State of the Cora
Jan. 13th, 2008 11:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coraa...is pretty good, all things considered, though I'm really getting about ready to go home.
***
I have, to my mild shame, never seen Terminator 2. I'm told it's an excellent movie in addition to being an exiting action flick. (I have seen T3, which was entertaining if kind of stupid.) I will definitely see T2 at some point (yes, I know it's creepy and violent; I'm fairly sure I can deal, and Pav can tell me when not to look if it's relevant), but, in true Ask Livejournal fashion, when deciding whether to watch the first one first, I resort to a poll.
[Poll #1120891]
***
I am not currently stressing about the conference. This is an odd state of affairs. I sort of feel, perversely, as though I ought to be stressed, so I'm a little worried about not being worried. Still! Could be a lot worse.
***
I have aquired quite a collection of BPAL scents, and I'm in the process of noting down stuff about them and dividing them into 'OMG YES,' 'Nice enough to wear when the occasion is right,' 'Nice, but not for wearing (ie, use as a linen scent or similar),' and 'Eew.' (In general, I'm pretty sure the 'eew' scents are eew on me not because there's actually anything wrong with them but because they don't push my particular buttons, or because they don't work with my skin chemistry.) In the future, I'll probably be looking to give away the 'eews,' and maybe also some of the 'nice enough but not my favorite's, and also some of the duplicate imps. For now, though,
Tenative BPAL theories:
* Florals work well on me, especially rose and lily scents.
* So do herbals, and herbal + floral combinations are win.
* Certain kinds of spices and musks and incense-notes (including patchouli, cinnamon, ginger, sandalwood, etc) also work well, as do leather and tobacco scents. (Helllloooooo, Coyote.)
* I had never run into aquatics before trying BPAL, but the ones I've tried have been really nice -- though they tend to come out light on me. Ozone, water, grass smells are good.
* Foodie scents mostly work well. Vanilla, tea, honey, milk, nuts, coffee, some chocolates, work nicely, so long as they're not too sweet to start with. (But see below re: fruit, booze.)
* Fruit scents are beginning to be more iffy. Some of them (lemon, orange, pomegranate, and some raspberry, apple, and pear) work fine. Most berry scents and some other fruit scents ramp up the sweetness, though, and start to smell like jolly ranchers, fruit punch or, worst of all, bathroom air freshener. Ew. This is a shame, because I love fruit. (However, fruit scents significantly moderated by other scents -- such as Persephone, which mixes rose and pomegranate, or the lemony scents in Apothecary, which are mingled with herbal notes, tend to come out okay.)
* Boozy scents tend to turn out smelling like dishwasher liquid or laundry detergent, unfortunately.
* Pine scents make me smell like those little tree-shaped air freshener things. Again, ew.
Personal skin chemistry notes:
* My skin ramps up sweetness like crazy. This is probably why musks and aquatics work on me, even when other people on the BPAL forums think they smell very masculine (like Bow and Crown of Conquest, or Mechanical Phoenix) -- they turn sweetish. I'm mostly okay with this, because I like a little sweetness on my skin.
* The side-effect of this is that foodies that start out very, very sweet can get sticky. The other side effect, unfortunately, is that a lot of fruit scents turn to Kool-Aid. (Some sweet scents -- milky-honey-vanilla, for instance -- stay nice through the ramping, though.)
* My skin eats aquatics. They smell nice while they last, but they have to either be fairly strong and prominent, or have a nice secondary note that can come out to play after the aquatic has faded away.
* Plant scents (florals, fresh-herbals, and 'green' grassy or leafy notes) tend not to change very much on me. If it starts out smelling like rose or lily, it'll end up smelling like rose or lily. This is fine, since I like good fresh flower smells.
* Alcohol turns to detergent. Chocolate is iffy: if paired with something that will turn sweet, it's quite nice; if not, it goes all bitter and weird.
* My skin ramps up pine, too, and not just ramps it up but irons it all out into one flat, boring, air-freshener note. It's a shame -- a lot of the piney scents (Jersey Devil, Troll, etc) smell really pretty in the vial, and then go gross on my skin.
***
I have, to my mild shame, never seen Terminator 2. I'm told it's an excellent movie in addition to being an exiting action flick. (I have seen T3, which was entertaining if kind of stupid.) I will definitely see T2 at some point (yes, I know it's creepy and violent; I'm fairly sure I can deal, and Pav can tell me when not to look if it's relevant), but, in true Ask Livejournal fashion, when deciding whether to watch the first one first, I resort to a poll.
[Poll #1120891]
***
I am not currently stressing about the conference. This is an odd state of affairs. I sort of feel, perversely, as though I ought to be stressed, so I'm a little worried about not being worried. Still! Could be a lot worse.
***
I have aquired quite a collection of BPAL scents, and I'm in the process of noting down stuff about them and dividing them into 'OMG YES,' 'Nice enough to wear when the occasion is right,' 'Nice, but not for wearing (ie, use as a linen scent or similar),' and 'Eew.' (In general, I'm pretty sure the 'eew' scents are eew on me not because there's actually anything wrong with them but because they don't push my particular buttons, or because they don't work with my skin chemistry.) In the future, I'll probably be looking to give away the 'eews,' and maybe also some of the 'nice enough but not my favorite's, and also some of the duplicate imps. For now, though,
Tenative BPAL theories:
* Florals work well on me, especially rose and lily scents.
* So do herbals, and herbal + floral combinations are win.
* Certain kinds of spices and musks and incense-notes (including patchouli, cinnamon, ginger, sandalwood, etc) also work well, as do leather and tobacco scents. (Helllloooooo, Coyote.)
* I had never run into aquatics before trying BPAL, but the ones I've tried have been really nice -- though they tend to come out light on me. Ozone, water, grass smells are good.
* Foodie scents mostly work well. Vanilla, tea, honey, milk, nuts, coffee, some chocolates, work nicely, so long as they're not too sweet to start with. (But see below re: fruit, booze.)
* Fruit scents are beginning to be more iffy. Some of them (lemon, orange, pomegranate, and some raspberry, apple, and pear) work fine. Most berry scents and some other fruit scents ramp up the sweetness, though, and start to smell like jolly ranchers, fruit punch or, worst of all, bathroom air freshener. Ew. This is a shame, because I love fruit. (However, fruit scents significantly moderated by other scents -- such as Persephone, which mixes rose and pomegranate, or the lemony scents in Apothecary, which are mingled with herbal notes, tend to come out okay.)
* Boozy scents tend to turn out smelling like dishwasher liquid or laundry detergent, unfortunately.
* Pine scents make me smell like those little tree-shaped air freshener things. Again, ew.
Personal skin chemistry notes:
* My skin ramps up sweetness like crazy. This is probably why musks and aquatics work on me, even when other people on the BPAL forums think they smell very masculine (like Bow and Crown of Conquest, or Mechanical Phoenix) -- they turn sweetish. I'm mostly okay with this, because I like a little sweetness on my skin.
* The side-effect of this is that foodies that start out very, very sweet can get sticky. The other side effect, unfortunately, is that a lot of fruit scents turn to Kool-Aid. (Some sweet scents -- milky-honey-vanilla, for instance -- stay nice through the ramping, though.)
* My skin eats aquatics. They smell nice while they last, but they have to either be fairly strong and prominent, or have a nice secondary note that can come out to play after the aquatic has faded away.
* Plant scents (florals, fresh-herbals, and 'green' grassy or leafy notes) tend not to change very much on me. If it starts out smelling like rose or lily, it'll end up smelling like rose or lily. This is fine, since I like good fresh flower smells.
* Alcohol turns to detergent. Chocolate is iffy: if paired with something that will turn sweet, it's quite nice; if not, it goes all bitter and weird.
* My skin ramps up pine, too, and not just ramps it up but irons it all out into one flat, boring, air-freshener note. It's a shame -- a lot of the piney scents (Jersey Devil, Troll, etc) smell really pretty in the vial, and then go gross on my skin.
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Date: 2008-01-14 07:30 am (UTC)