alterosen
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Posts posted by alterosen
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I hope you like Miskatonic University - it smells like butterscotch on me
Eat Me is definitely worth trying, as is Dorian which has unfortunately been out of stock for a while now so it might be a bit hard to find, but I'm sure it'll come back eventually.
You might like Bengal which is a lovely spiced honey, or Morocco which is more exotic than foody but is very popular.
Hellcat is like a very decadent dessert (hazelnut, buttercream, honey mead, rum and sweet almond). It was too much for me but it might work for you.
Keep your eyes open for Sugar Skull (A blend of five sugars, lightly dusted with candied fruits), a limited edition Halloween blend which was offered a number of years, so it shouldn't be hard to find a decant on the Sales pages. Sweet with just a hint of fruit - I find it incredibly comforting.
Anything with marshmallow in the notes would be worth trying because it usually means a strong vanilla note, like Breathless Chuckle, Stekkjarstaur or Marshmallow Cookie Pie (all LE, sorry!).
I feel I should mention that the Swap & Sales pages are a great way to try a lot of things less expensively & to find ones that are not currently available as well as a good way to re-home the scents that don't work on you. It's also a good idea to post a wishlist in the appropriate thread because you never know what people might gift you in a package.
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I was expecting this to be herbal, rooty & bitter but it's actually quite a nice blackberry scent. There's a bit of greenery peeking out at times & a fair bit of patchouli in the dry down but berries for the win!
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This does totally smell like summer! More specifically, it smells like the lane near where I used to live that had a long fence covered with honeysuckle & the scent would waft way down the block. Lovely scent memory! Honeyed & sweet, yes, but not too cloying. Now I wanna plant a honeysuckle
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Fruity roses with a bit of stone & hint of bitter ivy. Very nice! This is my new favorite rose spray - not too perfumey or overly feminine. I keep spritzing it into the basement stairwell & then I notice it as I go up or down the stairs. My DH likes it, too.
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My decant of this spray is very soil dominant - I notice some sweet fruit at the beginning but not the sandalwood which is disappointing. I was hoping for a dry cool sandalwood with some supporting fruit & a slight bit of graveyard dirt but I got the opposite proportion. Dirt lovers rejoice!
The bruise-purple fruits seem a bit like creamy raspberry to me which I find odd rather than creepy but YMMV
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Florida went on for longer than Shadow had imagined, and it was late by the time he pulled up outside a small, one-story wooden house, its windows tightly shuttered, on the outskirts of Fort Pierce. Nancy, who had directed him through the last five miles, invited him to stay the night.
“I can get a room in a motel,” said Shadow. “It’s not a problem.”
“You could do that, and I’d be hurt. Obviously I wouldn’t say anythin’. But I’d be real hurt, real bad,” said Mr. Nancy. “So you better stay here, and I’ll make you a bed up on the couch.”
Mr. Nancy unlocked the hurricane shutters, and pulled open the windows. The house smelled musty and damp, and little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.
The ghosts of long-dead cookies, whirring palmetto bugs, cigarillo smoke, and crawling things that scuttle and click.
This is delightful! Spiced cookies with a bit of citrus zest (I'm guessing lime from Mr. Nancy's cologne), & some tobacco behind giving it depth, maybe a smidge of ozone as it dries. No mustiness & not really noticing anything evoking bugs but I'm not missing them.
I wish I still had my decant of Mr. Nancy (Sugar cookies with bay rum, tobacco, and lime) to compare it to but I seem to recall that cookie note was less spicy & more buttery. -
This is great for Springtime! I love citrus & tea scents so I had high hopes for this one & it does not disappoint. Very refreshing without being strident or coming across as a cleaning product. I notice the black currant in some tanginess at the beginning & perhaps a hint of berry but it melds well with the lemon verbena & mandarin. I don't really sense the green tea but it probably adds to the citrus impression. The japanese incense shows up in the drydown but it's still pretty citrusy. Lovely!
If you were wondering how it compares to All Souls with the black currant & incense, I would say it is much lighter & brighter all around with a completely different incense note. So, not very similar
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Another one CXXIV (#124):
The person I got this from thought it was Dorian & patchouli & I agree there's a little patch in here but overall I get an impression of golden woods & creaminess. Smooth yet rugged & sensual. On the masculine side but could be worn by wood lovers in general - I could easily see this belonging in a Shunga series.
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Decant of #273 (also reviewed by Gwydion above)
Burnt sugar or sweet smoke, little jasmine, spice, either clove or carnation, possibly vanilla way behind. Nice spicy gingerbread phase, then it goes plastic, which on someone else's skin might be incense-y but not on mine.
edited to add: Final drydown is incense-y with some creamy sweetness behind. I just never stuck it out past the plastic phase before.
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Decant of 317.
Pale amber beginning & then tropical fruit - I'm leaning toward pineapple. Quite heady & sweet, maybe there's a hint of honey?
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Decant of #73
Never would have pegged this as a fougere: though it starts out with a light musk, it quickly becomes honeyed & sweet, even rosin-like without any brighter citrus or mossy notes. It stays at this stage quite a while & then becomes something very similar to a light version of Snake Oil. But this is better because it doesn't do the "baby powder of doom" that real Snake Oil does on me (so probably no black musk). I think this really belongs in the Oriental category but I'm happy to have it!
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My other decant is of LXXII (72).
This is a sweet, heady floral that I'm not totally confident identifying but reminds me of a Stargazer lily. It could just as easily be some other flower covered with honey - it's very sweet & slightly tangy. Pretty, but a bit too much for me.
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I also have a decant of LXII (62).
However, my impression is quite different than Numanoid's above: I get a strong sweet lemon, like lemon drop candy, followed by a light Nag Champa-like incense. No cinnamon or cassia that I can tell.
I'm actually a big spice fan & would have liked that better! I'm not saying this isn't nice, because it is rather fun & uplifting provided you enjoy lemony things. -
I was hoping for more of a haunted library smell but I also only get a very sweet honey/beeswax scent without any old books present. For me, it lasted quite a while.
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This smells quite a bit like the wet phase of Pumpkin Lace to me. Pumpkin plus tobacco apparently equals booze in my mind because that's what I think I'm smelling
Coffee liqueur in particular & I like it! -
My impression is of an airy lavender with a pale musky base. Not getting a whole lot of vanilla or clove. There's a little sweetness lingering on the wall where I sprayed it which may be the honey but I didn't notice it in the air.
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A widows orchard: black, wilted roses, sagging oak, skeletal yew bushes, threads of saffron, and pads of black moss.
The moss is strong in this one, combined with a spicy rose. I don't really get the oak, yew or saffron but they're probably contributing to what I'm noting as spice. It feels more like a Victorian parlour than a haunted garden/orchard to me but I do really like it. If you're a fan of moss & rose together, you definitely should try it!
I suspect that this combo of notes may have potpourri associations for some people but for others (like me) it will suit just fine. -
Bonfire Night!
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I agree with Ashmedai - The Most Magnificent Christmas Tree is awesome! I quite like Dawn:Cernunnos, too.
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I can't decide if this is pretty or yummy, depending on which notes I'm noticing, so I'm going with both
Vanilla, something candied, bit of orange, slight incense wafting here and there, red musk & hint of spices in the background. I think the candied aspect is from the anise/fennel combining with the vanilla & amber, but it isn't licorice-y at all, for those people who might be worried about that.
It's sophisticated but friendly. It's light enough to wear to work - in fact, this past week was fairly stressful & a couple of times I found myself holding my pony tail in front of my nose to give myself a break & enjoy the scent, so it's comforting, too (to me anyway).
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Quite minty when first applied & not as sweet as I expected, plus a hint of chocolate. Once it dries, the coconut & vanilla came to the forefront with the buttery rum supporting them & much more sweetness. It reminds me somehow of eating a mixture of those Walker's Toffees: rich & sweet with a variety of flavours. So, yeah, it's foody on me
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I'm so sorry, ReallyZeb.
Radiance of Ra (Creates a nimbus of glittering solar energy. Aids in all healing work, unveiling lies and deceptions, promotes vigor and vitality, and grants blessings of joy and contentment) is the one I reach for when I'm feeling crushed emotionally. White Light works, too, but I like this better.
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Sweet & juicy peaches - not much blossom or incense going on here. I pretty well only notice the fruit, which is fine with me! My house is full of the red-gold light of Summer (& I may or may not have peach juice running down my chin).
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Resurrecting this thread with some newer scents I've liked.
Ruined Roses is lovely: white rose marred by oakmoss, Spanish moss, slippery labdanum, and gurjum balsam. There's a bit of light musk in here, too & the roses are well-behaved.
Beautiful, difficult to obtain Eve from Only Lovers Left Alive:
Her scent is one that travels through the eons: the Irish moss, yarrow, and hawthorn of the Iron Age Britons, ancient Rome’s omphacium and honey, myrrh and calamus from Egypt, the frankincense and damask roses of the Florentine Renaissance, white sandalwood from the Far East, Moroccan saffron and rose water, and a swirl of incense from the souks.
I can't really tell the difference between Irish moss & oakmoss - this moss note is maybe a bit less tangy but it's hard to tell because there's so many other notes in this scent.
All Hallows Apple has a nice moss, too: fallen apples, grave moss, autumn leaves, and upturned earth. None of the notes are overpowering - it's not too leafy or heavy-handed in the dirt department.
Gingerbread Zombi: gingerbread with dried roses, rose leaf, Spanish moss, oakmoss and deep brown earth. I'm not a big fan of regular Zombi but the gingerbread combines really well here with the dirt & roses.
Gingerbread Villain - it doesn't mention it in the notes but oakmoss is definitely part of the fougere: Gingerbread fougere, with hints of lilac, lime, and citrus musk. I like this one in the warmer months if I want to wear something with spice - the citrus & moss make it less heavy than many other spicy scents.
And of course we can't forget the Oakmoss Accord Single Note of September 2013!
The Hall of Forgotten Gods Atmosphere Spray
in Atmosphere
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He began to walk through the hall. The carved eyes of those statues that had eyes seemed to follow his every step.
In his dream, he realized that each statue had a name burning on the floor in front of it. The man with the white hair, with a necklace of teeth about his neck, holding a drum, was Leucotios; the broad-hipped woman with monsters dropping from the vast gash between her legs was Hubur; the ram-headed man holding the golden ball was Hershef.
A precise voice, fussy and exact, was speaking to him, in his dream, but he could see no one.
These are gods who have been forgotten, and now might as well be dead. They can be found only in dry histories. They are gone, all gone, but their names and their images remain with us.
Shadow turned a corner, and knew himself to be in another room, even vaster than the first. It went on farther than the eye could see. Close to him was the skull of a mammoth, polished and brown, and a hairy ocher cloak, being worn by a small woman with a deformed left hand. Next to that were three women, each carved from the same granite boulder, joined at the waist: their faces had an unfinished, hasty look to them, although their breasts and genitalia had been carved with elaborate care; and there was a flightless bird which Shadow did not recognize, twice his height, with a beak like a vultures, but with human arms: and on, and on.
The voice spoke once more, as if it were addressing a class, saying, These are the gods who have passed out of memory. Even their names are lost. The people who worshiped them are as forgotten as their gods. Their totems are long since broken and cast down. Their last priests died without passing on their secrets.
Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.
Ancient incense and charred sacrifices echoing through time.
Very smoky! I can smell the charred sacrifices, too, but I'm not really noticing anything that I recognize as incense, just a slight bit of sweetness after the initial smoke has cleared.