Imbrium

AVENGER A fashionable and fiery journalist who adopts the Grendel persona to avenge the death of her only child and is consumed by the dark identity. Plush vanilla bourbon and rum accord with pink pepper, patchouli, clove, pikaki, golden amber, caraway, tuberose, and jacarandá-da-bahia. Oh, Avenger. Just look at your list of ingredients: vanilla, cloves, amber, patchouli, tuberose, woods--it sounds as though we were made to be together. How could things have turned so wrong, so quickly? In the bottle, I smelled jasmine (thanks, pikaki). I realize that jasmine is something of a death note for many; perhaps that should have warned me, but I'd actually never had jasmine turn evil on my skin before so, stupidly, I forged ahead. On my skin, the jasmine stayed prominent, but instead of being tempered by the other notes, they began to appear but added up to a really unappealing combination; my husband termed it "rotting cloves." It stayed that was as it dried, too, with the jasmine never calming down, and I actually gave up after a while on the idea that it was going to dry into something lovely and went and washed it off. I'm sure Avenger is a really nice scent, all of those hidden, gorgeous notes prominent and harmonious with the right skin chemistry. Unfortunately, that skin chemistry is very demonstrably not mine.

THE INFERNAL LOVER She ceased. While She spoke, a thousand opposing sentiments combated in Ambrosio's bosom. Surprise at the singularity of this adventure, Confusion at her abrupt declaration, Resentment at her boldness in entering the Monastery, and Consciousness of the austerity with which it behooved him to reply, such were the sentiments of which He was aware; But there were others also which did not obtain his notice. He perceived not, that his vanity was flattered by the praises bestowed upon his eloquence and virtue; that He felt a secret pleasure in reflecting that a young and seemingly lovely Woman had for his sake abandoned the world, and sacrificed every other passion to that which He had inspired: Still less did He perceive that his heart throbbed with desire, while his hand was pressed gently by Matilda's ivory fingers. —The Monk, MG Lewis A creamy, sensual, honeyed red musk. Oh, wow, am I really the first to review? I've been on a honey + musk kick lately (I'm looking at you, Judith and Holofernes), so this was the Halloweenie scent that I knew I had to try. Wet, on the skin and in the bottle, it smells sharp and a bit perfumey. This, I think, is the red musk; while I've not smelled that on its own, it smells very reminiscent of the wet stages of other scents that reviews often identify as red musky (I'm thinking of LaFlamme, here). The oil itself is a rich, dark color, that stains my pale skin a bit, but I don't mind! As it dries, the honey comes out a bit and sweetens things up, but I'm surprised to see that it's not really a strong presence in this one. The musk really does predominate on me (not too surprising, since I seem to amp lighter musks--why not these, as well?) though it loses the sharpness and, as it smooths out, sits closer to the skin, making it a very sexy scent in part because I think it is a very intimate one, the sort of thing that someone is only going to smell if you two are in, ahem, very close quarters--not so much a seductive scent as one for when you've already been seduced. The verdict: I like it. It stays almost entirely musk, and very little honey on me, so I may hang onto it for a bit and see if the honey comes out a bit more with aging (I'm telling you, me and Beth's honey note have really got somethin' goin' on, if you know what I mean) but even now, it dries down to something really lovely on my skin. Edited to add: I've been wearing this, well, every day since it arrived, and I think it's not quite right to characterize the wet stages, or even the red musk itself as "sharp"--it is, but more and more, I notice this juicy side to it as well, as though the "red" in red musk is owed partly to some sort of delicious, ripe, red fruit--plum, berries, something. Really nice.

Iced blackberries, blackcurrant honey, frozen white peach, and sweet vanilla cream. Oh my god, you guys. You guys, oh my god. Oh my god. Ice Princess smells so very good. For reference, I use the bath oils in the bath; I'm sure this will be a bit different on individual people's skin if you're a slatherer. Ice Princess is funny, because in so many ways, she's the opposite of what I'd envision from her name (or, I suppose, from the colloquial use it takes on). Rather than being cold or harsh, she's warm and comforting. The cream and (I suspect) the blackcurrant honey take on a sweet edge, in the water, that reminds me a bit of the sort of warm fuzzy-feeling I get from white musk, with a definite fruity edge--mostly it's too well blended for me to pick out a particular fruit, but sometimes I got hints of the peach sort of popping up above all the others, just for a moment. I also smell a bit of something floral, though it's not listed in the notes, and I can't think what I would be smelling--it reminds me of just the lightest touch of rose. Perhaps my brain is tricking me, there, because Ice Princess feels a lot, to me, like Winter Maiden? I can't say, but whatever the reason, I really love Ice Princess.

A sensual scent, compelling and passionate, that stays close to the skin: Roman chamomile, bourbon vanilla, and smoky vanilla bean. In the bottle, the Roman chamomile is very strong--it actually smells far more masculine than I had expected. Once on the skin, though, the vanilla comes out--I tend to amp vanilla, and for five or ten minutes after application that's all I smelled. On drydown, though, Sachs is a really well-blended scent: I still smell the vanilla at the front, but the sort of sweet herbal scent of the chamomile peeks out from behind it. This is not the vanilla in, say, Snake Oil, which is a bit strong on me; it is more reminiscent of the sort of soft vanilla in Antique Lace. Sachs does not have a ton of throw, either--it really does stay close to the skin: warm, comforting, and sexy. Plus, the label is gorgeous.

The Ski Lady, jötunn goddess of winter, bowhunting, mountains, and skiing. The scent of winter wind blowing over snow-capped mountains. Oh, hellooooooooooo Öndurdis. This smells like Christmas: pine, cold, a bit of something like winter berries. Look, I knew I had to had to have Ondurdis because I was hoping it would smell like Skadi, who I've been missing like crazy. I'm sure opinion will be divided on this, but Öndurdis smells a lot like Skadi to my nose, only a bit sharper. The pine is predominant, with a bit of a biting, cold scent behind it, and a hint of sweetness behind it all. It doesn't really become any more complex on my skin, or even change much in the drydown, just settling into the skin more (which, incidentally, is exactly how Skadi behaved on me too--and, really, how any super-piney scent seems to behave on me), but that's fine with me--this isn't really an every day scent for me, anyway, more a perfume for when I want to smell like Christmas, especially when it's cold outside, and I am very happily indoors.

HARLEQUIN A futuristic, gothic harlequin, addicted to a heinous hallucinogen with the street name "Grendel", who leads chaotic attacks against the corrupt Catholic Church. Psychotomimetic: pink grapefruit, white honey, orange blossom, saffron, champagne grape, elemi, guaiac, blonde tobacco, and olibanum. I had the chance to try two of the Grendel scents, and went for Harlequin and Avenger. Of the two, Harlequin was closer to a success. In the bottle, it smelled "clean" more than anything, and well-blended, with a prominent citrusy bite, which I like--I am a great lover of grapefruit. Unfortunately, once on my skin, this one turned soapy quite quickly, and stayed resolutely that way as it dried. It's a pleasant sort of soap, to be sure, but I was hoping for more of the blonde tobacco, resins, woods, and spice, and my body chemistry (which does have a tendency to amp clean/ozone-y sorts of scents, so perhaps this outcome was to be expected?) is just not cooperating.

Blackened amber, cardamom, cumin, labdanum, tobacco tar, patchouli, and raw honey. Ecstatic Revelry is such a curious blend. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I scanned the list of ingredients and figured, well, ding dong. Everything there is something that smells wonderful on me. Hooray, I thought--this will be the Sexiest Best Thing Ever! Oh, the follies of youth. I don't know what ingredient it is, but something in this--I suspect the tobacco tar, but I am honestly not sure, takes this odd, mentholated cast on my skin, so that I smell a bit like Vicks Vapo Rub. I figured, maybe it's a fluke. Waited a day, gave it a second try. After hours, and hours, it settles down into something where I can smell the amber, and the labdanum, and a trace of something smokey--like the smoke of a fireplace, not tobacco smoke. It's actually quite pretty at this point--close to the Sexiest Best Thing Ever! I'd figured I was going to get. But there's still a trace of the weird acridity that reminded me of Vicks, and I doubt I'd wait the hours it took for it to get to this point, either. I might try a scent locket, or an oil burner; I smell a hint of something like the menthol sort of scent in the bottle, but not much. Either way, though, I'm pretty bummed about how this one turned out, especially now that I've smelled what it turns into after 4 hours or so. I'm jealous of those of you who can wear it. Now excuse me, while I go weep softly to myself.

All things uncomely and broken, all things worn-out and old, The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart, The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould, Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told; I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart, With the earth and the sky and the water, remade, like a casket of gold For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. - William Butler Yeats Golden amber, red rose, frankincense, Egyptian musk, galbanum, and immortelle. The Rose in the Deeps of his Heart is the clear winner among the bottles I ordered unsniffed from the Lupers. In the bottle, it's rose, and ... planty--the sort of sharp, dark and vegetal scent that I tend to associate with vetiver, and which almost always turns very unpleasant on me. It must, I think, be the galbanum, green, and bitter. But, oh! In the dry down, the rose comes out. For a bit, it smells predominately rose, a bit like the rose in Rose Red, but lighter. More than anything, it reminds me of rosewater: it's somehow quieter, more unassuming. It settles, eventually, to a a lovely balance of the rose and warm, clean skin--amber, I think, and perhaps the musk. There's something a bit creamy and a touch sweet about it. I've often found that I amp musk, but in this case, it stays a background player, and I have to put my nose to my wrist to really pick up much of it.

Rum, frankincense, leather accord, bourbon vanilla, champaca flower, and ambrette seed. This is an interesting scent. In the bottle, and first on the skin, I would have sworn that this had some manner of white floral in it, reminiscent of magnolia or gardenia or something. Those are florals that don't generally work on my skin, and I was a bit apprehensive. Perhaps this is what champaca flower smells like? I sort of imagined something a bit...grittier, I suppose. After an hour or two, however, it settles into a musky sort of scent--a hint of the vanilla, a hint, still, of the floral, and the leather and frankincense. It's soft, and a bit sexy, but with a bit of sweetness from that floral still hovering around. Now, hours after first application, it has settled into something more of a second-skin sort of scent; I can barely detect it when I put my nose to my wrist, though it had a fair bit of throw earlier, so that I caught whiffs of it from my wrist as the afternoon went on. In the end...I like this, the dry-down is lovely. But the initial hit of floral scent in the wet phase might be a bit much for me, I fear.

VIOLENS Rugged and understated: five sandalwoods, dusty leather, and light musk. At first sniff, it is hard to identify any standout note--this smells very masculine and clean. On the skin, Violens is sandalwood; it's a very woody sandalwood, too, rather than turning powdery as sandalwood often does on me. The leather and musk are not present. So, I decided to experiment, and somewhat forcibly applied Violens to my husband. (He's the one who brought it back from Chicago Comicon in the first place. He had to know what that meant). On him, Violens retains the more sophisticated, complexly blended scent that I get from the bottle; I'll assume that the OMG SANDALWOOD that I get is my own fault.

WINTER FAIRY Honey, lotus root, orris root, white jasmine, and winter berries. I was a little worried, when I first opened the bottle of Winter Fairy (which, incidentally, has adorable label art!), because in the bottle, it sort of immediately screams OH HAI GUISE, I'M FULL OF JASMINE. Or something like that. Let's just say I was full of trepidation. I'm an oils-in-the-bath kind of user, rather than slathering them on after a shower, and I think in the case of Winter Fairy, that makes a really good difference, because I think this would be horrible directly on my skin (I'm in the crowd of those who experience virulent enmity from jasmine). In the water, though, hoo boy--it's a different story. The jasmine is much tamer. I don't necessarily pick out individual notes--a bit of a plus and a minus, as I'd hoped for lots of honey and berries, but at least it's not all jasmine--it's just a pleasant light, grown-up floral. I don't think it's going to be my go-to Yule bath scent, but it's very pretty.

This is certainly a very pretty scent, and one that I think is likely going to be quite popular. It's warm, sweet, foody vanilla in the bottle. Once it's applied, I get the same sort of vanilla that I smell in Snake Oil, Glowing Vulva, and in the Vanilla SN. It blends seamlessly with the resiny, incense hit of the copal and the amber, and a bit of creamy kind of sweetness I associate with the beeswax/honey combo--it feels a bit, for lack of a better term, like Hanukkah to me. It seems to have plenty of throw, too--it sort of wafts around me in a pleasant, ladyparts-inspired cloud of vanilla. Now, I was curious to see if I was missing something from the helichrysum, which I've never smelled before, so I looked it up to see what it was. The wikipedias inform me that at least one variety of helichrysum is frequently used in perfume, and is characterized by a smell like, and I quote, "a mixture of burnt sugar and ham." I am happy to say that, while perhaps I could say I detect soem burnt sugar--probably just because it's been suggested to me--I smell no pork products whatsoever.

I really, really want to love Beautiful and Adored. I wanted so much for it to live up to its name--almost every note in it is a hit on my skin, and I figured, that pesky gardenia can't go too wrong, right? I mean, it's never done anything offensive on me that I know of, so Beautiful and Adored should be golden on my skin! I can't really point a finger at any one note, but something here is just not working for me. In the bottle, Beautiful and Adored smells nice, though definitely girly, definitely with a sort of 'classic perfume' feel. But on my skin, for some reason, all it smells like is hairspray. It doesn't really change in the drydown, either. It loses a bit of its sharpness after an hour or so, but it still smells like hairspray--hairspray with crazy strong throw. Three times now, I've tried it, and three times, I've gotten hairspray. I'm going to give it a bit of time to age, as previous reviewers discuss, to see if the vanilla and the honey come out a bit more, and see how it goes. Because I really, really want this to work for me.

This starts off alllllll honey on my skin--the sort of comforting and sexy honey I associate with Judith and Holofernes, not the honey that turns too sweet on my skin, like the honey in 'O'. Okay, that's not quite true. Oddly, the first time I applied this, I got nothing--it was like my skin just ate it all. So I reapplied a lot of it. Then, I got honey. As it dries down, I smell a bit of orange and I assume, vanilla, in the background--it reminds me, honestly, a bit of a creamsicle, but it's very faint. The thing is, I don't get anything more than this on my skin. In the bottle, A Wonderful Light is sweet, and complex, with citrus bite balanced by what smells like a rather seamless blend of the amber, vanilla, and honey. On my skin, honey with a hint of orange. It might sound like I'm complaining. I'm not, actually--this smells really sexy on my skin, actually, which is rather far from the inspiration, but still a quality I enjoy in a perfume.

October 2011 I'm just incredibly floored by this scent. I skipped various previous incarnations of October because the sort of standard "autumnal" scents, much as I want to love them, never seem to love me back. Death of Autumn, for example, has something that goes painfully sharp and burning on me, and I figured that something in the smoke/leaves category of scents just doesn't work on me; I've never actually been able to smell the leaves or smoke in any of the blends that contain them. Now I'm thinking that maybe they're just notes that get overwhelmed by the things that dominate on my skin, because October 2011 smells <i>amazingly</i> like autumn leaves, with just the slllliiiiightest hint of something aquatic, ozone-y. Fall is finally back in the midwest, and the piles of leaves outside smell like my arm. It's incredible, evocative.

Halloween: Montreal and I, we are having some relationship problems. It's not her--it's me. See, I amp musk like crazy, and though it's not listed in the notes, I swear I smell musk--it reminds me a bit of the way the musk in Ice Queen smelled on my skin. The musk is joined by the sort of maple syrup smell that others have identified, and as the scent dries, the two become a bit better balanced, but never seem to make room for any of the others notes in the description. The throw is decent--the scent wafts up to my know from my wrists as I walk around. It's pretty and sweet, in a subtly autumnal sort of way. So, the problem isn't Halloween: Montreal. It's me. I wanted the pine, the smoke, the leaves, the pumpkin--I was hoping for, you know, like a hint of maple syrup in a log cabin kind of smell. Maybe there's a pumpkin hanging out in the background, you know? But my skin chemistry appears to have others ideas. This scent had two tests to pass in my house, though. My husband doesn't normally wear scented things, but he was born on Halloween...in Montreal. So he had to try this, too. On him, it's still sweet, I still smell that musk hiding underneath, but the predominate scent is the pumpkin, interestingly--the buttery sort of pumpkin I smell in most of BPAL's pumpkin blends (and which doesn't work as well on me...so maybe I shan't complain about that one not showing up on my skin). As it dries, I smell that musk again, but it seems a bit colder and sharper, and I suspect the influence of whatever note or notes make up the frosty air. He says to him, it smells like "crunchy leaves and spiced cider...but not the cider part, just the spices." Maybe my leaf detector is off? Perhaps I'll go lie down in the yard and smell things for a while. Interestingly, hours later, the spot where I applied Halloween: Montreal also smells faintly of the leaves--though very, very faintly, as I've had to wash my hands a few times.

There's really little I can add to this. The scent is not something I'd wear just for the fragrance of the blend: sharp, herbal, with a bit of citrus, that really, really wants me to develope a migraine. It mellows after 30 minutes or an hour to something that I barely smell. The first time I tried it, I got traces of something sweet and musky; I don't smell that now. Boy does it ever work, though.

Once upon a time, long ago, when I was first getting into BPAL, Beth created a Yule scent called Skadi. I took a chance on it, and loved it, but it was just too strongly pine for me to wear most of the time. I pouted, and tried other Yule blends over the years. I loved them all, but all were piney. I smelled gloriously like the outdoors, but moreso than I wanted to wear in my day-to-day life. I was a sad, sad bunny, but I stopped picking up bottles of Yule scents like those. Then, one day, out of the blue, something possessed me to buy Ice Prince on etsy. I had, thanks to my aforementioned heartbreak, overlooked the Trading Post's Yule offerings as well, but quickly realized, when I first squirted the oil into the bath, how wrong I was. It's wonderful. Scent-wise, it's in the same family as all the other scents that had previously broken my heart. The difference, however, is the mechanism of application: dispersed in the tub, I get a brilliantly wintery, piney smelling bath, with a bit of the musk underlying it all. When I get out, the scent still clings to my skin, but it's much subtler than it ever was when I applied Yule perfume, and I don't feel as though I am clubbing those around me with PINE LOVELY PINE BUT STILL PINE. I hope, so hope that this is released again. If not, I'll definitely be buying bath oils in the same family. I love this. So, so, so much.

Oh, this is wonderful! Sexy, rather masculine--soft, smokey leather and resins and musk indeed! Perhaps a bit of patchouli--the sort of sexy, base note kind, not in-your-face. It's somewhat light, to be sure, but I don't mind; this is a scent I would likely use only in certain situations, smaller spaces, etc. If it's released, I would cheerfully buy a bottle.

If there is one note that typically makes me run screaming from a blend, it's...well, okay, actually, it's vetiver, which isn't anywhere near this blend. But if there's a second note that does that thing, it's violet. Usually, it goes all powdery and gives me a headache. But, here's the catch: I really, really, really love Edna St. Vincent Millay, and have since I was, I think, 16. I have part of one of her sonnets tattooed on my back. So, basically, I had to try this. The reviews really had me worried, because of that whole aforementioned violet, running, screaming thing. But I'm happy to say that "Time Does Not Bring Relief" doesn't actually go too powdery-violet-y on me. The violet is definitely prominent when it's wet, but something in the blend--the resins, I think, or possibly the musk--keeps it the violet from overpowering me, even in the early stages. Dry, while there's certainly still a strong floral element to the scent, the scent is really more about the notes that I'd hoped would balance out the violet: resin, musk, beeswax and leather. I can't see myself reaching for this too frequently, I have to admit, but it is pretty. And more importantly, I think it really is evocative of the poem, and of Edna St. Vincent Millay's oeuvre in general. Even if it had turned into Super Violet Explosion, I'd keep it just for the inspiration that led to its creation; as it is, I'm certainly hanging on to the bottle.

Ah, Spanked. How I have missed you. I never should have swapped you away all those years ago, but baby, now we get a second chance, and it's just like the old days. It must be fate. No, really, it is just like the old days. I'm going to quote from my review from way back in 2005, when I got the original Spanked in the Naughty/Nice Inquisition, because I think it's pretty illustrative of what Spanked 2.0 is like for me: Wet, it is exactly what I recall. The spices predominate. I smell some cinnamon in the mix, too, even though it's not listed as a note. Interestingly, I note this time around that the skin on the back of my hand is a teensy bit red where I applied this. It's faded a fair bit in the last half an hour or so, though, so hopefully it's not so irritating that I can't keep wearing it--because baby, this smells good. It still dries down to a spicy booziness, with something grounding it on the skin, and it's very well-blended, doesn't smell of single note leather or patchouli. But Spanked isn't really disappearing into my skin this time around. Why that is, I can't say--my skin chemistry could have changed, the formula could have changed, or (most likely, I think) my nose could have gotten more perceptive in the intervening years. All I know is that this smells almost identical to my earlier notes on the original (would that I still had it to compare) and I am not letting Spanked get away this time. Baby, we are reunited, and, you know, the rest of the Peaches and Herb stuff.

Wet, I get very strong espresso and a bit of buttery pumpkin. As this dries, the buttery note fades a bit, and the spices come to the fore, but the espresso stays incredibly strong--like a spiced coffee, but without some of the complexity that I'd hoped the smoky vanilla and milk would add. It seems my skin really likes espresso! Lots of throw on this one, and the buttery note is not as strong as in some other pumpkin blends. I think that fans of coffee scents are going to love this one, though it's not for me.

Oh, Blue Pumpkin Floss. I had such high hopes for you. Since, I think, the Halloweenies were released, I have had my fingers tightly crossed that the released version would have the squashy pumpkin note that the reviews talk about (and the concomitant comparisons to Pumpkin King, which has been my Holy Grail scent for I don't even know how long), rather than the buttery pumpkin of Jack. Alas, this is very much the buttery pumpkin note, which just doesn't work on me (believe me--I've tried). In its favor, I will say that the sweetness of the candyfloss is tempered here, I think by the (minimal) pinch of cinnamon (which itself does not predominate, as it can do), so it's not too toothache-inducing, and there is a really lovely juiciness sort of underlying the scent. I assume this is the blackberry, about which I was actually quite apprehensive. It really is a nicely balanced scent, but in the end, alas, this is not for me: this pumpkin just doesn't do it for me.

Unlike, I think, most of the reviewers, I do actually get red hots from SN Cinnamon--when it is wet, at least. After a god half an hour, it has dried down to a dustier cinnamon that is, I think, more reminiscent of cinnamon sticks, though it still retains, on me, the slightest hint of red hots. Ultimately, it means that, while I don't wear it on it's own, I do tend to use SN Cinnamon a fair bit for layering where I'd like a bit more spiciness--it tends, e.g., to help take the buttery edge of of pumpkin scents--but it must be used judiciously if you fall, as I do, among the more sensitive skinned people out there, such that cinnamon tends to, er, burn a bit.

For me, rosewood skews towards the spectrum of rose scents that I prefer on my skin--lighter, less...pushy, I guess, for lack of a better term. That is as much as to say that it reminds me more of the white rose single note, or of Havisham, than of the sort of big, rich, red rose in Rose Red or the Peacock Queen, both of which are scents that seem to amp themselves up more, project themselves further, on my skin. Rosewood is, instead, closer to the skin, and warm where white rose is cool--the effect, I would guess, of the "wood" bit of the note grounding the rose?