filigree_shadow

I wasn’t sure about this when I first put it on because it smelled a bit medicinal. However, after it warms up it’s wonderful. Dry wood notes with a whiff of tobacco all covered by that lovely dark vanilla. This smells like a very comforting scent to me – it’s the sort of scent I’m basically always in the mood for. (I’m kind of a sucker for the dark vanilla scents.) For the first 30 minutes or so the vanilla was the dominant note, but when it’s dry it seems like the wood notes are coming out a little stronger. I like the scent both ways. It doesn’t seem to have a ton of throw, but I didn’t put a lot on. I’m going to try wearing it for a day and see how often I need to re-apply it. In the meantime, it’s going on my bottle wishlist.

When I first put it on, this scent made me think of ginger chews and honey. The ginger smelled particularly sharp, almost like anise. It warms up very nicely when it's drying though, and it really does smell like a thick, herby/spicy mead. Gentle and smooth, but with a little kick. It does remind me of Honey Moon, except that one went pretty floral on me, and this one is more herby. Also, usually honey goes weird like play-doh on my skin (e.g., I cannot wear O), but not in this one. In this one it actually works. It smells very good.

I'm surprised that this doesn't smell spicy -- I thought it would, with the allspice and nutmeg. But mostly it seems like chocolate and apple blossom. It's a pretty combination, and honestly I think this is one of the few scents with an apple note that I'd wear. The chocolate notes seem a little creamy, and I like that with the sweet apple scent. This scent smells cheerful. The spices come out a little bit when it's dry, but they're not overwhelming at all. It's still a happy scent, but I feel like this is more of a fall scent than a summertime one. I like this version of 13, but the orange label (I think it was the Oct 06 version?) one is still my favorite.

I'm wearing Sin right now, and I'm a little freaked out. I've had a bottle of it for a couple of years, and this whole time I thought that Sin had red musk in it. I always thought it was similar to Lust, except spicier. Today I realized I hadn't written a review for Sin yet, so I looked at the notes to write a review. It doesn't have red musk in it. What the hell was I thinking? It's good and dark due to the patchouli and amber, but I swear it also seems musky to me. The cinnamon is fairly strong in it, but blended with those other notes I don't mind it as much as I usually do. Dark spicy scents are a little hard for me to wear sometimes because they seem so heavy to me. However, I really like this scent. It's not something I usually want to wear in the summertime, but in the autumn and winter it's wonderful. Oh, and btw, this one really lasts on me. It's not one of the ones I have to add to lotion and put in my hair just to get the scent to stick around. Sometimes I can still smell it when I wake up the next morning.

I'm an accidental taster as well. Sometimes I have a little bit of oil on the ends of my fingers (from opening imps) and I don't realize it, and then I pick up something with my hands and eat it. Fritos with BPAL oil on do not taste good. Bleah.

Snake Charmer is always reliable for compliments. Some of the "Oh you smell really good" variety after a hug, some of the "Wow, what is that perfume you're wearing?!" variety when I walk up to someone. These comments have all been from women. My aunt, my cousin, my friend, etc. Men have never commented on it. Not once. I have gotten several compliments/questions from women about La Fee Verte as well. What do men like? Dorian, apparently. I wear Dorian, they go nuts. I wear Snake Charmer (which I think is incredibly sexy), and no comments. Weird, eh? People tend to like the pumpkin scents as well. Maybe because they're unusual... I'm not sure. But several people have asked about my perfume (in a very nice way) when I was wearing a pumpkin scent. I also get quite a lot of the "She always smells good!" comments, so I think that some people who see me fairly frequently just know I'm going to smell good, so they don't say anything.

I amp red musk like crazy so a lot of red musk blends smell very similar to me. Thankfully, I love it, so I don't mind amping it. I just have to be very choosy about the red musk scents because they all smell so similar on me. Marianne reminds me of Scherezade, but where that one is incensey, this one is sweet. I think that's from the mimosa and black currant. Also, the red musk in this one seems to be quite strong and loud at first, but it backs off after about an hour or so and the other notes come out to play. I like that part, because I can smell the patchouli in it at that point. (Another note I love.) It's different enough that I would certainly consider a bottle and would wear it if I had one, but it's also close enough to other perfumes that I already have that I don't feel like I need a bottle immediately. That said, I honestly think this scent is fabulous. I enjoy it immensely.

I've had this on for about half an hour, and so far I really like it. It feels honey-ish to me without being a honey scent. Sort of thick and smooth like that. The amber and carnation seem to be the most noticeable notes -- the amber might be going a wee bit powdery on me, but mixed with the dry sandalwood I think that's going to be all right. I have a bad history of carnation sometimes going funky on me later in drydown, but when it doesn't do that I tend to enjoy it. I'm holding out that hope that it will stay dark and spicy on me and not descend into funky territory because I like this scent a lot. I'll have to come back in a few hours and update. ETA: Seems to have been fine! Yay!

This one smelled quite boozey to me at first, and then later like sweet lemon and a little bit of anise. It's a bit on the sour/tart side -- it's so sweet I think I'd lean towards tart over sour. If you had asked me what rose water smelled like, I wouldn't have been able to describe it to you. However, I'm quite sure I can smell it in this. Although I don't smell lilacs, I do smell rose, and the scent also seems to be slightly dewy. So I bet that's the rose water. It took me several months to decide that I liked La Fee Verte, and I think it would take a while for this one to grow on me too. I probably won't be that patient this time, though, since I already have plenty of LFV.

The only note in the description for this scent that I don't usually like is pine pitch... and guess what it smells like to me? Yeeup. Pine pitch. Oh sure, there's a great deep resin scent underneath it, and the tobacco is contributing a very nice dryness to the scent. But it still smells sticky to me. It also goes through a phase where it smells like, um, lobster. I swear I'm not making that up. I have no idea why it smells like that either. I'm not willing to give up on it just yet, though. Those other notes sound too fabulous to give up on it already. I'll see how aging affects my decant and then go from there.

Wet, it smells medicinal to me. Rather sharp. But when it's drying.... oooooooh, nice. Definitely spicy, but that's a very sexy leather in there. The beeswax is what makes this interesting, I think. Without it, this scent might be a little too far in the spicy direction for my liking, but with the beeswax there's a thickness to the scent. It smells a little bit heavy. Leather, beeswax, and kind of raw, gritty spices. This just gets better and better the longer I have it on. Wow.

Very sweet and dry linen with a soft floral note over the top. This actually smells more clean to me than rotting. Is the "rotting" part supposed to smell a little bit like dandelions? That's kinda what it smells like to me. Or is that the hyssop? (I don't know what hyssop smells like, to be honest.) It's a soft, dry scent, but it doesn't smell like a dry wood scent to me. Definitely "linen." Unexpectedly pretty. I like this one. This whole Wunderkammer is really impressing the hell out of me. I've liked every single one I've tried so far.

Imp sniff: Sweet resins. (What a surprise, right?!) On, it's a lovely sweet and deep resin scent. With the resins, the rose in it smells more like rosewood than rose to me, which is great. Mostly, it smells like copal* (mmm), myrrh, and that beautiful rosewood-like scent. After it's been on for about half an hour and it really warms up, it's gorgeous. *Fred Soll's copal incense smells awesome and is one of my favorites of theirs -- I think it's similar to Blasphemare Reliquary.

Woo, this is such a sweet scent! Just when I think it's very definitely apples, then it reminds me of March Hare and I think it's probably apricot. Whatever the fruit is, I don't think it's a berry. I don't smell much root in it, to be honest, just something faintly earthy. Not like dirt, but drier than that. Smells like a very dry, light-colored wood, like oak or something. It has a little bit of creaminess in it too -- could be coconut? I'm not sure. If so, it's good and subtle. Too bad I like this so much and I only have a wee little bit of it.

Clean-smelling gardenia. For me, gardenia is definitely the dominant note, but it's softer than gardenia usually is. It's a bright, very white-smelling scent. I honestly can't get past the "clean" associations, though. Smells like freshly washed linens to me.

Add me to the list of people who tried this with half-hearted expectations and ended up with a pleasant surprise. The imp sniff was a sort of bitter, planty dark fruit scent. Intriguing. On, it smells like a dark, leafy fruit scent. More complexity than I expected -- it smells deep. The grape worried me when I read the description, but it's not bad at all. Mostly it just seems to be making the scent smell a little juicy, but not really grapey or like wine. This scent is very BPALy. It seems to be reminding me of other BPAL perfumes I have known and loved. I really like it. Very good throw, too, and long-lasting.

I really liked the imp sniff for this one, so I slathered it all over the back of my hand to do this test. It's really big on apples for the first few minutes, but then it settles down a little bit. Still has a tart, crisp apple scent, but I can smell the caramel better. It smells quite creamy underneath the apple. It's a sweet, happy scent. A little musky, but mostly playful. This one's not going straight onto my bottle wishlist, but I will definitely keep the decant and try wearing it a couple of times to see how it works for me.

I only smelled bubblegum in this for the first few minutes, and I wasn't particularly thrilled with that. It didn't last, though, and the scent that came afterwards was good enough that I decided to do a bigger test. (I wasn't sure I'd like this one so I just did a tiny test area at first.) Once again, a big blast of pink bubblegum at the beginning. (Not artificial-smelling at all -- very true to a bubblegum scent.) Then that fades out but leaves a lingering sweetness over the top of a slightly metallic scent with a hint of leather. On me, the throw on this is barely there. I have the crook of my elbow plus the outside part of my arm covered in this oil, and I can still barely smell it. I like it, but for some reason it's quite faint on me.

Hmm. Vetiver and wine, plus a rather chemical-smelling haze. Eek. My skin has some problems with wine scents fairly frequently, and I don't think it likes this one. It has that acidic, bitter scent like wine after it's gone off. This one's not gonna work for me.

Rose otto tends to be good for me, and it's good in this. That combination of rose and calla lily smells particularly sophisticated to me. I think maybe that's partially due to the sage as well. I like the musk with it, and it seems like I can smell the barest hint of coconut. So, mostly rose, but an elegant, musky rose.

Straight away, I smell a dark, honeyed peach. Then the honey seems to mix up with patchouli and deepen, and the peach gets sweeter. When it's dry, it mostly smells the same as when it was wet: A thick, smooth scent that's a little dark but has a peach kick. I like this one!

Powdery soap. What the hell? How in the world does my skin make a powdery soap scent out of Parthenope? But that's honestly what it's doing. I don't seem to be getting moss or musk or oakmoss out of it -- I thought this scent would be much earthier. But, no. Softly scented sweet jasmine soap. The only way it morphs on me is that the floral notes get more heady, which isn't actually a plus for me.

I smell a sweet berry scent straight off, and then it turns into something that reminds me a whole lot of Dorian. I guess it's the tea and white musk. The florals that are in this are staying in the background quite nicely and really just adding a feminine touch to the scent. I find this scent highly appealing. I'm not convinced I need to rush straight out and order a bottle because I'm a little worried that because I wear Dorian so much, if I started wearing this one it just wouldn't smell quite right to me. I'm going to try wearing it a couple of times and see how it goes!

Carnations and dry spices. Mainly clove. That's pretty much it, for me. I don't think I can smell any patchouli in it. I'm not carnation's biggest fan, mainly because I don't tend to like spicy scents. The spices in this seem to be amping up the characteristics of carnation that I don't like. Well, I didn't think that all of the ladies of the Grindhouse would be hits for me, but I wanted to try them all anyway. Unfortunately this is one of them that isn't going to work for me.

I'm not sure how I feel about this scent yet. Out of all the Wunderkammer, I expected I'd like this one the best based on the notes, and so far I don't think that's the case. (But, to be honest, I'm really loving the Wunderkammer as a whole way more than I thought I would, so... tough competition.) Red musk is my favorite musk, but in this it seems drier than it usually does. Not as deep, and not as red. Kind of hazy. I think the parchment is making it seem dry, and the incense and brimstome are contributing to the haze. Don't get me wrong, I like it. It's just not what I thought it would be. I think I'd have to test this a few more times to get a feel for it.