rayvn1

This starts out completely feral and overpoweringly strong. eep! Lots of sharp tobacco, wood, and spice. Originally it was a bit much for me and I love my masculine blends..I was shocked and surprised to check my arm half an hour or so later and the most rich, beautiful smoke and warm tobacco blend springs up! It's like a warm campfire in the woods at night with a man covered in sexy cigar smell. Nice!

I had a very similar reaction to Vega, this scent was oddly..hollow smelling. Never tried anything like it. Light, sweet wax note that maade it reminiscent of my dreaded Ichabod Crane but without the muguet that made that one go wonky. This is quite pleasant and has a light smokiness to it and a touch of incense. It's a very cooling scent but the candle wax note that doesn't tend to work on me got a little too strong towards the end.

paper, incense, and cologne. It's mellowed out well in the last few hours, but the strong beginning would be hard for me to get past on a regular basis

I gave this one a few tries, but it's not working on my skin very well. This is a cloyingly sweet synthetic metallic scent. The silver is not for me, apparently.

Lots of honey and peaches but I'm afraid I had the same reaction as Reedsong to Josie Both of the District decants I'm tried the last few days have gone that way - They're oddly plastic and department store smelling. To the swaps!

This starts out way to strong, almost unpleasantly so. After about fifteen minutes it mellows out and smells exactly like a rosewood box i once had that was scented with incense The turmeric lurks a bit in the background. Lovely!

Prominent apricot and a good dose of coconut. There's a sweet and slightly woody quality. There's an underlying synthetic smell to this one on me unfortunately

I get a very light, sweet blend of soothing chamomile with lots of sugar and dusty orris notes Pretty!

Apples and peaches and flowers oh my! This is very lovely and almost aggressively feminine I'm concerned I may be getting a bit of plastic lurking around the corner but I'm crossing my fingers it will settle down shortly. I can picture this being perfect for when I want to be sitting on a porch in the summer drinking a sweating glass of sweet peach iced tea.

This starts out as a very strong sweet and clean scent. Ok, maybe a little soapy. Maybe a lot soapy It settles down into a sweet and a little citrus-y metallic. Very nice!

This comes out pretty strongly ginger and cream with a whole lot of leather and maybe a smidge of frankincense. It mellows out after awhile but is pretty strong on my skin. Very pretty but not a keeper I think.

Ooh! Dust and cedar Keen. For some reason it reminds me a bit of my beloved Potter's Field or maybe Moon of Small Spirits. I'm excited to try it out with some of the mud and grass scents that didn't work too well on me from this year's Yules.

I'm so grateful to TrailerTrashPrincess for sending me a sniffie of this guy! I was all prepared to hit the swaps forum hardcore to find a decant, but no more All the notes sounded fabulous with the possibility of pie not going over well. Oddly, when I put this on for a long time all I smelled was rootbeer-barrels not what I was going for at all! Eventually a plum note came out or some kind of really dark berry. Alas! The Soldier is not my friend, but better to know now than obsess about finding it..

This guy is moss and sharp, pungent herbs. Interesting to try, but off to the swaps.

Something went horribly, and I mean HORRIBLY wrong with me on this one Everybody's descriptions sound so good but they're nothing like what my skin was doing. I get overpowering, deadly smelling plastic and chemicals. It was bad news. This is probably the worst a bpal has ever turned. Damn the hooligans! I had to scrub and scrub to get this guy off.

Oh my! Sweet and sticky booze and salty sweat. Man, this smells like cheap, dirty, dirty sex Sooooo a keeper haha

Straight-up aquatic, damn it The two blends I was most anticipating were this one and Shadows of What May Be which was also epic fail on me, unfortunately. So, so wish I was getting what other people are on these two scents. I crave a good mud and grass scent! Ah well. I may try mixing the two to see what happens.

This was the Yule I was most looking forward to Why does it hate me?!? If only I could have gotten everybody's reaction with a lovely dirt smell. I get pretty much a single scent with this one and it's that of dry, sharp plant very similar to some vetiver blends on me. Not sure how that happened but it's heartbreaking! So far my closest go-to graveyard scent is Potter's Field and with this I was hoping for more mud and dirt. Alas I'll hold onto it and try again, but I don't have much hope for this guy.

Wow, I completely agree with Dawndie that this is very close to Miller vs. California's dark fig note. I can't say I'm getting Cathedral associations though..oddly I could have sworn this was straight up fig and leather with maybe a little resin to sweeten it up in the background. Weird reaction on my skin I guess but very appreciated!!

I originally had the same reaction as tailoredshirt with a prominent sweet and salty aquatic note and that was pretty much it except for a very faint bit of wood note. Now that it's had some time to dry I can picture fog though I think that's more mental suggestion from the name It's a very faint scent now of a slightly smoky aquatic which is interesting, not like any other aquatic I've tried. If I huff repeatedly at my arm I do get some wood as well. The scent itself is so subtle and faint I may have to pass, but I'll give it some time and another application because the scent is very nice!

In the words of Smiley Bone: "Happiness Abounding!!" Man oh man..I almost didn't get this one because I eagerly stalked and tried out Herr Dross '06 when I first got into bpal and it was a big disappointment though I crave leather and tobacco. When I heard a lemony note was thrown into the mix this year I groaned in distress. However! This is perfect. Surprisingly, amazingly perfect! And what i really get now that it's sat on me awhile: A stronger tobacco version of Haunt's Winchester. Which makes me crazy excited It started out with a bright and not-too-lemony kick over some leather and tobacco. It reminded me of the sweet, lemony hyssop notes in Gennivre which I love as a summer scent. If Dean Winchester dated Ginnevre, this is probably what it would smell like (huzzah!) I get light leather and prominent tobacco. The tobacco switches between slightly fruity with a dark tinge, and warm and dusty cinnamon and sugar the next. I don't really get woods and the bright hyssop/lemon reminder fades into the background after about half an hour. Hm. This one throws out so many scent images! Now I'm thinking the way Tristan smelled like sex in a field with leather pants, this one smells like sex in the kitchen with leather pants By the way, I'm wearing Ebenezer Scrooge on the other arm and the two together are creating the manliest, manliest sexy smell imaginable! I'm talking devastatingly sexy. One of my Yule (and together top 10) favorites!

I've been looking forward to old Ebenezer. The notes are great on me the vast majority of the time and this combination is spectacular! Rich leatherand incredibly dusty with the cumin and pepper. Oakmoss can be iffy on me but it stays tame this time around. The tonka rounds out the scratchy vetiver and it all combines to a fantastic whole Wouldn't doubt it at all if this is the number one winner of the Yules for me this year And by the way, I have Herr Drosselmeyer on the other arm and the mix of the two is fabulous!! The brighter freshness with its lemony, almost darkly fruity mixture combines to create pure manly, manly heaven!! ETA: Oh my GOD! Half an hour later this has developed into one of the best bpal's I've ever smelled This is what I picture Aragorn would smell like. No joke. Catapulted into a possible #1 bpal for me. Crazy!

Add me to the group of pumpkin-phobes that surprisingly liked this. Pumpkin Queen was a pretty big disappointment on my skin after I finally tracked down a decant and the Halloweenies need to have super strong ingredients to cover up the buttery pumpkin overload I tend to get. However! Here it's the pulpy, warm..squashy version someone else mentioned. The ginger is really kicking in now that it's been on my arm for 15 minutes of so and the sugar cane is coming in as well. Turning less foody and more spicy and aggressive Hopefully the powder I usually get w/ amber doesn't rear its ugly head..

Lots of tea in this for me..sweet and fruity as well. Very refreshing with a bit of musk rounding it out. Doesn't last very long though. Dries out to just sugar pretty quick. Not sure how often I'll reach for this one since the others like Gypsy are so spot on..I'll definitely give it another try though.

OmgOmgOmg This is exactly what I was hoping for! The perfect storm of BPAL notes for me! Bourbon vanilla? check. musk? check. tonka, sugar, cardamom?? Eeeeee it's so good! Blending together perfectly. Rich, warm, sexy as hell. Going to be a go-to scent for me, I can tell.