malanna

This starts out with a bit of orange altered by bergamot, mint, and a lot of verbena. The orange doesn't smell like orange in its original form, but its presence gives Calliope a smoother cleaner scent. I don't know why, but this really just smells like swimming pool chlorine to me. Several hours later, the bergamot and verbena calm down a bit and just smell like light chlorine.

I expected this to be all pineapple, and while Baba Yaga is a bit sweet and fruity smelling, the fruit smells too tart to be pineapple. It is a bright fruit, anyway. The pineapple is incense-y, but not smokey incense, more spicy incense. The fruit becomes more of a floral (not sure what floral), although the floral remains sweet. I'm not so sure I'm so big on Baba Yaga. This is definitely a happy scent.

This is mostly white cedar, with a bit of musk at the beginning. The green tea comes out a bit, followed by the lilac. Once it's settled down, it smells mostly of lilac and osmanthus, rounded out by the musk. This makes me think of the painting that's similar to The Lady in Shallott, except the woman in the painting's lying down on a boat (I know it was a Shakespearian one...). It smells like the flowers falling from trees that are swaying over the water.

This is so creamy at first. A little bit of coconut, but mostly honeyed almond milk. I LOVE this stage. I just want to hug myself. The fig comes out a bit later, lending this a bit of an earthier scent, but it's still rounded out by the milk. Several hours later, this smells like brown something, reminding me of a tree, but is probably the fig. I'm pretty sure it's the fig. ETA: I kept on smelling chlorine today. That was odd, because I haven't gone swimming in ages. After looking around for my swimsuit, I realized it was because of Eden. From a certain distance, Eden smells like chlorine. I think it's time for Eden to go in the swap pile. ETA2: Um. It was my socks that smelled like chlorine. Eden's still going in the swap pile, though.

This is going to be a bad review. The Hanging Gardens is very sweet and clean smelling at first. Then, it just smells light and sweet with the same scent for the next few hours (it faded very quickly, though), which I assume is fig. Hmm, I expected fig to be browner and earthier. This is quite weird, because I feel as if it smelled different the last time I tried it. I'll have to have another go at it and see how it is.

... This is the scent of pure graveyard dust, spattered with grave loam and dusted lightly with tombstone moss. It really does smell like wet potting soil on my skin. It's quite remarkable for what it smells, but this isn't my type of thing. Oddly enough, a few minutes after I swiped my wrist with Graveyard Dirt, I tried to sniff it again, but it was gone. Completely. Perhaps it was a one-off thing....

This is mostly pennyroyal rounded out by lavender on an background of black musk. It's odd--lavender usually smells like humid heat, but this is a smooth, cool lavender. While I'm not particularly fond of this, it is a pleasant scent. It really does smell like a gentleman's cologne, one a man wearing a dark purple suit and a pocket watch (just like the Mad Hatter, but not so frenzied), would wear.

I thought I would really dislike it when I first put this on, because it reeked (I'm sorry, but it was overwhelming and I just don't like jasmine) of jasmine. However, that was just the initial stage, and after it dried, it smelled like a lovely bouquet of lilies and other assorted flowers. Suspiro's a soft scent and smells like a not-artificial scent (I just mean that some floral scents smell like they don't come directly from nature, if that makes sense--or scents--AHAHA!). Some "natural" florals smell like they're wafting in the breeze (cleaner) or freshly plucked (stronger, truer to the floral) or in a freshly plucked bouquet (varying florals). This smells like flowers on a vine (let's pretend they grown on a vine) hanging from a tree, waving in the wind. Suspiro is like a memory--if you don't pay too much attention, you'll forget about it, but it'll still be in the back of your mind, comforting you. I really like soft scents, but florals are not for me and this doesn't have enough oomph, so lovely as this is, I'll probably pass this up.

I don't get any vanilla from this. At first, I'm picking up cherry and a little blood wine, with a hint of vetiver, but then, vetiver comes to the forefront, and the hint of position belongs to the cherry. Even though the vetiver is the dominant scent in this blend, it's not dominant in an overwhelming sort of way. It just seems to be everywhere, but not strongly everywhere (some scents just permeate every bit of air and is ten times what it smells like on my skin, this doesn't do that). Vetiver's not my thing, but it does give me a nice visual. Blood Kiss makes me think of a vampire that has risen out of the freshly turned earth that's also grassy and mossy at the same time. When it's finally risen from the grave (or whatever hollow area in the earth it was occupying), it's walking around stiffly with its arms stretched out (I know, I'm getting vampires confused with zombies), and there's the grass and tendrils of grass making the vampire look rather atmospheric.

I'd forgotten about the description by the time I'd tried this, but given the name, I expected Juke Joint to smell like root beer. And it sort of does, in a sweet, browned tangy sort of way, at the beginning, but after an hour, it just smells like Snake Oil sans vanilla--i.e. the spices in Snake Oil after it's been aged a while (at least this is what my aged Snake Oil smells like), which smell like incense-y spices. That's pretty much all I get (for a while, I thought there was vetiver, but then I realized it was coming from the Blood Kiss on my other arm, hehe).

Whoa. Lavender. Lavender, (one of) my mortal enemy(ies). Fortunately, the lavender fades and jasmine comes to the forefront. Wait a second...that's not a good thing. But it's okay, because the orange blossom replaces the jasmine pretty soon after. This is after a few hours, and it smells like clean air, but with a hint of orange blossoms in the background. After more than five hours, this smells like orange blossoms in air freshener (which isn't necessarily a bad thing...). I'm really not getting any citrus or spice from this at all.

This smells like the sunblock I used to wear as a kid--not coconut smelling kind, but the kind that's just smells vaguely creamy, floral, and artificial. After a few minutes, this gets softer and the sunblock association is still there, but isn't so strong, as it starts to smell like a real floral. I'm not sure what lilac smells like, but I definitely get lily. It's quite nice, in a refined sort of way, but definitely not my sort of scent. The association I get in my mind from this scent is of a woman, dressed in a white dress, walking down a hill holding a bouquet of fresh-picked lilies (not sure what lilies grow on, but let's pretend they don't grow out of bushes). It's quite odd that I didn't get any dragon's blood in this scent.

I initially thought I was smelling cherry, because of the "blood" in the title, but it was plum. A rather red plum, though. The plum and berries are rather shrill (if that makes any sense) in the beginning, but then it becomes a mostly sour plum scent. I'm not picking up any florals. It continues to be plum, just less sour and lighter over time. I was expecting something redder, but I guess it's a good thing that I didn't get any rose, since I'm not a rose fan.

This is coconut sunblock oil at first. It has that tropical, slightly artificial note on top of the rum. It's smells like a very deep brown scent, much more brown than most rum scents seem to be. It smells like it's very dense (this is very strong fyi--apply lightly!). It's also sugared, and it doesn't smell as if the sugar has dissolved, but as if the individual granules are still intact, caught in the viscous, sticky rum. Over time, the coconut smells less sunblock-y and then is less strong. After six hours, it smells like beachy rum with less sugar (as opposed to coconut rum with sugar granules). ETA: I'm not so big on this scent. The coconut and rum are a bit overwhelming. Plus, this is too strong. Also, before I had made up my mind about Elegba, I wore it to dinner. At the table I was sitting at, this guy started saying that he smelled his car freshener and was wondering where it was coming from, so he started sniffing all around. I was pretty sure it was me (like I said, Elegba's stronnnng), so I said, "You smell your car freshener? Huh" as I walked away to dump my full bowl of grapes and half-eaten chicken down the trash before he could sniff at me and figure out it was me.

In the bottle, it smells like liquid banana, like sweet banana essence that you would be able to drink (but it'd be too concentrated). On, it smells like what I think banana leaves would smell like, banana turned into a leaf. I thought I would love this, or at least like this a great deal, because of how tropical the description made it sound. It is tropical, but it's too green for me and I just realized that banana is not my type of smell. Anyway, it smells like banana, banana leaves, and those big leaves you find in a tropical forest. The skin scent smells like dried banana chips with a tad bit of incense. It's still works great at encapsulating the concept.

I wasn't going to post a review, since I've only worn this for half an hour, but I had to say Oh My Gahhh! I was trying to figure out what this smells like, because it smells so familiar and comforting (well, it would be if I had applied super sparingly--Black Opal is really strong), and then I realized that it smells like this scent Bath and Body Works had about six years ago, called Moonlight Path (or maybe it was something else, or they reformulated Moonlight Path). I had the lotion in this round stand-up tube, and it was a light purple (almost lavender). I would apply the lotion every day when I was 13. Most memorably, I wore it to camp. I remember feeling so comforted every time I wore it after the camp, because it smelled like memories and snuggling into my bed so I wasn't cold anymore and the calm excitement of sitting next to the guy I liked, talking to him, and wondering if something would happen in the next few moments. And it smells so wonderful, because it smells like what I used to smell like and what I used to smell like actually smelled good (this other BBW lotion I wore was/is so strong, it gives me a mini-headache). Black Opal has vanilla, which I love, the white musk that makes it so smooth, and the slight baby powder smell that made that BBW lotion so comforting and awesome to wear to bed. I so have got to lotionify this. I may come back and edit this later when I'm more coherent. ETA: It's been several months since I've tried this. I still like it, but at times I find this to be a bit overwhelmingly musty (and musky) and sweet. I enjoyed it while I had it, but I think it's time this baby found a new owner.

This smells like clean, soft blankets, the kind you can bury your head into. Sun-dried laundry has a distinctive outdoors-y smell. For one, it's not quite so sweet, and the clothes actually do smell dry and sligthly stiff. Dirty smells like super, super soft and snuggly thick blankets that were dried with your favorite fabric softener (the fabric softener's has cotton in its name). I can pick up a bit of plumeria, so while I really love what it evokes and how it smells, the plumeria makes it smell a bit too "thick" than I like. However, when it settles into my skin, I smell as if I've been thrown in the dryer and I'm super soft and snuggly (never mind how painful that would be, just pretend I emerge good as new). I'm not sure if this is so great for a body perfume, but it's still wonderful for what it evokes.

The scent of divine mercy, pulsating and throbbing through the heart of every living creature. Glorious red musk and a halo of golden amber with a touch of wet mango, lavender, and purple sage. Whoa mama! The red musk and amber send me into headache land. I'm frequently finding that this happens with a lot of BPAL scents--I far prefer the skin scent stage many scents go to once they've settled down. Will I feel the same with Corazon? Read on and find out! Anyway, initially, this is primarily a wafty red musk with a bit of amber (maybe it's less the red musk than the lavender that makes this so heady?). It takes a few hours for this to settle down, but in the middle stage, the red musk is more bearable, slightly sweeter, and smells like there's some spices and sandalwood (or a white wood) in the midst of it. After six hours, there's a tad bit of red musk, a little mango, some spices, and a tad bit of lavender (tiny, tiny bit). I like the skin scent much better than the initial application stage. (Sorry if that was a bit anti-climactic).

When I first applied this, the plumeria note was so heady and overpowering, I got a bit of a headache. The pear and champagned are in the background, making Thalia a bit bubbly. However, after the whole headache-inducing stage is over, the pear and champagne come to the foreground, making me think of a plumeria blossom floating in a champagne flute (okay, it'd probably have to be a very wide champagne flute to hold the blossom..). After six hours, Thalia becomes more of a skin scent. It's just sweet and ethereal, the champagne no longer bubbly, but more crystalline. It smells like a sweet lotion you'd apply before slipping on your silk nightie--not necessarily for seducing, but for flouncing around the house. I'm going to have to try this again and see if I can get that stage to appear earlier....

This is warm and makes me think of a hothouse full of flowers. I'm picking up the jasmine, and something slightly spicy (the myrrh). There's not much for me to say about this, because jasmine is my mortal enemy and the charms of Nyx were still not able to change my mind.

This is a nice masculine (but wearable for women) scent. The musk isn't quite a Queen of Diamonds light musk, but makes me think of what every men's aftershave wishes to be (or what the ideal men's aftershave would be). I think it's the herbs and and mosses that make the musk masculine. But it's not a "whoa" green scent. Just the ideal green-tinged men's aftershave.

When I got Cerberus, I thought it would be a big ol' chocolate party, but it was not so. Also, my impression of Cerberus is just that of smelling like a wet and musky dog's fur. Even though Cerberus doesn't smell like that, I just think it does because of its name. But basically, Cerberus is a smooth, figgy scent with a dash of walnuts. Not so much chocolate. Woe.

Wakinyan, Hohoq, Kw-Uhnx-Wa. With eyes of fire, its glance is lightning, and thunder erupts as the great, sacred bird claps its mighty wings. A willing guardian and protector of mankind, a wise and benevolent teacher, and the creator of life-giving storms. The sharp tang of ozone and the deep bass growl of thunder over mountain trees. This is very tangy, but not sweet, like Lightning. There's also hints of pine. It really does smell like ozone over mountain trees. I also think it smells like dryer sheets (not the floral, powdery type, though). However, this gave me a mad headache, and I had to wash this off. Wafting power is huge.

Chiroptera smells like the best dryer sheets EVER--sweet, slightly powdery with a hint of white flowers. I have no idea what cotton blossom smells like, but for some reason, I keep on thinking that this smells like cotton blossom. After a few hours, it doesn't smell so much like dryer sheets, but more like herbs and white flowers, glistening with dew with the lemon balm and honeysuckle really coming in to play.

I think this was CVIII. This starts out as a strong pine sniff, but then soft florals come out into play. There's a slight undertone of soft ozone that brings everything together. Eventually, the pine recedes into the background, with the florals and ozone in the foreground. The ozone is like the tang from Lightning, but it isn't one of the ozones that has hints of rotting wood or humid heat.