Giallo

[WidgetAlley]

Profoundly passionate and singularly sinister: opoponax, black plum, night-blooming jasmine, benzoin, red musk, violet leaf, orange blossom, mimosa, mandarin, smoky vanilla, tobacco, patchouli, and black amber.

Received an imp of this forever ago and never tried it! Shame on me.

Imp: Hugely intense blast of florals! Jasmine, orange blossom, sweet mimosa, violet leaf I suppose, but all of it backed by a strong round sweetness created by vanilla, amber, musk. Plum and tobacco and patchouli lurk, purple-brown in the background. Deep, sophisticated and sexy.

Wet: I... I... WOW. Root beer? But sexy root beer! Very strong, golden, wonderful benzoin and oppoponax, vanilla and tobacco, patchouli and deep dark amber and hints of plum. The florals are there somewhere, pushing it back into a feminine scent, but this is not what I expected at all. No resemblance to Mme. Moriarty or Snake Oil or anything in that family. In fact, to me, this smells closer to Laudanum! Which is fantastic. It's really hard to isolate anything, this is definitely one very well blended scent, complex and layered like a commercial perfume without actually smelling anything at all like one.

Dry: I know what this smells like now! More than anything, the sweetly resinous, dark feel of this reminds me of Lunar Eclipse, softened by the jasmine and other florals. This has turned into a lovely melange of tobacco, vanilla, resin and floral. I may keep it for special occasions, or frimp it out to someone else as a lovely surprise!

[donnatron]

Imp: It's a strange scent in the bottle. Mostly orange blossom with a hint of jasmine and red musk. A bit fruity.

 

Wet: I'm starting to think that opoponax just is not my friend. This goes on sickly sweet and a little propane-esque. It actually smells like red musk/opium combos usually do on my skin. None of the warm delicious incense I was expecting.

 

Dry: Boo-urns. I don't know if I've undergone a chemistry shift or just having connected the dots after these years of bpal-ing, but opoponax is not good on my skin. It becomes syrupy sweet and dominates ALL THE OTHERS NOTES. Giallo doesn't seem like the most reticient of blends, but none of the other notes are really identifiable here. Maybe a bit of red musk if I huff. It's all sweet myrrh, all the time. Kind of disappointing but more the fault of my traitorous skin than anything else.

 

Throw: A few inches of opoponax. It's so syrupy and thick on me that I'm glad it doesn't throw more.

 

Overall: Seeing as how the opoponax completely overpowered the rest of the (normally pretty strong) notes here, I don't think I am the best judge of Giallo.

[Mechanical Death]

I so wanted to love this! Ugh!

In the bottle it smelled a little soapy, but I skin tested anyway. Some Blends have a way of blooming gorgeously even when they smell insignificant in the bottle.

On my skin, soap. All soap. Not even jasmine soap, just soap. Like that awful pink rest stop soap.

 

Where's the plum? Smoky vanilla? Orange blossom? I had such high hopes for this one. *sob*

[Lucchesa]

Something in Giallo goes soapy on my skin. Reading the list of ingredients, I'm not able to identify the culprit, which is kind of frustrating. I was wary of the jasmine, though it is night-blooming, and the violet leaf; both are notes I tend to avoid, so they may be at fault. I love the inspiration for this, and black plum and opoponax ought to be a killer combination, but it's just not working with my skin chemistry. Sigh.