malanna

This is a fruity berry scent, with lots of strawberries. At first, there is a tad bit of an astringent tone, but it fades, leaving a beautiful scent--berries, with a hint of lush, green grass.

Upon initial application, this is just what I imagine Dragon's Heart to smell like, sweet, yet firm. This is fruity and watery with a little cherry. When it dries down, it's a little less watery and seems more green, like the lush wildlife around a pond. The fruits aren't so strong. This fades, and is much lighter in hour 3.

In the bottle and upon application, this was gorgeous. This is the moon lighting up a garden, with the sweet pollen (okay, I don't really know if pollen is sweet) and beautiful dark flowers waving about. After a bit of time, it still has that floral but loses that beautiful edge. Maybe it's a watery note, or a slightly astringent note--it's hard to say what it is. Or, maybe I've just gotten used to the smell.

Initially, this smelled like cherry cough syrup, with a watery note and medicinal smell. After it dried down, it loses the fruitiness and smells like lotus. Agh, for I do not like lotus. It's either lotus or a watery note with some sweet floral. Perhaps honeysuckle?

I expected this to be a hothouse floral, like Old Paris. There's the lavender (maybe?), with some large blooms, but in an hour or two, it fades out to a warm floral (warm, not hothouse). I just sniffed it, and it made me think of the flowers that grows in along a low brick wall in an alleyway, in a hot, muggy city. It also makes me think of lotus, although I don't think there's lotus in this, in how it seems a bit watery, yet sweet. I think I can smell the jasmine, and maybe it's the honeysuckle that's giving Old New Orleans the warmth and sweetness.

Woodsy, astringent, medicinal--eeps! The raring medicinal, astringent quality fades slightly, but it's still there. I sniffed this, and thought this smelled really similar to another oil. Aha! It's Capricorn! The imagery I get from Apothecary is a dark, sinister forest, with the full moon overhead. Hmm, there's a note there that's trying valiantly to mellow it out. Is it vetiver?

I expected this to be more of a light, wispy white floral. I mean, it is, but it's not as straightforward as I had thought it would be. I agree with glampyre--it is an incense-y floral. I hadn't thought of it as that, but it makes sense. It doesn't smell like incense, but it has a grainy, slightly spicy quality that makes incense fit. There's definitely something lurking in the background--I think it's the musk that makes the spicy graininess lurk, rather than parade in the foreground. This was really light to begin with, but it's still there in its second hour.

Tea and lemon. This one smells remarkably similar to Embalming Fluid, but it's even lighter and it's lighter on the lemon. The green tea is on equal ground with the lemon. It's more like green tea with a squeeze of lemon. It's not that weak--the smell is apparent when I put my nose to my skin--but it's still very light. It's faded a little in the second hour, but not that much.

I read the description briefly and just saw "black" and "leather," so I expected this to be very heavy on the leather. Perhaps I was expecting leather, so the first thing I thought when I wore this was, "Oh! Leather!" However, the leather fades away to the background and the vetiver comes out. All I could think of was that it smelled like vetiver. Not smack-your-face vetiver, so I think it's being rounded out by the black musk. It made me think of a chic lumberjack.

This is pleasant, but it's so light it's hard for me to really like it. In my first hour, I smell cinnamon, but it's really light. I don't get the Red Hots impression I normally do. It's wafting on a soft background of orange (again, very light). In my second hour, the cinnamon gets even lighter and receds into the background. Then, Decadence is gone. Sort of like really decadent chocolate that encounters me.

When I first put this on, it's sparkling peach (or is it apricot?), which gave me this huge Fae impression. However, this has very little staying power on me, and this is barely detectable at hour 3. In between application and hour 3, Tamora mellowed out and wasn't so sparkly. It just became a flat, warm peach-colored scent.

I bought this one in a fit of ordering frenzy, and because the description was so amazing. However, after I ordered, I thought, "Eek. Woods. I don't like woods. Ulalume was woods with flowers and that did not end happily." Initially, this is woods. It's nothing specific, like bark or whatnot, but this is when you're in a forest and you can smell the brown part of the trees and the damp ground of the forest. There's a bit of spice that comes in to play, but it's not something I think about when I sniff myself. I only notice it when I really think about it. I don't think it's that heavy on the cinnamon, so it's probably the nutmeg that's coming through. I find that nutmeg seems to enhance the woodsy earthen quality of scents. After a little less than an hour, there's a white floral breeze that melds so wonderfully with this. It's apparent that it's still woodsy, but it definitely is not a masculine scent. I'm on the like it, but not enough to keep it. I'm just too biased towards woods.

I bought this, because I love the orchids in Queen Mab. Upon application. the orchids in Queen Mab, YES! In less than half an hour, the vanilla comes out. After the vanilla is fully out, it gets a bit...funky. I can tell it's vanilla, but the vanilla seems rather grainy to me, and not rich and creamy. The funky vanilla blended with the floral doesn't seem to melded together very well. It may just be that the vanilla seems that way because of the way it blends with the floral. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike the scent, and I think I like it, in a weird way, but the "funkiness" makes me only like it just a tiny bit.

I thought this would have less character, since everyone said this was rather light. It's lemony and there's green tea, but it has a lot of oomph that makes it very distinct. It's a very yellow, slightly sour, but not too sour, because it's sweet, lemon oomph. It didn't seem that light to me, but then, I was comparing it to Old Shanghai, which is really light. This lasted about two hours on me, before fading into oblivion.

This was rather odd. At first, it was citrusy, but when I put it on my skin, I got the rotting wood made into commercial perfume association I got from Hurricane. It is watery, too, but I couldn't get over the Hurricane association to really analyze the other notes.

To me, this was a strong scent. I was a bit too generous with my swipe, so this ended up giving me a headache. It's a pleasant scent, if I apply less. This was a brown scent to me. Not so much that it was woodsy, but because it made me think of root beer. It's root beer if it was sweeter, had less of a fizzy quality and was made into a commercial perfume. It really is quite nice, but I didn't like it enough to keep it.

At first, there was something to Bayou that I didn't really like. Ginger, perhaps? That component mellows out and the green comes through. It's not that woodsy, nor is it astringent green. It makes me think, not of a bayou, but of a part of a forest that is by a small marsh. It's pleasant, but, for me, there was nothing to it that really made it stand out. I expected more oomph, but then again, it's hard to be very oomph-y if it's suppose to be a watery smell. After several hours, it gets a bit of a soapy quality.

I received my August 2, August 22 and August 29 orders today, and they were all combined into one box.

At first, I was eh, because upon application, there was this acridic plant smell. The second time I put it on, I loved it, because I thought it smelled like Queen Mab, which I think is from the black orchid. I grew to like it less, though, because the Queen Mab association fades. It's softer and yet, not so soft, because the petals are a bit harsh, they seem very distinct from one another. This does seem holy. I have two associations with it, one of a worn church pew, scattered with white rose petals that are deceptively soft, and another, with the rosaries of a holy woman. This is soft, but lasts at least five hours on me.

On me, this is a powdery sort of scent. The powder isn't quite so strong, because of the wee bit of water mellowing it out. This is definitely a white scent. It made me think of how Queen of Hearts makes me think of an upright woman in a starched black suit at a Sunday brunch--this is the powder that makes the suit so stiff. I didn't really have any other impressions besides that, though. It's also soft and wispy, but it lasts for three or four hours.

This is light pink and green. It's not green in an herbal sort of way or minty, just sort of something so light and beautiful, it must come straight from nature sort of way. It's also rather watery slightly pink from the rose. It's light and the scent isn't very distinct. It's a pleasant scent, but it isn't scented very strongly.

I thought, "Coconut? Lime? It must be tropical," which is why I was slightly confused when I tried this on. The coconut and lime are apparent, but it's not a juicy, sparkling sort of smell. It's hard to describe. It's sort of...flat, I guess. It doesn't seem much like fruit, which are usually bright sort of smells. Mint might be in there and it might be what's rounding out the scent into the non-fruit like smell.

At first, I get beach. Sort of like the John Frieda Ocean Waves, but without the coconut. This is just a tangy, salty breeze by the shore. However, after a while, the salty breeze impression fades when the leather comes out. It's salty leather. Nice, so far. What I think really makes the scent masculine is the wood, which shows up in the 2nd hour or so. It's the plank of a pirate ship, washed over in the salty waves of the ocean and rotting in some places, although the rotting impression is more from parts of the wood being completely soaked in the water. The salty wood is a bit stronger than the leather scent, but it's not like either is at the forefront, nor any single scent for that matter. The wood is just more apparent when I really sniff myself. Everything balances out nicely, but it's just too masculine for me to love on myself. On lasting power: this gets a bit faint after a few hours, but it seems to fit, sort of like the breeze blowing over a whiff of the plank and salt and leather. Edit: the coconut ain't a count.

Simply cool, the essence of Lounge: the scent of a crisp pomegranate martini. I must first preface my review with the warning that I'm not that fond of pomegranate scents to begin with. Not that I dislike pomegranate, but I sniff it, and I go, Eh. On: Juicy pomegranate. Bright and red. Drying: Whomp! This is loud and so very tart. It makes me think of The Body Shop scents, how the fruity ones are always very, very loud. Now, it's not so much juicy, but, well, again loud and tart. I thought it would be hard to describe it, because if the flavor of a fruit is very distinct and clear, then it should be juicy, right? However, I think the martini aspect is where this comes to play. It's like pomegranate being magnified through some glass (martini glass). I think this is akin to having three or four drinks too many, and suddenly, things are so bright and clear and people are so loud.... Dried: It's pretty much the same, loud and tart, but the scent isn't so strong. A nice scent for someone who is into tart, fruity scents, but not for me. Also, this was really strong when I applied a generous swipe, so that detracted from my experience.

Gack. This is so light on me. My skin just swallows it whole. At first, it's faint strawberries, with a bit of a soda feel. I can smell it faintly with my nose to my skin after half an hour has passed, and it wasn't strong to begin with. Three hours later, I think I smell a bit of sandalwood, but I think it may just be imagination trying to come up with a scent, since I now really have to press my nose to my skin.