The_Merf

Man, lemon just does not quit on me. This is a really nice mix of "Mercurial" scents (lavender and neroli and rosemary) in the imp, but it just comes out as all lemons on me. A little bit of neroli and lavender come out--this really is orange/lavender/lemon (with the neroli really coming on strong) as it starts to dry down. There is little herbal or resinous backing from the frankincense or the rosemary. It's a little too citrusy and ungrounded for me, alas.

Sharp floral when I put this on my skin--my first reaction was to cough! It very quickly becomes more fruity (peach, not pomegranate) and and aquatic (I've been trying lots of aquatics lately, it seems!). There is also the sense of "autumn breeze" in the background. As I expected, the rose (I'm not actually sure which type of rose note Beth used here, but when I associate this scent with a color, I think of a medium pink--not pale, but not bright pink) does start to come out, but it remains tied up with the peach and aquatic notes so it doesn't become too sharp. The rose is moderated like it is in Erato (at least on my skin), but here's it's done through the filters of peaches other florals. I'll definitely hold this one for retesting.

This one is all plum in the imp, but as I put it on it immediately becomes plum and wine, with a bit of sweet amaretto in the background. I really like this at first because it's food-like without being food-y, but it goes food-y on me very, very quickly. I'm reminded a bit of grape-cherry chewables dipped in alcohol; this really is like a more buttery Lady Macbeth. The amaretto and alcohol really start to take control of this one, and it goes very, very buttery, nearly replicating the effect that scents like Grog would have on my skin (the purple plum does prevent it from becoming that strong). It's a bit intoxicating in a bad way to sniff the test spot here, so I think I'm going to have to swap this one.

This is sweet and sharp--more herbal to me than floral, and I don't really get purple as a color so much as a deep pale green (if that makes sense). However, right after the initial wet stage this one becomes a bit spicy--sort of what I was expecting from Voodoo Lily--with the hint of aquatic that supremegoddessofall and others have mentioned. The scent of wet and freshly cut flowers and grass is still dominant and this does not really smell like a lot of the other lily blends that I have tried. It becomes more and more floral on the drydown and gets very heady on me after about 10-15 minutes. This actually reminds me of a stronger version of Asphodel.

Just adding my praise--this really is a beautiful and complex scent. It's a bit light on me, which is a shame, but it is a very delicate blend of fir and the sexy skin notes of La Petite Morte. There's incense here as well, though I don't really get smoke from this one--I get sacred resin blurred against skin musks and the slightest touch of wood. It's very much a scent of dark nights in a wild forest. At the very end of the scent's life on my skin, I get a hint of the bonfire smoke coming through, but by then the scent is almost undetectable except up close. ETA: I have to revise and extend my review, as there is a very late stage of this scent that emerges and really is quite beautiful. It's the second coming of the fir note, as it were, and as I sniff my wrist long after testing the perfume, there is nothing left but the very distinct scent of a warm, live fir tree (this is not like the BPAL fir of Black Forest and friends) with just the slightest touch of resin/skin in the background.

This is a very, very cold scent. When it is wet on my skin, it has a hint of aquatic character, but is mostly lime and mint (more strongly mint than citrus) and the effect of smelling it for the first time is very much the same tingle that you get from an Altoid or something similar. The mint does not stay as the dominant note for long, and it becomes a lime aquatic. THIS does not last long either, and the scent dries down to a very pleasing mint/floral (ambrette?) combination. It is a very, very light scent and I do have questions about its throw if I'm going to put it on my bottle list, but this was an unexpected surprise, as I don't generally like cold scents or aquatic scents, but this one works out very well.

This is definitely an aquatic, but it's a light and clear aquatic--more a river instead of a deep, dark, salty sea or a still lake. I like this type of aquatic, and I like this scent a lot. It reminds me of a lighter version of my favorite aquatic scent of all time, Danube. The florals here are much less prominent and the general aquatic note is more prominent on me. As the scent dries down, the muget (and probably some other florals that others have mentioned) become dominant. I very much like this scent and the category that it fits into.

This is definitely rose and something else in the imp. It's a creamier, redder rose, which is the type of rose I like the best. However, that's also (naturally) the type of rose note that tends to both be light and to "take other notes with it" in a blend, and that seems to be happening here. There's a "deepness" here that I generally associate with a small amount of patchouli in a blend, but I don't pick up on the sandalwood at all. This is a fairly straightforward red-plum rose on my skin.

There is definitely lemon here, and maybe some sort of sharp or "bright" musk? I suggest that because this blend goes very, very, very wrong on my skin and lemon usually does not do that, but lighter musks can from time to time. I really can't comment further because this is truly unpleasant on my skin--a definite swapper!

This is a green, freshly bitten into granny smith apple. The resemblance is almost disturbing--Beth did a really great job here. Sometimes there is the hint of wet wood and leaves (as though someone bit into an apple that was still hanging on the tree), but this is as close to an Apple SN as I've smelled yet from the BPAL catalogue.

This is a weird sort of scent on my skin. The copal and labdanum go very weird very quickly because they are mixing with the floral notes. The result is not quite "headshop" and not quite "rotting floral," but somewhere in between, if you can imagine it. It wouldn't surprise me if the tonka was contributing to this, as it can sometimes do very weird things on my skin. However, this is definitely copal dominated, and it smells much different than other copal scents.

This goes on pretty much like a straight almond, which is surprising because there are a lot of strong notes in this blend. Indeed, it doesn't take too long until I get a little resin/patchouli to go along with the almond scent. That stage is very quick and then this becomes almond with creamy flowers. I have a number of almond blends that I'm sitting on for a second round of testing, and I think I'll add Uruk to that batch. This really does nice things to night-blooming jasmine, which I usually do not like all that much (as opposed to the jasmine in New Orleans, for example). Although the blend really does reduce to those two notes, it is an interesting combination.

My biggest fear was that this scent would simply vanish on me, as my previous experiences with iris-based scents have been short (but oh-so-sweet). Thankfully, that is not the case. On my skin this is predominantly a floral scent as opposed to a resinous or resin-woody one. The gardenia and iris are the most prominent notes in the wet stage, and they combine to create a really nice, "tart" floral (in fact, the overall result is somewhat like church flowers). The sandalwood is the middle note, as it were, and the frankincense starts out in the background, but as the scent wears and the other notes start to fade, it remains the strongest note.

I generally have serious problems with black musk going wonky on me, but this is one of the more pleasant black musk scents that I've tried. It's certainly the dominant note, but there is rose and vanilla here as well, and they help balance out the black musk. I don't really pick up on the citrusy notes that much, which is unusual because they tend to be very strong on my skin. As this dries down, the vanilla and patchouli are more prominent, but the overall scent throw also drops around this time (this one really is quite a morpher on me though).

When I first, first, first drew up my BPAL wishlist, I had O on there--just like everyone else does . However, I soon learned that honey had a tendency to go very wrong on my skin and I also learned that amber notes were very hit or miss with me. Because of this, I took O off the list. However, the Lab sent me an generous frimp of O with one of my recent orders, and I figured that it was time to try this BPAL Classic. Imagine my utter surprise when the most notable and powerful note I smelled in the imp and on my skin was...almond! Yeppers, this smelled like almond/cherry/marzipan when I put it on, and quite frankly, it still does. This is a slightly foody scent, with the vanilla in the background. I don't really get anything that reminds me of amber, and it seems like there's some honey sweetness with the almond scent (95 parts almond scent, 5 parts honey). I'm not sure that this makes me feel sexy or anything like that, but it is a comforting scent, and I'll certainly retest it to see what I want to end up doing with it. This is why you always test every scent you're given, even if it looks like it will be a disaster on you!

This was received as a generous frimp from the Lab, but how I didn't have it on my w/l is anyone's guess. All the 'Come and See' scents are interesting and this one is no exception. The first--heck, only--thing I smell in the imp and while the scent is wet is sage. On my skin that all very quickly goes to leather and the scent stays as a leather, sage, cedar blend; it reminds me a lot of Les Infortunes. I don't really pick up on any of the notes, but I'll give the imp another try to see if they come out. This is another great BPAL leather blend though.

On me, Crossroads is so fresh that it is foul. Permit me to explain--the dirt/earth and herbal notes in this blend are very, very "new." They do a great job of calling to mind freshly upturned dirt that has bright blooms and wild-growing herbs jutting out of it. It's an interesting combination of artifice (how did the dirt get upturned) and uncontrolled growth (herbs mixing with flowers). However, the fresh quality of these notes does not mix well with the floral notes on my skin; it makes the floral notes smell almost like they got too wet or something and started to rot a bit. Some people like that touch to their scents, but it makes my stomach upset, so I'll have to pass on further testing with this blend.

Given the strength of jasmine and honeysuckle as notes, I'm shocked that this blend is heavily dominated by lavender from start to finish. There's a little bit of honeysuckle/jasmine mix in the background (a la Eos), but this is really a lavender blend through and through.

I was very nervous about trying this blend because I desperately wanted it to work--I haven't yet discovered the BPAL that is my ideal "smoky wood" scent. This one starts off brilliantly in that regard--it is warm burning wood, lovely and comforting and I adore it. If the blend stayed there for the entire time and did not change a bit, I'd be thrilled. Of course it does morph by becoming more resinous, and when it hits this resinous stage (where there is still the afterglow of woodfire), it also becomes a much weaker blend in terms of throw. I really do like the various stages that this one goes through, but I will have to test it again to see how I think its throw will hold up. In terms of how the resin behaved on me, I did not get much fruity, juicy, grape, raisin effect; there is a hint of that there on the edges in the scent's late drydown state, but it was never dominant.

Let me add my praises here--this one's a good one. Having finally accepted that, no matter how odd it sounds, "sugared" works well on me, I put this on my w/l. It's a really gorgeous combination of florals, resins and the grass note (I think the grass note is as clear and beautiful in this blend as it is in any BPAL blend that I've tried), all dusted over with the sugared candy scent. There's a lot of complexity here and a lot of strength here--I tested this scent alongside some very, very strong blends and I can still detect it very easily. The sugared scent lasts the longest, and after an hour it's about all I can pick up on, but that's such a pleasant scent that I don't mind.

This one vanished almost as soon as I put it on--all I was ever really able to pick up on were hints of plum and resin. The resin lasts a long time and is somewhat detectable even after 30+ minutes (which is odd considering the rest of the perfume vanished in two minutes, if even that). Unfortunate that this one did not work out for me.

This perfume is exactly what it says it is--I think this does the best job of capturing the sense of "charred" out of any oil I've tried in the BPAL catalogue. When I first applied the perfume it was very overwhelming. In fact, I tested this perfume by rubbing a drop that got on my finger when I opened the decant onto my wrist. I smelled the metallic notes, the gunpowder notes and what I think was black musk or black amber (both of which go very wrong on me most of the time and did so here as well). The scent does change a lot and I do prefer the later stages of the drydown to the earlier stages. As the scent dries it becomes more metallic-resinous and acquires the warm quality that some other reviewers have talked about in their comments. At this point it smells like a much calmer and slightly warmer version of Djinn.

While this is very clearly a "masculine musk blend" in the tradition of Wilde, Vicomte and many others, it is one of my favorites in that category. The musk is very well blended with the other notes and never really breaks away to give the blend that 'male cologne kick' that I've gotten with some of the other scents I mentioned here. I definitely think that, in addition to the wood, there is some sort of other resin here (I'm not sure if it's cedar, but it does smell like that). The scent is basically a very nice resin/musk blend, and it does not change much on my skin, even after it's been on for nearly an hour.

In terms of scent, I really like this, but I love the way dragon's blood smells, both on and off my skin. This smells like a more "serious" version of French Love to me. I used this oil in a candle-burning ritual that I botched a bit. I used a votive candle, and since it was so big I had to do the burn over a period of days. Between the penultimate burn and the final burn I let five days lapse. I did feel a sense of shielding even after the first burn; I was dealing with a number of encounters that I was not looking forward to, and I felt "protected" from disaster. Still, I was not free from discomfort as there were some moments of obvious tension. What I noticed--and this may have to do with the way in the wording I used for my petition paper--is that the Wall seemed more secure when I put myself in a more submissive mental state, and did not struggle against things that I had to deal with. For example, I was entertaining guests (one of the reasons there was such a large gap between burns) and I knew that one of them would want to go out and get very crazy. I hate that sort of thing, and I was miserable (and doing a bad job of hiding it) the entire afternoon prior to our soiree. However, once I submitted myself to the fact that it was going to happen, things were not nearly as bad as they could have been, and I did feel shielded from negative attention (I danced and didn't feel like people were directly negative or dismissive--mocking?--energy toward me). I suppose what this blend asks me to do when I use and employ it is to have enough faith not to avoid what is unpleasant but must be done. Instead, I am to proceed forward with good purpose, and know that I am protected from the negativity I fear.

Well, I suppose there's always Hungry Ghost Moon to go along with Wolf Parade's "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts."