SophieCedar

My husband says this reminds him of "when aunt Rhonda used to come over and get a perm from my mom". He was really creeped out saying it smells exactly like the perm processing chemicals and hairsprays used by his mom. I say it smells great, but I've been husband blocked. If I get a bottle I'll never hear the end of it. Anyways, onward to the review. This is a wonderful balanced smooth silky floral & musk blend. Seriously, if my house smelled like this when I was getting a perm back in the 80's I'd be less traumatized. Wet: White tea, olibanium, violet leaf, and saffron come out together creating a meditational feel with sweet notes. Its sweeter and smoother than the read notes would elude. Something in this spells pomegranate to me. Same feel on the nose. Drydown: Ahh.. I can see where hubby is getting the perm chills from. The white tea amps a bit and the myrrh and olibanium kick in stronger with crypt dust and wormwood, making this a sharper herbal resin blend. Violet leaf settles down and departs. Red musk has decided its done with me, over the past year. So as a funny trick, goes spikey claws out do not touch me.....its happening here. Sigh.

Holy shit! Eeeeee! I have the perfume and love it. How would you compare the shower gel to the perfume?

Dear John is a near dead ringer for Skinny Dip. Seriously, if you're lamenting the loss of Skinny Dip (like me) try Dear John!

I there! Black Rider is strong but smooth dark musky leather. A small dab is recommended. White Rider is not my favorite, but evokes accurately. The white leather is clean, slightly chemically. From what I'm reading about your skin chemistry, you may amp this one in a direction you'll not be pleased with. Honestly I would recommend you give Red Rider a try along with Black Rider. Red Rider has that spicy appeal I think you're looking for, mixed with leather and moss. It's a very warm spicy scent! Going back to your request for spicy/sweet/masculine scents, my perception is that you're looking for slight sweetness that's smoothed out and balanced with masculine notes, but you're prone to amping them crazily, right? I'll try to recommend some that have a medium to low throw, that in smaller amounts may not send you running for the sink: Gomorrah (love this one! It's evil and awesome) Havana Sri Lanka Al-Azif Santo Domingo Brown Jenkin Titus Andronicus Blood Amber Chimera (just a dab! I call this "not-snake-oil" because it's similar but I wear it on the days I don't want to wear SO hahaha) Kill Devil (be careful with the amount on this one but it's lovely!) Casanova Golden Priapus last but not least: Perversion. Best of luck!!

Not sure why but Shadowy & Sublime is grabbing me this summer. The warm Moroccan amber wisteria white rose magnolia and mint is earthy and refreshing. Also Hod is pure awesomeness. I've been veering away from my usual sweet summer scents this year. I do have to say Bones Trombone and Katharina are frikkin great though!

She Who Expels Sinful Lusts A complex Eastern musk with orange blossom, peppermint, lime peel, spikenard, petitgrain, and white cedar. Wet: ooh wow. Strong spicy eastern musk with a multitude of ingredients that heighten my senses. The eastern musk is beautiful, sweet, spicy, slightly watery, and a little mournful. How romantic! The additions, oddly enough, stand apart on my skin instead of blending and amplifying the musk. I can smell the peppermint, orange blossom, lime rind, and petitgrain.. (aka: zzzing!! I'm awake!) Very green, with watery spicy notes from the musk. Drydown: ok everything is settling and melding with the musk finally. I think the wet phase caused me to experience a new level of clarity and awareness...Thanks bpal! wheeee! The petitgrain and spikenard stick around, adding brown and orange color impressions, and the eastern musk is pretty damn gorgeous with some lasting power. the orange blossom went slightly powdery, but that's fine and expected. Strange.. each time I sniff my wrist, I feel refreshed and release a nice sigh.

Humanah humunah humunah! THIS is the scent to wear on your 1st date, if you just want to knock em dead. I would equate it to a red musk version of Luna Negra. So glad I chanced on this during the lab's ebay sale. This is deep, dark, musky, sexy, feminine, but not too pungent/nasal cavity assault-like. Basically what I hoped WILF to be but wasn't. Frikkin sweet.

Springtime for me is Eden, Joyful Moon, Mantis, Josie, and Lady in Speckled Pink Kimono.

This is VERY pink and a straight split of peony and vanilla orchid. While this might not have the pow and wow of some other pink scents, I keep gravitating toward it. It lasts forever and just pervades the general area. I can handle this anytime: when I'm cranky, sick, boisterous, or pissed. That's a good scent, in my records.

There are a ton of win notes in here: nepalese amber, red musk, black musk, hops, mallow and chamomile. All blended perfectly. The lotus root is really the keystone of this scent, I think. It brings out the resinous, sweet nepalese amber, which on it's own places me on cloud 9. It's bizarre but I keep smelling traces of cinnamon, a la Chimera. It could be the star anise. The lotus addition reminds me of Kali. Even though Himalayan cedar is a death note on me, its perfectly grounding here. The chamomile is winey and soothing, perfectly mixing with the penetrating musks and sweet dry blue grey tinged orris. Mallow is something I wish I could curl up and go to sleep on. Need I say more? I'm in love.. unexpectedly.

Ok, so this actually worked out in the best possible way, considering the range to results I'm seeing here. Wet: Very distinct notes, dancing together. Strange company that somehow manages to balance each other. Matcha tea: sweet, powdered, sweet-grass like. I wasn't sure if this would translate as real matcha, but it does.. Supple black leather: strong and very seductive! Sweet! I'm psyched. Smokey deep oudh, tying together with frankincense.. these 2 are an amazing match. A waft of deep, earthy pink rose. Nice touch. The patchouli is mellow and syrupy. Petitgrain is something I'm not really crazy about, but it works here. It's driving it up from a basic carnal incense-y leather blend to something more balanced. Great gender neutral top note... Even though I usually cringe in it's presence. The himalayan cedar is just melding and muddling with the oudh and frankincense, giving them depth. That's great because I've had some nasty run-ins with it. Drydown: this is where I can clearly smell the champaca and narcissus. Leather Phoenix is funny. It operates kinda like that old saying "hind-sight is 20-20". I can see exactly where these 2 fell into place during the wet phase and how it constructed the overall effect, even though I can't pick out the 2 at that time... the epiphany causes a forehead smacking "of course!" This turns greener as the the leather looses it's hold and the frankincense smooths. It's got this soporific, drugged daze feel, but in the clean nothing can harm me kind way. I'm creeped out and captivated. Wonderful.

NYE was a cornucopia of awesome. Little dabs of each: Perversion behind the ears, Haunted on my chest, and Ushi in the crooks of my elbows. What fun!

Did you manage to get a bottle of Snowshowers perfume? It was on their Canadian website last week & is a LE fragrance. I was considering getting Twilight as well, but I have a BPAL that smells similar (SDPU1) and the bottle was $50. Eek. I'd love to know what BPAL smells like Snowshowers though, because I tried the perfume and it was gone in 30 minutes. Oh man I had no idea Lush made a snowshowers perfume this year! I still have a tiny bit of the solid version they put out about 4 years ago. Still smells the same. Glad you found something from bpal that's similar. I will keep my eyes peeled for others and post here when found!

Wet: a blast of orange marmalade, rosemary, pine, and apples. Drydown: cinnamon, orange marmalade and orange rind, with a hint of apples, deeper rosemary. Comforting and energizing (emphasis on the zing part..) Reminds me of fabric and craft stores but not too offensive or too potpourri-ish.

OK, so my 1st impression of Snow White last year was "Smells like Skin Milk", though I was completed pleased I didn't have to deal with nasty chemicals to get this lovely scent any more. Pink Snowballs is a rosy Skin Milk..without the chemicals and fake perfumes...YAY! Wet: sweet soft vanilla and rose with a touch of...spearmint? What's the ingredient that makes it snowy? We'll never know. It's actually incredibly strong during this phase. Joyful, light-hearted indeed, optimistic, bouncy (bouncy? Yes. Bouncy.). Glad I'm starting my day with this. Drydown: still exuberant and fun. Still sweet airy vanilla & rose, with that snowy note. I honestly like this one better than Snow White, which comes across as sweet & sad, doleful. Don't get me wrong, I love that combination, but this is more playful. My favorite morning scent these days. There's basically a protective wall of anti-fuck-up-my-day oil on my wrists, right now. Awesome.

Oooh good one. I do know a couple out there that are similar, but looking at the threads, everyone wishes there was a stronger cherry blossom scent from bpal. Similar to Sakura IMO: Suspiro and Spirit of the Komachi Cherry Tree

Hey ya know look at that! I was *just* thinking to myself yesterday how Ghost resembles Lyonesse. I was trying to figure out why I LOVE Ghost so much but don't really care for Lily Savon soap. Ghost is kinda more vanilla-y than the Lily Savon bar soap..most people compare Ghost to Lily Savon, but my experience was that the Lily Savon bar soap is MUCH heavier on lilies to the point of burning my nose.

This scent, for me, is funny giggly sweet innocent cute cheesecake. I would compare it to the way Bones Trombone plays out on my skin: balance of sweet confection and herbal notes. The lavender is coming out in varying levels of strength with each application. Wet: sweet strong but non-astringent lavender and creamy cheese cake. The honey note stays syrupy during this phase. Drydown: honey tends to go powdery on me. What a shame that is! Honey + lavender = it's clean sweet, slightly powdery..but the cheesecake keeps it all in check. This does not dump itself into the baby powder category due to the cheesecake...awesome! It's this strange innocuous sweet foody lavender blend. Creamy in the way only cheesecake can pull off: pungent, nose filling sweet cream and sugar. Soothing lavender honey stays just that. The powdery part of the honey actually faded and it's back to sweet creamy lavender awesomeness. Glad I blindly ordered 2 bottles. Very versatile.

The milk chocolate cassia and bacon is the only one I can think of that's a direct hit. The other 2 that I smelled meat from, if you're curious to try them, are Drink Me and The Witch's Repast.

I tested this a few times before now. Each time, I slapped it on, shrugged, said it smelled good, then left the house to do whateverthehell. Wet: burst of clean masculine cologne that settles after about 30 seconds. Must be the musk and linen.. The warm smell of tobacco musk and sweet linen with a drop of opium-like laudanum is circling me. It's lovely in this phase! Opium does wonderfully on my skin, so no surprise. Color impressions are cream, dark brown, translucent indigo, with shreds of maroon. Drydown: I think this is the reason I forgot about it after I slapped it on.. it fades super fast. If I smell closely, it's this lovely creamy but dark linen and tobacco musk.. pretty musky actually.. so I'd say 2 primary notes are musk and linen.. which is awesome but can barely smell any throw. This would be an awesome atmospheric smell, so maybe I'll put a drop in my oil burner and hope it fares better than on me. I would also recommend this for sensitive noses that want all that musk, linen, opium smell without the burningsneezinggetitoffme-ness.

Wet: wonderful white dry (not tart) apple and agave nectar with a whisper of moonflower. Smells like something I'd like to drink! Think Fentiman's soda..or a nonalcoholic cocktail with flower essences (ooooohhh!) For me, there's a pinkness about this instead of the intended silver. Think it's the lotus root. Very girly but not childish. Oh wait.. this smells like a sweeter version of VS's Pink. Damn you, brain-scent association! Oh well.. this is way better and isn't accompanied by the customary complimentary burning eyes & nose of VS perfumes. I'llllll take it! Drydown: wonderful, sweet, slightly mournful moonflower, agave (yes still kickin), white sandalwood, and shimmering translucent (but not powdery) orris. Wonderful. Why did I only by one bottle? I can change that.

Klara from last year's yule update was almost a dead ringer for Alice.. just less powdery

Frikkin burnt marshmallows.. seriously?! YES! It's awesome. Wet: acrid toasty smell, with sweet molten marshmallow. drydown: not sure what's up with this but it turns into a sweet, super sugary, smoky, goopy greatness. Still a decent throw to it. Need. 10. bottles. now... this will be great for layering too. I can picture it under mircalla, haunted, or the black rider.

In imp: marigolds and chrysanthemums.. strong and sharp! ow! Wet: wow. what a wonderful surprise. Beautiful sweet almost syrupy bourbon vanilla, yellow green soothing herbal chamomile, wet red and brown autumn leaves. I'm not a marigold or chrysanthemum fan but this is actually working for me. They just provide a fresh greenness to it. They actually make it come alive. The rose is deep and crimson pink without being sharp or too sweet. drydown: sweet, herbal, color impression brown, red and green with flashes of gold. Wonderful autumn scent. This just floats and flows. The surprise like of 2011's weenies.

Carnal is a nice fig scent too. The mandarin is warm and sweet but the fig takes center stage. I second grave pig and hetairae.