scourger

Well, since it's all uphill to Wednesday, and downhill from there to the weekend, they call it hump day. Of course, humps come in all sizes and interpretations.

Betrothal Potion A simply gorgeous, delicately feminine perfume potion with a very specific purpose...for the marriage minded amongst us! The ingredients in this potion have come down in folklore throughout the ages as those that put men into a 'marital' frame of mind. This potion tends to bring out the chivalrous side of men, and seems to inspire in them the desire to treat you like a treasure. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Magickal Meanings of Ingredients: DAFFODIL ~ Regard, sympathy and affection returned, love, fertility, luck. ORANGE BLOSSOM ~ Strong "magnet" to attract men, eternal love, marriage, fruitfulness, thoughtfulness, happiness, tribute. LOTUS ~ No man can refuse the woman who wears this; lovers reunited, protection. Symbolizes intellect, mental energies and illumination. Inspiration, clarity, purification. NEROLI ~ Relieves tension and anxiety. SWEET DILL ~ Attracts women, love, protection of the home, affluence, good fortune. SWEET PEA ~ Lasting pleasure, blissfulness, youthful attraction, friendship, courage, strength. PANSY ~ Draws love, ensures your lover will think of you when separated, divination. WATER LILY ~ Purity of heart. BAMBOO ~ Protection, hex breaking, luck and wishes, fertility, wisdom, feminine energy. BASIL ~ Love, fidelity, empathy between lovers. PEACH ~ Love, promotes fertility, happiness, abundance, marriage, longevity, wishes granted ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's about time I got around to writing a review of this one. I was sniffing a friend's samples, and thought they were quite nice, but when I got to this one, I fell in love. This is the scent which made me place my first order, and remains one of my favorites. Wet, both in the bottle and on, this has a very fresh scent, which I would describe as green. (I have been told that there is nothing green in the blend, so perhaps this is the Daffodil?) It is floral, but more like fresh cut stems than ponderous blossoms. As it dries down, a rich, ambery sweetness comes through, which must be the apricot and peaches. It remains a light floral scent, but somehow earthy, without any soil or incense. I once had a chunk of rose quartz that I carried with me everywhere. When I couldn't hold it, I put it in my pocket, or under my pillow. Over time, it picked up an ellusive sweetness that I had never smelled before. Betrothal smells like that chunk of Rose Quartz, only better and brighter. As to the magickal properties, I would say that it works. I am not looking for marriage, but I wear this scent when I want bonding time with my honey, and it works that way. It also once had the interesting side effect of making my almost-mother-in-law gravitate in my direction and whistfully talk about how much her mother enjoyed having grand-kids. I love this scent. It smells like springtime, and happiness, and me.

Enjoy.

In the bottle, I get a whiff of creamy caramel, backed by apples. Wet, the caramel softens and the apples come to the front. These are fresh, crisp apples; not the sticky sweet of apple juice, nor even the turned sharp of cider. The leaves in the background add a different kind of crispness, and it really is like walking down the street on an Autumn day, while you munch on a candied apple. As the scent dries down, the apples fade, and become just a lovely subtle twist of freshness as the woods and incense come to the front. I was afraid, from the first burst of caramel, that this scent would too sweet for me. I should have known better. It makes me homesick for real fall weather, and autumn leaves - I can't stop sniffing myself, because it makes me feel that I am there, caught in the magic of the season. Incense fans will love this, and non-pine woodsy fans probably will too.

Finally a pumpkin scent which doesn't turn to turpentine on my skin. Many of the pumpkin perfumes I've tried focus on the top note of the pumpkin smell, which is astringent and headache inducing for me. But Sugared Pumpkins finds the warm base note of the pumpkin instead. This scent has a buttery richness, and the faintest hint of spice to go along with the sugars. This is much subtler than I had expected, and less foody than I thought it would be. In the drydown, this is a very light scent, soft and spicey, but not in a grandma sort of way. It is delicate, lovely and oddly refined for such a homey squash. I cannot speak to the magickal properties, as I am working hard against fertility right now. I sure could use some plenty, so am still hoping that this will help.

Oh please review! I'm still learning about picking out notes, but I can completely get behind a mood. That kind of description can be just as valuable!

Welcome to the newbies! I am so glad you have found this yumminess! (My solution to the postman problem is sometimes to order many things, stagger the orders, and have a constant flow of packages. It's a solution designed to be hard on the bank. )

In the bottle: This smells like the wet earth of the basements in my childhood memories. Cool, redolent of fungus and peaceful things. Wet: Intense mildew, which quickly turns to a strangely fresh green scent, which lasts for at least half an hour. Drydown:The green, sharp scent may in fact be the first stage of drydown, as it lasts so long, but eventually it fades, and the roses come through. Whistful roses, shadowed by incense and earth, but powerful; the kind of roses that can't be trimmed back or uprooted. I love the evolution of this scent. It is truely the perfume representation of love lasting beyond death and rising again from the earth. Through it's stages, it follows a burial, the first green shoots of plant life growing on a grave, and finally the flowers bursing into bloom, standing as symbols of the unending love they spring from. Another incredible winner.

In the bottle: A dirty blend of smoke, flowers and a tang of cherry. It's the smell of a bar at the end of the night, when the lights suddenly turn on, and all of a sudden you remember that you hate the smell of cigarettes, and all the cheap floral perfume turns from heady and sexy to headachy and slightly stale. On, wet: The cherry pops through, and it is the hard, shiny cherry of the brightest red candy. Underneath is a whisp of smoke, which still smells more like cigarettes than mesquite to me, but now it is melded with what must be the linen, because it smells more like the smoke caught in the upholstry of a trailer than the remains in the bottom of an ashtray. Drydown: The cherry settles down, and the florals come through. These are not standard florals though, the shimmer of the desert comes through, and these are the florals from that one trailer down the way, where your neighbor desperately tries to pretend that (s)he lives in a real house, and carves a sad, sickly little garden out of the flat dust of the park. This perfume reminds me so much of the movie Dreamland, it's scary. (Not the horror movie by the same name, but the teen angst movie set in a New Mexico trailer park.) From the dry, desert feel of the scent, to the hard candies that the girls bond over, to that one neighbor who tends a garden, desperately fighting against the desert air, and the cigarettes that everyone smokes, I suddenly knew what the whole movie smelled like. This scent didn't last long on my skin, (two or three hours,) but the way it morphs, it creates the most beautiful, poignant story of scent. This one is for wearing out to the club on a night where you just want to drink cheap beer, and dance dirty with men(/women) in tight denim.

In the bottle: This is warm and sweet, foody, with the rose hovering in the background, like the promise of imagination. On, wet: All rose disappears, and all I can smell is warm sugar cookie. The throw is so strong, I can smell my own ghost as I move from room to room in the familiar patterns of preparing for bed. When I pause to sniff my wrist, however, the scent is completely different up close. There is something astringent, and cutting which hovers just over my skin, and I am momentarily afraid of what it will cut through if I let myself sleep. As soon as I move my wrist away from my nose, I am surrounded by cookie sweetness once again. As I fell asleep quickly both nights I tried this one, I cannot give a good drydown description. In the morning, all that is left is a breath of amber, and the harmless shell of whatever the cutting scent was. The first night I tried this potion, I got ravished by horney man as soon as I came to bed. Apparently smelling like cookies is a positive thing. I didn't know if the potion could work after having so much of it sweated of. As my dreams were not noticeably clearer and the speed at which I found sleep could be attributed to post orgasmic haze, I decided to give this one a second chance. The second night of testing, the scent on my skin was the same as before, with the numinous halo of warm cookie and the astringent smell up close. I fell asleep rather quickly, which is unusual for me, though the only change in my dreamscape was a noticeable addition of characters, (I am more inclined to dream of locations, and crowds than individuals.) Next I think I'll try this potion off my skin. It occurs to me that it might be lovely for anointing a dream catcher. All in all, I am not that fond of foody scents, so I probably won't be using this one often, despite my need for a sleep aid.

Booze! And tropical fruits, and caramel. And Booze! I don't enjoy many foody scents, but while this one has a caramel, fruit, rum cake smell, the alchohol note keeps it wearable for me. (DH get's a little queasy, but I think that's because his last drink fest had dire consequences.) Sorry, can't say much more, I'm having trouble typing, as I keep trying to eat my wrist. The pirate's life for me.

When I first sniffed this in the tester, I got a strong sandalwood with a little bit of patchouli. I thought it would be mostly woods with a little of the resins. On, wet, the resins come through much stronger, and there's a little sweetness, it smells like the heather to me. As it dries, more florals come through, perfectly supporting the resins, and weaving a lovely haze of warmth and rich earthy spirituality, with a light, bright top note that keeps it from being a sleepy scent. (Maybe the heliotrope?) On the magickal side, this one is seriously helping me to focus and feel more in tune with all kinds of energies. More importantly, I am better grounded than I have been since I moved cross country and left the trees that sang to me. (Would it be cheesy to mention that I can also feel the protective properties wrapped around me like a wool shawl?)

I too was enabled by a BPAL friend. And ZOMG, I am sooo glad I was. These scents are just so much better for me. They are fresher, subtler, and I have yet to find any wierd chemistry reactions when they hit my skin -- instead they seem to meld with my own scent flawlessly; all of them. I am in love.