phantasmmysteria

Man. Godzilla must hate me! This starts off promising -- the oil in the bottle smells like soft peppermint sticks (LOVE THOSE), but after 5 minutes on my skin I wind up smelling like every cheap French vanilla-scented candle I've ever come across. It's so sad! Ah, well. I have loads of other great vanilla scents from Beth to enjoy, so this will go off to someone who will enjoy it.

I am so happy to finally be able to try this one! I was so excited when it arrived in the mail yesterday, I didn't even sniff it in the imp -- I just slathered it on. Immediately, the blackcurrant is like WHOA. I am very much reminded of HM by Hanae Mori (as the two share blackcurrant and vanilla as notes, though I believe the similarities extend further than that). The currant slowly backs off and lends a lovely earthiness to the blend up close, but the throw is all fantastic, sugary vanilla. OMG, this is good. It's wicked good.

Bloody Mary was quite the pleasant suprise, as I anticipated it not working for me. It starts off with the same very sharp, sour, and nearly unpleasant scent that MB: Closet has upon contact (perhaps there's an alcoholic note in both, even though BM has none listed), but upon drydown the scent fades to ripe red fruits scattered over whipped cream. I get considerably less cherry than I thought, which is a bonus. It has short throw, but average wear length.

I think this is the last of the GC cocoa blends I had left to try, and so far it's the best on my skin! In the imp, the cocoa note is plain. It's the dry scent of unsweetened cocoa, and it overwhelms everything else. Once it hits my skin, the cherry comes to the forefront -- cherry notes have the tendencies to turn slightly plasticky on my skin of a moment, but the fruit and orange blossom here quickly sweeten this blend up just a touch and round out the chocolate. Despite the fruit and cocoa, this is only a slightly foody scent (along the same lines that Antique Lace might be considered gourmand). It is a highly wearable, if light, scent. It does fade very quickly, but I love huffing my wrists to catch the smell! Four imps out of five.

I passed up buying any bottles of this after hearing it was heavy on the chocolate, but I wound up swapping for a bottle of it anyway. I'm happy I did! This one really suprised me. I'm not that fond of gourmand scents, but I found this to be highly wearable. It's warm, spicey chocolate with hints of orchid and peach (which is unfortunate, as I would have loved more fruit in the mix). The honey doesn't turn sour (a feat considering my chemistry) and the blend is never overly sweet. As an aside, the Manthing smells no chocolate at all -- he says I smell like incense when I wear this. This may not be my favorite blend EVAR!, but it's great and I will wear it fairly often.

I waited to read the WC reviews to place my Singing Moon order, and I am very, very glad I did (because I got two bottles of this!). When I opened the bottle, I was suprised at how faint the smell was, but it was very pleasant. I dabbed a bit on one hand -- at the wrist, I smell the sharpness of the lavender (which softens quickly), and there's something a little bit "off" smelling... I'm not quite sure if it's the olive blossom or the musk. The throw, however... oh my Gods, this is fantastic! I am surrounded by this sweet cloud of fluff. It's warm, soft, and sweet, with the flash of florals up close -- much like a magpie's nest, its shiny bits glinting in the sunlight. Beth, I love it. I can see this going into very heavy rotation as the summer wanes.

Oh, man... this is been my first OMGGETITOFF BPAL. On my skin, this scent turns to napalm. Seriously... I get an acrid burning soapy smell that I could not wash off quickly enough. After scrubbing, I was left with something grossly sweet. It was... it was just bad.

As a fruit lover (wait... that came out wrong ), I recommend: Aglaea: Try to find an aged imp/bottle -- it's beautiful fresh, but much heavier on the peaches when it's new. The amber comes forth more as it gets older. Fire Pig: This is an interesting scent, because there's a lot going on, but it has lychee in it! teh lychee! Australian Copperhead: Mmmm, berry goodness in a bottle. Morgause: This is mainly incensy-floral, but it does have purple fruits in it. I love this one. Enraged Bunny Musk: Lemonheads! The musk keeps it from being overbearingly sweet.

Does anyone else remember the shampoo Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific? That was its name, and that's what it did -- make your hair smell terrific. Australian Copperhead smells like that shampoo! Out of the bottle, it's very fruity -- mostly berry, but there's a hint of neroli in it. I love this phase, though it doesn't last terribly long. The acai berry leaves the party fairly quickly, and then the neroli follows (but not before flirting with the vanilla and giving her his number). During the drydown, all I get is patchouli (while I dislike patchouli, at least it's not oppressive), but later still the vanilla reappears and stays put. This is really nice! It's definitely a bright and cheery scent, but without a lot of throw -- sort of like when you have a funny thought but decide to keep it to yourself. I'm hoping that aging won't make the Snake Oil-iness come forward, but rather cause this blend to not morph so much so quickly. I think I should keep a bottle around to find out, in any case! ETA: I have now tried every Snake that remotely appealed to me, and this is the only one which has really worked. I have found that, while the berry does fade rather quickly, the vanilla in this blend stays around for a really long time. I have applied this scent in the afternoon, and the next morning (after two showers), my wrists have stilled smelled of vanilla. Now that's some staying power!

One of my favorite things to do as a wee little one was play in the laundry detergent whenever my mother was putting clothes in the washer. I loooooooved the smell of detergent, and to run my hands through the powder in the box and hear my mother mock scold me for doing so. Dragon Moon reminds me instantly of those memories, because on my skin it smells exactly like laundry detergent, which I'm thinking is probably sue to the cherry blossom. For me, this is a very positive association (though I'm sure not everyone loves that soapy smell as much as I do). It eventually does mellow out into a soft green floral, but it's those beginning stages I really like.

I wanted to come back and amend my review, because I believe I have finally come to peace with Teh Smutz. We seem to have this crazy on-again, off-again relationship... I buy a bottle, swap it off, decide that I miss it, swap for another bottle, put it away and forget about it... etc., etc. When I first tried Smut, I kept identifying the top notes as sasparilla, though I think what I'm smelling is whatever boozy note Smut contains (which, to my nose, smells much like a topnote in Eat Me -- someone mentioned amaretto?) in conjunction with the musks. For me, this unusual topnote does really quiet down with age, and the sweetness seems to as well. Try as I might, I cannot figure out what types of musk are represented in this blend, though I don't think there is any red or white (which, of course, I'm most familiar with). This has great throw, and you only need a little! I find this to be a great layering scent for kicking up another blend a notch or two.

Ahhhh.... I love peaches. But this is one of the scents I passed over, thinking that all that amber would turn into a powdery mess on me. Oh, how wrong I was! In the bottle, this smells just like peach schnapps. Yummy, fruity, boozy goodness. Upon application, the musk brightens the peach up for a few minutes, before the ambers come to the forefront. The first stages of drydown almost becomes powdery due to the prevalence of amber, but the peach is always faintly present in the backgound. In the end, the peach is once again the dominant note, but it's balanced with the ambers and is just enough to sweeten it up. I really, really like this scent, and every stage of its progression.

I was so excited to try this scent! Even after reading the reviews, I was suprised at how fruity this really was in the bottle. it is very sweet-smelling (something that reminds me of Fire Pig -- could it be lychee?), but also slightly floral. I don't get any lavender in the bottle at all. Wet: The incense and lavender burst through to the surface initially, followed by the misty ozone smell, mingled with incense. I'm afraid I don't get much throw from this, but the wet and beginning drydown stages of this scent definitely separate and blend together beautifully. It is truly ethereal, shifting and changing like the fae realm itself. I'm now getting a lot of the ozone-y note, and I'm not sure if I really like it that much. After a while, everything fades until all that's left at the market are the sugared candies and a teensy bit of incense -- it's a little bit sweeter than I usually like, though the incense keeps it from ever turning sickening. I hate to say it, but I'm on the fence about this one! I will hang onto the bottle for now -- perhaps in a while the incense will come out to play more.

This was one of the first BPAL scents I've tried. I loved it at first -- all lovely florals, with just a hint of opium smoke in the background -- but something in this blend sometimes gives me a headache. I'm not sure if it's one of the lilies or the tuberose, though. This is definitely not a scent I can wear at work! It is the material embodiment of langour, and it makes me want to take a nap. And then once I'm done with my nap, I want to take another nap to recover from the exertion. I imagine that the stereotypical image of a Libra woman, lounging around and indulging in bonbons all day would smell something like this blend.

I recently swapped for a bottle of this (woot!), as reading the reviews for the OotD series this appealed to me the most. Opium smoke, sandalwood, tonka, and ginger? Yesplz! In the bottle: Wow, this smells like Tamamo-No-Mae's doppelganger! It the bottle, they smell so similar... sweet, creamy, and just faintly floral... I can just detect a hint more spiciness in John Seward. No opium smoke at all. Wet: This starts off just as TNM does, but very quickly the white pepper and ginger start coming forward, and the sweet tonka starts to fade to the opium and sandalwood. *sighs dreamily* Dry: The resins and spice are clearly present once dry, but it's softened around the edges by the tonka. This is great. It's a definite keeper, in my book.

I can see why the Emperor and his concubines would be so enamoured with this mysterious courtesan! She smelled DIVINE! I'm afraid I haven't sniffed Hungry Ghost Moon in order to draw a correlation between it and T-N-M, but for some reason this reminds me of a creamier Dr. John Seward! They both contain sandlewood and ginger, as well as the creamy notes of tonka (Dr.) and benzoin (TNM). The ginger of Tamamo only lends a whisper of spice to the blend, however, and helps keep the blend from being too sweet. This is so feminine without being too floral or cloying. It's perfect. A friend of mine remarked that I smelled like coconut milk when I wore it once. I think it smells a whole helluva lot better than just coconut milk, but I guess that can't be a bad thing, right?

Beth needs to piss off more cute furry critters and bottle the scent! This is good stuff. In the bottle, it's all slightly powdery musk. Once on, I smell the same lemony scent others have gotten (but it's very faint). Mostly there's just bright, happy musk with the slightest hints of green and yellow notes peeking out from underneath it. The musk continues to dominate until about hour 2 in the drydown, and then it fades away to leave a faint sugary sweetness. I really love this, but I have to be careful about wearing it on days when I'm feeling crabby; it brings out the enraged bunny in me, makes me feisty!

Earth sorceress and mother of Mordred, she is, in essence, the harbinger of King Arthur's doom and the downfall of Camelot. She is a sister, or sister-self, to Morgan Le Fay. A bouquet of five night-blooming flowers deepened by dusky violet, purple fruits and the barest breath of medieval incenses. In the imp: Sweet and sharp. I can smell the fruit and incense immediately. Upon application, this smells exactly like incense I used to purchase from a shop in my hometown many, many years ago. For that association alone I love it! It's definitely rich and luxurious (violet incense, yum), but more of a nighttime scent because it is a little heavy. This would be amazing for the dead of winter. The throw is definitely above average -- I opened the imp and applied just a smidge while sitting in my cubicle, and a coworker smelled it as she was walking in from the other side of the wall! I think this requires a big bottle.

I haven't been on a flight overseas, but on a flight from Nashville to Miami my purse wasn't even checked. I had all my cosmetics, lotion, and some perfume in my purse, but I didn't even bother to put it in a ziplock baggie. My carryon was put through the scanner, but not searched.

I dabbed this on my wrist the evening I received it, so I'm writing this based on those impressions. I definitely need to pull it back out and wear it again, because it is a pretty -- if insubstantial -- scent. In the bottle: OMGFLOWERS. I am not afraid of a little floral, so I wasn't put off by the smell of this scent, but I was a bit suprised at how commercial this smelled. Wearing: This still smelled very commercial, but it was in a very good way. It is a pretty, cool, slightly creamy floral, and it had a good staying power. There's not a lot of depth to it... but that wasn't it's intention now, was it? I think I might track down a spare bottle of this to keep as a backup. ETA: I pulled this back out this morning and tried it again -- I definitely does smell very herbal in the bottle, but now (after several hours of wear), all the flowers have vacated and all that's left is vanilla.

I wanted to really like this scent, but teh roses, they hate me! When I opened the bottle, I smelled mostly an herbal greenness, which was nice. I dabbed a bit on my wrists before I went out for a walk, but I was very shortly greeted by OMGROSE I just couldn't abide. That was all I could smell after applying, and it stuck to my skin for hours afterward. Maybe it's that Aries Ascendant of mine, who knows. Venus and I, sadly, will have to part ways.

This is an imp I received in a swap, and the name is so fabulous I couldn't pass it up. In the imp: Sweet and fruity, with just a twinge of something floral. It definitely smells like the fruit in this is bananas, but my unsophisticated nose can't pinpoint the floral I smell. Wet: This starts morphing immediately upon my skin. The fruitiness fades away, and the cinnamon peeks through for just a moment before being replaced by deep resins -- there's some kind of amber in this I believe, and something just a bit smokey. This blend is now more fruity than floral most of the time Drydown: This does start out very strong, but quickly mellows out. After a couple hours all I smell is warm, delicious vanilla. I'm not usuallu one for foody smells, but I couldn't stop sniffing myself yesterday and I just had to share it with an uninitiated coworker. She LOVED it, too! This is a blend that really works well for me as far as scent and longevity (some of my other favorites fade very very quickly). I will be buying a lot of this one!

My virgin review from my virgin BPAL order, wheeee! I got this as a fantastic extra in my order (thank you, labbies!), and for some reason I decided to try it first. The fruity scent from the imp intrigued me, so I dabbed a bit on the back of my hand and started sniffing. 2 minutes: sniff..... sniiiiffff.... this smells familiar! Where do I know this from? 5 minutes: sniffsniffsniffsniff... this smells like something LUSH. My brain starts to hurt from teh thinking. 7 minutes: OMGTHAT'SIT! It's Silky Underwear! Yup. The drydown of Forbidden Fruit on me is my own personal fragrance wet dream: a liquid version of LUSH Silky Underwear dusting powder. It's slightly sweet, creamy, and just a touch of a deeper note (the amber, I presume) to round the scent out. I could not stop sniffing myself, I love it! I will most definitely be ordering a bottle of this.