cinderfallen

If you love the lab's opium note, like me, you'll feel like you hit the jackpot. I first fell in love with the hint of it in Belle Epoque, and it's also here in its full glory. I get the orchid more or less depending on my skin chemistry at the time, but the perfume is a more crisp version of Languor, and I think the benzoin is the note that offers an almost citrus edge to the waxier, sweet orchid.

It's kind of interesting to read reviews because you can see the trends from each new batche of the oil, like For a page or so, everyone shouts "baby powder!" and then for the next page or two, people talk about different notes.

I get a whole lot of the cognac, which turns this into a kind of traditional perfume/cologne, with that aldehyde hint. But it is very much musk and the kind of linen note in Antique Lace, that reigns in the foody element of the vanilla. The musk is really awesome here; I've quite smelled anything like this musk in the BPAL catalogue, I think; or maybe it's the effect of being combined with everything else, including the tobacco? It's very much a costume scent for me, for certain going out days, not for every day--haha, this is so not a day scent--night wear. I'd say that this is a BPAL that is popular because it smells like it should be a high end perfume--yes, from the DEPARTMENT STORE. *cue horror* It's mainstream sexy in that it smells almost familiar, what with the vanilla and musk, and "sexy" like you think in the Vogue magazine shoots. I do think this is a unique scent, but probably not worth all the hype unless you're a collector, and a completist at that. I only hesitate because I'm not sure whether I like the scent for its hype, because it does tinge on a very androgynous cologne.

CRAFT STORE CANDLE. All the time. =/

Evil, evil.... I think for me that would be Event Horizon: Black opium, labdanum, opoponax, black orchid, and benzoin. Opium flowers prettyyyy. Lady Macbeth sounds right up your alley: sweet Bordeaux wine, blood red currant, thyme and wild berries. I mean, it may not literally smell evil? But c'mon, it's Lady Macbeth! And uh, Arcana ha(d) Poison Candy. *g* Just thought you should know.

Huh. I looked up Skuld and it looks like it might be because of the ylang ylang and honey? I might have to try that sometime. I'm trying to use up my bottle of Alice before it ages, because I love the spike of tea/carnation before the cream calms everything down. And hmm, Gennrivre. I think it's been on my idling wishlist as I'd gotten tired of mint scents and there was nothing to previously suggest it as being similar to jasmine tea specifically, but that'd also be nice to try. Weirdest tea scent ever--actually. No. Tea and leather perfume is weird, Severin, but maybe tier two weird? Lady Lilith. It smells like a smush between Embalming Fluid and Mme. Moriarty. That fresh white(green?) tea note, the citrus, the zenness, hovering over the base of red musk and Mme. Moriartyness.

Sudha Segara is almost but not quite enough to trigger a nausea reaction for me. I'm playing safe and avoiding it. It's the combination of ginger-hot, crystallized ginger sweet, dissolved thoroughly in sweet and creamy milk. Somehow, these food ingredients just should not go together. --And now that I think about it, I feel the same way toward thai coconut curries, milk-cream spicy at the same time, but also oily from any prior cooking of the meat and vegetables.... Maybe because ginger is used to make the main dish taste more fresh/less fatty in Korean cooking, and the cream quality of Sudha Segara sharply negates all of my experiences with eating food containing ginger, which is mostly meat/savory items. This is PLUS the fact that the non-cultural honey/milk introduces a clashing dessert quality that mixes up all the food courses into a grab-bag of sick-inducing for me. ...good to figure this one out. But uh. If you're not me, it's actually a pretty mild scent, the mildness of it along the scale of Dana O'Shee. Ginger milk tea quality about it.

*cough* So. much. fruity. musk. Cloying. I made the mistake of somehow getting some oil on less than perfectly clean hair and I paid and paid and paid for that clumsiness. It felt like the equivalent of someone putting on patchouli oil to cover up their pot stank, but mine was syrupy sweet instead. And I couldn't get away from myself. (I don't think it bothered anyone else; just me.) Just doesn't mesh with me I guess.

Envy was my first BPAL love. I loved that almost fuzzy spearmint texture amidst the cool herbal coolness. Lots of greens, with great throw, and the lime was a great touch to pucker up the blend into something really casually pretty.

The aged stuff makes me a bit sick, but fresh, it's delicious! Well, aged, it's very much more vanilla, and the musk really gets a gritty sugary edge, but I really like the more airy notes of the fougere and black tea of the new bottle. Reminds me a bit of sugared ginger.

Cool vanilla mineral, upscale and elegant. Polished stones.

There must be rose in here because almost nothing else would turn so horrible on my skin. The cherry is stick bright but it develops over this weird muting laundry sheets flatness, and it's also almost baby powder which also turns sour....all at the same time. Cherry almond rose? Something like that. I can't really tell as I can only sniff out the secondhand mess it must have turned itself from. Like trying to figure out what zombies looked like before they mutated and grew that third...eye.

Ugh. This is no good at all. Makes me feel nauseaus. Reminds me of trying to drink Peptobismol on a queasy stomach, that high, chalky sweet smell with the very creamy, liquid sweetness. That is to say, I only get dragons blood cherry sweet with the high, almost cold and minty cassia, and maybe the smoke note? And that syrupy almost creamy quality must be from the myrrh. I'm going to go and scrub this off now. ...I wonder if the baby powder note is also from this or Black Phoenix? =/

I must amp red patchouli because all blends that contain this note smell pretty much the same. But for what it's worth, it doesn't smell like a headshop, but almost like money. Uh. Maybe that's because this is reminding me of Greed. And Malediction. And Anne Bonny.

Oi, red! This very much reminds me of Malediction and maybe Greed for its patchouli, and the red sandalwood is definitely also in The Red Queen (appropriate, eh?). The wood is rough-hewed, though, compared to the burnished smoothness of the woods in Red Queen. The resin of the frankencense moistens up the scent which tends to be on the drier side, and it's almost sweet for the blend that it is.

This is absolutely one of the most fresh, clear, pretty scents I've ever smelled, and epitomized my ideal signature scent at one time...before I realized that BPAL aquatics turned into flat air freshener and laundry detergent on my skin. But in the bottle, the tulips are so watery fresh and beautiful....

...how does something turn powdery and sharp all at once? =/ Rose and amber strike again.

This just shot up to my top 10. I knew there could be no wrong with this blend for me, and I was totally right! It goes on almost fruity bright, green, perhaps from the crisper orchid; and there is that lush, almost overripe smell people mentioned, right at the beginning, but that's immediately gone. Within a few minutes, the incense mutes the intensity of the florals, which turn a little creamy except for the crooks of my elbows, where that crystal green note sticks around. But when I say incense, I mean a sugary smokiness that texturizes the bubbly sweet scent, gives it character. I love that the incense is not a true headshop incense note, but just that touch of *something* that warms up the scent, turns it slightly Oriental and edgy-musky. But for the incense, Marae would remind me a lot of Vasakasajja, which was a little too loud for me; the smokiness lends the perfume a more intimate presence, pretty as it is. I agree with a previous reviewer that this reminds me of Midnight on the Midway, or more of what I wanted it to be, though Marae is sweeter and brighter: sugared incense and flowers, with the texture of crystallized sugar of cotton candy on your tongue. ETA for another take on description, perhaps also a slight change in chemistry/hormones (right before my period): Gardenia is a super heavy, sweet, uber-floral isn't it? A friend had a gardenia she grew in her room, and that definitely doesn't smell like this! I get super sour candy, the really lip-puckering kind, where the sweet lays just underneath the surface, and you can almost taste it, there's so much sugar. Almost citrus-lime, almost berry! I don't get any kind of vanilla or cream from this blend. This scent is super crisp. The balance of sweet to sour reminds me of tart lemonade. ...which seems to be super different from others' perceptions!

Personally, roses turn really sharp on me if they're a bad variety, so that might be your culprit. The thing is though, is that there are a lot of different types of any one note that there's kind of no predicting what will go bad (or good!) unless you try it on your skin. What kind of scent recommendations are you looking for?

Oh. Man. Can I just say that I am SO. GLAD. that I got too lazy to swap this away because it has gotten BEAUTIFUL. I am not a foody person, really, and this has just shot up like 10 points with me. At first, I was too eh about the weirdness about thick cocoa and fruit notes, but that has balanced out with age to become not a foody scent but a gourmand perfume, where on the skin, the cocoa acts as a light base, as sandalwood might, to support the gorgeous honey fruit and very light spices. It's tart and yet is supported by an almost woody cocoa and the honey is just delicious in its supporting role. The cocoa almost but never quite disappears, and I'm surprised by how happy I am about that. The very slight hint of topnote from hot ginger and spicy clove is an excellent counterpoint to the tart, juicy fruitiness, with its slightly floral waxy sweetness, as well as the mellow honey and the creamy base--and just, man. This is good stuff. I saw reference to this being similar to Storyville, and if there is resemblence, I can see why the latter is so popular. I'll be keeping and loving my 13. UGH. I want to roll around in this scent.

This one does a disappearing act that's hard to beat! I slathered this everywhere, including over scents I'd previously tried: wrists, forearms, crook of my elbow.... Gone. In 15 minutes. Even more amazing is that I can smell the scents that had been previously under Marianne. Goes on with as much red musk as Scheherezade, with patchouli and a thin sweetness. And as my nose strains more and more to catch some scent, poof. At most, I get an aura of red musk, which I amp, because that's all I got out of Smut, too, though deeper.

I love smelling this in the vial as it's nowhere near as juicy and sweet-complex on my skin. It's a punch of syrup. You can really smell the alcoholic tinge of the grape wine (not red or white, but grape juice wine, very sticky sweet with that alcoholic fume) which is lifted by the rose, a higher top note. It's a thin, sweet rose, like the one in Two, Five, and Seven, almost like an acidic-sweet berry like cranberry with that characteristic rose delicacy. This is probably because of the dragon's blood, which is the binding note to highlight the wine and the rose and give it that oomph without being showy itself. On my skin, it goes through a lot of changes. The juiciness is gone, though the rose adds a dewy quality to the base, matte wine. Then the rose goes sharp, as roses tend to go on me, as if you were to pulp rose petals along with their stems to make a thin juice. This lasts for a while and thankfully, calms down. Underneath, there is still a slightly sticky sweet quality, also a little resinous (like tree sap) with a faint concord grape quality. Then that, too, is gone, smoothed out and I'm left with a pretty little rose blend that is sweet and pitched "high" with a cranberry/acidic grape sweetness. Girly-flirty and pleasant enough, though I'm not sure it's worth the harrowing drydown of sharp, driven off-kilter roses. This is especially the case when I'm pretty sure the sillage of the perfume is greatest during that stage, and not the more pleasant dry-down.

This is a scent I wear during scent-craving days when I want to smell lots and lots of red musk and sandalwood and non-spicy spices. It's not a mainstream scent and I'd say it's like an acquired taste if you're not already inclined to wearing incense/new age/occult shop scents as perfume. (I'm not.) I don't think it's appropriate for all situations, especially professionally, but it is nice to luxuriate in sometimes. Scent-wise, if you want to know what red musk smells like, try this. =) It's a very rich but clean, rounded musk, with a lot of depth, which holds the drier sandalwood and saffron in check. It's one of the more quietly intense blends, with no "high" top notes to announce itself but the new age shop spices.

My favorite tea scent is actually Alice. It smells like candy tea, milky and sweetened with honey, but spicy with carnation, with that astringent bergamot at the back of your throat, with a delicate rose petal infusion. The rose is there as a softening, sweet note, and goes well the tea-like bergamot. I am STILL looking for an amazing, true jasmine tea scent.

I have one bottle in use and it's noticably aged and changed more than my backup bottle: the coconut and fruity notes has gotten very prominent, and the smooth red musk bulges near the edges of the scent, which resembles the way the patchouli works in Mme. Moriarty. It's brighter. It's got more "texture" but it's gotten even more similar to Mme. Moriarty. I have an original release Snake Charmer, and I'm hoping that the amber will mature and come into its own, and the fruit/coconut notes tapers off, because at its heart, Snake Charmer is a slinky scent, not a boisterous sex bomb.