Alaeidrel

Om nom nom. This is the first red booze that's worked for me! It's everything I wanted A Game Called Yes and No to be on my skin. Red, fruity and sharp without being sweet with just a tiny bit of spice to it. Oh man I'm going to wear it forever.

The scent I get from this is amazing, but so confusing compared to the notes. It's sweet men's cologne, fresh and clean. I get hints of... aquatics? and mossy earth? from it when it's wet. As it dries it gets lighter and sweeter - maybe that's the beeswax, and what I'm getting as 'earth' is the books. Either way I love it and need more. Edited: A few weeks later, this is still one of my favorite scents. It's very subtle but it still has an amazing throw on my skin - a single drop rubbed between two wrists wafts past me every time I move my arms. I'm definitely getting more of the beeswax now, and it's less aquatic. It's amazing and I'm so glad I picked up a partial.

I love roses, but I'm very picky about my rose blends. This is maybe one in three that I'm willing to wear! The vanilla leaves it smelling oddly musty on my skin after the drydown, but it's not old lady... more dried rose petals. Delicious and dainty, although I don't know if I need more.

Foody, bready scents never work well on my skin, but even so I took a risk with this one (I can't eat cookies, but maybe I could smell like them? Please?). Sadly, it doesn't get along on me. I get some sort of stale cookie batter and some funky citrus, and then it vanishes pretty fast altogether. Sad.

Wet: very bright cranberry! Maybe what my nose interprets as 'chemical' is what everyone else things is fizz? Dry: All the spices! I can't even pick them apart, they're so well blended, with a nice sharp dry cranberry note behind it. Bright but not too foody, and not overwhelming. Yum.

All delicious red musk! I wanted some of the peat, but sadly, it was not to be. This smells on my skin exactly like Helle's Belle, so I guess there's no point in getting a bottle. Maybe the decant will age nicely? It's very sweet already, though.

All I get is sharp, bitter snow and ozone. It doesn't change as it dries, just gets stronger. Off to swaps!

I'm slowly learning that I like honey notes at lot more than I thought! I was hoping to get more of my beloved white sandalwood out of this than I do, but it ends up drying from a cloyingly sweet foody honey to a soft, delicious fig spiked with almond and nuts. I can't pick out the rest of the notes but they keep it smelling ethereal instead of foody. Yum! What an unexpected hit.

In the bottle: Cough syrup. Wet on skin: Very fake, chemically berries with a sharp ozone note. Dry: ??? gone??? Oookay then. You don't exist on my skin after ten minutes. It was so chemically I'm not entirely upset.

Whoof, this one is green! It's sharp and bitter when wet. Dry, I don't get much vanilla. There's something in the leather/patch combination that produces the same stomach-churning note that made me get rid of Haute Macabre that takes forever to fade. The sharp coffee beans have turned less bitter, but they're still very green and in your face. I think this would do wonders on other people's skin, but it's very much not my chemistry. To swaps.

I'll say straight out: I'm a cardamom nut. Obsessively so. Remember the vanilla spice lattes starbucks had last winter season? Heaven for me would be just the spice topping in a spoon. That's exactly what Bezoar does on my skin. Wet I get a giant whiff of cardamom and balsam. As it dries the cardamom just amps and amps but stays grounded by the hay, and the balsam fades. I'm so in heaven.

I am so conflicted about this perfume. Is it worth a kind of noxious dry-down to get an amazing final stage? Wet, I get mostly blood-musk, which always registers as a little sickly and too sweet. Lilacs are not my friend. Dry, at first, it's all clove and oppononax. It smelled so similar to Mopsfledermaus that I totally wrote off keeping it, because I already have a lot of Mops. It doesn't help that Mops hasn't been going well on my skin lately, so it just wasn't speaking to me. Then... two hours later... somehow it's absolutely amazing. I forgot to scrub it off and suddenly the leather blooms and the pepper pokes it's nose out and it's subtle but absolutely beautiful. I couldn't figure out what scent kept catching my attention but I needed so much of it. At the end, it's violet-colored and metallic with just a little clove.

Ohhh man. This is amazing. I don't get a lot of leather out of it - it's all musk and sage and cedar, with one of the few vanilla notes that works on my skin warming it up just enough. It's not overly sweet, and there's a little bit of leather hiding underneath, but it's more like the smell of sun-warmed leather from a couple of feet away than sticking my face into a saddle. I didn't imagine liking this one, but it's a really good neutral, every-day clean and snuggly scent. YUM.

I love every note in this and I thought it would be a hit. Right off the bat, strong, dark coffee. But the more it dries the more it gets this weird, sour, bitter note like the coffee oil went rancid in with a bunch of flower petals. Yuck!

Dear god. I had no idea I would love this so much. Generally anything with Brimstone is immediate 'hell no'. I sniffed it at will-call and got a little on my fingers and was huffing them all night. So when my weenie order went in... a bottle slipped into my cart and I might need a backup. This is sexy, smoky, smouldery musk. A little cloying when wet on my skin, but it dries down into the perfect winter scent. Spicy and reminiscent of my favorite part of the winter season - camping out by fires and enjoying the smoke and the heat.

This is softly floral greek musk with a bit of wood. It struck me immediately and so I bought a bottle at will call and I love it, but it doesn't love me. Something about it brings on giant migraines - I don't think I agree with anything that has violet in it in any form. :'( Off to swaps.

Dust, tumbleweeds, cedar, and tobacco. Mmmm. Smells like home - dust, tumbleweeds, and cedar wood. I don't get much in the way of clothes wet or dry. But it's a great close, soft, snuggly skin scent that's incredibly nostalgic.

This is such an incredibly evocative scent! I got an imp but I think I need to write the person back and see about the rest of the bottle... Wet, it was almost too much. The ginger was too sharp and pungent and kind of nauseating for the first 15 minutes. But dry... This is raw, fresh, sharp ginger that hits you with a punch in the gut the way a good ginger beer should. There's this lovely herbal quality under it that I can't put words to, but it's spice racks and pepper and cozy. It's a dark, sinister scent that has all the best associations on me. I don't think it's going to lighten up anytime soon and I'm completely okay with that.

Wow! This really is exactly like a ginger/citrus creamsicle. Wet, dry, in the bottle, on skin, on clothes... it's not a morpher for me. Unfortunately it's not a scent I'd really wear, but it's decadent and delicious if you're one of the lucky few who can wear things that smell this tasty and not go crazy with cravings!

Apparently even as much as I like rose, rose otto and I don't get along. Whatever it is - incense or something? - just gives me an instant migraine. I loved all the other notes, but it's just overpowered by the otto. Sigh.

Auuugh! I really wanted to like this, but all I get is floral baby powder. Ick. I have no idea what note is doing it, since all the notes in the blend generally like my skin. Off to swaps.

This turns to pure honeysuckle on my skin, with a little leather. It also smells exactly like the fragrance in the air in Apricot Lane stores, except minus the insta-headache. Intriguing, not something I need a bottle of.

I think I'm mostly getting the hibiscus, and machta - the lime comes through, but it's neon-green and juicy and not sharp at all. I'm really loving this scent for summer - it's a tropical, light floral that doesn't get heady the way some of the others I've tried has. And! It last through immersion in salt water (which is important because I work at an aquarium). Definitely a keeper! I'd buy a big bottle... if I didn't already have 5 imps!

This is such an incredible scent. I was lucky enough to have someone offer me a bottle in response to a totally different DISO, and it was so worth it. Dark ginger and spice and sugar... not the sort of scent I normally wear, but I can guess it will be wonderful for when I want foody comfort on colder days. "Evil Cookie" indeed.

By all accounts and purposes, this should have been an insta-love. All the notes work beautifully on my skin on their own or in other combinations, and yet... this was such an uber-fail. In the bottle it was delicious, but the moment it hit my skin it turned into rancid almonds and leather - viscerally enough so that I was actively distressed and nauseated by it for hours. Finally, eventually, it dried down to almond-tinged leather but at that point I was already so far gone that it just wasn't worth keeping. I braved another skin test a week or so later, just in case of body chemistry, and it was exactly the same. Not worth keeping for a vaguely pleasant drydown after hours of keeping my wrist as far away from my nose as possible.