Lady_Ell

I am a pine fiend, so here are some of my recs (full list of things I've tried, I realize you've tried some of them, too): Jabberwocky Loup Garou Hemlock Black Forest Thanatopsis Undertow Mistletoe I have to retry Golden Priapus. When I tried it I was on some medication that made most non-resin BPALs smell really weird and unappetizing.

Mistletoe is very piney, with a slight lemon note in the background. There's a period of Vick VapoRub as it's drying, but the longer it sits the more calm it becomes. It is growing on me, but it is burning my skin a little - not welting up or anything but there's a little burn. I'd like to try it as a room fragrance, too. It smells lovely in the bottle - piney and lemony and wet but not in a cleaning fluids way. There seems to be some eucalyptus hiding in here, so I am going to wait 20 minutes to see if my dreaded eucalyptus-bitterness-and-despair smell comes out, and if it does, I'll update this to be a swap, but if it does NOT, this is a keeper. OK, it's a keeper. It stays piney-lemon until the end (which was about an hour later, unfortunately, but it's great while it lasts!).

Skadi - oooooh weird, this one doesn't stay the same long enough for me to figure out what's in it. In the bottle it smells like wet snow and pine/juniper (i.e. beautiful) and as it dries a very wet-cold smell comes out and the pine dissipates. Now it smells sweet/cinnamony and wet snow, with a pale wood undercurrent and something red-berry-ish. I'm smelling more and more like a holiday craft store... not auspicious. 5 minutes later... WTF? Now the pine is back. With red berries and a baking sugar cookie (sprinkled with cinnamon) undercurrent. Verdict on skin after an hour: not OK - turns into bad craft store smell (a lot of oils do this on me, unfortunately) Verdict in new oil burner: what it's supposed to smell like (wet snow and pine and berries). Will keep for now as a room scent.

Have you tried Thanatopsis? It's very resiny and non-floral and similar to some of the stuff you listed. I don't know if there's cedar but it seems like something you'd like.

I have been wanting to try this for a while, thinking it would be a woody mango version of Katharina, which smells fruity-good on me. I'm not sure what exactly made this happen, but when wet it was an intense bitter herbal, that went through a brief "yuck!" phase, then mellowed out into a nice incense and musk. But for some reason it totally smelled like red musk, not white musk. I didn't really get much fruit at all. And then it just went all musk. And really really strong. For hours. And hours. Eventually it got to the point where walking down the street in the cold with coats and a tiny dab of Kuang Shi on the back of my hand made the entire 4 cubic yards around me smell strongly of red musk (or I guess it's white musk in this case), and I had to wash it off in order to eat dinner. This is nice, but waaaaaaaay too strong on me.

Very lemony/clean/soapy/fresh. Fades quickly to general light pleasantness consisting of the above notes. Nice, but not really my thing. It just doesn't really smell like anything in particular on me. More like clean, soapy skin that's been amped up a little.

Count me in on the lovin'. This is awesome. Fruit (pineapple?) and fruit sugars and teeny hints of incense and musk. Unfortunately, it fades very quickly on me.

Like Samhain "lite" - or like a non-alcoholic Samhain for little kids, the way that you'd give them a Shirley Temple or something while you drank a whisky soda or something. Very nice. I like Samhain better (less fruity, more dead leafy), but this is still really great. They dry down really similarly on me.

Hmmm. I really like straight vetiver! It does have a strong smoky/woody thing going on when it's drying, which is different and I like it. And then it dries to the most lovely sweet/smoke/wood blend - I can't describe it very well, but it's wonderful. Why didn't I get more of this when I had the chance?

Hmmm. I'm using a prototype imp from back in the day to write this review, but in any case I'm not getting any of the "sexy dark club" things y'alls are getting. It starts off like smoke and cherries: promising. And then it goes all DAINTY FLOWERS and DISH SOAP. Luckily it's faint, almost non-existant. Oh well. You can't like everything, and I guess it's good that this isn't for me, because it isn't available anymore.

This starts off lovely - buttery rum and spice. That lasted about 5 minutes and then... ugh. I smell like that blue fluoride mouthrinse stuff that I used to have to have after lunch during "dental hygiene week" in elementary school. A combination of fluoride rinse, cheap potpourri, and old lady perfume. Sassafras hates me.

OK - so I'm being an enabler and got my friend a bottle of Sin for her birthday. She really likes it but would also like something that's similar, that's heavy heavy heavy on patchouli and doesn't have cinnamon. I also got her Aureus, which she also likes but she really wants more patchouli. I'm thinking: Anne Bonny, maybe? I don't know many of the Tarot/Voodoo blends - would any of those work? Thanks!

I am wearing Kweku Anansi today and am still deciding how I feel about it. Do I love it? Hate it? Something about it smells like Bactine and Band-Aids on me, but not necessarily in a bad way. It's like Belladonna, but more nutmeg-y and herby. I don't think I'll buy a big bottle, because I already have a bottle of Belladonna which doesn't smell like a first aid cabinet when it hits my arm. But at the same time, it's so unusual and interesting and somehow very comforting. Ooooh, I know... this reminds me of Poison (Dior?) but less sweet. I think that's why I find it comforting - it has good memories for me. Unfortunately, I don't think it works on me. It smells good for the first hour, but after that it gets a weird dusty topnote that makes me a little woozy, kind of like Laudanum but not as bad. The nutmeg sticks in the back of my throat, and I think that's what is giving me the Bactine smell.

OK, so I tried this on as an experiment. I wanted to see how gross it would smell on me because it contains the dreaded sassafras , which makes me smell like bandages, and poppy, which has made me smell like a chemistry experiment in the past. That said, Dissipation actually smelled really good on me, to my utter surprise. I couldn't figure out the note I was smelling until I read these reviews and people mentioned cucumber. It's like a sweet, green cucumber with some sugar and herbs and lemony soap on top. Which sounds weird, but it's actually pretty good. Very fresh, juicy, clean-smelling. Very late-spring when irises are out, and you're in the garden and surrounded by new green things. After about 10 minutes, the soapy thing went away and I got a dry cucumber-vanilla smell. Which was very surprising, and surprisingly very nice.

This smells EXACTLY like fresh cut grass when you first put it on. Very green. After a while it becomes a bit lemony with a bare hint of pine. But mostly it's that fresh green grass juice smell. It's lovely! After an hour, though, it's pretty much gone. I have a hint of powdery something or other on my arms still, that smells like grass and bubble gum and powder and somehow reminds me of the smell of a baby's head. It's very comforting, but nothing like how it is in the first 20 minutes or so. If this lasted longer on me, I'd buy a big bottle for sure!

I wish this stayed how it smelled when wet: coffee beans and raindrops on roses (no whiskers on kittens though). When it dried I smelled like Palmolive dishsoap and rotten, festering flowers. Flowers hate me.

Warm milk, fresh ginger slivers, a touch of honey, and something a teeeeeeensiest bit floral or stemmy/sappy, like ginger flowers or ginger stems. A light scent but one with throw. It seems to fade but it will surprise you a few hours later with a little poke in the nose reminding you that it's still there. I bought a 5mL unsniffed, and I am glad I did. It's light, understated yet present, appropriate for any situation, and lovely.

Samhain 2004: It's so balanced, and perfect in every way. I'm not getting a lot of the fruity apple or pumpkin smell that others are, but I am getting dry, dead, fallen oak/maple leaves that crunch when you walk through them, and pumpkin pie like spices. It smells just like Samhain 2003, but maybe a bit sweeter. I have to say I am adoring the bitterness and dryness in here, though. OK, so this is now my new favorite. I say that all the time, I know, but for real this time! ... none of you will ever take me seriously again...

Loup Garou - no vetiver but the cedar and pine are there. I love this one. Aureus - it's very woody. I love this one, too.

Fruity: Carnal, Hamadryad, Bon Vivant Clean: Jabberwocky, Undertow, Loup Garou (if she likes pine)

Starts off a juicy citrus, really orangey-grapefruit, really bright. It must be the orris, because when it dried I just smelled like honeysuckle. No more citrus, just honeysuckle and maybe a hint of mock orange or neroli. Nice, but not really me.

Wow, this one is STRONG! You really only need a teensy bit to get quite a throw. I smell maple sugar, maple syrup boiled down, brown sugar fresh out of the package, caramelized sugar, and burnt sugar syrup. It's a very warm, brown smell. My chemistry doesn't seem to change it much, either... bottle=skin in this case. It is completely and totally wonderful. ETA: OH MY GOD THIS MIGHT BE MY FAVORITEST THING EVER EVER EVER - perfect in every way

So I'm trying out Nine Mysteries today and I smell so astringent that I fear I'm intimidating everyone around me. It's MINT and LAVENDAR and something bitter bitter bitter (I don't know what ingredient it is, but it's happened to me with Cathode, UltraViolet, and that other minty one that just came out). I feel cold and evil in this one, which I'm not particularly down with, at least not today. It's a dry, soapy mint and lavendar, with that mysterious something that goes papery and medicinal on me - like something you'd disinfect a cut with (Bactine or iodine or Solarcaine). I wonder what it is. Undertow smells great on me, and that's minty - it smells cool and fresh and bright. But this one is just so cold and calculating. And reminds me of wheatgrass mixed with toothpaste and a sachet. I gotta figure out what ingredient it is that does this and avoid it like the plague.

Well, poop. I ordered a 5 mL bottle of this, unsniffed, because I was absolutely positive that this would be my most favorite scent of all time. I then got my order which had a freebie imp of Blood Amber thrown in. So of course I tried it on right away and was like... "hmmm... cherries... spice... well, whatever, I need to try on King of Spades now" and since I was so enamored of some of my other big bottles, I forgot about it. I tried it again today, hoping hoping hoping it would be less cherry smelling and more ambery (I loooooooove amber and woody smells) but it wasn't. It was like Shollin described, "fruit punch with too much sugar" with just a barest hint of amber that never really took hold, and with a slightly spicy edge, like cinnamon or allspice or something, and a barely there waxy-flowery edge, but there enough to make me recognize flowers (and unfortunately, I'm not good with flowers). I'm very sad; I really love Dragon's Milk and Bloodlust so I assumed that Dragon's Blood would be something I can wear. I love amber but it just didn't show up. Oh well. Someone is bound to love it (and it seems that many of you already do) so I guess I'll swap it.

Single note black pepper starts off black peppery, goes high nose and a little unpleasant for a minute or two, then goes AWESOME and deep and spicy and oily for about 10 minutes, and then faaaaades away. However, I put it on just before doing a major cooking operation and I think that all the chopping and steam and handwashing and stuff made it fade quicker than normal.