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Hmm.. yeah, this is not my kinda thing at all It smells like a fruit mince pie that someone accidentally tipped too much cinnamon into. Or a spicy salsa that you'd find on a Thai dish. The prune is rich and fruity, but it's completely dominated by the spicy ginger and the rum. After around 10 minutes of dry-down, the ginger comes out more strongly but then the whole thing develops a slightly mentholated smell that I'm not really enjoying. I do agree with other reviewers - Alice's Evidence reminds me of that cinnamon chewing gum. Personally, this isn't something I want to smell like. It's not that the fragrance is bad.. it's not just my kind of scent. But if you love spicy fruity things, it might just be perfect for you!

This one had me at dark musk and linen.. the red chypre was a little worrisome but I figured it was worth a try. Often there's a bright citrus tone to chypre that doesn't agree with my skin, but I thought that this one being a 'red' chypre it may lean more towards the moss/woods rather than the citrus.. and it kind of does, but there's a slightly sharp nose-tickling aspect to this blend that I can only attribute to the chypre since neither dark musk nor linen ever smells like that on me. When first applied, there definitely is a cologne-ish vibe to the fragrance.. it's almost a floral kind of smell, like violets, which is probably from the chypre. After about 10 minutes the musk comes out more and then it starts to get interesting.. much darker, and the cologne side is toning down. After about 20 minutes, there's a smell of fresh sheets that have just come off the washing line on a sunny day - so, hello linen! At this point I'm liking Male Nude a lot more, now that the chypre has settled down. I think that Male Nude is at its best after about half an hour on my skin - by that stage, it's warmed up nicely and the dark musk is very present. The linen is still there, but it's subtle, and there's a nice woodsy kinda feel to the fragrance. After that, the musk went a little powdery and the violet-like floral smell came back, so I dunno - it seems Male Nude is a bit schizophrenic on my skin. But overall, this is a very nice blend - sophisticated and worldly feeling - musky but with a clean, fresh edge. edited for bad typing! .

First up, I want to give a big shout-out to the lovely Edens Sixth Day for graciously sharing a little of her Venom with me, so that I could try it. The main thing I notice in Venom when I first apply it is the 'dark wild berries' which end up translating to something that smells very much like a slightly smoky plum on my skin - it's reminding me of the plum note in Hellion. I do not wear jasmine well at all, and just a couple of minutes after putting the oil on my skin I can definitely pick up the jasmine note in here - it's slightly interfering with the berries - not so much that it's being unpleasant about it at first - but over time, the jasmine comes out more strongly and does start to amp out over everything else.. just a bit too much for my liking, I would have preferred it to stay in the background. The lime is interesting, when I first read the notes for Venom I did wonder what lime was doing in there - it seemed like an odd addition - but I'm finding it's adding a very subtle sweet tangy freshness that works quite nicely with the earthy/woody tone of the galbanum and the resin-y sweetness of the opoponax. I can see why this is such a highly sought after blend - whilst it reminds me of some other BPALs in the same type of berry/resin combination family, it is not quite like anything else I've tried before and the note combination is really interesting. I do get the comparison to Poison, but in my opinion this is nowhere near as sweet or rich/strong as Poison - it's more sultry.. where I always saw Poison as deep purple in colour, I see Venom as a rich burgundy colour. Thankfully, this is not something I'm going to go nuts trying to find. I'm really glad I got to try it though - I think that if there wasn't jasmine involved, I could have really fallen for Venom.

This is one of the few Lupercalia blends this year that I took a chance on buying a bottle without testing first. I just had a feeling it would be a good one The oil here is a rich, golden honey brown colour - I'm starting to recognise that as a good sign in my BPALs! When I first applied it to my skin, I thought I could smell patchouli but no.. there's no patchouli in here! But when the oil is wet, it has that lovely warm/earthy tone to it. It reminded me of blends like Panther Moon, WILF, even Lucy, Kissed a little bit.. Female Nude has the same dark, sumptuous lusciousness that I enjoy from those blends. So ten minutes in, and I have this gorgeous, soft and plump fragrance on my arm - the mahogany and rosewood together are such a beautiful combination. Sometimes mahogany can be a little bitter on my skin, but not here - it's just gorgeous with the slight sweetness from the rosewood. And the apple is really barely there - I only start to notice a hint of apple after it's been on for about an hour.. and even then, it's really barely there, but it's definitely a red apple.. a hearty soft apple, rather than a crisp/sweet/fresh one. Another thing I've gradually figured out about BPAL is that often the more 'simple' blends - those with only three or four notes - are the best ones for me, and Female Nude is a perfect example of that. This really works beautifully on my skin - it smells musky and warm, really cozy and intoxicating - like cherrycherry said.. I find myself wanting to close my eyes, lean in to my arm and just inhale it. Lovely!

Hmm.. what an interesting blend! This is definitely part of the ".. Vulva" set - it has the same creamy/waxy feel as Glowing Vulva, and the waxy/vanilla tone as Giant Vulva. But I think this new one is my favourite out of all three I'm really not getting anything 'burning' from it at all.. the red ginger is not spicy nor firey on my skin, and the black pepper isn't really noticeable. What I'm getting most of all is the amber, beeswax and balsam - with a hint of soft leather underneath. The cyclamen adds a subtle top note of sweet floral but not floral as such, and that top note could also be the sweetness of the orange blossom at play - I'm not really sure, as no individual notes really stand out above any others - everything here is really well blended to create a lovely creamy, waxy feel. After about 30 minutes on my skin, the vanilla comes out more - it's a soft, gentle vanilla.. not sweet at all, very nice - it could be that the tonka has warmed into it a little. And now the ginger is a little more present, but still not strong. There's also a slight spiciness from the myrrh but again.. very very subtle. Opoponax can sometimes be troublesome on me (it tends to go bitter), but I'm not noticing that happening here. The beeswax is still there, still good. If I could tweak this blend, I'd like the ginger to be more prominent and the vanilla a bit stronger. I would also like more leather.. but hey, that's just me - really this is a gorgeous blend. As with the other Vulva scents, it has a fairly light throw - I'd class it as a skin scent - but up close it is quite heady. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this becomes a highly prized collector's item once the Shungas come down - I know some people didn't find the listed notes appealing, but I think this lovely blend is more than the sum of its parts and definitely worth a try.

This is really gorgeous - a very warm and cosy blend, but it has a touch of naughtiness about it as well. It actually reminds me a lot of Panther Moon with the same kind of muskiness, and I get what people mean with the comparisons to Snake Oil/Snake Charmer although WILF isn't quite as sweet as SO and missing the smoky plum and coconut of SC.. but it does have the same kind of vibe. What I get mostly from WILF is the cosiness of the fur, and the two musks. The patchouli is there, but it's quite subtle. I can't honestly say that I'm noticing the champaca, juniper berry or frangipani at all.. and I'm really only picking up on the chocolate peppermint because it's listed in the notes - if not for that, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. The addition of vanilla bean is perfect - just the right touch of sweetness - and the brown sandalwood gives a lovely earthiness to it but thankfully not the powdderiness that sandalwood sometimes develops on my skin. For me, this is definitely hoardworthy. And as others have said, I'm sure it will age beautifully and become even more musky and snuggly

Hmm.. reading the reviews so far, I'm wondering if there was some kind of batch variation with Knock-A-Dolly!! My spray fills the room with the smell of twigs and leaves. Not in a fresh/forest kind of way.. more like a dank, dark forest where everything's a bit wet and slightly mouldy. I can honestly say that there's no sign of cinnamon sugar and/or candy dust in here - not at all, I cannot smell anything even close to either of those. There's nothing sweet or spicy in here at all - it's just a slightly sour, damp, kinda nasty smell. I guess if you like those dark, moody, damp forest kinds of smells then this would be perfect but really.. I'm not enjoying my house smelling like this. And of course, it's lasting for AGES in the air!! So unfortunately I have to say I'm disappointed in this one, because I think cinnamon sugar and candy dust would have been awesome

Tiki King reconfirms that black coconut is magic on my skin. I love the black variety because it isn't too sweet (like, say, the coconut in Tiki Princess) nor too milky like in Obatala (although I do love the milky coconut too!!). On my skin, black coconut delivers a lovely natural coconut smell that's fresh and fragrant without smelling like Malibu liqueur. The black musk merges beautifully with the coconut, making it seem more deep and rich. On my skin, the lemon blossom is the topmost note - sweet, but very natural smelling - I would prefer it to be a bit more subdued as it's amping a little over the other notes for me, but it's not unpleasant. The bark is as it should be - a nice bottom layer, adding to the overall natural feel of this blend. I think the King is my favourite of the Tiki royal family - it's rich and intoxicating but not overwhelmingly 'tropical' smelling. Big thanks to lamenteuse for the frimped decant!

This is a strange mix of notes to my nose! On the surface, it seems very green and fresh with the pine and spruce.. and the moonflower is quite bright. If I sniff a bit deeper, I find the crab apples. The cherry never really shows up on my skin, nor the camellia (which isn't a particularly fragrant flower anyway, to me) - mostly Halloween: Brooklyn is green, pine-ish and slightly woody.

This definitely is very ethereal and otherworldly - it's.. misty! Overall it has a floral feel, but it isn't FLORAL as such.. it just has that way about it. Surprisingly, there's nothing in this blend that's really jumping out from my skin - even the magnolia is very subdued. It's staying very close to my skin with very little throw - it's the kind of perfume you'd dab behind your ears for someone to discover at an intimate moment.. not the sort of perfume you'd slather on for a big night out. Very delicate and pretty, it's absolutely spot-on for its name and beautifully blended.

Wow.. this is really nice! I'm finding it to be a mentholated mint.. not like that muscle-ache relief cream type menthol, but a lovely natural and clean menthol. So overall it smells minty, but not in an obvious way like you'd get from peppermint or spearmint which always smell a little artificial to me. This somehow smells very natural and clean. I got the same thing as ZZ though.. my skin ate it up very quickly so what started out as a blast of refreshing mint dried down very quickly to a soft, faint mint. The smell didn't really change as such though - it just got a lot less intense.

Big to Dark Alice for sharing a tester of this one with me!! So usually honey is a no-no on my skin.. it generally goes all powdery/funky/cloyingly sweet. But not this time! Actually I probably wouldn't have noticed that there's honey in this blend if I didn't see it as a listed note. Now that I know it's there, then yeah - I can smell it, but perhaps because it's a mix of eight different honeys I'm getting a very different result from the usual BPAL honey note. The pomegranate is clean and fresh and sweet - nice and red. The apple is also red, I think (rather than green) and that too is fresh and clean. The hyssop is providing nice balance to that fruity sweetness, its gentle smokiness is present but not overwhelming. Overall this is fruity without being too fruity - it's soft and gentle, very pretty. This is a lovely blend and I'm glad I got to tr it.

Thanks to Dark Alice for sharing a tester of this with me!! The only other one of this round of Champagne blends I've tried so far is Champagne and Opium, which had a really strong champagne note.. and champagne typically delivers a sour, dry, alcoholic hairspray-like smell on my skin. So when I went to try this Party Hats one, I expected the same thing to happen.. but it didn't!! There's definitely a cake lurking in this one.. but where others have said white cake, I'm saying chocolate cake - yep, there's something almost chocolate-y in here. I mean it's not a chocolate blend as such, but it has a chocolate-ish smell to my nose. And creamy icing, like buttercream.. there's a sweetness but it's not overly foody in feel, which I guess is because the champagne is cutting through the cake smell. The champagne is there, but it's very soft and sweet rather than dry and sour as it usually is. So for me, this is a surprise hit!

I need to preface this review by stating up front that champagne usually does not play nice on my skin (it often produces a bitter, sour, nasty hairspray-like smell).. but I had to give this one a try, because I do love me some opium!! So when first applied, yep - there's the champagne. And yep - it's strong, and very boozy, and not playing nice on my skin as usual. Checking again 10 minutes later and the champagne is still sharp and dominant, but I can smell the lovely sweet smokiness of the opium breaking through. This reaches its best point for me after it's been on for 20 minutes - now the champagne has dried off a lot.. it's still there, and it's still got that boozy/fizzy dry/sharp top note, but the opium has now come to the fore. And it's exactly the opium that I love - soft, sensuous, smokey and slightly sweet. The longer I leave it on, the less noticeable the champagne is, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I agree with the breakdown VioletChaos mentioned - it's about 60/40 in favour of the opium. Like others have mentioned, perhaps the champagne note will lessen its intensity after a bit of aging. So I'm putting this aside for a while and will re-test in a month or two.. right now, the pong of the champagne is a bit too much for me but ohhhhh the opium is too lovely for me to give up on it completely just yet

So as a hard core Snake Oil fan, it was kind of a no-brainer that I was going to love this In the spray bottle, it's a caramel colour - it looks just like Snake Oil but the consistency is far more liquid. When I first spritzed it on my arm, the waft of alcohol was strong and a bit sharp - I could smell the SO, but the waft of alcohol was a bit overwhelming. It took about 10 minutes for that to disappear, it gradually got less and less alcohol-smelly until eventually it was completely gone and now I can't smell any alcohol note in there at all. Now what I have on my arm is the Snake Oil smell that I know and love. It's not as intense as a slather of the actual oil would be - it's a bit more soft and mellow, but definitely the same fragrance. I'm finding that the muskiness and spices are more dominant in this spray version, where the vanilla is a major player on my skin with the oil, so that's probably the only real difference I can tell apart from the spray being more soft/mellow as I mentioned before. I think the advantage of the spray over the oil is that it allows me to spritz a mist of it over more skin area rather than having to do the dab-dab thing in various places. I just did a spritz in the air and walked through it, so it's landed in my hair and on my shoulders, arms and chest which leaves me walking around in a little cloud of delicious Snake Oil fragrance! And bonus.. what didn't land on me has gone on to the floor so that my loungeroom also smells of Snake Oil If you love Snake Oil, I would highly recommend you try to track this one down - it's definitely worth a try. And if you're one of those people who find Snake Oil a bit overwhelming, this spray might suit you better as it's less intense. I love it, and would definitely buy some if it ever becomes available

2007 version Well.. usually any mention of rose in a BPAL means certain doom for me. Usually rose amps badly on my skin, to the point of domination over other notes, or if it doesn't do that then it goes all old-lady-potpourri on me. The Peacock Queen is lovely though - it's a real rose, just like a velvety red rose in the garden. It's quite soft, but still very rose-y. This is exactly the rose smell that I do love - I've always said that I love the smell of roses in the garden but not in my perfumes. This isn't enough to make me change my mind about rose - I've had enough bad experiences to know that wouldn't be smart - but I must say this blend really is quite beautiful.

2008 version I don't like these 'ice' blends much generally.. they're just not my thing. This one is cold - in the same way that I find Snow, Glass, Apples to be cold - and it has quite a bitter/sharp tone to it (quite ozone-y) for the first hour or so. Eventually that dies down and leaves behind a cool, minty fragrance. I can see the attraction here - if you love those cold, desolate blends that BPAL do so well then this is a definite must-try

This is a fresh, sweet and fruity scent - it does have a 'wet' feel too. Thankfully I'm not getting any pitch-stench or fungal lichens.. but I have no idea where the black incense is hiding.. there's nothing black in here at all for me although there is something lurking behind the sweetness! I'm thinking this has grapefruit in it, and some apple. Possibly a little bit of lemon or lime, and there's a slight saltiness to it. Surprisingly pretty - if you love sugary citrus blends, definitely give this one a try

I really had very few expectations for this one - I wasn't quite sure how it was going to smell! I get the beeswax, which is quite soft and ever-so-slightly sweet, and the woods which are really gorgeous. There seems to be a lot going on in here - there's a touch of saltiness, and something very golden, but most of all it's the beeswax and warm woods that are winning here.. together they're just lovely. This blend reminds me a little bit of Wezweenie/Hold from the Salons - it's much less rich than W/H, but it has the same kind of feel to it. I also love the way that it's settled in to my skin - it's not on my skin, it's in it - like it's my skin but better smelling. I won't be surprised if this becomes one of the big hits from the 2010 Yules - it has a lovely complexity without being too fussy, and a gorgeous warmth that's very comforting.

Mmm.. this is a pretty one! The vanilla is soft but not overly sweet, and the orange blossom is gorgeous - subtle, but definitely there. I can smell the carnation - it's warm and slightly peppery, but the most dominant note for me is the white sandalwood. There's something very berry-like in here, which may be from the red tea, and also a slight herbal quality which is probably the mate. Overall, this is a lovely scent which has a kind of 'feel good' quality to it - warm and kind of sunny.

Wow.. this is just gorgeous! It never snows where I live, so I haven't really gotten into many of BPAL's 'snow' blends but I thought I'd give this one a try. So glad I did! When first applied it had a slightly sharp or medicinal note that reminded me a bit of Tulzcha, but that very quickly disappeared. There's a beautiful softness about Winter-Time - it smells clean and fresh, but also slighty sweet and ethereal. It would be interesting to know what's actually gone into this blend - I suspect there's a light touch of vanilla, and something green-ish, but it's hard to pinpoint things because the overall smell is so smooth. If I take a big deep sniff, I can detect something slightly mentholated right at the bottom - not eucalyptus, not pine, and not mint.. just that menthol kind of smell. But that just adds an interesting dimension to the scent, rather than taking it over. I'm not sure how much I'd actually wear this.. as lovely as it is, it's one of those very close-to-the-skin blends and I like my perfumes to have a bit more oomph.. but it sure is pretty.

2010 version I had to try this, it's really one of those legendary BPALs and I had never sampled any of the blends from previous years so this was my chance! What I'm getting is a dry, dusky sort of incense blend. I think there's some dark rose in here.. not fresh/live rose but more the smell of rose petals that have been dried. There's also a slightly sweet, slightly waxy/woody thing going on in the background. It does evoke images of old empty churches. It's not unpleasant, but it's not particularly swoon-worthy either - it's a nice blend, but I have other incense-y BPALs that I much prefer.

2010 version Wait.. what's this.. florals? Yes, yes it is! What's going on?!? If I didn't know this was supposed to be dust, wood and musks, I would have said it has jasmine, orchid and hyacinth. Seriously! So I have to say.. The Rat King is a huge disappointment, given that I really don't dig floral blends. Having said that, it's actually quite a nice smell.. soft, flowery, slightly sweet... but that's not what I wanted! Poop, I say. POOP!

Yeah.. I agree with previous reviewers - there's just too much going on in here. The fruits are all mashed together in a way that produces a slightly bitter, unpleasant smell that's a bit too strong for my liking, and I can't separate them at all except that the red currant is doing a cat pee thing and the lemon peel is sharp. The cedar is lurking around, adding a touch of strange dullness. And the herbal fragrance from the balsam just seems to be misplaced. I can barely detect the French vanilla - it's there, but sooooo faint - which is a shame, because I think that vanilla could have saved the fruit mush from being too bitter. Overall, this is a big no for me. It definitely had potential, but I think the mix of fruits in this particular blend is just off-key somehow and it's just not working.

This is extremely pretty, and very winter-y.. as you would expect. It does have a light, 'dancing' quality to it - quite soft and graceful - but it has surprising depth to the fragrance as well. As others have mentioned, this reminds me very much of Snowblind and Snow White. So I actually layered those two on one arm, and applied Waltz on the other, and yep - this is *just* like a mix of Snowblind + Snow White. There is a slightly mint element, but it's more the bracing winter-y freshness of the fir needle rather than straight-up mint. The vanilla is soft and musk rather than candy-sweet, and the snow is fresh but not sharp. The pine bark is providing the depth that I mentioned earlier - it's present, but not obvious. For me, I'm happy with my beloved Snow White and won't need a bottle of The Waltz - there's not enough of a difference between the two on my skin and I'm not loving the pine note in here all that much. But if you're one of those people who found Snow White to be too floral/sweet or if you get the dreaded 'plastic' smell from SW then I'd recommend trying The Waltz. A lovely, lovely scent indeed - beautifully done.