forspecial_plate

Very soapy rose for me. : ( I like rose but this one isn't working.

Silk Road reminds me of my long departed great-grandmother, a lot. Something very powdery in there that smells just like she did.

Interesting....I wouldn't have called this masculine, although I do see where the girls are getting that idea. It starts out with a big rush of very crisp tartness, and I swore I smelled lime. For the first 10 minutes or so, the resemblance to F5 is striking. It's a morpher though.....I knew that amber would come out, and it did. After a while I smelled the same amber that I smell in Thunder Moon, which is very sweet on my skin, but not powdery. Okay, maybe a little powdery but that could be the musk. I don't get a lot of musk from this, for me it's there but more of a supporting note. I couldn't really pick out davana here, even though I've tried davana essential oil on my skin (I realize it could be different as a perfume note). Overall this works and I do like it, but it's so much like F5 and Thunder Moon to me that I really wouldn't need more than a decant. Don't get me wrong.....Pollution stands on its own, but it does seem to be in the same category as those other two scents in my opinion.

Mostly woods and a touch of powder that comes across as slightly papery on my skin....but not as much as, say, Mr. Ibis. Still, I'm not crazy about paper/powdery, so at first I didn't like this all that much. Later on as it dries the sandalwood comes out stronger, which almost wins me over. It's a lovely sandalwood that keeps nuzzling my nose, still slightly powdery, but not bad. Still.....for this kind of thing, I think I prefer Chintimani-Dhupa with its exotic twist. I wanted more of the herbs.....mint and lemon peel would be great, but they run and hide on my skin. It's okay, plenty of other herbal/woodsy scents in the catalogue for me to love!

Out of the different lily notes that Beth uses, there are one or two (maybe more) that start out as SOAP and develop into SOAPSOAPSOAP on my skin. Guess what? Witch Queen has that note. It drowns out everything else in the scent and also 'ruins' my nose for any other scent, for a couple hours, even after I wash it off. I think after a long while the other notes might come out, but I just can't get past that soapy lily. It happened with Sepulcher and Kostnice too, if I remember correctly.

The Shivering Boy is lovely.......bright and frosty grapes with some winter greenery and resins. : ) It's in the current Yule LE's.

I really like this scent. It's fairly potent and long lasting, and I would call it masculine, but not completely out of the realm for women (from the reviews, sounds like at least some of the girls around here like it!). It smells zingy to me, with a touch of ozone, rather metallic (I have no idea how Beth does that), and I personally smell a touch of lime in here too. Overall the effect as others have said is cologne or after-shave, with an industrial flavor, which sounds totally weird, but......just read the description. If you think that sounds good, you would probably like it. Comparison time: this reminds me of Scarecrow's industrial counterpart. Metal Scarecrow. I'm not sure if they even share any notes but the feeling of it kept reminding me of Scarecrow, somehow. I almost want a whole bottle of this, even with my new, more strict decants-not-bottles rule. Edit: Forgot to add.......there really is a motor oil note in this. I can definitely smell it. And oddly it works!

Santa Muerte.....this is quite a nice scent, mostly floral for me, but I like it. Mostly what I smell is rose and chrysanthemum, which I recognize from Mum Moon. I'm not getting much else, can't really pick out the vetiver. I like this, it makes me feel classy. I will enjoy wearing this again!

This is quite lovely and if you like the old Hunter Moon, you might really like this. It starts out, in the 'wet' phase, as a bright and lively grape-ish scent, with a delicate frost and a touch of winter greenery. Later on it deepens, and becomes a frosty foresty grape scent with resins. Very nice! It's like the winter counterpart to the older Hunter Moon which I love. Definitely bottle-worthy, this one.

Lilith……this has the same myrrh note as Penitence and Omen, and lots of it. It’s too sweet for me and comes off powdery on my skin. I can’t even smell the other notes, even after giving it time to develop on my skin a little bit. Not for me! (later) Hmm, I looked up the other notes in this. I like black musk, red wine works sometimes, and I’ve been more open to rose lately. So after I read those, I decided not to wash Lilith off. And I keep sniffing my wrist where I tested it. I like it more now, and it might be growing on me. I think the rose is coming out, just a little bit. So, long story short, I might like this enough to keep the imp. (over an hour later….) Okay, the black musk finally overcame the myrrh. It’s still somewhat powdery, but I do actually like this. I guess I’ll keep the imp after all!

Bess…..at first, this smells just plain weird on my skin. I can’t even make sense of it. Later, it settles down into something light, herbal, and slightly fruity. It’s not bad, really. Just not doing a whole lot for me. Reminds me of Himerus a little. Nope….this one’s just not for me.

I ended up wearing Doc Buzzard for NYE, just a couple teeny dabs and some in my hair. For Christmas Eve, I wore Premature Burial, which for me is actually really light and clean, kind of refreshing (especially considering the name and concept behind it!). It reminds me a bit of Demeter's Wet Garden, only better and longer lasting.

I've been meaning to complain about this for a while but was never sure where to do it. Let me just get it out of my system so I can move on. I get so irritated when I see someone post: "Oh, just buy the bottle! Even if you don't like it, you can always swap it later!" Um, I disagree that it's totally easy to just swap stuff away. I have had lots of good swaps, and even successful sales, so don't get me wrong. Also....I do not bump my swaps/sales posts a whole lot, not even once a week. Usually I'll give it a bump just to keep it from being sent to the post cemetery. So it could possibly be said that I don't try hard enough. BUT....... I couldn't even swap away rares like Vanilla Bean SN, Corazon, Ice Queen, Snow Angel......things I wanted to swap for stuff on my wish-list, which IMO is a pretty long one and not too narrow. And I don't think I was being too picky about what I would swap for. A single note for a single note......well, that's what most everyone else does, isn't it? A whole bottle of Samhain sat on my swaps/sales pages for weeks, until I finally decided I would rather just keep it. In fact, I took pretty much everything off my posts and even retired my swaps post. Actually I'm not completely bitter. Part of it is indecision on my part. I hate to get rid of something unless I'm absolutely sure it's not going to work for me (Pruno, Selkie, ahem....). I'm glad I didn't get rid of Samhainophobia because it turns out I really do like it. Also....I don't regret my purchases. I have found a new hobby and I feel more enriched because of it. : )

Pruno! The scent (well, one of two scents) that commemorated Paris Hilton's brief stay in the pokey. LE but not hard to find!

Wow, thread merged at lightning speed! I'm going to an impromptu lunch-time meet 'n sniff at Moonarcana's tomorrow, so I imagine we'll be testing all sorts of things up and down the arms. I'm looking forward to trying Emathides again because I know she has that. As for tomorrow night......well, I may not wear any scent at all! Lately I've been going 'bare' more often, something going on with my nose, I'm not sure why.....but scents have been getting on my nerves a little. I may dab on just a little bit of Djinn, since it's usually my going-out-at-night scent. We shall see. Also the party I'm going to is with a leather crowd and they discourage the wearing of cologne/perfume.....not that I've ever been much of a conformist.......but I know I would stick out like a sore thumb, so we'll see. If anything it will be something dark and/or smokey.

How about some Black Phoenix? It has hints of cherry and almond, and possibly a little booze as well. [i've never tried Fruitcake]

This smells mostly of caramel on me, and yet it's a dark scent, very heavy on my skin. Suffocating, almost. Actually the first time I tried this, I loved it. I thought I had found a new favorite. Then I wore it again yesterday and it creeped me out somewhat. Hard to explain but I got such a sinister feeling from this scent. I don't get it. Caramel seems like it would be somewhat cozy and warm, kind of sexy, right? This scent is like burning red eyes peering at me out of darkness. I can't see the figure these eyes belong to, and I'm not sure I want to. Something else I don't get, I read all the other reviews and nobody else smells lemon in this? To me there is something very tart underneath the caramel that reminds me almost of lemon.....almost but not quite. I think this contributes to the foreboding atmosphere of the scent. I don't smell mint at all, and the tobacco is very well concealed too. Usually tobacco stands out to my nose a bit more. Maybe the 'lemon' is coming from the other herbs, somehow. Overall.....I'm just not sure what to make of this. I want to love it, I really do. But I may have to wait a while before I can try it again.

This is much lighter than I expected, and starts out with a *poomf* of powder. The powder fades mostly away after a few minutes, though. The vanilla aspect of this reminds me more of Underpants than anything else I've tried. I was a little afraid of the cotton note because I find that I don't like paper/cotton/linen notes. In this case, it's not very noticeable to me, unless that's what the powder was. I can pick out the tobacco, but I don't think I ever did smell the cognac. I think the Indian musk is giving this an exotic flavor, and maybe that's reminding me of the saffron note in Underpants (combined with the vanilla). This is a great scent that I will definitely enjoy wearing again. Very light and sophisticated. Edit: I tried this again and it smelled very soapy, almost as bad as lily smells. : ( Will probably trade my decant.

......the inner debate continues. I want Old Moon. I really do. All of this 'pining' I've been doing for a wintery/pine/fir scent (sorry, could not resist the pun).....and now people are saying this is the perfect one. On the one hand, I already have decants of Yuletide, Ice Queen, Death Of The Grave Digger, Jolasveinar, The Snow Storm, Mistletoe......Shivering Boy......Cloister Graveyard......in other words, many many wintery blends that I really like. More than I could use up in quite a long time. On the other hand.......that addition of 'lunar herbs and flowers' sounds soooo promising....makes me really lustful for Old Moon.......so I just don't know. I can't imagine that decants are going to be hard to find once people start getting this. But I haven't had a pending lab order in so long! Bottom line.....I have way too many bills right now. I just better sit this one out. : (

When first applied, this actually reminds me of candied cherries more than grape. I know this because I just made fruitcake yesterday and I sniffed the cherries. That's what Blood Phoenix smells like when wet, with maybe a hint of grape blended in. The very first time I wore this, right away it reminded me of Black Phoenix. Maybe that's intentional. However.....as it dries, a real incense quality comes out. I can't pin it on any one note, but it's probably the dragon's blood and/or poppy. I could possibly smell the opoponax in there. But really, none of these stand out in particular. It's a candy/red/incense scent that reminds me of Hellion, but more candy sweet than that scent, a little less smokey. It's pretty light, especially for a scent with red musk......which I couldn't really smell either, now that I think about it.

I've worn this a couple times now and it always reminds me of Chintamani-Dhupa. I tend to amplify sweeter notes so I was a little surprised that this smells so woody and incense-y for me. I honestly wasn't expecting to like it as much as I do. I'll happily wear this again! I wore it to work tonight and it was nice and soft.....subtle with wood and incense, and some sweetness from the foody elements. Good stuff.

I just realized I have 2 entries about custom scents that start out almost exactly the same! I totally forgot I had already written about that. *smacks forehead*

DSH Perfumes makes custom scents and ooooooh, how I'd love to get one. However, it's almost like getting a tattoo......it's kind of a big commitment and I would want to be sure I was getting the best one for me. [this is all hypothetical since right now I don't have 4 or 5 hundred bucks to throw around] My favorite scent is Djinn, but I wouldn't want another Djinn. The obvious choices would be resins, woods, musk.....smokey and incense.....perhaps opium. But really, do I want something obvious? Maybe I'd want a cleaner, fresh or spicey element in there. Ah dunno..... I even pulled up the questionnaire from DSH that she uses to get a handle on your scent personality. I like it because she asks some more abstract questions like what's your favorite color, what time of day/night do you like best. The questionnaire alone made me insanely curious as to what she would come up with for my scent. Then they send you 3 samples and go from there, I assume fine-tuning and whatnot. I know CB does the same thing, but after trying just a few samples from DSH I think I might like her style better. Nothing against CB but his scents are so light! I like them at times but as for a signature scent, something my very own, I think I'd want something stronger, more emphatic. Someday.....maybe........

At first I get a strong blast of ozone. Ozone sometimes gives me this almost choking feeling....not a horrible thing....it's like when you have air blowing in your face and you get that reflex of not breathing in. I get that with Archangel Winter, just a little bit. This is one of the stronger ozone scents I've tried. After a while, the ozone settles down and the scent becomes sweet to me......it keeps reminding me of sugared grapefruit. I have been known to amplify sweet notes, though. Or maybe they just stand out to my nose. Anyway this reminds me a lot of Kingsport, except this is a dry scent. If this is snow, it's definitely not sticking together.....it's too cold for that! This scent lasts and lasts for hours on me.

Since it has so many of my favorite scents, I think the Salon is my favorite of all the scent categories in the Lab's general catalogue. In light of that, I went back over the reviews and picked out a few that I want to try again. Some of them I even gave unfavorable reviews.....but still, I dare say that my nose is a little more seasoned now, and I may actually like them more now. And there were a couple that I traded or gave away and now I'm kicking myself....especially since they were the nice Lab labels from the imp packs. I even considered getting more imp packs! But I think what I'll do is continue going through my current (huge) stash of imps/decants, pick out the ones I don't want, and try another swapping post. This one will focus on the un-impables on my wish list. I figure since they are slightly harder to come by, it will be more of a challenging hunt. I also still think I would do well to just get decants from now on, and only get a bottle if something is just screaming at me to love it. With the sheer number of decants I already have, it's absolutely silly to buy more bottles since it would take forever even put a dent in them. For example, I traded for a bottle of Midnight On The Midway, which I hardly ever wear, even though I do love it. It's a scent for very particular moods.....when I'm feeling somewhat confident, sexy maybe, but also classy and refined. I could never wear it to work, it's just too emphatic. At work I've been wearing F5, Usher (bpal's Usher, not the commercial cologne), and sometimes CB I Hate Perfume scents......although now I can't remember which ones. Accords, I think....Snow and maybe Lava Rock. Tonight I didn't wear any kind of scent to work. I don't want to offend anyone so when I do wear something, it's very lightly applied.