Miss Lynx

Vixen is my favourite orange blossom scent, by far. The patchouli is just present enough to ground it a bit and keep it from being overly sweet, and the ginger gives it a nice kick. It's one of my permanent top ten scents.

The best floral-but-not scent that I've found lately has been The Blasphemare Reliquary, from Carnival Diabolique Act V. Roses over dark ritual/church incense, balanced just perfectly for even my floral-amping skin. The rose note is just present enough to sweeten and lighten the resins, but never takes over. Beautiful.

I would totally wear a scent called Cinnabon musk! Musk + spices = LOVE! Chimera, as everyone has said, is definitely well worth picking up and will probably be your new best friend. No musk as such, but it has myrrh and copal, both of which are deep, rich resins, which have a similar grounding effect on the scent. It's got a permanent place in my personal top ten. Likewise Shub -- another of my all-time favourites. But I think the very most Cinnabon-like scent is Bengal -- the first time I tried it, I thought it smelled exactly like a Cinnabon shop. I think it's the combination of spices and honey. You might also want to check out Sin -- it's got cinnamon layered over amber, sandalwood and patchouli. Not as fiercely spicy as Chimera or Bengal, but still very nice, and the way the other notes blend together, I would swear there was some kind of musk in it. It's also the scent I've found most likely to make even casual acquaintances come up and bury their faces in my neck, sniffing deeply. It's pretty much liquid sex.

This was by far the one I was looking forward to the most out of this year's Halloweenies, and it's certainly living up to my expectations. A rich, heady, earthy-spicy-floral scent with an intoxicating edge, it's reminiscent to some degree of Gypsy Queen from Carnival Noir, and The Masque from the Poe collection. I was curious how they'd render agave nectar as a scent -- because real agave nectar, at least the kinds I've bought (it's available at health food stores, and used as a sweetener like honey or maple syrup, but is apparently lower on the glycemic index) has no detectable scent at all. But there seems to be a strong honey-like overtone to the scent, so I'm guessing that's it. Copal is one of my all-time favourite notes -- it's a rich, warm, slightly spicy incense resin that gives any scent it's in a luscious, warm, almost musky depth, and it's perfect here. Wood notes can be hit or miss on me, but here they're full-on hit, adding a bit more deoth and earthiness to the scent, but without ever edging into that weird dry funky feel that they can sometimes have on me. And tobacco I've long since learned not to fear in scents -- while I hate the scent of cigarette smoke with a passion, tobacco as a perfume note is actually kind of nice in moderation - sort of a sweet earthy herbal. It's definitely a background presence here, and gives the scent a faint resemblance to my beloved Red Phoenix. And the rose -- which is often troublesome on my skin, amplifying itself beyond all reason -- is perfectly behaved here, blending beautifully with the other notes and making itself unmistakably felt without actually dominating the scent, making this one of that rare handful of rose scents that actually work on me. The only flaw is that here and there I catch a whiff of something a little waxy, in a not-entirely pleasant way. I've gotten that from a few other scents, usually those that contain fig, but that's not in here, so I don't know what it is. But it's only a very minor, occasional presence, not much of a problem at all. All in all, a beautiful, exquisitely well-crafted scent! Intoxicating, sexy, earthy, mysterious and a little dark... Really, the only thing that could possibly stop me from buying a bottle of this would be if I try it side-by-side with Gypsy Queen and The Masque and decide it's too similar -- because I love, love, love this scent, but am trying to avoid redundancy in my collection. Then again, considering that Gypsy Queen is a long-gone LE, maybe a bottle of this might make a good backup. Grade: A

When first applied, this scent is bitter and dry -- very much getting the dry leaves and charred wood and not much else, which kind of sucks since it was the amber and musk that were the main attraction for me. Amber and musk are kind of like my personal hieros gamos in scent -- perfect partners, and where they occur together, it's really hard for things to go wrong. Still, I was hoping they'd come out more as it settled in. But about 5-10 minutes later, after I finished writing my review of Mictecahuatl which is on my other wrist, I sniffed the wrist I'd applied this one to and the scent was practically gone! The little bit that remained was pretty nice, and definitely had the amber and musk now, but whoa -- where'd it all go? Reapplying: bitter-and-dry is back. Sniffing more frequently in case it does a disappearing act again, within a few minutes the scent is a bit softer and sweeter, the initial blast of bitterness having faded and the other notes coming out to play. It's fairly nice at this stage -- warm and woodsy and very autumnal, and a scent that would probably work equally well on either gender, or even as a room scent for that matter. Wood very much seems to dominate, but now it's an intriguingly fragrant, slightly smoky wood -- maybe an antique chest made from some interesting fragrant wood, that's also been used to store incense or rare herbs. Lasted a little longer this time, but not a lot longer -- maybe 20 minutes or so. So, final verdict: a reasonably pleasant scent, but not a keeper, because I really don't have the persistence to keep reapplying it every 20 minutes. Grade: B

I wasn't at all sure if this one would work on me or not, since it has some notes I love (labdanum, sandalwood, benzoin), some I'm a little wary of (rose, stargazer lily, aquatics), and some that can be hit or miss depending on the company they're keeping (cybress, juniper, yew). In about equal measure. In particular, I was afraid it would be way overly sweet and perfumey on me - but when first applied, it was very, very unlike what I had expected. The initial impression was a strong waft of woodsy evergreen, with a warm amber-like undertone (labdanum and benzoin are both a bit amber-like in their scent). Very nice at this stage. Once it settled in a bit more, the aquatic edge began to come out a bit, but not to too severe an extent. It basically lightened the scent, but without making it too "perfumey" (aquatics have a tendency on me to smell very chemically and synthetic, like commercial alcohol-based perfumes). And the florals were barely there at all, even on my floral-amping skin, which is quite impressive. I actually hadn't feared the stargazer lily as much as the rose, because lilies for some reason don't seem to amp up nearly as much on my skin as rose, jasmine and most other florals do. But here, both the florals seemed to be behaving nicely. Eventually, after an hour or two, the evergreen notes died away almost completely, and the resins and sandalwood faded to a fairy subtle level, and the florals became a lot more discernible. It was basically a soft watery floral at that stage, but again, not nearly as overwhelming as predominantly floral scents usually are one -- it was almost more of a skin-scent, undetectable unless you sniffed it from fairly close up. And finally, after many hours, the last remaining trace of the scent is a very, very soft trace of the resins. On a second try, it didn't seem to hit the watery floral stage quite so distinctly, instead heading into a stage where all the notes seemed nicely balanced together. So it seems a little different even from one try to the next. All in all, a nicely complex morpher, and one that accomplishes the fairly unusal feat of evolving the reverse direction from what you would expect. Usually, florals show up fairly quickly, and base notes like woods and resins show up after they fade, not the reverse! Not sure how they managed that. On the whole, mostly quite nice, and certainly very interesting. I don't think it merits a bottle purchase necessarily, but I'm definitely going to hang onto my little decant for further experimentation. Grade: B+

Oh, yum! The phrase I read in someone else's review of another scent a long while back comes to mind: "If I didn't need this wrist, I would eat it!" This is like to love-child of Three Witches and Chimera, with a touch of Snake Charmer. Spicy goodness, with a sweet vanilla undertone, and just enough pine to keep it from being altogether foody, while not veering into pine air-freshener territory. I can definitely see why this is the most popular scent of Act V, and probably shaping up to be one of the most popular of the whole Carnival. Wearing this gives me little flashes of happiness every time a whiff of that glorious spiciness wafts up to my nose. If I'd never tried Chimera, this scent would probably have provoked the same reaction that one initially did (me rolling around on my back like a cat, with both wrists pressed to my nose, making incoherent sounds of happiness). As it stands, though, as much as I like this, I don't know if I need to order a full bottle, because it really is quite close to Chimera, and of the two I think I love Chimera just a tiny bit more. That is in no way a condemnation of Pickled Imp, which still makes my A-list; it's just that as fabulous as both scents are, I don't know if I need two fabulous scents that resemble each other that closely. But we'll see how I feel once we get to the last-minute ordering frenzy before the Carnival comes down. Grade: A

I want to like this more than I actually do. It sounds great, and yet something in it isn't quite coming together for me. Honey is definitely the top note; the spices are very subtle, more of a faint suggestion of spiciness than anything else. And then there's a sort of bitter herbal undertone, which I guess would be the gruit. The forum version of the lab description has substituted "fruit", but gruit is what it originally said -- it's a mixture of herbs formerly used in brewing for adding bitterness to beer, before hops began to be so widely used. I think it's that bitterness that's throwing it off for me -- that and there just seems to be a bit of a flatness to the scent. It doesn't really have the depth or richness than most of my favourite BPAL scents do. I don't hate it -- I just don't like it as much as I'd expected to. Considering how many scents I already have that I like much more, I'll probably be passing this one on. Grade: B-

Interesting -- this scent is sort of a warm herbal, with a strong note in it that smells like hay or cut grass -- maybe that's the hemp? Apart from that, no one note stands out -- I'm not getting much in the way of lavender, pomegranate, verbena or fennel/anise, all of which are usually pretty strong notes that can easily dominate a scent. But here, they all seem to just blend in together into a slightly medicinal herbal blend where no one thing predominates. It's definitely a pretty unique scent -- I can't think of any other that it at all resembles. But it doesn't really smell like something you'd want to wear deliberately as a scent -- as noted above, it's more medicinal than anything. Hay and bitter herbs. Not entirely unpleasant, but not pleasant enough that I'd want to smell like this on purpose. Grade: C

I think I may love this. I know I at least very much like it. The incense-and-roses combo has been done before, in Rose Cross, Parlement of Foules and All Souls, but this one is different. More incense and less rose than Rose Cross (which pretty much turned to single note rose on me), and less ethereal than either of the other two -- the incense here is a lot heavier and darker, more like Cathedral or maybe The Pit and the Pendulum, with just a subtle layer of rose overtop to leaven it with a bit of sweetness. The rose and the resins are balanced perfectly, even on my rose-amping skin -- it's heady, slightly dark, ritual incense, with just a breath of rose, making for an almost intoxicating combination. If you've ever smelled rose frankincense -- frankincense resin with essential oil of rose blended into it -- just imagine that with, with a dark, bittersweet myrrh undercurrent plus the slightly mind-altering richness of really good copal. And there's something almost a little dusty about it, that gives it a sense of ancientness. It's something I could wear in ritual or as a perfume -- it's gorgeous enough to be well worth wearing just for the scent, but it's also got, as others have comented, a sense of sacredness to it. It's how I'd expect to smell after just coming out of a ritual where a copious amount of really good incense was burned, and maybe rose petals were strewn on the floor. Yes, I think this is love. I can see a bottle of this one in my future. Grade: A

Odd and interesting, though I don't know that I'd call it disturbing. When first applied, it's the blueberry that jumps out most strongly, accompanied perhaps by red currant. Anyway, a berry blast, with floral undertones. Very sweet, though not to an unpleasant extent. After settling in for a short while, ginger and tea are pushing their way to the front of the line: the tea has its usual sharp, acidic quality, and the ginger in this one seems to be a fairly dry, slightly bitey variety, not the warmer-smelling ginger found in scents like Vixen and Shub (or maybe it's just the company it's in? This one is more like the ginger in some of the Asian-themed scents. I am finding this not such a likable stage. A while further on, the notes seem to be settling in and harmonizing with each other a bit more. I think the low notes -- the benzoin, vanilla and musk -- are helping everything to blend a little. It's still quite sweet, but with an undertone of tartness, and just a slight touch of spice from the ginger and coriander. It seems to be mostly a fruity floral, but with a bit of added mellowness from the low notes keeping it from being overpowering, plus a faint element of something... odd and undefinable. Something that keeps it from being too much like a normal perfume. Maybe it's the tea? Really not sure. The vanilla, sadly, is also taking on a bit of a Play-Doh edge, as it often does on my skin, which is another kind of odd. All in all, it's hard to form a definitive opinion, because it has elements to it I do quite like and others that I don't. I think on the whole it's probably a little too sweet for me, and the dry-tart edge from the tea and ginger doesn't so much balance the sweetness as add an off-note. If you took out the tea and changed the ginger to a warmer variety, I might really like it, but as it is, I suspect this one will probably be going into the swap box. Grade: B-

This one sounded so good, and yet something in it isn't working on me. It smells promising, in the bottle and when freshly applied -- spicy fruit with an undertone of something darker and a bit bitter. But once on, it initially goes cloyingly sweet, and then once it settles in a bit, that bitter undertone -- maybe it's the lignum aloes? -- becomes a lot stronger. It gives that funky, "off" note that some wood notes turn into on me, and pretty much throws the whole scent off. It's very frustrating -- I love balsam fir, clove, saffron, plum and sage, and most of the other notes are not bad, but that nasty bitter wood note just kills it for me. Oh well. Grade: C

Hmmmm... Not goaty at all on me. Then again, dark musk tends to go all light and powdery on my skin, something I occasionally forget. On the whole, this scent is a lot sweeter and more perfumey than I would have anticipated. In the early stages, it has a bit of that men's-scent feel, but that fades as the dark musk sweetens up, and it becomes almost feminine. Kind of a sweet, dry, slightly powdery herbal perfume, like a Victorian dusting powder or something. Though further along, the sweetness diminishes a bit -- maybe a Victorian gentleman's dusting powder, if such a thing exists? Anyway, it's not bad, but not really for me, I think. Grade: C+/B-

This was one I'd ordered a decant of, but alas, my package of Act V decants went astray in the mail, so I never got them. But a friend who'd gotten hers let me try a few, and this one was really quite startlingly nice. Unlike probably the majority of people here, I've actually seen a real hand of glory, up close and personal. A Wiccan high priestess I know who collects magical oddities has one -- can't recall where she got it, but it's pretty old. I am happy to report that it has no discernible scent, at least if you're looking at it with the box it's in in your lap or something (she keeps it in a wooden box with a scrying mirror mounted on the top). I've never actually put my nose right up to the hand to find out for sure. But if I had, I doubt it would have smelled too much like this -- a warm spicy honey with dark herbal and woody undertones. Not that this scent doesn't have its slightly sinister side, but I'm really not getting rotting flesh from it, even desiccated (thank the Gods). This scent is entirely more pleasant than I would expect "Handly" to be if I ever directly sniffed him. I think I will have to track down a decant for myself, since I've given up on the package ever coming (not the decanter's fault, I think it just got lost in the mail). Only down side is it doesn't seem to last very long. Then again given that Handly seems to be pretty well-preserved, I could be pleasantly surprised... But I don't think I'm going to put that to the test any time soon. I'll just stick with the oil, thanks. Grade: B+

I wasn't initially drawn to this one from reading the descriptions, because the hay note sounded sneezy to me. But I ended up trying a dab from a friend's decant accidentally (got it on my hands while opening the imp to sniff) and it really wasn't bad at all. Kind of a warm, woodsy, spicy herbal. The hay doesn't stand out too much after all -- it's much more balsam/wood/spice. Now I'm regretting not ordering a decant for myself... I may have to track one down somewhere for further testing. Grade: B/B+

My latest discovery: Carceri d'Invenzione, from the Salon, is very similar to Schwarzer Mond.

Interesting -- this is not my usual kind of scent, and I can't entirely decide if I like it or not. It's a very complex morpher of a scent, which smells different from one sniff to the next. Sometimes it's entirely too floral, sometimes ozone-tinged (ozone is high on my list of least favourite notes ever), sometimes softly sugary, sometimes ethereal incense. Plus there's the green grass note, which doesn't actually smell much like grass, but does smell like this Jovan Grass Oil perfume I had when I was in my early teens. I like the incense and sugar notes quite a bit, and the floral and green notes are not bad when they sit back and behave themselves, but the florals frequently seem to be right on the edge of going into total overkill, while never quite actually going there. It definitely does have a bit of a fae/otherworldly ambiance to it, and captures its subject well. It's a very light, decidedly springlike scent, and quite beautiful in its own way. It may be just my floral-amping skin that's shifting it in the direction of floral overkill. Grade: B

Whoa -- this is one very heavy scent. My first thought was that it's sort of like the bastard offspring of Cathedral and Centzon Totochtin, because it's got that sticky, rich but slightly rank, blood-and-booze scent of CT layered over incense, but that still doesn't quite do justice to it, because this incense is really evil-smelling. Looking at the above, it looks like I'm saying it smells bad, but really it doesn't. I think I kind of like it. Though maybe I'm just weird that way. After settling into my skin for a little while, the different notes blend together a little better, and it's really interesting then. Very incensey, but in a deep, dark, sinister way. Maybe a bit like what Malediction could have been like if it didn't smell, well, awful on me. Or maybe more like what I would have expected Al-Azif to smell like before I actually smelled it (compared to this, Al-zif is positively sweetness and light). There's a touch of something almost leathery underneath it, and a very slight element of sweetness, but of a dark, faintly unsavoury sweetness, like overripe fruit. Oddly, there are similarities to several scents I don't like (Malediction I already mentioned, plus a touch of Samhainophobia and maybe Graveyard Dirt), and yet I find it more likable than any of those. All in all, this really conjures up (so to speak) the image it's supposed to. BPAL have done a lot of scents that are supposed to redolent of evil magic or dark cultists, but I don't think they've ever hit it quite so squarely on the mark as with this one. I think it may be tainting my soul -- and I'm kind of enjoying it. It's definitely not something I'd wear every day, but I think I'll hange onto my decant for the times when I'm feeling seriously evil. Grade: B/B+

I hadn't been too sure what this one would be like, as it's got some of the incensey notes I really like, and orange blossom which is one of the few florals that works really well on me, but also wood and tea notesd, both of which are kind of hit and miss for me, plus the mysterious kakarounde which I'd never heard of. Plus, wood and vetiver together often result in a men's-scent sort of feel. But upon first sniff, it's a lot sweeter than I expected -- the orange blossom's very much a presence, and the vetiver and mahogany are fairly subtle. I googled kakarounde to find out what it was and what role it might be playing, and it turns out it's a floral -- an African flower oil used in aromatherapy, with a slightly similar scent to jasmine. Well, that explains why the scent's a lot softer and more feminine than I'd anticipated... It's got a definite dark, earthy undercurrent, though, so it's definitely not a stereotypically girly scent. Androgynous might be a better term for it, with its citrus-floral sweetness (both orange blossom and tea notes tend to be somewhat citrussy on me) over a very dark base. In the early stages, I quite like it -- it's very distinctive, not too much like anything else BPAL has done. But eventually it seems like some of the resins that give the scent its richness fade, and what's left is mainly overly-sweet florals over somewhat funky-smelling wood. Not so good at that point. All in all, very interesting, but probably not a keeper. Grade: B

This scent sounded quite appealling, but somewhat at risk of turning out to be a generic incense scent -- I like scents based on sandalwood, frankincense, etc., but have a fair number already, and at a certain point each new one is just mpt that distinctive. When first applied, though, my initial impression was that it was very strongly a men's scent. It had a very men's-cologne feel to it. A really nice men's scent, but still a men's scent. However, once it had settled in for a while, that feeling faded a bit and it began to smell more like just a really nice, warm, deep, slightly sweet incensey scent -- a little like Fenris Wolf, a little more like Schwarzer Mond. Seriously, anyone who's hooked on Schwarzer Mond and having trouble finding it (not so likely now that it's had a second run, but you never know) should definitely check out this one. So, definitely an incense scent, but not all that generic -- however, given that I have half a bottle of the first Schwarzer Mond and a full bottle coming of the 2008 version, I probably don't need this one. It's good stuff, just not sufficiently different from the good stuff I already have. Grade: B+/A-

Ooh, this is really nice! I'd been worried it might be a little too earthy and/or masculine, but it's not at all on me. My skin chemstry always sweetens black musk, and the champaca and pittosporum (I had to look that one up -- Japanese mock orange, whose blossoms smell pretty much like real orange blossoms) add a lovely overtone of sweetness. It's definitely got a deep, earthy base, but overall it's coming across as very nicely balanced -- earthy notes, gentle florals, a citrussy element from the pittosporum (orange blossom always smells partly floral and partly just orange on me), and a touch of spice. The leather note thankfully isn't very apparent on me -- I say thankfully because while a small touch of leather in a scent can be OK on me, more than that just ends up smelling horribly wrong, usually. Overall, it's slightly reminiscent of Lot And His Daughters, which also has that citrus-spice-earth thing going on, or maybe a bit like the love child of Vixen and Omen. A lot of people have likened it to Geek, but to me it's very different -- considerably sweeter and less woodsy. Verdict: really lovely, and on my skin it doesn't smell at all like a men's scent, though I can see how it could on someone else depending on which notes came out the most. Grade: A

I didn't really get anything very absinthe-like from this one -- mainly just a sort of generic perfuminess, with a trace of that sugary note that's in Hope and Faith and some of the Halloween scents. In fact, it's kind of similar to Hope and/or Faith -- maybe if they had a third sister who smelled like lilac instead of violet or rose. With that sort of synthetic edge that lilac perfumes usually have (I like the smell of actual lilacs, but lilac perfumes never smell very much like actual lilacs to me). And that's really about all I can think of to say about it -- it's not one of the more interesting scents the Carnival has produced. Just sort of "Yep, that;s perfume, all right." Grade: C

An interesting scent, and at first sniff, very likable. It initially reminded me of Tintagel -- it's got the same spicy-sweetness, with overtones of dragon's blood (I'm pretty sure that's what the blood accord is, or at least a significant part of it) and undertones of wood. Looking at the list of notes, I can see why the resemblance -- there are a number of notes that are the same or at least somewhat similar between them. Leather -- check, wood -- check, (dragon's) blood -- check, berries -- check, mulled wine -- check (well, grape and clove). The main difference is that this one's got a strong floral note in it as well, so it comes across as basically a more feminine Tintagel. It also bears a bit of resemblance to this year's Dragon Moon, though again, it's a bit sweeter. That one did have some florals in it, but it didn't have the almost syrupy sweetness of the grape and currant. On the whole, I like it, but it does over time veer into being almost a little too sweet for me. Freshly applied, it's lovely, but over time the lily amps a bit and so do the grapes. If it had just one or the other of those two, I'd probably love it, but as it is, it's more of a case of just like. Grade: B/B+

I wasn't 100% certain if this one would work on me, because vanilla is kind of hit and miss on my skin (it frequently turns to Play-Doh, though not always), and pine can sometimes amp up to the point where it takes over and makes a scent smell like air freshener. And then I wasn't sure I'd get to try it at all, because while I signed up for a decant circle for Act V, it's been over five weeks and no sign of my decants, so I think my package got lost in the mail. But then yesterday there was a meet'n'sniff and I did get to try this one, and OMG! It took me back to the first time I tried Chimera, when I ended up rolling around on the bed like a cat in catnip with both wrists pressed to my nose. Yes, it's that good. Fierce spicy blast with the vanilla softening and sweetening it the way the honeysuckle and copal did in Chimera, and the pine pitch (which is very subtle) grounding it a bit and keeping it from being too Cinnabon-like, kind of like the myrrh in Chimera. All through the afternoon, any time a little whiff of this scent would float by my nose, I would be filled with a sudden wave of happiness. Really, the only down side to this scent it that it may be a little too much like Chimera. Now, granted, Chimera is one of my all-time favourite scents and has a permanent place in my personal top ten, so that's not exactly a bad thing. But... Not sure I really need a bottle of another scent that smells so very similar to one I already have. That is the only thing stopping me from needing to immediately acquire a bottle of this by any means necessary. They're not 100% identical -- the pine note makes me think of this as being a little like the love child of Chimera and the Jersey Devil, only without the cranberry note that can sometimes make that one go a little too sweet. I think I need to do a side-by-side test of Pickled Imp and Chimera and see if they're sufficiently distinct from each other for me to want both. Right now I have a near-empty bottle that someone was kind enough to give me (leftovers from a decant circle), which has just enough oil left in it for a couple more wearings, so I do at least have something to experiment with, despite my decants having disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle. Grade: A+

Mmmm, I think I like this one. It's got a slightly similar feel to some of the Faces of the Heroine scents from last year's Lupercalia (particularly Vasakasajja, which has vanilla and skin musk as well, though this one is darker and without the florals). Warm, musky, resinous, and with a definite bit of an Indian feel to it. All of which work well for me... Early impressions: the vanilla is relatively subtle here and thus far shows no signs of turning to Play-Doh on my skin (though it usually takes a while to do that, so it's realy too soon to say). Similarly, pine and patchouli are fairly soft. It's mainly a musky/honey/resin scent at this stage, like a deeper and slightly darker version of O. Over time, it doesn't really change all that much, but stays very nice -- earthy and sexy and quite appealling. Not sure if it's bottle-worthy, since it's not too dissimilar to some scents I already have, but I'll definitely enjoy using up my decant of it. Grade: B+/A-