patina

Flat, dark and a little sweet. I find myself wishing this had a tiny bit of spice. (Though the tobacco is almost spicy.) Maybe clove or something to give it a little extra dimension? Still not bad.

I wish I could see your costumes! Rather than handing out candy with friends and going to a memorial service it seems I might be staying home tonight due to rain. At least I can still hand out candy while dressed appropriately for a ren faire. Oh, and wearing Mary Shelley too.

This is mostly Absinthe on me, but there's some ozone too. I guess it could be called "soapy" but it's not unpleasant. This is really reminding me of Storm Clouds on the Midway. If Stormclouds mated with Absinthe, it would smell like this. This is lovely, but like Stormclouds it gets faint very quickly.

Unlike other reviewers, I can pick out the cypress easily. It's the most noticeable thing in the bottle. On my skin the roses bloom, along with a violet powder (the orris) and the myrrh. While the myrrh sweetens everything, it doesn't cover up the rest of the scent. Roses, orris, wood, and resins are all there and accounted for, but the sweet, powdery roses are the most prominent part of the scent on my skin. It may be a bit too far into face powder territory for me. There is some throw but not much.

This is a true wine smell a bit like zadok allen vineyard, except sweeter, with less of a vinegary quality. Does Balm of Gilead smell like honey? There's something like that here as well as a poppy flower note. Nice. Edit: I know I said it smells like wine, but actually, it smells more like someone took a glass of wine and mixed it with an equal measure of pomegranite juice. Still good.

I had to try this one. Applied, it's super moss. A whole roomful of dry dark moss to sink into. I can't smell the patchouli or balsam separately. (But then I'm not very practiced picking out balsam.) The spicy, bitter orange smell of cumin and neroli balance out all that moss very well. With certain chemistry, I can see this turning too sharp, even turning into body odor, but somehow it behaves itself. That almost never happens when I wear sharp scents. After a while the patchouli becomes a bit more noticeable. This is actually nice for a chilly day. I wouldn't go so far as calling the scent unhinged, but it suggests wild misery without actually making me feel unhappy. (It helps that I find oakmoss comforting.) As the other reviewers have said, it tends towards men's cologne. It isn't absolutely amazing, but it is good, very interesting and uniquely evocative.

I think Creature Feature would work if you could find it. I don't know if the GC Black Dhalia is still available, but if not, maybe Darkness would work.

The only GC scent I can think of is The Old Goblin which is ice and fir cones. One review says it smells like hard, dirty ice. If you want to try out Yules Snowball Fracas comes to mind immediately. It's snow and dirt. Jolasveinir the Yule LE is pastries and dirt and frost. There's Yellow Snowballs, and Pink Snowballs. There's also Lick it, Suck it, etc for peppermint candy. Snow Bunny and Waltz of the Snowflakes might be a bit too pretty, but I like both of those a lot. Frost at Midnight doesn't smell like frost at all, but it's a fairly pretty wilderness and florals scent. I haven't tried The Shivering Boy, Snowflakes, The Snow Storm, Archangel Winter, Hypothermia, Cold and Colder or Nuclear Winter but those might work too.

I'm surprised I haven't reviewed this. It's very perfumy, but such a lovely perfume. Aside from the roses and gentle musk I get a clear sense of blueness and a hint of leaves on a crisp October day. It's extremely beautiful, but somehow it just isn't me. And that's weird because usually I'll wear anything I like without stopping to think whether it's me or not. It's almost as if this perfume had a personality profile of its own. It's been a struggle to find words for it. I fumbled around with descriptions like "girly but not girlish," "ladylike," "sophisticated," "mainstream but better," but none of those really fit. Weirdly the closest I could come to describing the personality of this scent was "Martha Stewart." Seriously. So if you like really amazing vanilla musk and roses, clear October days, powder blue and blush pink maybe this is for you. If you don't like anything that could be considered cloying or powdery or conventionally perfumy, maybe it isn't for you.

A delicate, dry, grassy, foresty thing. This was underwhelming as a perfume, but put into water in a spray bottle it made really amazing room spray. Best "waste" of an imp ever.

Excellent! You reminded me of Jazz Funeral, which should be perfect...for someone else. It smells bad on me. Oh, and I see now I should have posted this in the costume thread. Darn.

So, what would be appropriate for Beetlejuice? I'm thinking something mossy, but what?

I can't believe I haven't reviewed this one before because this is one of the most evocative BPAL scents I've tried. You know the early, bright days of fall when the sky is extremely blue, the air is crisp and the leaves are still green? Yep. This smells like September. More specifically, this starts out smelling like green leaves. I can see where some reviewers would get green bananas. It also smells like ginko leaves. The amber in the scent gives me a strong impression of golden sunlight. After I've worn this a while I get the faintest impression of a tiny wisp of smoke which must be the rooibos. (Is the smoke a forecast of the leaves' future?) Your milage may vary. Not everyone will get such strong sensory perceptions. My mother called it "a lovely women's perfume."

Maybe this will help? I've tried a few of the Halloweenie scents from other years. Samhainophobia is a nice dark and brown scent, but it's a bit heavy on the vetiver for me and some people say it smells like burning hair on them. Day of the Skulls is a bit sweet. The white sandalwood sort of gives it the texture of bones, the beeswax makes it a bit polished and sweet and the roses and tobacco make it more sweet. Some people may have trouble with a slightly bitter undertone from the tobacco and hydrangea, but I was fine with it. In color I get a white-cream with pastel roses. Samhain is nice, but a little warmer and heavier on the foodiness than I'd like from this kind of scent. (If you're a big pumpkin pie and cider fan this might be for you). From reading the reviews it seems to vary a bit from year to year though. Also The Hell-Gate of Ireland was one of my favorites early on. I got a decant that was an absolutely amazing sweet dark clove scent. It's very warm and when I wear it in cold weather, it actually seems to make me feel warmer. Sadly my bottle of this seemed too heavy on the lab's sulfur note. But I think it has mellowed with age and become more like the decant.

On me, Pickled Imp. It's like being surrounded by a soft vanilla spice cloud.

The Poisoned Apple (if you don't mind the opium) and the LE Conical Beast are really nice. Edit: Though I forgot to mention Conical Beast has vetiver. On me it's a nice background vetiver that's held in place by the pine sap and the super sweet, sticky cherry. But vetiver. Yeah. Conical Beast, Clark Ashton Smith. Black cherry pulp, aged patchouli, wild fruit gums, pine sap, night-blooming jasmine, and vetiver.

I've used this twice. The first time motivated me to write a poem and then may have stimulated some vivid, but non nightmarish dreams. The second time I fell into a dreamless sleep almost immediately after applying it. The scent feels cold to me because of the camphor. Immediately after applying it, I get chills and feel very alert. It's like being terrified without the fear. Initially, the scents a bit too far on the medicinal side for me but the drydown (when I've woken up in the morning) is complex and amazing. I can tell there's mugwort and myrrh involved.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s RPG scent series was designed to emulate the character creation process, and are meant to be layered in order to create a character concept. In short: you layer your class, race, and the two fragrances that compose your alignment to construct your character scent. Elf Druid works well, though it's faintly soapy to my nose. (Could be the wool in Druid?) Evil Elf Druid is also nice, although Evil does a bit of that smothering thing it does. Gnome Druid is woody, and pretty decent. but my surprise favorite was Elf + Darkness (Non-Rpg scent). It's pleasantly smoky without being as coughgag overwhelming as Evil. Dark Elf is awesome.

I ordered two bottles unsniffed and I don't regret it at all. It's caramel-like deep, dark pipe tobacco with a hint of vanilla. It almost reminds me of coffee, but really GOOD coffee. This is AMAZING.

Halloween: Los Angeles comes to mind though that has woodsmoke and might be hard to find. Otherwise, I don't know, Tombstone? Admittedly that's more vanilla/ sassafrass, but it's got a very dry feel to it and has cedar (I think.)

This is an excellent outdoors/forest scent. It smells like wearing a wool sweater in the middle of a grove of trees. It is somewhat faint though. (It's the faintness that makes it believably foresty rather than "whooo! Pine oil!") I think this would be better as a room spray, but I'm still tempted to get it. I think this would be lovely layered with a leather scent or a light spring floral.

How about Love-Lies-Bleeding or Love-in-Idleness? Love-Lies-Bleeding smelled like chocolate and something red to me. I think Love-in-Idleness is a soft floral, sort of a violet scent.

Somehow it reminds me of Black Temple Burlesque Troupe, but there's no cocoa and this has a herbal edge to it. Catmint? Lemongrass? I don't know, but I don't think it's catnip. There maaay be civit, but if so it's well-behaved. I think I'm getting the red musk from Witches' Dance somewhere here too. Nice dark, sweet musk, but may be too one-dimensional for me. (Yes, there are many notes, but they all have the same smooth muskiness if that makes any sense?) Also, I think this could turn to soap on someone with the right chemistry. It is sweet and pleasant though.

I get a lot of fir, which to my nose is sweeter, more rounded, and more lemony than pine. The birch is very present and it's making this sweeter. This smells like the offspring Ondurdis and Pale Student of the Unhallowed Arts, except this is mellower to my nose than both of those. Ultimately, I like it but I don't want more than an imp.

This is the myrrh note I've always smelled in blends. Dark, resinous, woody/bitter, sweet (without smelling like syrup), and with just a hint of cola. As people have mentioned, there's a dusty top note and this smells better as my skin heats up. Even though it's a SN, I might try wearing this alone. For some reason, I also have a strong psychological reaction to this note. It feels very comforting, like being soothed after you've been crying. Favorite note, yeah.