Leopard403

I just don't get it. A Companion of the Same Nature is composed of scents that I love, that are magic on my skin. It's true that I tend to amp amber and that it has the risk of drowning everything else out, and I was willing to take a chance here because it sounded lovely. If I could have put money on which of my Yule decants I would love best, it would be this one. I knew I was in trouble when the decant arrived and the oil was a rusty orange color. That's usually the first bad sign, but I tried to disregard it. So I was so disappointed when, upon the first few sniffs, I could barely bring myself to put this on my skin; and once on my skin, it didn't get any better. This is a super-strong generic "perfume-y" scent that encapsulates everything I dislike about most bestselling eau de parfum sprays. So though I have a very full decant to swap away, I also have a headache and a broken heart.

Glad to say that on me, this is chocolate with gingerbread in the background rather than the other way around. It is gentler on my skin than many of the lab's "spicier" blends, too. Love.

I too get laundry detergent, but it is nice laundry detergent. Too masculine for me, but would be great on a guy.

Wet, this is a high white scent with no identifiable notes; just a mishmash white floral. Dry, it settles down and smells like expensive French-milled soap. Quite nice, but not really noteworthy.

Wet, this is all juicy pear. As it settles on my skin, the vanilla comes out with a very soft rose. (And I mean soft: I amp rose, and I can barely tell this is there. Maybe the "rose musk" is the secret!) I don't smell any honey or red currant, and the gardenia is only noticable if you know to look for it. Overall, this is a mild vanilla pear with slight floral overtones. It is quite pretty, but it doesn't last on me.

What is that on MAISON EN PAIN D'ÉPICES? It looks like an old sanitarium, but that can't be right, can it?

Agreed. I love Two, Five and Seven but it is a fresher, slightly redder rose scent and there is something identifiably green underneath. (Be careful, too: To my nose, as it ages, that green turns into beer. ) I also love Viola but in addition to the tea rose-y notes, there is something purple about it as well. When I think of it, I always picture the color pink swirling with the color lavender. It is more little girlish than the typical old ladyishness of plain tea rose. Ouija is really heavy on the wood, and I haven't tried Euphrosyne.

Wet, this doesn't smell like much of anything to my nose. On my skin, it is a rather bland aquatic. Not really my thing.

Wet, this is delightful. Like a Christmas tree decorated with superpink candies, crowned with tiny, rare nightblooming flowers. On my skin, all I get is salty boiled peanuts. I hate my skin.

Wet in the imp, I actually smell roasting marshmallows. On my skin, all I smell is the burning. Bummer.

I avoid lavender. I find it not just medicinal and reminiscent of a good facial, but totally overwhelming: Put lavender in a blend and I will not smell anything else. And yet I got my decant of Nightmare and fell in love with it, only remembering once I checked the notes that there was lavender in it at all! On my skin, now that I know it is there, the lavender is soft and powdery, almost orris-like when it combines with the other notes. The vanilla grounds the scent well so that jasmine peeks around the corners, and the gentle notes that could easily have been overpowered by the lavender or amber are all present. Beautifully blended, this smells expensive, not "spa-like" at all.

I received Chokecherry Honey as a frimp from the lab. I tend to be wary of the lab's honey note as it is always very "high" on my skin, so much so that it doesn't really smell like honey at all but more like a bright amber-and-citrus note. But this combination is a winner on my skin. This is smooth, sultry, real honey like a mouthful straight from the jar. I don't get any cherry (or cherry cough syrup), but there is a juicy red tartness under the honey that is quite decadent and balances out the sweet honey. And it lasted forever: After a hectic ten-hour day I could still smell it on my ears and neck when I flipped my hair.

On me, after an initial burst of crisp apple-y goodness, The Green Apple of Venus smells just like Avobath.

I think this is my favorite Weenie of 2011. Very evocative of Autumn, but it doesn't make you think of dead leaves and the "dying" aspect of the season. Rather, I get the warmth and the comfort of the season, the burrowing and the waiting of Fall, smeared very thick and bright. This is complex and well-blended, which makes it sophisticated. There's something about it that makes it feel French and expensive, one of those well-kept secret scents. Very much the kind of scent that could simply be the way a modern woman smells, rather than the way a woman's perfume smells. Plus, on me it has great throw and lasts all day. Love!

On my skin this is a lot nuttier than I expected. It is complex--a little foody, a little floral--and unfortunately I just find all of that confusing. It really is a gorgeous scent, but there is something too busy and slightly generic about it.

When freshly applied, this is all crisp, juicy green apple, evocative of the slices I eat for lunch most days. On the drydown it is much more complex, though after about ten minutes the blue musk makes it smell identical to Under the Harvest Moon.

I can't figure out how the notes end up this way, but: On me, this smells just like Lush's Avobath bomb.

On me, this is all gardenia. Like sticking your face right into a bloom. Which is EXACTLY what I hoped for.

KITTY: HER BATH Strawberries, white grape, vanilla-soaked cream, and a dusting of a light spice-touched musk. The scent: Lovely and identifiably foody. The strawberry doesn't have any sign of that plastic-y note I sometimes get, and the vanilla, cream, and musk combine to make this smell like rich and expensive strawberry shortcake (the food, not the doll). I don't smell any white grape. The salts: I knew these were "wet" when I ordered them, but they are much wetter than I expected! Much of the oil pooled in the bottom of my plastic bag, and some of it leaked a bit. I think these may do better in jars with tiny scoops. In the bath: Can't comment on this yet. I'm in the process of gutting and completely renovating a bathroom to put in a deep, decadent tub, so I'll report back when things are finished.

In the imp and wet on my skin, this smells like Thin Mints with something ever-so-slightly herbal/bitter-green on top, like a delightful cookie with a small, secret dose of some kind of medicine mixed in. I can't really comment on the drydown, as other than the lingering puff of old mint gum this is GONE in about a minute.

I guess I've never noticed how similarly leather and grass smell, but in this perfume I'll be damned if I can tell the difference. Sniff one was very green, very fresh grass; but sniff two came immediately after and it was the leather of a Western store's boot department. Then grass, then leather, then grass, then leather; and sometimes I sort of get both. Either way, I am shocked to say that I LOVE it when first applied.. It's such a great Spring-y, earthy type scent that I want to run through a rainshower or dig around in the garden for plump veggies. (Ha, maybe I'm getting notes of the "mud," too, and my brain can't label it in words but knows that it wants me to be frolicking outside. ) Sadly, as this settles, something in it turns sterile, almost like I get a whiff of grass'n'leather with the slightest puff of Bandaid on top. And once that has lodged in your brain, it's all over.

Smells an awfully lot like my favorite (now discontinued) Yankee tart: Lemon Chiffon. It's the same creamy, foody, non Pledge-y lemon with something sort of bakery crust-y and fluffy underneath. I get the tiniest, gentlest whiff of blueberry on the drydown but I really have to look for it. Quite lovely, and light enough for summer but would probably wear well in cold weather if applied heavily. eta: Sadly, with a full wear, the marshmallow cream does what every cream scent does on my skin: Turns to salty boiled peanuts. Whyyyyy?

I don't get "cotton candy" at all from Celeste. I get a very dry, VERY floral scent mostly composed of iris and orchid. There's a creamy note underneath, but you have to know you are looking for it to find it, and even as mellow as the vanilla and saffron are, this still socks you in the back of the throat like a bouquet of flowers slightly past its prime. I wish I got the pretty, sweet vibe everyone else is getting.

This is lovely. "Soapy" in that it somehow smells clean, and not readily identifiable as a "floral" even though you know flowers are probably involved in something that smells so nice. One of those "your skin smells nice" and not "I like your perfume" kind of scents.

When I was little, I loved Valentine's Day because of the gummy hearts my father would buy me. They weren't gummy like worms, more like gumdrops but without the sugar coating. They were smooth and thick and I used to love to bite them in half and examine my teeth marks in the candy. My point? Kypris smells like those candies. Cherry is sweet but with an ever-so-slight spice to it, less cinnamon-smelling than the warmth you get from cinnamon. It turns powdery and fades quickly.