Demeter Fragrance's "Incense" -- the v v wordy review

Demeter Fragrance is about as far from an indie perfumer as you can get. You can buy some of their fragrances at Sephora, which is pretty much the kiss of non-indie, as far as I'm concerned. But, still, for all their non-indie status, they're just plain fun, which can be a real treat after the omg srs biznss feeling I occasionally get from places like BPAL and Nocturne Alchemy. Want to smell like Play-Doh? Or maybe Tootsie Rolls? How about a Laundromat or its opposite, Dirt? Demeter's there for you. In addition to the more unusual scents, they also have the mandatory foody fragrances and the boozy ones and a lot of single notes.

And above all? They're seriously cheap, even when you factor in that this is cologne; you get an ounce/30 ml for $20, or a half ounce/15 ml for $6. Shipping's a fairly low flat rate and if you order over twenty-five dollars worth of product, you get a free full-sized bottle--their choice of scents, not yours. Also, they offer other products--shower gel, lotion, body oil, room sprays, candles, soap and sugar scrubs (the last three in selected fragrances only).

Aside from the pricing and the selection, what really pulled me in was a review of "Incense" over at Now Smell This where the reviewer compared it to i Profumi di Firenze's Ambra del Nepal. Now I've never actually smelled the real Ambra del Nepal--too rich for my blood--but I've tried some of the dupes and I have a real love/hate thing going with it. The main notes are amber, vanilla and cardamom, and in most of the versions I've smelled, the cardamom can be just this side of too much. Also, Darkrose really dislikes it, so I've been looking for something along those lines that we can both stand.

Sooooo....

Incense -- there are three paragraphs of description and no notes listed, aside from the fact that their inspiration was copal which, for me, was just one more reason to try it; I love copal.

One of the downsides of being a perfume oil fan is that the first sniff of any cologne or even eau de parfum is going to make you blink and thing "zomg alcohol!" After that, I got a nice ambery scent and a touch of vanilla. Since I picked this up in the smallest size possible, it came without an atomizer, which made it hard to put on. Well, at least until I ended up spilling some on my hand, at which point, I rubbed it on my arms and ran my fingers through my hair, hoping like hell it didn't morph into something horrible since we were about to head out to dinner and another shower would have made us late.

Fortunately, I love it and so does Darkrose. The copal has an amber scent--hell, there may be amber in there too--without any of the powdery dry down that you sometimes get with amber. There's vanilla in it as well, but it's not overly sweet. I don't know what other spices are involved; I think I can smell the tiniest hint of cardamom, although that could just be the power of suggestion. I'm guessing that there's also a touch of champa flower (aka Plumeria or Frangipani), the floral used in Nag Champa incense. What there isn't is anything like a smoke accord; this is the scent of a lovely incense before you burn it.

It's light enough to wear on a summer evening and it has a pretty good throw/sillage. It doesn't last very long, but then, it's cologne, so you can't expect it to. At the price you pay for it though, it would be easy enough to slip a bottle in your bag for touch ups. Incense is available at Demeter's site, but not at Sephora.

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Speaking of Sephora, I'm signed up for their email newsletter. Goddess only knows why since I don't actually wear make up anymore, but it's kind of fun to look at make up trends. So anyway.... Tonight I got an invitation to buy a brand new product one whole day before it launched. What was the product, I see you asking breathlessly.

ÔSCILLATION - Vibrating Infinite Powermascara -- "The first vibrating powermascara by Lancôme. This revolutionary mascara provides 7000 oscillations per minute for ultimate lash transformation. Press the button and experience a breakthrough sensation in application. In one easy new gesture, let the vibrating brush combined with an exquisitely smooth formula wrap every lash up to 360 degrees."

Wow, all that for only $35 (plus shipping and handling)!

Somehow, I managed to control myself and not order it. Although, during my sister's visit next month, she and I are going to go on a perfume sniffing run of both Nordstrom's and Sephora--both places that, I've been told, are generous with the samples--and you can bet I'll be checking out the Vibrating Mascara. Although really, since I can pick up a vibrating lipstick (link could be considered to be not safe for work) for $24.94 (plus shipping and handling), why I'd need the mascara too is beyond me.

Three of the Ladies of BPAL's Grindhouse

First off, I must thank the lovely Scented Djinn, who sent me a tiny vial of boronia--distilled into a 10% solution. It's still a very elusive scent, but I really do get the raspberry and I can totally see why she'd want to use it in an eau de cologne, it's fresh and really quite lovely.

Secondly, I apologize for not updating recently. In addition to the final polishing on the novella Darkrose and I wrote, I've been having motivational issues, so yeah...sorry.

Thirdly, reviews:

Tonight it's three from BPAL's Limited Edition series Carnaval Diabolique. As part of Act IV, these are the Ladies of the Grindhouse. All the blends of the Carnaval series are accompanied by art, some of it not safe for work, so take care when you click the links.

Aeronwen -- "Fig, dark myrrh, amber, redwood, nutmeg, tarragon, black musk, and sweet orange."

It's cripser than i would have expected given the notes; my first impression is a green citrus. I assume the green comes from the tarragon, although it doesn't smell like the herb much. In the dry down I start to smell something sweeter--the fig, probably--with a slightly bitter undernote from the myrrh. Along with a dry note from the redwood, the whole thing seems almost masculine, or at least like something blended with a male wearer in mind. I like it, but it's not at all what I expected.

After about ten minutes or so, I get a faint medicinal note; it's not awful, but I'm not crazy about it either. In fact, that sums up my whole reaction to this. I've smelled things that were intended to fall into the "masculine" category that I've liked much better. There are guys I'd love to smell this on--Sean Bean maybe?--but it's not something I need more of.

Eisheth Zenunim -- "Honey, ambergris, neroli, white peach, patchouli, and cocoa absolute."

In the imp the first thing that hit me was OMGPatchouli, but once I got it on, it was mostly about the white peach and the neroli. I don't get much cocoa at first, and the patchouli is very much in the background. Then the honey kicks in and it's honeyed peaches with a little floral over it. It isn't particularly foody, but I suspect it would appeal to people who like the current sweet, fruity floral trend in mainstream perfumes. Sadly, those people? Are not me. This is just a little too twee for my tastes. Since it also reminds Darkrose of the stuff her mom used to use to straighten her hair, that's another strike against it.

Inez -- "Golden amber, vanilla musk, myrrh, cedar, carnation, and red sandalwood."

Cedar is a tricky note on me, my skin tends to amp up woods a lot and it did so with this almost from the second it hit my skin. It also amped up the sandalwood, but you don't hear me complaining about that. And underneath...oh my yes, this is nice. The vanilla musk is a nice faint undernote, and the amber is present without being too powdery. I can't get the carnation yet, I think it's probably being overpowered by the woods and, strangely enough, I don't smell that faint bitter note from the myrrh.

About ten minutes in, the cedar and sandalwood calm down a little and the whole thing becomes a very nice, almost creamy, woody scent that really works on me. I might just have to buy a bottle of this before the line goes away.

Speaking of which, the Carnaval Diabolique was going to go away in September, but in her most recent update, Beth said something about it sticking around a little longer because they're still working on the next act.

Cool, Crisp and...Gone -- Boronia Eau de Cologne by The Scented Djinn

Tonight--I've decided to be honest here; I rarely review anything until sometime after ten, so saying "today" is a little misleading. Anyway, tonight, I'm sniffing Boronia Eau de Cologne from The Scented Djinn, which, by the way, is an awesome name for a perfume company.

"a contemporary take on a classic eau de cologne featuring the typical citrus sparkle of an EdC matched with the floral magic of boronia. This blend includes bergamot, lemon essence (from the juice, not the peel), neroli, lavandin absolute, rosemary, orange flower tincture, vanilla tincture, yuzu, oregano tincture, orris butter and boronia."

I'd never heard of Boronia before, and sadly, the Wikipedia article on it is kind of lacking in information. However, my google-fu did turn up this very lovely set of photos. So yes, once again, I'm sniffing blind, as it were.

Edit: The most recent post at Oh, True Apothecary talks about boronia, so now I know more than I did last night when I was reviewing this.

It opens with a sharp, cold burst of citrus; I really get the lemon and the yuzu more than anything else. Almost immediately on the dry down, I can smell the neroli and the vanilla and another floral note that has to be the boronia. Unfortunately, I'm trying this from a sample vial when it really needs to come from a spray bottle, so it's hard to get enough on me at enough strength to review because just ten minutes in and my skin has soaked it up like crazy, even though I made sure to use lotion before hand.

What lingers, however, is lovely. The citrus has died down and what's left is a nice vanilla flavored floral that isn't too strong on either the vanilla or the flowers. Nor is it too sweet. In fact, it's very much what an eau de cologne should be, crisp and refreshing and light. I hope she starts selling this in bigger bottles, because right now all you can get is a dram. A bigger bottle with an atomizer would be a lovely thing to have in my purse this summer. I mgiht just have to pick up a couple drams and dump...er, decant, them into an atomizer.

Also, check out her blog, Oh, True Apothecary, for insights into the life of a natural perfumer.

And Now, For Something Completely Different -- Vetiver Dance by Andy Tauer

Today, as promised, I'm sniffing Andy Tauer's Vetiver Dance, which I was lucky enough to get as a pre-release sample during Andy's blog giveaway.

"grapefruit, black pepper, clary sage, lily of the valley, cedar wood, ambergris, tonka and dark vetiver from java"

Wow! Initially, this smells like citrus and grass. A tart burst of grapefruit, over fabulous, sweet, just mowed grass where the mower--a push mower with no smelly engine--caught a few light blossoms as well. It's really incredibly light on me at first, which is interesting, given the notes. I catch a tiny bit of the pepper, but it's in the background. And the ceder, which my skin normally amps like crazy until I smell like wood shavings, is, for the most part, well behaved.

As the dry down happens, I'm getting more than a bit of the lily and the grass note--which I'm assuming is the vetiver, although it could be the clary sage--is fading a bit. I wish I knew what vetiver smells like alone. Darkrose really liked it on me at first, but now she's more "meh" about it, which is probably because she loves her some grapefruit and the citrus has faded into the background, as it will. I'm also getting just a whiff of some incredibly expensive soap, which isn't actually a detriment to wearing this; although I'm not a huge fan of "clean" scents, this is just a faint touch that works. Right now, about a half hour in, it's a greenish floral on me, which is odd because I expected it to be a lot darker and more woody.

And now, about 45 minutes in, there it is, now it's woody and a tiny bit dry, but it's still a light, green, almost effervescent kind of wood. There's still a faint lily soap note, but not enough for me to dismiss this out of hand. I think "dance" is the perfect name for it; this scent is light on its feet and while it knows the classical ballroom dances and maybe even a little ballet, it's not above dancing like no one is watching when its favorite pop song comes on on the radio.

I kind of wish I'd tried this totally blind because knowing it's from an incredibly well-respected niche/indie perfumer whose stuff sells for around $80-$90 for 50ml makes a difference, I think. And actually, when you realize that a BPAL LE goes for $20 for 5ml, that's not outrageous, even if Tauer's stuff is either eau de parfum or eau de toilette. But my point is, to me it smells expensive and I don't know if that's a) because I know it's kind of pricey, b) because he uses high quality ingredients, c) because it's an alcohol based perfume and that "feels/smells" more pricey just by association or d) some combination of the above. I know he uses the best materials he can, and of course you can never ever dismiss association out of hand when dealing with scent, so I've got to go with D.

Ultimately, it's a scent that reads very unisex to me, although I can see it being put on the masculine side of the aisle at Sephora or Nordstroms. It's about as far from anything I reviewed last week as possible and it's almost a shock to my nose after all the sweet pomegranate--and no, that still doesn't look like a real word to me. But it's a good shock, a fresh sharp shock that really works for me. It's got very good staying power and the throw/sillage is excellent when you consider that I only used one spray. I won't reach for this often, but on days when I want something unusual, I'll go for it. He's releasing it sometime in October and while I feel that yes, it's a fall kind of scent, I'm glad I got it now to help me combat the heat of a Sacramento summer.

By Now I Really Know How to Spell Pomegranate -- Pomegranate Week: Day Last

Okay one final BPAL Limited Edition Pomegranate scent. And really, it's about time; I'm reaching the point where the word "pomegranate" doesn't look like a real word any more.

The Fruit of Paradise was part of the Yule '07 line. The Lab said:
"While Persephone visited the realm of Hades, she tasted one single pomegranate seed, an act which compelled her to remain connected to the Land of the Dead for all eternity. Demeter's grief over her beloved daughter's absence that brings on the bleakness and barrenness of the winter months.

The Fruit of Paradise, the Nectar of Death: bittersweet pomegranate."

First off, I always heard that it was six pomegranate seeds Persephone ate, which led to her staying with Hades one month for every seed. But never mind....

Fruit of Paradise opens with a burst of pomegranate that is very very close to Swank, if not as crisp. It's still pretty sweet, however. After a short time there's a slightly spicy note that someone on the forum said they thought was clove. Since a bitter note creeps in around the same time, I'm thinking that maybe they're right and it is clove. I had wondered if maybe it was myrrh.

Regardless, this is a pretty straightforward scent that....

Okay, I'll admit it, it totally smells like Midnight Pomegranate from Bath and Body Works. It's a little more bitter, but not much, and I get the feeling that if I were to dilute it in some perfumer's alcohol, I'd end up with Midnight Pomegranate Eau de Toilette or even the body splash.

Needless to say, it layers excellently with the B&BW products, which give it damn good staying power and a decent throw/sillage. I don't actually regret buying it--I picked it up on eBay for about what I would have paid for it if I'd bought it from the Lab--but of all the actual pomegranate oils I've got, this one is the one I could most easily do without. The "clear, fruity sweet" niche on my perfume shelf is perfectly filled by Swank, which I like more than I like Fruit of Paradise.

And so, although I actually didn't plan it this way, we've come full circle, from sweet uncomplicated pomegranate to sweet uncomplicated pomegranate. The one review I didn't repost but feel I should link to is Loreto Aromatica's custom blend Ruth, which features pomegranate as one of its top notes.

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Next up, I'm getting as far from sweet fruit as I can. Tomorrow, I'll be reviewing Tauer Perfumes Vetiver Dance.

Incense and Pomegranate -- Pomegranate Week: Day Five

Well, the fires are still burning, but I have the air filter running at max and I think my sense of smell is working a little better than it was yesterday.

So...let's take a look at Dark Fruit. It was a general catalog blend from the now unfortunately closed Violette Market.

The description read: "Smoldering pomegranate and berries, kissed with earthy patchouli and incense."

Now here's the thing: I love patchouli as long as it's used carefully. There's a world of difference between the patchouli used by good perfumers and the cheap stuff you often smelled on people at Grateful Dead concerts. So I tend to approach anything that has patchouli in it with a certain caution.

At first sniff, Dark Fruit is both earthy and smokey. The fruit is both tart and sweet, and you can certainly tell there's patchouli in it. But it's not dirty hippie patchouli at all; rather, it adds a nice deep earthy note over which rises the scent of the fruit and some kind of woody incense. At a guess, I'd say the wood is sandalwood. In fact, I imagine that this is how a piece of sandalwood that had been soaked for a long time in pomegranate and berry (blackberry? tart raspberries?) juice and a little bit of patchouli oil would smell if you then burned it. Unlike a lot of incense smells, I don't get a heavy blast of resin, although there's a very faint scent underneath all the others that might be myrrh.

As the name suggests, this is a very dark take on pomegranate. This is Persephone in front of a fire in the Underworld during the dead of winter, while above her, Demeter mourns her absence. I love it, but I don't think I'll be wearing it until late October at the earliest; it's a warm, somewhat heavy and not particularly sweet scent that's perfect for cold days.

I was very sorry to see Violette Market close. This blend alone was enough to convince me that she had a very interesting take on the whole Dark Victorian branch of indie perfumes. While this could be considered headshoppy, it's unique enough that it doesn't smell like a BPAL knock off. I'm glad I had the money to take advantage of her going-out-of-business sale and get a 1/2 oz of this.

Tea, Black Pomegranate, Hot -- Pomegranate Week: Day Four

I'm terribly sorry about this, but I'm re-posting a review I did a while back, with a couple of changes. We're in fire country here in NoCal and while there's no chance of us having to flee or anything like that, the smoke is godawful--seriously, while still quite high in the sky, the moon was dark orange tonight--and it's playing havoc with my sinuses, so no testing and reviewing anything today.

Anyway....

Today, I'm revisiting Blooddrop's The (un)Poisoned Tea Cup, which was a Spring '08 Limited Edition.

The description read: "Fortunately for the drinker, this cup of pomegranate black tea was left unscathed."

This one is exactly as advertised, down to the faint tannin/bitter note of the black tea. The pomegranate is just the way it would be in a tea blend; it's not like sweetened juice or pomegranate syrup has been added to the tea, but is a more subtle dry pomegranate. It does sweeten up a tad but never gets really sweet the way BPAL's Swank does. It's another simple scent, what you get all the way through is a crisp, brisk cup of pomegrante tea or glass of iced pomegrante tea, bracing and refreshing.

When I first tried it, the tea note faded fairly quickly. Later, however, when I'd applied it more liberally, it hung around for quite some time, although the throw/sillage was rather minimal. I purchased the bath gel and light soy lotion as well and all together, they really increase the staying power of the scent.

I'd say this is a spring/summer scent for days when you don't want to smell too sweet.

Even if tomorrow is smokey, I won't be going out like I did today, so hopefully, I'll be able to review something new.

Shaken, Not Stirred, and Sugar on the Rim, Please -- Pomegranate Week: Day Three

Today, partly because we had a late dinner at Ink--a local bar and restaurant that serves food well into the wee hours-- and partly because I did The Flower Song yesterday, I'm going to review one of my early BPAL favorites.

Swank is from the Lab's general catalog; you can find it in the Bewitching Brews section.

The Lab says: "Simply cool, the essence of Lounge: the scent of a crisp pomegranate martini."

It is, again, a fairly sweet scent, although it has none of Flower Song's syrup to it. Instead, it is, as they say, crisp. In fact, and this is always one of those mysteries, it smells cold. I have no idea how that is accomplished, but that's why I don't blend perfume. Well one of the reasons anyway.

Cutting the sweetness down to tolerable levels is the martini part of the equation. This isn't a vodka martini, as one would expect. No, there's a hint of juniper berry in there, just the tiny touch needed to tell us that this martini is gin.

It's a very very simple scent, no morphing, no changing to anything else. It's got a clean sweetness to it that makes it the perfect summer weather fruit scent. Which, as it reached 108F/42C here and the air quality was bad thanks to the fires burning all over the Sacramento Valley, I really needed. It's got excellent staying power and a pretty standard throw/sillage for an oil.

The very first time I reviewed this, over on the BPAL forum, I mentioned the scent memory I referred to the other day. To my mind, this blend, more than any of the others, is that fruit essential oil I loved as a kid, only grown up. Sure it's still sweet, but there's a lightness and a subtle hint of something else that makes it fun and adult.

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About the giveaway. I'm doing a pomegrante scented gift package for the Live Long n Marry auction. I plan on doing the "lite" version--fewer goodies and smaller amounts--as a blog giveaway, probably sometime over the weekend, provided I've reached the deadline for this story I'm slaving over. :)

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Finally, I got my little sample of Andy Tauer's Vetiver Dance because I was lucky enough to sign up for the samples he was giving away in celebration of his third year blogging. I haven't tried it yet, but all indications are that I'm in for a real treat. Of course, I had to go and look at his other perfumes and am dying to try L'air du désert marocain, Incense extrême and maybe score some Incense rosé for Darkrose. Seeing as they run $100 for a bottle, though, maybe not so much. All I can say is "thank God for The Perfumed Court."

Row Faster Guys, and Feed Me Some Pomegranate Seeds -- Pomegrante Week: Day Two

It's still Tuesday as far as I'm concerned--I keep very late hours--and so here's the second day of Pomegranate week.

Today I'm writing up The Flower Song, a BPAL Limited Edition from the Lupercalia '08 Love Poems Collection.

The Lab said: "Unknown, Written during Egypt's New Kingdom
To hear your voice is pomegranate wine to me:
I draw life from hearing it.
Could I see you with every glance,
It would be better for me
Than to eat or to drink.

Pomegranate wine, lotus root, river reeds, hyssop, and barley."

My initial impression was a blast of thick sweet pomegranate. Two years ago at Thanksgiving, I made something called pomegrante molasses, which involved boiling down several cups of pomegrante juice into a thick syrup, which I used to baste a pair of Cornish Game Hens--Darkrose and I don't like turkey. If I'd added about a cup and a half of sugar to the juice before boiling it, the end product would have smelled a lot like this. At first it's a little much, even for me.

Fortunately, it calms down some and there's a little bit of a green note, which I assume is the lotus root. There's also a faint winey note, but not enough to make you think you've spilled your drink. A little while later, some toasted cereal creeps in underneath the thickness and helps smooth things out.

After than, it doesn't morph much. It's a slightly thick, smooth pomegranate wine. One of my early and persistent BPAL favorites is Swank, the Lab's pomegranate martini blend. While that one is sweet but sharp with the gin note, this is sweet and a little syrupy and should be worn on your barge on the Nile while pretty, mostly naked girls (or guys according to your inclination) fan you. If you live somewhere other than ancient Egypt, I'd say wear this in the fall or winter when you need something comforting and a little thick.

It's got staying power for days and a pretty good throw/sillage.

While it's a Limited Edition, it's recent enough that it's still available on either the BPAL forums or eBay.

Still life with Pomegranates -- Pomegranate Week Day One

Pomegranate, it seems, is the new vanilla. Instead of a few lonely bottles languishing in the produce section, Pom now markets several blends of pomegranate juices and iced teas; you can get pomegranate tea blends, pomegranate candy and I'm surprised Starbucks hasn't figured a way to try to make pomegranate and coffee work together, although I suspect they offer a pomegranate Italian soda. The other day Darkrose found out that Dryers sells a mixed box of no-calorie made-with-real-juice popsicles in pomegranate blends--they're pretty good too.

And of course perfume and body products are right there in the vanguard, just about everyone offers something with pomegranate. In fact, reading the reviews of the major perfume and niche houses over at Now Smell This I see that some people feel that pomegranate has been used too much recently.

Me? I love it. And so I declare this week to be "All Pomegranate Week" here at IMNKMAL.

First off, I'll start with a basic.

Midnight Pomegranate from Bath & Body Works is cheating a little, because it's about as far from indie and small business as you can get. On the other hand, not only is it really really hard to beat BBW sale prices, but this is a very commonly and inexpensively duped fragrance, making it easy for smaller etailers to offer a full range of bath and body products in the scent.

It is the quintessential sweet fruity scent and it's probably aimed at a much younger woman than I am. Looking at the listing for the Body Splash is kind of funny because they say: Top Notes: Pomegranate, Sparkling Citrus, Dewberry, Anise, Cinnamon, Nutmeg; Mid Notes: Cassis, Black Berry, Iris, Jasmine, Raspberry; Base Notes: Musk, Sandalwood, Vanilla, Tobacco, Patchouli. Honestly? All I get is a the pomegrante and maybe a little cassis, sweet vanilla and a very sweet musk. To be fair, I haven't tried the Eau d' Toilette; maybe it's more complex than the Body Splash. I also have the Shower Gel and the Body Cream--their mid-weight lotion--and it's all very much the same. If you use the gel, the scent clings just a little around after your shower, which helps amp the pomegranate if when you wear another pomegranate fragrance such as BPAL's Swank or Love Song. If you can handle the sweetness, the shower gel, body cream and body splash combo is perfect for a warm day spent running around. Layered that way, or even on its own, the Body Splash has pretty remarkable staying power and if you spritz generously, it's got a decent throw/sillage for what it is.

You can get just about every scented product BBW carries, including their anti-bacterial line and their home fragrances, in Midnight Pomegranate. I wouldn't pay full price for it, but that's because it's easy enough to wait and then go wild during one of their sales.

I think I like it and other sweet pomegranate scents aimed at the 17-25 yo market because of a scent memory. The very first perfume I ever wore was Spiritual Sky's Raspberry Essential Oil, which is a painfully sweet raspberry with no subtlety at all. Occasionally, I don't mind revisiting that time when a nice shot of uncomplicated, unsophisticated, sugared fruit made me feel pretty.

I mentioned a give away the other day; more about that tomorrow.

The Madness to My Method -- Part Six

6. My thoughts on naturals vs synthetics.

Unless you grow the plants yourself, distill them into tinctures and blend them into oil from a certified organic grower, you honestly just don't know what you're getting when you talk about something "natural." It doesn't help that "natural" and "green" are phrases that can be tossed around without necessarily meaning anything; unlike the USDA, which can certify food as organic, the FDA (which covers perfume, bath & body products and the like) can't.

Furthermore, there's the environmental factor to consider. Sandalwood, for example, is in high demand; is it more ethical and green to use natural oil or to refine a synthetic so vast numbers of trees aren't cut down or to use a slightly inferior oil from a grower who replants? Also, some classic perfume additives are animal in nature; is real civet more ethical than the synthetic version, given that you have to either kill the animal or harvest the musk from a live animal in way that is painful to the animal?

I honestly don't have answers as to whether all natural is a) possible at all and b) as green and/or ethical as we'd like to think. On the other hand, synthetics are chemically produced and there are undoubtedly waste products that might not be disposed of properly, plus there is the fact that I really do like the idea of an all natural product.

I think that, for me, it has to come down to a balancing act. I'm not well off, far from it; I'm disabled and my partner and I pretty much live on her salary--she does IT help at a university--supplemented by my very small Social Security check. I have to shop carefully for everything, both necessary stuff and frivolous things. I do my best to buy locally and to purchase organics when I can afford them and I do what I can around the house to lower my carbon footprint.

When it comes to perfume, I trust that the perfumers I patronize are using the best materials they can to produce the best product they can within a price people can afford. I trust them when they say that they don't test on animals. And I trust them, as part of an culture that strives to be independent and aware, to walk as lightly on the Earth as they can.

I can't ask more of them than I ask of myself.

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This is the end of the Method posts. Hopefully either tomorrow or Monday will see a new set of reviews, including still life with pomegranates and maybe a give away.

The Madness to My Method -- Part Five

5. My strictly independent status and how I choose what to review.

I'm not shilling for any company, large or small. If an e-tailer is running some kind of special and I send you there and tell you to mention me, I'll also tell you exactly what I'm getting out of it. I'm not famous or anything like that and my reviews aren't done as part of a marketing campaign. I pay for almost everything I review; the only exceptions are freebies sent with orders or gifts from friends.

I choose what to review pretty much at random. I've got a hell of a backlog of samples to get through and there are a couple of things that can slow me down. I won't review anything while I have a migraine or while my sinuses are acting up. I occasionally have deadlines for fan fiction challenges and there are times when I just need to chill and do nothing but play City of Heroes/Villains.

I do participate in decant circles now and then and will try to review the Limited Edition scents in a timely manner so that they're still available when the post goes up.

* * *

New reviews soon, hopefully. I've had migraine issues and our a/c is still giving us grief. I'm crossing my fingers that the most recent fix holds.

The Madness to My Method -- Part Four

4. Indie vs Big Perfume Houses and Celebrity blends

There are several reasons I wear and review perfume from small, independent e-tailers as opposed to say, the latest from Calvin Klein or Aquolina. The first, and sadly most important reason, is money. The small independent e-tailers keep their prices pretty low and are generous about samples and freebies. Also, the active trading culture means that I can buy a sample of a BPAL LE, for example, for $3 or $4.

There's also the matter of variety. While the choices at BPAL in particular can be overwhelming, it's also a lot easier to avoid notes that don't work for you when you have twenty different blends with saffron in them, each just a little different.

And of course, there are a lot of blogs out there reviewing big name-brand perfume. And sure, there are a lot of people writing fan fiction and that hasn't stopped me, but in this case, I think that the Indie perfumeries get short shift. Although, if you're reading this and you know of any blogs that review the indie etailers, I'd love it if you commented with a link.

Finally there's an indie aesthetic/feel/attitude and a sense of community that I like about the small e-tailers. As I said way above, I view perfume as a modern form of alchemy and there's something I like about the idea of someone sitting down in their kitchen/extra bedroom/garage and making something because they like the way it smells and think that other people might like it too. And the sense of being part of the community, of actually being a part of the process, is really wonderful. We talk about Beth at BPAL, Fabienne at Possets, Astrid at Blooddrops and Dave and Brianne at Mythos Mixtures; these are real people who interact with their customers via forums and email.

Having said all that, I've got about five perfumes by perfume houses up on my wishlist at Amazon and next time we hit the mall, I might try some of them at Sephora. I have nothing against the big houses and I'd be happy to review the occasional Big Name Perfume if I could afford it, but my focus will continue to be on the Indie houses.

The Madness to My Method -- Part Three

3. What you won't see here and what you will.

I simply cannot wear any blend that includes a cream accord. Everything I've ever tried with one has simply gone awful on me, either plasticy and fake, or rancid and sour. Likewise, you'll rarely, if ever, see anything reviewed here that includes rose among the notes. Maybe 1 in 99 blends with rose work on me, the rest end up smelling like soap. It kind of breaks my heart because not only do a lot of lovely sounding blends include rose, but I also like the smell of roses.

Because of the rose thing, I tend to have to stay away from most florals. Jasmine's another tricky note, I can usually handle it if it's not the dominant note in the blend.

Mostly, my tastes are pretty broad. My favorite perfume family is the Oriental; I like things from pretty much every sub-category in the family. I also like some of the Woody family and some of the Fresh family, particularly the citrus group. I tend to stay away from things described as "clean/linen" because they usually smell like overly scented dryer sheets to me.

The Gormound category is tricky for me. I stay away from the excessively foody scents; I'd rather not smell like cake, cookies or frosting, plus all too often, there's that cream accord in there. I usually do like what I call the "drinky" scents (BPAL's Swank, which smells like a pomegranate martini, is a good example here). I don't want to smell like a liquor cabinet, but a touch of rum or a hint of the juniper in gin really works for me. I also like some fruity scents, although usually I like them to feel kind of grown up and not smell like strawberry lip gloss or Spiritual Sky Raspberry Oil.

I also like several of the traditionally masculine scents, particularly cyphres and fougéres.

Due to the fact that most of the indie e-tailers throw in freebies, I'll occasionally review things that fall outside my already broad tastes.

BPAL -- Snake Oil and Three from the Snake Pit

All BPAL today.

Snake Oil -- "By far, our most popular scent! Magnetic, mysterious, and exceedingly sexual in nature. A blend of exotic Indonesian oils sugared with vanilla."

Reviewing BPAL's Snake Oil is kind of like reviewing Chanel No. 5; everyone's had a go at it and most people who will be reading the review have probably already got a bottle in their possession. Which kind of makes me wonder whatever happened to my duty-free bottle of No. 5, but it would be just about 30 years old now and anyway, I digress. I ordered this because I loved one of the the Snake Pit scents (which are Snake Oil with extras) and wanted to see if it was the Snake Oil part I loved or that plus the extras.

At first sniff in the bottle, Snake Oil is pure headshop, right down to what I'd swear is a faint bit of patchouli, although most reviews don't mention it. The minute I get it on my skin, even before the dry down, the vanilla shows up. It is not a foody vanilla at all, but a sweet incensey scent, with a nice spicey background.

About 10 minutes in, I get powder, which makes me suspect that one of the Indonesian oils is amber. Strangely enough that faint hint of patchouli is gone gone gone, leaving me to wonder if it was ever there in the first place. What I've got now is an ambery, powdery vanilla, which I like but which isn't wowing me.

In the end, after about a half hour, the powder has faded down to acceptable levels and this is a nice, slightly spicey, slightly ambery, slightly dark vanilla, with pretty good staying power and a decent throw. I like it and I'm happy enough to have a big bottle, but honestly, I don't really think it's all that and a bag of chips. This seems to be common with me and BPAL; I'm usually only mildly enthused over the blends that most people love like crazy. I actually think I like the Temple Viper better.

It's always interesting when someone calls a perfume "sexual" because you have to wonder who its aimed at. The "normal" assumption is that it's sexy on women in a way men will like--yay heteronormative society! In fact, the reason you see so many vanilla scents these days is that recent surveys have shown that men find vanilla to be a very sexy smell. I wonder if any surveys have been done on what women like to smell on other women. What I'm trying to get at is: this smells good, but I don't know that if I smelled it on some random woman on the street I'd want to jump her. Darkrose will be home in a couple of hours; I'll have to see if she likes it.

Three short reviews of the Snake Pit, Act III of Carnaval Diabolique, which will be available until September '08. These were originally done for a forum and on the run; this is what a quick review looks like.

Australian Copperhead -- Snake Oil with acai berry, amber, cardamom, neroli, and smoked vanilla.

In imp and wet on me -- bright, sweet/tart berry!

Five minutes in -- Oddly enough it's got a faint "green" note to it although it's still mostly the berry.

Twenty minutes it -- now I get the amber and a little hint of the vanilla underneath the green/berry scent. This is nice and bright, "fun" scent. It's not very me though; I was hoping for more amber/cardomom/smoked vanilla than acai berry.

Green Tree Viper -- Snake Oil with four mints, bergamot and green tea.

In imp and wet on me -- Mmmmm...sweet mint green tea.

Dry down and five minutes in -- For once, this doesn't morph much; it smells just like it does in the imp. And, even though I put on lotion just before testing, I can tell that this is already fading.

Twenty minutes in -- It's mostly the mint now and even that is faint. :(

Overall Impression -- I really like it, but like most tea and/or mint scents, it's gone way too fast.

Temple Viper -- Snake Oil with sugar cane, frankincense, champaca, opoponax, labdanum, and hyssop.

In imp and wet -- Dry and resiny with a sweet undernote.

Dry down and five minutes in -- Oh my, this is nice. It's got the dry/incense notes of some of her scents like Cathedral along with the added sweet of the sugar cane and the vanilla.

Twenty minutes in -- It's smoothed out now and I really really love it. All sugary and incensey. Not sure I like it $20 worth but man, am I tempted.

The Madness to My Method -- Part Two

2. My qualifications and experience.

I'd like to say something here like "I went to Grasse when I was 17 and a whole new world opened up to me" but the fact is, I went to Grasse when I was 17 and ended up with a horrible migraine that day.

So no, I don't have any formal qualifications. Since my initial foray into BPAL back in '05 and my more recent return to the fandom (and yes I really do think there's a fannish element to the indie perfume scene), I've slowly trained my nose to recognize certain notes and I'm also reading about perfume to train my brain.

What I do bring to the table is enthusiasm and a love of scents, all scents. I love that moment when the onions and garlic hit the hot olive oil and the moment when you know that you were right to quadruple the amount of vanilla the Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe calls for. I love the way the air smells near the ocean and I love the way my old neighborhood smelled when Coffee Works was roasting a batch of beans.

I would like to learn more about the perfumer's art; because I find it a fascinating combination of chemistry, art, and luck. To me it's the modern alchemy, and whether the work is done in someone's kitchen or in a lab in Paris, it's its own form of magic. Hopefully, somewhere along the line, I can find a local course of some kind. I don't know that I want to make my own perfume, but I'd like to train my nose a little better.

But in the end, I don't really think I need to know all the nitty gritty details of the process. Sure, as a reviewer, I come with my own likes and dislikes, but so has every reviewer in the history of reviewing. So in the end, I may not know much about perfume (although I'm learning) but I know what I like. Hopefully I can write about it in a way that you'll like and find useful or entertaining.

The Madness to My Method -- Part One

So since I've gotten a little more serious about reviewing perfume, I thought I'd talk a little about my process and what you will and won't see here. Since this turned into a seriously long document, I'm going to do it a piece at a time.

1. How I test/review a perfume.

I always start with clean dry skin that I've moisturized with unscented lotion. After giving the bottle a sniff, I put a small amount on, either on my wrist or on the inside of my elbow. I'll sniff it right away and then let it dry down. After that, I'll give it a sniff at five minutes, ten minutes and twenty minutes in. If it's still morphing after twenty minutes, I'll come back to it at thirty minutes. I'll keep notes during the process and then after about twenty minutes to a half hour, I'll note the staying power (unless it started fading early) and the throw, with the caveat that the throw won't be as big as it would if I were wearing it to go out.

The review write up changes a lot depending on a couple of factors. If I'm reviewing something for both this blog and a community or forum, I'll try to use the community/forum review guidelines. Given my druthers, I'd rather not use a guideline/standard form type thing because perfumes can vary so wildly. If I'm reviewing a single/layering note then I'm concerned with the way it smells both by itself and layered. And with a simple two or three note perfume (Possets' awesome Girls Love Vanilla is a perfect example) there's often no real difference between how it smells at five minutes and how it smells at twenty. On the other hand, the more complex blends do morph quite a bit during that initial half hour and so I tend to get a little more into the timeline involved.

Finally, I'll occasionally wander off into the land of memory because, scent is such a powerful trigger. I like to think that stories and such like provide a personal note and are entertaining.

Three from Arcana

Arcana makes both perfume oils and soap which they sell in a few shops and through several e-tailers. These are three random oils I picked up through a decant circle. I'd never tried Arcana before and was particularly impressed by the throw and staying power; both of which were excellent for perfume oils.

Caffeinated Death -- "Caffeinated Death Perfume (Limited Edition): A fatally wired combination of cocoa absolute, coffee, chai spices, Bourbon vanilla and white cognac. You can sleep when you're dead." Available at The Soap Box Company.

Okay this? This is what I was hoping for when I bought Miskatonic U back in the very first Picnic in Arkham line. Misk U had a cream note, but this one doesn't. It's all coffee and spice and cocoa and it's smooth but sharp at the same time. I was worried that it would be too foody, and at first it's a bit much. But about ten minutes after the dry down, it mellowed out and became this dark, vibrant scent with a decent throw and some serious staying power. It's hard to describe what it smells like; the coffee is the dominant note on me but this isn't like how my clothes smell after a few hours spent in a coffee house. I used the word smooth above and that's what this is; I suspect it's the vanilla and the spices that make it a lot more than just some fake latté scent. If you normally don't like chocolate scents, don't be put off by that cocoa absolute; this is 100% bitter cocoa, not a Hershey's bar.

I think my only caveat is that while it's a great nighttime scent, all dark and mysterious, it's a little too strong to wear while going out to dinner. For an evening spend wandering through late night gallery shows or a coffee house poetry slam followed by a quick jaunt to Rick's Dessert Diner, on the other hand, it's perfect.

Black Amber -- This is a layering oil designed to be worn either by itself or with something else to bring the particular note into prominence. Although Arcana (or maybe it's just the retailers) seems to refer to the whole line as single notes; some of them aren't. I've heard that Arcana is discontinuing their layering note line and, in fact, there's only one--pomegranate--still for sale at The Soap Box Company. However, Magical Omaha still has many of the various notes, including Black Amber.

This is, as the name suggests, a very dark amber. It's got a faintly sweet note, but it's not as sweet or as simple as the cheap Temple Essence Amber Butter I picked up somewhere along the line. There's an almost smoky/woody undernote to the Black Amber, as if there's just a faint hint of sandalwood in there too. I love it; amber is one of my favorite base notes and one of the few, along with sandalwood, that I'm perfectly happy to wear on its own. While some ambers can go powdery, this stays resiny and true. Also, it has staying power like crazy and a pretty good throw for a perfume oil.

Finally, I layered it with my custom perfume from Funkier Than Thou--reviewed here--and it brought out the amber like crazy and toned down the fruit a bit. I like the difference, it makes the oil more dark and nighttimey (what, "nighttimey" is a perfectly cromulent word!).

Black Tea -- another layering note, also available at Magical Omaha.

Remember how I said some of these were blends and not single notes? This is a blend and one that doesn't actually smell like black tea at all. It smells like...well, perfume. A very nice, green perfume, but nothing at all like the strong black tea I was hoping for. Tea scents tend to fade really quickly and I was really hoping for something to amp up the tea notes in a couple of tea based blends, but this isn't it.

I'm not much for the green family, although back in the late '80s I wore Perscriptives' Calyx a lot. Greens are nice in the spring and summer and they can be uplifting and casual. If you're looking for something like that, as weird as it sounds, Black Tea would be worth looking into. It has one hell of a throw and stays on for a good long time.

My only caveat is that this might not be Black Tea. I got it as part of an Arcana decant circle and there's a slight possibility that a mistake was made and I got something else.

PS. I think I just found a reasonably priced perfume from a perfume house that I want to try. *cries* There goes my indie cred.

BPAL LE reviews and yes, another auction

So, I promised some reviews today and I fully intend to do them now that it's a little cooler--our a/c is on the fritz and it's been pretty warm in the house today.

I actually put up two more things in the Live Long N Marry auction, things that are actually relevant to this blog: two BPAL LEs. It seems a little counter-intuitive to review things I didn't like but am trying to get someone to buy, but hey, what doesn't work for me will work for someone else.

Love's Philosophy (Lupercalia 2008; vanilla, saffron and cream). Forum post with descriptions and reviews and my auction post -- Saffron and vanilla...oh this should have been right up my alley. My first sniff gave me the impression of a very buttery, and kind of warm, vanilla, like maybe a vanilla glaze type frosting made with butter. Then, sadly, the cream note hits. This was the last time I bought anything with a cream note because it was pretty much confirmation that I simply can't wear cream accords; they just smell weird and artificial on me. For the most part, this isn't a problem; I don't normally like the extremely foody scents. Drinky scents, yes, but I don't really want to smell like a cupcake unless I'm eating one.

Numb (July of 2005, no notes given, pale, cool, powdery floral). Forum post with descriptions and reviews and my auction post. -- Beth at BPAL had originally planned to release this as part of the '05 Yultide Edition but then there was a horrible heat wave in LA and she released it in July.

Trying to review a perfume when none of the notes are listed is a tricky business and it's always interesting to go to the forum and read the things people come up with. I ordered this hoping for something cold and minty--Sacramento was in the middle of the same heat wave LA was--but what I got instead was a very powdery floral. It is actually a cool "feeling" scent, but I'm a child of the '70s and powder always makes me think either of my grandmother or of Love's Baby Soft*, and I'd really rather not smell like either.


**Good Lord, they still sell Love's Baby Soft although I bet they don't use the creepy ad they did back then.

Serpentine Hair for grate yay! and Lush...not so much.

My big discovery lately, body product wise, has been Serpentine Hair. I've been intrigued by the idea of sulfate free shampoos for a while. The sulfates (both sodium lauryl sulfate, or SLS, and ammonium lauryl sulfate) are put in shampoos to create lather because somewhere along the line, people became convinced that shampoo had to lather up big to get your hair clean. The problem is that in addition to getting rid of dirt, shampoo with sulfates strips your hair of all of its oil, which you then have to turn around and replace in the form of a conditioner.

Thanks to the evil_enabler community on LJ, I read about Serpentine and checked them out. Their shampoo bars are free of all sulfates and are similar to plain cold processed soap (made with lye and oils). They're pretty, they come in cool scents and they're reasonably priced, so I bought an Original Sin (bergamot, neroli, vanilla and a little musk) bar to try.

When I first used it, I wasn't sure it was really getting my hair clean. I thought it might be some residue, something they warn can happen, and used a vinegar/water solution to deal with it. My hair felt clean but it was also a little streaky, like it had too much oil in it. And then I got my hair cut and since my hair was so short, I switched over from using the bath puff method and just rubbed the bar right on my hair a couple times before working the resulting lather into my hair. And it works fabulously! I do it once per shower, not twice like you're supposed to with conventional shampoo, and I don't use conditioner at all. The bar is nice and hard, and because I use a wire soap dish and set it right next to the window in the sun, I'm losing very little of the bar to melting.

The whole experiment makes me happy for several reasons. One, fewer chemicals. Two, much less packaging--the bar comes wrapped in a single layer of shrink wrap as opposed to two plastic bottles. Three, I won't really know until I use the whole bar, but I suspect it's cheaper than the relatively inexpensive Clairol I was using. Four, it smells utterly fabulous--not enough to clash with my perfume, but just a little hint of yummy smell. Five, I'm patronizing a small, woman-owned business. Six, shorter showers mean using less water.

Seven, my hair feels and looks fantastic--soft and silky and shiney and much less frizzy than it was.

So yeah, this stuff is pure win all the way. The only people who might have problems with it are people with really oily hair, although I suspect that the vinegar/water rinse (a couple of tablespoons of vinegar for each cup of water; use lemon juice if you're a blonde of any sort) would help there.

Moving onto a company I'm less impressed with...Lush.

I know that a lot of people think of Lush as the second coming, and I'll admit that I like their style. They appeal to the hippie chick in me. The problem is...I'm not wild about the way their stuff smells.

My second Lush order arrived yesterday. It was just the large size tub of Ocean Salt this time, but with it I got two tiny samples of their "buttercream," a somewhat oiler than normal soap, that's supposed to be great on your skin. Both scents--one almond/citrus and one violets/clove-- should have been right up my alley, but they smell oddly chemically and to be honest, kinda gross.

I actually don't like the smell of the Ocean Salt much, although Nancy does. However, I'm willing to forgive a lot because it really is fabulous on my skin; my face has felt so much better lately. I use it about every other day; it's a little too rough to use daily.

I kind of liked the Sexy Peel soap I ordered from Lush last month, but it wasn't the best thing ever and at $5.40 for a 3.5 oz chunk, it just didn't cut it. If I want to spend that kind of money on soap, I'll patronize Villainess or Magic Hands or Arcana or one of the other small businesses whose products can be found at The Soap Box company. Or I'll just stick to my very nice oatmeal and almond bar that I pick up from the Natural Foods Co-Op for $2.50 a bar.