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This is the Bat I was least interested in, because lavender is not my friend and verbena can be too OW MY NOSE for me. My bottle found me via swaps.. I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to like it but ohhhhh boy I was wrong. Leaning in to the bottle for a big sniff was interesting - very sharp lavender but with a sweet edge. Initially on my skin it's strong lavender, herbal and pine - I don't like this bit very much.. it's waaaaay too pungent. Kinda like a lavender Vicks VapoRub smell. This passes after about 10 minutes and now it's a very bright lemon - for about another 10 minutes. But then the peach and amber come in, and it starts to sweeten up with a beautiful musky background. This is the bit that I love - it's warm and velvety but bright and shiny at the same time. The herbal tone does stay all the way through, but it mellows out and balances the sweetness nicely. but looking at the notes.. what does 'life everlasting' smell like?

Thanks, angelicruin! Berry Moon is pretty. And awwwww.. Stinky dog!!

I don't think I can add much here that hasn't already been said, but I do agree with the comparisons given earlier - it's like Marshmallow Poof (but not as sweet), Beaver Moon (but not as pink candy-ish), Velvet Unicorn (but not as rich or velvety). What's nice about this one is that it sits somewhere in the vicinity of all those blends, but manages not to be the same as any one of them.. on me, this is quite powdery/creamy and soft and delicate. I do get the pink vibe about it, but not in a fake candy way - just a cloudy kinda non-specific pink. It's not too sweet, not too rich, it's just right! I'm just not sure that I need a bottle of it, since I'm pretty well stocked for these marshmallow-y strawberry-ish kinda BPALs, but this really is a very nice blend.

White grape. You bastard. Every time you appear in a new BPAL, I try to forget how nasty you smell like sour gin on my skin and hope that the other lovely notes will triumph over your vile boozy presence. And every time, you laugh in my face with your acrid pungentness (what? pungentness is so a word!). I wanted raspberry, lime, blueberry and tangerine. I wanted sweet fruity goodness. Instead, I got white grape, white grape and white grape. I eventually had to wash this off after about 20 minutes, it was actually making me feel a little nauseous. So for me, SMMP goes into the swap pile. Oh how I envy you folks whose skin doesn't amp white things

Hi there, and welcome to the forum! I could be waaaay off here, but I picked up on the words slithering, seduction, coiled, corruption, pleasure and pain.. one thing came to mind: Western Diamondback: Snake Oil with leather, tonka bean, red sandalwood, and sage. Maybe the 'slithering' bit made me think of the Carnaval Diabolique: Snake Pit collection, but the combination of Snake Oil's seductively intoxicating resin-y smokey incense/vanilla vibe with the sexy cold dark leather & smooth sandalwood in this is absolutely worth a try. It's not available in imp form from the Lab, but you should be able to find a decant of it in the 'For Sale' section of the forum. I'd be interested to know how your search ends up - I hope you find just what you're looking for

To me, Taphophobia smells exactly like being in the middle of a pile of green lawn clippings and garden cuttings that have been sitting out in the hot sun for a day or two - that fresh green mixed with starting-to-compost soil kinda smell. It's actually quite a nice smell, in a dirt kinda way. This is totally not my thing - I don't dislike it, I just don't think I want to smell like it. Funny though.. when testing it at work this week several people commented favourably and asked what perfume I was wearing - one lady said it was a lovely sweet and fresh smell, which is interesting - maybe it smells different when wafting around me than it does on my skin.

I didn't get a bottle of Bat of Health when I had the opportunity, because I thought it would most likely smell very nasty. In hindsight, that was a very silly thing to have thought - I recall being worried about the geranium and juniper being too strong. I've since acquired a bottle, and I was so wrong! On my skin, this is all fizzy blackberry with a velvety almost resin-y background that I think is the fig playing with the mandrake. The initial blast of berry softens up after about 15 minutes, and now I can smell the sassafras more clearly and there's an almost mint-y thing going on - I think this is the 'medicinal' stage that previous reviewers have mentioned, but on me it's not quite going to medicinal, it's staying menthol-y mint but that stage only lasted about 5 minutes. 45 minutes into the ride, and it's gone a lovely soft mix of berry, fig and juniper. All of the Bat's Day blends are genius, and this is no exception. If you love your berries dark and rich with a slightly sour feel, you should enjoy this one.

Ah poo.. curse my skin chemistry - it's amping the rose here above everything else. I got a teasing glimpse of the sandalwood, spices and orange peel, and then the rose just pushed everything else aside. What I'm left with is something that smells like O layered with red rose.. what a bummer.

YUM! Obatala reminds me of Lush's coconut deodorant powder.. which I love! The coconut in this is quite POW at first, but does settle down, and it doesn't go all sickly sweet in a suntan lotion kind of way. The milk and shea butter are perfect partners to the coconut - this is all warm and sexy fresh - it reminds me of how my skin smells when I've been swimming at the beach all day in the hot sun. This would be a perfect scent for warm summer days when you want to smell fresh and clean but cool and sexy.

I finally got to try this, thanks to a very generous forumite! It reminds me very much of Haloes with the wood-y feel, but the lotus blossom is adding an element of sweet floral that Haloes doesn't have. This is very creamy and luscious, slightly sweet but not obviously so. It really does have a bit of a "glow" about it, very pretty but not in a girly way. A lovely soft and sensuous blend, I'm glad I got to try it and thankful I can stop obsessing over it.. I won't need a bottle, but I will enjoy my decant.

Wow.. this is the first blend with jasmine I've found that doesn't turn into stinky baby poop smell - jasmine is usually my nemesis, but it's not bothering me at all in Defututa. Instead, I'm getting lovely honey and cinnamon - not really spicy, just sweet and soft - that would be the sandalwood, I'm guessing, combined with the vanilla. This is a very pretty and quite intoxicating blend, very nice!

This would have been stunning if it weren't for the violet.. damnit, my skin is just amping the violet over everything else. I was really hoping that wouldn't happen, but alas it did and so Lucretia will need to find another home

Alas poor Yorick, you smell like composted soil. This is absolutely dead-on in both description and intent, and a very smooth blend, but I can't be wearing it - just not my thing.

On me, this is soapy yellow flowers. It's quite rich and sweet, and I do get the slight tinge of rain but not so much the citrus... it's really soapy yellow flowers. Almost like a baby shampoo smell, which is nice and all but not for me.

Yep - egg nog and coffee, that it is! I like this much better than Egg Nog '07, there's a nutmeg-kinda vibe to this, and a lovely creaminess, that makes this yummier. It doesn't last long on my skin though, and goes slightly soapy, but the coffee sticks around

This is gorgeous - definitely woody, almost waxy in a coconut kind of way (without smelling like coconut!) - the cocoa and the fig are beautiful together.. not as prominent as I was hoping, but really velvety and yummy. The name here is, I think, very apt - this is an intriguing scent indeed, very lovely!

Lovely - this is exactly what it says.. white musk, sharp apricot, and orange blossom. On me, the apricot is pretty dark though, not sweet, and the orange blossom is the least present of the three. I'd say this is a must-have for any lovers of apricot blends!!

The banana in this is that 'fake' kind of banana, like the bright yellow syrup that you get slathered all over your icecream in a kid's restaurant. Sweet, but not sickly. I prefer the smell of 'real' banana, like when you're baking banana muffins or a banana cake, but this is sensationally ridiculous and absolutely suited to its theme. After the initial blast of banana (actually, that's BANANA).. the metallic note makes an appearance but it's not sharp - it seems to have an old sense about it, like rusted metal. I can't pick the blood as an individual note here, everything is very well blended, but I know it's there I really love this blend, partly because it's just so different - I can't say I've ever smelt anything like it before - and partly because who doesn't love anything inspired by The Toxic Avenger, but mostly because it's YUM. YUM!!

Wow.. as soon as I opened up the imp... marzipan!! For the first few minutes on my skin.. very strong marzipan - this is almond, and lots of it!! 15 minutes later, that initial blast of marzipan has calmed down, but the almond is still very strong. I think I smell the myrrh purring away in the background there, but no sign of the musk yet. Woo hoo! 30 minutes in.. the almond has powdered right down and the lovely myrrh has come out on top. The musk has finally made an appearance and it's definitely a dark musk, slightly smoky. After 45 minutes, everything has really softened up and faded - unfortunately this didn't keep the lovely richness it had at the 30-minute stage, now it's quite faint and slightly soapy. I just checked it again, it's been on 2 hours now, and I can barely tell where it is on my arm. Nice while it lasted!

This ends up going very soapy on me.. clean and fresh, but also slightly sweet and golden. It's pretty, but not something I can see myself wearing.

Well poo. In the bottle, this smells all rich and delicious but when it hits my skin.. not so great. The leather is the most predominant note, but it's not a nice musky leather - it's a sharp and bitter leather. I'm getting none of the sweet vanilla licorice that other reviewers have mentioned.. darn it.. that's what I was hoping for most of all. Really I'm just getting the leather, maybe some of the coal and dust. It's not unpleasant or nasty smelling at all - it's just not what I was hoping for. I'll test it again later to see if I get a different result, but unless the licorice comes out to play then I think Mr Fouettard will need to find a new home.

I am sooooo happy to have this! The fragrance from this spray is stunning.. the wood and leather are rich and intoxicating, and the stout adds a touch of syrupy sweetness that mingles beautifully with the patchouli. Coal dust.. yep, I get that too - it's not strong, but there's just a hint of old fireplace here. I don't get straight-up vanilla, which is just fine because that would never have worked, but there's still a vanilla presence in there. I'm also getting something like apple cider - very faint, but it's there. If I were to live in a log cabin in the woods, I would want it to smell like this. All the time. And I totally agree with previous reviewers - there's something very sexy man about it.. should I ever discover a man that actually smells like this, he'll be in big trouble. This stuff is so delicious that I've taken to spritzing it in the air and then standing under where I sprayed so that some of it lands in my hair and on my clothes - if you haven't tried that yet.. do it! Then smell your hair! ahem. Yeah, it's good

Reviewing the 2008 version.. and, well, I'm disappointed - this had all the ingredients for win and I was hoping for golden resin-y browns, but on me this is quite white, floral and cologne-y. It had moments of lovely amber richness and for a moment there I thought the tonka was finally coming out to cancel that cologne thing, but nope.. it didn't happen. Sad

This is a really interesting blend.. it really does have an Asian feel to it, which I'm attributing to the Chinese musk or perhaps the bamboo - it's got a top note that's very spicy without being obviously spicy (if that makes sense?!?). Lovely lovely rich brown wood, slightly nutty, the fabulous fig is rich and velvety, the other notes are obviously mixed in there somewhere but I'm unable to pick them out separately.. except maybe the chamomile, which I think makes an appearance after about 30 minutes on my skin. I suspect this one will get better with more age, when the woods deepen and the walnut/fig softens up and blends more with the woods. I'm not sure that I need a bottle just yet, so I'll be testing from my decant again in a few months' time to see how it's changed.

For the first little while when this was on my skin, it was all glorious resin-y almost waxy coconut with a warm wood undertone. Then it went into a really soapy kinda coconut with a slightly sweet tone, and after about 20 minutes became very sweet almost like a waxy honey. One hour in, and now it's a soft powdery coconut with just a touch of the resin-y vibe still drifting through it - the sweetness has calmed down but the warm of the wood is still there. Like MelanieSuzanne mentioned in her review, this is gives me a calming feeling.. it's quite mellow and soothing. I would have been happier if the frankincense, myrrh and cedar had played a stronger part - I found the sweet soapiness of the coconut distracting. I wonder if aging will change the balance.. I'll just have to wait and see