urbanruralferal

in the bottle, it's Dorian with a bit of greenness behind it, which is amplified when on the skin. While it dries down, the grass gets stronger, and it smells like things I wouldn't want to mix together... a kind of uneasy bride to Nosferatu... The lavender and the grass compete with the Dorian notes for awhile, and then the Dorian takes center stage, backed by lavender, pretty low throw... I made a cocktail with lime while wearing it and it made me wish there was more of a citrus component, but I suppose layering could fix that. I'm just not sure if I am that interested. It's nice, I might keep the imp for a sleep scent, or I might swap it.

This was a frimp from the lab; I never would have ordered this. In the bottle, it was juicy. The wine, I imagine. Wet, fruit, with the dirt emerging quickly, and an herbal component. As it dried, the wine subsided and it became very clean smelling, but always with the dirt note grounding it. So, clean dirt. In a way that was subtly unwholesome. Like someone had done their laundry to death, but failed to wash their dry, dirty skin. Ugh. I don't do sharp clean scents, and I mean, I don't do them. Dirt I may be okay with, in principle, although I haven't seemed to like it in the past. Nose-fear-achoo

Unfortunately my husband has reactions to all the strong laundry detergents people use these days. So at my house I have to avoid "clean" scents.

Well that turned out badly. I had high hopes for this one, I'm not sure why. Alice Charette wants to try to it too, so I ordered it. In the bottle, I smell a spicy floral. Nice, if different than what I usually reach for. Wet, It is herbal, fresh, green, and I'm getting some citrus. It has a clean smell, like a... wait, like a cleaning product. Uh oh. Good thing the old man is out in the woods... After 15 minutes, The amber is warming it. It is still clean, it is summery, and a little spicy. It is morphing into a nice summer breeze blowing over a garden that has phlox and stock blooming in it. In that respect, it is good on a stormy November day like today. After it had settled in even more, I started getting a tiny bit of powder, which I do sometimes from amber, but not much! And it has a slightly dusty edge to it. I also started getting kinda stressed about this lingering in the air when my man gets in. I can tell he is not going to like this one. So much throw! So I rush to wash it off, air out my room, put all the new imps in a jar with an airtight lid, change sweaters... And sure enough, he could still smell it. "whew! I'm going back out to the office," says he. Now I have a headache. It's just the stress, I'm sure. The opposite of relaxing! I bet this is a beloved scent among those who can tolerate the fresh floral notes like this. I was almost convinced, myself. Despite the fact that I will probably never again put this on my skin, I am not going to say I don't like it.

Wowsa. This is straight up root beer float when wet, getting a wee bit plasticky as it dries. I slept through the middle dry down, but when completely dry it smells like super creamy vanilla. I like it, but it's not the kind of smell I wear. I was hoping for more wood, and maybe the cedar made an appearance in the 2nd act, but for me to want to buy a season pass, I would like the cedar, or *something* with a little more grit, to be standing on stage at the end of the show.

This is the first time I have tried any of the Samhains. I am reviewing the 2017 release. In the bottle, this smells like a super sharp cologne. It does not smell like something I would put on my skin. But I did, and it immediately started morphing into something that was powdery and cloying, with a bit of fruit. And also floral somehow. At that point, my son said it smelled like applesauce. Drying down, about 30 minutes into it, this image came to mind: A dressed up Victorian baby in its highchair, shrieking bloody murder as its grownup tried to feed it applesauce. Young and perfumey and fruity and LOUD. I don't know what it is in this blend that is so cologny. The mullein? The fir? Someone mentioned dead leaves as having a cologne quality, maybe they do for me as well? I haven't tried any other blends with the dead leaf note... 2 hours later, the spices have really amped up to a level I would have expected, and are trying to balance the loud sweet high-sided quality that just won't quit. It is a little musky at the edge there, where they meet. Instead of balancing, however, they are competing. They aren't playing well together on my skin. It is better now than it has been, tolerable, but only just. I don't know, this doesn't smell like Samhain to me, not what I think of when I think I think of Fall. Chock it up to skin chemistry, I guess. I realize that this is fresh as fresh can be, and that aging is going to alter this blend significantly. And that that would be a good thing for me. But I don't think I'm interested enough to stick it out. Well, at least now I have something to swap! P.S., I love patchouli, and I didn't get it at all from this. I guess it is well blended, and therefore hard to isolate, but I could have used a familiar friend here.

I can speak to this. I find that the sensitivities will vary wildly from person to person. My husband will get a splitting headache from aquatics or rose but is fine with resins and woods, and a lot of other things, thankfully! This suits my tastes well. However, a former co-worker could handle some florals and nice rain scents, but the resins I love would make him feel ill. (And I also think he liked to find fault with me...) And then, one of my local librarians would have a reaction to any scent I wore into the library! So if I knew I was going to the library, I would put on my oils after the visit. I find I need to clear each scent family with the person who is affected by them, and that can be frustrating, but ultimately gracious. One of my main concerns in wearing fragrance (in my case work involves dealing with hundreds of strangers a day) is that I can't be sure that my personal desire to indulge in beautiful (to me) scents isn't going to trigger a reaction in someone else. I try not to slather, and I definitely put on my oils an hour or so, at least, before I am going to be in public, so as to give the blends time to settle down.

11/8/17 source: Lab Order: imps of tombstone, brimstone, aelopile, arcana. bottle of Samhain 2017 CnS: 11/9, received 11/11 source: Herb Girl order: imps of Bloodlust, Czernobog, the Caterpillar, decant of Samhainophobia 2016. bottle of Laura Belle McDaniel paid, received 11/16, Ajevie decants all. The Blood Must Flow, Brangwy, Jaawi, Vampire Princess, Spinning on Graves, You Fancy Me Mad, The Mournful Influence if the Unperceived Shadow paid

Trying imps at Alice's. Harlot: wouldn't even put it on my skin. Too much rose. Half-Elf: light light incense, a little papery, a little rain, without being typically aquatic. dries down to almost nothing right away. La serpent qui danse: not my cups. perfumey, a little light fruit, strong vanilla and a little floral. Not old lady, really, but a little bit plasticy with time. Black Phoenix: cherry-almond all right at first. Dries down sharp and soapy. No way, not for me.

Not sure if this is at all accurate anymore, so I am starting my wishlist post from scratch, and adding scents from here in as time as allows. 5 ml: Bastet Morocco Dorian Snake Charmer Tell-Tale Heart want to try: salon great he-goat Les Anges Dechus the smiling spider Lot and his daughters three gorgons mad meg LE/Discontinued: Formula 54 (dream on) Chaste Moon Selkie Bloody Mary Trick #2 Minotaur Count Dracula The Castle Tell Tale Heart Carnaval Noir: Midway Freak Show Snake charmer Carnaval Diabolique: Antonio, the Carny Talker Phantom Calliope Wulric, the Wolfman Western Diamondback GC: The Wild Men of Jezirat al Tennyn Akuma (for O.pal) Ogun Calico jack Lust Queen Alice Brown Jenkins The deep ones Mad Sweeney Morocco (I just want more) Prague Manhattan Port Royal The Isles of Demons Mouses Sad & long tail hemlock The Red Queen Bluebeard Black Annis Fenris Wolf Hades Obatala Calliope Clio Malediction Roadhouse Anathema Vixen Haunted Dragon's Milk Y'ha-nthlei Bewitched Velvet

This is a good thread. Lots to work with!

The ones I've loved. Many of these are not available. Those I have are marked with an asterix. (House fire wiped out my collection in 2007, man with a chemical sensitivity kept me from getting more.) Bluebeard, Brimstone, Devil's Night, Death Adder, Djinn, Dorian, The Great He-Goat, Green Tree Viper, Haunted, Hemlock*, Krampus, Love Me*, Mad Hatter, Osun, Masquerade*, Morocco, No. 93 Engine*, Schwarzer Mond, Snake Charmer, Sloth, the Tell-Tale Heart, Tezcatlipoca, The Caterpillar, winter of our discontent The ones I've liked, but didn't (or wouldn't) keep (or would try again): Alice, Anne Bonny, Azathoth, Bewitched, Blood, Blood Moon, Bow & Crown of Conquest, Brisingamen, Cairo, Cathedral, Cheshire Cat, Chrysanthemum Moon, Czernobog, Dee, Death on a Pale Horse, Devil's Claw, Dragon's Hide, Drink Me, Grog, Half-Elf, Hecate, Hurricane, King Cobra, Laudanum, Lear, Lolita, Lucretia, Medicine Show, Midnight Mass 2006, Mme. Moriarty, Omen, Polyhymnia, Scarecrow, Snake Oil, Tanin'iver, The Lion, Torture King, Typhon, Umbra, Urd, White Rabbit The ones I didn't care for or flat out didn't like (star indicates extreme): Absinthe, Aeval, Annabel Lee, Antique Lace*, Arcana, Arkham Revisited, Bat-Woman, Bed of Nails, Belle Epoque, Black Lotus, Black Phoenix, Blood Amber, Bordello, Centzon Totochtin, Coyote, Debauchery*, Dove's Heart, Dragon's Tears*, Eclipse, Fallen, Faustus, Gamaliel, Glasgow, Harlot, Has No Hanna, Hellfire, Herr Drosselmeyer*, Highwayman, Inferno, the Jersey Devil, Kathmandu, Kingsport*, Lampades, Les Fleurs du Mal, London, Loviatar, Mag Mell, Malice, the Masque, Mata Hari*, Megaera, Montresor, Muse, the Music of Erich Zahn, Nefertiti, Nephilim, Nosferatu, New Orleans, Nuit, Oberon, Ouija, Pain, Penny Dreadful, Pele, Red Devil, Samhain, Santa Eularia Des Rui, Saturnalia, Scherezade, Sea of Glass*, Seance, Silk Road, Suspiro, The Death of Sardanapal*, The Unicorn, Titus Andronicus, Tombstone, Twilight, Typhon, Veil, Vinland, Voodoo, Wanton, Western Diamondback, Whippoorwill, Whitechapel, Utrennyaya, Yggdrasil, Zombi

I enjoy Mad Hatter as my favorite vanilla mint. Of course, Mad Hatter contains pennyroyal, not mint, and it has a different feel... and I like it better than Tokyo Stomp.

Ah, tokyo stomp... so in the bottle this was ver very foody, with almost a caramel tone to it. Wet, it goes straight away to vanilla cookies or those wonderful candies, mint-meltaways. the mint is not a sharp mint, a creamy and warm mint that I have been looking for. As it dries, it losing the fresh cookie quality and sort of becomes chow-meiny. I know people have mentioned this phenomemon in other reviews (for other perfumes) and here I have it. It's not unpleasant, just not that rich vanilla mint I wanted. I was worried about a plasticky effect, but it only threatened to go that direction for a brief time and then didn't. Overall, I can't say that this is the holy grail of vanilla mints for me. I'm glad to have tried it, and I will keep looking, but for now, nothing has supplanted Mad Hatter. I'm keeping an imp for me and the girls and the rest will go off to be sold.

hmmm, with notes like this, I was excited about the possibilities here... in fact, this was one of the first BPAL I tried, years ago, before I had any ability to predict what works on me or doesn't... and I ended up giving it to a friend, who loved it. But hey! This should work on me! I got this as a frimp and in the vial it is really really nice. Warm, red, soothing to a person raised by hippies.. Not necessarily a stand-out among warm red hippieish scents, but nice nonetheless. Once this hit my skin, though? Nope. Within ten minutes it has lost the red warmth, and it gets all "baked-goodsy" on me. This is a specific signature that a lot of BPAL takes on for me. It's like some crunchy oat cake made with dates or something. Not really anything I want to smell like. I wonder what it is that turns it so? maybe Beth's vetiver, which, although I LOVE vetiver, is a bit less sharp than the vetiver SN that I have worn for decades... Now, 45 minutes later, I can hardly smell anything. wierd. This would be one for a scent locket in the car on a warm day. yum. It's not so precious that I wouldn't mind using it up that way... or maybe I'll send it to that friend who got that first imp. Bloodlust makes me think about when people talk about the simplicity of the GC blends in comparison to the complexity of LEs... I don't always buy that; some of my faves are GC and deep, but this is one GC that illustrates that argument perfectly.