skyelyric

w...t......f? black tea and dried apricots. where in the bloody blue blazes did apricot come from? i literally just broke into my package, so it's still travel-addled, but totally not expected. so of course i adore it. while it's drying on my skin this really reminds me of a less-syrupy Aglaea, sweet, with tart fruit, and just now a tiny peeping-out of what might be vanilla or linen, something soft and powdery. i'll have to revisit this when it's settled, but it's quite fun now. =)

Baobhan Sith. Something bright and fruit-tinted and sparkling

Mourning Moon seems to remind my family matriarchs of Shalimar. ETA: Of the tea blends, any come to mind that are similar to Hermes Osmanthe Yunnan? On me this is a beautiful light tart apricot-y tea that dries into something sweeter with a touch of powder. It's not floral, it's not really fruity, it doesn't scream tea, it's just a subtle, sophisticated scent. The best note description I could find was:

file under: hmm, that's an experience Frimped to me by a lovely forumite...I seriously love random frimps just for the experience...In the imp and wet this is seriously earthy, a little sweet, a little herby...like the mud you'd get by spilling root beer on the ground. As it dried it got a little smoky, a little more bitter, and just...um, yeah. Thankfully I have the practice of trying iffy scents right before a shower. And here's a surprise...Drown Baron Samedi and he behaves? The minute water hit my arm I got this lovely waft of scent that I could not identify at all as something I had on, but sure enough, I smelled my test spot and it's really nice. In place of the funky soda dirt I now have a clean, tangy bay with undertones of lime and pine to my nose. Masculine, but not overly so, and now I can't stop sniffing my arm. I seriously might wear this in the summertime, just have to let it dry on my skin and then splash it with water.

Thanks for the recommendations. I think I'm going to go ahead and spring for a bottle of Inez and then lurk about the sales posts and see what decants I can snag to try the rest. Addict? What, me?! Never!

Resurrecting this thread looking for suggestions... I would dearly love to pick up a CD blend or two, but I can't afford more than that one or two...I've discovered I like wood and spice notes, amber, and vanilla and honey seem to play nice on my skin. Jasmine and patchouli are serious death notes; I don't really do many florals well in general either. With that preface, the short list: Saw-Scaled Viper Habu Aeronwen Inez Gennivre and Marcilla sound really interesting too, but I think with the still cold weather here I'm leaning towards warmer scents.

Whitechapel and Phobos are citrusy white musk; Whitechapel is the softer feeling scent of the two. Katharina is a fruity floral white musk. I amp white musk in about everything but Embalming Fluid (which leads me to believe there's very little in there), so those come across as pretty much pure white musk on me after the top notes burn off.

Ooo...I like violets. This is kind of a cool purple sweet scent on me, reminds me of the violet pastille candies. I don't really get many of the other notes, probably because musk amps to holy hell on me and gets really sweet, but at least the violet it strong enough to stand up to it. I'll have to pick up Ultraviolet at some point because I love the violet note in here, it just gets a little too sweet for my tastes.

Wow, gotcha watch this one, it gets shifty. When Spider first arrived it was quite heavily citrus, and it is very masculine (which in my case was the point since it's destined to be a friend's birthday gift). I skin tested a bit and it was a clean, citrusy cologne on me, seems like a winner. It's been sitting in the frog box chilling for a couple weeks, and today I snitched an imp for myself, and decided to try another skin test as I was packing up sniffie gifts. This time it's dominated by the vetiver, I think, which is giving it a piney quality. After it's been on my hand for an hour or so, some spicy citrus is peeking out, and it's gorgeous. Overall, Spider is enigmatic and dead sexy, I'm really hoping it smells this good on my friend.

Got this as a frimp, and it's...very interesting. In the imp and wet it's like defiled communion wine, for lack of a better description. It's got that sweet purpliness to it, but the dirt and something else twist it around. When it dries down it gets a lot softer and melds together and I get a kind of powdery sweet herby thing going on. I don't think this is for me, but I'm glad I got to try it out. Going to pass this on to a male friend and see how he does with it.

Ether is really cold and white to my nose, a head-clearing floral. It's nice for a while, but then something goes a little off on my skin after an hour or so and I get something that reminds me of the perfume scratch-and-sniff in a book we had when I was little. Crazy sweet and synthetic. Scent memories are screwy things, eh? Would have been a very pretty scent except for the skin chemistry weirdness.

In the imp, this is lovely--straight up sharp citrus peel and jasmine. However, knowing my tendency to rot jasmine, I wasn't planning on this going anywhere near my skin. With that preface, we know that when I recap the imp it's going to drip, and to avoid marring the label I will quickly wipe it on my arm. /sigh What?! No mutant death jasmine? I seriously am shocked. This starts on my skin as loads of citrus with a little fresh floral jasmine peeking through, and then when the citrus fades (it's citrus, it has the lifespan of a fruitfly) I'm left with a soft, delicate jasmine. I keep waiting for the rot to ensue and it never does. It's fairly light and fading quickly, but very, very pretty while it lasts.

Another member of the *sniff sniff*...'what is IN this stuff?' camp. This is actually my friend's order, so I really was whiffing cluelessly... In the imp I got this fascinating sweet creamy woody...something, so I had to skin test it. It's still sweet creamy wood, plus something almost coconut-like (maybe the palm and fig mixing?), and something that leaves a cool sensation in the back of my throat, like when you breathe in after having a mint (I get no mint from this, just that sensation). The cocoa doesn't come out on me at all. This is definitely a WOOD scent, but it doesn't strike me as masculine. Wet it has a lot of throw, but once it dries it stays a lot closer. Definitely not a fast fader though; the scent seems to be settling in for the long haul on my skin. I keep going back and smelling my arm, thinking I might have to get an imp of my own, and really hoping my dear enabling friend likes it this much once I forward her stash to her.

Got a frimp of this with my last order. Clearly No. 93 Engine is srs beesness. In the imp it's almost straight up beeswax to me. On my skin it turns into a sweet, dusty beeswax, which is really lovely, like sunlight hitting dustmotes and making the air sparkle--weird, but that's the impression I get. After a while the beeswax fades into a faintly spicy, woody, soft honey scent. I don't get any of the metallic impressions on this, just something delicate and sweet.

While wet, Aelopile starts out as a woody citrus on me--rather unusual scent, but I like it. Once dry, I really can't pick out any individual notes, it melts into something clean and crisp and sweet...oh, hey, amber's what goes sweet on me, cool. =) Amazing when your nose and your brain starting putting two and two together. I really like this, and it strikes me as an excellent unisex scent--which is good, since I actually got the imp on recommendation as part of a male friend's birthday gift (thank you to Duskinhereyes for that rec). I love giving perfume to guys. ETA: 8 hours later, after a few handwashings and some scented lotion, it should have been dead. The lotion wore off and I noticed, leaning my head on my hand, that I still have a whiff of Aelopile at skin level. =)

Dana O'Shee is the imp that goes in my pocket on 'I know people are going to give me a headache at work' days. The sweet almond milk and honey smell I get from it is just very comforting. Sudha Segara is on my next to-buy list for the same reason. I figure anything that's basically Dana O'Shee plus ginger (that's the vibe I get from the description) has to be all win.

Aglaea is a total 'i want to nom my wrist' scent. golden sweet tanginess, like the inside of a filled peach hard candy, or peach syrup mixed in plum wine. rich and intoxicating. this is a surprisingly solid scent to me. the imp hasn't changed since i've had it, the scent doesn't seem to morph on me at all. not a whole lot of throw on me (i swear everything latches onto my skin and refuses to budge) but lasts for quite a while. just to play, i layered a bit of Kumiho with it; the Kumiho disappeared within minutes, but toned down the sweetness some. overall this is a little fruity for an everyday scent for me, but i will treasure my imp for days when i want to be delectably sweet and summery. =) ETA: I can now say I wear this a lot more than I would have expected, it's really kind of addictive.

This is such an amazingly clean scent. It's a more mellow ginger than what I smell in something like Nanshe, which is like a fresh-split root. Kumiho is very refreshing, but refined and simple. There is almost zero morph on me from imp to dry down, just a tiny bit of sweetness, though like most light scents it doesn't have the greatest staying power. I actually get a mental image of the shaded bank of a pool with waterlilies--no aquatic notes, just a cool, clearing moistness. When my imp's gone this is on the big bottle list for sure. The family matriarchs even approve.

Gah, why is so much citrus mixed with white musk...sigh. While imped and wet, phobos is a distinctly bitter, nose-prickling citrus to me. Unfortunately, as soon as it starts to dry down, I amp the musk like wtf, and what's left is a cloud of overpoweringly sweet musk with a bitter undertone. Hoping a friend has better luck with this.

received this one as a frimp, so of course i had to try it out. in the imp it's very strongly melon with a background of something i can't clearly figure. on me, wet, it's rotten honeydew. on me, dry, it's...old lady. there's some of the melony scent left, plus something powdery and sour. interesting, but it hates me.

A catalytic, potent love oil used to spark (or rekindle) the flame of desire between lovers. I really wanted to try one of the Conjure Bag scents, and as I'm in a very long distance relationship, this seemed appropriate. When I first got the imp it was another of those 'knock me down at 10 paces' scents. Acrid incense, yeep. Having learned my lesson about skin testing those (Hunger, oy), this went straight in the Frog Box... ...where it's been politely contemplating its navel for a couple weeks in the quiet dark. Opened up the imp tonight and was pleasantly surprised to find something that to me was a spicy, warm sandalwoody/cedary mix, so a skin testing we go. On me it's now a beautiful spicy wood--nothing I would have ever pictured liking on my skin, but I really do. I keep getting little sharp sappy hints almost like pine but probably not. For whatever reason, I had an irresistable urge to layer this one, so I did 3 different tests: with Embalming Fluid: Becomes a cleaner, refreshing woody scent, like green sap over the dry sweet wood. with Lucy's Kiss: Cool! This is what I wanted Lucy's Kiss to smell like when I read the notes. It's a sweet spicy rose rather than the expired potpourri I get with Lucy's Kiss solo. with O: Um, wow. This may well be my signature scent right here. I liked O, I liked Fire of Love, I have no idea what they turned into but it's stunning.

the citrus in this is very elusive to me, i have to be sniffing very specifically for it. an early reviewer mentioned there being something "classic" about this scent, and i really get that. in the imp it reminds me of a fine perfume, something in a fancy ornate bottle that my mom would wear for an elegant dinner. so of course i tromp upstairs and find her, basically brandishing the bottle at her and going 'here, this smells like something you used to wear, what is it?' so there's kind of a vague theory at the moment of Halston(?) as that's the bottle that 25 years of memories is slogging up for me, but we're really not sure...i also mentioned that i bet it would smell lovely on her as it so reminded me of her old perfume, and i have now successfully BPAL'd my mother! *cackle* as far as the actual scent, it's a faintly citrusy, woody floral to my nose, really lovely. mom mentioned the citrus right away. on me it dries down to something a little powdery, a little mournful/nostalgic, but soft and elegant. chinese musk seems to be a lot tamer on me than most. on mom the scent stays much crisper; her skin seems to hold on to the citrus notes longer than mine. Mourning Moon isn't my typical scent style, but it's really beautiful. Edit: My aunt's take on this is that it has a Shalimar type feel to it, so maybe that's the mainstream comparison.

i know it's been said before, but this smells to me so like elizabeth arden's green tea, which is one of my all time favorite perfumes. i've been looking for that scent in something that would last longer, so i'm crossing my fingers. on me, this is a very light, clean scent. the musk, for once, does not rain on my parade (i have annihilated katharina, phobos, and whitechapel), and this lasts about 3-4 hours on me, leaving a soft delicate sweetness behind, though the scent itself is not sweet on me at all. this is definitely in my frequent-wear collection.

This is like wow ginger, like juicy, crunchy, just cut open a fresh root ginger, with a little spice (clove-ish) and lemongrass maybe in the background. At first whiff it's more refreshing than sleep-inducing to me, but I love the scent so I've been putting a little on the backs of my hands before bed every night and I haven't been as restless, still the usual bizarre dreams, but much calmer and less violent than normal. If you get a faint whiff it's a teensy bit reminiscent of the little hand cleaning square packets. Refreshing and astringent.