couscous

Actually, I really loved The Rat King...

Smoky vetiver, straight up. Cigarettes and motor oil! Yum for me, since I love vetiver so much, but I must confess...once you've found a few vetiver blends in beth's line, you really don't need all of them, since vetiver pretty much transforms every blend it's in to a variation on a single note. I liked Devil's Claw, but it's for fans of the single note only.

This one was another great surprise from the RG line. Black hellebore is herbal and sharp, but there's a definite sweetness to it that makes it more than just an "experience" scent. It's almost like poppies or some other sweet, syrupy flower. It would be almost too much except for the fact that it wears very light. Another purple scent, though. Purple and green, sharp and juicy. I liked it.

I didn't think hairy Toad Lily was that sweet...I really, really love it! It's fruity and juicy in that very purple, grape way, without the bitterness that comes from wine. It's got a great herbal and green note to keep it from becoming too silly, and it never moves into that heady floral stage for me. It's one of the least "floral" botanic scents Beth has done. Thank you, beth! Very wearable, and a perfect scent for autumn...or for when i finally run out of my beloved purple phoenix. Worth a shot for fans of purple scents!

Thanks, GC! Your taste is sleep scents is slightly unorthodox, but I like them!! I've got some Hades and MoEZ at home, actually. When we're up and running, I'll put a few drops in and see if they enjoy it. In the end, it's just a gesture among many small gestures we hope will combine to make life more bearable, but I figure as loing as I spend so much time debating scents for myself, there's no harm in taking a few minutes to consider one for the pups, too.

I volunteer for Animal control here in NY, and we were thinking of maybe putting a diffuser with essential oils in one of the rooms where we keep the "holding" dogs- cruelty cases and seizures in progress. These poor guys, mostly pits, stay with us for weeks or months. Naturally, everyone is defaulting to lavender straight up, but I of course can't resist picturing one of Beth's blends in there. Anubis is waaaay too strong (I love it, but it's the strongest bpal I've ever worn , ever), and so is fenris Wolf. The dream blends are the choice of champions, but are there any others you've found particularly snuggly and soothy?

Strong, tart lime. very refreshing, with a nice white musk drydown. Can go play-doh and soapy during certain times of the month, but most days the musk behaves and it's a sour, mouth puckering lime. I also agree about the citron, very subtle but definitely smells like a bit of bitter citrus in there somewhere.

wow wow WOW I love this one! I really needed an almond scent, too! I love Dana O'Shee, but I've always wanted something with a bit more throw, and Beth's stronger almond blends like hecate and Black phoenix worked horribly on me for one reason or another. port Au Prince has a strong Anise note up top that stays for most of the drydown. It combines with the almond and clove to make a very alcohol tinged smell, almost like almond extract, bitter and astringent and nearly medicinal. I know you're thinking "and that's a good thing?" , but it really is! Port Au Prince's bitterness is what saves it from being too aggressively foody, and it makes the drydown- as sweet an almond as you're likely to find- all the more striking and rewarding. Too much sweetness is what ruins so many awesome scents. Port Au Prince is a masculine, bracing gourmand, very satisfying. Honestly, I just feel like no one can go wrong with the wanderlust series. Take a look at the notes, and unless you absolutely loathe one or more, you're going to be in for a treat.

London is strongly tea rose, very potpourri-like and very powdery. These are pink roses, not fresh, green ones. It's a very old-fashioned scent, and it's obviously for fans of rose. Very proper, very nicely done. Not for me, but nicely done.

Bengal might be the only cinnamon BPAL i can wear. Everything with cinnamon or cassia turns to red hots or big red bubblegum on my skin, and so i automatically avoid any blend with those notes listed because I just hate that smell so much. Bengal and Red devil are the notable exceptions to this rule- and, in bengal's case, I think that maybe the clove took over and married with the cinnamon so that i could finally, finally get the bark-y, rooty cinnamon I've always wanted instead of the cheap candy. It's pepper-y, strongly spiced, and indeed very chai-like. It's almost too literal to wear, like you really have been baking all day, but I really liked it.

Hollywood Babylon is a must for red musk lovers. It's undeniably red musk, very sugary but thankfully not syrupy. I get the definite idea of cherries and strawberries, but without the cough medicine of the former and the stickiness of the latter. It ends up being more of a general berry candy smell, with an incense quality to it on the drydown. Thankfully, the incense is not overtly head-shop and is very light and sheer. It's a very young fragrance, totally tarty and fun, but it's very wearable and pretty. One of my my all-time favorites.

I am ashamed for not reviewing this one until now. I've burned through close to 25Ml of this stuff since 2004, and I love it now as much as I ever did. Beth's description may be leaving some things out, but what she gave us is pretty much all you need to know. Very amber, intensely creamy berries, and lovely, solemn iris. The berries are not tart AT ALL, they are not "crafty" or candle-like...they are jammy and rich and sweet and burnished gold. Mildly sweet from the amber. Honestly, this is just a gorgeous scent. So opulent , but so wearable and feminine. It's an absolute essential BPAL experience. 5 million stars.

This one is a no brainer. I love dragon's blood, I love lotus, I LOVE Blood Lotus. if you hate either one of these, you probably won't like this. And if you hate both of these... honestly, why even bother? Sheer sweetness with the unmistakable Dragon's Blood resin base. The lilac and bubblegum overtones of each compliment wonderfully. YUM. Blood Lotus is simple, but it's addicting, and it feels like such a logical pairing, too. I don't know what I'd do if this one ever got DC'ed.

Sundew is a fresh, green floral, and it smells like it may be in the Lily family. It's pleasant enough, but it smells extremely cheap, like a prepackaged FO that should have ended up in shampoo but snuck in under the gate and got into a BPAL. Generic in the extreme, for me.

I can't believe I passed up the opportunity to review this back when I had 5 bottles of the stuff! Enraged bunny Musk was the first scent I ever ordered more than 2 bottles of unsniffed, on the grounds that I'd never be able to get anything like it ever again. I was right- there's nothing in the GC as soft, powdery, and as unabashedly childlike as Enraged Bunny Musk... even though this bunny's got quite a nice musky base on him! The scent is a clover and baby powder bottle of joy, and it dries down to a sheer, musky bubbblegum powder with clover . My only problem is that EBM smelled a bit too simple on me, and it also had very poor throw. It's a slathering fragrance. Absolutely lovely- a bit young, but lovely- a must-try for very girly girls and people who love baby powder.