TrailerTrashPrincess

it really isn't what i'd call bitter... astringent, and not the least bit sweet. definitely tea. my brain said white tea when i sniffed it. but i guess technically it would be a tisane... there's something really herbal going on. i've had firethorn berry jelly and it didn't smell or taste like this. i found a bag of assorted herbal teas someone had given me a few years ago - i put the ones not to my preference in a zippy bag and into the kitchen and promptly forgot about them. i used up all the others. the ones in the zippy bag, i found a few weeks ago. opened the bag and sniffed and there was this stale, leaf-y scent that was entirely too reminiscent of old potpourri... so those got dumped. once this settles in on my skin, it has a similar sort of scent to it. it is peculiar, and very interesting! Wikipedia results

at the DSLE, Andra and i - without realizing it - both kept singing the name of this, slightly paraphrased, to the tune of "the first time ever i saw your face". i don't know that we were the only ones, but i know we did it and it struck me as funny. i still can't see the name of this without picturing her gorgeous, smiling face. i also hafta say that this was one of the prototypes i was obsessed with. obsessed, i tell you. i adore this scent. i love this scent. if i'd read the notes before i sniffed it, i would have been afraid of it and expected to not like it. i'm so glad that wasn't the case! i really don't get any roses. and don't let the "aldehyde" frighten you - aldehydes in regular perfume make me think of things like Chanel No5 which i don't like at all... and eucalyptus blossom must smell nothing at all like eucalyptus leaves, is all i can figure. this, this is lovely beyond words. it falls in that same category of BPAL that i love and wear most often... scents like Yes, House of Mirrors, The Evening Star or even Berenice. others i like that are somewhat similar start heading off into the champagne or frankincense categories... essential a clear-crystal-petrichor type scent, without high-pitched white florals or headache-inducing ozoney nonsense.

i've tried this a number of times.. and i've come to the conclusion that Ms. Cushing must shop at Bath & Body works. she's a fan of both Warm Vanilla Sugar and Frosted Cupcake. because that's all i get out of this... a scent that goes back and forth between the coconut-tinged-vanilla of those two scents from Bath & Body Works. eta: so i found a partial tube of a knockoff Warm Vanilla Sugar lotion (from the Body Fantasies line, and it's got the "new" sticker on it, so yeah, i've had this for a really, really long time. to the point it is more watery than lotion normally would be. but i dislike the scent so it has taken me this long to get halfway done with it - circa 1998?) and since the scar on my left leg is permanently lizard-y and always in need of oil/lotion/etc i'm using this up there. so i have a constant faint waft of a slightly-off WVS scent for the past few days. and yesterday did a couple decants of Edith. and yeah - hers isn't the knockoff, and maybe hers is fancier, but it is still that coconut-tinged vanilla of WVS, mixed with the palm-oil (almost coconut) of Frosted Cupcake.

i finally decided to rehome this and so as it has moved on to a better owner, i thought i'd add my thoughts: i keep my BPAL bottles in various boxes. some pretty and decorated ones, some plain ones that were shipping boxes in their previous lives, etc. but each one has a specific smell that wafts out when the lid is lifted/folded back. somehow, this bottle contains the BPAL-box-smell of one of the decorative gift boxes (sort of a caramel brown, with a 2 drawn on the lid in metallic silver marker) that lives under my bed. that box has some of the phoenix scents (e.a.r.t.h, c.a.n.d.y, and some of the bards of ireland scents, plus a few assorted shunga and random other things that i acquired along about the same time). it really boggles my brain how this bottle of 13 smells like so many of those scents from that box all combined... but it does.

i finally decided to rehome this and so as it has moved on to a better owner, i thought i'd add my thoughts: i love bananas. real ones (more black than yellow, please). fake ones (runts! milkshake from Sonic! Laffy Taffy [sorry Mitch]! hard candy sticks from Cracker Barrel!), etc. as long as it isn't green (*shudder*), i'm pretty much good with any form of banana. i don't really get any banana here. a faint church-y sort of incense (no nag champa or frankincense). i also don't really get any Dorian. more of a burned sugar-incense-oleander. which in and of itself is nice enough, but it is so faint that it just doesn't work for me.

i finally decided to rehome this (so glad it is going to someone i know will wear it!) and so as it has moved on to a better owner, i thought i'd add my thoughts: super-pom. like, a cape-wearin' superherofruit. orange blossom tends to smell like fritos to me, but i never got any of that, or any red musk, either, from this. something did tinge toward faintly medicinal, but i think that was just the pomegranate.

i love that buttered popcorn smell. buttered popcorn jellybeans. i have buttered popcorn flavoured lipbalm. i have Shill from way back when and it is my gonna-watch-a-movie scent, whether we're going out or staying in. i'm so confused by this one, though, because if i didn't know it was a fresh-from-the-Post box (well, it arrived a few days ago but i only opened it last night) i'd swear i'd put on Golletes. i get more leftover-breakfast-cereal-milk (strawberry Crazy Cow, mostly. maybe a little of Honey Kix?) than Pop Secret. which is fine with me, i adore Golletes!

in the bottle, this has a generous dollop of that Misk U coffee scent. but with a dairy-heavy and yet bitter caramel thing going on, too. now, i don't drink coffee, i can't stand the taste, but i love the smell. and i used to happily eat carob covered coffeebeans. this turned... seriously odd on my skin. bitter-masculine and woody.

i had a tiny bit of this, but it is now going on to a better home where it will hopefully be more appreciated. the Lab's bourbon vanilla and i don't get along, i think, because it generally smells of nothing, or nothing-adjacent, to my nose. between the tonka, frankincense and tobacco i was hoping this might be delicious on me, but it isn't. i wonder if the copal/myrrh and "yellow sandalwood" are what reminds me of the peanut-butter-rice-krispy-treats scent i get out of Misk U?

a bouquet of white flowers, with just-brushed minty-fresh breath.

wet on skin this smells like a freshly opened package of good quality figs. a little dirty, a little earthy, a teeny bit sweet, but with some zing and a bit of sour. that was nice while it lasted. briefly had a bout of vinyl-y, pool float plastic with a hint of water hose (i like that smell, though) but it didn't last. i'd swear there's cedar in this, because there's a goodly hamster cage in there now, after a couple of hours. cedar, my mom's wet cigarette ashes* in a paper bag, and something almost sweet but wrong. *my mom smokes Salem menthols, the stinkiest cigarette ever.

Apple Peel. like, the woody stem, the peel of the apple, and maybe the core with all the seeds. not a sour green apple, and not a fake-red-apple smell like you'd get from B&BW, but like a real apple (like the one from Snow Glass Apples?)... just the peel. woodsy apple, not floral or foody. no Salon Selectives 90s hairspray smell, either!

i go back and forth on whether i like this or not. i don't dislike it, but i think i've finally decided that i don't need it... i don't know what burning a vanilla bean would actually smell like, but whenever i put this on, that's what my brain tells me i'm smelling - plumes of smoke from a burning vanilla bean. Vanilla Bean Bonfire. and something about it reminds me of GothCon ... but i can't figure out what! some kind of scent memory, 'cuz every time i sniff this i start thinking about that weekend, and some of the folks i met then, and haven't talked to since.

this one... oh this one broke my heart. in the bottle, it smells like this amazing chamomile-musk scent. there's a brand of cotton yarn that is scented. i have no idea why, but they have a chamomile scented one, and i love the scent of the yarn, so much so that i want to make a sweater or something big out of it. even though i know one good laundering and the smell would be gone. but i still love the smell! this is a lot like that chamomile scented yarn, but with a nice musk - something more like Siberian Musk, rather than white or black or red. in the bottle? so amazing. but once sprayed? then it becomes Snow White's twin brother. i sprayed one page of my notes with it and am sniffing it as i type this out. and i stand by Snow White's twin brother. i've never liked Snow White, it reminds me of this spray car air freshener my dad used when i was little, so there's a teensy bit of nostalgia but i'd never want to wear it as perfume. this has whatever part of that creamy-white smell in it that makes me not much care for it removed, with something a touch more masculine instead.

never gave much thought to this scent, but a bit of it came my way yesterday so dutifully i'm trying it. i sniffed it last night and thought it smelled ok so today i put on a tiny drop from the tip of the imp-wand on the top of my left hand. and oh my boy howdy gee did this amp up like whoa. i feel like i walked into a cloud of Axe bodyspray or the cloud from one of the fellows who believes cologne is as good as a shower. i like the smell of hay, and i like bergamot. i never had a real opinion of opoponax until a few years back there was a bit of a smelling circle that included a vial of it in a sticky, extremely stinky resin form and, well, i get a lot of that in this. i like bourbon, but hate vetiver...i confess to having no clue what "bourbon vetiver" is but i'm guessing i don't like it. and srsly the throw on this is astounding. i've been trying to let it settle in for an hour or so now but i just can't take it, it's too strong. i imagine fans of Drakkar Noir will like this. that cologne was instant migraine for me back in high school.

i hate vetiver - it smells like cigarette ashes in a wet paper bag. and the Lab's honey and i just don't get along at all, no matter how much i love real honey. i don't like lemon, or any bitter citrus peel. i adore saffron - when i lived alone it was one of the four or so spices i owned (i was so happy to not have black pepper in my apartment!), and i've yet to be disappointed in dark musks. so... i wouldn't have ever bought this or sought it out, in other words. but i got a bit of it yesterday and i didn't recognise the name on the label so i went ahead and tried it out. and gnaaahh it's good. not as sweet as Smut, not as exotic as Morocco. that is, as long as i don't sniff my skin. the wafts of it are nice, but when i sniff my wrist all i get is the choking smell of cigarette ashes in a wet paper bag. and since i refuse to wear perfume i have to sniff from a distance, that's it for me on this one. if you can do vetiver, and enjoy teh Smut, this might be a hidden gem for you.

i don't like mint. i dislike Snow White. i don't get any sugar or cotton candy out of this, and also no mint. it is extremely masculine. like, if there was a Mr. in Snow's life (but not the woodsman)? it's very off-putting. love the imagery and the name, but i'm glad this bottle is going to a better home.

sniffed from the bottle, i get a sort of sweet-lavender-y-yellow-cake kinda thing. nice but not amazing. on skin, wet, it goes to this ucky pickle-like bitter celery weirdness that made me desperately want to scrub it off. (i have the same pickle issue with Ivanushka, and the most recent Herr Drosselmeyer, but not the original one) after half an hour or so (and for the next 6 hours, and a good 24 hours on my sweater cuff) it has settled down into something i can only describe as Daddy. some amalgamation of the colognes my Daddy wore when i was little. not entirely unlike The Gentleman from a couple years back. so i'll pick up another bottle of this, and put it away. the only way i can describe this is, well, heartwrenching. but that's for my personal take on it. in reality, it's a nice, masculine, classic sort of scent. if pressed, i'd have to say probably something along the lines of original (not the current reforumulated version) of Old Spice, and Halston's old Z14.

shipping this bottle off to a better home, so some quick notes so i remember why i didn't keep it... friendly, soapy, lightly floral (no purple or white). reminds me a lot of one of the Philosophy perfumes (the purple one, Falling In Love?), which i have both a perfume and dupe oil of. very pretty, very nonoffensive, would even make a lovely and comforting room scent. badly named. i don't think this should've been a steampunky scent. this is what i wanted from Grandmother of Ghosts.

how is it that a scent so full of ick-notes turns into something so candy sweet? lemongrass, grapefruit usually kill anything for me. i think it's the guava that makes it go suntan-oil-wrong on me after a while, but that first couple of minutes is delicious pink cake batter yum.

love this. not so much as perfume, but just that it exists. it's a booze-filled chocolate bonbon. it's amazing. amazing, i tell you.

why is it that the cinnamon and grapefruit (and clove) have overwhelmed EVERYTHING else in this for me? boo.

i *like* the smell of beer. cheap concert-beer, homebrew, whatev. i like to drink it, and i like the smell. i also like the dirt-smell of mushrooms. i'm not sure what apple rootstock smells like, but i bet i'd like it, too. it sounds dirty. i also love honey, except for whatever the Lab calls honey, which isn't even remotely honeylike to me... it smells more like unwashed socks. sadly, i get no beer, no mushrooms. thankfully i also don't get honey. what i do get... smells an awful lot like Grog, which i can't wear because it goes all suntan-oil-coconut (blech!). so basically this is, like, Grog for around Hallowe'entime, with a little bit of something pumpkin-spice-ish-ness in there. boo.

i absolutely adore SGA... and i admit i had really high hopes for this one. and she smells delicious in the bottle. but on my skin? within seconds this delicious apple (but not the icky sour green apple or apple shampoo or hairspray scent ) goes straight to rancid pears with cedar shavings.

so much love and so many thanks to the fantastic faerie who picked this up for me! it sounded so right up my alley based on the notes! as such, i've tested it before the bottle has had time to fully rest from the cross-country journey. so i may revise this in a few days. but right now? when i first opened the bottle and sniffed, i was reminded of either Dia or Khrysee (i'm not sure which, but one of the two). but then i dabbed a bit on the top of my wrist and sniffed. still-wet, it reminded me more of Antikythera Mechanism or Galvanic Goggles. briefly. in a very masculine-tobacco kinda way. but then whatever turned Ivanushka into Pickle-ushka rears up and turns this into Quart of Pickle. That choking, nose-crinkling boiling vinegar and spices stage of making home-made pickles.