Sarah Morehouse

I am confused. I cannot do florals. I especially can't do white florals. I LOATHE gardenia. Pele smells AWESOME on me. Huh? How's that even possible? I get the white ginger, by the bucketload, and that's what saves this for me. The ginger brings its flowery friends tagging along, but they are not as boisterously shrill as usual. They're singing a smooth alto chorus of loveliness. Unfortunately Pele is super-weak on my skin. I am huffing my arm. I may have to slather this one. I do not object to that idea. It's going on my bottle list.

Apothecary is like an Embalming Fluid that I can wear. It's got that same refreshing quality and lightness, without turning me into a high-end household cleanser. (I mean, I AM a high-end household cleanser at least a couple hours a week, but I don't want to smell like one!) That said, it smells nothing like Embalming Fluid. It smells like gardening, minus the funk and grit. Just the saps and juices of a wide variety of wonderful plants, drying on your skin as you sit in the shade and drink iced Earl Grey. I can detect the ginger and fig, but they are anything but foody. They just warm up and round out the crushed plants aroma. I could roll around in this forever. When I was little, I dreamed of working in a plant nursery or greenhouse, mainly because of the smell. Apothecary evokes that PERFECTLY.

TKO does not smell good on me, but it smells FANTASTIC on my pillow case. It's a very smooth but potent lavender, a ton of sugared vanilla, a touch of either mint or eucalyptus (present more in the sensation of The Cool Side Of The Pillow than the actual scent) and... do I detect a whiff of cardamom? I think I do! To say TKO is relaxing is like saying that the Cretaceous Extinction Event was a rough patch for the dinosaurs. TKO is like being painlessly bludgeoned to unconsciousness by an angel wielding a marshmallow. I have used half a bottle in a couple months. Oh dear.

Hoooooo boy. Now I know what too much frankincense smells like. It's not that it smells bad - it's actually really appealing in a rough, fierce way. But it gives me a headache. . Arrrrrrrrrr. Tis but a swappie.

My body chemistry is a lush: all wine all the time. I know this is a gorgeous perfume and I wish it worked for me. When it first goes on, it is so complex and ever-shifting between the myrrh and honey and something herbal-spicy. But very soon it is overtaken by syrupy, grapey wine. It smells like a dessert wine that I would love to drink, but not wear.

Baked spiced peach. Oh man, I wish it were peach season, but it's a cold snap in February. Canned peaches are not going to do the trick for the craving Jack has set off. Where is the pumpkin? Where is the autumn? This is a very August with the stars coming out scent, not the warm October twilight scent I was expecting. I would adore this as a candle, but as a perfume, it is too straightforwardly peach buckle (Mmmmmmmmm) for me to wear. I think I'll make my imp into some wax tarts. <3

Bottle: Ooh. Green. A bit sharp. I like it, but will it like me? Wet: Wow, that's sharp. What's that green bit? It's like my favorite extra virgin olive oil with that peppery edge to it. There's a brief moment when the honey kicks in, and Hetairae is one round scent with no notes that can be pulled out of it. Hmm. Drydown: Uh oh. YLANG YLANG YLANG YLANG *sirens, flashing lights, extension ladders* An hour later: Honey and dirty patch. REALLY dirty patch. Beth doesn't really do dirty patch, so I think it's just me. Two hours later: There's the fig and some skin (?) musk, and they're playing nice with the honey and the now softer but still very earthy patchouli. It makes me think that I LIKE smelling like hippie sex. I'm just not sure I should go out like this. It's not a "me" scent - it would be like showing up in a costume. I will save this imp for odd moods when I want to smell like the cozy back of a VW Microbus, but I will not need a bottle.

Ok, Venice, you're bound to smell intensely something on me, based on your scent notes, but I got you as a frimp, and I'll try anything twice. Wet in the bottle: Oooh, lovely. A brunch table laid out in the late spring, laden with delicious fruits and bouquets of gorgeous flowers. The silverware is gleaming and the linens are crisp and clean in the breeze. I think if I were a bee or a butterfly, I'd be over the moon. On my skin: OOMPH. Jasmine just hit me in the face with a sock full of nickels. Red currant rushes up to kick me in the ribs as I fall down. Drydown: Jasmine... why do you hate me so? Where am I? Mother? Wait a minute! Violets! Sweet, harmless, innocent violets! Hi! ... wait, what are you doing? Why are you taking my earrings off? Where are you going with those?! HEY! Dry: I don't know. I washed this off before it gave me a headache. It's truly lovely in the bottle though. I might try to mix it with candle wax and use it on my tart burner. If you like sweet florals and red/purple fruits but your skin doesn't over-amp them, you will probably adore this. ETA: After washing, I get lemon pledge. I LOVE lemon pledge. Just not on me. I feel so clean and homey... somebody fetch me a microfiber rag!

Schwarzer Mond is putting me in an altered state. It smells like the kind of Jamaican ginger beer that has actual chunks of ginger in it, and undisclosed spices. It smells like Snake Oil's motorcycle badboy boyfriend. It smells like sneaking out after midnight to bury an effigy during moondark. It smells like gazing into the scrying glass until your eyes feel about to pop, and the swishing shadows that move beneath the glass that keep you looking. It smells like bare feet in chilly dirt, nightblooming flowers on a damp breeze, an owl putting serious thought into whether you might be food, and inexcusably expensive resins smoking on a brazier. On me, I can't tell if I love it or hate it, but I'm fascinated by it and will definitely keep it and keep testing it.

This would be PERFECT on me, but for the Jasmine. And even with, it's not terrible. Just overpoweringly jasmine. But I get a hint of the honey-soft round spice-gentle blossom glory that it's supposed to be. It's puzzling because I adore Jasmine Tea. And the scent itself is pleasant, just painfully strong. All I am getting is vanilla and jasmine, and I feel like a teenager trying to smell sophisticated and unmindful of everybody's eyes streaming around her. (Dear past self: you should not be going through an entire bottle of body spray in a week.) I am so sad because I am a huge fan of cinnamon and champaca; vanilla usually melds with my chemistry very nicely; and I'm really curious about olive leaf. Honey is lovely on me - it looks at whatever scents are around it and says, "Go ahead and do your thing, I'll just push it up to 11 for you." Sandalwood is ok - rarely shows up on my skin, but it's a nice booster for other warm scents. But nope, can't smell any of that over the cacaphony of jasmine! I don't think it's just this particular jasmine note either. I think jasmine in general just amps like crazy on me. This would probably smell lovely on someone who can do florals at ALL. And I am jealous of you for it.

I feel like I need to review Snake Oil again I am SO SPECIAL. I haven't reviewed it before on this site. Aaaaanyway... Because it changes on me so much, depending on when I put it on. My standard Snake Oil-on-me experience is soft, warm, round. It wafts strongly, but it doesn't have much of an edge. It's a sexy vanilla spice latte with a little high quality hippie incense in the background. Today, I amped a cinnamon note like crazy. It makes it almost unbearably sharp for the first 1/2 hour to an hour. Then it fades down to a very faint vanilla-resin-spice scent. If this was my only experience of Snake Oil, I wouldn't have two back-up bottles of it at all times. Fortunately, this is rare for me. Is it PMS? Is my skin too dry? Maybe I've eaten too much spice-heavy Indian and Mexican food this week? Perhaps it didn't get along with the traces Defututa I was testing before my shower this morning? Who knows. But it is a tricksy snake who goes around in disguises. And the good news is that even at its sharpest, I still huff myself compulsively. This is the scent that gets me the most compliments from husband, Mom, coworkers, mother in law, and strangers. Everyone thinks they smell something different (coffee cake, patchouli, incense, gingerbread) but they all love it.

Rosemary, oh rosemary. I love you in food, but on my skin you are a nasty piece of work. In the imp, this is herbal, fresh, and lovely, but a cloud has colored the air with portents, a breeze is coming up, an invigorating thunderstorm is coming! On my skin, this is greasy ointment to get rid of foot fungus. The cheap, old fashioned kind that makes your sneakers smell like medicine forever after.

This made me happy. I don't just mean that I like it and that's a happy feeling. I mean that this literally boosted my mood and the scent evoked some memory of joy that stuck with me for quite a while. This is a hybrid of an evergreen forest and animal musk smell with a sharp hooves kicking up lemon verbena and wild thyme smell. It stays very balanced as it dries and warms to my skin, even a few hours later. The ceder is just barely there enough that it demotes it to "glad I have a bottle, but I won't buy a backup." But that is only because cedar makes my nose hurt.

I was sad to find that this Pumpkin's cream note is after all the one that smells excessively funky (almost strong cheesy!) to me. Then I was delighted to find that it faded away after 20 or 30 minutes! Alas, it took all the throw with it. But what remains is a soft and fuzzy, very warm and cozy, chai latte with a pumpkin biscotti kind of scent. I ended up dabbing on a tiny bit of Snake Charmer Resurrected because that's my usual tactic for sharpening a scent whose cinnamon-spicy side is too faint for me. It's making me very happy. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have bought a bottle. But I have it, and I'm definitely going to enjoy it.

I just bought a backup bottle of this - they've got it on the AlchemyLab Etsy site. Pumpkin Queen is one of my top five, maybe top 3. Pumpkin Queen is achy-sweet and rich in the bottle, but that calms right down on my skin. The scent softens the longer I wear it, but it doesn't change much. The pumpkin note is there, and never wavers. It's not the buttery richness of pumpkin pie, and it's not the wet flatness of raw pumpkin. This is more like solid pack pumpkin from the can, but not quite. This is what you'd expect if somebody refined pumpkin essence to flavor tea, or delicate sugar cookies. The pumpkin is sharpened with some clove and cardamom, and lightened with fresh orange zest. I can barely pick up the amber, but I can feel it in back, warming and supporting all the other scents. I also smell sunflower petals drifting over the top of all of it. This scent soothes me almost as well as TKO, but it's not a sleepy, burrowing into a cloud of bliss feeling like TKO. It's more like a warm, gentle hug and an encouraging squeeze. Men appear to react to pumpkin like catnip. Holy wow. My husband is an affectionate man, but this is ridiculous! I like it. >

Well, apparently my skin devours almond scents, because once it's on my skin, the main note is incense, with a gentle bitter almond backup and the merest whisp of fruit. There are spices playing in there, dodging in and out. I get the saffron, and maybe also a hint of coriander? Jasmine far off enough for me to appreciate it without recoiling from its sweetness. This scent feels like dawn on the first pleasant day after a heatwave. The sun promises to be hot, but not punishing. The earth and its plants have recovered enough to give up their scents. It is somewhere between languidness and exuberance - a surge of energy that is steady and knows how to pace itself. Bees! Happy fuzzy bumblebees darting in and out of the flowers and doing a wobbly little dance of "Here's the food!" for their sisters. (Full disclosure: I'm synaesthetic and I have no idea whether my impressions work for non-synaesthetes, but who knows?) I love this smell, but on me, I can't smell it unless I press my nose right up against where I applied it, which gets me odd looks. I dearly want a bottle, because this is SUCH a pretty and relaxing scent, but I'm probably going to go through it very quickly, since I have to apply it so heavily and often to get any throw whatsoever.

Here is where I come to weep that I have only half a bottle of Silk Road. I bought it years ago and forgot about it. Rediscovered it, started using it up, and thought, "Hmm. I should get another bottle before I use this one up." Wait, it's discontinued?! The good news is that that started me in on my BPAL obsession for real. The bad news is that as much as I adore Morocco and Scherezade, neither of them is Silk Road. The first and only perfume so far that my husband has actively liked. On me, Silk Road blossoms from a kind of 2 dimensional dusty spice rack (not very exciting, right? but that phase only lasts a few minutes) to a round, warm bliss of frankincense, cinnamon, nutmeg, saffron. It's like a hot summer wind blowing across the Indian lady's spice kiosk at the farmer's market, carrying with it a hint of her own perfume and whatever she puts in the cedar chest with her sari in to keep it smelling sweet. Winter? It's welcomely warm. Summer? It turns warmth from a curse to a blessing. Sick? I can still smell it. Sweaty? Smells great. Hour 1? Delicious. Hour 8? STILL DELICIOUS. Work? Female coworkers keep making nice comments. Date night? It seems to work like catnip. I am really curious if it was retired because an ingredient became unavailable or for some reason that might admit the possibility of its someday being brought back...?