ARCANA- Chicanery and Chimeras

PERFUME:  Chicanery and Chimeras

COMPANY: ARCANA

AVAILABILITY: Silken Lines and Silver Hooks: The Fortunetelling Duo (Limited Edition)

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION: The other side of the Knight of Cups. Delusions, hallucinations, phantasms, and nightmares. Empty blessings and beautiful curses.

Rich benzoin over a base of Madagascar vanilla, golden amber, salt water, clove, sweet musk, pumpkin, patchouli, and sugarcane.

BEFORE I SMELL: I admit it, I bought this because someone was selling it really cheap on Livejournal! I can’t resist a bargain especially if it’s a good smelling one!

FROM THE DECANT/BOTTLE: When I smell this from the bottle I get a cologne and masculine vibe. A little bit boozy and very brown!

WET ON SKIN: It’s getting spicier; I am getting clove, all spice and nutmeg. It’s very well blended and the notes are not aggressive at all. I do get a salty note as well which is really interesting.

DRY DOWN: The cologne, masculine vibe mainly from the combination of benzoin and the clove it’s getting milder. I have to notice that in this perfume the different stages last very long and I was able to smell the base notes after half an hour or maybe more.

The wait it’s definitely worth it! Vanilla, amber and patchouli in combination with baked pumpkin! It’s not a foodie scent; it’s sophisticated and very attractive!

FINAL THOUGHTS: It took me more than a year to start liking this one but now I really like it and I am glad I bought a bottle!

IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU WILL LIKE:   Solstice Scents-Monster Mash

Arcana-Shiver

PERFUME: Shiver Perfume Oil

COMPANY: Arcana

AVAILABILITY: Valentine’s 2011 part of The "Shiver Ensemble" series

The "Shiver Ensemble" is a series of four perfumes that play on the mystery and magic of words, evoking the movement from winter into spring as the cold and darkness falls away to reveal new life. And as a symbol of that life - honey, a note all of these perfumes share.

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION: An armful of pale flowers: tuberose, royal jasmine, jasmine sambac, white osmanthus, gardenia, muguet, and narcissus; honey, chilled peppermint, and smoky frankincense.

FROM THE DECANT/BOTTLE: From the decant I get a lot of peppermint which I love especially in spring!

WET ON SKIN: Sweet honey, peppermint and pale flowers.

DRY DOWN: The flower notes are so well blended that it’s difficult to take them apart. I get gardenia and muguet the most. The peppermint note stays quite a while. The frankincense it’s lovely here. Light and smoky pairs very well with the honey note. 

FINAL THOUGHTS: I really like this but I wont need any more than my decant. All in all, it’s very easy to wear. It would be perfect for a hot summer night like the ones we have here in Greece!

Spirit & Shadow - Arcana

PERFUME: Spirit & Shadow

COMPANY: Arcana

AVAILABILITY: Limited edition scent, still available at Soap box company.

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION: Worn leather with 3 vanillas, propolis, marshmallow cream, rata honey, and a faint whiff of warm linen.

BEFORE I SMELL: Vanilla, leather, and marshmallow! You know I love all these notes. I am so excited!

FROM THE DECANT/BOTTLE: Very sweet leather dipped in honey.

WET ON SKIN: The honey is stronger and the hint of propolis makes this more interesting. I wish it was more apparent as I love propolis scented products in general. On my skin this is a leather scent and I can feel it’s presence for hours. The vanillas are sweet and I can smell a milky note too. What is more, if this had a taste it would be a honey dipped cereal.

DRY DOWN: The full dry down of this perfume it’s after hours . Then, it’s all vanilla with a hint of linen.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I really like this. I still have a half decant left and a little goes a long way with this so, I don’t know if I will buy a full bottle soon. An image that came to my mind when I first sniffed this was a leather jacket thrown to a Candy Land! All in all, this lasted almost 10 hours to my skin, that’s fantastic staying power!

I have yet to find an Arcana I don’t like!

Perfume reviews, a haul, Possets new update and a pic of my dog!

 Even though that it feels like Spring, I wore some fall scents the last few days!

Possets-Big Black Cat

Sweet and strong, but full of character, like a majestic big black cat! Buttery creme with a smooth caramel undercoat, bourbon vanilla (the kind with the tiny black specks), gourmet candy corn crushed and put in the mix, and a crust of burnt sugar with a crunch from some indefinable but thoroughly delightful source. All this with a kiss of cinnamon, a very small puff of clove, and one grain of allspice.

This smells like other Halloween scents I have tried. It’s not very unique but if you are looking for a simple sugar and spice blend this is for you.

Burnt sugar and allspice rarely do work on me and this is not an exception. Not a scrubber but not something I would wear.

If you like this you may like as well:

 Possets: Nom Nom Nom

Lots of thick dark sugary goodness here. Just a hint of spice, but it's sort of an indefinable spice like a new and exotic clove which you just can't quite put your finger on. Lashings of liquified brown sugar heat it all up and in the end you have a very hawt melange of foody lovers goodness. Just the thing for Halloween.

Possets: Damn if you do

Brown sugar drenched in a crunchy crust of turbinado sugar, a hint of molasses and a very very light dusting of clove and allspice to keep things from going cloying. This is for the child and gourmand in you. Let yourself indulge in it all and be at least darned.

None of these worked for me. Maybe Sugar hates me.

Possets -Limoncello: La Dolce Vita

Of course, Possets had to celebrate the superb desserts of Italy, and

the South has some of the most ineluctable temptations on the planet.

Neapolitan Lemons spike the Limoncello here, with the most creamy of

panecotta (a triple cream custard with a subtle vanilla and not too

sweet). All this is accompanied by a homemade almond biscotti. Just to

smell the fragrance of all these treasure is to be in Italy with your

love.

I thought this would be a winner but it smells so bad on me I had to wash it away. Limoncello, panecotta and Almond biscotti? No thank you.

BPAL- LE LÈTHÈ

Red musk and sweat-damp golden skin musk with labdanum, golden amber, nutmeg, tobacco absolute, black orchid, and hemlock accord.

This is one of my favourite poems EVER! I was so excited to receive this as a frimp from the Lab!

From the imp I get juicy red musk and Hemlock. Like a less sweet Smut.

On my skin the tobacco absolute is the strongest note.

Lasts 4 to 5 hours on me and I think I have to buy a full bottle soon!

On dry down I get a hint of spiciness from the nutmeg and gorgeous perfumy-floral notes  from the black orchid.

If you like red musk and Tobacco you have to try this.

I sawAmanda’s Arcana Haul from the More tea, Wesley? Blog and she described Cake Lust like  butterscotch cake. The perfume stuck on my head and I had to have it! So I bought it from a person on Bpal forum!

Arcana- Cake Lust

Golden bakery cakes spiked with blonde tobacco, pipe tobacco, Balsam of Peru, cardamom, and mace.

When I first put it on I get cardamom as a top note and a hint of mace( nutmeg).

Then the tobacco becomes more obvious. I love what Arcana does with tobacco and I love when they combine foodie scents with resinous top notes. For the record, Morphine is the Arcana which I love the most!

In a while, I get boozy vanilla like the vanilla they had in their Rich vanilla scent.

This is a morpher. It’s not that spicy  on drydown but more foodie. Grownup and Sexy Foodie. LOVE!!!!

Last but not least, Possets new Spring update is live! The theme is Sacred Geometry. I learned so many new things reading her description and I find this update very original!

If you are into Grapefruit or lime you will scream from joy!

If I had to choose 4 perfumes from this update they would be:

Arc of Venus: Sandalwood , black lavender, a very small hint of calendula, "abstract" musk, and a bit of sharp grey musk

3:5:8: Black musk, smoky vanilla, jasmine, night blooming cereus, incense

Dodecahedron: Green vanilla, nectar, smoke, citrus paradise oil

Arabesque: Madagascar vanilla, Arabian Amber, bamboo citrus

I am also curious about:

Golden Section, it says floral but not what kind of floral. Rose? Jasmine? Sunflower?

Phyllotaxis is ruined for me from the cassia and the spice which can make a blend very spicy for my liking.

Quantum Interconnect is ruined by the black coffee and black tea. I will keep an eye for reviews though.

 

So, Is anything that you find appealing in this update? 

 

Have a nice weekend!

 

 My dog!!! Iris!!!!

 

My perfume Week!

Hi guys! It’s been a week since I update my blog and I thought to share with you how my “perfume” week went.

First of all, I got a lovely package on the mail!

While ago I ordered a bottle from a lovely lady on Live journal. I love Arcana perfumes but sometimes they sold out quickly so if I find a bottle that I want second hand I go for it! She included three more samples and some candies as well.

Arcana-Frivolous aside

A silly, sexy little blend which flirts shamelessly, teases everyone at the party, and flashes the top of its garter on the balcony. Bubbly champagne cocktails, vanilla frosting, deep pink musk, sugar cubes, toasty coconut, and a soft compress for your head the next morning.

When I first put this on it is very bubbly and it remind me Bpal’s Old Man Ackerman's Instructional Toys.

 The bubbly top note it’s like when you open a bottle of sprite and you take a deep breath immediately. It stays quite a while on the skin that way and then the foodie notes come to play as well. Butter cream and toasty coconut flakes like the one that you sprinkle on the cake come to my mind and I am already hungry!

Then I get whiffs of pink musk which totally works here.

To me this is a foodie-cake scent for spring or summer. It’s fresh, sweet and yummy at the same time. Delicious!!!

The freebies that I got were:

Bpal-Kubla Khan

Sidhe Creations- Sluagh

Zomg Smells – Lizard Queen

This week I made my first eBay purchase ever! I won a L’artisan gift set with the following 15ml perfumes:

Timbuktu Eau de Toilette 15ml
Fou d’Absinthe Eau de Parfum 15ml
Méchant Loup Eau de Toilette 15ml

I am so excited to receive this but it will take a while till reaches me because I send it to my uncle in the UK and then he will send it to me.

I haven’t tried Timbuktu and Fou d’Absinthe but I love Mechant Loup. They are a little bit on the masculine side so, if they don’t work on me I will give them to my boyfriend.

My perfumes of the day were the regular Possets or Bpal blends, I wore:

Possets Nevada Heat

Nevada, it's HOT. It's exciting and it gets YOU hot! They work at that, and it's a natural phenomenon. Supersweet vanilla grabs a sassy orange/citrus for a fast ride through the desert at sunset. Resins drip into and out of the blend, and a blast of spice comes from nowhere to tie it all together. Heat isn't for everyone, and certainly not for the timid nor for the conformist, unless you really want to have a brief holiday from your hum drum existence. Gives you all the excitement of that last shake before you roll the dice. USA, spicy resin, long lasting.

If you like spicy orange scents you have to try this one! From the bottle I get a creamy sweet orange scent. On the skin I get spices and maybe a hint of patchouli. It’s borderline foodie and it reminds me a kind of Christmas cookies that we made in Greece with cloves, cinnamon and orange juice. I don’t know why I keep thinking of ginger whenever I put this on. It isn’t a listed note.

Bpal- Laudanum

The essence of the most debauched hunger encapsulated into a perfume. Desire beyond love, anguish beyond sanity. Nutmeg, sassafras, black poppy and myrrh.

From the imp get Nutmeg, myrrh and vetiver. Wet it smells like sassafras but it’s very well blended. In that stage it becomes a little bit medicinal but in combination with all the resins it works very well.

 I really like this and it reminded me their Midnight Mass scent.

Resinous, medicinal with a hint of spice but not very unique.

Possets-Perpetual Orgasm

The divine honey which the bees make on the dry and craggy plains is the starting point for such a melting blend. Malta is an arid country and the non populated expanses are covered with tough aromatic growth which needs little rainfall. It is in that hard herbal mat that the bees wrestle the tiniest drops of nectar out of sparse light blue flowers and somehow manage to manufacture honey of such brilliance it’s almost as if the sun was captured and liquefied. Added to this is a shard of sharp lemon zest and the smooth modification of orange, both citrus which can be found in abundance in the Mediterranean, and which naturally compliment Maltese honey, and you will have found a paradise in a bottle.

I can’t decide if I want a bottle of this or not. It lasted all day on me and especially on my clothes.  It’s a sweet lemon and orange blend. I don’t get the floral part but as I am thinking about it while I am writing this I get a hint of bluebell. I had a Bluebell fragrance oil for soap making and it smelled soapy and fresh. Very similar to that fresh note in perpetual orgasm. By the way what a lovely name!

Thanks for reading:)

Moonflower's Bliss-Arcana

COMPANY: Arcana

AVAILABILITY: Available in Soapbox co.

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION: Happiness under a starless sky: moon vine, heartleaf milkweed, Calla lily, white tuberose, gardenia, and Madagascar bridal veil with creamy butter CO2 extract, pearl musk, white pepper, and a trace of incense. 

BEFORE I SMELL: I have this perfume a couple of years now. When I read the description I immediately bought a full size bottle of it! I was intrigued by all these flowers in combination with the butter extract. I was so curious!

In addition, I have never occurred a milkweed note before in other perfumes so, be ware, Even if it’s there I don’t think I can recognize it!

FROM THE DECANT/BOTTLE: It’s so hard for me to pick out notes from the bottle in this particular scent. I get a sharp white floral note and the scent of the  butter when you are melting it.

WET ON SKIN: This is very perfumy on me. It’s a clean floral for sure. The lilies here remind me lily of the valley. The gardenia and the tuberose are not so much apparent to my skin and I was looking forward on these notes…

DRY DOWN: This goes very musky on me. I really like it for spring and it’s my go to perfume for when I have to go somewhere that I have to meet people which I don’t usually see. Like when a baby from our family is being babtised. It seems to be a crowd pleaser and I have got so many compliments on it!

I don’t really get the incense nor the white pepper.

Staying power on this is pretty good! It stays 5 to 6 hours on my skin.

Scent of the day, DAY 8!

PERFUME: Feast of Fools

COMPANY: Arcana

AVAILABILITY: This is from the 2011 Midwinter update

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION: The ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia was full of partying, self-indulgence, and disturbingly savage rituals. Smoked honey, Atlas cedar wood, pipe tobacco, peppercorn, caramel, and milky musk.

BEFORE I SMELL: I like all things Roman. A scent that would transport me in an ancient roman festival would be great!

FROM THE DECANT/BOTTLE: Smoked honey. I get something like a burning wood but sweeter. The tobacco is really apparent and very dry.

WET ON SKIN: Smoky woods and tobacco with a hint of caramel.

DRY DOWN: This scent is Smoky from start to finish! On dry down a get the milky musk and it adds a “fresh” element to the whole.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I Found what I will wear tonight! Very nice scent if you like smoky perfumes!

IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU WILL LIKE:   The gorroble-Bpal, The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches- Bpal, Lapsang Souchong-Possets