phantasmmysteria

CCLXXIII (273) In the bottle: Mmmmm, fruity! It smells like red fruit punch. Wet: Acaiiiiiiiiiiii!! How exciting -- this even has the little smack of greenness which is also found in Slippery Poppy Tincture. SPT unfortunately gets entirely too green on my skin, however, and though this starts to gets there for a bit there is another red fruit (which is most likely strawberry) and a creamy/tanginess that really helps reign this in as it dries. Dry: This is Beaver Moon 2007 with acai berry in place of the cherry. Verdict: This isn't actually the bottle I ordered from the Lab (which I could review had I not already sent it off to someone else and forgotten the number :lol) but I'm so happy that this bit of Chaos made it into my hands. This bottle tickles me to no end, and I have the only one EVAR!

See, I was so psyched to try Crawdad after hearing all this luscious foodiness from reviews, but it's not sweet and foody at all on me! There's nearly no blueberry/currant at all upon drydown and the other elements are much more prominent, though it's quite berrylicious in the bottle. Blue Fire, on the other hands, is just yum! THAT smells more like blueberry pie filling to me than Crawdad (the papaya really sweetens it up on my skin).

Well, I certainly wasn't expecting.... whatever it is that I got from this! Bottle: Mmmmm, berrylicious! Wet: I get a wet smack of something sharp underneath the blueberry/currant (yes, something even sharper than the blueberries), maybe the ginger or red musk? This is sweet, but I usually love sweet... this is definitely sweet in a very unsettling sort of way. As this starts to dry down, it actually starts to feel a little watery.... it's so bizarre! I think it's probably the green tea doing that trick, and the coriander isn't particularly helping. It works itself up to the point where it's almost too much and I want to wash it off, and then suddenly it slacks waaay back. Thankfully. Dry: Slightly green, a little sweet.... some musk here and there. Luckily the coriander has calmed down quite a bit. This does fade faster than a lot of blends, but the throw is kind of nice and it leaves behind a faint trace of benzoin/vanilla -- which is fine, but it's one hell of a trip to get there! Verdict: This is like fragrancing oneself with Salvador Dali juice. This is what Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumblebee smells like. It's unsettling, it's bizarre, and it's not entirely pretty... but it is fascinating.

In the bottle: Oh, hai lily! I'm glad you could make it... Wet: This does start out quite floral with a quick burst of musk, with the lily playing up front and the honey myrtle in the back -- I'm sure the sunflower is around somewhere, but I'm not able to pick it out of the crowd. It's not a sharp floral at all, though -- in fact, overall the scent is very subtle. Still, it's floral, which isn't usually my thing. Dry: While it's not the same syrupy-sweet nepalese amber which I adore, in the drydown I can certainly catch hints of it in the drydown. It's very soft, vanillic amber. Verdict: This is pretty, and does indeed invoke the feeling of summer. But this has no throw on me whatsoever! Still, in the dog days of August perhaps this would be a good thing... no one likes to make other people choke on their perfume when it's stupidly hot outside, right?

You ladies already covered my two main choices! Havana and The Antikythera Mechanism.

It's funny, because I though the same thing about my Xia Smooch! From sniffing it and Kill-Switch, I definitely think the blackberry in Xia would go very well with Crypt Queen, but I got much more salty sweat from Kill-Switch. I also think Xia and Dionysia would be quite :swoon:-worthy. Trauma is definitely love, and is going to eventually get layered with Aglaea! I also think it would go well with O.

Once again, this act of the Carnaval throws me a curveball, and one of the scents I had little expectation of working out for me does. In the bottle: A great deal like Smut! But the bergamot and patchouli are peeking out as well, adding some complexity I don't find from Smut. Wet: That's funny... the lotus root and orchid come forward first, and I get a candylike sweetness from the throw that actually reminds me of Tiki Queen. How crazy is that?? Up close, the bergamot (which can be a little iffy on me) and currant mixes with the red musk and a smidge of patchouli. This is a shimmering, ever-changing scent... like silk shantung. Dry: And just like that, it's gone. This really vanishes on my skin! The red musk is about the only thing I can catch a whiff of if I press my nose to my skin, though sometimes others around me can still smell my perfume even if I think it's been completely eaten by me skin. I'd best figure that out before I have the urge to slather myself in this stuff. Verdict: Smut has been an old standby for layering when I want to feel sexy, but it's not a scent I can stand to wear by itself. Marianne, however, is beautiful and intriguing and very, very sexy. It's not so overwhelming that it makes me nauseous, and that I think will also layer well with other scents. So, dear Smut... I'm afraid you've been replaced, though you'll always hold a special place in my heart.

I was going to search the site, but it seems to be broken. I will update once the search function is active again. Barring that I can recommend The Great Sword of War, very gender-neutral orange(mandarin actually) that blends really well with the musk and herbs, etc... I did manage to do a bit of searching for orange and amber, which as I mentioned was rather fruitless (LOL, a pun). I will definitely keep The Great Sword of War a try, though!

HALP PLZ! I have a bottle of L'Occitane Feu d'Orange which I think is total love, but it doesn't last two seconds on my skin. I want a BPAL equivalent! Ideally, something predominently orange and amber would just make my day, but the catalogue seems to be pretty short of that combo. So, any suggestions of scents or scent combos to try would be much appreciated! (For the record, Feu d'Orange is an orange topnote with middle/basenotes of woods and amber. It's very gender-neutral.)

Wow. This was a weird blend on my skin! In the imp: Sweet coconut! I get just a teeny bit of the patchouli in the background, making things interesting. Wet: Still lots of coconut... this is nice! Maybe this is THE coconut blend I've been searching fo--- WHY HELLO THAR PATCHOULI! WERE YOU FEELING NEGLECTED?? Dry: I usually do okay with patch in a blend -- it tends to like me. But THIS patchouli does turn into a body-odorous funk, and then smells like I attempted to cover it up with super-sweet coconut. Such a shame!

In the bottle: It's a little sour, with a background of something... odd. I'm not familiar with the old OFF!, but this is strange just the same. Wet: Hmmm, I get the lemony note people mention, but I don't really think it's lemon -- more of a phantom note than anything (I wonder if it's the honey doing that?). There's a brief second when I catch the hint of Anactoria another reviewer mentioned -- something interacting with Hay Moon's amber the way kush does with Anactoria's. There's still something slightly sour when I sniff my arm, but the throw is this lovely ambery-grassy-mallow thing... yum. Dry: This is very soft on drydown, and is indeed mostly amber. The hay ab. and the other grassy notes add some dryness (and a touch of powderiness) to the amber. Sadly, I'm not getting any mallow now. Verdict: I've tried this scent 3 or 4 times since I received it, and every time has been different. This particular time is kind of iffy, but overall this does invoke the memories of hot Tennessee summers, lugging bales of hay onto a truck and then into my grandfather's barn. And that's what I was hoping for!

Hmmm... we might have a hung jury on our hands in the case of Mysteria v. Pickled Imp. The Imp, in the imp: A lovely pine sap, just like that found in The Illustrated Woman. I can smell the spices as well. Wet: The pine does disappear fairly quickly, and the cinnamon comes to the forefront. I like this phase -- it smells more like I'd hoped Gingerbread Poppet did (which was lovely, but it had some sort of odd udercurrent on my skin). Everything melds togeher in an interesting way, and the clove isn't making me feel sneezy! Dry: Unfortunately, upon drydown this gets pretty generic. The vanilla has amped up (no suprise there) and I'm left with a scent that smells disturbingly like a cinnamon candle. Verdict: I am going to try this scent in a locket, because the wet stage is pretty cool. However, taking everything into consideration I won't be hoarding this scent myself -- there are others which smell much better with my own skin chemistry, which is a relief as they aren't LE. If you're afraid of the pine note, however, I would encourage you to give this a shot as it might suprise you!

Guh. This stuff is so good! It doesn't change much at all from bottle to drydown -- it's a sweet, fruity, bubbly scent. I mostly get the blueberry (which is LOVE), but it's not tart as I expected it to be -- I'm guessing that's because the mango is sweetening it up. I don't get any blatant lemongrass, and the gin only adds a tiny bit to the background of the scent. I love this stuff.

In a fit of impulse while I was awaiting my CD decants to trickle in, I threw caution to the wind and bought a bottle of The Illustrated Woman off of a forumnite. It is not a decision I regret! In the bottle: Wow, that's a lot of pine. But it's much sharper than the evergreen notes I'm used to (like those from the Yules) -- perhaps because I'm getting the skin musk, too. Wet: Wooooooo, pine and skin musk! Funnily enough, there's something about the way the notes are interacting here that reminds me of Pisces '07 (which makes me suspect that there is skin musk in Pisces even more, but that's neither here nor there!). Thankfully the pine does settle down after a few minutes, and the tobacco never stands out. As this scent starts to dry down, I really am not sure if I enjoy the scent all that much... but I find it fascinating. I keep sniffing it, trying to figure out what's going on, enthralled with how everything's interacting. Dry: Now, it reminds me of very aged O! It's slightly powdery resins combined with honey and smokey vanilla. Wonderful. Verdict: I have worn this for three consecutive days, and I am officially in love with it! I do agree that there are some similarities to this scent and Black Lace, though the feel they invoke is completely different (and of the two, The Illustrated Woman wins for me by a landslide).

While I have definitely noticed that oils do smell different immediately after coming out of the mailbox (whether it's from extreme hot or cold temperatures) as compared to when they've had a chance to "settle" for a couple of days, I don't think it's caused by degradation of the oil from the temps as much as it's caused by the way oils just smell different at different temperatures. I really can't imagine that these oils are that fragile.

I'm not quite decided on this one yet, but I'm willing to give this lady a fighting chance because I really want it to be good! In the bottle: Uh-oh. Lots of resins. Wet: Lots MORE resins! The frankincense starts amping like whoa until it's all I can smell. The mahogany and benzoin aren't exactly helping matters, though. It stays this way for a while -- very sharp, headachey incense. Dry: Finally during the drydown I can start to smell the fruits emerging. There's a very smokey quality still in the forefront, but the fruits start to sweeten this up around the edges. It gets better with wear, but unfortunately right now the resins are too overpowering for me. Overall: This isn't my dream of Crypt Queen Revisited, but I don't want to lose hope just yet (Crypt Queen wasn't fantastic for me until it had had about 6 months of aging). This is one I'll be hanging onto for a while.

This is definitely my favorite from the decants I've received today, but it's not perfect. In the imp: the florals are the most prominent to start with. This has me a little worried. Wet: Definitely a morpher -- as it hits my skin, the same wet, green smell that's very prominent in Slippery Poppy Tincture is present for a split second before fading. The berry blooms on my skin, backed by the tea and chrysanthemum. The jasmine is not in a starring role here -- I can't pick it out at all. Dry: Wow, this disappears after only a few minutes. There's the memory of tea and fruit left on my hand, and not much else. This is pretty, but it fades SO FAST. Sadly, I don't think I'll be splurging on a whole bottle unless something happens to change that.

If there are scents you really love but find you can't wear on your skin, you can always try them in your hair or in a scent locket, as well.

First of all, I love the beeswax in No. 93 engine -- it's not overly floral to me at all!

I really don't think there's much I need to add to this -- it's already been said! I will say, however, that while this does start out smelling like the best root beer imaginable, the subtle morphing that it undergoes on my skin from wet to dry is really magical. And the drydown -- which winds up smelling like very expensive cream soda -- is to die for. I need a big bottle, straight away. For sure!

After reading that this contains my beloved acai berry, I ordered a 5mL straight away. It's not so great, actually. Wet: OMG, GREENINESS. It's all wet, green flowers and leaves and stems. Where's the honey and berries? Dry: The greenness starts to calm down a little, and the honey is poking around the edges. It's a little tart, and a little sour... yeah, it's just not doing anything for me. Upon far drydown, though.... it's great! Now I get the honey and acai berry and a little bit of poppy, all nestled together and happy. I'm going to age this, and I really hope that the green, "slippery" notes will start to fade with time!

After reading the initial reviews and seeing that dreaded word "ozone," I had to wonder again why I felt the need to go straight for a big bottle of this one! But, I had to push on and at least test it out before deciding whether to cull it or not. Bottle: Ooo, zingy! This smells totally citrusy in the bottle, and slightly sweet. Wet: It starts out, again, mostly citrus, but this starts to morph quickly: a hint of flowers here, that citrus note there. I suddenly get a noseful of that awful ozon note and, disheartened, decide to stop sniffing my wrist and go about doing other things. Another 5 minutes pass, and I suddenly catch a whiff of some lovely sweetess wafting from somewhere. Huh! It's one of the sweet flowers I recognize in the throw of Tiki Queen, but I realy couldn't tel you which it is. Up close cannot smell it, but now and again I catch the ghost of a scent, and it's really lovely. This is incredibly light (perfect for the dog days of summer, I reckon) and fades fast -- perhaps those white resins will become less ethereal with time. For now, I think I should keep it around to find out.

Okay, I am not a big fan of tobacco notes at all, but I have been looking for a nice, woody (hehe, woody) scent to add to my repretoir for quite some time, and I think I just found it in The Antikythera Machanism. The tobacco is instantly identifiable in the imp, but here is nicely balanced by the oak and teak rather than dominating. Wet to dry, this doesn't change very much; the tobacco actually recedes a bit, and the woods (particularly the lovely, rich teakwood) and vanilla create a very sophisicated and sexy perfume. I don't find this manly at all, thoughmy skin's tendency to amp vanilla may make it a sweeter blend on me than on others. I can't wait to see how this ages, and it's definitely going to require a big bottle.

I'm sure I've seen this idea discussed in various other topics, so if the mods feel it's appropriate to merg please feel free. I think I've owned 3 different bottles of the pink-label 13 (I get one, swap it away, and then realize I actually liked its chocolatey goodness). So, I pulled out bottle no. 3 for... actually, probably the first time since I swapped for it, and decided to test it. Only to find it's absolutely nothing like the previous two bottles I had. From bottle to dry, it's a really floral thing, with none of the cocoa, peach, honey, or starfruit that I love. Now, normally I might just chalk this up to aging or skin chemistry, except it even smells totally different in the bottle, and cocoa isn't one of those notes that's known to disappear with age. It's really bizarre! I recall last year's rendition of Egg Nog also having reports of different levels of throw/wearlength from one bottle to another, but I couldn't really tell myself. I suppose my question is how common is this? Has anyone else experienced anything similar without it being caused by the age of the oil or skin chemistry? If so, what was the oil in question?

Received as a frimp in a swap! I'm always wary of scents heavy on the resins, but decided to give this one a try for the hell of it. In the imp: I actually don't smell much at all. A little sweet muskiness, perhaps, but not much else. Wet: Right after I dab this on my skin, the musk and patchouli come forward (uh-oh), and this gets sharp and powdery. I can't specifically pick out the flowers, so I'm not sure if they are the cause of the powderiness or something else is. This stage is actually kind of nice -- as it dries down a little, the honey starts adding a hint of sweetness and it gets a smoky quality to go alongside the musk. Dry: Yeah, dry isn't so great. Mostly honey (and a nice honey at that), but there's some added funk to it that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Blech. I think I'll try this in a scent locket, but I have a number of honey blends that I adore... I don't really need another if it doesn't agree with my chemistry.