TrailerTrashPrincess

This is the dead of winter, the year’s dark hibernation, the crystalline silence of the depths of the world’s darkness. It bears echoes of the time before time, of primordial gloom. This Moon harbors memories of man’s life before fire. so not what i was expecting... smells like a stroll through a cold, snowy forest. no pine or xmas tree or anything specific like that... but the cold, the green, the dirt, the foliage... and possibly the leather jacket you (or your husband) is wearing and the faint floral scent lingering from your soap/shampoo/yesterday's perfume/fabric softener/cosmetics this is very faint on me, and smells much too cold for me to wear while it is so cold outside.... but it was nice back during the summer.

i get the violets and the menthol/eucalyptus of the cajeput, and i think i can smell/feel the juniper and cypress in there somewhere. but this turns into something entirely too medicinal for me... like a salve my great great great gramma might have used for something (ugh, have you ever actually smelled mustard plaster? if you haven't, don't) this isn't bad by any means, it just isn't me.

whew. with the notes listed in this, it could just about be the extremes of both ends of my likes/dislikes notes list. no to: gardenia, ambergris, lavender, orange blossom, coriander yes to: melissa, tobacco flower, wood, ylang ylang, absinthe and Oh, yes, please to the whiskey. and what does it turn into on me? sweaty and desperately in need of a shower gardenias, and the wood cask the whiskey was aged in. this isn't as awful as i was afraid of, due to so many bad notes for me... but i doubt i'll wear it again.

lavender-black cherry-almond i don't get any woods or any rose or any musk, strangely. without the lavender and almond, this would be nice.

we hateses the jasmine and it hateses us right back. i love honeysuckle. LOVE it. if i could conjure up a magnolia blossom and honeysuckle branches, that's what i'd carry for my wedding bouquet. that being said... jasmine turns into something much like civet on me. and i don't much care for lemon. but for those that jasmine and lemon are nicer to, i can see how this would be a gorgeous scent.

three of my favourite BPAL scents are House of Mirrors, Spirits of the Dead and the Evening Star. none of the notes listed for any of those are remotely like the notes listed for this, but nonetheless i get a similar scent-feel from it. i don't get the wintergreen/spearmint/medicinal or the berry/anise that some are.... i get fresh, crisp/cool air, lush grasses and wildflowers and a general sense of this being rather what a wood nymph or sprite might smell like. i really like this.

i HATE jasmine. but i don't smell it so much in this blend, strangely enough. this reminds me of something from a long time ago.... oh! it smells like the Haalsa Marigold Shampoo i used when i was little. it really does smell yellow... not really honeysuckle, and certainly not jasmine, but dandelions and buttercups and other spring-y flowers.

amber-y, bitter citrus with sandalwood and possibly frankincense. also, to note, this bottle has the old-style dropper cap, so it is already somewhat aged.

i was hoping for the pineapple (especially the pineapple upside down cake) .... instead i get a jasmine-mango-powder sort of scent... with notes of Expensive DepartmentStore Perfume beneath it. this reminds me of something, but i can't quite place it. i'm extremely grateful to the person who allowed me to try this!

i don't get what i was hoping for, what i do get is something that smells like birch beer (which is sort-of wintergreeney - like sitting beside someone with a wintergreen mint) and cold air. i'm not sure how to describe the scent of cold air, but there it is. this is also incredibly faint, less than 20 minutes and there's nothing left (and i spilled quite a bit on my fingers, but it isn't there anymore)

i was gifted with a partial (albeit one of the really tall vials) of this awhile back... and have worn it sparingly a few times since.... and decanted all but a couple of drops out for a swap a few days ago. this isn't any other White Musk you've ever tried. if you know Jovan and the Body Shop, you still don't know this one. i'm not sure i get the creamy/vanilla note others have described, but i do know there's something warm (without being spicy) in this... and the only reason i parted with it... is because i know i can't get more. so it needs to be shared. the best thing i could probably add.... is that this is musk without the 70's musk scent that we all have, somewhere, a memory of. or without the 80's screaming musk scents. this is a clean musk, if there is such a thing, and of all the SN's that i've tried, sniffed on someone else or read about... i think this is the one i most wish would come back.

the first time i tried this, i swore i smelled something evergreen-y or christmas-tree-ish. the second time i tried this, i thought it was lemon and now, tonight... it is like F5's more mature and complex great-uncle. if this scent had a colour, it would be pale, clear, light green. crisp and clean with almost a bite to it (clean with a vengeance!) and truly lovely...although possibly a tad more masculine than i can pull off.

i was so happy to get a partial bottle of this one... but when i tried it (the other night, decanting some out for someone else) ... i got some on my hand (oops) and.... all i got was cinnamon. red hots. and um....

i can't believe i haven't reviewed this! i wear it at least once a week. [= i will say this, the scent changed quickly from when i first got it... the first couple of months i had it, i LOVED it. it was lily and musk and linen with .... something else that made it fabulous. then, suddenly, it changed.... to a scented-dusting-powder (the kind that comes in a pink, purple, blue or yellow container, with a clear lid... usually a gold band around it. really cheap, can find it in most mass market type stores). not baby powdery, really, but powdery. and somehow reminds me of Love's Baby Soft.

i've tried this three times now, and last night i put it away in the bottom drawer of the BPAL cabinet to age.... to see if i forget about it for awhile, will it get better... all i got was cherry/almond and raw fish. the smell changed, on skin, after awhile to a tin of smoked oysters and then still with the cherries on the side. so if anyone else happens to get a Sushi note out of thise... you're in good company. ADDED 11/18/07: so i ordered this when it was up on the site, and the day the package came in the mail i opened this bottle, sniffed it - and thought it was one of the worst things i'd ever smelled. i remember thinking it smelled like Worcestershire sauce (=awful. like fermented fish) and not understanding why everyone loved it. so i closed the bottle and haven't opened it again until today. sniffed from the bottle: i really can't smell much of anything on skin after an hour (because i forgot to sniff it sooner): sweet resin-y dark amber, sweet sandalwood and maybe the eensiest bit of either "cola" or black patchouli. no anchovies, thankfully most of all, i have to smoosh my nose against my arm to smell this at all. if it was a GC, i'd probably wear it (after the Worcestershire sauce part aged away), but it isn't... i like the smell, but it is much too faint for me to rationalize the slather it'd need. maybe i'll put it on the boy for our wedding.

this is the one scent out of the four that i really, really wanted a bottle of (yeah, okay, i wanted to be able to TRY all of them. but just once or twice).... but now that i've gotten an imp of it.... it turns into Snake Oil and a drop of teh Smut on me. sadly -- or possibly thankfully, seeing what these bottles are going for now. it is nice, and i will use what i have, but i don't think i'll go searching out more. plus this is so faint on me. i'm a slatherer, even just to test something, and i can just barely smell it, even if i put my hand right up under my nose. so i guess this is another skin-scent type of oil. not that is isn't a lovely blend, and if it was a GC i'm sure i'd buy more bottles of it when this one gets low -- but it isn't. so if anyone else isn't completely blown away -- don't feel bad cuz you're not alone [=

re-reading the notes before i tried this, i wonder why on earth i ordered it. but then i remember, i was hoping the last three, the leather, fire, and steel, would overpower the rest. impsniff: black pepper (which i hate and will not have in my food) and dragon's blood skinsniff wet and dry: all the same, pepper and dragon's blood.

The fear of Halloween. Menacing Haitian vetiver, patchouli, and clove with a shock of bourbon geranium, grim oakmoss, and dread-inspiring balsams pierce the innocuous scent of autumn leaves. impsniff: reminds me of last year's Samhain skinsniff, wet: oh, ugh, the yum of Samhain is gone, this is rot, rotting leaves, oakmoss, smoke and vetiver skinsniff, dry: all the same from the wet, but with the added BO smell that was in last year's Herr Drosselmeyer.

i got this as part of the Monster decant circle and omg, one imp isn't going to be nearly enough. i love scents that are memories put into little bottles, and that's exactly what this is -- in a way that would probably only make sense to me. impsniff: that smell you get in the summer when you drink from a waterhose that's been sitting out in the sun all day. skinsniff, wet: my friend Bill's old apartment (before he went and got married and moved back to California), and that's the only description i can think of. skinsniff, wet: ohmygod, i neeeeed more of this. lots more. NEED. i don't get the Dead Man's Hand leather out of this. i don't get leather at all. i get water. (not soapy aquatics, i mean real water. the smell that surrounds a fresh, cold spring) with faint waterhose (or the vinyl of a waterbed mattress) notes... i have no idea what my skin is doing to what is supposed to be in this, but it makes me feel safe and loved and brings back some really good memories.

impsniff: black pepper and vetiver skinsniff, wet: mouldy wood and smoke skinsniff dry: flea-repelling chemical solution and that wierd smell that HEPA filters leave behind, with tinges of burned rubber.

impsniff: smells like Pond's Cold Cream ("Ponds IS Cold Cream") skinsniff, wet: still a little bit of cold cream, but with notes that remind me of a mix of Thunderbird and House of Mirrors (which i love, both of 'em) but with this unsettling feeling that jasmine's gonna attack at any second. skinsniff, dry: smells like my mom, after she's finished putting on all the cold cream and lotion and goo on after a shower, but before she puts on the Tuvara. i can't get past the lotion and cold cream smell, and the fresh air/glass notes that were so clear when wet are long long gone.

not to insult anyone, but this seems to be Thunderbird's ... slower, simpler cousin. clean without being soapy or fabric softener-y, and yes - reminds me of the scents that go with a massive thunderstorm. i just got this bottle in a swap - i'm thinking it is aged a bit because it has the cardboard-lined old-style caps. so i wonder how different it is from the fresh?

hunh. not at all what i was expecting. this is the '06 version here: on skin i get dusty, powdery, jasmine-y florals and the tobacco note from Herr Drosselmeyer ('05) the end result reminds me of some commercial perfume from a long time ago, but i can't place it. i almost like this. it smells dusty-purple. but there's this "Jasmine's a-comin'!" feeling to it that makes me anxious. but it is a lot prettier than i had expected!

i guess i was naughtier than i thought, cuz it spilled over into the nice! (yes, i wanted Treat #1) chocolate should never, ever be mixed with 1. mint 2. orange 3. coconut if i could subtract the mint and coconut and orange from this blend, it'd be pretty okay. but the first hour or so of minty-orangey-chocolate was so awful it brought on a migraine on top of my sinus headache. and i have to work a 12 hour shift tonight eventually this dries down to a very figgy spice, with buttercream wafts. but it isn't worth the time it takes to get there. off to swaps!

i guess part of being Naughty means you don't get what you want... i wanted Trick #1... berries, pine and pepper are evil. pomegranate usually is bad as anything other than fresh fruit or juice, and i'm learning that tobacco is hit-or-miss on my skin. the lab's vanilla is more often than not..... just not. (on me) and patchouli? i don't think my bottle got any so, with that said, we bring you: peppered pomegranate berries with rotting pine, wrapped in stale tobacco. .... i'm reviewing this in all of the *blech* glory in case anyone else out there gets what i get, so they don't feel alone. off to swaps!