jehrichardson

In the Bottle: Bright musk with a leathery note of tobacco and just the barest touch of floral (lilac). Lighter than I expected, but then again... this is Famine we're talking about. Smells outdoorsy - like fresh air. On the Skin: Musk, lilac and frankincense. Very very nicely blended. This is very sophisticated. It's not much like it, but it reminds me of Wanderlust Manhattan After a While: Musk and tobacco and tea. Verdict: Yum! Who knew famine could be so delectable?

A dizzying eddy of four teas brushed with light herbs and a breath of peony. In the bottle: Slightly floral and very green. Clean and light. I like! On the Skin: Wow... strong floral but light, appley and green. Crisp and lovely! After a While: Green and fresh with just a touch of tea. Verdict: Loves it!

In the bottle: Mixed floral... pleasant, not strong. Not getting much honey. Actually getting a whiff of maple candy! On the skin: Florals strengthen. After a while: Noseclose: gardenia. Nosefar: WOW. Honey. Bpal honey is normally very very very subtle on me, but this is wow. Verdict: It's a bit too floral, but I really like it! Love the long throw honey!

In the imp: Maple candy! Tiny note of spice in the background. On the skin: Soap. This must be the lily - lily turns into soap on me. After a while: Lily soap. Verdict: Nah.

In the Imp: Jasmine On the Skin: Jasmine. I have a lot of trouble smelling past jasmine. It is perhaps a touch musky. After a While: Jasmine. Verdict: Though I do like jasmine, it's so overpowering that I really can't wear it without getting a bit of a headache. Bummer!

In the Imp: Wow! Apricot! Lush and soft and sweet. On the Skin: Musky apricot. I think apricot is musky anyway. I'm not getting the orange blossom, and that's fine with me. This is, I suppose, delicately floral where March Hare is spicy and funky. After a While: Delicate apricot. Mmmm! *lick* Verdict: Very very nice!

In the Imp: Bright and sharp and musky. Very refreshing. Nice! On the Skin: Mellows a bit, the musk is amping up. I'm not getting 'balsam' per se, but I think it's what I'm perceiving as 'fresh' and 'invigorating' about this one. I'm not getting much floral off this one, which I find a relief. After a While: Soapy musk that fairly quickly morphs into a delicious fragrant non-soapy musk. Reminds me of Ralph Lauren Safari. This is outstanding! Verdict: Nice! I want a big bottle!

The nights are at their longest, the sky is at its darkest. The air is still with reflective silence. A bouquet of night-blooming flowers, petals dusted with frost. Cereus, moonflower accord, night phlox, honeysuckle, silver thyme, white mint, and blue musk. Preconceptions: I'm concerned this will be too floral, but I am looking forward to the cool freshness. I find many BPAL fragrances to be very rich or heavy, so I'm hoping this will be a pleasant change. In the Bottle: I think I get the mint and a touch of the blue musk. Some pale flowers in there too - not overpowering. This is lovely, but not actually singing to me yet. On the Skin: Musky, quite nice! I've lost the mint, but this is still fairly refreshing. Quite floral - but light florals, not heady ones. If I dig, I can come up with the tiniest herbal bite - must be the thyme. This is just a bit soapy, but I don't mind in this one. After a While: Sometimes this is herbs, sometimes it is flowers. After a while longer, it's just soap. Boo. Nice soap, granted. Flowery herby soap, but soap nonetheless. Verdict: Gonna try dumping some in the bath - see if that helps.

Preconceptions: I'm not particularly fond of bubblegum, so I don't see how I'm going to get past that. Not expecting much from this one. In the Imp: Bubblegum. On the Skin: Bubblegum. Gedditoffme! Gedditoffmeee! After a While: WOW. Lovely leather! It's gorgeous! There's something almost imperceptible of the bubblegum left, but much of that must be my imagination. This is actually quite lovely - excellent rich lovely leather! Verdict: As lovely as it is to have a leather single note - I can't get past the bubblegum. It's an intriguing idea, and I'm glad I got to sample this one. It's very well designed... I just don't want to smell like gum, if even for just a few moments. Pity, because I LOVE this leather. Mmmm!

Preconceived Notion: Gonna like it. I'm fan of most of the notes, and am very excited! In the Bottle: Oo.. spicy and winy. On the Skin: Sweet spices with a touch of booziness. After a While: Boozy musky. Verdict: Lovely! Not what I was expecting, but that's just fine. I'm learning that the BPAL honey is ephemeral to my nose and skin - but it does lovely things with other notes. Mmm

Preconceived Notions: I think I'm going to like this one if it's not too floral. In the Imp: Green and delicately floral. Very fresh and clean smelling. Mmm! On the Skin: Still green, grassy, and floral. I'm starting to get a bit of fruityness in there. This is wonderful! Smells like a milder version Calyx by Prescriptives. After a While: Delicate, green, grassy and floral. Very consistent! Verdict: I adore this. Mmm!

Preconceived Notions: I love the concept - I like cocoa, leather, and a light hand with floral notes (except Rose and Lavender which you can hurl at me in buckets if you like). I'm slightly wary of the patchouli, which has a tendency to leap in and hide everything else. Incense is usually good... though sometimes is a bit heady. In the Imp: Whoah! Yuck! Burnt tootsie rolls. This actually made me recoil a bit. This doesn't look like this is a match for my taste so far I do get a tiny bit floral twinkling wayyy off in the distance. On the Skin: Burnt tootsie rolls with patchouli rolling in. The flowers are stronger now. Ah, there's the heady incense note. After a While: The cocoa/tootsie roll acrid note goes away, and I am relieved though I do like chocolate. The end game is all about flowers and incense. After a good long while the leather comes over to play. Quite lovely! Verdict: I could wear this if I had to... it's a lovely concept, and this obviously works well for a lot of people based on other reviews. However, this is not for me as I have lots of other incensy florals without the extremely offputting weirdness of the first few minutes. This probably means that other chocolate note perfumes aren't going to work for me.

In the Imp: Bright soft orange On the Skin: Bright soft orange and fig - finally I get a nice fig note from BPAL! They usually are hidden by stuff that amps weirdly on me. Mmmm! After a While: Bright soft orange and fig. This is GORGEOUS. Sorry for shouting. Mmmm. Hungry now. Verdict: I love orange! I want a vat of this please!

I only have a snimp of this one, thanks to a generous stranger! Preconcieved Notion: I like the concept. Musk is good, and I'm learning to trust BPAL vanilla. I love pine, and imagine pine pitch to be deeper and tarry. Patchouli frustrates me - it usually takes over a blend to my nose, and I can't get past it. Resins - very good, I like resins. Honey - mmm... I can't tend to smell BPAL honey (like BPAL ginger, of all things) but I love the way it mellows and blends other stuff. Tobacco leaf is a favorite smell of mine. I predict I'm going to like this a huge huge huge amount, if the patchouli doesn't make it all nasty. In the Snimp: The pine and resins are very strong. The patchouli is quite light... I can't really tell it is there Verdict: I like. I want.

All I've got is a sniffie... In The Snimp: Musk and floral... there is a deep sweetness there that must be the tonka/coconut. The lilac isn't overpowering - this is often (to my wee nosie) as overpowering as jasmine, but here it is nice. Mmm. Verdict: Lovely! I may try and squeak one day's wear out of the snimp as I'm intrigued to see what my chemistry does with this. It seems like a lovely floral!

In the Bottle: Spicy amber and hay. Lovely! Soft and golden! On the Skin: Honey, cardamom, and lemon with a warm amber base. Mmmm! I like this one! After a While: Very consistent - honey, cardamom, lemon, and amber. Verdict: Love it!

In The Bottle: Wow... chocolate? Tootsie rollish and grainy! On the Skin: A bit more toasty and a tiny bit of plastic. Quite nutty and a bit earthy. After a While: Flowers emerge in a perfumey profusion. This smells of sweet rich, and ever so slightly grainy, flowers! Verdict: This is glorious - finally a floral that I like! This is the first jasmine blend I've ever found that didn't just blind me with the strength of the note. Very very nice! Smells a bit weird to begin, but don't we all?

This is my go-to scent and my favorite BPAL so far. This starts with tea and pepper, and slowly gives way to starched linens. All along the way it is sweetened and warmed with honey. I'm pleased that I get very little vanilla from this. Mmmmm!

In the Imp: Drugstore Florals On The Skin: Overpowering florals, no hint of fig, greenness or woody depth. Very soapy. Looks like my skin is rejecting this one too. Bummer, I liked the description. After a While: If I really reach, I can almost get some greenness... a little wet. However, this is soapy florals. Verdict: My skin turns it to grandma soap. Sorry!

In the Imp: Aquatic soft florals! Wow, I like it. I really didn't expect to. On the Skin: Aquatic and strong florals. That must be the gardenia and lily of the valley. Yep, it's strong! I'm getting some wintergreen on the deep inhales. After a While: Flowers and wintergreen. Bleah. I can still get the aquatic tones a bit, but I suspect that that's what is turning into wintergreen. Looks like my skin does weird things with aquatics (also for me vetiver = bug spray) Verdict: Too floral, too much wintergreen, so a nope on this one.

In the Frimp: Pine! It must be the cypress... smells like that excellent pinesap that is so much fun to pick off the trunk. Mmm. I like it! Quite sharp and astringent. On the Skin: Piney but warmer, not like pine-sol, more like the woods. Ah, the resins appear... this must be why I think 'pine sap'. After a While: The incense pulls up now. It's still piney, but pine and incense. I'm not really getting the hazelnut, but that could be responsible for the bit of warmth we've got in there. Verdict: I really really like it. It's refreshing and airy, it lets me enjoy pineyness without having to trek to the woods! I'm thinking this would be an excellent winter scent - gorgeous in the crystalline Minnesota January, with the delectable crunch of snow underfoot and all that blinding light. Mmmm!

I love this one, but after wearing it for a while I think, quoting a friend of mine, 'it smells like dude'. I'm not generally bothered by wearing things that are masculine, but this is a bit much. Thus, I take imps and frimps that are wayyy too floral and layer them on top of the Nanny - mmmm! Perfect solution! Thus, I smell of roses, and leather, and woods, all warmed up with amber. Mmmm. I don't get any of the 'middle eastern flowers' at all, or the 'blood-red berries'. This is all amber, honey, leather, wood... and of course 'dude'.

In the Imp: Patchouli! Loud and clear. On the Skin: Ah, the patchouli is still strong but I'm getting a bit of cedar in there. I love patchouli, but it is so strong and so overpowering I can rarely smell around it. I think the vetiver is adding a bit of deep sweetness to it After a While: Lots of patchouli and a tiny bit of cedar. Verdict: This is a nice take on patchouli, but it's not for me. Layering: I'm not crazy about patchouli. It's nice but it reminds me of hippies, stoners, and magyck shops. Not that there's anything at all wrong with these That's just not how I would like to smell. Back when I used to make soaps, I often mixed patchouli with vanilla - the result was sweet and rich and absolutely gorgeous. So I sat here, looking at Umbra, which I will never ever wear, and my old bottle of Aveda Vanilla Absolute that I used to brush into my hair with Cedar essential oil. What the hey, I gave it a try - layer of Umbra (one drop) Vanilla Absolute (2 drops). Didn't work. Oilslick on my hand from the absolute and the vanilla wasn't nearly strong enough to temper the patchouli. Bum-mer. Next try, I love my imp of Venice, but jasmine is so overpowering that I will never ever wear it. Perhaps it will sweeten the Umbra, and the Umbra will cut the jasmine? It sorta works! The jasmine has almost pushed the patchouli to mintiness, and the patchouli has almost pushed the jasmine to pineyness. Weird, huh? Now my thumb smells of patchouli, jasmine, mint, and pine. I like it. Later On the Day: Venice + Umbra = Deep Woods Off Bug Spray. No kidding. I wonder if it will keep mosquitos away? Maybe this layering doesn't work. Hmmmm...

In the Imp: Deep florals and wood On the Skin: Complex florals. Very pleasant, but too floral for me I think. The myrrh is giving it a touch of resinous and musky sweetness - a low sweetness compared to the high sweetness of florals. After a While: Wow. I don't have to lean in to smell this one at all. Quite the vapor radius. Strong strong florals. Verdict: It's lovely, and would be perfect for a floral lover. However, that's not me. Not a keeper. Also, too darned strong. Wooee... gonna have to wash before bed. In the Neil Gaiman universe, I imagine that this is what Mrs. Dunwiddie's home smells like.

In the Imp: Rich and sweet, but bright rather than warm. Honey, wine, and the fresh bite of blueberries. How odd. On the Skin: Wine, blueberries, and a spicy herbal side note. Must be the bay. Ah, now here comes a bit of smoke... just the barest whisp. After a while: Flowers and incense! I often get that from the honey note, so it's hardly surprising. Verdict: Love it! Keeper.