zee

I was a little wary of this one as I'm not a floral lover at all, but there is a gorgeous floral note in this which I assume is the blue lotus, with a very creamy background. So very pretty and soft. Main problem is it doesn't have a long wearlength at all, at least not on me, so when I wore it out last night I had reapply a number of times meaning my decant is already depleted. I may invest in a bottle though as it's a lovely snuggly scent, very suitable for everyday wear.

I do like this, don't get me wrong. But on me the sandalwood and patchouli are the main players, and make it smell fairly generic. Despite the lack of red musk in this blend it smells very similar to Lust, and I have plenty of blends with a similar feel to get my sinful fix from. Sorry Sin, you smell good, but not quite good enough!

Firstly, let me preface this by saying that I am not a florals-girl. I hate florals, and florals hate me. I would never have picked this scent for myself, but it was a frimp and I pulled it out of my imp bag and stuck it on my skin before looking up the notes. Colour me surprised! This is a light and very pretty citrus floral -- not too floral, not too citrus. The mosses are hidden in the background while still being present, anchoring the scent without lending too much to it. No bone dust that I can smell, which is a relief. I really enjoyed sniffing this, it really is pretty and delicate. However, wearlength is short and just before the scent faded away completely I could definitely smell some faint soap. What a shame! The soap completely ruined the scent for me right at the end. Oh Phantom Wooer, you nearly made a floral-liker of me. Nearly, but not quite.

I'm going to make this a short review. O smells like somebody who has just had sex in a beehive. That is all.

We have some trouble managing our flamingos, too. Pink lime, pink grapefruit, white nectarine, wild rose, sage, woody patchouli, bergamot, and ornery hedgehog musk. When I saw the colour for the newly released Croquet Claw Polish, my thought process was "Surely that's a reference to the flamingoes, the scent can't be that pink... can it?" Fortunately I was frimped some Croquet a couple of months ago and yes, yes the scent is that pink. Wet, the fruits are the the most prominent notes; the whole scent glistens with girly effervescent pinkness. Dry, the herbs raise their heads but this is still mainly a fruity blend, and oh it's fun. I don't mind rose but rose hates me and loves going soapy, but there was hide nor hair of rose in this blend, so don't be scared off if you're a fellow rose hater! Wearlength was disappointing though, and that's what lets this blend down. I'll have to retest before deciding whether to invest in a bottle but so far, first impressions are good.

Dorian and Theodosius are most definitely brothers. Dorian is the younger brother, very refined on the outside but with a devilish debauched streak hidden away. Theodosius is the older brother, goes to heavy metal gigs and makes no attempt to disguise his hedonistic ways. He'd probably scrub up pretty well if he really needed to, but he'd still be aggressively sexy.

As everyone above me has mentioned, Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat starts out very much OHHAIMELON. Drying down, the green tea comes into the mix in the most gorgeous way while the mint calms the melon down a little. There's this absolutely wonderful sparkling effervescence throughout the blend that I assume comes from the champagne grape. I liked this more and more as my skin test went on, despite a slightly disappointing wearlength. It's fruity, fizzy, and fun!

In the imp: Caramel Wet: Caramel Dry: Caramel I'm not sure if it's my skin amping caramel or my nose being inept at picking up the other notes, but I am definitely not a fan. Not what I was looking for in a blend at all and I am so glad that I didn't order this unsniffed, as I was tempted to.

Beth's posted the link to the artwork for Parker Lily on Twitter. Find it here: http://twitpic.com/cs7zm Sorry if this has been posted before!

This is very citrusy, more citrusy than I was expecting from the description. The main note for me was the lime, and while I do like the smell of lime, it very much screams LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME with some flowers attempting to get in on the action from beneath but not succeeding very well. As I'm not a fan of flowers and prefer berries to citrus, this isn't a winner for me, but I'll hang on to my imp and give it another chance sometime in the future.

Let me get one thing straight. I love fruity scents. Normally fruity scents love me, but I guess there has to be an exception here and there. This was the scent I was most looking forward to from the July update, but it's disappointing. I can smell the fruits, but there's one note that smells slightly sour, and makes the other fruits smell plasticky. Maybe it's juniper, because I haven't tried a blend with it in before and have never had a problem with any of the other notes. I would happily drink something that smelt like this, but I don't think I'll be getting much use from my decant. I have a bottle of Blue Fire that works that much better.

I was hoping the musk, vanilla tea and tonka would be the main notes for me in this, but sadly it's not the case. I'm not sure what it is with florals, but they hate me. This is only slightly soapy instead of straight-up soap on me like many floral blends, but flowers are all I can smell. Vanilla tea, tonka, musk, tobacco, coconut... where are you? Why aren't you coming to save this blend? Sadly not for me. This could have been so wonderful, too.

I wanted to love Alice. I really did. She's the heroine of the story, after all, and I know how popular this scent is. So I bought an imp of her earlier this year. Fresh from the lab, I couldn't really smell anything. It was very very faint, and while it was reasonably nice (milk and baby powder, as far as I can remember) I decided to shelve her for awhile to see if age made us a better match for each other. I finally tried her out again today, for no reason other than she was the first imp I saw when I peered blearily into my imp bag first thing this morning. It started out quite well, the milk was still there, and the honey was definitely stronger, so this was promising. Would I turn out to love this? But then... disaster. I don't mind rose, but rose hates me. As soon as the rose in this blend raised it's ugly head, the scent went straight to soap. And that was all I could smell, for hours. Soap soap soap soap soap. Now, many many hours later, it does smell nice. Girly, creamy, soft and sweet. But it's ridiculously faint and not something I want to sit through hours of soap smell for. This is what I wished Alice would be, but alas. It seems we're not meant for each other. One day I'll get around to swapping or selling this, or using it to enable a friend. I won't be putting it on my skin again, though.

This was one of the very few Mad Tea Party scents that I didn't want to try. I actually couldn't care less whether I never sniffed this one. Then I got it as a frimp in my most recent lab order. What I usually do with non-wishlist frimps is give the wand a quick sniff, mark down on my spreadsheet that I own them, and put them away to test at a later date. When I sniffed March Hare, I stopped, sniffed again, and slathered it all over my wrists. This is a delicious fruity, juicy apricot, studded with cloves which add a little spice and stop the blend from becoming too fruity. This is definitely being bumped into my mental top 10 of favourite GCs, and I keep getting cravings to wear this, even though I've got a ton of scents to test. In fact, I'm going to apply some now. Mmmmm.

I've noticed that Coral Snake has been mentioned here as an alternative to Punkie Night, and I thought I'd add in that Poisoned Apple is very similar to Coral Snake, in case it ends up becoming hard to come by when the carnival leaves!

I really enjoy the lab's red apple note, but on me Poisoned Apple smells almost identical to Coral Snake, which I already have a 5ml of. Handy to know for when the Carnival leaves town, though! Edit - I'm not sure if it's skin chemistry or what but today Poisoned Apple smells exactly like biting into a ripe red apple. No apple cider like in Coral Snake, no poison... either way, it's a very true to life apple scent.

Normally when I order a bottle unsniffed, I have a pretty good idea from the listed notes of what it will smell like on me. This went against the mould for me, because I couldn't imagine at all what this would smell like, but I decided to take a chance because the story was adorable. Whew, it's a good thing I'm over that night not long ago where I had far too many tequilas and margaritas! This was straight up margarita and lime when wet on my skin, and pretty strong too. On the drydown, the margarita retreated a little while remaining the prominent note, with a mixture of the other notes lending a slightly floral background to the scent. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this, as I hate florals and aren't the biggest fan of boozy scents, but this was pleasantly surprising and certainly something I'll be wearing again. No Snake Oil or Dorian in this test, but hopefully aging will bring them out a little, and I can't wait!

This smells exactly like the description. A gorgeous fruity wine - not a red wine, much more like a light rosé. Wet on the skin, it went through a moment of soapiness, which I assume was the dandelion trying to turn on me, but the red currant and honey took charge, making the dandelion behave itself much more. The throw isn't particularly long, but it fades slowly from a wonderful fruity-honey-wine to a faint mixture of honey, dandelion, and a touch of red currant. Very wearable, and I'm very pleased that I caved and threw an unsniffed bottle of this into my most recent order. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that like actual wine, this will only improve with aging.

I'm going to agree with Prunella here. I'm a floral hater, but the drydown is a rich, creamy plum. Dionysia was my second plum love and now my number one scent, and Midwinter's Eve smells very similar to Prunella on me, but without the flowers. And Bordello is love! I'm definitely going to have to try Kitsune-Tsuki, and possibly Blood Countess, although the roses in that are a bit of a worry. Prospero also looks good!

I can't decide whether I like this or not. Sometimes when I sniff it I get a wonderful chocolate vanilla, at other times I get what smells like a rather expensive cologne. No lavender, no musk... it's not what I was expecting at all and while I'll probably get my decant out a couple more times, I won't be buying a bottle. I could really go for it on a guy, though.

Reading these reviews and re-testing my bottle has been like a lesson in nose-training. My bottle of Coral Snake was an impulse buy, listed on a sales page at a price that made me do grabby hands, alongside a bottle that I'd been lusting after for a while. So I'm not quite sure how old it is, although I know the label has had minor adjustments and I seem to have the newer version. The first time I tested it, I couldn't make it out. Was that the blood orange or -- what was that? But retesting today, I can't believe I missed it. It's undeniably luscious red apples in the bottle, then mulled apple cider when on, with a bit of blood orange stewing in there with it. As it dries, some of the spiciness of the Snake Oil comes out to play, and I'm glad that there's only a touch of the base to be found (not because I dislike Snake Oil at all, but I'm enjoying the mulled cider so much that SO taking over would be quite a disappointment.) My only complaint is that wear-length is not very long on me -- after a while I really have to place my nose right next to my wrist to have a huff, and my skin normally carries scent without the need for reapplying all day. I love this, though. This will be perfect for the end of the summer and for Autumn, so I'm going to put my bottle away for a few months. What's more, I bet it will turn into absolute heaven in those months, and I can't wait!

CLVII (157) My first impression of this was cinnamon. But I thought the lab hadn't used any cinnamon, as it's a common allergen? Hmm. Maybe I'm mistaken. On a second testing, I slathered a bit more, to hopefully make the scent a bit clearer. It's... it's... atomic fireballs? Fireballs were my life when I was about 13. In the school playground, we'd have competitions to see who could hold the spicy sweet in their mouth for the longest before having to bite down to the sweet centre. And this scent takes me right back to those days. Again, I'm pretty sure there was some kind of cinnamon in atomic fireballs, but now I'm pretty decided that what I'm smelling is anise. Snake Oil and anise? Not a bad combination, but the anise drowns out the SO, leaving behind a very strong and simple scent. Hmm. I think I'll see how this one ages before I decide whether to keep it or swap it.

Fact: I didn't like this when I first tried it. Not at all. It was overwhelmingly leather and cognac when I put it on, both of which I enjoy in scents, but not on their own. Sadly, I put it aside for awhile. Today I slathered it over my wrists, hoping it had settled enough to show me what it was really made of. And WOW. All the notes are detectable (although I admit I don't get a paper bag) and it's delicious! It's now about 8 hours later and I can still smell it, only it's now all berries and cream. Still not mad keen on the initial wet stage, but once all the notes come out to play, it's utterly delicious and something I can see myself wearing a lot.

LVIII (58) This one puzzles me, quite a lot. In the bottle it smelt citrusy, but directly on it was Dorian with a harsher note beneath - possibly iris, which is always harsh on my skin, or maybe a metallic note? Although granted I've never tried the lab's metallic note and my nose is so very untrained. Drying down, sniffing my wrists mainly just gives me Dorian. But when I waft it, I can detect something else... something a bit like lemon cleaner? It seems like my first instinct was right. I love Dorian, and it's got enough of the original scent to make me not dislike it, yet I think I'd have spent my money more wisely on a bottle of straight up Dorian. Hmmmm.

When the Shungas were released this year, I was so new to BPAL that I was still poking around the GC, with absolutely no idea of what notes worked on me. A couple of months later and the Shungas were about to come down - I had to make quick decisions of which to buy unsniffed and which to get hold of in a last minute decant circle. Had I known at the time how gorgeous this scent truly is, I would have ordered multiple bottles. As it is, I went for a decant, and now I'm regretting it. Couple Consulting an Enpon is one of those rare scents that actually made me go "WOW" when I sniffed my wrist. It's not much of a morpher on me from the wet stage, through the drydown and into the dry stage - I smell the blackberry as a deep and rather sexy note, with the sandalwood and orange blossom blending beautifully and making this so much more than just another berry scent. I have to really sniff hard to detect the amber, but it's there in the background, lending a deep golden glow to the scent. No mint that I can detect, which is a relief, in all honesty. I'm going to have to get me a bottle of this from somewhere. I've been huffing my wrist all day, and really, this is going straight up into my favourite blends.