Having once more shied away from posting anything here for about a billion years, I am now attempting to start again. And what am I posting about, this first time back? Smells!
Since both![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thatyourefuse and recessional have been sharing perfume reviews lately, I've finally caved to curiosity (chemistry! embodiment! sensory play!) and ordered some smells for myself.
Pretty much all I knew going into this experiment was that I wanted to avoid lavender and woodsmoke because those give me major headaches; I should be careful with flowers and incense because some of those are headache triggers too; and I was drawn to descriptions of scents involving wood, green herbs, and non-citrus fruits, particularly dark ones. That and there was a good chance the whole thing would be a spectacular failure because my mother is extremely sensitive to perfume, to the point where there was this whole big Thing at her last-but-one workplace where she had to go to her union to get her coworkers to stop wearing it in the office because when they did she lost her voice and had difficulty breathing.
I started by ordering a couple of sample sets from Surrender to Chance, which were, well, informative. I haven't tested all the scents yet but so far there's only one I like, and at least one that really does not like me--I sniffed all the little vials when they arrived and promptly had the same reaction my mother does to perfume: my throat went so tight that breathing was uncomfortable and speaking impossible. Don't know yet which sample or which ingredient sets it off, but taking it as a (not exactly unexpected) sign to tread carefully around commercial perfumes.
I also picked up a few imps from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, and those were overall much more successful. Out of seven, I got two that were disappointing, three that I liked but they didn't knock my socks off, and two I really love.
The disappointments were Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo (reviews) and Whitechapel (reviews). The first is supposed to be a mood-lifting aromatherapeutic, but it's hard to gauge its effect when it's so fiercely sticky sickly chemically sweet. Smells a little bit bubblegummy but more like the bubblegum-flavoured general anaesthetic I got when I had my tonsils out at seven than real gum. The second starts by hitting me in the head with a lime and then fades down to lilac and baby powder (I got a bit more musk and citrus the second time I tried it, but still mostly sweet flowery baby powder; not actively unpleasant but pretty boring).
The three nice-not-wow scents are Absinthe (reviews), Bess (reviews), and Jabberwocky (reviews). Absinthe starts off bitter and takes a while to mellow out, but all through it's this clean, slightly medicinal herbal smell with something slightly sinister lurking underneath it. Bess is very pretty; I mostly get fruitiness, especially the grape, with a floral backdrop and only an ephemeral wave of the rosemary and mint. It's Elizabeth I as a princess, not a queen. Jabberwocky loses most of the eucalyptus on dry down, except for a faint background tingle, and then it's orange and pine mingling together so closely they seem to come from the same hybrid tree.
The winners are Kabuki (reviews) and Odin (reviews). The thing they have in common is musk, which I am surprised to discover I really, really like--it smells nothing like I'd have thought it would from the name. And it's a good thing I do like it, because my skin amps the hell out of it.
Kabuki comes out of the imp cherry cough syrup and on my skin switches to cherry candy, with just a tinge of anise to give it depth and break up the intense sweetness. The musk comes in gradually and it goes from specifically cherry to a more general red-fruit-velvet-sweetness with that faint anise shadow. It smells delicious, theatrical, and incredibly sexy.
My actual favourite, though, might be Odin, because as well as that sweet-smooth musk it's got wood and herbs, two things I knew I liked. The result is this clean, sun-warmed, out-of-doors gorgeousness; it smells lighter than I'd expected but also really powerful. So far this is the only one that I feel like I need to get more of because I know I'm going to want to wear it a lot.
Since both
thatyourefuse and recessional have been sharing perfume reviews lately, I've finally caved to curiosity (chemistry! embodiment! sensory play!) and ordered some smells for myself.Pretty much all I knew going into this experiment was that I wanted to avoid lavender and woodsmoke because those give me major headaches; I should be careful with flowers and incense because some of those are headache triggers too; and I was drawn to descriptions of scents involving wood, green herbs, and non-citrus fruits, particularly dark ones. That and there was a good chance the whole thing would be a spectacular failure because my mother is extremely sensitive to perfume, to the point where there was this whole big Thing at her last-but-one workplace where she had to go to her union to get her coworkers to stop wearing it in the office because when they did she lost her voice and had difficulty breathing.
I started by ordering a couple of sample sets from Surrender to Chance, which were, well, informative. I haven't tested all the scents yet but so far there's only one I like, and at least one that really does not like me--I sniffed all the little vials when they arrived and promptly had the same reaction my mother does to perfume: my throat went so tight that breathing was uncomfortable and speaking impossible. Don't know yet which sample or which ingredient sets it off, but taking it as a (not exactly unexpected) sign to tread carefully around commercial perfumes.
I also picked up a few imps from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, and those were overall much more successful. Out of seven, I got two that were disappointing, three that I liked but they didn't knock my socks off, and two I really love.
The disappointments were Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo (reviews) and Whitechapel (reviews). The first is supposed to be a mood-lifting aromatherapeutic, but it's hard to gauge its effect when it's so fiercely sticky sickly chemically sweet. Smells a little bit bubblegummy but more like the bubblegum-flavoured general anaesthetic I got when I had my tonsils out at seven than real gum. The second starts by hitting me in the head with a lime and then fades down to lilac and baby powder (I got a bit more musk and citrus the second time I tried it, but still mostly sweet flowery baby powder; not actively unpleasant but pretty boring).
The three nice-not-wow scents are Absinthe (reviews), Bess (reviews), and Jabberwocky (reviews). Absinthe starts off bitter and takes a while to mellow out, but all through it's this clean, slightly medicinal herbal smell with something slightly sinister lurking underneath it. Bess is very pretty; I mostly get fruitiness, especially the grape, with a floral backdrop and only an ephemeral wave of the rosemary and mint. It's Elizabeth I as a princess, not a queen. Jabberwocky loses most of the eucalyptus on dry down, except for a faint background tingle, and then it's orange and pine mingling together so closely they seem to come from the same hybrid tree.
The winners are Kabuki (reviews) and Odin (reviews). The thing they have in common is musk, which I am surprised to discover I really, really like--it smells nothing like I'd have thought it would from the name. And it's a good thing I do like it, because my skin amps the hell out of it.
Kabuki comes out of the imp cherry cough syrup and on my skin switches to cherry candy, with just a tinge of anise to give it depth and break up the intense sweetness. The musk comes in gradually and it goes from specifically cherry to a more general red-fruit-velvet-sweetness with that faint anise shadow. It smells delicious, theatrical, and incredibly sexy.
My actual favourite, though, might be Odin, because as well as that sweet-smooth musk it's got wood and herbs, two things I knew I liked. The result is this clean, sun-warmed, out-of-doors gorgeousness; it smells lighter than I'd expected but also really powerful. So far this is the only one that I feel like I need to get more of because I know I'm going to want to wear it a lot.
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