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LisaF1163 - sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Gluttony is actually discontinued so you won't be able to order that one If you decide to break your 'no LE' rule, I would definitely second GypssyRoseRed's recommendation of Gelt - it's a beautiful dusky chocolate+amber blend, really lovely. If you don't want to buy a bottle straight out (it's a Yule Limited Edition, available now) then I'm sure you could hunt down a decant in the For Sale area here on the forum And since you mentioned florals - The Last Unicorn might be worth a try: Frosty lilac petals, iris pallida root, orris, violet leaf, white chocolate, coconut, wild lettuce, white sandalwood, and oakmoss. Not available in imp form from the Lab, but check the sales section

Do you mean acknowledged by the Lab or by Paypal? If you mean Paypal, then yes, you should get a notice. I ask this because on my last couple of Lab orders, my PP notifications were delayed as much as a couple of days. I've never gotten an acknowledgement from the Lab. Yep - what the lovely portalkat said... you should have received a payment confirmation email from PayPal, but I have also been getting these days after the payment's made - just in the last couple of weeks - where normally the email comes through just seconds after I send the payment. But nope - you won't get any confirmation from the Lab, so you just have to hope/assume that they got your order OK.

I have no clues about a smell-alike for that one, but just saw an imp up for grabs on a swaps post here

aww Fiam - what a bummer ih8perfume has given you all the good advice already - I would second the suggestion of getting yourself a scent locket.. that way, you can still enjoy the lovely perfume of Mason En Pain D'epices without it having any contact with your skin. I'd say it's a 99.99% certainty that it's cinnamon your skin doesn't like - although it's not a listed note in Mason, it's most likely part of the 'gingerbread' and/or 'spice' that are in the description. So you'll probably need to be careful with any BPALs that contain cinnamon - what a shame! I would say though - give it one more try, just in case your skin was having a bad day (or, like you said - your freshly washed/skin was overly sensitive) - this time put some lotion or moisturiser on your skin first like an undercoat to the oil - but if you get the same burning, wash it off immediately and never do it again because that just doesn't sound like it was much fun for you at all.

Agreed. And I also agree with both Boo! and Snake Oil, which have been mentioned earlier. Halloween: Las Vegas is one that I find to be very strong in the throw department.

Monday very generously gifted her squirt of The Inn to me, because she's awesome But of course, having read her review beforehand, I was fully expecting it to smell like bananas. And - guess what - it does! But now I'm a bit unsure as to whether it actually does smell like bananas, or it's just my brain telling my nose that it smells like bananas because that's what I told it to do. It's all very confusing So let's just say.. there's definitely something fruity in here. And if it is banana, then it's not the fresh, perfectly ripe, stand-up tall kind of banana.. it's the mushy, few days too old, kinda brown and wrinkled banana. The fruit element definitely has a mead-like quality to it. Mushy mead, honeyish but verging on a beer-like smell. And there's something woody and smokey in here too. I think it smells like warm dark banana bread, honeyed mead, and old wood - with a bit of lingering bar-room smoke. Quite nice, but also a bit weird.

Withjoy - that's really interesting! I didn't realise we have had a total of four Blood Moon lunacy blends

In the bottle, it smells really citrus-y and sharp but sweet - 'fresh' is probably the right word to describe it - so I guess that's the honeysuckle, although I don't usually get a citrus smell from honeysuckle. It smells... sunny. Hmm. As soon as it's on my skin, I get a sharp blast of honey. Uh oh. I'm not really a fan of honey in my BPALs, it's not a note that plays nicely on my skin (stale vomit, anyone?) and it's the one note in here that I was worried about. But thankfully, a few minutes later it's mellowed right out and I can now smell the lovely patchouli and leather. The patchouli seems to have a slightly smokey note - I wouldn't have said 'sweet', but it's definitely not the earthy/hippy/feral slap-you-in-the-face patchouli we know so well from things like #Occupy - it's more the soft caress-your-cheek-gently type of patchouli like in Hippie Ghost. The sarsparilla isn't 'sassy' on me at all - actually it's pretty subdued.. it's just there, sitting quietly in the background, but it's adding a soft warmth and slight spicy spark that's quite lovely behind the sweetness of the honey. Leather.. hmm.. yes, it's there, but not like LEATHER at all - more like leather - kinda quiet, and soft and fuzzy. And hey - there's the French vanilla! It took about 15 minutes to appear, but there it is.. and it's lovely - quite deep and rich, not candy-sweet at all. The honey/honeysuckle sticks around pretty much through the whole wear time for me, but it never gets cloying or nasty - woo! Badgers has totally laughed in the face of my anti-honey stance. An hour or so later, I have a lovely soft smell of leather+patchouli+vanilla with just a hint of honey - very nice. And although it's soft and pretty, it's not weak or 'girly' at all - it has a bit of unff behind it for sure. I love Little Bird's description of a beautiful girl in a country song - that's it.. this is the smell of sunshine on your skin, laying in a field of soft grass and sunflowers. It's soft and snuggly but also a bit naughty - just like its namesake. Cute, but a bit badass - so actually, more like a honey badger

Yep - me too. TTLB is the first thing I thought of for melon but I see you've tried it already and it didn't work. Hmm - that's a shame! Here's a couple of others that you might like to look at - Earth Rat - the melon in this is lovely, but there's a lot of other things keeping it company: Peony, China's national flower, with bamboo for flexibility, plum blossom for perseverance, courage, and hope, tangerine for wealth, lychee for strong family relationships and peace in the home, orange for happiness, pine resin for constancy, golden kumquat and quince for prosperity, narcissus and King mandarin for good fortune, coconut for longevity, and candied melon for good health, with a splash of blazing red of dragon's blood... to help you scare away the rampaging Nian. The King's Daughter (The Last Unicorn): this one has a lovely sweetness and the watermelon is very fresh: Llilac musk, sandalwood, sweet pea, watermelon accord, pale woods, elemi, and oakmoss. And then there's Treat #1 from 2006 - it may be hard to find, but on me it smells exactly like watermelon candy: A super-sweet, glittering mountain of crushed hard candy: watermelon, pink lime, lemon, strawberry and piles upon piles of crystalline sugar.

Well thank you, but you're very welcome As you've noticed, people around here are always happy to enable help a new BPALer with their new addiction interest

Dark, spicy, animalic.. oh yes, yes yes yes. This is very much a 'You Tarzan, me Jane' kind of scent.. the one that makes you forget to be a strong, independent woman and just allow some manly man to pick you up, throw you over his shoulder and have his way with you. When I first slapped Heretic on (yes, I slapped it on - no wimpy *dab dabbing* or gentle swiping - this BPAL has to be slapped on) - I was immediately reminded of Panther Moon.. it's the same dark brown/gold colour, and does that same *thwap* you in the face with UNFF when it first arrives in your air. There's also a very WILF-like thing going on too. But I soon realise it's not really like either of those.. although it definitely has that same furry animalistic vibe as those two. There's a real patchouli flavour to Heretic, which is perhaps weird since patchouli isn't a listed note.. but somehow I'm getting a patchouli-like smell from it... maybe it's just the overall 'incense' kind of tones that it has. The oudh here is gorgeous.. dark and smokey, but not in an overwhelming way - the beeswax is adding a beautiful creamy softness, and a hint of sweetness, and it's just divine. I was worried about the bois de cade being eau de pine disinfectant.. but nope - not at all.. there is a top note that has a bit of an evergreen, forest-y kind of feel, but it's not obvious. I just want to stick this straight up my nose.. I can't get close enough to it - I want this to be made in blanket form, so that I can snuggle up with it and be enveloped by it. Overall, this is resin-and oude-heaven - deep, dark, smokey, rich, and sumptuous. Beautifully blended, completely voluptuous, and just drop-dead swoonworthy. It's loin-throbbingly good. If you think you're going to like it, you probably will. I knew I would like it, and I was right Cute label, too

Ahh! You beat me to it!! I was just about to post mine.. but I will anyway, because yours looks darker/more yellow than mine (mine is a soft baby-yellow shade, like old parchment paper). I actually really love this label - simple, but perfect, and I love the triple dagger Also.. the NYCC labels are nice, they look similar to the WC Champagnes. I kinda like the more 'plain' style labels, the ones with all the artwork etc are nice too.. but so teensy tiny that I can usually hardly see it anyway!

Aww pznivy - how disappointing for you! Hmm.. let's see - it's probably a particular note (or note combo) in those blends that's causing the baby powder effect. So... here's the ones you've tried so far... Cheshire Cat - Grapefruit, red currant, dark musk, Roman chamomile, delphinium, and lavender. Alice - Milk and honey with rose, carnation and bergamot. Elf - Pale golden musk, honeycomb, amber, parma violet, hawthorne bark, aspen leaf, forest lily, life everlasting, white moss, and a hint of wild berry. So the first thing I suspect is honey - I have trouble with honey myself.. it pretty much turns into a sickly/cloying powdery mess on me - not exactly baby powder, more like baby powder mixed with vomit. A charming description, I know - but that's really how honey is for me most of the time. I think you might need to do some experimenting with different musks - I find that black musk in particular goes quite powdery on me, but there's so many musk variants in the different BPALs that it can be hard to figure out the friends from the foes. Another note that's notorious for going powdery is amber - and there it is in Elf (along with musk and honey!) - I actually like the powderiness of amber.. on me, it goes beautifully soft and dusky rather than icky baby powder-y, but I know some people find amber = baby powder every time. I'm thinking that with Cheshire Cat it could be the musk + chamomile combo that's causing problems for you (and maybe the lavender, but probably not), with Alice I would blame the honey, and Elf would be the triple whammy musk/honey/amber combo. I could be wrong, of course, but those might be things to keep a close eye/nose on if they're in other BPALs you're testing. Then there's the others that you have... Thalia - Plumeria, pear and white champagne. Velvet - sandalwood warmed by cocoa vanilla and a veil of deep myrrh Thalia *should* behave itself - none of those notes are known offenders with the baby powder problem - I can't do champagne at all, it stinks something awful on me, but for other lucky folks it's sparkling and pretty - so hopefully it will work nicely for you. The plum and pear combo in Thalia is lovely. But ah... Velvet - if amber = baby powder, then sandalwood will almost certainly be the same for you. Amber tends to be a little softer/sweeter than sandalwood, but both have that dusky/powdery feel to them - and Velvet is definitely a 'dusky' one. So maybe give it a try anyway, just to see how it goes.. if you get the Powder of Doom, then it's a pretty safe bet that both amber and sandalwood are going to be problem notes for you. Having said all that, skin chemistry is a funny thing - a BPAL that goes straight to baby powder on you one day might be all kinds of awesome on a different day - so don't give up.. just put those imps aside for now, and try them next week just to see how they go. Also, try your imps on different areas - if you tested them on your inner arm/wrist and got the baby powder - try a different spot on your arm, or your chest etc - just to see if that makes any difference. But don't write off 'problem' notes completely - it really does depend a lot on what they're accompanied by, and also how dominant they are in a blend. And don't give up - as others have said, it might take a bit of trial and error but you *will* find some winners eventually. I would recommend checking out the 'For Sale' section here on the forum - there's loads of imps for sale, at good prices, so you can grab a whole bunch of things and experiment - that really is the best way to do it.. the more you try, the more you learn about what works for you

Yep - it used to be $300 for BPTP (having done a few group orders for Aussies over the years, I often got to >$300) but when I went to write that reply up there^^ I checked the TP site and it now says $500. But hey - what's a couple of extra hundred dollars between friends, right?

Oh yes, yes there is For both Lab and Trading Post orders, it's $500

Hiya Lizzie welcome to the forum! I lovelovelove heady incense scents too - and luckily BPAL makes some gorgeous ones! Since you're new around here, and you're looking for imps, it's probably best to stick to the General Catalogue (GC) blends for now - there's been some beautiful incense-y/earthy/sexy BPALs come out in the Limited Edition (LE) blends but you can only buy them at a certain time and after that they can be hard to find. But the 'For Sale' section of this forum is an excellent place to look for them, if you hear of an LE that you think sounds perfect - or even to hunt for imps, you can find plenty there I looked up the notes/descriptions in those Auric Blends perfumes that you mentioned - it seems you like sandalwood, patchouli, vanilla, and woods-y notes, but two of them have jasmine in common, so I'm going to second a couple of things that have already been mentioned.. for the incense/earthy/sexy vibe - Cathedral, Sin, Urd, Obsidian Widow, Vixen, Perversion.. and for the lighter side Morocco, Tombstone, Dee and and Lyonesse come to mind. You might also like to take a look at this post - it's a little index of recommendations categories, so there's one for incense blends, and pretty much everything else you might ever want to get recommendations on - with direct links

I can't do lemon at all, but one I remember being particularly lemon-y with a floral-ish background is Lolita: Bright, sweet and youthful, but swelling with a poisonous sexuality. Glittering heliotrope, honeysuckle, orange blossom and lemon verbena.

I've had my bottle of Silver-Haired Bat for quite a while now - I've been holding back on writing my review, because I didn't want to just come in and say IFUCKINGLOVETHISPERFUMESOMUCH.. that would just be rude. So I had to wait until I could find the right words. But, here's the thing.. I'm still stuck on IFUCKINGLOVETHISPERFUMESOMUCH. Apparently I am rude, far more rude than I realised. It's like I have some new variant of perfume-induced Tourette Syndrome, because I find myself involuntarily dropping the F bomb a lot when I wear Silver-Haired Bat. When I take the lid off the bottle, it's OHFUCKTHATSMELLSNICE and then when I dab it on my skin it's OOHFUCKTHATSMELLSGOOD and then I start sniffing myself and it's OHFUCKISMELLSOGOODIWANTTOEATMYSELF. It's a problem, really. OK.. come on now, get yourself together girl. People are reading this - what the hell's the matter with you? *ahem* Oudh. It's oudh - I blame the oudh. Usually I like my oudh to be all dark and throbbing and smokey - I guess because most of the oudh-y BPALs I love tend to be on the darker side, but here it's somehow all quietly sexy in a slither-into-your-pants sort of way.. it's in cahoots with the silky ambergris and balsam and benzoin - the four of them together are like the fragrance equivalent of wearing satin underwear - it's like having my olfactory thingamebobs massaged by golden angels, I feel like there should be some sort of bright golden light streaming from my nostrils because my nose just can't contain the joy it's feeling. But under all that creamy sexiness is the pepper being a little spicy and ticklish, and the amber is just kinda dancing around in amongst everything, adding a lovely softness. But what does it smell like? Oh.. I don't know - at first it's quite sweet, like a soft caramel - but NOT that nasty brown/burned-sugar kind of caramel, I mean that light brown soft chewy caramel or butterscotch - it reminds me a bit of the same cotton-candy kind of smell I get from Midway or Mouse Circus but not as light and fluffy as they are - the benzoin here in SHB has much more oomph.. like Midway would be water, and SHB is treacle. But the whole 'sweet' thing changes after about 15 minutes, when the pepper and cedar and oudh start to come out - that's when it gets interesting, and darkens up.. right before the ambergris+balsam+benzoin start slithering around. Overall, Silver-Haired Bat smells like peppery, musky, furry, shimmery golden goodness. Ahh.. I give up - I should have just stuck with what I know. IFUCKINGLOVETHISPERFUMESOMUCH.

A couple of the reviews for Pandy (in the Pandora line) compare it to the Butterfly Nectar bath oil, so that might be worth looking into EDIT.. oh, I just noticed yours is one of the reviews! Let's just call this a blonde moment for me . Also: No suggestions, but that bath oil is DIVINE and I would like to find a perfume-alike as well .

I'm thinking another one to try might be Morocco + Detestable Putrescence for that icecreamy-vanilla with soft warm spice? Another option for layering would be BOO (any year) - to me, that's a more 'rich' vanilla.. like a vanilla extract kind of richness- but layered with something warm/spicy it could give you interesting results.

When I first popped this on, it was like a fruity explosion of fruity fruitness - kinda like sticking your head into a bag of Starbust fruit chews.. sweet, fruity goodness. Then I remembered... my old friend pomegranate, who turns into bubblegum almost always once it hits my skin - and there's also something very apple-y but kinda strawberry-ish going on here too. OK, so I just need to wait a bit for the fruitiness to mellow out... Ah - that's better! fruity overload has passed after about 10 minutes, and now I've got this completely different fragrance - a lovely smokey/slightly spicey leathery warmness has come out - there's a hint of something boozy under there, which I guess is the cognac (I lovelovelove cognac in my BPALs, but prefer the regular kind - the green, not so much). This is reminding me very much of Crypt Queen - the pomegranate particularly - it's lush and velvety with dark mysterious undertones, and I agree with myth - it's very heady, but for me it's not heady in a 'yikes that's some strong perfume you're wearing'.. more in a 'lean in and mmmmmm close your eyes and breathe it in' kind of way. I'm not getting any of the juniper at all (praise the gourd!) but I sure am loving this black myrrh. In the end, Cuélebre dries down to a lovely warm mix of dry/dusky pom + soft dark leather/myrrh with the cognac sitting quietly in the background. Very nice indeed. Plus - cute label, too --->

Hmmm... on me, this smells kinda like a robust, lewd and powerful blend of dollar-store aftershave, red hard-boiled candies, and sweaty leather.Sounds gross, yes? Ah but no, my friends, gross it is not. The star of the show here for me is the amber incense fluffing around all those delicious resins - without the amber this would probably be too much, but the amber lends a lovely dusty quality that makes the resins into a nice warm snuggly blanket for the red musk and dragon's blood to settle into. So ultimately, I end up with this snuggly blanket of warm amber and resins, with little hints of sweet goodness from the red musk and DB (this is the combo that's giving me the red candy smell). I was a little concerned when I first put it on, because it really was very cologne-y on me (this is what frankincense does on my skin sometimes), but that didn't last long. And I'm honestly not picking up any gold or tundra frost - it just doesn't feel like either of those things on me at all.. nothing metallic or particularly gold (if this perfume was a colour, it would be the deep orangey-red of desert sands from somewhere like Namibia or even the Aussie outback. But I've never seen any dragons in the outback here, and believe me.. I've looked. The only thing that I found myself trying to find in here was the leather, which didn't make an appearance for about 20 minutes.. but when it did, it was like I'M HERE! LEATHER! HERE I AM!!! and suddenly all that lovely snuggly amber-resininess was nowhere to be found. Boo to that, I say... BOO! Usually I love a good dollop of leather in my BPALs, but I was enjoying this much more before LEATHER showed up. But the weird thing is, the leather keeps coming and going.. here one minute, gone the next, then here again, and so on. And the leather goes slightly pine-ish sometimes too - maybe that's the tundra frost? I dunno, this Mr Gorynych is a weird one. It's at its best for me after about 40 minutes when everything seems to finally settle in and balance out. So in the final analysis, Zmey Gorynych smells like Puff the Magic Dragon meets Arthur Fonzarelli - he's the suave, leather jacket wearing dragon who thinks he's all tough and cool but really he's just a big softie who snuggles with a blankie at night, keeps red candies in his pocket, and likes to smell nice for the ladies EDITED UPDATE: I had to come back and update this, because sadly when I checked my arm about 20 minutes after writing it.. all I had left was a soft pine smell.. kind of like a cleaning product smell. A nice cleaning product smell, but definitely that kind of fragrance. So I guess I finally found the 'tundra frost', but all that lovely musk and amber and resin business has completely gone. Sad. .

Yeah.. this is the most horrible thing about being an international BPALer... the waiting Is it your Click N'Ship notification that was dated 9/15? If so, just be aware that the 15th might not be the day it was actually sent - if I remember correctly from previous conversations about this, the Lab bundles all the international orders together and processes them for shipping at the same time (ie generates the CnSnotification), but they might not actually get posted on the same day the CnS is generated. The 15th of September was actually a Saturday, so it's likely that wasn't the actual shipping day. So, let's say yours actually hit the post office on Monday the 17th - then it may not have actually commenced the shipping process until Wednesday the 18th - then counting the days, from Wed 18/9 to today Tuesday 2/10 is only 11 business days even though it's been three weeks in 'real' time. My guess would be that you've probably still got another 2 or 3 days to wait. In my experience, the 'priority' shipping that the Lab uses is no quicker than regular first class international that most forumites use for sending BPAL internationally.. if anything, it's actually slower. I don't know where they (the postal service, not the Lab!!) gets off calling it "priority" but it really isn't. I'm in Australia, so the same vicinity as you in NZ, and my Lab orders regularly take 3-4 weeks (12-15 business days) to get here. Occasionally I get super lucky and an order will arrive in around 8-10 business days, but that's very rare. Anyways.. I hope that helps, and yes - for now you should probably just keep waiting and hopefully your order will appear very soon

Hmmm.. so the Australian Gold website calls it their "tropical fragrance" but doesn't list any ingredients or give any clues as to what's actually making up that fragrance. I did find an ingredients list for some of their products on the Ulta website (like this one for the self-tanning lotion, for example, which has things like Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract, Citronellol and Caramel in there so those would be part of the fragrance) but I can't find anything for "Sunscreen #1" - is that definitely the name of the product you used? Oh.. and side note.. I thought perhaps this might be an Australian product - being called "Australian Gold" and all.. but, nope! Looks like it's a US-based company

First up - thanks to the lovely Mellifluous for sending me a tester of this! So when it first hits my skin, Morven gives off a really strong "man's cologne" smell.. and I went "eeewww" because cologne smells are not my friends. But a few minutes later when the oil has dried down.. it's really very different. I get the spicy musk that previous reviews have mentioned, and maybe a hint of clove but I might be imagining it (that'll teach me to read reviews before doing my own!). There is a woodsy tone to it, and it goes nice and dry/dusty after a while which makes me wonder whether it's got some sandalwood in it.. or a red amber, maybe? Anyhow - it's interesting, and overall quite nice, but not for me. Morven is now moving on to a new home so that someone else can enjoy him