myth

That perfumey-floral vanilla, like in CC: Female, that is cloying and borderline headache inducing. With some of that dry papery smell from U. Makes me feel slighly ill if I take a big huff. 2nd test: at first this time I get some of the vanilla booziness other reviews have exclaimed over, then growing floral and scratchiness. Slightly more appealing the second time, but... not really. I am not getting the hype on this one. Thankfully.

Grape candy with a faint hint of booze. Stays very grapey-fruity, with just a hint of that sour wine, but mostly very sugary fruitiness. Ok, but not stunning on me because that wine aspect always sours, and it's way too grapey.

An old-fashioned perfume smell. Sour, perfumey, powdery floral of some kind. It reminds me of these chalky scent blocks my grandmother kept in her underwear drawer back when I was a kid. Very cloying and headache-inducing.

This one could've been called Champagne & Soap.

Sharp, chemical apple and powdery, soapy floral. I amped the soap powder floral of course, and this is the tart kind of apple I don't like.

Sharp, almost chemical apple and oak. Dries a little better, the apple softens some once on skin, but I prefer cidery apples to these tart kind. The oak is the same as in Oak King.

White sugar and creamy vanilla at first, it does smell a bit like a white cake… angel food maybe. Taking on a plastic edge on my skin. As it is drying it gets some bitterness that could be the touch of floral others are getting, leading to an overall impression of burnt plastic vanilla. Becoming more apparently floral as it dries, developing a chemical pungency and more bitterness. No impression of cake remaining, now it's all powdery floral [it does smell like violet] and chemicals, with a faint tinge of burnt plastic vanilla.

Strong, slightly damp floral with woody-greenish tones. Not for me at all; it's instant headache just sniffing it.

Powdery, dry, harsh and quite bitter. Smells like ancient powdery perfume. Pretty awful and instantly headache-inducing on me.

A damp, heady floral. I see everyone else says gardenia, so I'll take their word for it. Gardenia is my favorite flower for the scent, and this smells nothing like them to me, neither from the vial nor on my skin. I also don't smell peach. The lushness turns bitter as it dries, and it becomes like gone-over perfume.

Powdery, harsh, old-fashioned floral. Strong and stinky, slightly soapy.

This doesn't have the light sugary note I got from O v6. On the wand it's all sour-heavy honey, but on my skin it does something unexpected for a minute, and gets more complex, with a sort of pastry note in there. Then it shifts and I swear I smell mint… the plant leaf kind, not the candy kind. As it dries the honey begins to take over, and it is the heady, somewhat sexual honey, thick and foody, yet a bit funky, with some sourness like sweat in it. For all the honey this isn't very sweet on me. Still with a little dry pastry lingering in the background and something kind of nutty, like one of those sweet roll pastries you get that are very bready with pecans and honey over them. And you're eating it off someone's sweaty backside. Honey is not a note that really plays well on me. This is closer to what I can recall of the released O than the v6 proto was. The heady-sour honey amps as it dries until it's pretty well SN honey.

This one has a similar wood as NVP1, but with the addition of floral note that is going a bit soapy on me. I can smell both aspects as two distinct threads in the scent, but the soapy floral dominates as florals tend to do on me. As it dries the wood manages to back the floral down a bit, the dampness of it subsides but the heady quality is still intertwined with the wood. Now it smells more like NVP1, but the sweetness of the wood isn't there, it's soured by the floral. I don't get any clove from this like other reviewers did, and I'm not sure I really know what coriander smells like, but this is more floral than herbal/spice on my skin.

Hm, weird. A dark oil that seemed promising on the wand, but is weird and hard to determine on skin. I might smell red musk, maybe patchouli, also something high and a bit astringent that makes me think of a clear booze. A touch of cologne. As it dries the cologne is shifting to a floral note and the high note has rolled off. There's definitely red musk in here, but it's being soured by the floral note. I no longer really smell the darkness that I thought might be patch, now it's red musk and a sour floral note that hovers somewhere between men's cologne and heavy perfume... sour like cheap cologne, oppressive like cheap perfume. Meh. Not even red musk can save this one on my floral-hating skin. Looking at other reviews I see people are getting leather out of this... that could account for the sour-cologne thing I'm getting, but I can't really say I identifiably get leather from it. It's developing a powdery sheen as it dries further and repeated sniffing is beginning to give me a headache. When I come back to it after a while I can smell the leather more strongly, mixed with the floral, and the red musk still just in the background. The leather must account for the chemical astringency I got in the beginning; leather takes a while to settle on my skin, and tends to be harsh and weird until it does. If I really huff and fill my sinuses with this, it becomes almost smoky, and the floral note darkens and roughens until it almost makes me think of sage, but a quick sniff is more strongly floral-soapy. This is quite a shifty scent. Ultimately it's a darkish floral and chemical leather over a backdrop of red musk.

Peppery wood. Cedar I think. Just a touch of fresh-sawn wood smell, combined with another lightly incensey-toned wood. Smooth, soft, unassuming. I like it. Sort of like Capela dos Ossos, only I can smell it better. On dry down the fresh cut edge rolls off and it's a sweetish incensed wood, perhaps a sandalwood/cedar combo, and most of the pepper is gone; it's really nice. Would be great layered with other stuff, too... I kind of want to try it with something that's all red musk and bright like Semiramis, that could use some extra grounding. Very comforting and quiet/contemplative on its own though. I've tested about 35 protos from this circle now, and this is the first one I've liked!

This smells sort of like peppery spices at first. On skin the pepperyness turns to a peppery greenness with a floral edge, like geranium or something. It also gets a bit of soapiness going on. The florals continue to amp on me, and the peppery-green bite that it had at first subsides. After reading other reviews I tried to find dirt and I'm not sure I do... there is something dark down at the bottom though, but I have a hard time making it out around the florals that are punching me in the head. Not sure about rum, either, but it could be. I do find this perfumey. But it's also dark and somber, sort of a melancholy floral perfume. Not something I'm going to wear, but for a floral it's not actually that bad in that it's not giving me an instant splitting headache.

Something slightly powdery, a touch perfumey, but also slightly woody-resiny. Maybe. Sandalwood, is that you? … Developing a clean note. This is familiar. I might also smell leather. Ok yeah, def leather, the clean note was that coming on, and it has a bit of that chemical tinge. Still powdery. The light powdery aspect makes it somewhat feminine, or at least, not as masculine as I find most of the dry leather blends like this one is. From the throw this isn't bad, but the leather is a bit chemical and dominates the blend, and I have other leather scents [Crowley, Doc C] that I like much better.

Something perfumey and something sour-funky… almost burning rubber… I've smelled this before, but I have no idea what it is. A faint edge of something metallic. And other weirdness. Ok, looking at other reviews, maybe some of that weirdness is eucalyptus, because I get that instead of mint, although I'm not sure I'd have picked it out without looking at reviews. I don't know that I get dirt, exactly, but something does smell kind of dirty. Maybe there's a really funky vetiver in here, because that might cover both the dirt and the burning. I think the eucalyptus is making me think of metal. Also it makes me think of Christmas for some reason. I have no idea; I think it's because I used to shop at places like Pier One and Bombay Company during the holidays and they always have those eucalyptus wreaths. It's getting a little better as it dries, but not much. The overall impression of this one is WTF and EW. Baffling, and definitely one of the more weirdly unpleasant scents I've ever smelled.

Dirt! And wet. Also mushrooms. Very watery feeling without being aquatic, and something is making me think of bamboo shoots. Getting just a touch of that green/aquatic cologne note as it dries, but held back by the still-strong wet dirt. Late dry is sort of odd: a clean dirt smell.

From the vial, a peppery spicy scent, then another whiff and it's peppery floral. On my skin it's a dark, complex heady perfume with strong floral. As it dries it begins to turn to fancy soap and strong florals. Very strong florals, ugh. Now this has turned heavy floral with an astringent tone that makes me think of cheap perfume.

Fruity bubblegum. As it hits my skin and begins to dry something more astringent emerges… booze? Then a weird chemical undertone also emerges, and for some reason it makes me think of Elmer's Glue. So, Elmer's Glue and Bubblicious. The weirdness rolls off as it dries and I'm left with straight up sugary-fruit bubble gum. Not horrible, but not something I'd wear. If you want to smell like bubblegum this would be it.

Lavender, herbal, with a high, sharp note that is a tad green. Dries down with perfumey floral aspect.

Wet: Lavender, herbal, with red musk. Kind of nice. Reminds me slightly of Corazon, without the fruit. Red musk strengthens as it dries. Then it too fades, and I'm left with a faint, slightly powdery herbal whisper. I'm not a huge fan of lavender blends, but this is ok. I'd like it better if it didn't go slightly powdery-floral after it dries.

Boozy, medicinal, cherry cough syrupish, with an alcoholic sharpness at the top if I sniff too hard or too close. Settles into strong wine on my skin, but develops some nuances of wood and maybe spice that I can just catch every now and then. Then dries to sour, left-out-in-a-glass-overnight wine, like most wine does on me. Similar in performance to Gluhwein.

Elements of both fresh and cidery apples, with a head shop vibe. Usually the fresh apples are too chemical on me, but I kind of like this with the darkness underneath. Sadly it barely starts to dry before a floral comes out on top. The apple disappears, the headshop vibe remains for a little bit more, then it turns dry and floral. Second test: this is so wonderful from the vial I had to try again to be sure. Dark spooky apples in a forest again at first. I wish it would stay this way! Incensy headshop apples, mmm. Sadly, gradually the headshop incense smell begins to shift to a heavy dark floral smell, and the evil flowers begin slowly crushing the poor spooky apples to death. Woe. This one is a total morphing heartbreak. It goes from awesome to fail in less than 20 minutes.