Nachtwulf

This is... certainly interesting. In the bottle, it's a sharp almost medicinal sort of scent, like lemon and sharp cedar with an underpinning of smoky incense. There isn't any cedar in it, in theory... I've determined what I'm reading as cedarish is the vetiver. Initially, when wet, it hits me like men's aftershave... a -nice- men's aftershave, yes, but still aftershavey, the vetiver being very predominant. I don't get much, if any, fruit whatsoever in it... it's vetiver, lavender, and a bit of musk with just a FAINT whisper of coconut. It dries down to a very faint sweetish vetiver... I think I'm going to have to try this by itself, without competing with Melisande and Candy Butcher, both of which have so much throw they rather dominate poor Tony, but overall... it's a surprisingly pleasant, rather masculine scent.

In the bottle, this is absolutely incredible. There's lemon in it (not lemon flower...just lemon), but it's wrapped and tangled up with an incensy sort of alltogether that's marvelous. Wet, however (like almost everyone else), all that goodness gets stomped under the hobnailed boot of the OMGLEMON. HOWEVER, in fairly short order, things settle back out again, leaving a distinct coconut-incense main note with just enough lemon there to remind you of its presence in the background. While I really don't like the lemon stage at all, the majority of it is very much teh_win, I think. I wish it lasted a bit longer...but then again, my nose might just be tired.

In the bottle, this reminds me of a sweetly sugared version of Beatrice. It's not fruity, it's not floral... it's sweet, 'damp', and faintly powdery. On, it starts out much like it is in the bottle, but then as it dries, all pretenses at florality vanish, and what I seem to be left with is a powdery vanilla musk that's highly reminiscent of Antique Lace. In fact, if one were to add 'dried floral arrangements' to the 'lace' of AL, that's what this is like... it's powdery, a bit 'elderly'... I imagine it being like Havisham, though I've never smelled it. It's got that whole 'dried flowers fossilized wedding cake powdery little old lady' air to it. No jasmine. No mimosa. I thought I actually got a bit of lotus from it, though that might be the vanilla. Not...really my thing, I fear.

In the bottle, this might as well be Bliss... chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. On, however, the foodiness simply vanishes, leaving a soft cocoa note and a sort of almost sourish quality. What this reminds me of, more than ANYTHING, is cocoa butter. The soft, silky cool sort I remember from summers as a kid, putting it on to soothe sunburn and keep down the horrid flaking skin. It's not candylike at all, in my mind... chocolate-like, but from wet to dry, it remains an echo of an almost-lost memory... of hot summers, twenty years ago, the community pool or the beach and a summer that would never end. Not, I suppose, the intention of the oil, but there you go.

I like chocolate. Unfortunately, so many of the chocolate blends are just too sicky-sweet for me to be able to stand in close quarters for long periods of time (Bliss being the worst offender). Until now, 13 was the only one that had that bittersweet quality that kept it from going too far. And then... lo, there was Vice. To be entirely honest, Vice's chocolate is so dark and bittersweet that it almost doesn't register. It's not like Bliss or MBCloset, or anything like that, nor does it do as some chocolate notes do and go all dusty-dry. The cherry gives it an almost winelike quality; this is rich, deep, dark, adult chocolate, probably the sort with brandy in it, and is NOT for the kiddies. The orange blossom is present in the background, but never quite makes itself overtly known... basically, the whole thing ends up as a melange of scents that dances around the edges of 'foody' while not making me smell like dessert or baked goods. It's also consistent in its drydown, for the most part. Short of 13, this is by far my favorite cocoa-type scent. I bought the imp on a whim, and already have a bottle on the way. I suspect this will end up on my 'often reached for' list.

I didn't get any cedar from this, or patchouli (thank god). It is, however, a very dry, dusty sort of scent; I'd call it 'sage' over cedar. It reminds me strongly of Coyote, although I think Coyote is sweeter... this is the scent of the desert at high noon; dry, sere, baking in the heat. It appears to be a combination of woods and resins, combined to give a very dusty quality (without any actual dirt notes, which would seem 'damp'). I do like it... but given that I LIVE in the desert, I can smell something like this by going outside in the summer. ^__^

So few reviews! I don't know what I was expecting... mostly, I think, vetiver and dirt, maybe pomegranate. This is anything but, though. What I get is: Clean, fresh pine needles (the wet, green kind, there's no powder-pine here), fresh-cut grass, a subtle hint of mint and/or cedar, and something indefinably sweet. For being representative of the Underworld, this is an awfully -living- scent, like lying on a new-mown lawn on a late-spring day, under the shade of a fragrant pine. It totally lacks the stifling powdery qualities of so many evergreen-type blends, and yet isn't acrid or overly masculine. I admit, I don't usually wear pine-type blends. BUT. I could make a serious exception for this; it's positively gorgeous. And it doesn't make me sneeze or go headachey. I can't get over how fresh and gentle and dark it is... it's the fertile belly from which, in time, all life will spring anew. A fitting 'end' for the Celestial series!

Bottle: Well, without checking the notes ahead of time, my impression was 'woody floral'. Sure enough, it is, though there's so much in it, none of the notes really jump out except for a bit of pine. Wet: Nnnnn. Well, it's very sweet, but I don't get fruit from it at all. It's some odd kind of back-of-the-nose sweetness, carrying with it a definite pine-ish scent and the undeniable soapy cloud of violet. (I should really learn to avoid violets.) Although it's very sweet, I can't get over the feeling that it's some kind of body-bath product. The throw is less offensive than up-close snurfling, since the violet doesn't carry well. Dry: Thankfully, the soap seems to go away completely once it's dry. What it leaves behind is...hmmm. Well, that sweetness is still there, and a bit of the pineyness. It reminds me of Loup Garou quite a bit, although that sweetness is more like... *dredges brain* Manila. That's it... it's like Manila with pine in it. I do like the throw, but it's not wristsnifferly...the closer I get to it, the less I like it. (It is, however, better than Holiday Moon, which is what I'd swapped for it...) I suppose I'll keep it and see if it grows on me. (Like a fungus?) Rating 1-5 --> 3.75

Gotten from: A swap Normally, the sweet foody scents don't like me too much... Gluttony makes me gag. This is -definitely- in the same category, but while Gluttony is choking, and most of the other things like it are too, this one stops well short of being too much (although it -is- still powerful and you only need a teeny bit!). It makes me think of autumn... of baking pies, fall fruit, and a teeny bit of smoke and crushed leaves. This isn't Halloween, though, it's Thanksgiving, which makes sense for the name/intent of the oil. It's very much like what I was expecting Harvest Moon to be, and although I'm not into the voodoo thing, I think it'd make an excellent harvest-celebration oil in any sense. Scentwise, I do get the almond, along with some other undertones like smoke (faintly), some sort of fruitiness that I'd consider to be apple-pumpkin, and then some other things that are too stirred in to identify separately. This oil -really- loves my skin, turning into a sweet, mellow haze that I had one of my co-workers tell me she liked much better than the imp of O I was trying to foist off on her at the time. (I had HoP on my hand at the time.) But it didn't work so well on her, to her disappointment. (Not that it was bad, but it wasn't quite what she had in mind.) I suspect this will end up being a bottle, sooner or later. It's definitely on the list.

My coworker got this as a frimp (yes, I've corrupted her too)... just from the desc, I would never have ordered this. Moss notes are usually horrid, and mint..well... Nuclear Winter was a big flop, so something with mint as a prime constituent probably wouldn't fly either. I tried it. In the bottle, it's sort of clear-sweet, and I do pick up the mint somewhat. It's sharp, but not painful. Wet: It shares some qualities with Mad Hatter, which is probably the mint (pennyroyal) note. It isn't quite like MH, it's more floral, but they do resemble each other. Mostly, it's mint, with some sort of sweet light resin underneath (the ambergris?) that makes it seem floralish without actually being like that. Dry: Pretty much the same as wet, although a bit less minty overall (the mint is fugitive and vanishes after about 30-40m). Final: I love this. It's in my top 25, although I think Mad Hatter edges it out for the mintlike spot in my top ten. It's what I'd classify as a "business" scent; you can wear it without sitting in a pool of stank (there are some oils even that I like that are too much to wear to work), and I really enjoy the gentle sweetness of it. Throw is moderate, and lighter in quality than a close-in scent. I'll probably pick up a bottle, or at least be sure to keep an imp on hand.

People keep talking about mint... I didn't get any mint at all, really, though when it's wet, it has something that's almost... doctor's office-y, I guess. Not quite antiseptic, not floral, not herbal... maybe it is something -really- faintly minty and something -faintly- citrus, but to be entirely honest, I don't get any really recognizeable separate notes at all. What I /do/ get is something gentlemanly and Victorian... it dances around 'floral', 'soap', and 'too manly' with admirable ease, and although it -does- court going soapy, it somehow manages to avoid actually doing it. Once dry, it gains some of the powderiness of the black musk, the citrussy qualities have melded into the background of everything else, and it softens... the throw almost seems spicy, somehow, without being the overt "spice" of say, Bengal, and almost seems to gain a vanilla quality (of the Tombstone variety of vanilla rather than Antique Lace). This is one of those rare "masculine" scents that really isn't too masculine; it doesn't beat you to death with leather or musk or vetiver. It's genteel, cultured... and just offkilter enough to really keep my interest.

I admit, I haven't historically had much luck with most of the 'death' type scents. Pale Horse was okay but not distinguishable, Wings of Azrael was largely a failure, Jazz Funeral and Embalming Fluid were flops. I'd been about to write off the Funereal Oils as a whole until I got this one as a frimp. I have to say, I really like this. It starts out almost piney (though I couldn't find pine in the desc, it might have a splash in it...might also be the myrrh), but then softens into a sort of general sweet-herby fragrance that I really like. It's green, and herbal, and clean-smelling without once dipping toward soap. It's sweeter than other green-herbal blends that I've tried, like Loup Garou, although I'd still sort of place it in the same category. It has a gentle, ambiguously sweet throw that's nice without being cloying or the least bit foody. It's not powdery, and it doesn't reek like a head shop. I'd consider it something of a 'work' blend, something you could wear around the office and not feel like you're sitting in a halo of stink (even prettystink). Definitely keeping the imp. Don't know if I'll get a bottle, since I dunno how much I'll wear it really, but it's surely a keeper.

Mmmn. Okay, on me, this doesn't smell like many of what people say... no vanilla, no jasmine... no 'dark'. What it smells like to /me/ are those little fancy soaps you find at a relative's house that's trying to impress people. The ones shaped like seashells, or little flowers. It's not that it has a /soapy/ smell, as such, because those don't smell like soap either. It's light, clean-aquatic, and floral beyond -words-. And yes, it's pretty strong, the throw is insanely powerful. I'd like it... except it reminds me of an old lady's bathroom. It's probably just me.

Lime, lemon... it's sort of all the same to me.... Unfortunately, it seems that any hope of musk or anything else shall duly be DROWNIFIED in the overwhelming sour reek of citrus. It does, toward the end of its drydown, start breaking up into more 'cologne' type notes, but by then, I'm already so weary of smelling like furniture polish, I'm ready to scrub it off anyway. Neither the overwhelming citrusness nor the final florals are enough to encourage me to keep this one... I prefer the lemon-ambers of Sol, if I must have citrus. But I'm sure it will find a good home soon enough.

Hmmm, the elusive Black Opal of No Lab Description... In the bottle, it's ambivalently sweet, though not knock-down-drag-out foody. On? There is something of vanilla, though it seems 'off' to me, somehow. Perhaps it's tonka, which is similar-but-different. I also smell the very distinctive not-quite-bubblegum of lotus, which for a moment or two, threatened to go nasty on me. (Lotus has a rather annoying tendency to go to melted-plastic-sweet on me, as in Jailbait, which is 'ORRIBLE...) All the same, whatever else in this is keeping Black Opal from doing so, and overall, I think it's a light, sweet vanilla-like scent. This isn't like the rich vanilla of Snake Oil or Tombstone, this is a clarion vanilla... almost like powdered sugar as opposed to caramel (though that's an analogy! It doesn't smell like sugar.) I don't find it 'dark' at all, but the imp is definitely a keeper.

I admit, I bought this unsniffed, partly on the desc, and partly because I /live/ very near the real Tombstone. I think this scent is a fine and fitting tribute to the Town Too Tough to Die. It possesses the same vanilla qualities as Snake Oil, but thanks to the balsam and cedar, it's not exactly foody, just sweet. There's almost an alcoholic quality, like fine bourbon and a cedarwood bar polished by the elbows of countless cowboys, gamblers, and ne-er-do-wells. It's not a raunchy sort of booziness like Bordello, though....(that's for later in the night, boys!) but rather, it's a veneer of culture over top of a rough and tumble no-nonsense prospecting town full of sagebrush, cactus, and unadulterated trouble. Somewhat masculine, it still doesn't smell odd on a female, and I do believe it's well within my top ten. The throw is nice, but not overwhelming (you won't find the cloud-o-stank here), and it has both a good duration (three hours so far) and it doesn't morph much, if at all.

Geesh, and here I thought I'd reviewed this! This was the scent I was really curious about in the Yule scents, but I was afraid it was going to be harsh and acrid. Fortunately, it's not. However, it's not at all what I was expecting in any real sense, either. My first overwhelming impression is that it's weirdly like Gypsy Queen. The incense in it seems to be the same note... not the warm resins of Midnight Mass, but something a lot darker and more sultry. It's not as sweet as GQ, though, and as it dries, it does seem to pick up a sort of iron-metallic sort of quality to it... like someone had covered the gypsy queen's tent with iron filings or something. I think I need to try this separate from other oils for a good long drydown and expand on this, but I just can't get over the similarity to GQ at the moment.

In the bottle: Sugar! Wet: Sugar! Dry: Sugar! *laugh* Well...okay. To be specific, what it reminds me of is toasted marshmallows. It smells very much like what I recall Sugar Skull '04 was like, though I tried it against SS'05 and they're quite different. It's a warm, cuddly, sweet smell that does indeed smell /exactly/ like caramelized sugar. I don't get anything like 'cream' to it, at least, not in the sense of Milk/Chaste Moon, but I think there's some 'muting' aspect to the cream that keeps it from being sickening-sweet. This has a -lot- of throw, though I find it more pleasant than actually snurfling my arm directly; it's like catching whiffs of marshmallow in the background. I keep thinking I want to layer it with either 13 (for marshmallows in my cocoa!) or something like Chimera, for some 'spice' with my sugar.

I was a /bit/ worried about this, since me and citrus have a very iffy relationship, but I went ahead and grabbed it because I /am/ a diehard solar type, and a Leo to boot. I figured, if I couldn't wear it, I could probably use it for spiritual connections. When I got the bottle, initial sniffing proved it was indeed citrusy, but not nearly as bad as I worried. It tends a bit more towards 'orange' and less toward 'lemon', which means it's unlikely to turn into 'dish soap' on me. There were other things noticeable in the bottle, but unidentifiable. Wet, it remains true to the bottle, warm citrus, but has a bit of orange blossom, perhaps, or something else of similar floral qualities. It's 'bright', but not harsh or brittle-seeming... it's still warm, just more of a 'clarion' sort of scent with a faint touch of spice. As it dries, the orange-fruit fades, leaving an almost incensy mix of spices and what I believe is probably sandalwood. There's still something 'orange' about it, but the fruitiness goes away. It reminds me faintly of an incense or potpourri that contains dried orange peel. The throw is a light, sweet incense-type. All in all, I give this two thumbs up. It -is- very solar, without resorting to anything acidic or sour, and I love the spice/incense notes in the background that warm up as the oil ages on my skin. It's much like watching the sun go through a day-cycle... it starts out bright, clear and fresh, then warms up (in midday) then dries down to a gentle, cozy duskiness at the end of it all. Very very true to the theme!

In the bottle, this is very much a vanilla scent. I know it's supposed to be floral, but mostly, all I get is vanilla, and maybe a bit of white musk. On me, it stays largely a vanilla musk. There's something ever so vaguely floral going on, but it's utterly stomped upon by the more forward notes. This isn't 'icy snow and flowers', it's more 'melted marshmallows' with something weird going on. I also find that it seems a bit plasticky, on first impression, and I'm not sure what's causing it. It's inoffensive, I suppose, but there are other vanilla-type scents I prefer (Snake Oil springs to mind), so I think I'll probably swap it for something I like better. At least it's popular? ;

In the bottle, this reminds me very much of a slightly sweeter Cathedral. I can pick up the cedar qualities to it (which I lovelovelove in Cathedral), which indicates I've got a new version of an old favorite. Warm sweet cedar makes me happy. <3 Wet: Hmnrn. I smell...cedar. I think it may be a little bit more floral than Cathedral, but not a lot. It's a lighter scent, and despite being extremely similar, doesn't seem to have quite as much throw. There is a whisper of incense, but only the barest whisper. Dry: Well, when it's dry, it finally morphs away from being a Cathedralclone and into its own scent. I'm pretty sure there's frankincense in it, that's more detectable in throw than up close. The floral qualities have faded, leaving wood and resin behind. Final opinion: Well, I love Cathedral, so I love this. But I have to say, don't feel like there's a panic to get more, since Cathedral is a catalog oil and isn't going anyplace, and through most of its existence, Midnight Mass is very close, at least as far as I can tell.

Bottle: Woody yet floral... it -does- rather say 'Victoriana' to me... that smell of wood paneling and elegant potpourri. On: ....Roses. That's pretty much /all/ I get from Ouija is roses. However, let me qualify that, as generally, rose goes kind of sour-ish like rancid potpourri on me. This -doesn't- go funny. I think there's some of the wood-note underpinnings that prevent it from doing so... I can't actually pick them out, underneath the roses, but it makes for a very genteel, pleasant sort of rose scent. I think I should come back to it in a couple of days though, after an 'all-work-day' test.

Okay.... I suppose this isn't terribly -surprising- and all, but while in the bottle, Caterpillar was just sort of anonymously pleasant, as soon as it hit my skin, it turned into the -exact- perfume... ...of a head shop. I have no idea what exactly comprises the scent signature of your average purveyor of funny glassware, but this is it, without the slightest deviation. Mind you, I've only been in a few, but... whoa. Eventually, I had to wash it off because the Head Shop Funk would NOT GO AWAY... and really, I don't -want- to smell like one. On the other hand, when you're talking about magic mushrooms, hookahs, and talking caterpillars, I can't imagine what would be a -better- way to describe it, wot? Beth was dead-on with this scent, but I'm afraid it's not my thing. Off it goes, and to a better home.

I got this as a whim of trade... none of the notes, just from the list, spoke to me, but I figured since I was getting Ouija too, why not? Wow. I'm so glad I did. In the bottle, it's fairly light, actually, with a woody sort of scent that most people have remarked on. I don't get 'earth' from it, which is good because the 'dirt/loam' scent Beth uses inevitably goes sour/rancid on me. As soon as it hits skin, though, it explodes into something entirely else. I don't get rose. Hell, I don't seem to get -any- of the notes listed. It smells of smoke, to me, of carved pine (the fresh wood, not crushed needles) and resins, and the dusky pall of incense. The throw is /amazing/, and even more resinous than simply arm-sniffing... if there was a scent for a dark Renaissance Festival, this would be it, in a small glass bottle. I normally don't like patchouli scents, since I instinctively think 'hippie stink', but.... damn, this is sexy. I can only imagine what it'd smell like on a guy. (But thankfully, it is not ManSmell... not too masculine for me to wear!) Must. Have. Bottle.

Unfortunately, any prayer I had of getting blackberry out of this vanished when I detected the sour smell of.... damp dirt. There may well be heather and blackberries in here, but any scent with the dirt/soil note in it, on me, turns immediately into sour, almost rancid mossy notes, with vast quantities of throw, and that's exactly what Glasgow did. If I get up right on it and snort hard, I can just baaaaaarely pick up some fruit, but overall... sour, moldering green wetness. Ah well... perhaps someone else shall fancy it more than I...