The Shadowy and the Sublime - Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Details: 
The Shadowy and The Sublime
Gothic Literature Vol 1
Halloweenie 2010
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Notes: 
A sudden and shocking insight into the vast, ineffable, overwhelming power of Nature, stirred by a vision or experience of perfected beauty and perfected terror, that changes the soul irretrievably. An epiphany: Moroccan amber, wisteria, ambergris accord, white rose, magnolia, white mint, angelica, bergamot, and myrrh.

When I first got this, I adored it. This is what I wrote about it back then. 

Anything that includes wisteria, white rose, magnolia... I'm there. It doesn't disappoint either. This is a gorgeous creamy white floral with no really dominant notes that I could distinguish. It's beautifully blended, with a medium throw and reasonable staying power. I wish BPAL would do more of these gentle florals, because they're obviously really good at it.  

Unfortunately, once this perfume had aged a year or so, the amber became really prominent and pretty much took over the 'gentle floral' entirely, and I'm a bit devo because it was so, so beautiful before. Although I can still smell the floral notes, it's mostly just amber, and a really heady kind that makes me feel a bit headachy and nauseated after a while. It's been a long time since I last wore it, but I pulled it out to compare with Estella, hoping that further ageing had mellowed it somewhat. Not to be. This perfume has very high sillage and lasts for ages - I put a teeny amount on my wrist in the morning and when I woke the following day I could still smell traces of it. It's a clinger. I loved you once, lady, but you got old. :-(

Rating: 
2/5

Day 216! 

Rose Coloured Glasses - Twyla Perfumes

Details:
Rose Coloured Glasses
Twyla Perfumes & Apothecary

Notes:
This one is definitely for you Rose-lovers out there. Four different roses are used in this beautiful aromatherapy perfume, as well as a gorgeous vanilla, a generous dose of calming sandalwood absolute and jasmine sambac, and finally a touch of a beautiful and uplifting fresh mint absolute i've just found (and now i refuse to use anything else). I absolutely love this one, and find it especially good to wear on those days when my spirits need a bit of a lift. And if you're already feeling good, this will make you feel even better!


Super pretty rose perfume, with the roseness of the rose (heh) tempered by the sandalwood and vanilla, which adds a slightly musk candy scent. I don't really get the mint as such, but there's something there that adds a bit of a zing.I've worn this one a few times and I really like it - it's sweet and feminine and there's not a huge amount going on but that's okay. Sillage is medium - if you threw it about you'd probably announce your entrance to a room, but a bit of a dab is fine. Longevity is fairly good - I find it lasts 6-7 hours on me.

Rating: 
3/5

Day 178!

Snow on Bare Skin - Possets Perfume

Details: 
Snow on Bare Skin
Possets Perfume

Notes: 
Sweet but not foody, sexy but not crude this would be a perfect scent for a midnight Yuletide wedding with the bride dressed in winter white carrying a bouquet of blue flowers, the church lit only by tapers, and a handsome groom in breathtaking blue-black. Romantic as it can be. Midnight blue and purple. Strong smell of snow in the air, your nose is cold but you can feel your hand on your breast and it's warm and soon all of you will be cozy. One of the most sexy scents I have ever made. So good, it's even perfect in the summer! Musky, spicy, perfumy.

In the vial this is a really faint, cold vanilla. It smells like almost nothing. Applied, it’s a sweet vanilla with a light minty note. Pretty much your generic ‘snow’ smell. Is this what snow actually smells like? The last time I was anywhere near snow was when I was a little kid and as soon as my feet got wet and cold I sulked and sat in the care reading a Laura Ingalls Wilder book while my family enjoyed toboganning. Crazy people.

Anyway, this doesn’t change much. The mint fades and the vanilla hangs around for about 3 hours and then disappears. Sillage is quite low. It’s... meh. There’s nothing bad about it, but nothing really interesting either.

Rating: 
2/5

Day 105!

Mad as Birds - Darling Clandestine

Details: 
Mad as Birds (prototype)
Darling Clandestine

Notes: 
Mad as Birds is a sweet, cool, garden-dew fragrance with notes of pear and mint and amber and marigolds. A multitude of different scent elements and weeks (months!) of methodical alchemy make Mad as Birds no ordinary scented oil mix—it's a truly inimitable fragrance. 

A few weeks ago in the middle of the really hot spell towards the end of summer, I was stuck in the house and bored and read a Facebook post on Darling Clandestine's page offering a special deal of 3 full size (specific) bottles and a 'bitsy' (Evonne's version of a sample - though really it's not that much shy of a full size bottle of, say, BPAL) of a prototype of Mad as Birds, a perfume that had been available in the past but was now reformulated. I had no idea what the notes were in any of the perfumes in the deal, and I'd never bought anything from Darling Clandestine, but I decided on a whim to grab it anyway. White wine spritzers may or may not have been involved.

In the bottle, Mad as Birds smells green and fresh, with a tiny hint of the mint discernible and a slight wine-ish note. This might just be me - when I was little my grandpa was always making wine out of weird things like bananas and pears, and since then I've always thought pears smelled slightly alcoholic.

Once I applied to my skin the pear was more distinct and true to its fruitiness, and I have to say, I really liked it. Am I actually coming around to fruit? Noooooo! The green note (is that marigold? I don't know what marigold smells like), still with that little dab of mint, keeps this perfume light and bright; I would have liked to have had this in the above-mentioned heatwave. The fragrance doesn't change all that much throughout, though the dry down is a bit deeper, with the amber darkening it all just a touch (not too much, though - it certainly doesn't scream "Hey, I'm amber!" as many others do). Sillage was medium, as was longevity. I had this on from early evening and could still smell it when I went to bed. In the morning there was just a tiny faint hint of it left.

Note: As this is a prototype, it may or may not be the same version as the one currently available on the website.

Rating: 
4/5 I don't feel like I need a bigger bottle of this at the moment, but I am glad I have more than a standard size sample. I have hardly any 'summery' perfumes, so this is something a bit different for me.

Day 78!

Luminaria - Possets Perfume

Details: 
Luminaria 
Yule 2012 - Dark Revels
Possets Perfume

Notes: 
No idea. I can't find the original description. Mint, vanilla, something-something...

On the first sniff of this on skin there’s a rush of cold air, like that iciness you get in extra strong mints. It’s odd and a bit startling. It’s very fleeting – I could almost convince myself I imagined it – and then I’m left with a creamy, cakey scent with a touch of mint. The dry down is a slightly smokey vanilla, like buttercream icing that’s heavy on good vanilla extract. The kind of vanilla that Ina Garten would use. This perfume didn’t have much throw on me, and faded a lot within a couple of hours. I’m undecided about whether or not I like it. I certainly don’t hate it, and it’s interesting enough that I kept sniffing my wrist all the time, but it wasn’t what I expected. For some reason I imagined in my head that this would be more like BPAL’s Snow White and it’s not at all. I remember snow was mentioned in the description, but I don't get anything like that other than that weird cold rush at the very beginning, just a warm gourmand perfume. Oh well, I have a full bottle so I can keep trying it to my heart’s content until I make a decision one way or the other. 

Rating: 
Undecided.

Day 39!