Snake Charmer

Grade: A

Sensual, sibilant, sexual and hypnotic: Arabian musk and exotic spices slinking through Egyptian amber, enticing vanilla, and a serpentine blend of black plum, labdanum, ambrette, benzoin and black coconut.

I didn't think I'd like this one, because usually the resinous scents hate me, but I love it so much I cannot speak coherently. Creamy and spicy and warm and slightly sweet. I smell like -if people were food and spice cake was a femme fatale, that is how I smell. YUM. Too bad it's an LE... must look for a substitute.

Theodosius, the Legerdemain

Grade: A+

Earl Grey tea leaves, a white fougere, jasmine leaf, pearlescent white musk, and vanilla bean.

I tested this on Test Guy, and it is absolutely delicious. The tea and vanilla definitely come through, but it doesn't smell too foody or feminine, but like a crisp, creamy musk. A definite keeper.

Berenice

Grade: B+

A cerebral scent, dry, and white. This is a perfume of thought, not heart, and of unforeseen pain and sudden obsession, touched with uncertain twilight and ambiguous horror. Stargazer lily, white musk, clear aloe, blonde amber and winding-cloth linen.

This reminds me very strongly of a commercial perfume I've smelled, but I can't place the name of it. Regardless of that, though, it is a very pleasant scent, soft, warm florals (I guess the warmth must be the white musk or the blonde amber?) with a hint of linen underneath. "Dry and white" is an excellent description. Unlike other blends with amber that I've tried, this one isn't turning powdery on me; more research shall have to be done.

Guy Test: This is not a passionate perfume on me and it got a mild reaction: "That smells nice."

Cthulu

Grade: A+

A creeping, wet, slithering scent, dripping with seaweed, oceanic plants and dark, unfathomable waters.

Tested on Test Guy. On first opening the imp I didn't think I'd like it, because it came out a sharp blast very reminiscent of men's drugstore cologne. But when applied to Test Guy it changed; it's a really lovely, complex, masculine aquatic. More testing shall be needed to discover whether this one or Theodosius smells nicer...

Bewitched

Grade: C

Deep, luscious green and berry scents that evoke images of woodland witchcraft and the raw power of nature: blackberry, sage, green tea, wild berries and dark musk.

Sadly, this was almost all herbs and nearly no berries or tea. It smelled very antiseptic on me, like some sort of cleaning solution. A pleasant smelling cleaning solution, true, but a cleaning solution nonetheless.

Namaste

Grade: C

A Sanskrit blessing and word of greeting that bears a powerful symbolism. It represents the Oneness of all of existence, the union of matter and spirit, perfect wholeness. It is accompanied by a gesture: Anjali -- hands pressed together, fingertips heavenward, pressed together over the heart's chakra. This oil blend is a serene, soothing Indian blend, created to bring calm and joy to the heart and peace to the spirit. Sandalwood, jasmine, rose, patchouli, cedarwood and lemongrass.

On both me and Test Guy, this smelled exactly the same - like lemon dish soap. It isn't unpleasant, per se, but - I don't need perfume that makes me smell like Lemon Joy. Oh well!

Marquise de Mertuil

Grade: C

Stately, bold, aristocratic and cruel. Opulent galbanum and amber, glistening peach, and a bouquet of French florals, with a merciless undertone of jonquil and heartless vetiver.

I didn't notice much change in this one over time, except that my skin takes one of the notes (or a combination) and turns it into powder. I am hazarding a guess that it's the amber, because I had a similar reaction to Black Lotus (except that this was floral powder and that was powder in a headshop!) and that is the only note they have in common.

I liked this in the bottle, though to me it smelled very much like a perfume my mother used to wear. I think it was from Estee Lauder. On my skin it shifted, and turned into a powdery floral, but with no strong single floral note. I didn't get much peach, just a tantalizing glimpse hiding under the flowers; it was in those moments that I liked this scent the most.

As time wore on, it got more powdery on me but also more well-blended. It's still clinging to the skin of my wrists many hours later, a pleasant scent, but not one that I think works particularly well with my body chemistry/tastes.

Guy test: Sadly, the Test Guy has bad allergies and was unable to weigh in on this one beyond a pitiful "um, I smell something..." We may give it another try later.

Bordello

Grade: C-

A decadent, deep perfume, lusty and luxuriant. The scent evokes images of velvet-lined Old West cathouses, tightly laced corsets, rustling petticoats and coquettish snarls of pleasure. Bawdy plum with amaretto, burgundy wine and black currant.

Wet, it smelled like a delicious raspberry cocktail, and I wanted to drink it. Delicious. To my dismay, though, once it dried down a bit it started to smell like very artificial berry- in fact it smelled for all the world like a Strawberry Shortcake doll. I could even smell that soft plastic smell behind the fake berries. Sad- I wish it could have stayed in the yummy adult beverage stage forever!

Carnal

Grade: A

Bold, bright mandarin paired with the sweet, sensual earthiness of fig.

This starts out on me with a delicious rich fruityness. After an hour or so it starts to get mellower and spicier; after several hours it's a lovely, slightly sweet spice. This one is very autumnal to me, warm and foody but not TOO foody. I think I'll be wearing it a lot when the weather turns crisp and the leaves start to turn.

Endymion

Grade: D

Selune, the Moon Goddess, fell in love with a beautiful shepherd named Endymion. She appealed to Zeus, asking him to cast Endymion into everlasting slumber so that she could be with him for all eternity. Her wish was granted, and every night the Goddess visited her love as he slept. A sweet, wistful blend of d'Anjou pear, Lily of the Valley, bois du rose and white musk.

Well, I CAN smell the pear. But it's mixed with something sour and kind of funky. It smells like some sort of pear syrup that's gone off. Doesn't work on either me or Test Guy, alas, but I do like what I can tell of the pear note. I'll have to try some other pears in the future.

Hunger

Grade: D

Evokes sheer, unadulterated carnal lust. An undeniably warm and sensual scent. Black narcissus, orange blossoms, and vanilla.

The black narcissus in this was utterly foul on me. A sort of shrill, thin, sharp floral - a harridan of a flower that completely overcame the vanilla and orangeblossom, which I think could have been nice- after the narcissus started to fade I liked the scent more, but the narcissus sadly never really went away.

Muse

Grade: B

A light, invigorating floral and citrus blend. Tuberose, lotus and jasmine with a hint of lime.

I like this, but I want to like it more than I actually do. One of the notes goes a little off on me, I think. Still, I'll probably keep the imp. Perhaps I'll try it a few more times and see if it grows on me.

Whip

Grade: A

Agony and ecstasy: black leather and damp red rose.

Should I find it disturbing that I like this so much? I like the dry antique tea rose of London but I think I prefer the lush wet rose of Whip, at least in certain moods. I don't think it smells all that much like leather on me- there's more than just rose but it comes across as a bit of a grounding of the floral more than its own note. Funny because a friend told me it smells like a leather coat on her! This is definitely going into the rotation of rose scents.

Jabberwocky

Tweedledee

Grade: C

Ridiculous! Kumquat, white pepper, white tea and orange blossom.

When I first put this on, I really liked it. Then I thought, hmmm, this smells familiar. Then I thought, it smells like... food? Like.... cereal. Some kind of cereal. Some kind of FRUITY cereal. What am I... OMG. It smells like FROOT LOOPS.

So, no, not so much. Interestingly, Test Guy thought it smelled like potpourri. Pity, that.

Two, Five, & Seven

Grade: A

A huge bouquet of squished rose petals: Bulgarian rose, Somalian rose, Turkish rose, Damascus rose, red and white rose, tea rose, wine rose, shrub roses, rose, rose, rose… …and just an itty bitty bit of green grass.

Exactly what it says on the tin. Roses! A dimensional rose scent, underscored by the grassy smell - it's like going through a blooming close-grown rose garden while the grass was just cut in the yard next door. Only lasts a few hours on me, though. Very nice. Another rose for my collection!

Black Hellebore

Grade: B+

Also called Melampode. In witchcraft legend, this is one of the components of the notorious “flying ointment”, and is used in rituals that summon the Devil. In Greek mythology, Melampus of Pylos used hellebore to save the daughters of the king of Argos from a Dionysian Maenad-like madness. In Christian myth, hellebore was born from the tears a little girl shed onto the snow because she had no gift to give to the Christ child. In low magick, it has been used by farmers to protect their livestock from the evil eye. Court magicians have used it in martial invisibility spells, enabling spies and assassins to infiltrate enemy camps. Hellebore resembles the wild rose, but does not belong to their family. The scent is a pale green herbal, darkly rooty, with a faint rose and peony-like overtone.

Really pleasant on me, a dry green floral with a little warmth as it fades.

Black Lotus

Grade: D

Born in the shadows of a Temple to Set, this corrupted Egyptian scent evokes images of black pyramids, river demons, and bleak, deadly desert sands. Black lotus flower, amber, myrrh and sandalwood.

This one just didn't work for me at all. It didn't smell bad, per se, but it smelled like incense, and I have never liked the smell of incense (is that the myrrh, I wonder, or the sandalwood?). Additionally, as time went on, one of the notes increasingly went powdery on me, so that I ended up smelling like a baby-changing table in a headshop. Not my cup of tea.

Guy Test: Test Guy likes the way this one smells, but not as much as Old London. I wonder how it would do on him. I fear, however, that my hatred of incensey smells would still overcome any nice thing his body chemistry might do.

Yew Trees

Grade: B+

Piercingly sweet berries over evergreen boughs, deepened by the tree’s sacred wood.

This is a wintry scent, though not really a Christmassy one. The sweetness of the fruit does a good job balancing the sharpness of the evergreen on me, making a nice balanced scent that wears down into warm wood.

Dirty

Grade: A

A wonderful antidote to an all-nighter oozing with drunken, addled perversion and debauchery. A fresh, crisp white linen scent: perfectly clean, perfectly breezy.

This is beautiful. Primarily it smells fresh and clean, with a teeny bit of sweet flowers and water. Linens seem to be working well on me so far.

Guy Test: Test Guy likes this one a lot, too. A winner all round.

Vice

Grade: B

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

This one was cherry, cherry, cherry, cherry on me, a sort of artificial-smelling cherry... until about an hour and a half after I put it on, when it suddenly did an about-face and turned into chocolate. The chocolate stage is nice but I think there are better fruit scents for me than the Cherry! stage.

Lucretia

Grade: C

Iris, black amber, sage, Kashmir wood, vanilla musk, mandarin and violet.

Eh. It wasn't horrible on me but the floral was too violetty. Old-lady perfume, kinda.

Love Me

Grade: C-

A commanding, dominant oil that increases sexual magnetism, creates an intense and irresistible air of attraction, and amplifies potency.

I smell... cinnamon? And stuff. Cinnamon and stuff. Incensy, spicy sorts of smells, I think. It isn't terrible, but it doesn't love my skin- far too strong and pungent for my taste, though the lingering soft scent that remains once it's worn off is actually quite pleasant.

High John the Conqueror

Grade: B++

A fast-acting, powerful scent used to overcome adversity through positive means. Attracts wealth, prestige, good health, and enhances others' opinions of you. Grants courage and steadfastness.

In the imp, this has a sweet, slightly sharp scent- some reviewers say grape and that could be it. The instant I put it on, though, a softer scent came in- almost powdery but not in a bad way. To me it smells like a bouquet of white flowers and damp green leaves, laid on a freshly laundered linen tablecloth. It's a clean, soft, calming sort of scent, and I like it very much. I don't know that it's enhancing anyone's opinion of me, unless it's their opinion of how I smell, but it smells great. I'll definitely use my imp... the jury is out on if I like it enough for a big bottle, though.

Guy Test: still impossible due to Test Guy's allergies, poor darling.

London

Grade: A

In bottle: a powdery, slightly sharp rose

Wet: Rose with something sharp/spicy underneath

Dry: Stays rosy with an elusive hint of the sharp/spicy note- I'm guessing this is the "wickedness"- for a few hours, then becomes a powdery rose. Throws fairly well for a while and then lingers close to the skin; at the end of the day I can still catch whiffs of this on my wrists.

Verdict: I like this a lot, but I'm not sure it's my One True Rose. I have a lot of other rose blends to try first.

Guy Test: Very good! Without being asked his opinion, Test Guy volunteered an "mmm, you smell good" and actually came closer to smell again. Definitely a winner on this front.

The Hanging Gardens

Grade: A+

This perfume is an interpretation of the Hanging Gardens by night, based on further accounts of its fruit and flora: date palm, ebony, fir, pomegranate, plum, two pears, quince, fig, and grapevine with plumeria, three gardenias and dry rose.

I'm very impressed by this one- it really does smell like a garden. You get little whiffs of fruit and flowers and wood and green leaves, as though it was being carried past your nose on a gentle spring wind. Yummy.