maewitch

Oh my, what a little aging will do! When I first got this, I had an immediate gagging reaction to the scent of it in both the bottle and on my skin. All I could get from it was a very sharp dirt note and incredibly pungent, bitter greenery - and all of it damp. To say I did not like it would be simplifying dramatically. It was one of the very few bottles that I wanted to put into swaps immediately. For some reason (probably laziness) I did not. And I am very glad I didn't. It's still not a perfume I would reach for often, but over the last couple of years it has matured into something else entirely. That marshy grassiness is still there, but rather than dominating the blend it lends a quirky top note to an otherwise smooth, restrained floral. I would still categorize this as an aquatic floral, but without that heavy dampness I got initially. The wetness here is light and airy, like fine mist carrying the scent of moss and grass and highland flowers, grounded by a very faint earth note. Like I said - not really a 'me' perfume, but lovely. I'm very glad I gave this a second chance, albeit years later.

2008 version. A wearable cookie scent, goodness gracious! This is a touch buttery, a bit doughy and a hint smoky. Like cookies that were globbed onto the pan a little too thick and left in a little too long. It has those faintly burnt edges and that raw middle and it's delicious! Overall much lighter than I was expecting, and not really spicy.

Wet, this is all fir and cedar, quite sharp. As it begins to dry down, it begins to sweeten up considerably. I never quite get the blackberry note - it's an indistinct suggestion, like berries under ice indeed. With the amber and the rose, however, it's enough to lend this blend the softness it needs to be beautifully feminine, despite that strong wood presence. As it dries further, the amber and sandalwood lend a cool, powdery undertone. This is overall a sophisticated scent, with a deep core of femininity under a seemingly austere exterior. The sartorial equivalent would be wearing plum-colored, fantastically laced and delicately made underthings under a sleek, minimalist grey pantsuit.

This is an amazing scent memory for me. It smells like those packets of fruit-flavored sugar that I used to eat with those solid-sugar spoons - the ones that eventually made my tongue hurt, and had to be chased down with iced coke. Sniffing this, both in the bottle and on the skin, I can pick up every nuance of that tart and sweet mix, that watered-down aroma of coke in the summer - and then something cool and almost faintly metallic underlying it all. It's sweet but not cloying. Refreshing in fact, and if they could bottle this as a drink, I think they would make a killing. It smells like childhood.

In the bottle, this is indeed a thick blend of mooshy marshmallows and the almost bitter tang of dandelion sap - at once creamy white and sharply green. A unique and strangely pleasing combination. However, on my skin this devolves into that burned powder note that many foody blends fall victim too. I can only curse my skin chemistry and hope that this plays more nicely with others.

A wonderfully dirty, distinctly un-foody vanilla. Rich and almost cakey from the bottle, it settles into something earthier on the skin, eventually fading into a soft, soft oakmoss. I am shocked that I adore this, as oakmoss is usually bane to me. This feels almost like a Gourmand Chypre, if such a thing is possible.

Agreed! Half the time I feel like I'm collecting as much for the bottle art as for the scent itself! Case in point - I wasn't going to order the Summer Blockbuster blends and just resolved to ignore its existence. But then I saw the art and HAD to go back to the descriptions, which sounded just awesome, and then the reviews and...yeah.

I just realized that the Queens have been so generously extened. Now with this awesome artwork in front of me, my will is reduced to shambles. *sits on grabbyhands*

This smells exactly like a local magic shop, The Magickal Blend. I mean EXACTLY. It's that mix of working herbs, sweetness (from the vanilla incense cones that the newer folks always seem to take first and perhaps the beeswax of the candles), spicy incense, candlesmoke and dusty book pages that stays in your hair for hours after you leave the shop. I do get the comparisons to Shub. The ginger is very similar and noticeable when you go from smelling it on one wrist to the other. Actually, the subtler notes of chocolate are more noticeable then as well - otherwise, it's definitely the herbs and an overall smoky spiciness that takes center stage. Love. It.

Quick Q - does the Whole Foods in Chapel Hill still carry BPAL, and if so, does it have the retailer Salon exclusives? (We'll be down there soon - packing as I type!)

Has anyone posted pictures of the Marchen series? I'm curious if the labels have unique artwork or lettering as compared to the usual GC labeling.

Posts like that happen when someone is moderately educated on a subject, yet has very little experience with the subject matter they are discussing, and wants to come across as Saying Something Important. They pretty much only succeed in sounding arrogant and ignorant, not to mention condescending.

I think it was removed when Beth started experimenting with aldehydes (the synth note in some unreleased blends like...Toxin, I believe?). Since those blends never made it to the catalogue, the response you got from CS makes sense. I seem to recall Beth saying something about the FAQ needing to be updated.

Oh for the love of God. 1) Beth is a trained perfumer. (And a trained aromatherapist. And a trained rootworker, for that matter.) 2) The Lab doesn't purchase pre-made stock oils to blend together. In fact, this is what a lot of wannabe 'perfumers' do in order to imitate BPAL's blends, and it shows in how their blends smell (which can be anything from awful to nice, but if you compare them side by side, you can tell the obvious difference between a BPAL perfume and a stock oil blend). 3) Beth does spend weeks, if not months or years tweaking most of her oils. A lot of RnD goes into the making of her blends, and the sheer multiplicity of scents is not reflective of how easy that process is, but how damn hard she and everyone else at the Lab works. 4) Yes, you can buy a 'cupcake' stock oil from cheap-ass fragrance oil companies, or less cheap-ass manufacturers like Givaudin. You can also purchase simpler or more complex synthetic notes from them. That doesn't mean Beth does. 5) Beth either blends together her own accords, or sources them from other people who make them. These accords are from natural essences. For example, in this post, she talks about how her vanilla flower note is a mix of an orchid accord she blends together and vanilla oleoresin. In other posts, she's talked about blends being discontinued because the person who made a certain note died and never passed on the extraction/blending technique, about specific sources for her orchid notes, and about how because the oils are natural sometimes the textures vary and there's occasionally 'bits' floating in there from the infused materials. This is a big part of why some prototypes never go live - the source materials are sometimes too rare or difficult to acquire or blend on a large scale. (Which is not something that would be a problem if she was simply using stock oils from a supplier like Givaudin.) Beth does what CB does - she bends together perfumes from individual building blocks (eo's, absolutes, concretes, infusions, macerations, etc) as well as accords, except she does it from natural sources, whereas he mixes in synthetics as well. It's either a misconception or a lack of imagination on this poster's part if he thinks she's doing something else. (Small edit, because the wording in the last paragraph came across like I was conflating this poster with the creator of CB perfumes.)

No, as the comment above states, they don't use synthetics. To create a note that is not found as a natural extract, they use bouquets of other natural essences to create that note - whether they blend that themselves or obtain a bouquet note from a supplier. Beth has talked before about how, for example, she makes her own accord for an orchid note, and sometimes blends get discontinued precisely because the supplier for a particular note blend no longer produces it and there are no alternatives.

Hmmm, I haven't done a review in a while, I realized....but this is the perfect blend to break me out of my laziness. Wet, this is a slightly sweet leather, with a woody dryness, almost smokiness that I associate more with the oak bark than the sandalwood. There's a hint of something a little musky, but it's predominantly leather, and it makes me think of a leather corset - something worn by a dominatrix, carrying some of her scent. As it dries, the leather note fades discreetly into the background and the sweetness of the beeswax comes to the forefront, supported by the spice of the red sandalwood. I have to admit that leather is a hard note for me to get used to wearing, but it plays very well on my skin. And the drydown to this is just gorgeous.

A while back there used to be an automated e-mail response from the site when you ordered, but it honestly was probably redundant, considering you also got one from paypal two second before. So yes, it's perfectly normal to only get the paypal confirmation. You'll get a Click-n-Ship confirmation once your order ships out from the Lab. Hope that helps!

Overgrown oleander, marshy water hemlock, the sugared nectar of carnivorous blooms, putrefying wet greenery, oozing sap, crushed rosary peas, withered climbing roses, and nightshade berries. Wow. This is lovely. It does indeed remind me slightly of Embalming Fluid, only in that it is an incredibly soft, sugared, second-skin scent - except that this is sweet grassiness where EF was lemony muskiness. I'm not huge on green notes, but whatever is in this is a close cousin to the grass note used in Virgo, and they are both delightful. Bottle.

Agreed. For example, an infused oil, where a plant material is steeped in oil for several weeks. (A tincture would be the equivalent with alcohol instead of oil.) I've made a 'musky' oil that way by crushing up ambrette seeds and steeping them in jojoba.

Oh, how fabulous! These sound lovely, and now I DEFINATELY have an excuse to plan a trip to New York. I've been meaning to show the boy around the city I spent part of my childhood in, and now I can argue that we have to visit Pennsylvania as well. This sounds like a brilliant business move for BPAL's retail partners.

Wow, I love Julie Dillon's work. It's luminous. I hope we get to see more of her work in conjunction with BPAL. Are the images listed under the Good Omens category the ones that were used for the bottle art?

I got an actual CnS yesterday, as opposed to the e-mail notification I've always received as an international. Has the USPS added actual tracking or DC on international orders now?

The radiance and desolation of winter. Hey, wait a minute this smells like...*sniff*...wait...*sniffsniff*...SNOW WHITE! A fraternal twin to the beloved SW, anyway. In the bottle, it is almost identical. On the skin, a dainty pine/mint note peeps out over the delicious softness that is the Snow White base. It has that same airy-yet-creamy quality, which comes out even more as it dries. It actually smells like a cross between Snow White and Snow Bunny. Lovely.

Light and refreshing, this is a softer version of Thymes Ginger Milk. The opening is all about the citrus notes, with a sweetness that I assume comes from the apple blossom. The grapefruit mellows into the tea note, and the ginger never asserts itself - it's a background player here, adding warmth. Very nice.

Wet, this is a gorgeous vanilla, softly floral and very rounded without somehow being overtly foody. Dry, the evil moss notes come out and this becomes powdery, acrid, department store perfume. I'm a PISCES, dammit. Moss should goddamn LOVE ME. *pouts*