almeda

First Sniff: There's mango there, but it's calm and quiet. The rest is too faint to characterize. On: Mango and patchouli? Dry: It's turned into gentle, round-smelling fruitiness. Like a particularly subdued teenage lip balm. Long-Term: Gets fainter and fainter, but doesn't change further. I should try it again with a heavier application.

First Sniff: Butter & spices. On: Floral and ... citrus? Sweetness, anyway. How odd. Dry: Now it's musk and sandalwood. It's weird, no note is remaining from one stage to the next, yet. Long-Term: I like it -- sandalwood and musk, with a little teasing now-there, now-not floral floating overtop.

First Sniff: Harsh, faintly orangey chemicals. On: Even fainter than in the vial; some kind of nose-aching 'floral' volatile. Dry: Barely-there generic florals, with some kind of dark bottom note. Long-Term: It's giving me a headache, so I'm washing it off. Disappointing -- I really wanted to like this one!

First Sniff: Chemicals and vanilla. Very unpleasant. On: No vanilla; lots of dusty bright florals. Dry: Incense, florals, and just the ghost of an aromatic wood, if I concentrate while I sniff my wrist hard. Long-Term: Just florals, and annoying ones. Not a keeper.

First Sniff: I don't really smell anything. On: Eucalyptus/juniper? Still faint. Dry: There's definitely eucalyptus in here, plus something else I'm finding it hard to characterize. Long-Term: Juniper/eucalyptus/galangal/something. Smells rather a lot like Loup Garou, only fainter.

Seconding Danube heartily. Not only does it smell like a perfume my great-grandmother used to wear, it also smells like what her flower fridge (she was a florist by trade) smelled like right after she misted it. Very green and wet, with a gentle touch of lily and some other stuff too backgroundy for me to distinguish.

First Sniff: Grapefruity? On: Less sweet, more nose-tingle. Less recognizably grapefruit. Dry: Argh, it's a very distinct scent I've smelled before, but I can't put a name to it. It smells like ... some scented object or substance I've run across before, like a shampoo or a deodorant cake or something. Not in a bad way. I like it. Cheerful; not sure I'm going to keep it, but will certainly short-term keep. Probably never own a bottle.

First Sniff: Fruit juice? Some kind of grapefruit cocktail, maybe, though I have to think about it to find the citrusness. On: Turns more sharply/obviously citrus once it warms. More like a shampoo. Dry: Definitely a 'crisp and refreshing' shampoo smell. A 'wake up smiling' smell, they might call it in soaps. Not actively annoying; I'll leave it on and see if it changes any. Long-Term: It has in fact mellowed and un-sharpened (though not dulled!), and a note has crept in that I could call 'yummy skin,' or if I wanted to be verbose, 'your high school boyfriend's letterman jacket's lining'. I like it. This may become another 'buy a bottle' scent, after another couple of unconnected days of long-term road testing. I like it, but I have to be in a bright and bouncy mood for it. On my comfort-scent days it just annoys me. :->

First Sniff: Chemical and generically floral. On: Warms up nicely, and de-harshifies, becoming richer but still unidentifiable. Pleasant, though. Dry: Definitely incensey, and no longer 'chemical'-smelling at all, to my nose. Some florals in there somewhere, down below. Long-Term: Interesting -- it's gone kind of dusty-incense-smoke, with florals. Alas, no leather. Fades in 3-4 hours. Keeping it to try more, in heavier or lighter applications, to see what happens.

First Sniff: Vanilla, with something sharper and almost piney overlaying it. Kind of harsh. On: More aromatic sharpness crowding in over the vanilla. Shame, I like vanilla. :-> Dry: Smelling more and more like deodorant, sort of. Vanilla nearly gone, alas. Still very sharp and 'bright'. If only I liked florals better ... Long-Term: Dusty bright florals. Darnit. If the vanilla had lasted more, I would be keeping it, but as it is it doesn't do much for me.

* First Sniff: Juniper and mint, all right -- which is a really bizarre combination, but not unpleasant. * On: 'Warms', adding something that makes my nose tingle like right after I put on my Burt's Bees lip balm. Overall impression: somewhere on a spectrum between mouthwash and cough syrup. Very strange. Most definitely not baby powder, though, which is good. :-> * Dry: Strong wintergreen/mint toothpaste. Washing it off now. I'll give the Lab this, though -- "Clean and purifying, but menacing" is a very good description. Interestingly, on my husband it turned into guest-room soap, the kind that's herby instead of floral. His skin is usually warmer than mine, for what that's worth.

* First Sniff: Richly floral and rose-y. * On: Got some serious throw on it immediately. It also baby-powdered a bit. Uh oh, that time of month already? I'll let it mellow to see if it passes. * Dry: The powder DID quiet down, thank goodness. Some lavender is showing up; I'm waiting for the rest. * Long-Term: Lots of floral and rose, and nothing else, even hours after application. Not for me, though I bet it's someone else's total favorite.

I only had a sniffie of this, so I had to work to get enough on my wrist to test. Will definitely be getting more. :-> * First Sniff: Spice and incense. * On: Very heady -- lots of nose-tingling, same basic scent. I like it. Kind of cinnamon-and-incense, only the hot kind that comes from South Asia, not the sweet, curly-barked South American stuff. * Dry: Slightly baby-powder, but I think that's my (hormones') fault, and not permanent. * Long-Term: Didn't last terribly long (3-4 hours strong enough to smell from 8" away), but I attribute that to the paltry size of my sample. Definitely a winner, though.

Someone upthread said it smells like "flowers in the rain," and I think they're right, though it didn't occur to me until I read it. * First Sniff: Smells like perfume. How very specific, I know, sorry. :-> * On: Volatilizes quite a lot, and ... changes, becoming more floral? Something. * Dry: It's become a wonderfully rich and quiet/subtle old-fashioned floral perfume -- the kind that isn't rosewater. My great-grandma (who was a florist) used to wear things that smelt like this. Greeny, pleasant. Maybe that's the rhododendron? It's been a long time since I sniffed a real rhodie flower. * Long-Term: Remains subtle, with not much throw. A perfume just for me, not for the whole room.

* First Sniff: Grapefruit. * On: Less stringently-citrus, more floral? * Dry: Interesting. It's now a sort of drifty mildly-citrus floral thing, with a faint ginger undertone. Decent throw. I like it, though I can't explain why -- it's exactly the sort of 'perfume-smelling' floral I ought to detest. * Long-Term: It turned into a pretty standard 'perfume or air freshener' scent, but again, it's like the Stepford Perfume, because I SHOULDN'T like it, but I do. It also seemed to fade really fast, but that may be nose-numbness on my part, I don't have anyone else to get input from. Almost certainly a keeper.

First Sniff: Disturbing, unsettling, like rotten, moldy chocolate with a touch of old dead skunk. Overall impression: oncoming nausea. On and Wet: Everything drops out but the moldy chocolate. You don't want to know why I know what moldy chocolate smells like ... Dry: Thank God, the mold is gone. It's still a very bitter smell (like crunching an espresso bean between your teeth), but the patchouli and florals are faintly beginning to show up. I still don't think I like it much. I'm going to wash it off, rather than giving it my usual 8-hour-or-more long-term test-drive. One to trade away, definitely.

First Sniff: Warm and slightly acrid. On: Gets a bit more incensey, but also gets a sort of alcohol edge to it. The throw is all warm buttery incense, though. I like it. It's not quite what I'm used to thinking of as patchouli, but that's probably part of it. Dry: It's now got an odd little baby powder feel to it, though not an unpleasant one. Sort of inoffensive incense and baby powder. No more acrid (thank goodness). My husband says, "It's like standing next to an incense display rack." Long-Term: It turned totally into baby powder on me, but that may be my time of month. Plus, I like baby powder, so that's nice. Also, my husband and mother-in-law smelled all kinds of non-baby-powder things in it even after that was all I could smell, so maybe it's my nose. :->