emzebel

Mmm...sweet red musk, rich leather, and just enough piny woods to give it a Yuletide vibe...delish on me...can't wait to sniff on the hubby...

Sarada, I want to know how you calculated that.

Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I think that last year's resurrected scents came with lovely old labels.

Last year's resurrected scents did have the old style catalogue lables.

I think this is a situation where the Lab just can't please everyone - if they don't put special labels on every special release, then some people are disappointed, and if they do, then some people are disappointed. So they have to go with what ever spirit moves or is practical at the time.

I think this years resurrected labels are gorgeous, but I don't really care if all of my catalogue scents look the same. Likewise, I love the asture Yuletide lables, which seem very fitting to the mood of this years series...

But I can also understand why if you were expecting something else with a collection asthetic, it could be disappointing.

Thick, sweet, but a sophistocated sweetness - honey, tobacco, wine grapes - heady and intoxicating. This is in my personal scent family of Skuld and Glasya, me thinks...similar, but definitely it's own hellbound animus.

Yule-at-the-Lab snowy pine, but sweet this time...warmed with the fruit wood and the fruit itself, the apple is sweet, the almond creamy, and all luscious and light.

Sweet pine...I found it hard to describe this one in my head as I tried it, but I really like it...it is green and verdant and herbal and just chilly enough to feel very fresh and clean. I really enjoyed smelling this on my wrists as I wore it...

Aquatic herbal mint - this is wild mint in an icy garden - none of that candycane sweet mint stuff...

Very very very light.

This is an extremely light scent, almost like a crisp cool whisper...almost like a snow flake on the tongue...a sweet aquatic with hints of vanilla mint (I sense more familiarity with Snowblind than Snow White, but then again, I like the former, and not the latter) and none of the pine note that is typical of the Yule-at-the-Lab scent...

This is gone in almost an instant...but is lovely while it is here...

Wet and earthy. Not wearable for me, but very evocative of the characteristics it represents.

Wow, I cannot believe I have not reviewed this yet - this is my favorite of the elementals and the only one that is really wearable for me.

Salamander is, as expected, warm and firey. I get a light dragon's blood, some spicyness and a warm herbal florally note. I cannot really discern the notes in this, but that's okay - I like them.

I really had no idea what to expect from this, other than, well, pine.

So for Slobbering Pine to be rich sappy pine with a shot of fresh citrus - well, color me a happy happy camper. This is a very piny blend, but very fresh as well - not the deep dark pines of winter, but a fresh summery pine forest. I really love this.

Icy pine with something warm poking out - I wore this today because I keep passing the real pine wreath that is hanging on the door to my office suite and thinking as I do so, "I should really wear a BPAL oil that smells like this."

The Darkling Thrush isn't exactly a pine tree, but it has that icy aquatic pine scent that as someone put it up thread just sings "Yule at the Lab". Which just sings...

DC Circular swap -

A very strong shot of what I suppose must be lavender from the other reviews, but what to my nose is coming off as pine. Odd that.

That's really all I smell from this. It is a fresh scent, but probably not one I'd wear much.

DC Circular swap -

Light and spicy, a sort of powdery scent. Not at all what I expected from the name.

DC Circular swap -

This is a very bright sweet floral that pretty much stays that way. Very pretty, but not my thing.

My notes on Glasya from the discontinued circular swap are spotty at best - herbal with a floral hint. That's useful.

But my resurrected bottle...now this is the stuff. Rich and heady, this is similar, a bit, to Skuld, but more sultry and sinister, and less honey sweet. I really really like this and can see myself getting a lot of good use out of it.

Actually, to the best of my knowledge, there is currently one licensed reseller for BPAL products - Nail Polish Etc. in Hershey, PA, owned and operated by our own Shelldoo.

Hello all you lovely helpful people...

 

I'm gonna place my first order on the 22nd of Dec, now, I know this is way close to Xmas and don't expect a fast turn around, to add to that I'm in the U.K eek!

 

Will it still be around 2 months or am I looking at waaaaay longer do you think?

 

Sorry if it's been asked before!

 

x x

Some of your UK cohorts can probably answer more specifically as to what specific wait times have been like lately, but generally, I would guess that an order placed late this month would likely be in your hands by early February.

Of course, as you can probably guess if you read through this thread, a lot can depend on other factors, such as whether there is a component issue with anything that you order, whether there is an update around the same time (Beth's been making some noise about squeezing another installment of the Carnaval in before the end of the year, so a crush of orders around the same date tends to slow things down by a week or so...but I wouldn't guess that absent some bizarre curcumstance you would be looking at more than 4-8 weeks.

But that's all unofficial like.

Very very very sweet candy cane. In a side by side comparison with last year's Lick It, I have a hard time telling them apart, to be honest, but that may be aging, as this does seem a tad sharper and sweeter, and definitely very delish.

Oh dear lord, this is Samhain 04. Rich, dark, deeply aged, with almost a petrol flame tinge. Sooooooooo happy is this Samhain lover. So very very happy.

Surprisingly sophistocated - I had forgotten about the coconut rum note when I first tried this, and was thus startled to find Creepy was much more than just a caramel apple scent - it is that, to be sure, but this is the scent of real sugared caramel, slightly burnt, with an alcoholic edge that gives it just enough of a kick to make this more than just a Halloween novelty scent.

Resinous fruit - bright and glittering...a perfect tribute to the sparkling light that is the precious winter sun.

I was sniffing my wrists as I drove to work this morning, with bright winter sunshine filtering through barren trees, and a song about winter by the band Sol Invictus came on my iPod, and it was the perfect convergence of scent and sound and vision.

Sour and tart, if not quite bitter...Bitter Moon is a much lighter scent than I would have expected on my skin - the poppy behaves (it often takes over with my chemistry, which was my biggest fear in this blend).

I get a sort of bitter fruity musk, with a floral edge, something very lush, but also sort of chilled - it is almost like Fruit Moon with a shot of vodka, although it doesn't smell at all alcoholic - but it has that sort of cutting aspect that liquor can give a mixer. I am making sense to myself...if not to anyone else!

This is the pitch dark moon that should not work on me, but it does...dark creeping florals, rich and lovely...Black Moon is the perfect black crystalline shot of dark moonlight on a forest pond...I honestly cannot even begin to put it into words in any other way. Except to note that even if you think you hate florals, this beauty is worth a try, because she is something so much more.

Based on the notes...based on the reviews...I should love this. Love love love, I say.

So it is with great sadness that I report that on my skin, Schwarzer Mond smells like a resiny floral, similar to All Saints, perhaps a cousin to Al Azif, neither of which work on me in the slightest.

Pout.