prettypinkkitty

In bottle: spicy rose. Wet: That Johnson and Johnson baby lotion. BOO. Where is the musk? Where is the cream? Where is anything? I weep at my body chemistry. The traitor! Drydown: The rose is peeking out from the baby lotion, but that's it. Stupid body chemistry.

Damn, of COURSE this works on my skin when Snake Oil does not. In the bottle: Resin with cocoa. Wet on skin: spicy vanilla cocoa, but something makes sure it doesn't go too foody. Is that the teakwood? It's drying down cocoa over Snake Oil minus whatever made it not work on my skin before. What! I can't believe this works. It is the precious.

It's strange, a few of the scents in the Carnaval Diabolique have smelled almost like what I consider "perfume" - that sort of sharp vaguely floral scent - is it poppy? It reacts on my skin to give a cheaper perfume scent, like maybe Charlie or one of those formative perfumes. (Actually, I've just done googling, and it's neither Charlie nor Jean Nate. Hmmm.) It's puzzling. The sharp scent warms itself up eventually, and instead there's a warm floral scent that's a little musky, so it prevents it from being too twee. Not bad! That strangely sharp floral note is still there, just diminished, so it doesn't smell like I doused myself in cologne on the way out of the house, but it still holds me back. Very light throw. Incidentally, patchouli normally amps itself up on my skin, and it's barely present here.

In bottle: Unidentifiable foodiness, with the tiniest hint of spice. Wet: whoa, cherry - REAL cherry, not candy cherry! Cardamom and cocoa say hey. Drydown: Cardamom is sort of coming out, but alas, all things on this planet are ephemeral except for plastic. It's disappearing fast. If I stick my nose right up against my wrist, it's lightly chocolated cherry. I kind of like it, but it's so light. :-/ I wish there was more cinnamon!

In bottle: Super-sweet, sickly, almost like watermelon jolly rancher times 10. I can't discern anything else, it's so overwhelmingly sweet. Wet on skin: Same. Getting less sickly-sweet. A floral note rises to top. It cuts all that sweetness down, a lot, thank God. Tangerines and mandarin lurk right around the corner too. It's drying down very similarly. Fruity fresh. I'm not absolutely in love with it, but it's pretty. I hope my year is this full of sweetness.

In the bottle: it smells exactly like Violet Mints taste. It really made me want some, and I haven't had those in a year. Wet: It smells quite a lot like blue cotton candy. The violet is sadly tending towards rubber on me. Oh, drat. Drydown: On one arm, it stays more violet-y, and on the other, it is rapidly turning into rubbery old chewing gum. Actually, it fluctuates between violet and that. Not for me.

In the bottle: A gorgeous sugar rose! Not the cake sort, but the candied sort you put on fancy cakes. Wet: It's like I'm inhaling a cloud of rose-flavored cotton candy. I kind of want to lick my arm. Dry, some three hours later: It's like rosewater, with a little talc, and slight sugar. The talc has only recently appeared. I love all things rose-flavored. Heck, I make my cookies rose-flavored. TONS of love for this. I can't wait to try Faith, or layer the two.

In the vial - Cocoa with the barest hint of lavender. On the skin, wet - dry sweetened cocoa, maybe mint or lavender, and the tiniest bit of sage. Drydown - It goes to a mostly cocoa-vanilla scent on me, with a hint, maybe, of musk. It's delicious! It's very warming for this time of year, too. I feel like I've drunk a cup of cocoa. But strangely it's not heavy at all. It's the airiest chocolate I've sniffed. This stays.

Frimped, ta Lab! In the imp: pure spearmint. Wet: spearmint, with the eucalyptus cavalry riding right behind. There's the hint of something else and violet. I assume something else is neroli. Drydown: The violet comes out more, but hello, eucalyptus and mint. I can see this coming in handy when I feel head-congested - it's like a prettier Vicks. Oh, wait. Now it's an uneasy mix. It doesn't work nicely for me. Sigh.

In the bottle: Like when you light a stick of incense in a closed room. Plus vanilla. Wet: On me, it's predominantly sweet and spicy vanilla and incense fighting for dominancy. I suppose the amber is in there, adding a slightly creamy note to it. Drydown: It really becomes more complex and spicy. The incense dies down somewhat, and the scent balances out. Incense scents usually dominate on my skin, and here it patiently shares the spotlight. It's a lovely and comforting, yet still sexy, scent. My father, who usually only says, "Oh. Floral." when he smells my wrist, said, "That's really good," and asked what was in it. When I listed off the ingredients, he said, "huh, there's nothing perfume-y in there, but it smells very good!" I think Daddy is learning the point of the perfume addiction. Incidentally, while everyone seems to compare it to Snake Oil, I must say that Snake Oil does not work at all on my skin, while Snake Charmer does. Of course, it's the more expensive one that works.

I speak Tamil! What a coincidence...that is about a month late! It's pronounced koo-MAH-ree KUHN-TUHM (the first syllable has the same vowel sound as in come or gun, the second sounds like the stuff you take for heartburn). The second word has equal emphasis on both syllables. It means "Princess Landmass", and yes, the second word does sound slightly unfortunate. Oops. (It means "Princess Landmass," incidentally and if you care, because it is just below what is known as Kanyakumari, the tippy tip of India, where the patron deity is a virgin [kanya] goddess. She's also known as Kumari Amman. It is also, I have learned, where Mohinder spread his dad's ashes in Heroes, though I've not seen it myself.) Sri Lankan Tamil, FYI, is much more sing-songy than Indian Tamil. Indian Tamil has really morphed, even in its highbrow form, and Sri Lankan Tamil has stayed much the same to its classical roots, though they've certainly adopted some Sinhalese. Indian Tamil sounds bubbly, Sri Lankan Tamil sounds songlike.

Six months ago, I anointed a regular pink candle with Glamour and, was rather unclear about my goals. I think I said something about wanting to be very sexually attractive to the men I knew. The candle burned cleanly. Then I dabbed whatever cleavage I have with a bit of Glamour. Gorgeous scent, rosey and light, totally girly, and sliiiiiiight smell of resin. It's what my violin case smelled like when my mom gave me flowers after a performance. That's...oddly specific, and not a sexy association, but hey. I digress. Results: people were more attracted to me, and more vocally so. I was slightly pawed on one occasion, a younger teacher hit on me on another, and I had to do some polite drunken turndowns (which, always awkward, and I'm shuddering just remembering the teacher incident. ARGH). At our party, I wanted to hear more bhangra, and I told the DJ so quickly and politely - one of many people asking for requests. He played several bhangra songs, and afterwards came up to me and told me that he was motivated by watching me dance and gave me a big hug. I was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, my hair was a mess from all the dancing, and I am no Bipasha Basu. In addition, the boy I had a huge and completely superficial crush on...demonstrated his interest in me, let's say. Unfortunately, there's nothing in Glamour that specifies that when you're looking hot, the cute boys kiss well. Sorry to be unladylike. Aaaaanyway, this experience taught me to be more specific in the future, for sure. Specificity in language = good. Then, recently, I left that cute boy an online message on the occasion of his birthday. He has sent me multiple, super-complimentary, very out of the blue messages since. And I checked - he didn't send similar ones to his other friends who left online birthday wishes. We're not that close, we haven't talked since a few days after that night, and we haven't seen each other since then. I am totally blaming this on that night of my hotness wafting around in that drafty chamber of his memory. Effective blend, five thumbs up, just be careful my dears! (edited to include an incident I forgot!)

Gainful Employment gave me grief at first, but now? I feel like I need to get empty imps so that I can decant this and spread the love around. The afternoon I ordered the bottle, I scored an interview for a position that was higher than my qualifications. The bottle came the day before the interview, so I figured, omen! This morning, before leaving the house for my interview, I sat down, as bifemmefatale suggested, and anointed my palms with Gainful Employment, as well as a bit on my resumes. I put tiny dabs of Charisma on my third eye and my cleavage. I prayed to Ganesha (remover of obstacles), Saraswathi (goddess of knowledge and talent), and Hanuman (awesome god of coolness), and gave a shout-out to Lakshmi (goddess of wealth and luck). Scentwise, I think there's vetiver or something in there, maybe pepper, I really can't tell. To me, it just smells like confidence. I felt confident as long as I could sniff it. I got to the office, had the interview. He was honest about my (lack of) chances at the position, but offered to keep the resume for lower jobs. We chatted for a while. Then, I visited an old acquaintance of mine, who set up two interviews with other very helpful people around the company. Unfortunately, both the interviews were not exactly right - one, the position was probably already taken, and the other was for a job I would have HATED if I'd taken it for the foot in the door. The interviewers both were very cheery about my prospects beyond these positions, however. I ran into one of the interviewers afterwards, and he mentioned something off of my resume, which meant he'd actually read it! But I did leave the company feeling depressed and useless, since I hadn't actually interviewed for a real position, and my mom did the quasi-wail of despair on the phone when she heard I'd not been offered anything yet. I bought a custard-filled donut at the Krispy Kreme and took the train home. Where I found a job offer, from the first company I'd interviewed with, sitting cheerfully in my inbox. I'm fairly sure I'm going to take it. Now I just need to figure out how to tell my acquaintance that his efforts were not needed...

In the bottle: Spicy wood, hint of apple. Well, actually, waves of apple next to the wood. Wet: Oooooh...woody apple, the spice just below. Mmmm. Drying: Cranberry and spices. I like this a lot. On me, it dries down like fall-goes-into-winter. It dries down into deliciousness. I want hot cider now!

In bottle - it smells like lavender, sweetened with fruit. Wet - it's more lavender+verbena. Dry - now it's mostly verbena and orange. Not for me.