lady_pandora

I picked this up to try it, and could smell patchouli right through the bottle! When I opened the bottle, though, I smelled mostly honey and a bit of cinnamon. On my skin, this is predominantly herby patchouli and a small amount of honey. It doesn't really morph a lot from wet to dry. I can't smell any vanilla, and I have to really go looking for the cinnamon. This patchouli is very "green," fresher than what I'm used to from patchouli, very woody. This may the first time I ever really thought about patchouli being a member of the mint family, because here in this blend I can kind of see it. The honey is firmly in the background, which is kind of a bummer because I love honey. On the other hand, I always figured this might be one to age. It's wearable now, but I'm curious what it might be like in a few months or a year. ETA: This is so much better after even just 5 months of aging. The patchouli has calmed down some and has matured out of its terrible twos. The overall effect is really well blended--it's spicy vanilla-y honey-y patchouli goodness, with no one note dominating, and like some others have mentioned, snuggly. I think the patch just needed time to develop.

In the bottle, this is a strong, sweet, boozy vanilla. Wet on my skin, I smell beeswax and something herbal. Then it seems to almost disappear for a few minutes, and when it returns, it's beeswax and a bit of the red sandalwood--mostly the beeswax. I'm pretty much only amping beeswax at this stage and it's a lot like Lights of Men's Lives. Which is fine, because that's one of my favorites, but I definitely hoped the other notes would come out and play, and they did. As it continues to dry, I get a little more of the wood--this isn't as rough-and-tumble as red sandalwood sometimes feels; it feels "smoothed out" somehow--and a little more vanilla. It's right at the half-hour mark that smoke makes an appearance. This is a quiet, soft smoke, not knock-you-back-off-your-feet smoke like I got recently with Wild Indigo Duskywing. It's definitely more like a candle was just blown out. And that seems to be where it lands: beeswax, a little sandalwood, a little vanilla, and some soft smoke. I get no kitchen herbs except in that one moment in the beginning. This is really lovely, and like others have said, a comfort scent. It's not very strong on me and has little throw, but this kind of scent is more for me than for the world anyway. ETA: The second time I wore this, I amped the sandalwood and vanilla more than I did the first time, and less of the beeswax. I kept being reminded of Monster Bait: Underpants. It's not a dupe, and as a caveat I haven't smelled Underpants in many years, but I couldn't shake the association (this is a VERY good thing). It was a combination of the softness of the sandalwood (though that was white and this is red) and the boozy decadence of the vanilla.

Oooh, another good plum is Oya. Most of the notes aren't listed, but it's kind of "headshop with plum."

In the imp, this is really acrid to my nose, not very pleasant. Wet on skin, I get something that's obviously the same note but calmed down a lot. Very woody. I think this is the vetiver. It smells kind of like pencils. Sinister pencils. Next, it starts to throw really strongly and becomes smoky. It smells kind of burnt, not like a burning wood fire but more like an extinguished one. It seems to switch back and forth between regular woody smell and burnt woody smell and sometimes cigarettes, probably depending on what my brain is zeroing in on at that moment. I also start to get a spicy note during this phase. Next stage after that is smoky wood and PEPPER! This is "opening the big tub of pepper while cooking at my old job." It isn't awful, but with this list of notes, I really wish more of the sweet notes would come out to play and balance out the harshness of this. This is probably at about the 15-minute mark--I wasn't really timing it yet though. So I decide that if a watched pot never boils, maybe a watched BPAL never morphs, so at this point I decide to ignore it for about half an hour. At about 10 minutes, I start getting a sweetish waft, maybe honey; at 20 minutes I'm pretty sure it's the frankincense. It keeps on being smoky. At my self-imposed deadline, I sniff my arm again and the frankincense is rounding it out some on my skin. Throw is still mostly smoky. And then after all this, it starts to all seem to come together--I think I can smell currant now, and it and the frankincense are balancing all the smoke nicely. I'm not sure it's "me," but I think it's finally doing what it's meant to do. I'm not sure what to make of Wild Indigo Duskywing. I like what it finally settles down to, but I'm not sure I want to go through ~45 minutes of heavy smoke pepper for it. But kudos to the Lab for getting me to play with vetiver scents again. (They frimped me Sloth when I was convinced it was a death note, and I liked it.)

I wear Bengal a lot for this sort of thing. The spices feel like they clear my head right out, and the whole thing is also reminiscent of a caffeinated beverage like a chai latte. Works best if you have a real caffeinated beverage too, lol!

I may have just saved myself from endless Gas Lamps' Flare stalking by realizing it's kind of close to Les Bijoux on my skin. It's all going to depend on what you amp, of course, but on me they're both sort of "sweet and slightly orangey apple with incense." There are differences, but I think they fill about the same niche in my collection, and huzzah, I already have a 5ml of Les Bijoux on the way.

In the imp, this smells strongly orangey; wet on my wrist it becomes more of a fruity bubble gum. It's a lot like the way lotus sometimes is bubblegummy, though there isn't supposed to be lotus in this. As it starts to dry, here comes the jasmine, and I ask myself, "lady_pandora, will you ever learn?" But soft! What light on yonder window breaks? 'Tis APPLE, and it's here to save the day! Jasmine hangs around, but for once it actually deigns to share the spotlight, and so what I get is a blend of the apple, jasmine, and still the bubblegummy note. Close to the skin, there's a hint of spiciness that is probably the pink pepper, but that doesn't make it into the throw. I kind of like that in a metaphorical way; the throw says "I'm sweet and innocent", and then if you get up close and personal, the skin scent says "...well, maybe not so innocent." This is a really pretty floral/fruity scent that I think I'll wear more in the spring and summer. I want to be wearing this with a white sundress in a garden at twilight. It never quite stops being a tad bubblegummy, which keeps it from being a great love, but it deserves a medal for being the first blend ever where jasmine played nice on me. I probably won't hunt down a bottle but will use up this imp. ETA: On repeat wear, I think the bubblegum note may be the pink pepper (like in High-Strung Daisies) plus a bit of the orange blossom, a really sweet version of OB like the one in Lacus Bonitatis.

I talked about this at greater length in the TAL Workings thread (so I apologize if you're seeing it twice), but I ordered Blessing of Isis in the hopes of strengthening a relationship that is still very strong in the "companionable" department but has lost a lot of its romantic/sexual zing due to a big pile of mundane factors. I got it in yesterday, and since the boy and I were going out to a nice dinner with friends, I decided to get started. I did a little ritual/prayer to Isis, with whom I already have some degree of relationship, to talk about what I wanted, and anointed myself with the oil. Review: Efficacy (To be updated as I continue using it) First day: I noticed two big things. One was that when he arrived, after the ritual but almost certainly before he'd really gotten a big whiff of the scent, I was bustling around grabbing my coat, bag, etc. when the boy said, "Come here for just a minute." I set all the stuff down and he said "I love you. I don't tell you often enough." and swept me into a big Hollywood kiss. ETA: He was also a little more touchy-feely, like arm-around-shoulder, during the night than usual. The other thing I noticed, at dinner: There's a woman in our friend group who's been flirting with boy lately. I don't actually think she means anything by it, but it's really been irking me and we've had a few conversations about it. She was at this dinner and gave me a hug, and when she did, I got the strongest burst of the Blessing of Isis scent that I had all night. It felt strongly protective, like Isis was saying, "She won't have him." This woman ended up leaving the dinner really early. Update 11/23/14: more progress toward a more passionate relationship has occurred. Review: Scent At first sniff in the bottle, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to put it on--it's really strong and just smelled...weird. But I really wanted to use it for its magical properties, so I figured I'd use just a small amount and see what developed. The oil is bright orange. When it first went on, it smelled of orange and of some darker herbs that hadn't differentiated themselves yet. The orange seemed to evaporate quickly, leaving behind a scent dominated by sandalwood and a very woody patchouli. If it reminded me of anything from the GC, it's Anne Bonny. As I've always liked Anne Bonny, this is OK by me! As I only used a little, and didn't use it in my usual "perfume" spots, I mostly got the scent in random wafts throughout the night, and they were very pleasant. Update 2/11/15: As the months pass, this oil is starting to become a little peanut-buttery in scent. I think maybe it's red musk amping up as it ages. Red musk doesn't normally do the PB thing on me, but it did in Sed Non Satiata, and what's happening here is similar. Thank you, Lab, for making this oil for me to use.

This was a decant purchased from a wonderful forumite. As soon as I took the cap off the imp, I smelled a bold rush of apple. At first, in the vial, it smelled a lot like the apple note that I think is in both Poisoned Apple and Fearful Pleasure. Once I put it on my skin, it changed a little and now I don't think it's exactly the same note--this one's more tart. It begins to dry down and at first it's apple apple apple, and then the orange rind comes out and tarts it up a little more. And then, mmmm. The incense note. It reminds me of frankincense but I think it must be the copal, with which I'm not really familiar. Orange rind is mostly gone, but the apple hangs around, softened by this lovely sweet golden glowy incense note. There's a little smokiness to it too. This is really lovely. A golden glow with smoke seems just right to evoke a gaslamp. It's kind of faint on me--but then I was trying Die Sunde, vom Tod verfolgt earlier, and the latter was throwing like a mofo, so maybe this just seems faint by comparison. But when I sniff my wrist, it's just glorious. I'm not sure if I'm going to need to hunt down more of this. It's kind of a paradox. On the one hand, I love Gas Lamps' Flare because I love smoky apple blends. On the other hand, precisely because I love smoky apple blends, I have a few already, at least one of which is easier to come by. I'm thrilled to have this imp, though.

Die Sunde was going to be my Holy Grail, a couple of years ago when it came out. I wanted it bad. I was looking through my old forum posts recently and saw post after post of me trying to figure out how to fit it into my budget right after I'd already ordered, finally deciding I could afford it, and then nothing--I remember that I couldn't afford it after all and was terribly disappointed. So when a lovely forumite put a bottle up for sale, I just had to finally give it a shot. The first thing I thought when I opened the bottle and took a good long huff was, "Smut with flowers." Right at application on my skin, it's red musk plus something smoky that develops over the next couple of minutes into something woody. It smells like red sandalwood, though that's not listed. As it continues to dry down, the sandalwood-y smell dominates the musk for a little while, and then is itself eclipsed by the musk and by--I always feel like I'm "cheating" when I only identify a note because someone else mentioned it--but mymymai is right, I think it's dragon's blood. So maybe what makes "blood musk" is red musk plus dragon's blood? It finally settles down to a mix of the red musk and something that reminds me not just of dragon's blood, but specifically of Blood Amber. I can maybe, maybe, smell a tiny bit of orchid, but I have to go looking for it. Silly skin, I could smell it in the bottle! So Die Sunde is not at all like what I expected--but I really like it anyway. This, on me, is a sultry, heady mix that screams the color "red." I've also heard some things about red musk and the monthly cycle, and as I'm PMSing, I wonder if that's affecting what I amp in this. I'll make a mental note to try it another time to see if I can get the orchid. ETA: There's something in this much later that reminds me a lot of Event Horizon. Could this be an orchid note? It's the only thing they have in common as far as I can see. It also feels related to the dragon's blood, so maybe the DB I thought I smelled was orchid all along? IDK.

What's weird, though, is that BPAL has kind of...increased my understanding of department store perfumes too? I'd basically stopped wearing them because the initial burst of alcohol+harsh topnotes usually made me feel like they were trying to set my nose on fire. But after trying a lot of BPALs and getting better at picking out notes and following the progression of BPAL throughout the day, I have a lot more patience for the initial burst of those other scents too and am better able to pick out their notes as well. I don't really buy them pretty much ever--I like BPAL better and it's often a better value for the money--but if someone gives me some as a gift or something, I can wear it occasionally and appreciate it more than I used to.

I had a similar thing happen to me. So to go with this, don't be afraid to try anything that comes your way, even if it sounds like you'll hate it. One of my favorite scents (Vixen) is one I would have never picked out to try when I first got into bpal. I try to skin test everything that I end up with, even if I think I won't like it. I just make sure to do the testing at home, where I can wash it off if it doesn't react well with my skin chemistry. (If you get a really stubborn one that doesn't wash off, you can try a bit of lemon juice on it, that usually help get of lingering bad scents. Or a bit of cooking oil, then lemon juice, then the soap. I've had some strong smell things.) Definitely keep track of things, you'll see patterns and learn more of what is more likely to be a good oil for you. (I have a spreadsheet with things I've tried and liked, and another of things I didn't like.) (And if you haven't already, check out the for sale section, it helps out so much when you have lots of things you want to try, you can get some really good deals there.) Yup. Trying it on at home cannot be overstated. There's a big difference between something turning to stank while you're on your couch watching TV, and something turning to stank when you're slammed at work or on a date or something. And definitely try lots of things. I started out thinking I would mostly like florals and have instead turned into more of an incense nut.

I'd say try each of them, sometime when you don't need to be anywhere that day (like, just a kicking around the house day), so if they stink, you aren't stuck at work/the mall/whatever smelling like rancid ass. If you like the way they smell, great! If you don't, maybe it's the elapsed time, maybe you just never would have liked that scent anyway. I'd say as long as it smells good to you, don't worry too much about whether it smells exactly like its old self. They all change a bit as they age anyway. You can also read reviews on here to see if what you smell is in the general range of what other people have experienced. But a lot of them will probably be fine, in any case. My BPAL comes in "generations"--I tend to buy a lot at once and then nothing for 2-3 years and then a lot at once again--and my oldest "generation" is from 2005. A lot of that was used up or lost in the intervening years, but some of the ones I still have are fine. Some of them get better over time, some lose something, some don't seem to change much at all.

First impression of Neutral is bubble bath. I get some kind of soft fruit scent I can't place, along with a soapy note, and together they're making bubble bath smell. At about the half-hour point it's recognizable as musk. It's a soft, light, femme, powdery, florally musk and reminds me of some of the perfumes my grandmother favored (not "old ladies," mind, but my specific grandmother). It stays close to the skin and doesn't morph much. Unlike Druid (the only other RPG I've tried so far), I think Neutral really does need to be layered to reach its full potential. Druid felt more "complete" in itself. I may have to experiment to figure out what this might go with. I do find it pleasant and it seems to work well with my chemistry.

This is an old post, but Morocco kind of went to a Dark Vanilla-ish place on me.

A dizzying eddy of four teas brushed with light herbs and a breath of peony. This was a frimp with a purchase from another forumite. Dormouse, on me, is a light, fresh, clean, soapy scent. It feels like the color light sea green. I think I can detect some green tea, but can't pick out any other individual note. It reads as gender-neutral to me, and I also think it would make a good shampoo or body wash scent. It's polite and utterly worksafe--you won't smell like you're coming off a freaky sex session or three-day bender. On me, it's not a morpher and it smelled like a near dupe of another BPAL I'd tried before. I had to go back through my old posts to remember which it was--and holy crap, I've been BPALing for almost ten years--and it was Empyreal Mist that this reminded me of. Dormouse is a scent that I don't see myself using a ton, but it definitely has its niche and will get some use. Edited to add lab description.

This was a frimp I got with my 2013 Lupers and somehow never got around to trying, so my review is of an imp that's been aged about a year and a half. In vial: Pine. Wet: Pine, plus something that's registering as a mint to me. Not peppermint. Maybe spearmint. It's a little aftershavey. Drydown: The mint burns off quickly, taking the aftershave feel with it--it's gone in 5-10 minutes. It leaves behind the pine and something a little sweet. Like JazzieCazzie, I find the sweet note reminiscent of myrrh and the lovely sweet rounding-out it does to a lot of blends. Maybe this is the incense part of pitch incense? I don't know. But I like it. Dry: Pretty much the same as the drydown but drier, for lack of a more helpful term. It's really quite beautiful, and comfortable. Like a dark green cuddly blanket. Overall: Druid works great with my skin chemistry and evokes the concept really well. While it's meant to be RPG Druid rather than real-life religious Druid, I could see it making a good ritual oil for some contexts. The Green Man might smell like this. The only thing it doesn't quite go with is my scent "personality," as it skews more masculine than what I generally want. I don't want to be the person wearing this oil--I want to make out with the person wearing this oil. Verdict: Give to Boyfriend and glomp him.

I got woodsmoke from Mad Sweeney, though that may have just been oddball skin chemistry. It was more whiskey-y on other people.

Bengal! It's spice-o-rama and has honey in it.

I didn't expect this to work on me, but I think it does. I haven't decided if it's "me," but it definitely smells nice. In the imp, I get a whiff of lemon along with something green and soapy. On, it turns quickly to a spicy tea scent with a little bit of lemon and a very light men's-cologne type scent. Doesn't morph much. It's quite nice, actually, and fresh-smelling. I'm not sure if I want to keep it or put it on the boyfriend. It goes a little more traditionally "masculine" than my favorites, but I do think my chemistry is working well with it and it's not trying anything funky. Which is especially nice because lemon never behaves this well on me! Edit, December 4, 2014 Dorian definitely changes with age, unlike his namesake. I really like this now! The wet stage is tea with lemon. And hallelujah and praise the Goddess of good-smelling things, I actually mean tea with lemon, and not LEMON and tea, which is what my skin does far too often instead. I mean, the lemon actually smells like it's submerged in tea! It brings back a nice scent memory of the tea with lemon I used to drink a lot in college. There's a bit of the men's-cologne thing hanging around at this stage too. Dry, it's more vanilla and musk with a hint of sugar. It's very second-skin, very sexy, without shouting "PERFUME!" And it's not masculine on me at all after the opening stages. I still kind of want to see what it'll smell like on the boyfriend, but I like it juuuust fine on me.

This is an old, old decant that I'm finally getting around to reviewing. This is amazing. It smells like someone took aged Snake Oil and dumped Smut on top of it. It reminds me of both of those oils but is better than either one. It smells like this gorgeously blended mix of vanilla, spices, musk, booze, and sugar. If any one note predominates, it's the vanilla, but overall it's really well balanced and nothing is drowning out the rest of the notes. It also has reasonable throw and a ton of staying power, and on me is not much of a morpher--it was amazing at 9am this morning, and it's amazing now at 8pm and smells just about the same.

In the bottle: a floral blend whose notes I can't pick apart. On me: JASMINE JASMINE JASMINE JASMINE JASMINE I guess I've finally settled the question of which I amp more, amber or jasmine. Jasmine has dispatched all the other tributes and stands triumphant in the arena. Jasmine jasmine jasmine. To give you an idea of how much I amp jasmine, here is a list of the notes Corinna has in common with Peitho, other than the jasmine note: --- Yet they are nearly identical on me, if memory serves. I think this is that same bright, slightly fizzy jasmine note I got from Peitho. I haven't worn Peitho in years and now I want to test them together to see if my scent memory is accurate. I actually do like it, for what it's worth. It's just that I wish I could get more of the complexity out of it. I thought there were enough other notes in this, including amber (which usually loves me), that jasmine would take a back seat, but no.

The first stage of this on me is a super-sweet burst of vanilla. It's not foody vanilla on me, definitely perfume vanilla, but it's really really sweet. A little cloying. Someone mentioned Love's Baby Soft and that's about right--not that it smells exactly like Love's Baby Soft, but it does remind me of the kinds of perfumes my mom always wanted me to wear as a teen because they were "innocent." The next stage is a close sibling of O. The vanilla and the amber work together to make this smell like a less complex version of O; I liked it, but kept wanting to layer it with a honey scent and just recreate O. It was one of those scents I like but wasn't sure if I could find a niche for, since I already have O and like it just that little bit better. And then, it turns to Play-doh and sweet pea. Ack.

This starts out with a bright, astringent burst. I think this is the ginger, but my nose is trying to read it as a citrus note. It's a little air-freshener-y. On my right wrist, it has dried down to a subtler, less tart and more bitter version of this "citrus" note. On my left, it's a lovely soft honey scent with just a hint of the "citrus." I can't make heads or tails of this one. It's really cold out and it just arrived today, so maybe it's still wonky from transit. I'll test it again another day. ETA: So I forgot about this oil and then went out for dinner. And then as I was sitting there waiting for my appetizer, suddenly I smelled GREAT. Talk about your slow burn. The ginger finally quit smelling like lemons and started smelling like the ginger from Bengal. The honey rounds it out with a nice warm sweetness--and really, the whole thing kind of reminds me of Bengal a bit. It obviously doesn't have some of the notes Bengal does, but it's a cousin. I can't make out red currant at all, or sugar cane--I'm just amping ginger and honey and it's lovely. It's now about an hour after the sudden "OMG awesome!" moment and it has stayed true to that.

Mother Shub's Stygian Nougat is really unusual. This is the kind of perfume you're only going to get from a quirky business like BPAL. This is not like anything else I've ever tried, and in the end I think I like it. But it's definitely weird! Initially, I get this huge herbal blast. I know lavender and I know nougat and I know honey and this ain't them, so I'm guessing it's the thyme. It's really overpowering in this first phase--sort of astringent and bitter and medicinal. It teeters on a fine line between smelling like a food ingredient and smelling like really nice men's grooming products without ever fully committing to smelling like either. There's a hint of sweetness at the fringes, and I'm not sure if it's the honey or nougat or if it's something intrinsic to the thyme. At about the 1-hour point, though, it changes. The herbal scent stops being astringent and becomes smoky instead. I can smell lavender now too, and the honey is just sort of rounding everything out without having a presence of its own. I can see where the "stygian" and "somnolent" come in--this is really relaxing, like an aromatherapy oil for sleep. In fact, I might use it for exactly that. It doesn't end up being the least bit foody on me. Update after some aging, as of October 2014: This has calmed down into something I like better than I did at first. That initial herbal blast only lasts a minute or so, and then moves over so that a soft nougatty note can take over. Then over the next hour or so, the nougat fades out and lavender becomes the dominant note. I'd already planned to use it for sleep, and in the last week or two, I've finally been doing that. It works really well. The nougat is comforting and warm as I first get into bed, and then the lavender does its magic. When i wake up in the morning, I can't smell any of it remaining at all. It helps me get to sleep and stay asleep. All this time later, I kind of wish I'd gotten more than a decant of Stygian Nougat, and I may look for GCs that have similar notes.