Pardona

Got this imp from a friend, and was looking forward to trying it so very much! Wet in the bottle: I'm not... sure what to think of this. Something fresh? Maybe? 5 minutes on: I think I'm getting mainly the cardamom and cedar. 10 minutes: Oh! That's where the vanilla is! I love this so much more now - it literally 'warmed up' on me. 15 minutes: This is just the softest, most gentle vanilla I ever smelt. I'm pretty sure it's the cardamom that is just making it all so much more mellow. 20 minutes: Still mellowing, and now the cedar is also making a return. 25 minutes: I wish the vanilla decided to stick around more. It's mostly cedar now, with a very gentle warmness playing in the background. I can't help but think that this is what a Yule should probably smell like (haven't tried any Yules yet). A cedar forest at night with a cup of warm vanilla milk. 30 minutes: I seem to have left the forest and am left with my vanilla milk now. This is such a ridiculously gentle and warm smell. I love it. 40 minutes: Cardamon comeback! In fact, It's pretty much all I'm smelling right now. 50 minutes: Everything's getting real mellow. I don't think it's fading, but more that it's all kinda blending together and no one note is really standing out anymore. I can kinda pick them out if I try, but it's just this delicious vanilla-y cedar-y... winter night's hug. One hour: Still the same delicious blend, but I *do* think it might be fading a bit now. =( An hour and 15 minutes: Soft vanilla is all I seem to be smelling now. Not that I mind, though! An hour and a half: Fresh vanilla. I think it might be a hint of the cedar that's making it 'fresh'? 2 hours: There's not much left now. The vanilla is still playing some in the background if I breathe in deeply enough. 2 & 1/2 hours: A faint vanilla yummyness is what's left.

Got this Imp from friend of mine, because I was intrigued by the idea of 'Victorian spices' In the bottle: spicy! It tickles my nose! Slightly floral also. Just on: the spicy almost immediately changes into something that is still spicy, but also a lot sweeter than I was expecting - Mulled wine perhaps? 5 minutes: Okay this is definitely a *rose* scent. Like, not slightly 'hey I think I smell a rose', but heavy, sweet rose hitting you in the face. And totally natural too - it's like pushing your face in a bush full of sweet roses. I love it. 10 minutes (35): The roses have settled down some, and the spicy is showing itself again. I love both the spicy and the sweet roses, but I wish they would stop fighting each other. 15 minutes: Spice here, spice there, spice everywhere, laid out on a gentle, sweet background. I love it! 20 minutes: This could be a wonderful incense - still sweet but with enough spice in there to make itself noticeable. 25 minutes: I really wish the rose smell would come back some, but for now, it seems to have blended into a heavy sweetness (that is not floral) peppered with an incense-like spice. Despit missing the roses, I still *really* like this. 30 minutes: Could it be the roses are just *that* sweet I hardly smell the floral? The spices have been lessening and are now barely there, and the rose smell I smelled at first is making a return. Ever so slightly, for now, but it's there. 40 minutes: Okay, spicy roses, very definitely! 50 minutes: And now the spice is entirely gone, and it's floral roses take two. These aren't the heavy sweet roses I smelled earlier, but it's walking through a rose garden where and being completely surrounded on all sides by roses - not with your face pushed into them, but it'll all around you in the air. An hour: I think it's toying with me: Sure, I'm still sitting in a rose garden, but now the spices are dancing around again, as if someone wearing a spicy perfume is walking up to sit beside me. Decide already! An hour and twenty minutes: Dusk seems to have fallen in my rose garden. The rose scent is now gently wafting through the air, while somewhere close by, someone lighted a spicy scented candle. An hour and forty minutes: it's mixed up again, but not in a way that I seem to remember it doing - spicy floral that is less specifically roses and more generally 'floral'. Still delicious though. 2 hours: Yeah, general floral-spicy that *still* can't decide what to settle on. 2 & 1/2 hours: Yeah, I don't think this is going to change much anymore. A light scent that tickles me with its spiciness but has enough floral in there to make it something you don't feel a burden wearing all the same - very interesting. Final verdict: Lucy's Kiss is a simple scent on me, and I mean that in a good way. The two elements it's composed of are roses in various degrees of sweetness, and spices (never really specific spices, just like... fancy incense spices) that either prickle your nose or decide they're happy sitting it out in the background for a bit. The two never *do* seem able to decide which one of them is taking the lead in their continual dance, but that's not a bad thing - it's like, you *know* what you're gonna get, but you *don't* know in what ways what you're getting is gonna behave itself. This was a great experience!

2 & 1/2 yo Ogygia: In the bottle: extremely salty Just on: SO fresh - like, the cleanest laundry sheets you ever smelled! 5 minutes: still fresh, but now there's a burnt woodsy smell taking the lead, with a sprinkle of herbs making it be more refined. 10 minutes: a crisp, woodsy, seaside garden of flowers 15 minutes: still some wood lingering in the background, but the salty crispness has definitely overtaken the scent for now 20 minutes: Woodsy, crisp, herbal - I'm pretty sure the woodsy herbal is the juniper. Half an hour: Still very crisp, and the juniper smell has mellowed considerably but is still there. I liked it better before it mellowed, but I'm still really liking this as well. I think I also detect some flowers in the background - faintly. 40 minutes: Something very sharp has overtaken everything else - and I'm not familiar enough with some of the scents in here like glistritha and selino to know what it might be. 50 minutes: Okay, just very sharp herbal now, but not like before, when it had me sneezing. An hour: Fresh, clean linen, washed with something made to smell your linen like herbs. Not meaning to say artificial, just very clean, and herbal. 80 minutes: Soft, clean, herbal - nothing standing out too much, just soft and clean. 100 minutes: very clean, like a wonderfully expensive soap (although not all the way soapy). Less herbal than it was. 2 hours: A bit faint, but a fresh herb garden. Wonderful. 3 hours: very faint herbal I continue to really really love this scent. =3

2 & 1/2 yo Dracul: Just applied: Spicy-minty. This smells interesting 5 minutes: A large fir sprouted in my little spice garden - there's some mint growing at the bottom as well. I think a little bit away someone is smoking unfiltered cigarettes? 10 minutes: Something here is definitely taking over everything else - and I think it's the balsam of Peru. There's some spiciness dancing underneath, but other than that, the balsam is ruling everything else for now. It's definitely not unpleasant, though. *So* fresh! 15 minutes: The balsam is a *little* less... sharp? and I can smell the spices a *little* better, but otherwise not much has changed. 20 minutes: Okay, the balsam has definitely softened now, although it's still there, and the spices are a deliciously warm counter to the sharp balsam. I'm not *that* well acquainted with different spices, but I can definitely pick out the cumin, which works great for me, since I *love* cumin! Half an hour: The balsam still, and on top of the cumin, I *think* I can identify the cloves? The bitterness of them is making it a bit hard to differentiate from the previous sharpness of the balsam, but since that has mellowed some, I'm pretty sure it's the cloves setting in, while the balsam has calmed down. 40 minutes: Yeah, not much has changed. The balsam is still there, and it and the warm spice - mainly the cumin - are blending beautifully together. 50 minutes: Still the same, although it seems to be dulling down abit, which in the case of the balsam is nice, but the spice seems to be just barely there anymore. An hour: Still the gentle balsam-spice mix, which doesn't seem to be dulling down any more. There's *something* else there, but I'm having a hard time identifying it. Maybe the orange blossom? Not sure. An hour and twenty minutes: Warm spice, and just... sharpness. An hour and 40 minutes: Spice and sharp, although the sharp is is a little bit less so? Maybe a teensy but of the musk? 2 hours: Spicy musk, with the sharp still there, but less so. Very nice! 2 hours & 30 minutes: Musk, spices have almost faded, still a bit sharp. 3 hours: Nothing really new, and it's all just mellowing out. Final verdict: starts out as with spices and balsam of Peru, and the spices have to struggle a bit to survive, but they *do* survive, and smell wonderful, especially the cumin. The musk establishes itself later on. Not at all what I was expecting from it, but a wonderful scent all the same. If I had to pick a color for this scent, It'd be something like yellow earth.

2 & 1/2 yo frimp! In the bottle: Something fresh and fruity 5 minutes on: The fig is taking the lead almost instantly, and the patchouli is slowly creeping in. 10 minutes: Still very sweet, a bit more... earthy? 15 minutes: A lot more earthy, the sweet is still here, but is on equal footing with the earthy now. 20 minutes: Not much seems to be changing. This seems to meld together more and more into a gentle sweet scent with an earthy undertone. Half an hour: The patchouli is setting in now, and together with the sweet fig, is making for a truly wonderful smell. It actually smells rather girly, and I'm loving it. 40 minutes: Patchouli with something fresh and green in the background - the oakmoss? - and the sweet slowly fading. 50 minutes: Fresh, green patchouli An hour: It's doing that thing again where I can kinda smell all of the different things, but it's hard to make any one in particular out. An hour and 20 minutes: The fresh green scent with the sweet dancing in the background like... idk... cotton candy? An hour and 40 minutes: Fruit gum, maybe? A sweet and fruity smell that is also more fresh than sweet. 2 hours: A patch of fresh green growing in the earthy woods, with some fruity smell lingering about. Damn - I usually try to smell regularly for longer than this, but I seem to have forgotten this time.It's almost been 3 hours now, and it seems to have pretty much faded now. This was a wonderful scent that mostly gave me sweet / fruity - sometimes fresh, sometimes patchouli, but always sweet / fruity. When my mom put this one on the fig was a lot more 'fig', but I still really really liked it. A great result from a frimp I probably would never have thought of getting myself. =D

2 & 1/2 yo Oblivion: In the bottle: Mostly a fresh kind of spicy, like herbs that are meant to tickle the nose, but not in a way that they overpower it. Just dancing there and telling me 'hey, you might be interested in this!' 5 minutes: Warm - what I'm assuming is the wood spice and saffron seem to be dancing on a base that I think is the musk, patchouli, and wood - somewhat expensive incense that has finished, with the ashes still in the incense holder. That's more or less what I'm getting from this. 10 minutes: Sweeter now - I think this is the saffron and wood deciding they want more time in the sun. 20 minutes: Wood, musk, and spices, with a sweet undernote of what might be the saffron. Half an hour: Spicy musk - Oblivion has pretty much kept to the same notes, but they're *dancing*. Fading in and out and back in again in rapid succession. 40 minutes: A woody base that now seems to glow softly with a mix that is spices / incense again. The patchouli again, I think. 50 minutes: Spicy patchouli. Compared to how it's been so far, when it all had a 'solid' base, the scents now seem to be swimming, as if the patchouli is a syrupy bath which the spices are just rolling around in. An hour: Now the 'solid' base is entirely gone, and it's just the smell of incense wafting through the air - perhaps a tiny bit of musk in the background. An hour and a half: Incense ashes on a well-worn incense burner. Not much more. Two hours: The ashes and the smoke are gone, and what I'm smelling now is a small wooden incense burner infused with the smell of years' worth of incense. This is a lovely smell I smelled so often in my teens. Two hours & twenty minutes: Spicy gingerbread? I imagine the saffron wants an encore. Two hours and forty minutes: just the patchouli in the background now. 3 hours: Spicy patchouli, the scent of one of those shops where you went to go get incense and cool rings and dreamcatchers and stuff... and that maybe had some of those large water pipes in the front as well. If I had to assign this scent a color, I'd definitely go with some dark, wooden, faded brown. Final verdict: If you were really into incense and patchouli and all of that as a teen and want to relive that, except have it be a bit fancy as well and at the same time not be too hard, but just... warm and pleasant - this is the scent for you.

2 & 1/2 yo MU - let's do this! Just on: I don't know what happened between last time I put this on and now, but the coffee is coming through nicely and not being overpowering vanilla like it was last time 5 minutes in: What the hell happened here? The coffee is now actually taking over, and the vanilla is getting pushed away - I LOVE this 10 minutes: The coffee is becoming softer, and some library smell is drifting in - I can't say whether it's wood or old books specifically, it's just 'library' - maybe the smell of empty book shelves? 20 minutes: The coffee is still there, though the wood has faded some - the old books have taken over now, and I don't mind in the least! Half an hour: The old books are all that's left now - this is new and exciting from when this was just pure vanilla. I have actually *yet* to smell vanilla in this this time. 40 minutes: This is just dusty tomes now - like, almost pure book dust. =3 50 minutes: The coffee has returned! It's just a dreg in an abandoned cup of it, but it smells wonderful. One Hour: It seems to be fading now - there's just the coffee left, and it's faint. An hour and a half: Someone, somewhere around here, had a coffee. Two hours: Did someone leave a butterscotch laying around? Vanilla! This is almost comical. I didn't smell vanilla this entire time since I put it on, and it was gone just as soon as it appeared, but it was there - almost as if to yell out: "Hey! Hey! I still exist!" XP Two hours and a half: And now, the vanilla is finally coming out to play in earnest. A soft, warm vanilla even - all the rest is gone now, but the vanilla is still not overpowering. It's just *there*, like lying on a warm vanilla-scented pillow. It passed very quickly this time (even though I'm sure the faint whiff of coffee will still hang around for a good while) but I did use a *really* small amount - just one small swab of the applicator thingy. Looking up at that review I posted before this is so weird. Wat the hell happened to my skin chemistry between 5 months ago and now? This smelled of everything it didn't last time, and nothing it *did*.

2 yo Black Forest: Just put on: A mix of pine needles coated in amber, lots of amber. 10 minutes: Second smell it seems more likely it's the cypress I'm smelling. I remember this smell, as they used to be planted around the school playground, and my hands used to get all sticky with this smell when trying to pull off cypress branches. Loving it. 30 minutes in: smell has softened a lot, and while I'm not too familiar with the specific smell of juniper and ambergris, I'm fairly sure what I'm smelling now is the juniper come out to play. The pine and such is still in the background, but this is a scent of berries you picked as a kid that your parents would tell you not to eat. 50 minutes: the floor of a fir forest, completely covered in pine needles, as fragrant as you ever had it. Slightly earthy, as if the essence of all the pine needles has seeped into the ground some. 70 minutes in: Still pine-y, seems to have grown sweeter. Is this the musk? 4 hours in (fell asleep to it): the mix is still there softly, slightly headachy.

Thanks! Can't get that one, but it definitely looks like it might be good, and is on my list now for something I want to get a decant of to send her some day.

I have a friend who loves the smell of vinyl / lp records - what could be a good (GC preferred, but I do realize this might not be possible) scent for her to try?

2 Year Old Miskatonic University First ten minutes: Petit beurre cookies with hot vanilla pudding in a bowl. That is the overpowering memory I get when smelling my wrist. It might just be those being linked to it in my memory, but to me it really smells specifically of petit beurre cookies Ten Minutes later: Still vanilla, but more like something alcoholic with vanilla in it. Maybe Vanilla jenever? Ten More Minutes: The vanilla isn't leaving, but it's just vanilla cookie now. I am smelling *nothing* else that is supposed to be in here. Do I just ridiculously amp vanilla? I reviewed this two years ago when I first got it, and smelled a bunch of other stuff then. Twenty more minutes : Vanilla is still very much there, but now it's beginning to smell somewhat of dusty old paper. Twenty More minutes: Somehow the dusty paper is gone now and I'm smelling Irish Coffee? Two Hours In: Still pmuch all Irish Coffee Three hours in: still just vanilla - a very vague whiff of coffee. Over the two years I left this alone, this really seems to have turned to almost pure vanilla for me - it's a lovely vanilla, but it's also a bit of a shame, since the first time I reviewed this, this did smell of more.

So yeah; I got this one for my mom for Christmas 2 years ago, but neither of us had gotten around to trying it yet.Just the smallest touch on our wrists for both me and her, but the difference couldn't have been more enormous. Her judgment was pretty much one word: 'Artificial-smelling'. The furthest I got with her (we smelled each other's wrists as well) was an association with Rose potpourri. To which she said to 'Oh, right, those are also very artificial'. Comparisons to cheap perfumes from when she was a kid were made, and I just sighed... On me, I mostly smelled the soft scent of a large tea rose bush, which was then later added to by the smell of the leaves and stems of the bush and the soil in which the bush got planted - I guess this was the grass, as I didn't really smell it otherwise. Right now on me, about an hour after putting it on, it's still there, but more the softness of a rose garden that isn't trying to impress so much as lure you in with a soft sweet scent. I like this one, and I can see myself wearing it again in the future. ETA: Another hour-ish later, and it seems to have pretty much faded. Oh well, I applied pmuch just one little stripe with the applicator in the imp, so I suppose that's not bad. Best it can do now is give me sweet dreams.

Decided to use some of my BPAL again tonight - I rather forgot about it for the past two years, but kept them dry and dark, so they should have aged nicely. I used only a very very little. As I first apply it: Wood with a lot of crisp saltiness. A herbal note running underneath. Maybe 10 minutes later: the herbal is still there, and is now in the foreground even, but there's now also a very noticeable, somewhat bitter smell. Another 10 minutes later: The sharp bitter I wasn't really enjoying has now mellowed into a warm, soft, herbal smell, not entirely unlike a herb garden in summer. The crispiness from the sea isn't very noticeable anymore. 10 more minutes: The herbs are settling down even more, and now the violets are here to show themselves. Another half hour later (worn for about an hour total): everything's settled into a mixture that is very very pleasant, although I'm having a bit of trouble distinguishing any one particular note. Mostly herbs and floral, with a tinge of salt in the background. Another hour later: still kinda the same, though a lot softer now. Smells like a very expensive soap. Not meaning to say it smells traditionally soapy, just I've known some very fancy soaps to smell similarly. 3 hours now: Pretty much gone. It's still kinda got that soapy smell, but it's definitely on its very last legs. It's like a bit of a mix of soapy and sharp herbs that prickle my nose when smelling it. Almost 6 hours after putting it on: I'm getting told it can still be smelled, and while it can, it's not really allowing me to pick anything out anymore. It's just sorta... fresh.

First review, on one of the scents I got myself as part of my Christmas gift - first time ever buying BPAL for myself, and this one is very loved by a friend of mine that I previously bought it for. Out of the bottle / right after applying: VANILLA - so much vanilla. Like, the heady heavy smell of what's left in the pot after making home-made vanilla pudding. Not bad, but so not what i was expecting. Almost an hour in: Finally, some of that delicious coffee smell is coming out. I'm really liking this. The vanilla (which is now becoming more of a general 'sweet') is still very strongly there though. An hour and a half in: Finally, I get to the books. They're definitely dusty books, very dusty even, but unmistakably books. Like the books I sometimes get from a big used book store, that are sometimes 30+ years old and probably haven't been read in just as long. Right now (two hours in): the whole of it seems to have mellowed down to a point where all the smell I smelled earlier are still there, but no one of them sticks out anymore. A warm scent of dusty paper, vague coffee, and sweet. I don't know whether I like any individual note sticking out more or less than this, but I would definitely not mind walking around smelling like this all day long; EDIT: 3 hours in: Finally getting some of that lovely wood smell I was wanting but not really getting. It's a bookshelf, for sure, and a dusty one even, but it's still wood, definitely different from the books I was smelling earlier. EDIT: 4 & 1/2 hours: I think it's on its last legs. I'm getting the dregs of a very sweet cup of coffee, and not much more anymore. This was a wonderful first experience to wearing, and not just smelling, BPAL. I can't think of a specific time I would be wearing MU, and that's a shame, cause MU smells to me of a wonderful time - maybe evenings spent with friends in a small college cafeteria, but unfortunately I've not been to college in almost a decade. I'm sure I'll either find or make a perfect opportunity to wear it though - it's too nice not to. =)

Yeah, I guess I'm just afraid it'll come out and ruin the whole experience for me, ziggy. But I just might. Sprout, that was actually my first thought if I were to get an atmo from BPTP, but it's looking increasingly less likely I'll be able to couple my order. I sent something through Contact, but if I don't get a response before the end of the Ploutos promotion, I'll probably limit myself to imps on this order and see whether I might not be able to get an atmo spray somewhere down the road. At least I'll be able to get some more imps! Thanks the both of you! ETA: That being said, I'm not at all familiar with the smell of -good- white wine, but the particular smell that has me leery of it is like... cheap, dry white wine. I honestly can't stand it. I'm sure BPAL uses stuff that smells a lot better than that, but I'm still a bit wary.