serraasuka

My imp of spooky arrived today (bought from a seller on the bpal livejournal community). In the imp, it smelt overpoweringly of peppermint, but very, very sweet, fake peppermint. I think I caught a whiff of something I assumed was vanilla, but may have been rum, and to be honest the whole concoction was just far too strong and made me feel quite ill. But knowing the nature of bpal, I put some on my skin to give it a go. It didn't get any better. It remained an incredibly strong faux-peppermint and sickly vanilla, and no amount of washing seemed to get rid of the scent. I didn't put a lot on, but it hung around for ages, and is, in fact (8 hours later) still lingering on the wrist. It makes me nauseus, alas. Pity, because I -really- wanted to like this one.

I recieved this imp in a trade from aedes, and I must say, I really really like it! In bottle: VERY dark and almost...musty. I can mostly smell the cherry, but it's a much...blacker smelling cherry than the cherry note in, say, horn of plenty. I think i'm getting a fair bit of clove-smell, too.. On skin (wet): When I first put this on, it had a very overpowering, almost soapy smell. I put this down to my untrained nose not being able to cope with complex fragrances though. Still quite musty and dark smelling. A bit overpowering. Drydown: LOVELY. Getting more cherry now (a brighter, bolder cherry), with the warmth of cloves and a tiny bit of the myrrh. I'm definitely a fan, though i'm not sure i'd buy a bottle.

This was a freebie in my first bpal order, and whilst I wasn't keen on it at first, I gotta say that i'm very very happy I gave it a chance. In Vial : In the vial, HoP smells very, very overpowering and strong...a friend and I were trying to work out what it reminded us of, because it was ringing some pretty loud nostalgia bells for me, and we concluded that its similar to those cherry iced-buns you get...you know, the slightly spicey ones with white icing on top and a large, glace cherry? That or cherry candy. Quite a sticky, sweet fragrance with something sharper and maybe a little spicy underneath. On skin : On my skin, HoP really brings out the glazed-cherry note, and initially, I can't smell much else. There is a sort of...earthier, spicier underlying scent, which I can't quite identify, but more than anything else, is the cherry. Dry down : HoP sticks around for awhile, and dries to a sort of light cherry with some sort of musky, tobacco-y scent backing it up. It really is very lovely, but I think the key is not to overapply. Oh, and incidentally, I was wearing this the other day when I found out i'd been escalated to the next phase of interviews for a job i'm going for. Also, wearing it today, I found out I needn't pay back $20 postage I owed someone for something on ebay. So it works, I think in subtle ways.