emmacrew

Very light, a little bit sweet. With some gentle spiciness from the ginger. This isn't a sharp, zingy ginger, but a soft, warm one. It reminds me very much of the hand-made goat milk soap with ginger that's been in my shower this past month. It's very cozy and comforting, with little throw; a scent for the wearer but not one that's likely to get much notice.

(2004 version) Hooray. The first BPAL cherry that I can actually wear. Every other one has gone instantly to cough syrup or throat lozenges on me, this one stays fruity and smells like actual dark cherries rather than cherry flavoring. With a warm smoky sweetness backing it up. I'm glad I agreed to swap for it before re-reading this review thread, because if I had, I'd have been scared off and missed out on something really nice.

Sort of sweet, sort of but not quite plastic, and familiar from childhood, and had me racking my brains until I came up with... Wax lips. Wax lips in the imp, wax lips and a hint of something clean on me. Waaaaax liiiiiiiips. So sad.

Grog is spectacularly bad on me. It starts out overwhelmingly sweet, with a slight boozy tinge, but ultimately ends up smelling exactly like imitation maple flavoring extract (not to be confused with smelling like actual maple, which is yum). I am very sad because I wanted to smell all rummy and delish.

I'm nearly positive that the citrus note in this is actually lemon balm. It starts out fairly straightforwad lavender, but then the lemon balm blooms and warms it up. It's very gentle, very beautiful and very calming. Not all that complex, but it does what it says, at least for me. :closedeyes:

You have to love honeysuckle to love this one. Luckily, I do; back in college I used to wear a single-note honeysuckle fragrance. This is much sexier and more grown-up than that sweet young woman scent I used to wear. The jasmine adds headiness to the honeysuckle. The lemon and spice really are there to keep the flowers company, they waft in and out of the floral haze. It's got staying power, too, I put it on 12 hours ago, with a very tiny touch-up at the wrists (but not everywhere else I normally apply, namely cleavage, inner elbows, behind the ears) 8 hours ago, and it's still there, a sweet honeysuckle afterimage. This would be excellent for sultry summer nights, which we don't really have very many of up here near Seattle. But I can dab some of this on and create my own sultry summer night! It also layers very nicely over Lush's Flying Fox.

Lovely lovely jasmine with an undercurrent of myrrh holding it up. I can barely detect the rose, which has gone slightly powdery on me. Very pretty, gentle and sweet, sort of "jasmine plus."

At first this smelled like cocoa and flowers, then the vetiver came out and overpowered everything. Vetiver does not play well with my skin chemistry. Off to the swap pile.

Where did it go? I had this lovely, fresh, green tea with a hint of lemony goodness scent about me, and now after an hour it is completely gone. :-( I also didn't catch much of the honeysuckle, which is too bad, because it's a favorite scent of mine. It was a perfect hot summer day scent while it lasted, though.

On me, Tamora is Golden Priapus's sweeter, juicier, peachier sister. The drydown is almost the same, though the initial stages definitely have that sweet fresh peach scent to them, and it only lasts a few hours (as opposed to g.p., which lasts all day). But it's a lovely, warm, fresh vanilla-with-friends scent on me, great for days when the priapus isn't quite girly enough ;-)

I wore Dana O'Shee to an amusement park today (Bonfante Gardens in Gilroy, CA), and it worked quite well. I think sweet, light perfumes would be your best bet. I'd also think things from the Mad Tea Party collection would be great, and appropriately themely. So if it were me, I'd be wearing The Dormouse. Maybe Fae or Zephyr, which strike me as scents a little girl would adore; I always feel young again when I get to visit Disneyland. And there's plenty of other stimulation (as well as the hot weather) going on there that a quieter perfume can be a good thing. Or you could go the Evil Stepmother path with Wicked... If you really wanted to go overboard, you could wear Tombstone in Frontierland, Neo-Tokyo in Tomorrowland, one of the fairy-inspired scents in Fantasyland...

Golden Priapus is almost all vanilla on me, but the other notes stop it from being a sweet vanilla. Which in my case is good, as most vanillas are too sweet for me, but might not be what you're after. I definitely didn't find it to be particularly masculine.

My friend E, on sniffing the imp, "Hm, sweet. Too sweet. Oh, I know, it smells like raver candy!" And in the imp, it really does. This is the first scent with lotus that's worked on me, usually the lotus amps up to bubblegum sweetness; for example, Paris is nothing but sticky sweet lotus with a vague memory of lavender and spice hiding somewhere in the background. Oddly enough, though, this is less sweet on than in the imp. I get a light almost citrus scent from the wine and pear, and the heliotrope and lotus add a soft sweetness behind that. It's like... a lemon candy scent that isn't actually lemon or candy. But that same sort of feel to it. I think it would be lovely on scorching hot days. A keeper, but probably not a big bottle for now since it sort of fills the same mental niche as the Dormouse for me.

I tried this yesterday and had to wear it again today. It was a gift imp, and not a scent I'd have ordered for myself, because vanilla tends to go sickly-sweet on me. Hooray for the woods, because they have turned this into a vanilla I can wear. I can't really pick out any of the underlying notes, they just provide a warm, smooth base for a lovely but not sugary vanilla. And it has fantastic staying power, I can still smell it 14 hours after applying (I'll credit the amber for that, since Brisingamen lasted for twelve on me, but thankfully the woods have kept this from going powdery on me like that did). Yum.

Yet another "wah, it turned medicinal on me" reaction; in my case it was cherry cepacol lozenges, complete with that odd anaesthetic tang at the back of the throat. I had to wash it off. I'm going to try it again another day and see if I can bear it long enough to get well past that stage to the more interesting sounding woods, but I generally can't stomach cherry in any form other than fresh off of the tree, so I'm not holding out too much hope.

This smelled so totally lovely in the vial. Alas, it turned into baby powder within the first two minutes on me. And stayed that way for twelve hours. Seriously! It has the longest staying power of any BPAL I've tried so far, so it's a terrible shame that my skin turned it directly into something so dull. I think the culprit may be the myrtle, since I love carnation. Now to try some other amber scents to double-check.

For something described as "bittersweet and dusky," this one is surprisingly sweet and light on me. I get none of the clove at all, nor the bergamot. :-( After 3 hours, the neroli has come out to play, finally. Early on, I think it was all mimosa, because it didn't smell like any of the other more familiar notes to me.

On me, this is a perfectly balanced blend of cinnamon and rose. And, as others have pointed out, real rose and real cinnamon, not hand cream and red hots. It's got a little sweetness, but the sweet doesn't jump out and make itself hugely obvious, which is a relief as sweets tend to go VERY sweet on me. And the rose tends to stay close to the skin without wafting hugely like some roses can do on me. It's not as bright as the roses in London or Delerium. It's red, warm and clinging. Says "come closer. No, closer than that." Mmm.

Wet dirt. Make that wet dirt with something very sweet. It's making me feel unwell, I had to wash it off after 10 minutes. I have a friend who might love this, though.

Wet: Lavender. A sharp, somewhat astringent lavender. Drydown: The lavender is softening up a bit. Some sweetness coming out. Bergamot, neroli, maybe a touch of lotus or jasmine? Still a green lavender behind it all. This is fresh-cut lavender from a field, with juicy green stems, not dried lavender. Citrus notes are picking up a bit. Lemongrass? A bit of powderiness underneath. The lavender has subsided nicely into the blend as a whole. I also notice the mutability others have mentioned, it seems to change from whiff to whiff. This is almost what I was expecting Paris to smell like. I think it will be a great sleep blend for me. It smells rather like a more sophisticated version of the lavender-bergamot-neroli blend I used to mix up for myself a decade ago, so it's like re-meeting an old friend, who has grown up. I'll definitely be getting a bottle. ETA: A few hours later, it's sweet and spicy. With a little lavender in the background.

Thank you lab, for this lovely freebie! In the bottle and wet: Mintmintmint. I can tell there's something else under that, but the mint is so cold and clear that it cuts right into my nose and overpowers everything else. Drying: still minty, but now there is that creamy sweetness others have mentioned around the edges of where I applied. If I get the center right under my nose, I still get that chilly stab of mint. Definitely some flowers around the edges as well. The mint does seem to be calming fairly quickly, though. Dry: Still a lot of mint on me. If I try really hard to tell myself "no, you don't smell mint, what else do you smell?" I get hints of a warm sweetness. Lotus or lily, lavender, something slightly creamy and buttery... But the main impression is still mint. This will be great for days when I'm feeling stuffy ar sluggish and need to clear my head. Probably not an everyday sort of scent for me, though. ETA Wait, wait... now there's a bit of grapefuit peeking through, and quite a bit less mint. Possibly a hint of bergamot?

My favorite Lush soap is Ooh la la... the herbs and wininess added to the lavender... mmm. Also, I love Happy for S.A.D. and Therapy. Any smell-alikes I should know of?