Candy Mountain - Common Brimstone

First sniff: 
Just a very sweet, lollyish smell - nothing more to it, really.

First applied: 
Still very lollyish. It's not terrible but it seems like a perfume for a 10 year old. There's nothing else to say about it at this point.

After 30 mins: 
It's turned into plasticky lollies now. Other than that I've got nothing. 

After 3 hours: 
I literally have nothing more to say about this.

Longevity: 
Not much more than 3 hours. 

Actual notes/description: 
Take a magical trip to a place of sweets and joy! With a fluffy bed of vanilla bean and toasted marshmallow and zingy notes of candy floss, banana and cherry, Candy Mountain is sweet, warm and a little whacky. 

Availability: 
Common Brimstone
Permanent
Full size and sample size

Burlesque Lounge - Nevermore Body Company

Details: 
Burlesque Lounge
Nevermore Body Company

Notes: 
True to its name...this musky combination of Patchouli, black leather and tobacco with a floral hint of Frankincense, violet and amber is perfectly blended in fresh lemon, mandarin, juicy plum, red apple, cinnamon and fresh clove, dipped in vanilla and cherry cordial. Let the intoxicating scents of a 19th century Burlesque Lounge tickle your senses and take you back to another time.

In the vial this is fruity and sweet - I can smell the apple and plum, and there is a candy-ish note that might be the cherry cordial. It's basically the same on my skin but with a hint of lemon. This perfume went dusty on me within minutes and stayed that way. The sillage was low and it didn't last very long. I don't like fruit scents so even without the dustiness it wouldn't have been my cup of tea.

Rating: 
1/5

Day 130! 

Marzipan - Alchemic Muse

Details:
Marzipan
Alchemic Muse

Notes: 
A truly delicious confection of sweet almonds creamed with raw sugar and delectable notes of buttery vanilla, almond milk, shortbread and a touch of sweet cherry.

This was a freebie sample - I would never have bought it in a million years, because I detest marzipan. It's smell, its taste, its very existence is offensive to me. I am eternally grateful to the person who discovered in the 1990s that wedding cakes did not legally have to have almond icing on them. Finally, marzipan began to die the slow painful death it deserved.

In the vial and when first applied, that hideous almond stench is all it is - marzipan, marzipan and more marzipan. I stuck it out, wondering if that's all it was going to be (I hadn't looked at the notes yet), but finally it started to mellow and that sharpness faded into the background. The drydown is a sweet pastry vanilla. I like quite a few of the Alchemic Muse perfumes but they almost all have a synthetic smell about them, sometimes not an issue (for me), and sometimes kind of  "Ew, cheap scented candle!". This one is somewhere in between. It's not unbearable, but there are so many better sweet desserty vanilla scents out there. The longevity and sillage was thankfully quite low on this one.

Rating: 
2/5 Not quite a scrubber, but not impressed.

Day 84!

Black Forest - Solstice Scents

Details: 
Black Forest 
Valentine's Day 2012 (now permanent)
Solstice Scents

Notes: 
Agarwood, Nagarmotha EO, Tobacco Absolute, Dark Chocolate, Chocolate Mousse, Cocoa Absolute, Maraschino Cherries, Black Cherries, Hay Absolute, Sandalwood EO, Whipped Cream & a drop of Pink Peppercorn Essential Oil

I have plunged face first into enough black forest cakes in my life to know what one smells like, so I was surprised to find that this perfume was nothing like I expected. In the vial, it’s quite dark. The chocolate is very bitter and leaning a little to the masculine – it’s not at all foody. On the skin, the cherry comes out strongly, and that’s more the classic gourmand cherry note I would expect, but the darkness of the chocolate tempers its sweetness. I thought I was going crazy because I could smell something smokey, and I couldn’t imagine how on earth that was worked into a black forest cake, but when I looked up the notes, there it is – tobacco absolute. And lots and lots of wood. Ah, so that’s what gives it all that depth. The wood comes out much more in the dry down, when the cherry has pretty much disappeared, but that bitter chocolate still hangs around in the background.

This is a unisex scent that leans quite masculine, and I’d say it’s the perfect chocolate perfume for people who don’t like chocolate perfumes. You will definitely not walk around smelling like cake wearing this (not that that’s a bad thing!). The sillage is medium – it is strong at first but the dry down is closer to the skin. Longevity is good – I could smell it for a good 7 hours or so, and the following morning (I applied early evening) I could still smell traces of the woodiness on my wrist. 

Rating:
3/5 I like it quite a lot, but even though it’s different from most other chocolate scents I own, I still have too many chocolate scents. I doubt I’d buy this in a full size.

Day 83!

Lovechild Meltbaby - Possets Perfume

Details: 
Lovechild - Meltbaby
Yule: Dark Revels (2012)
Possets Perfume

Notes: 
Cherry, coconut, and rose. What a wonderful combination to which I add a bit of extra secret wonderfulness. I think you will find this to be a perfume you will have a hard time putting down. It's very sexy and feminine.

Oh, good lord. First of all - it is not a good idea to try out a very sweet, rich perfume on a day that is 38 degrees celsius and in the middle of a two week heatwave. This was so revoltingly cloying I had to wash it off, and I could still smell the ghost of it all day.

A few days later I tried again with a bit better luck. At first I thought I smelled marzipan in the bottle, but once I applied it, I realised it was the cherry. It doesn't really change at all from the first sniff in the bottle to the dry down - it's a pretty even blend of the cherry, coconut and rose, and it is suuuuuuuuuuper sweet. It smells like sweet, floral coconut and cherry advokaat. Another one of those perfumes I feel like I am 30 years too old for. I might just pass it on to Noodles, as it's more up her alley. And that's pretty much all I have to say about it.

Rating: 
2/5 If you're 14 you will probably love this.

Day 71!

Vice - Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Details: 
Vice 
Sin & Salvation
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Notes: 
Voluptuous and indulgent! A deep chocolate scent, with black cherry and orange blossom.


In the vial this smells like chocolate and something medicinally herbal – it’s quite masculine. Once applied it becomes... well, I don’t know if anyone else has this experience but there are quite a few BPAL scents that just turn into a generic mash of smells on me, and this is one of them. It smells of nothing in particular, it’s neither pleasant or unpleasant, it’s just there. The dry down was the same – I couldn’t pick out a single note or compare it to anything aside from the other BPALs that have this effect on me. Sillage and longevity was medium.

Rating:
2/5 Not a scrubber, so I wouldn't give it a 1, but... meh.

Day 48!

Alice's Tea Party - Black Baccara

Details:
Alice's Tea Party
Black Baccara

Notes:
A peculiar and curious scent; sweet but hinting at something surreal. The atmosphere and magic of tea time with Alice is captured in an apothecary bottle. Hints of freshly brewed green tea mix with tart wild cherries, oranges, pomegranates, honey, marshmallows, whispers of vanilla and the faintest hint of baking bread. Comforting and delicious with the perfect dose of strangeness.

I recently received an order of 10 samples from this shop, and this is the first one I've had a chance to try. As I mentioned in my last past, with the last few sample orders I've done I've tried to branch out to things I would not normally try, and this is one of them. I don't like fruit scents generally, but I figured I could at least test this out and then pass it on to Noodles, who loves them. And that's exactly what I've done.

In the vial this smells like cherry advokaat - that cherry smell that is almost like children's cough medicine. I can also smell the honey and a hint of orange. Once applied it smells pretty much the same for a few minutes, until it begins to dry down, when it becomes a fruit cocktail - very sweet and syrupy. I can't smell marshmallow or vanilla (and definitely not bread) but there is a sugariness there. Once it dries down the tea comes out, but it still smells like fruit tea. This is definitely not for me, but Noodles likes it.

Rating:
2/5 Not awful, but not at all my cup of tea.

Day 18!

Screamin' Mimi - Midnight Gypsy

Details:
Screamin' Mimi
Midnight Gypsy

Notes: 
Sticky sweet cotton candy with vanilla musk, cherry lollipops, a bite of chocolate.... and a splash or three of bourbon.

I got this in the mail a few days ago and I cannot stop playing with it. In the vial it's boozy, but a bit sweet, not that booze note that makes you reel back. First applied it's still sweet (not sugary) and boozy, and ever so slightly smoky. There's a hint of vanilla but I wouldn't call it bourbon vanilla - the sweet note is more of a confectioner's vanilla. It makes me think of trifle (my favourite old school dessert) - I don't get the cotton candy at all, and barely register the chocolate, but there's cherries in syrup, vanilla custard, and cream. This is a gorgeous gourmand with a bit of a kick.

Screamin' Mimi has medium sillage - it doesn't really scream its presence (heh), but you're definitely aware of it. It also lasts a really long time on me - I applied it twice in the early evening, and both times I could still smell it on my wrists well into mid-morning the following day.

Rating:
5/5 I absolutely love this, and I am definitely getting a full bottle the moment my January No Buy is up.

Day 6!