sweet spicy pine/fir (maybe the copal and cedar blending?). I put a small test spot near my elbow, and I could smell it constantly, for HOURS, through a shower. Great throw, great longevity, very masculine-smelling to me, but I couldn't stop sniffing it. So of course I jump on a bottle on the sales page, then go to wear my decant again and it's changed! After settling for a couple days it's lost its throw. I smell the same bright astringency wet, but it dries into something much softer and smoother, and much more private. Although I loved my aura of spicy trees, this gentler, quieter Helios is much more everyday wearable.

Let me preface this by saying this is the first thing I've tried with a leather note because, frankly, the idea scared me. Wow. It actually does smell like leather, I get pure well-worn but clean leather almost exclusively while it's wet. What amazes me is that I like this! As it dries, it turns a little sweeter, with hints of vanilla and something else swirling around, but it stays very elegant and understated, and very unisex...I might have to soul (and wallet) search on getting this one now

Saw Scaled Viper is definitely *not* subtle. To me it smells like red hots wet, only deeper, more complex, and it dries into rich woody cinnamon with wafts of the other spices and the Snake Oil floating around. If you can handle being distinctly cinnamon, this is gorgeous.

Um, ouch. I get a breath of sweet florals and then straight up chili powder...what on earth did my chemistry do to this???

In the imp and wet on my skin, this is a beautiful boozy/fruity almond on me, reminds me very much of amaretto sour cocktails. As it dries though, the almond and tart notes fade and I get an overwhelmingly sweet muddle. So I'm just left with a yearning for an amaretto sour.

Wow. This is what cinnamon redhots would smell like if they didn't smell fake. I know that makes no sense at all, but it's got the wicked spicy vibe and sweetness of redhot candies, but a much more real cinnamon smell with it. I don't get any of the other notes to stand out on my skin, but it ends up being a really lovely, complex cinnamon.

Just whiffing off the imp wand I got a very sour note, doesn't bode well, but meh. On my skin, this is a sweet, light, watery floral, and as it dries it turns into sunshine and clean laundry. Not sure I would wear this out, but it's a really nice scent to have wafting around while I'm gardening or hanging around on the back patio.

A celebration of the Nativity: the light, uplifting incense of the Misa de Noche Buena, purple sage, and a vibrant bouquet of plumeria, chrysanthemum, tuberose, Angel's Trumpet, Mexican tiger lily, dahlia, and azucenas. I don't get any incense out of this at all, maybe because it's fairly aged at this point. On me it's a bright, almost syrupy chrysanthemum. I think I'll be happy with my little tester, since it's not a particularly "me" scent, but it is quite lovely.

Dragon's blood is interesting to me because I get non-skunking jasmine out of it. Wet, that's all I'm getting out of Dragon's Bone. As it dries, I get warm, dusty woods, but on my skin the dragon's blood stays too present and it's just too sweet to be something I would wear.

This totally does not jive with the description for me. Was a frimp in my last order, and to my nose it's a kind of butterscotch/caramelly/coconutty white musk. It's not bad, but it's really, really sweet, and white musk is generally a death note on me--this seems to be behaving in a similar fashion.

I like almond notes, I like spices, this should work, right? Wet in the imp I get a honey sweetness, toasted almonds, and an odd green chili note that Forspecialplate mentioned. On my skin? Corn chips. This has seriously been my most entertaining BPAL yet. After half an hour or so it settles into a sort of nondescript sweetness on my arm, but I don't think I could generally keep a straight face long enough for it to get there.

I've tried a couple of the Snake Pits, and on me, Saw Scaled Viper is basically an atomic fireball candy that mellows into a cinnamon vanilla with some woody undertone. Habu seems to dry into smoky vanilla, but there's something almost watermelon candy-like about it wet. I don't mind fresh SO that much, but it is rather heavy and incense-y lab-fresh, so I can see why it might not be a universal favorite. I'll make sure I keep half an imp locked away to see what it's like aged. A lot of people on the sales page have decants of the Snake Pit blends, you could always look up reviews to see which sound the most promising and go from there.

I actually got a frimp of Dragon's Bone today and it's quite interesting. It's very dragon's blood when wet, but it gradually dies down into a sweet, spicy dry wood. Might be worth a try for you.