olympia301

Smells just like a carnation but better. I smell the clove like fragrance without interference from anything green in the background, no aquatic part, no dirt, nothing to distract your nose from the fillet mignon of a highly scented carnation. Magnificent, not too strong to become unpleasant, not too weak so you don't know what it is. Unmistakable and gorgeous.

Very pretty and rosy, every floral loving person on this forum should try Viola. It is not cloying though it's just 100% flowery smelling. It doesn't say anything about violet but I think there is a bit of it in here. Viola also has nice character, in other words it's not just another generic "floral...a white flower floral" sort of a blend. I think this is due to the lilac Beth used, and Beth certainly knows how to use lilac to its best advantage. A very nice scent, and one you might want to think about if you have to give something as a gift to someone who doesn't know too much about BPAL. Very nice introduction.

 

The photo is a Man Ray image of a woman and his idea she is shaped like a...viola. I would say a "bass fiddle" but that's a bit insulting.

It almost smells like eucalyptus, it's almost pine-like. There is a sort of lemongrass header to it, and a sort of "skin scent" that tags along in the background. I don't get florals from Storm but I do get an ozone/aquatic ring to it. It isn't very perfumy, not the sort of a scent you would wear to attract others to you. It's almost an "I want to be alone, get it?" sort of a scent. It's bracing and I think it would be great for keeping alert and for concentrating (like when you have to drive long distances or study late into the night."

I love dragon's blood and this is a great blend but...I just smell dragon's blood. Phfffft. Damn...that's all I ever really smell in the dragon's blood blends. I think it simply captivates my snout and nothing else can possibly tear my attention away from it.

 

The icon? Got (dragons') milk?

This is a classic fruity floral, and when paperdoll said it was "Skadi's Springtime Sister" that nailed it for me. Somehow I can't see the unique beauty in this one, that's my blindspot obviously because others do, but it is pretty and I do understand how some "floral folks" really fall in love with it.

Smelled like linseed oil on me at first. Not very nice. I was about to chuck it into the swap pile but I wanted to review it first and gothabillywench's review caught my eye. So I put on a good amount and waited for the linseed oil to dry down. Sure enough I was rewarded with an almost carnation/basil combination that was really gorgeous. I can see that this is a great sex worker blend, just like Follow Me Boy which starts out as an unpleasant jasmine pissy smell and ends up being so heartbreakingly beautiful you want to weep with joy at it. #20 is the same. Real nice and I am leaning toward a bottle of this. Mmmm. I love those voodoo blends, they are so mutable and appeal to your basest instincts.

Wow, I'm glad I got LintA if for no other reason than the label. Great!

 

And Macha, Woo Hoo Grand job with your labels. I am desiring a tee shirt and such when it comes out of the Trading Post. REal nice work.

Grog or Jack get my vote here. I smell Jack as being more bready therefore I would pick Jack as your best bet.

Great Dragon's Blood and lilac. Sounds icky sweet, it's not thanks to something I detect as cinnamon. Very nice and unique blend, not wacky just very good sweet and unusual. I like it very much. Do I want a 5ml? Well, I am not sure of that but this is a very good blend from the purely scent stand point, as far as its voodoo properties are concerned, my husband doesn't have a sense of smell so I can't rely on scent to rev him up.

Roses and saltwater. It's a very beautiful scent, somewhat fleeting and bears a little bit of incense along with it. I would say this is a simple scent, as simple as sadness, and would not be out of place at a funeral or a Sunday picnic with the family. There is a dignity with it, but at the same time it's very lively as well.

 

The icon is a detail from the incomperable Kathe Kollwitz who is one of the finest artists who ever drew grief.

Lots of red musk in this one. It is a member of the Snake Oil family to my nose and that is one of their characteristics. Again I smell a grape like thing dancing through this one, and a sort of fruity/cherry twirl in it as well. This is a beautiful blend, ultra heady and perfectly oriental. I highly recommend it for all of the red musk lovers out there, and for hopeless romantics. Very very long lasting.

Much sweeter and prettier than the other two Norns, Skuld is rather grape-like to me, as other people have remarked. It is honeyed and I do smell the ylang in it. It is a very pretty fragrance, warm rather than cool. It lasts a pretty long time but I think you will have to reapply it about once an hour.

Wow! I love this one. A real basic scent, and I think it's the things that makes the voodoo oils into voodoo oils without the notes which make them particular voodoo oils. I hope that makes sense. This to me is the blend which is the base for the voodoo oils and doesn't have the magic in it yet. It is in itself a form of magic, it smells so very good.

 

The real characteristic of voodoo oils seems to be vetiver and clove in such highly balanced measure that they end up being a rendition of basil. It reminds me of the gorgeous scent of Amman's Powder. Then there is the myrrh which is rendered heavenly.

 

Voodoo last all day and it's just fabulous. I hope I have conveyed my appreciation for Voodoo here, it's a classic "must have" in any BPAL wardrobe.

At first I thought I smelled violets in this mix. Then I realized it was lavender with sweet white florals dancing attendance. It is a very pretty blend and quite fit for the woman who wants lavender to keep rambunctious white flowers in check. I think this is a wonderful representation of the hour of twilight, when the world starts to be indistinct but there is a touch of lavender all around the light and the promise of sleep to "knit up the raveled sleeve of care."

 

The icon is of the legendary Rod Serling, host and creator of the TV series The Twilight Zone

 

Bracing piny scent overall, with a great deal of dark lavender sweetness which comes out in the drydown. A good bit of patchouli gives it a thorough grounding and fig. Though it is not me, I think that the earthy scent lovers would do well to give Nephilim a try. Neat story that goes along with the title of the blend, too.

A pretty white flower type of scent with a bit of something harsh and with great staying power hiding underneath the white flowers. It may be a hard white musk, and I suspect it is as this blend sticks around for an unusually long time. I also think I smell lemongrass, which has a bit of an artificial scent to me but it amps rose pretty well.

 

It is a nice one but it doesn't have the character I would like to see. I can't say it's very original but I can say that for all it's vagary, it is pleasant in a soapy kind of a way. It could be a good choice for a sporty blend where you want to sweat but smell like a woman while you do.

Pride comes on STRONG, just like the real thing. I can only smell rose geranium here. Perhaps there is some regular rose in this blend, but I smell one thing, and only one.

 

Here is another of Beth's masterful interpretations. This is about as proud a scent as you can imagine. It leaves no room for anything else, just consumes all around it. You could call it egotism, and surely Beth injected a bit of narcissus here, a joke in scent (Narcissusism, you know...haughty companion to Pride). I don't particularly like this scent as a personal perfume, but I love Beth's ability to present a portrait of one of the Seven Deadlies in smell. Well done, artistic target achieved.

I smell pine, a very good variety. I also get candy, lots of candy scent: sweet vanilla and sugar. I associate this scent more with Christmas than I do Dublin. I really think that Yog Sothoth reminds me more of Dublin (and Ireland in general) than the fragrance called Dublin does.

 

I'd rename Dublin "The Good Child's Christmas" because it is full of good things, a reward scent more than the smell of a bustling once downtrodden city which is one of the most admired places in Europe.

 

Dublin is a very good scent indeed. I would recommend it more for the oil burner than for a "put it on your skin" fragrance. Perhaps that's my bias of keeping pine and evergreen for things rather than people, but that is just me.

 

I'm keeping mine for Xmas around my house. I know it will be heartbreakingly good for the oil burner (mini crockpot), tree trimming and deep Winter parties.

A very unusual scent. It is actually very strong and opens with a flurish of, what I think is, jasmine and the new mown hay scent (a sharp newmown hay), and I smell corn. Well that is unusual, corn. Ha! Now that's using your imagination! That part doesn't last very long, but the drydown to sharp new mown hay and various flowers does last.

This reminds me a lot of my CT2:VIII*, some of the same notes here minus any attempt at mint. No mint. No creaminess, no food (beside the brief flurry of corn), no butter. It is an outdoorsy scent and certainly lasts a long time.

I would say that this is for the very sophisticated nose, something like abstract expressionism---except this is not abstract, it's painting a picture of a time. I think it does it well.

My impression is more of leafless November with its grey skies rather than orange and yellow October with its blue skies and thick scented air.

There is a real shift when you smell it from a distance. Try putting your hand about 2-3 feet from your nose and try Harvest Moon through the atmosphere. Different scent, very pretty and haunting.

*That observation didn't help you much, but I needed to say that.

There has to be something wrong with me because all I can smell is dragon's blood. I don't get the musk. It's very attractive, but...oh well. Maybe I'm musk-blind.

 

The icon is a "dragon's tail" fractal. I chose that because the scent glands of a dragon are (guess where) under his tail.

According to legend, the scent Chypre is named after the island of Cyprus where the ancient recipe for this blend originated. People have been mixing up their own chypre ever since the invention of dirt! There is even a class of perfumes called "the chypres" which are variations on the theme.

 

Everyone has their own design on the subject, the only thing they all have in common is Lavender, without that...you don't have chypre. I used to make one with: lavender, mandarin, rose geranium oils. Very very different from how Beth does hers. It's like spaghetti sauce, everyone makes it their own way, the only constant is tomatoes.

 

I, of course, love Beth's version which a kindly Forumite gave me. Lavender does indeed start it going. This one is a less ferny type of chypre, that bit of violet makes it shaper going on but softer and more flowery in the drying. Very attractive twist on something which is usually rather green. A beautiful blend and I am sorry it is gone.

 

The icon is a map of the island of Cyprus from where Chypre gets its name.

Oooo, I really like Baron Samedi! A frimp, it did start out as almond...the smell of something burning and there was a bit of vetivert in the background. You knew that the Baron was going to appear in a puff of smoke, but where? In front of you, behind you?

 

Next there was a waffly drydown. As if the smoke was clearing and there was really nothing you could see. You do get the almond goodness drying down with vetivert here. Almond always seems to do the best things for me in unexpected ways, but it seems to be a topnote...it doesn't stay forever but it does herald be best things afterwards...so maybe it dries down to something I can't quite name as "dry almond" but it is gorgeous. Vetivert scares me, though. It's so big and strong...it will run over everything else if it's not stopped.*

 

Finally the cloves came out and took the vetiver in hand. "Hold it, there, big boy...not so fast, I'm here to play, too, and we're going to play nice, get it?" Believe it or not, clove starts to blend with the vetivert and they are both in perfect harmony together. Then there is something that reminds me of basil, and some part of the voodoo oils that I love (not quite vanilla not quite basil). This is a big masculine type of scent, but one that would not be totally out of place on me (like the Viscount of Valmont or Morocco). This baron likes to play with the ladies. He is a Bay Rum kind of a guy, but not your average Bay Rum, he's specially good.

 

*On me Lex Talionis was all vetivert slashing its way through my nose, up my sinuses and advertising me as an amazon. Not what I wanted at the time.

This is medicine, not perfume. Nothing about this blend comes off as being pretty. It's all business. I would say this is a ritual oil, it doesn't last very long and with those characteristics I would guess that there is a purpose behind its ingredients which is meant to be used for more serious things than adornment.

This is a real sleeper...no one talks about it but it is wonderful. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and Beth has performed alchemy again.

 

Roses, this is a very rosy blend. At first I thought, "ho hum...does it measure up to London (my all time favorite rose blend)?" It is as nice as London but different. For one thing there are obviously more things in here than just rose, I smell lemongrass but dealt out with such a deft hand that you don't say "lemongrass!!!" it just adds enough background to the roses to make them shine. I don't smell "hazel" like hazel nuts, but when I take my had away from my face, the same phenomenon hits me that happens in House of Night...the third heartbreakingly beautiful smell comes out of no where and just makes you say "what was that?" Like a ghost brushing by you at a seance.

 

This is great stuff, off the the favorites list with it! I will order 5ml toot sweet. I love this, a frimp from the Lab.

Beautiful white flower blend with plenty of lilies and jasmine (which does not overtake everything else---hooray). Gorgeous feminine smell without being waxy and overbearing. I think this one is a fine scent, even for summer when you don't want something that descends on other people. Suspiro entrances other people.