malanna

Sparkling sweet peach and musk! Yum! This smells like this Canadian shop called Fruits ____ or something with Fruit(s) in it. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, Aglaea also smells like a fruity bubble bath (well, whatever you call it when you buy the bottle) you'd get from The Body Shop. On the drydown, Aglaea is mostly clingy musk and myrtle, with a hint of amber. I like the beginning part, but the second part is just okay. If it stayed so bright the whole way through, this would be a great "happy" scent.

Sweet florals, almost candy sweet, but it's milky at the same time. Sugared florals, perhaps. Later, I can smell the Milk Moon comparison. Chaste Moon is Milk Moon Lite, just really watered down milk (with florals). This is a nice scent, but that's one of its bad things. It's like saying a person is nice in that reluctant tone of voice. Sure, she might be nice, but she's not very exciting, is she? I'd like my Milk Moon straight up! ADDED Feb. 3: When I first got the bottle, I remember trying it and thinking, "This is nice, but why bother with this when I have Milk Moon?" I'm revisiting this and thinking that perhaps I was wrong in my assessment. It definitely starts out smelling milky, then goes to a light butterscotch. I'm looking at the first review of this page, and spanishviolet is right. Milk Moon is more honeyed in that it's pointedly sweet, while Chaste Moon is more milky in a watered down skim milk sort of way--hence the characterization of Chaste Moon as Milk Moon Lite. After an hour, the light florals make an appearance, and they're not heavy florals. It definitely seems as if honeysuckle might be in the scent. I think of honeysuckle as a scent that has a haze of scent around it, a scent unlike rose, where the scent just hits you, and the florals in this are just a haze of light sweetness. After eight hours, I smelled my wrist and thought it had gone, but it hadn't. Chaste Moon had just become a part of my skin (sounds sort of trippy, but that's what it seems like to me). This really isn't my style, so I'm letting this go, but I can definitely understand the appeal Chaste Moon has for others.

This starts out all pine and fir and smoke. After an hour, it really smells like Samhain. After several hours, it still smells like Samhain with all the woodsmoke, but with a bit of a green and herbal sort of scent. I'm not so big on the green and herbal scent and since I already have Samhain, if I'm in the mood for smoke and wet leaves, I'll just stick with Samhain. ADDED Feb. 6: Hexennacht smells like Samhain without the foody components, except with a hint of Skadi (i.e. the fir). Hexennacht starts out with the fir and sweet smokiness. It's the smokiness of Samhain, which is a sweet sort of smoky, smoke with patchouli and clove. It gets a bit muskier later, and there's something there that makes it sweet beyond the smoke--something like tangy berries. I actually sort of like the fir, but overall, it's just not my sort of scent.

Spooky starts out as fresh peppermint, perhaps a peppermint leaf, with hints of cookie. Then, it becomes a buttery cookie with a dash of peppermint extract and sprinkling of cocoa powder. Once it reaches the buttery cookie stage, the scent stays more or less the same, although it gets more and more buttery, with the peppermint ever in the background. I was expecting a lot more from Spooky, given its fame, and while it is nice and foody, it doesn't draw me to it as much as I thought it would.

This smells slightly of plastic to me. A pleasant sort of plastic, if there's such a thing. Snow White is a bit watery and there's a hint of coconut. Not a tropical coconut, but a coconut dressed up to go to the poshest fundraising gala. I can almost find myself liking this, but I just can't get over the plastic overtone.

This starts out rather green, with something in the background that is dry, woody, and makes me think of cardboard. Not a pleasant thing, that's for sure. However, it ends up being a herbal, green floral, perhaps with a bit of tea. More green than herbal, since it doesn't have that astringent undertone that herbal scents seem to have.

Yummy vanilla in the same vein as Black Opal, but not as powdery and much sweeter. Almost cotton candy sweet, but vanilla musk sweet. I don't find this to be sexy, because it's not a hip smell, but the smell of something old. That just means I find this to be a really comforting, hug-me-now sort of scent. This is what your favorite old sweater would, or rather, should, smell like. At times, I find that it might be too sweet, but then later, I want to lick myself.

Mmm, this isn't quite my usual style, but I find myself drawn to it anyway. It's soft, sweet, not quite ethereal, but not quite easy to pin down, either. The Calla lily dominates this scent, with delphinium coming up closely behind. The Ghost like a dream you wake up from wishing you had lived it and the details of the dream falling from your grasp as the seconds tick by.

I was really expecting the orchid in Queen Mab, but this is really unlike that orchid. This smells soft and sweet, yet a bit soapy. I'm not sure how to describe this in terms of notes, but after two hours, this smells like a sweeter version of this clear soap by a major soap brand--maybe Soap Naturals (or whatever it's called--that is sweet and slightly floral. Overall, this is too vague for me.

This smells just like one of those French-milled soaps, the oval-shaped ones that come in those boxes with the floral designs over them. That's tea rose for you. However, after an hour, there's something that makes the tea rose a bit black and a little bitter, like a rotting rose. I really liked this the first time I tried it, because it made me think of my time in London, but this application, my second, just isn't the same. I'm not sure if it's because the novelty wore off or that it's because it smells different.

Insatiable lust, unending vigor! A truly carnal, energetic men’s blend: vanilla and amber with juniper, rosewood and white pine. Basically, this is Snake Oil, but fuller and better. Snake Oil has a tendency to dry down very dry on me, but Golden Priapus isn't like that. This does smell like vanilla and juniper and woods, but juniper and woods if they smelled like Snake Oil spices. I really don't know what else to say besides drawing a comparison to Snake Oil.

At first, this smells very green. Not quite herbal, but what you'd imagine the metaphorical scent of grass and dew to smell like. Not the actual scent, because it's quite sweet. The sharp note is gone after a few hours, and this smells sweet, green (in a sweetgrass sort of way) and lightly musky with a bit of tea. It's like the dissipating mist. I think I like both stages, even though I like the second one a bit less.

Goes on loudly as sweet and very tart berries. Sort of tartly green, too, like mistletoe. When it's completely dried, it smells a bit soapy and herbal.

This smelled like deep, heady flowers, the type you find walking in a garden at night, the type of dark garden you might find at the Malfoy estate (for all you Harry Potter folks), and the flowers are big, bloomed and black. I suppose this is mostly the jasmine and musk, but it doesn't smell heavily musky. Then, after it's settled down, three hours or so later, it smells like white musk and moonflower. It smells like Dorian in this stage, I kid you not. I'm not so big on the first stage, but the second stage is quite nice, because it's Dorian toned down.

This reminds me of Pele, except with less creamy lotion, and instead of a few floral notes that stand out, this is a big ol' parade of fruits and blossoms. I really don't like amber, but it's okay here. The amber is what makes me think of an ancient civilization rather than just a tropical scent. It makes Machu Picchu have more depth than it would otherwise. Machu Picchu's quite nice. I'm still undecided about whether or not I like the amber note in this, though.

This starts out smelling strongly of rum, but shortly after application, this is rum and sassafras in equal parts. After half an hour, it mostly smells of sassafras, sweet and sticky. Throughout this, I can definitely pick up the clove and almond, maybe a little almond. This makes me think of two things, the first, an oily (not like oily hair, but intentionally oil) Haitian man that is sensual and smooth. The second thing is just of cooking pies and sweets, because clove's used in pumpkin pies and such. Over time, the rum and sassafras fade away, just leaving the spices. It smells mostly of pumpkin pie spices to me now.

Right upon application, this smells like mulled cider. However, that impression goes away quickly (I'm sure there's no apple in this). Like everyone said, this is green, herbal incense. It's not an astringent note and it's not quite foody, but it does smell like the spices that come from mulled apple cider or some other spiced tea. It's quite pleasant and mild, but I don't think I like this enough to keep it.

This mostly smells powdery to me. I can see where the green comes from--it smells quite remniscent of Come to Me, a rather herbal and soapy scent, but with more powder. I'm not sure if this is calming, since I had just decided not to try to write a long paper by tomorrow before I'd put this on and I'm not very good at discerning if voodoo oils have any effect on me.

Mmmm, this smells so milky and creamy when I put this on, with a dash of coconut. The fig comes to dominate the scent (milky fig), but I love the creaminess to pieces. Eden doesn't smell like a lush garden, but a tropical paradise, with the little umbrella to go with it. I feel like liquid when I wear this. I just want to slurp myself up.

It's really hard for me to describe this, because this smells just like a lotion I had bought from MMU. The scent's name had sea or glass in it. I liked it okay as a lotion, and I like it still as a scent, but as a scent, it seems too concentrated. It's sweet, with a tang of salt. It also seems like a crystalline sort of scent.

This smells like dark cocoa with droplets of Centzon Totochtin--animal blood--interspersed. Over time, the cocoa fades, and I mostly get leather, incense, and flowers. At this point, I'm reminded of Tintagel. It has the same warm, red feeling that Tintagel had, except with a lot less leather and less comforting. I suppose I'm not too fond of the flowers in this scent either.

I've never smelled a cosmo, but this is quite fruity. The Hamptons, to a nose untrained to alcohol, smells like Sprite. Or ginger ale. Some clear fizzy soda. There's sparkling lime in here and a dash of orange. This smells like a socialite, dressed in a slinky dress, tottering around, splashing her drink every which way she goes. Booze scents aren't for me, and this has a very piercing sweet note.

Hymn starts out smelling like soap. Rose starts out being the primary scent (it's also why I thought it smelled like soap). The lily comes out so that it melds with rose to become a soft soapy smell. The rose fades after a few hours, and then it's just lily with incense, with the incense getting stronger over time.

Niflheim is very aquatic and smells like dark, gloomy flowers--a perfect scent for someone working in a funeral home. After it's been on a while, it smells like waterlogged flowers. Not aquatic flowers, but dark flowers that have been floating in murky waters for days. There's a hint of cedar behind the flowers.

I get lots of blossoms with tobacco leaf at first. It smells like walking through a tropical jungle, with all the flowers about. However, this jungle isn't an idealized version, the type of jungle you first think of. This is a real jungle, one located near the equator, and you're walking through it, sweaty, hot, and humid. You can barely take the heat, your sweats coming down in buckets, and you feel as if you're being suffocated. The tropical blossoms in Santo Domingo would belong in that forest. Later, the tobacco leaf and bay rum come to dominate, with the tobacco leaf in the foreground. This is nice for evoking a certain sort of imagery, but not my sort of thing.