Torrain

...wintergreen. Bloody hell, it's wintergreen. It's not bad--it's a very nice winter-y pine-y smell, sunlit snowy graveyard kind of thing--but... it's... wintergreen. Right. After about an hour, it's kind of separating out. Pepper and patchouli, with a tiny fruit bite. Which still gives an end result amazingly like wintergreen. It reminds me of an anecdote about how painters would occasionally mix grey and cream and a touch of red ochre to get a murky kind of grey that would pass for something like blue, because real blue paint was so incredibly expensive (being made from lapis lazuli as it was)--that same kind of weird blending. *shrug* It's okay--just *completely* not what I expected. Two hours in: definitely separating out. Mostly patchouli, with grim and biting notes and a tiny background hint of rose. I like. And it lasts for hours. I am *so* glad this ended up working out--for the first few hours after I opened the package, I was terrified it was going to be all Christmassy. This is the sort of thing I'd put on two hours before I went out, and have the smell slowly turn from awake and active into sharp and rich and dark as I ambled around and got ready for an evening. Also, the little crypt is now where I'm keeping my spare change on my desk. Much nicer than the old vitamin supplement plastic bottle. Love and coffee, Frances

In the bottle, it smells almost like alcohol--it took me a second to break that down into lemon and musk. Also, it's the colour of slightly brewed white pomengranate tea, which is quite pretty. On my skin, it turns into something sharp, smelling almost like Embalming Fluid. I have no idea exactly what goes into a fougere (I think oakmoss?), but I'm guessing this is it--oakmoss, or maybe the jasmine leaf? At 25 minutes, the sharpness faded, and what I've got is the musk with a hint of vanilla. The tea isn't really coming out... maybe a hint of it somewhere in the back at most. At 3 hours: musk and a hint of tea. Also? From about half an hour on, this is the second sexiest scent I have *ever* found in BPAL--only Old Morocco{1} beats it, and they work in entirely different ways. Morocco's sultry and warm. Theodosius is more... arch. But oh god, he's gorgeous in all the bad ways. --- {1} Not Morocco, though I understand the formulation's the same. I have a very old imp.

Sweet, spicy, and warm, like Hallowe'en baking. On my skin, patchouli and something warm and foody without really being fruity starts coming out almost immediately--it's the spices, I guess, but there's something grounding them, making them come across like more of a meal. Maybe the pumpkin? At 25 minutes: Oh, bliss. Candied oranges with the hint of a nutmeg bite, I can understand. But honey and toast? I don't know what's making it smell like this, but I love it. At 3 hours: Honey dripping over toast. Love. Bliss. Delight. Oh, and look what just showed up on the update... Love and coffee, Frances

This one starts out smelling very strongly of jasmine on me, which does not move me. It mellows as it dries down, though, and ends up smelling lightly of musk and noticeably of jasmine. I'm also getting hints of floral soap (from the white rose? I get this with a lot of the roses, which really makes me unhappy) coming through. It's not a bad smell--a very ladylike floral, with the musk adding just a hint of steadiness--but it just isn't my thing.

Starts out as an almost acrid floral in the bottle. On my skin, a strong shaving lather/soapy kind of smell comes in for the first half-hour--almost like what I get out of wearing myrrh. I was going to give up on it, but the soapiness faded after about an hour, and there was a beautiful dim kind of plantlike scent left, pallid florals and dim hints of grass and sandalwood. It lasts for hours on me. Smelling Shroud on my skin is like standing in a dark warm room and straining to make out the outlines of a figure--that same dark dreamy effect of my senses not quite being able to pick out the boundaries of what I'm trying to perceive. It is lovely. Frances

On me, it's sharp leather all the way. Fresh stuff--more like walking into a leather shop than putting on a comfortably worn leather jacket or flumping on a leather couch. Waited for a couple of hours, and couldn't pick up any changes--on me, it just sits there. I might wear it if I needed to smell like leather, but that's more of a special effect than a perfume. Like Bordello (for me), it's in the same room as me, and we've just got nothing to say to each other. Love and coffee, Frances

Please don't laugh, because I'm going to have to resort to a very un-perfumey analogy to describe part of this scent. On my skin, it starts off sweet, with a kind of dry sidenote that's faintly tart and faintly dusty and smells like nothing so much as the artificial flowers aisles at your local Michaels' crafts store. Anyway, the plums and the chrysanthemums hook up to produce something sweet and flowery, but there's just too much life and depth and pepper and spice for me to really call it "floral". It is an absolutely lovely scent, even though it fades on me in a couple of hours. L&c, F

Hmh. Starts out smelling like lemon and something mellow--I think it's the green tea. The tea and aloe come out over the next half-hour, and the lemon steps back; it's a kind of rich, clean scent. I can barely pick out the musk... my nose keeps slipping on it and wandering off after the aloe. I... ah... accidentally drank half my imp of this. I'm ordering a 5ml. L&c, F

Starts with a strong hazelnut-sweet coffee smell--my husband was three feet away and noticed when I opened the imp. A kind of raw wood/dust element (do I call that a note?) gets stronger once it's on my skin, but always stays behind the hazelnut and coffee. This is very much its own smell, not mine--you know how occasionally you'll put on a scent, and it's lovely, but it doesn't seem to have anything much to do with you personally and the two of you just happen to be in the room together? That's what I get. But it is a lovely smell, and it brings an incredibly vivid mental image along with it{1} that I really like, so it's absolutely one of my keepers. L&c, F --- {1} Amaretto coffee sitting on a freshly sanded blondewood table, with the steam curling up and gently catching the dusty sunlight that's streaming in through the tall paned window beyond the shelves of books.

Starts out smelling like grapes and cherries on me, then edges into cherry Pop Rocks over the next twenty minutes as the oil settles in. It ends up smelling like a combination of cherry cough syrup and cherry Pop Rocks--kind of wavers between the alcohol smell of cough syrup (the amaretto gets stronger) and the sharper bite of the candy. Weirdly enough, this one grows on me. Like Miskatonic, I get a strong impression of a thing and place, rather than a mood--and when I want to be around cherries, alcohol, and a bit of bite, that's fine. Plus, it's just a really *happy* sort of smell.

I was wondering if anyone could suggest something that smells like Feu d'Issey by Issey Miyake? My sister loves it madly, but it's been discontinued for years{1}, and as time goes on the few bottles that I *am* able to find creep steadily out of my reach. (As it suddenly occurs to me that for what the last bottle cost, I could have gotten half of Act III of the Carnivale... I may need to re-examine my priorities.) A/y. It smells (as I do my research) of Bulgarian rose, coriander, golden Japanese Lily, milky amber, and something called gauaic wood (and I have absolutely no idea what that is). And I think there was a faintly peppery element in there too. Love and coffee, Frances --- {1} It's still possible to get the eau de toilette lite version. This does not move her.