Diana

In the bottle, and freshly applied, this oil has a beautiful frosty pine smell. Unfortunately for me, that changes after approximately 30 seconds. The piney, frosty top note disappears almost immediately, leaving me with a very sharp, soapy smell. I'm not digging this at all. After about 30 minutes, the soapy abrasive quality simmers down a bit, leaving behind an aquatic base note. I'm not a fan of BPAL aquatic notes (nor any aquatic, really) because they tend to make me either queasy or headachey. This pretty much sticks with the aquatic note, one which my skin amps up to the nth degree. I don't get any other notes. No birch, no "snow," no fir. I guess the aquatic note is kind of cold, so maybe that's my snow, though it is more reminiscent of dripping icicles or cold running water than fluffy winter snow. This is probably a great choice for someone who likes the clean/aquatic blends that the Lab offers, but for me, this is a prime candidate for swap.

Caveat: this one? SO hard to review. Ugh. Putting this on, oddly enough I got chocolately cocoa notes. No lie. That faded a bit and turned into a sweet incensey kind of aroma with a slight metallic tang. The metallic bit did not hang around very long, but it has remained a sweet incensey kind of smell, slightly like sandalwood and/or musk, going on 9 hours or so now. I can't really pick out any specific notes with any certainty, which is frustrating to say the least. It eludes me a great deal. I will say that I do like it a great deal, and this is one yule blend that definitely warrants a second bottle.

In the bottle, it smells kind of sharp. Wet, on the skin, it's very perfumey; it's really floral, there's an intense floral topnote. Slightly cloying in intensity. After about 10 minutes it starts to settle in. The florals are still there, but they smell more girly & sweet and less stinging. It adopts an almost fruity quality, but that might be the flowers morphing. I never really get the champagne notes, sadly. I can still smell this after hanging out with my smoker friend most of the day and a breakfast of ihop. it now smells vaguely like a faded perfume overlaid with aquanet. i love long-lasting scents. I like this a lot. now the waffling about if this warrants a 2nd bottle.

Going on, this has a bit of sharp perfumeyness to it, which fades after a few moments. After about 20-minutes, it develops an earthy quality to it, like a softer version of Graveyard Dirt. There is a soft musk note to it, but it's almost like skin; I can barely detect it. After about an hour or two: I can barely detect that I'm wearing it. I like the earthy part, but this faded so quickly, and was barely noticable unless my nose was pressed to my skin. I'm going to try this again, but my initial reaction is nice, and slightly disappointing, so probably I will have no need for a backup. Perhaps some aging will intensify the notes.

When I put this on it's strong cocoa. It's lovely and warm, and slightly spicy. Shame that this stage lasts all of 3 minutes. Just as the cocoa starts to fade, the patchouli pushes foward as the main & central component. There's still a slight spiciness to it, but it's mainly patchouli. This wears on for a while, and sadly the cocoa does not come back. The patchouli softens a bit, and every now and then I can catch a slight hint of the leather note. I'm not getting much incense, but the flowers did make a brief apperance about 2 hours ago. They're gone now. This is really nice, and if the chocolate aspect lasted more than a few minutes, I'd buy a 10mL of this. But alas, as good as it is, it doesn't necessarily warrant a bigger bottle, considering how many bottles I already have. ;D

Putting this on, it was very sharp, green, medicinal and antiseptic smelling. Very much like eucalyptus, but most likely the cypress & juniper explosion. I love it. After 10-15 minutes that woodsy stuff fades away almost entirely, and a rose note comes up. It stays this way for a few hours. 3-4 hours later, the woody notes slightly reappear, but blended in with the rose, then they disappear after a few minutes, just when I was loving it again. I *think* there is a note of the chamomile... there is something kind of "off" about it, though and i can't really put my finger what it is about it that I find odd. As much as I really do like this, I wish it was a bit sharper and longer lasting. While I do love roses, I'd have been much happier with a lemon or something that reminds me more of Italy. I'm waffling on this, but I probably will not succumb to a bottle, just because of the 23098 rose blends I already have, and this just isn't different enough to really grab me.

I am dumb. I have had this bottle on my shelf for months now, and this is the first time I've even tried it. To my credit, this just seemed too wintery to wear until now (and now it's snowing! ), and today seemed like the day. In the bottle, it's very piney. Slightly woodsy. Wet, more pine. A little more wood. Slightly sweet, maybe the "dry grass" element. After a few hours, the sweetness disappears and the aroma develops into the Skadi-type of pine mixed with the mossy-woodsy-patchouli of Samhain. Now after hours and hours and hours, I can still smell this (score!) and it's less piney, and more smokey. The cedar & cinnamon bark are a touch more noticable. This is amazing. Now I'm going to have to hunt down extra bottles!

This is another DimV scent that I was unsure about. Some of the notes were a big plus, some not so much. I tend to not really like aquatics typically, since they usually can be too sharp or headache-inducing on me. Wet on the skin: This smells a lot like wet Numb. Very perfumey. It's got a slight aquatic note, but it's faint and actually quite nice. There might be a trace of violet, but really it's just an overpowering "PERFUME" screaming note. After a short bit, the perfumey aspect settles down a bit, and it's a light with just a tinge of the kelp which makes it smell a bit like salty seawater. Ooh. Now that even more time has elapsed, it's starting in on the wood notes. They are light, slightly sweet, and really pretty. It reminds me a bit of the wet stage of Yggdrasil now. I super like this stage, though I wouldn't mind it having a bit more punch or throw. I like to waft. It doesn't really retain any floral or super pungent perfumey notes at all. This is another double plus good one from this series. Even if you don't typically like aquatics, you may be pleasantly surprised with this one.

Oddly enough, at first whiff, this smells not floral at all. It smells green and ozone-ish and reminds me of Hemlock a great deal, with a bit of the Apothecary thrown in. After an hour or two this becomes more of a pronounced floral blend. And whoa. Iris. That is one note that always becomes overwhelming on me and drowns out everything else. It does have enough of some other notes that it's not making me cry. I think the phlox in here that's reminding me of Arkham Revisited a tiny bit. Now that I'm reviewing the ingredients, I really don't know what possessed me to get this one. I don't like iris and tuberose at all. I do love musk and carnation, so maybe that's why. I boggle myself. There isn't a whole lot of throw with this one, nor is it particularly potent (and probably not an all day lasting scent either), which is fine with me with this specific scent, because I generally don't want to waft out FLOWERS all around me. This is the one Demon in my View scent that for me has been only "meh." I don't hate it, but I won't cry for Argentina when I run out.

I'm rushing to write this, because I've only had it on a few hours and it's fading fast. Or maybe that's the point? doot doot doooooo In the bottle, it's almost pure jasmine. Going on wet, it's much the same; heavily floral. The flowers are all that I can smell for the first hour or so. They aren't super heavy in and of themselves, they are just the main component that I can smell, jasmine being the only one I can pick out with any certainty. I can sort of pick out what must be the wild rosemary, but it's very faint and not super strong, like regular rosemary is in some of the other blends. As this wears, the jasmine & floral notes tend to dissipate and it becomes a bit woodier smelling. I must be getting the oakmoss at this stage. I can't really discern any musk, but this hasn't lasted long, so I cannot say for sure. I actually like this a lot. The jasmine isn't too sharp & overpowering and the drydown is nice. I'm going to have to try this again and pay more attention to the drydown to see if I can pick up on any of the missing notes.

This was one that I'd been meaning to try for a long time, since it has a lot of my favorite notes in it. Putting it on, it's a very sharp combination of citrus peels and lavendar. It smells very much like Men's Cologne is supposed to smell like. After a few hours, the sharpness fades a bit, but the cologney aspect still remains. The lavendar (I wonder if this is a fougere... it seems similar a bit to some of the others that BPAL has to offer) softens a bit, but not a whole lot. It does pick up a bit of a powdery aspect. The leather I think was part of the softened aspect, waaaaaaaaaaaaaay off in the background, but it was not determinable as a specific note. I never really got any patchouli, amber, tonka or anise. Shame, since those are some of my top note preferences. This lasted ALL day. One of the longest lasting scents I've tried. It is really masculine, but a light masculine scent. I usually enjoy heavy, typically male scents, but this one didn't seem to fit me very well. I do enjoy it, but I this this is one I'm going to have to chalk up as "it's a nice scent, I'm glad I tried it, but I probably won't wear this again, and don't need to even consider a 5mL."

If you like Scherezade, and roses, this is for you. This has the same warm, dizzyingly beautiful red musk. The spices are all gone, replaced by roses. The roses tend to vary between plastic and dry and juicy and lush, but it's all good. I don't mind them at all. They add a bit of lightness to the red musk, which by itself is a rather deep note. Sadly, the last few blends I've tried with amber are MIA. I cannot detect them at all. I don't know if I just don't amp that particular note, or if it's just so subtle and well-blended that I can't smell it. Either way, this is very beautiful and sexy.

Another 5mL bought unsniffed. You had me at amber. And leather. And incense. Wet on the skin, I get the really sharp scent of orange blossom. I don't like the wet orange blossom smell very much, mostly because of a scent aversion due to having worn a scent with a lot of it when I had a migraine... ugh. The orange blossom starts to fade a tiny bit and soften to the point where I can tolerate it, but then it starts to mingle with the leather note to produce a new, curious odor. It reminds me of the smell of my uncle's basement. That weird faux-leather in the home of someone who smoked for 40+ years. It's not bad per se, just a weird associative thing going on for me. That starts to change after maybe an hour. It becomes kind of a fresh, clean scent. It smells a little like detergent (?!). I'm not minding this at all, it's just odd. It's not really what I'd call floral. Or incense. Or leathery. It's quite nice and surprisingly yummy and clean. I like this a lot! Yay. Yet another win for me. My poor overgrowing collection.

This is quite amazing. In the bottle, I didn't think much of it. Then I put it on. It was a symphony of light, smooth, pretty greenish yellow smell. Imagine if Vinland & Embalming Fluid made a baby? Yeah. It's light & leafy, but not super GREEN smelling leaves. Slightly yellowed leaves. There's a tinge of citrus note, from where I do not know. I'm not getting a whole lot of wood or papyrus, but it's mostly gone at this point. I'll have to wear it again soon (woe! heh) and try to pay attention to the drydown a bit more closely. But I will say this is just wonderful and clean and pretty. Its a super neutral scent that everyone can wear. I'm going to have to get the whole Throng, I think. Every one of these has been a complete hit so far!

In the bottle, this has a very strong spice note. It is probably cinnamon, but it could be the super-sharp cardamom that is also omnipresent in Alone. Applying it, it sends wafts of spicy cinnacardamom out around me. There is a emergence of a musk note... it reminds me of the note in Blood Pearl momentarily, but then changes to a reddish-musk, which is amplified by the red sandalwood note that starts to come into the foreground after an hour or so. Now that I've had this on for quite a few hours, it's mostly a red sandalwood with a vague presence of spice. And now for the Diana Oddity™, this reminds me very greatly of Frost Moon. Except warm instead of cool mints. This is really lovely. One of the top 5 Lunar Oils for me.

2005 version. DDLM '04 is one of my favorites. It's sweet, it's smokey, it's just delicious. '05? Not so much. Putting it on, it's sweet, but not in the same way. Where as the older is sweet, like sugar, this is almost pure ylang-ylang, with perhaps a touch of jasmine. I mean STRONG overwhelmingly cloying and suffocatingly floral. And I'm a slatherer. So yeah, I'm not loving life with this all over me. After about 20 minutes, some of the familiar incensey/vague smokiness appears, but it's totally light and underdeveloped. The florals are still kicking in high gear. After a few hours... still super flower power. There is a small reminiscence to the older version. For some reason, there's a slight play-doh note in the background, kind of similar to the note that made me HATE Sugar Cookie & Egg Nog. It's not as strong, so I'm not scrubbing it off (yet). I just hope over the rest of the day it'll mellow & sweeten & smokeify and be a bit lot less floral. I'm a pretty disappointed, but I'm going to place this on the back of my shelf with my other Samhain '05 oils and leaving them there for a few months. With any luck, this will somehow change into something closer to the 04 formulation that I love.

I saw red sandalwood, patchouli, and cardamom and I was all over this. Just from sniffing my various Demon in my view bottles, I knew this was going to be my favorite. In the bottle it smells amazing. To me it's all SPICY DIRT. And I love that. Wet, it's the most earthy, dirty, blackest, deepest patchouli. It does have a touch of woodiness to it from the sandalwood, warming it up a bit. Then, the cardamom kicks in with a POW. It did irritate my skin a bit, but that went away fairly quickly. And to my amazement and happiness, none of the florals really are noticable. I mainly get the patchouli & cardamom. Hours later... it's a bit less earthy smelling, a bit more sandalwoody, and there is still definitely the sharp spicey note, but it hasn't really changed much at all. This is great! I'm so glad this is available until January. Gives me time to stock up!

I bought three more bottles of this because last year's Sugar Skull is one of my all-time favorites. Sugar Skull 2005 formulation scares me. Putting it on, it smells not like the familiar carmalized sugars. It smells like booze and molasses. I have a serious aversion to molasses because it makes me vomitously ill. This is not making me happy. It's tolerable (mostly because I'm not actually eating it), but it's really heavy and thick smelling. It has that somewhat too-syrupy note that Hearth 2004 had (which made me nauseous). After wearing it all day, it's not as prominent, but the molasses smelling syrup note is the one and only thing I can smell now. At least now I just smell smokey-syrupy instead of syrupy and doused in whiskey. I'm hoping a few months on my shelf will mellow it out. I don't really like this at all in comparison to last year's version.

Samhain 2005 version I bought my 2004 new from the lab, but I really don't remember it smelling like this. Then again, hundreds of oils have passed under my nose since last autumn, so maybe I am just not recalling it correctly. Plus, in comparison to my now 1-year old bottle, it is so different. In the bottle: Watery, slightly cinnamon. Doesn't really smell like Samhain at all. It's almost like a really watered down cinnamon tea. On, wet: There are vague apple & leafy notes, but to me it still seems very faint. There were a few places where the oil gave me a contact cold sensation. Weird. 1-5 hours later... Ah, there it is. NOW it smells more like the Samhain I remember. I did slather on very liberally, and it still seems less potent than my aged bottle, but WHEW! it's ok! The familiar scent of woodsy, wet fall leaves, smokey hazes that drift in and out with just a wee touch of apple & spice in the background to round it all out. I'm glad I have refilled my huge stash of this oil. It was one of my first BPAL true loves, and remains to this day one of my favorites. I do think I'm going to stick with wearing the 2004 version until this batch has a chance to more fully develop.

I'll echo the chorus of "this is nothing like I expected." Not that I really had any expectations. I just saw "musk" and got all click happy with the ordering. In the bottle, this seems watered down, but I think all the 2005 Samhain blends kind of smell that way for some reason. Especially in comparison to their 2004 counterparts. Anyway. Putting this on this doesn't go boozy on me at all. Instead, I get warm cinnamony-ginger sugar. Kind of the evil bastard child of Gingerbread Poppet and Wrath wrapped up in a warm blanket. A tiny hint of smoke erupts about 20 minutes later, but kind of peters out after a moment. I can barely smell any of it at all now. The musk is there, but I can only briefly catch wisps of it now and again; if I try to purposely smell for it, I can't detect anything but the gingerbread smell. I will state, that if thugs smell like this, I really need to meet more Detroit arsonists or something. This is nice, but a little faint and not quite where I want it. However, if history teaches me anything, it's to try an oil out, leave it on a shelf for a few months and try it again. I have a feeling this is going to be amazing once it has a chance to sit for a while. I think the musks will really develop into their full potential if I leave it be. Devils Night, it's not you, it's me. I will revisit you soon. In the meantime, get meaner!

I was waiting so long for this bottle to show up, and it did not dissappoint! I slathered this on from the bottle. It felt thicker than usual. The scent was very woody and there's a noticable note of incense, like frankincense in the background. The woody note (which smells very similar to Golden Priapus to me), stays on ALL day. It didn't really lessen much, but I like it, so nyah. The leather smell was very faint and there was a subtle basenote, which I'm guessing was the parchment. But overall, it's a warm, slightly sweet, strong, fabulous oil. This is definitely in my top 10. I put this on yesterday and can still smell it this morning. Words just cannot do this justice.

Expounding on that idea, I found this, which may be more than you planned on spending, but perhaps you could find a little terrarium and seeds to some of the Rappaccinni Garden series and include them with imps of the BPAL versions. Baneberry, Belladonna, Wolfsbane, Black Hellebore, Moonrose (you could get moonflower seeds for this), and Mantis (and a plastic figurine of Brak). I found seeds available here, but I know nothing of this vendor personally.

Oooh. Another fougere scent. Fougère (pronounced 'foo-jer') Fougere fragrances are one of the most popular men's families. These will often contain Lavender and Oakmoss. The term 'Fougere' is French for 'fern' but fern's don't actually smell like this. The name derives from a now discontinued fragrance by Houbigant called Fougere Royale (Royal Fern) which was the first fougere fragrance. This in the bottle and on the skin immediately reminded me Villian, another fougere. Except this isn't as citrusy. Instead, it starts out with a very gentle lavender. This settles a bit and becomes less prominent. The rosewood warms up after a while and becomes noticable. I unfortunately didn't get much of the other notes (perhaps another time). While I did like this a lot, it didn't seem to last all day like a lot of other scents, and had weak-to-minimal throw. I loves me the throw. It's a nice, subtle scent; this would be amazing on girls who like something light and different, or on boys who want to smell very, very good.

Chocolate/Candy theme packaged with samples of gourmet chocolate: Bliss, Gluttony, Vice, Jailbait, Trick or Treat, Sugar Skull Tea sampler with lots of various teas & a tea ball & a nice mug: Severin, Dorian, Kumiho, the Dormouse, White Rabbit, Shanghai The Undead pack with a zombie/ghost DVD or two? Heh. Zombi, Burial, Kuang Shi, Ghost, Embalming Fluid, Haunted I'll add more if my brain cooperates.

Hmm. I've never smelled it myself, but the notes are listed as: Bergamot, Bitter Orange, Mandarin, White Floral, Angelica Root, Gardenia, Rose, Muguet, Night-Blooming Jasmine, Vanilla, Tonka Bean, Amber, Labdanum, Sandalwood, Cashmere Wood. So a vanilla-jasmine-citrus? Granted, there just aren't specific duplicates, but you might be able to find something close using the search engine. What I came up with: The Haunted Place The moment before the ruin, frozen. The scent of captured glory, of glowing pearls and rubies, of golden sunlit joy and regal grandeur: red rose, Tunisian amber, blood orange, toasted vanilla, heliotrope, gardenia and red musk. Zephyr A gentle white scent, breezes laced with the scent of springtime blooms and citrus. Lemon, lemon verbena, neroli, white musk, white florals, white sandalwood, China musk, bergamot and a drop of vanilla. Peitho Lusty myrtle and jasmine with red sandalwood, stargazer lily, and clove over an opulent, rich bed of warm musk and bourbon vanilla. I have no idea if any of these even come close, but it's a starting point.