sarada

Les Bijoux! It is surprisingly strong in the apple department on me. As for LEs, Harvest Moon '06 is my very favorite blend with apple in it. I don't like the caramel/cider aspects of apple but I love the crisp/fresh kind. Punkie Night was another good one.

Lycaon is likely to take its place as one of the great gods in my personal pantheon of BPAL that seems custom made just for my tastes. At the moment, a cold is preventing me from fully experiencing its many layers and transformations, but if these are meant to be transformative blends, it certainly lives up to its promise, shifting through every stage into new and fantastic forms. When I first tried it, a dusty incense emerged among the sultry, musky oils that reminded me of Schwarzer Mond -- glistening resins playing against fragrant greenery. The ginger moves out into the foreground quickly -- the hot, sharp ginger that recalls biting into a crystallized ginger candy, where it shoots right up the back of your nose. I thought for a moment that I smelled Shub, but it was that warm ginger playing tricks on me. It dries back down into a more dusty, earthy incense scent and I do pick out the olive leaf, though at first I couldn't detect it. Frankincense, patchouli and myrrh -- what could be better? Ahh, a touch of cypress and spikenard, that's what. This is an ageless and ancient blend and despite its lycanthropic inspiration it makes me think of the Bible. So many ancient, mystical, sacred oils -- oils to be applied in the dead of night beneath a full moon, in a landscape at the beginning of human history. When I'm back to normal I will get a better idea of the many faces of Lycaon...I think we're going to have a fabulous, torrid relationship.

Wolf Moon hangs bright and clear in the sky over a forest of evergreens, reflected in sparkling blue-black waters. This is a pure, fresh breath of air carried over mountain snows and tumbling through valleys full of pine and cedar. The lab's snow note is strong in this blend, unlike the previous Wolf Moon where it was somewhat melted and slushy. But cedar takes the center stage early for me, a very deep green cedar that rises up out of the moonlit snow. It subsides for a time and a faintly fruity note emerges, probably a combination of juniper with the warmth of amber, but then in the later stages a dry cedar rises like a column of smoke in the night sky. It's definitely a fair bit different from the first Wolf Moon, but in the same family. Lunacy blends rarely work for me, but this one is spectacular.

I've long wondered about Glasya. Hey, it was one of my favorite illustrations in the original AD&D Monster Manual! But aside from being a sexy she-devil, she also has some of my favorite fragrance notes: red musk, patchouli...civet and ylang ylang do give me pause. Glasya snakes around my wrist with sensuous grace, bathing me in a deep, luxurious red scent. There's this odd thing dragon's blood does sometimes where it smells more like a berry or wine scent. It's mostly a red musk scent though...touched with that bit of sweetness and a pervasive cloud of the unavoidable civet. BPAL civet smells like mothballs to me. Black musk, too, seems to have that dusky musty quality. In most blends it overwhelms and kind of ruins it for me. But here, the red musk and sweeter earthy notes keep it at bay. I don't smell rose or ylang ylang, but all of these forces working together actually remind me a bit of Lilith without the strong wine note. She sticks around for a long time, with the musky mothball scent dying off quickly. It lingers as a red earthy scent with a touch of an almost berrylike note. I have a zillion things with red musk in them now so I don't feel I need a bottle of every single one...this is a lovely one to sample though.

I wondered that too, but I think it's just that you can't do an instant transfer from your checking account if you don't have a credit card on file with Paypal. If you don't have a CC on file you have to do an echeck I think. I'm not sure if having a confirmed address has anything to do with that, too. I automatically deduct from my checking account when I pay, but I also have like two credit cards on file as a backup funding source so I think that's why it transfers instantly from my checking. Once, as an experiment, I pre-uploaded the funds and it took four or five days. So I think I'll definitely try to keep a CC on file as long as I have one!

I only have a small sample of this to test but wanted to record my thoughts on this very unique blend! I concur that I don't recall anything else quite like this, though the heavy, heady spicy floral blends might have something in common with it. But it is darker and sweeter, incredibly complex. A dark, thick, heady, smoky perfumey floral with hints of sweetness -- a vanilla-like sweetness, maybe a touch of creaminess, with fruit zest around the edges. Synaesthetically, and maybe this is just the time of year right now, it gives me the visual impression of strings of multicolored lights and multicolored tinsel and painted tin ornaments in every color. Bold, jewel-like and maybe just a bit garish if it's on the wrong person. As it dries it has a faintly sweet, slightly creamy (not in a foody way) quality and the hint of fruitiness, though for me it's mostly a thick, smoky floral. It fades rather quickly, but is strong while it lasts. I'll probably never see more of this but I am very glad I got to try a little! I'd say it's worth grabbing a sample if you like dark, strong, sweet florals, but I probably wouldn't ever need more than an imp to play with.

I love the new resurrected labels but my main joy these days is just that everything is GLOSSY! Every single one of my old labels is stained and smeared because somehow a drop of oil or liquid gets on them, or just age in general wears away from the frequent opening-and-sniffing. Switching to glossy labels has improved my quality of life 18.9%!

This is a fascinating scent, because I love frankincense and grave loam and would do anything to get more of them, but ... I smell nothing but thick, powdered cake make-up. It is the exact scent of either the face powder or foundation that my grandmother used. I don't smell any of the notes listed, except that it has the powdery quality that violet imparts, but I'd have to characterize this as rather foul, for my tastes. I can almost feel the thick, paste-like flesh-colored powder being smeared on my face or drifting around me in a cloud, when I sniff this. I could barely survive the skin test. I had hopes for the loam and frankincense, but this is a big no for me!

I haven't been getting the last few moons because they seem very floral, and while I can like florals there's not point in my wearing them because they vanish instantly on me. They are nice in the locket sometimes but I am trying not to hoard bottles I won't use! This however is so nice in a locket that it might be worth a bottle, just for that purpose. On my skin, it is beautiful as well at first -- light and fruity, smoky sage around the edges, and then it becomes grapefruit, of all things. It reminds me a Cheshire Cat a little at that stage, but with a hint of sage. I don't know where the illusion of grapefruit is coming from. In the locket however it stays true to the fresh, exhilarating scent that I smell in the imp. It is not terribly floral. There's more of a fresh, clean fruity scent, a smoky herb and a tang of bitterness that I can almost taste. The floral notes take a back seat, the vetiver is nowhere to be seen and I think the tonka ends an even sweetness to it. While it's gone from my skin in 15 minutes, this lasts in the locket and I will seriously consider tracking down a bottle just for the purpose. It feels more like a spring/summer blend to me anyway, so it's OK if I have to wait a little before I get more!

I'm allergic to many commercial perfumes, but not to BPAL. Even if my workplace banned perfume (which it won't, because I'm in charge anyway!) I would still wear BPAL unless my immediate officemate had a major allergy to everything. If anyone asked me if I was wearing perfume I'd say no, it must just be my shampoo/deodorant/laundry detergent/tea. I'm just thinking in terms of the kind of officeplace that institutes arbitrary rules to prevent personal expression though. In a food service industry or in close proximity to people with allergies I would of course comply. But I have an almost private office so I tend to be selfish!

Pumpkin smells like pure molten butter to me, as a fragrance oil, and although I love eating pumpkin pie, I detest the scent. Apparently, once the butter scent burns off, most pumpkin scents also include delightful spices. But if you don't like the smell of melted butter, you might not like the pumpkin scents.

(This is the Resurrected version) Typhon is the most glorious thing I have ever smelled. Smooth, dark, glossy wood of the deepest brown, sparkling with resins. Layer upon layer of deep, shining color, this is every wood and resin scent portrayed in scintillating clarity. The natural sweetness of these notes comes through beautifully on my skin. Oddly, I don't really smell the musk part...I thought it contained myrrh, as musk usually is fairly noticeable on me. But this is mainly a light vetiver, a deep sandalwood, and a sprinking of sweet patchouli. This is probably my new favorite in this genre of scent. It reminds me of Capricorn, but a bit lighter and more buoyant. It reminds me of Scwarzer Mond, but it is deeper and thicker than that. It is nothing like the bitter, harsh patchouli/vetiver scents like Malediction and has none of the smoke of something like Brimstone. If I had smelled this before it was Resurrected for the anniversary this year I would have died pining for it. As it is now I have to convince myself that I never need a second bottle of anything, to keep myself from buying more...but this is utter perfection. I feel like I need one bottle to wear and one to put in a shrine and bow down to.

I'm a purple person, and love purple fruity fragrances. When I read the description for this, I thought at first of Blood Countess, though the grapes made me wonder if it might be a bit like Horreur Sympathique. Purple Phoenix is purple indeed, and not overwhelmingly grape at all. In fact I'd say it's somewhere between Blood Countess and Medea, much as Queen of Spades was, though it has its own personality. It is purple shot through with streaks of gold and a bit of effervescence. I adore purple flowers but they are horribly powdery on me normally -- in the past only Blood Countess was able to redeem them, with healthy helpings of juicy plum. It is again the hero in this blend! No powdery florals here at all. Just a strong, regal crush of berries lightened by a floral aura and gilded with the glistening sparkle of wine and resinous myrrh. I'd agree that this is a cousin of Queen of Spades and combines some of my favorite things: dark fruits, resin and purple flowers, while combatting their powdery qualities by steeping them in deep wine. Other than the fact that it fades quickly I'd have to immediately say this is a dream scent for me.

I was ready to try a bottle of this unsniffed but I opted for a decant -- dragon's blood is great, but anything with DB in it JUST smells like DB to me. On first sniff, I wondered if this or The Castle might have been mislabelled because they smelled so similar. No, wait...okay, this is definitely different. This smells like a light, faintly woody Dragon's Blood. Sort of like Dragon's Bone or Claw. It is one of the lighter, sweeter, moister ones in that scent family though. As it dries I do get some of the clean, almost aquatic scent that could be metallic...and the whiff of that same high, pure leather note from Quincy Morris. It dries surprisingly perfumey and sweet, with a hint of powdery resin. This isn't different enough from the other DB blends that I have to warrant its own bottle, but I'm certainly enjoying the test.

The immediate association I have with this scent is very strong and unmistakable but I don't it will make sense to anyone but me. It smells exactly like my parents' basement when I would go down in December to bring the Christmas decorations out of storage. It smells exactly like it. I don't know why, except that it smells of must and dust. The leather scent does go straight up the back of my nose until I can taste it on my tongue, but it still comes across as a musty scent. Pear is front and center, which is great -- I enjoy the sharp, tart, fruity scent. I have no idea why old Christmas ornaments in the basement smell like that, but they do. Maybe the pear is even coming across a little like a sweet evergreeny kind of smell. Leather and pear, this stays strong, sweetening slightly on my skin with time as the vanilla and tobacco meld into a distant smokiness. I don't actually like leather as a scent, though in some blends it had a resinous quality when I wear it. In others, it's just sharp and unpleasant. In this, it is very dusty, though it's the perfect surface for the pear and tobacco to play on, and this is one that really needs to spend some time on your skin to get everything to come together. I mainly wear scents that are considered masculine, so this is great for me, and very unique in my collection. Leather and pear? Sure, why not! I thought the leather would put me off but it's really quite nice. It doesn't smell like a handbag or a jacket. It does smell like the basement, but that's my own weird thing I guess.

Lust, Urd, Morocco, The High Priest Not To Be Described, come to mind. I like the red musk in Scherezade, you might like other blends that contain that as a main ingredient, but High Priest is especially groovy as a combo of spice and red musk, I found.

I like Gamaliel too actually. And Sammael was an oddly-appealing floral to me. I don't like florals, but I liked Sammael a lot. Gosh it's been a long time since I tried them though. Which were your favorite blends, Mrs. Black? A lot of the Qliphoth struck me as somewhat perfumey but not in an unpleasant way. But a lot of florals to my nose...

Every time I get a nice minty scent I love it, swear I'll wear it and then decide within a month that it smells like toothpaste, and swap it. I can't help it, I dribble toothpaste on myself all the time anyway so I try to avoid smelling like it. Okay, well Snow-Flakes definitely smells minty, but oooh there's that crisp Snow White frost beneath it. Snow White, to me, is a sweet, crisp, slightly green lily musk. This is that, plus a tiny bit of a chilled vanilla sweetness and a very bright green mint. I swapped Tulzscha, Nuclear Winter and probably something else, all because the mint smelled too much like toothpaste on me. I'd really like to keep one! The smooth crisp lily-white sweetness might be enough to convince me.

Blargh! I like a lot of descriptions others have posted of this scent but it seemed to dislike me. In the imp it's not bad, kind of sweet and red, maybe a bit of dragon's blood and cake. But it just goes horribly wrong on my skin. Cherry, almond, nuts, and cake, and soap. That's the order in which the impressions hit me. It reminds me of a bar of soap that is supposed to smell like some sort of ... nut cake. Which I'm sure would be appealing to a lot of people, but not to me. That cherry-almond impression I'm getting could be anything -- it could be dragon's blood and something with a faintly nutty scent, and the soapy quality could be a floral. But it's just unpleasant. I let it evolve a little and washed it off. Several reviewers mentioned grain and that must be what is giving me this idea of "cake." But I prefer to keep my cake out of the bathtub!

I have accumulated so many snow/slush scents in the past two years that I was a little hesitant to order too many this year...that cold, slightly piney, slush scent that is most clearly articulated in Skadi and Snow Moon, tends to overwhelm on my skin. Jolasveinar is fascinating, though. I do smell that pale blue-green cold snow scent, and the same cold soil that is in Death of the Gravedigger. I even feel like I smell spicy myrrh in here but it is probably coming from the sweetness of the "pastries." Miraculously, the sweet, slightly baked smell is not overtly foody on me. It's just warm sweetness and a touch of that myrrh-like spice. The snow and soil are trampled underfoot by the mischief-makers, and a spiral of smoke trails them leading you on with the promise of a fresh-baked spice cookie. The earth, moss and faint pale florals are in perfect harmony with that sweetness. I hate foody scents but I don't think of this as one...tender frost-bitten flower petals peeking through wet snow and damp soil keep that sweetness in check. I can't wait to wear this one in the snow.

I might elaborate on this after I've had a chance to wear it at length by itself (today is try-everything day) but this is almost a dead ringer for my beloved Chaos Theory II: 163! I almost never wear my Chaoses because they're so rare and precious but I gotta say, this is pretty darn close... In other words, it is a glorious clear pine, with a very clean, aquatic sheen over it. It's a branch of pine needles submerged in a perfectly clear stream, the water running over it and sending a faint misty froth into the air. I think a lot of people will pick up on it as a detergent or cleaning fluid kind of smell because that's the association that pine often brings up, especially one this strong, clean and aquatic. But I looove my pine so I don't care! I will have to wait for a longterm drydown to see if I get any of the resiny qualities described above. I can already sense it taking to my skin and turning into a much deeper scent, so I am hopeful that I will get the marvelous resins. I predict a bottle in my future, because I need to complete my BPAL forest: Yew-Trees, Black Forest, Jersey Devil, Nocnitsa, etc etc. This is the most clear, pale of the green/pine scents, along with Loup Garou, though I don't think there's eucalptus in this.

I've been hoping for a Krampus scent for soooo long! Sweet, dry wood, a spank of leather and the warmth of red musk all hit me straight from the bottle and I can't wait to put it on. Like some other reviewers, I was expecting something like The Rat King because of the dust and wood -- or Loviatar, with the red musk and leather, but it's quite its own scent! There's that exquisite dry wood that I think must be sandalwood -- bone dry, pale and faintly sweet, or perhaps redwood, which has been turning up in a lot of blends lately, a little bit pulpy, ruddy and sweet. It's immediately sweetened and warmed by red musk, which is not going through one of its incensy phases here like it does in things like Lust. No, it's very tame here. And the leather is warm and soft, more like having a cat in your lap than riding in a rodeo. Krampus is a classic. My fear that it would be too much like Loviatar (which I love, but is very very strong and dark in the leather department) was unfounded. I'm going to put it alongside blends like Carceri d'Invenzione for the woodiness, but this is far more inviting, warm and devilish. Three cheers for Krampus!!!

Half of my favorite scents start with the word "Black" so obviously I have to try this. The idea of Black Ice is just so gorgeous, dark and evocative. I can't wait to try this when it's actually cold outside, since cold, icy air really catches these winter scents, whips them around and brings them to life. In the bottle, I smell the familiar frosty winter BPAL scent, touched with black flowers, a very faint stirring of mint and deep water. A deep, black pond reflecting a blue-green night sky. Scents like this don't last very long on my skin but while it does it casts a misty, faintly perfumey aura around me that settles down into minty ice crystals. I actually don't smell vetiver. I guess it must be the force of darkness that is pulling everything into the center here, gathering the pale light, refracting it and turning it into murky night. Asphalt? I'm not sure, though the black flower scent that I get reminds me a bit of that chemical smell that bothers me in blends like Darkness...it never quite goes there, though, so I still love it. It smells very clean, actually. Clean, and empty. Not since Yog-Sothoth has something evoked that feeling of "deep emptiness" and "astral void" in my mind (they do not smell anything alike, please note). I dig Black Ice for all of the imagery that this scent evokes, and I can't wait to wear it while walking at night this winter.

I have long been hoping for a Yule scent like this! Virtually everything that I love is represented here: rich church resins, berries, herbs, greenery and pine, and even rose. Could anything be more perfect? In first sniffing it, the verbena and berries are center stage. I wasn't expecting quite so much verbena, but after all it's a top note and would tend to jump out in front. A crush of fresh berries and a hint of greenery. On my skin, the berries and rose really blossom. Sweet, slightly sugared with a twist of lemon thanks to the verbena. But that pinkish red blush of rose and berry are very strong in this stage. Before long it starts to dry and the thyme makes a bold appearance, a dry green spice that seems to love my skin. The frankincense and myrrh start to warm and drift around me in a lazy golden cloud. Every note in this blend seems to make an appearance, in sequence. Beautifully blended and realized. It's a shame it's so warm out today, because I think these notes would show up even stronger and brighter on a wintry, snowy day!

Though I am testing a gallon of different perfumes today I wanted to write a review for this one first since it is in need of reviews! In a word: vetiver! Thick, strong, sharp vetiver. The kind that is in Malediction. Very musky, earthy and gritty in the imp, though it mellows quickly on my skin. This note tends to become a little chocolatey on me, and a little like a thick, clear dark brown smooth wood after some time. It is actually so similar to Malediction though that I don't know if I could tell the difference between them. Might be myrrh instead of patchouli, I'm not sure. I'm a big vetiver fan but this is best in small doses, after it's had some time to disperse and mellow on the skin. ETA: Yes, getting the smokiness that is in Brimstone after awhile in this too. It's really so much like a handful of other scents I don't think I'll need more than an imp for the vetiver demon inside me to be content.