Macha

A negatively charged scent. Ambergris, Spanish Moss, oakmoss and three electric mints. In the bottle: Ah, mint! I love the smell of mint! Tingly wonderful mint...with some other smells underneath. Wet, on skin: Still that strong, glorious mint smell, electric and bright. Invigorating, but not cloyingly sweet. Oh loveliness! 1.5 hours on skin: Where did my mint go? Arrrgh!!! It's all moss and forests and...and...is that what ambergris smells like? I...wait....that's not bad, actually. And the mint is still there in the background, it's just hiding under that mossy ambergris smell and peaking its head out occassionally. How coy. Drydown: A little soapy now, but in a very fresh way that's not unpleasant. Mostly mossy smells now with almost no mint at all. Conclusion: This smells fabulous on the bf, so I suspect this will end up being just 'his' scent and I'll end up enjoying it vicariously. Love the idea of it, love it in the bottle, but it gets a little strange on me after a while. I will of course give it a few more chances...as people have pointed out, BPAL scents have an odd way of making you change your mind about them...

My bf picked out Wings of Azrael. I suspect that it was one of those fragrances (like me with Baobhan Sith) that he would have been crestfallen to find out he didn't like. Fortunately, there's a happy ending to this tale for both of us. In the bottle smells of myrrh and greenery, likely the juniper and cypress, with violet in the background and almost sickeningly sweet smell just as I pull away (the lily-of-the-valley?) Wet, on skin: Pure violets and myrrh, very herbal. 1.5 hours on skin: On me this goes very strongly to the resiny myrrh scent (which fortunately I love) with a lot of green and violet understones and a faint bit of sweetness at the edges. On my boyfriend, this is...less funerary, and the violets and myrrh have more of an equal footing. I think I like this rather a lot more on him than on me. drydown Decently long lasting. Never turned into something obnoxious on either of us, so that's good. Conclusion Call a bit of self-hypnosis, but I found this scent...morbid. Although the lily-of-the-valley stayed in the background for me, it hovered at the edge of my awareness for most of the day, and kept calling up the sweetness of decay, while the myrrh created a faint mustiness that kept me thinking of crypts and cemetaries. I found myself very depressed the day I wore this scent. I will of course have to try again to make sure it's not just a case of self-hypnosis at work. That being said, I adore this scent on my bf and on him it conjures up none of those associations.

I picked up this scent almost as an afterthought (well, as long as I'm buying Ice Queen, I suppose I'll pick up Skadi too.) Ahh...I'm so glad I did. In the bottle: Skadi smells like spicey pine, with subtle notes that I'm having a harder time picking out. I don't really smell any berries, although something smells like mulling spices. Wet, on skin: The spices really stand out, with a cold undercurrent of pine. Smells like...winter. Not the glacial winter of Ice Queen, but more of a 'by the fire with friends' winter, while it's very cold outside. 1.5 hours on skin: Sarahmarie was absolutely right when she said this was both warm AND cold. This is...wow...well, a memory of a magic moment for me. Imagine being up in the mountains in a room with a cheerful fireplace, with one wall open to the elements, watching the snow fall down and cover the pine needles while you drink spiced cider and listen to the boy you have the most incredible crush on playing Mozart on the baby grand. Warm and tingly and spicy, with the cold snow just over there.... Drydown: This is a complex scent that really encapsulates a lot of what I associate as the "best" smells of Christmas. In the hands of someone less skilled, I expect that this would smell like cheap christmas pine potpourri, but fortunately for all of us, Elizabeth is truly a master. Conclusion: I will have to carefully ration this scent to make sure I have enough to last me through the year. Simply marvelous.

In the bottle: I smell grapefruit and ginger. Yum! Ginger is one of my very favorite flavor/scents. I can't really detect the white tea, but it's probably responsible for a little of the sweetness I'm smelling. Wet, on skin: Very astringent, initially. Heavy grapefruit smell. 1.5 Hours on skin: The grapefruit has faded into the background, and the white tea and apple blossoms, particular the floral of the blossoms, has come to the forefront. Except...it keeps changing. I’ll catch a wiff that’s pure grapefruit, then ginger, then floral....rather chimerical and absolutely enchanting. Drydown: This fades fairly quickly on me, so the second day I really slathered it on and got some fairly decent staying power the second time. Conclusion: What a lovely, fresh scent: emphemeral and quicksilver. A wonderful wide-awake fragrance because of the ginger and grapefruit as well, a perfect pick-me up for those days when I wake up tired and need to feel refreshed and energized. Addendum: My boyfriend, who has been unabashedly trying on "my" scents, wore this the other day. On HIM, it's not grapefruit at all, but the fresh bitter scent of orange when you've just broken through the rind with your thumb. Gorgeous!

In the bottle: I smelled gardenia, with some other underlying notes of sweetness. I really love gardenia, reminds me of this large plant of the stuff in my garden as a child. Wet, on skin: The gardenia vanish, to be replaced by a very strong smell of violets. It smells a bit like violet-scented talcum powder. Not terribly happy about that. 1.5 Hours on skin: Still smells like talcum powder. Ouch. Drydown: Yay! The talcum scent has gone back to violets with a vanilla-sweet gardenia undercurrent. Just lovely and heady. Intoxicatingly sweet and joyous. Conclusion: Once it calmed down and passed through the baby powder phase, this is a very nice scent on me. As a bonus, it has tremendous staying power. I put some on at 7 am, and it was still good at 5pm with no reapplication.

In the bottle: When my boyfriend picked this out for me, I had no idea what Szapasszony meant, and when went back to the BPAL site and checked, I’ll admit I had a pleased shiver, since Fair Lady or White Maiden is one of the original meanings of my name, Jennifer. In the bottle it smells like flowers in the middle of a rainstorm, sweet and light but with a rain scent. Wet, on skin: The light air notes and the rain are predominant. There is a slight cold smell, but it’s faint, not nearly so predominant as on, say, Ice Queen. 1.5 Hours on skin: The airy rain notes have faded into the background, leaving a clean floral scent, very subtle and nice and a bit like flowers just after a rainstorm. Rather reminds me of walking through flower gardens in the wintertime, which I love to do. Drydown: Has faded almost completely. Conclusion: Beautiful, subtle fragrance. Doesn’t hit you over the head with it, but creates a softness. Unfortunately, it also didn’t last on me (apparently a common problem.) After a couple hours it was gone, and I found myself wishing I’d brought the bottle with me to work so I could reapply it.

This is one of the perfumes I joked about when I first visited the site. "Look honey, they have Sacred Whore of Babylon!" I didn't honestly expect that I would actually like it, let along like it so much I'd buy a 5ml bottle. Surprise! I love this scent. In the bottle: Strong and sultry, strongly smelling of spice and a floral note that I can’t identify. (I'm new to this identifying scent notes idea, and everyone says it's gardenia, so we'll go with gardenia.) Sort of reminds me of one of my late mother’s favorite perfumes, Cinnabar, after her chemistry had worked its magic with it. (It never smelled half so wonderful of me as on her.) My boyfriend thought it smelled faintly of amaretto. I wonder if he’s smelling the same perfume I’m smelling? Wet, on skin: Almost overpowering spice scent. Feels like it should be diluted somehow. My boyfriend’s comment: “That perfume is standing out on the street corner in a mini skirt asking me if I want a date.” Not sure I should be pleased. 1.5 Hours on skin: The scent has mellowed a little, but still grabs you by the nose. Male friends all agree that this perfume knows how to shake it. Drydown: The scent has mellowed considerably on me, and the gardenia and myrrh has become more identifiable without being cloying. Strong undercurrents of spice. Not so streetcorner any more. In fact, has mellowed into something considerably more...well...sacred. Conclusion: Not a fragrance for the timid. 24 HOURS later, I could still smell the remnants of this perfume without reapplication. Only a shower removed it entirely. Will have to be very careful not to wear too much, but will definitely wear this again. Addendum: I read on a couple places in the forum where it's a good idea to gently roll the bottle between your hands before application, in case any oils have seperated. When I did this the next time I put this on, I was surprised at just how much more cinnamon the scent became. The BF no longer thinks this smells anything like amaretto at any stage. I think I like it even better than before now. Woohoo!

Had my first chance to really play with Ice Queen today. In the bottle: a pine mint scent. As I pull away, it suddenly smells very cold. Frozen. My boyfriend declares that it's the smell of massive quantities of ice: a glacier or an ice-skating rink. I haven't smelled too much of either of these, but it does smell very cold. Wet: The minty smell is predominant, with a sweetness that I can't identify (those winter fruits, perhaps?) There is an undercurrent of musk and evergreen. Still very crisp and frozen. Dry: The musk and fruit smells are now predominant, with the mint, floral and evergreen as ephemeral notes hitting behind them. On me musks are usually warm, but THIS smell is cold and crystalline. And random points during the day I'm hit by the sense that I'm breathing up in the mountains, someplace cold and crisp. Since I'm Los Angeles and the weather's in the 80's, this is quite a feat. My sweetie jokes he could cool drinks by holding them to my wrists. Conclusion: This is so lovely on me, I wish I'd bought two bottles. I know others have said it doesn't have much staying power, but I didn't have a problem with it. I love this, love this, love this!