I've had this written up for a couple of days now and just keep forgetting to post it, so before I do that again...


Shanghai
The crisp, clean scent of green tea touched with lemon verbena and honeysuckle. (Wanderlust)

Another shaye suggestion, I think. Plus, clean sounding!

In the bottle: I don't drink a lot of green tea (considering all of the tea I drink), but that smells about right. Bright, with a squeeze of lemon.

Wet: Mmm, more lemon and greenery. Like leaves. Fresh.

Drydown: It takes a couple of minutes, but I think I can smell the honeysuckle now. This is far from overpowering. Kind of reminds me of Rosalind, in the "light and calming" sense. Nothing sharp or musky at all.

It also fades about as quickly as Rosalind. And turns into...something that's not tea or plants, not quite soap...but there's something sweeter in there. Hrm. May have to play with this some more. Maybe mix it with the Rosalind?


Blood Amber
Slivers of warm, pulsating blood forever crystallized in golden amber resin. (Bewitching Brews, gender neutral)

So I was curious. What in the world does blood have to do with smelling good?

In the bottle: Before even opening it, I have to say: Wow, gorgeous color. On opening: Huh. I...have no clue how to describe this. It's sweet, but not. Not musky, but not light, either. Ack, moving on.

Wet: Man, this is what I was afraid of when I first started, that I'd end up flailing for descriptions. This is just-- It smells, okay? Not bad, not great, it simply has a discernable odor. It's a scent, fercryingoutloud, that's what it's supposed to do!

Drydown: Okay, giving this some thought. It's almost like a rose, but there's something kind of sweet and fruity that keeps it from going high and perfumey like concentrated roses. ...and I think that's tapped me. I really don't know what to do with this.

After a while, well, it's another one that reminds me of my grandmother's bathroom. Yes, she had a lot of scented soaps, and this goes just barely soapy. She had a lot of scented everything, actually. Don't understand how my grandfather or my dad dealt with it.


Old Port-Au-Prince
Dark, decadent and incomparably exotic: the rich scent of buttered rum flavored with almond, bay, clove and sassafras. (Wanderlust)

Freebie. Not even enough left to touch the wand, so it's silly, but I sort of hope I don't like it.

In the bottle: Oh my, dark is right. Clove. Sassafras is what they turn into root beer, right? Anyway, it's got that kind of bite.

Wet: Ooh, same thing, just brighter.

Drydown: I've never smelled buttered rum, so I have no idea if I'm smelling it now, but I don't get any almond. While it eases off considerably from that first hit after about 10 minutes, this is a wonderful warm mix of clove and something that's sharper than cinnamon (I'm still guessing it's the sassafras).

After about an hour, some of the buttery scent appears. Not popcorn butter, or even what I was first getting off of Jack, just something smoother than the clove and cinnamon. And it stays there for several more hours, although it continued to fade. I never get the sweetness that I get off of Queen of Sheba, and that would still be my first choice for a warm scent, but this is nice and spicy.

Oy. That means I need a (closer to) full imp...


Athens
A reformulation and modernization of a true Classical Greek perfume, myrrhine: voluptuous myrrh, golden honey, red wine, and sweet flowers. (Wanderlust)

Another chosen imp. Everything sounded promising, and I think I just liked the idea of golden honey.

In the bottle: Whoa, wine. One deep, clearing breath later I get the honey, too. But, whoa.

Wet: Thank goodness, the honey comes out on my skin.

Drydown: The flowers, too, after another minute, but it's still mostly honey with only a little nip of the wine. And it stays that way for the first hour, at least. I'm not in love, but it's certainly a scent I like. It's sort of like...Chanukah? Heh. On me, the honey and the wine mix into "beeswax candle." Bizarre mind-smell associations strike again. At least this association is a good one that I like having around.

Still pretty good throw after a couple of hours, too. Not strong, but strong enough that I can still tell it's there. I'll be hanging on to this one.


Samhain
Truly the scent of autumn itself -- damp woods, fir needle, and black patchouli with the gentlest touches of warm pumpkin, clove, nutmeg, allspice, sweet red apple and mullein. (Limitted Edition)

Finally got someone to swap with me for this. (Eeee!)

In the bottle: It does smell like damp woods. The fir doesn't turn it Christmas tree-like; it's a mixed forest, with leaves falling to cover the ground and sap in the air. It's that time of year when you put your hand against the bark and it comes away sticky and pungent. With a bit of the spices, the apple, after a second sniff. Nice, and I hope that layer comes out more on my skin. If I didn't have the description right in front of me, I don't think I'd have guessed on the black patchouli.

Wet: More of the fir, right off. Well, I know better than to judge a scent in the first minute, now.

Drydown: A few minutes in, the apple starts to appear more. Mmm, spiced cider, but still with the woods/fir. (With my track record, I'm afraid to say what's still missing, so I won't. ::crosses fingers and toes::)

More of the spices, the more that it dries. There's something sweeter in there now, too. Still the apple, but maybe that's the pumpkin finally coming out. Yummy. This isn't the scent I was looking for, either -- not warm pumpkiny enough -- but it's a good one.

Hm, well, the patchouli shows up as more than a hint about two hours later, but it's never the nasty stuff, and it doesn't give me a headache. It just kind of...keeps the spiciness around. I can so live with that. And I guess it's a good thing that it's not going to be the first scent to convince me that I'd want to wear it every day, because finding this stuff is nigh impossible and it's so nice to know that I can live with the full imp that I've got.


March Hare
A twisted teatime tart: apricot and sweet clove. (Mad Tea Party)

I think I'd been looking at the description for White Rabbit, and saw this elsewhere in the same category, and couldn't help but be curious. Apricots. Cloves. How can that go wrong?

In the bottle: Very, very, very, very fruit. With a touch of clove. Another one that actually reaches out of the bottle with the cap still firmly on.

Wet: Fresh, juicy...nectarines? Huh. 'Course, I've only ever had dried apricots. (Total aside: dried fruit rocks.)

Drydown: Reminds me a lot of Jack, actually, but March Hare is lighter. Good throw, but not as heavy.

And it stays at that same mostly fruit level for about an hour, although it fades significantly and quickly after that. I'll have to see again how all of these do on staying power when I'm actually wearing them out to get-togethers and bars and everything. I do like it quite a lot. Another warm fruit, but more of a daytime one, I guess.


So what have I learned so far?

* Stay FAR away from patchouli and musks.
* Fruits like me; cloves, not as much as I'd like.
* Not all flowers are airborne death.
* I like clean/green/bright scents more than I thought.

What am I still craving/looking for?

* More clean/green/bright. Not that I'll turn down new warm/spicy, but I've got some variety on that side now.
* Warm vanilla, fresh orange, crisp apple. Notes that were only in scents where evilness took over. ::sobs:: Unfair!
* My fall. I think I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope they do new fall scents in the coming months.

Also, I do think different batches turn out differently. Because I'd swapped for another imp of Jack (thought I was going to have to swap mine for Samhain, but that didn't turn out) and the second one definitely gives me more pumpkin and less peach than the first did. I like the more-peachy version, too, but it's nice to have a more pumpkiny imp.