Caltha

Iambe This smells clearly of musk melon to me, which I detest. It might be some other melon too, but it's clearly not watermelon, the only kind of melon I can stand since I find the rest of them appalingly "anti-fresh". There's also something sharp lurking in the background, like acrid smoke. As it dries it gets less sweet and slightly more fresh, but still unpleasantly melony. The acrid note has mellowed into something spicier, herbier but I still don't like it.

Jezebel When first applied, Jezebel was intensely sweet on me, but with a citrusy freshness. Like lemon or orange lollipops. An artificial smell, candy rather than fruit or flowers, but still quite nice. As it dries, the citrus dissappears and it's mostly just sweet honey and perhaps slightly soapy (the rose?). Not powdery though, still juicy and mouthwatering. I don't mind sugarsweet smells so I quite like this, except for the slight soapy touch. Edited to add: When I retried it I didn't get the orange lollipop thingie anymore. Instead it went rather sour/soapy/powdery, the throw makes me quite nauseous. Swapped it.

Fallen On me this is a sweet, flowery, definitely "feminine" scent. It smells like a pretty average ladies perfume, slightly soapy. I might detect some musk and/or wood, but not enough to make it "masculine". I can't really pick out any individual notes.[/color]

Faustus This has such an unbearable acrid, harsh, "masculine" smell on me, I guess it's the frankincense since it's hardly the cinnamon or violet. I'd love to smell the cinnamon but I don't. In the beginning I feel a cloud of musty sweetness which I guess is the violet in the air, and the clash between sweet and acrid is quite interesting, but the acrid note never calms down and the sweetness dissappears. This is like an intolerable "fresh" and "green" (but really neither, just too much) men's cologne to me.

Amsterdam This smells like a quite ordinary light, fresh, flowery perfume to me. I don't get any water or grass, but I get some peony, although not at all as heavy as the ones in my mother's garden. I also think I'm getting lily of the valley, something very young and innocent anyway. I agree it's light green and light pink. In the beginning, it's a bit soapy on me, I guess aquatics do that to me, but after half an hour or so that's gone and it's sweeter and not quite as fresh. Still very light and innocent though. Nice, but not that interesting.

Dublin I'd love a perfume smelling like a nightly, misty forest with water dripping from the leaves and a hint of wild rose in the breeze. Perhaps that was Old Dublin. Dublin, on me, is more of a hot, dry pine forest with a sweetness of sunwarmed strawberries. At first, I get a traditionally "masculine" smell of pine cones, pine needles and perhaps fir too, but when I don't smell my wrists there's a sweet cloud in the air. As it dries, the pine fades and the sweetness takes over until it can hardly be called "masuline" at all. Perhaps the sweetness is not really strawberries, but I associate it with berries rather than flowers and I can't detect the rose. If a flower, I'd rather say clover than rose. It's not what I expected but I like it a lot and will definitely wear it. Also, I'm glad it's not acrid men's cologne mega-pine as I feared when someone mentioned pine... It's more of a dry, warm, sunny, sweet pine. To me, Dublin is not green but yellow, perhaps amber coloured.

The Red Queen This is the first smell I actually got quite right compared to what it's supposed to smell like. It's an original and demanding yet not unpleasant combination of sweet cherry and currant candy, and newly polished furniture. The wood smell in it is kind of spicy. It's also sort of "sweet and sour" due to the candy and polish combo, but the sour aspect of it softens as it dries, and so does the hysterical candy sweetness. What's left is an interesting, sweet, brown/red candy smell with a hint of sour berries and a hint of wood. I will definitely use this one.

Vinland This is sweet, sweet berries in the air, but when I smell it close it gets more perfumey/soapy. I get a hint of wood, perhaps birch bark, and a sweetness of honey. Not a very "northern" or cool smell to me since it's so sweet. It's also quite faint. Edited: Every time I retried this it was pure soapy sharpness, very unpleasant. Too bad, I wanted to love the birch and maple...

Mata Hari My conclusion so far is that things turn sweet on me, and so does Mata Hari. I get sweet, sweet roses and pralines and dessert and dark chocolate. And incense. Also something vaguely bitter that might be the coffee, but no apparent coffee smell, unfortionately. It's yummy, but it dries to soapy, incensey roses. Still nice, a traditional, sweet, heavy, oriental and ladylike perfume that suits Mata Hari, but not as yummy as the initial stage... It's like she's eating chocolate cake and candy and adoring the fresh, red roses from an admirer at first, and then she washes with rose soap and goes to bed in her oriental bedroom smelling of incense. Edited to add: I have edited some of my reviews because the first time I tried on my imps they went a lot more soapy and incensey, while I now get a fresher, truer scent. When I retried Mata Hari I actually got some coffee out of it's wet stage - not delicious coffee beans unfortionately but, yeah, cold coffee. Perhaps I was just imagining though because my sister couldn't feel it. Then it turned into a truer floral than before, fresh roses rather than rose soap. I never quite got the dessert/chocolate stage again which is a pity. Instead it reminds me a little of The Red Queen, I guess it's the mahogany/sweet combo. Now, when it's as good as faded, the scent remaining is pure jasmine, like the roses a nice fresh, true jasmine. And I like jasmine, I have a bottle of "Beyond Paradise" which is all jasmine on me.

Djinn When I smell my wrist I get this harsh, acrid, poisonous smell of chemicals. It reminds me of Comme des Garcons 2, but not all that aggressive. When I don't smell my wrists I sometimes think I can smell burnt wood though, and I guess that's really the fumes of Djinn. However, I stop smelling burnt wood pretty quickly and all that remains except the chemical smell is a slight smell of hay. All in all it's a bit like a stronger, more acrid version of Scarecrow. I like the thought of smelling of burnt wood though, and the chemical smell is really only detectable when I smell my wrists, not around me.

Scarecrow At first, there's a sharp, poisonous, almost burnt smell, but also something of ripe fields, metal and rubber. As it dries, the artificial, sharp smell sweetens a bit and the smell of ripe fields gets stronger. It's a bit like the "evil twin" of a perfume I once tried that smelled of hay, hay and hay, I think it was "Summer by Kenzo". Edited to add: Perhaps it's the other way around, perhaps "Summer by Kenzo" is more like the "evil twin" of Scarecrow since I recall it as a pretty true, dry single-note hay, while Scarecrow has a juicy, almost peachy, sweet note that reminds me of the musky cloying sweet fruitiness of The Hesperides on my skin. I don't get the sharp or burnt smell anymore, except maybe as a sort of "masculine" touch when I smell my skin. The throw is all ripe fields and that sweet/fruity/juicy note, and while I love that I get ripe fields out of it I'd prefer it to be more of a true and dry and less sweet single-note ripe fields. It's actually the only BPAL my girlfriend has spontaneously said she liked, but neither her nor my sister get any ripe fields or other recognizable notes out of it and my sister even said it smells "perfumey" while I think it's too strange to remind me of any ordinary perfume. I don't think I want to wear a so-so scent just because I get ripe fields out of it if nobody else does, but since my girlfriend liked it I'll either give it to her or if she doesn't want to wear it herself I'll wear it for her until my imp runs out. Oh... wait... as I inhale deeply I suddenly get (vague) florals and I can see the perfumey/soapy association. Weird. Edited yet again to add that I drenched myself in Scarecrow and my girlfriend didn't even notice, at least she didn't comment on it. Since it's pretty pointless to wear it for her if she doesn't notice I gave it to her instead. She's definitely not the perfume type of gal, but at least she doesn't run away screaming when I attack her with my imp wands (or make up or hairdye or skirts...) and since Scarecrow is a pretty unisex scent she could always use it in drag...[/color]

The Hesperides This is definitely not a tree filled with crisp, dewy apples on me. It's a very sweet and warm fruit smell, like peach or baked apple. Almost sweet and spicy like apple pie, and I think I would have liked it if it smelled clearly of apple pie/candy apple instead of fresh, crisp apple, but unfortionately it doesn't clearly smell of apple at all. It has the "anti-freshness" of peach perfume, melon, pumpkin and some tropical fruits which I dislike.

Dorian This is really sugarsweet on me, cookies and candy. Hardly strong, black tea, but perhaps vanilla tea with lots of milk and sugar. Or perhaps milk and honey. It makes me hungry and I love the sweetness of it, although it's not very complicated or "dark" or "masculine" at all. It makes me want to drink tea, sweet tea with milk (which I usually don't use in my tea) so perhaps that is the tea note after all even though I can't quite detect it. Or perhaps Dorian is the spicysweet cookie I'd like to combine with tea... It's an amber-coloured scent to me and cookie-dry and tea-wet at the same time. A bit like a yummier version of the warm, sweet unisex perfume "Liquid Karl" Karl Lagerfeldt did for H&M and which I got for about $3 since nobody else wanted it... If I smell it real hard I might just detect the more "oriental" sweetness of musk beneath the childish sweetness of tea and cookies. For a while I thought I got a faint hint of leather as well, but there's nothing "masculine" about it other than that.[/color]

Bayou I feel Bayou as an intense sweetness floating in the air, not a sugary sweetness but rather a sweetness of honey or nectar. It has a sort of soapy undertone that makes my nose itch, (I guess it's the aquatics I can't stand, they sound lovely but Szepazssony did this to me too, and much worse) but not too bad, I still enjoy the sweetness of it. It does remind me a bit of a traditional flowery, sweet, warm and moist "ladies perfume", makes me think of voluptuous middle-aged women, but in quite a nice way. It's tropical, or perhaps not quite tropical but an almost tropical hot and humid climate. As usual, I can't pick out any notes, I feel it as "flowery" rather than actually smell it. I think it resembles the smell of the nectar in tropical flowers though. Edited to add that I don't get the soapiness anymore (seems I can suddenly carry off aquatics) and that Bayou has really grown on me. I love the cloud of warm sweetness it gives off, it's sort of a secound skin-scent on me. I reread the description and I'm surprised all of the green and woody notes in it turn into something so honey-sweet and flowery. It's definitely humid though, hothouse or rainforest flowers.

Szepasszony At first, I was overwhelmed by a peachy (peach perfume, not the fresh fruit) sweet smell, not very fresh at all. When I smelled my wrists after a couple of minutes it was just a harsh, sharp smell of "traditional perfume" recently applied. I waited for it to soften, and it did soften some, but only to flowery perfumed soap. This has no airy or clean notes on me, no cold or wet, the "freshness" is only the harsh freshness of soap, with perhaps a sweeter "traditional flower perfume" lingering in the air. Too bad, I would have adored a perfume smelling of rain and wet flowers... Perhaps I'll try Lightning or Hurricane, but I don't have high hopes for a perfume really smelling of rain... Edited to add that I didn't get the fruitiness or soapiness when I retried it, it was just a fresh, light, generic floral, nice but nothing you can't find a billion versions of among ordinary perfumes. Still not for me but I'm glad aquatics don't always have to get soapy on me, it gives me some hope...[/color]

Kali I just received my first load of imps from BPAL and I'm very excited to try them all. The first one I tried was Kali, and I have to warn in advance that I've only used a few commercial perfumes before and don't have a trained nose. There are so many notes in Kali I can't pick out any, it's just a quite uncomplicated sweet smell on me. At first, I feel the incense quite strongly, but it fades and a sugary sweetness takes over. I'm thinking of candy, I guess it's the honey and chocolate. The incense smell reminds me of an incense also named Kali that's supposed to smell hibiscus, so I guess the hibiscus note is hibiscus incense rather than fresh hibiscus flower. I don't feel any of the more "adult" ingredients like tobacco and wine, but it's still quite an "adult" scent since it's so heavy and warm and sweet. It's nice, but not that original, I'm hoping for more complicated smells, interesting clashes and distinct notes in my other imps. Edited to add: Today I mixed some Kali with water and sprayed all over myself. I really like it now, perhaps it's just my nose being more trained after sniffing through my first imps. It's still sort of candy sweet, but not at all as incensey, it's more like hibiscus flower than hibiscus incense now. The sweetness of fresh, tropical flowers which reminds me of Bayou but a little less sweet and more oriental/exotic. Like Bayou, this could be the scent in a rainforest-mimicking greenhouse. Standing really close to a huge blossom, that is, not the vague smell of greenery and moist earth but the intense smell of nectar. When wet I thought I got a hint of the chocolate too, which I didn't get before. It's still a sort of "typical" smell, not all that original, but very pleasant and I don't own anything else like it (the closest thing being Bayou) so I almost regret swapping my freebie imp and only having the imp I ordered left... But not really, swapping for new imps to try is great fun!