heywilma

Brimstone smells like foot odour? Or is that the cat? WHOSE CAT SMELLS LIKE FEET D:? I guess since Hellboy has a lot of them? I can smell the clean, fresh cologney scent just underneath the brimstone/cat/sour feet. It's very interesting, if only it didn't make me gag.

I don't know why I thought there was apple in this one (getting it confused with Snow, Glass, Apples, I assume). It's coconutty at first, but then changes to a very soft, vanilla-like scent that definitely evocative of snow. Snow White 05 on one wrist and 08 on the other – they smell basically the same. Or at least, my nose can't tell the minute differences they may have. 08 is slightly sharper than 05, and has more throw.

This was actually really nice in the imp – the jasmine wasn't overpowering, and I could get whiffs of (most obviously) frankincense, a sweetness that I assume to be the black currant, and other notes I can't quite place yet. Dry it was soap. Really generic soap. I'ma keep the imp, cos I don't hate it, but it's nothing special, either.

Brb drowning in a haze of patchouli. This is just interchanging patchouli/pine on me, I kept on waiting for the other notes to get their time in the sun, but they never peep through. Normally I amp musk, but the soonest I could detect anything was after five or six hours, by which time the whole thing starts fading away. Sigh.

So. I love myself some Stardust, in any medium, and Tristran is my favourite. It doesn't help that I had a huge crush on Charlie Cox, and will forever associate him with the character. They're both yummy, ok. Some time back, I RPed as Tristran, which I enjoyed way too much (it was AU-multifandom, and he was an agent for the BPRD. When fandoms collide, indeed), and mourned copiously when it ended. I would've bolded, underlined and italicised this scent on my wishlist. When I chanced upon a decant, I of course jumped immediately. In short, basically I am like a strict Asian parent with high expectations, and Tristran is totally the high achieving maths nerd that I've always dreamt of having. He It is wonderful. It's so well-blended – mostly woody, but other notes I can't quite place come out to play too. Generally speaking, the lab's woodsy, masculine scents are not my favourites, but I would wear Tristran any day of the week. Just... amazing, and such a fantastic embodiment of the character.

Lady Una, I am disappoint. I had such high hopes for you; with this many people lauding your virtues, you had to be amazing on me, right? Right? But you weren't. You were just kind of generically pretty. Very sweet and flighty. There was the promise of something great in the bottle, but you suffered a change of heart once you came onto my wrist. I guess I'm at blame here too – I do amp musk like a crazy person. This relationship could be saved, if only I got something out of you I couldn't get anywhere else.

I got an empty of this, enough to skin test, so I don't know if it's the small amount, but it's basically completely different to its description. Very nice and florally, not quite soapy but it feels clean. Really not what I was expecting, and not interesting enough to warrant any more.

Deliciously fresh and minty in the bottle, toothpaste on my skin. And it lasted for all of ten minutes before it vanished without a trace :/

This is in-your-face floral while in the imp, but on skin it very quickly dries to a sweet berry. Like, a really, really sweet berry, and a bit too rich for me. I want to like it – love the name, but this is closer to the wilting-flower Daiyu of Red Chambers than the badass Grindhouse lady I was hoping for.

Ginger and I do not always get along, but my love for tea was enough to overcome my fear of sharp ginger notes, and I'm glad that I went for it. This is just beautiful – the white tea is amazingly soft and romantic, and I detect no ginger whatsoever. There is a similarity to The Dormouse, but Kumiho is even softer, prettier. I love it. This is totally going on my bottle list.

My friend ordered this in one of our combined shipping sprees, and she was kind enough to let me take it for a test drive. I can say that I'm glad that I have a decant coming, but also that I didn't get a bottle. This is sweet with an underlying kick to it, undeniably pretty, and would've warranted a bottle if it stayed that way, but unfortunately it went all powdery on me The throw is good, for the short while that it lasted, anyway.

I'm so torn about this. I don't know what it is (sandalwood is prime suspect), but closely sniffed, it kind of smells like toilet cleaner. It's waaay nicer from a distance, but it has virtually no throw whatsoever. I wanted to like this really badly; maybe it'll be different if it's slathered? Will try again tomorrow, but if it still doesn't work, it's going into swaps.

I got a bottle of this unsniffed, because I thought, hey, if I don't like it, it's so popular it shouldn't be hard to hock, right? There was no need for my fear, because I love it. It's currently on a couple of different parts of my body at the moment, because it's just really interesting to see how it morphs. It's unassuming in the bottle, but on skin it's incredibly potent. There's a kick to the sweetness that's so nommy it makes me want to be sniffing my wrists all the time.

I am full of regret, guys, regret that I didn't snatch up more of this when the Shungas were still available. I love this. I go seeking tea notes (my brain probably makes a little boop boop boop sound that gets more urgent the closer it gets to tea), and for the most part they end up smelling nothing like tea or they last for a pitiful second then fade into something else entirely, but Needlework. Man, Needlework is the tea that I've been looking for. It's deep, bitter Oolong tea, none of this weak English stuff (I do love the English stuff, don't get me wrong, I just love the fragrant Asian teas more), and it lasts and lasts. It never loses the tea note, either, although it does morph into something more flowery after a while. Brilliance in a bottle. I will be looking for a back-up for sure. Incidentally, it's the only BPAL so far my mum has liked.

This is basically pineapples, with maybe a little sweetener. The throw and lasting power is insane – I smeared a little from the cap and it is just going and going and going. It dries a little powdery, and the pineapple turns into something a bit more combination-fruity-with-cream, but it's never unpleasant, and it would be great for summers. A keeper.

My face when I first sniffed this in the imp looked something like D<. It was almost almondy and cherry, and really not all that appealing. Everything else really quickly fades on application, though, and the cherry really comes through. Sure it's artificial cherries with an artificial sweetener so sugary it'll rot your teeth, but I like it. Right now (it's about an hour after I put it on) I smell like cherry-flavoured lip gloss. I can see this being used sparingly, so I will definitely be grabbing another imp.

On a positive note, this cleared my stuffy nose. The downside is that now I can actually smell it, and it smells like Chinese medicine. I get something pine-y in this too. It's interesting, and overall it's not unpleasant, but it's not for me.

Hua Mulan is one of a couple scents in my latest package that reminds me of a GC one. On one hand, I love the Mulan story, and would love to get my grabby paws on a bottle if I can, on the other, if that doesn't happen, then it's The Dormouse all the way. This is a delicate floral, and unlike a lot of other tea scents, I actually do get a little bit of the tea in this. The musk comes out on the drydown, although that, and the leather, are basically nonexistent. It's lovely, soft and refreshing. This is the Mulan at her loom, not the one on the battlefield.

This is not very florally on me at all – I get a lot of musk (starting to think maybe it's me amping that note, will have to test others to confirm), and it dries down to a nondescript, but fairly pretty scent. Actually, I find that on me, this is fairly close to Croquet, if a little bit sweeter. The partial bottle is a keeper, I think, but after it's gone I'll stick to Croquet for my musky/sweet pretty needs.

Stronggg, aged ginger, the kind that assaults your senses as soon as you cut into it. In fact this is doing that right now – I don't know if I could wear this, sleeping or not. But if you're into that fresh-cut ginger smell, this would be great.

I love frangipani, I love jasmine (and seem to be in the minority in that), but I never seem to have any luck with their scents. This was just way too sharp in the imp, wet on skin, and seem to be staying that way as it's drying. It's even the same sharp notes with a drop or two in the oil burner. This is basically assaulting my nose. I reeeally wanted to like this, but it was not meant to be

I honestly expected Lady MacBeth to be strong, sexy, wicked. Instead it's almost overwhelmingly sweet. Definitely not what I expected, but had its own charm, I guess. It goes a little boozy very quickly, though, and the throw is good (I have about five different oils on my arms and all I can smell is this). Will probably be keeping the imp, for those sunny days and a cute dress – not very Lady MacBeth-like at all.

I got a bottle of this unsniffed, because for some reason one glance at the notes list had convinced me it was something I'd love, and you know what? I do love it. In the bottle, it reminds me a lot of the toilet water (toilette... water?) that I used when I was younger, and brings back those hot summer nights in Beijing where us kids would run around after a refreshing shower, completely unafraid of mosquito bites because this was supposed to ward them off. On my skin, this dries down to the most soft, delicate floral, and there's hardly any rose in it at all. It's a comforting smell, and a comfortable feeling.

In the imp, this was lovely and fruity. Wet on my skin, however, it was a complete patchouli fest, and patchouli generally despises me (and me it. It's almost a Inigo Montoya-Count Rugen type thing; the roles are fluid). Good news though, on the dry-down this one blended really well on my skin, with cinnamon coming out in a big way. Spicy with a faint hint of fruit. It's kind of like a less intense Plunder. I like it, probably not enough to justify getting more after the imp's out, unless it morphs into something different over the next few hours.

I love frangipani (I had a bottle of frangipani shower gel that I absolutely couldn't get enough of, and wished that there was a perfume that smelled the same so I could wear it), so this really caught my eye, and I jumped at the chance for a partial bottle. In the bottle, whoa florals, with a very soft, sweet note underneath. The flowers come out to play when it's wet on skin. At that point it's so strong it's almost jarring, but thankfully it settles down to a really gorgeous blend, and my body finds something really creamy in this. Never could single out the frangipani, but in this case, not a huge loss Will definitely be on the hunt for a full bottle now.