Miss Lynx

I had high hopes for this one based on the reviews I'd read, and it did smell really interesting in the imp, and when freshly applied -- sort of partly floral, partly foresty. But alas, after a few minutes my skin started amping up the florals, and soon they were all I could smell. Kind of the same thing that happened with Crossroads, and various other dark floral blends. Forest go bye-bye. Eventually, after a few hours, it did dry down to something less flowery and more woodsy/incensey, which was nice, but it was also pretty faint by then. For most of the main duration of the scent's strength on me, it was very strongly floral, which is not really my cup of tea. It's not a bad scent by any means, and if my skin didn't amp flowers the way it does, it would probably really nice, but as it stands, it's probably not for me. Grade: C+/B-

This is another scent that initially scared me off because of the fruity element, but having now made my peace with fruit, I thought I would give it a try. I'd gotten it partly because my partner wanted to try it, but figured it might have potential for both of us. My first thought on smelling it was that it smelled yellow -- kind of a luminous, golden yellow. Not the deeper gold of Coyote, The Lion or Bastet, but more of a shimmering, brighter, yellow-gold. Very sunny, somehow, but sun shining down on a garden, not on desert sands, prairie or savannah. Not bad. Then my skin started to amp the heliotrope -- I was afraid it might. Heliotrope is one of those high sweet florals that on my skin often rear up and stomp all over the other notes. But thankfully, it seemed to stop before it got too strong -- I can definitely smell the heliotrope, but it isn't entirely obliterating the rest of the scent, or killing it for me the way it did with Greed. It seems to harmonize with the other notes here instead of clashing with them the way it did there. Basically, I'm getting pretty much equal parts earthy, fruity and floral, with the musk sort of softening it all and blending it together rather than asserting itself as a distinct note. It's not my usual sort of scent, but I think I like it. Grade: B

The main scent I get from the Body Shop's Nut line is hazelnut -- it's a lot like the liqueur Frangelico, which is also hazelnut-based. I'm of two minds about nutty scents -- I really like the scent of hazelnuts, but I hate the smell of almonds. Or at least, that almond extract/Amaretto smell -- real almonds don't smell like that. It just makes me think of cyanide. I haven't yet found a BPAL scent that smells really strongly hazelnutty yet (the only one I've tried that had hazelnut in it as Black Pearl, and that was all iris on me), but I've found a few that have been killed for me by an excess of almond. The one scent I've liked despite the almond in it is Bastet. It also has lotus in it, which I dislike as much as almond, but somehow manages to work for me despite those two notes.

Actually myrrh has a very dark, bitter scent -- at least judging from the actual resin. Frankincense is a lot sweeter, though it does have bitter undertones to it as well. Remember the lines from the Christmas carol: Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume Breathes an air of gathering gloom Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying... Magically, it's usually used in oils and incenses that pertain to death and the underworld. Frankincense, by contrast, is associated with the sun and often used for purposes associated with spiritual purity, prosperity and success. Now, it might be that some varieties of myrrh perfume oil are sweeter and gentler than the actual resin, but the idea of myrrh=sweet, frankincense=bitter seemed kind of backwards to me.

It’s funny -- the description of this scent initially put me off because of the cranberries, but as I've tried more BPAL scents, I've realized that fruit notes in a scent are not only not always scary, but can sometimes be really nice. Berries in particular seem to work well on me. So they've gone from being a minus to a plus. Couple them with musk and ginger, and well, I was intrigued! And unsurprisingly, I really like this. It seems to fall roughly into the same scent-family as Bewitched, which is a very very good thing as far as I'm concerned. It also reminded me a bit of Blood -- spicy berries with a dark incensey undercurrent, ending up making it smell a bit like nice scented candles. The lilies were the only thing left in the description that scared me, but they actually behave themselves quite well here, adding just a slight floral edge but never becoming dominant. All in all, a very, very nice scent. The only down side is major lack of staying power. It's not too strong to start with -- I put it on lightly at first as I usually do with new scents, but then once I realized how gorgeous it was had to put on more so I could smell it better. And even with that double-application, it's been maybe an hour, and it’s already faded down so far I have to press my nose right to my skin to smell it. Still, a definite keeper. I’ll just have to slather it, I guess. Grade: B+ (A if it lasted longer)

At last I get to try the famous Snake Oil! It's not at all what I was expecting... I thought it would be spicier; instead it's just killer-sweet. I can kind of smell the vanilla in it, but it seems to be dominated by some kind of high, sweet floral -- lotus maybe? And there's some sort of dry woody note in there too... But not much in the way of spice. It's a lot more conventionally "perfumey" than I was expecting. I'm also not getting much of the sexual vibe it's supposed to have, at least not yet. There is a nice warmth coming out in it now as it settles in, which has potential, but that high sharp sweetness keeps it from being as sensual as it could be. We’ll see how it dries down... OK, an hour in, it's a lot less cloying and there's a nice resinous warmth there -- amber maybe? -- and I'm starting to see how some people might find it sexy (though in my view Sin kicks its sorry ass in the sex-in-a-bottle department). But there's still a certain weird aspect to it that keeps me from wholly liking it. Something a little bit chemical-ish and synthetic-smelling. I can definitely get the Play-Dough analogy someone made earlier. A few hours later: after staying as warm ambery Play-Dough for quite some while, it finally settled down to a nice warm vanilla-amber that I actually quite like. Hey, if it had smelled like this from the beginning, I'd have been very pleased with it. But as it stands, it's like with Dragon’s Heart: too long a wait to get to the good part, and too nasty-perfumey during the waiting period. However, I might try it another time or two before deciding for certain whether to swap it away. Grade: C+

Wow -- when first applied, this is aggressively perfumey! High-piched and cloyingly sweet in a way none of the listed notes would seem to account for, so maybe it's just my skin being weird. I can get a faint whiff of musk and earthy fig in the background, but they’re being stomped all over by something brutally sweet that I would almost swear is lotus or iris or something like that. It’s weird, because of the seven scents I tried at a friend's place last night, it's the one I liked best at the time, enough so that I ended up buying her 5 mL from her. But trying it by itself, at home is a whole other story, for some reason. The perfumeyness is overwhelming, and did I mention I hate most commercial perfumes? It almost verges on headache- and nausea-inducing. I think, though, that a lot of the scent I liked that made me want it was after it had dried down and settled in for a while, so let’s see how it goes. Right now, about 10 minutes after applying, that cloyingly sweet floral-ish feel is still quite strongly there, but I think it may be settling down a bit. * waits a while * Well... By about an hour and a half later, the perfumey assault has finally abated and it’s down to a pleasant incensey sort of smell, a little more along the lines of what I was expecting from the other reviews, and probably what I was picking up last night. But that’s really too long to wait. So alas, I think my first 5 mL is going to get swapped. Because I haven’t really got the heart to say to my friend “Um... You know that bottle I bought from you? I have no idea what the hell I was thinking, so could I possibly trade it back to you for something else?” Grade: C (averaged from initial scent, D, and eventual drydown, B )

Very interesting -- this is one of those complex scents with such a variety of notes that it’s hard to pick out the individual components. There’s a sharp herbal component that’s a bit reminiscent of Belladonna or Wolfsbane, but it’s layered over a warm, earthy base, and then there’s a rich, sweet, almost-but-not-quite foody fruity note as well that I assume is the fig. Plus there are spicy and incensey elements, and an almost foresty note that must be the cypress... Fascinating, and kept me sniffing myself every few minutes for a good hour or so. It goes through all kinds of subtle shifts and changes as it settles in. I can definitely get the “chaotic” feel of this -- it’s freakishly complex and ever-changing, but in a really enjoyable way. It’s also quite gender-neutral in feel... Although it has some sweet notes, it would probably work just as well on a man as on a woman. At a few points it seemed kind of like Wolfsbane meets Tintagel. Overall, I found it very appealing, though less so on the drydown -- it loses a lot of its complexity as the fruit and spice notes fade after the first hour or two, and what’s left begins to be dominated by the patchouli, with just a bit of the sharp herbal note remaining. It’s still OK then, but nowhere near as nice as the earlier phase of the scent. That’s pretty much the only thing stopping me from giving this one an A. Grade: B+

I had thought I'd like this, because I usually think of myself as liking earthy scents, but I am beginning to realize that there is well and truly such a thing as too earthy. Or maybe the wrong kind of earthy. This was definitely my least favourite of the seven scents I tried last night from a friend's collection, to the point where I had to flee to the washroom and wash it off me. I agree with the comments a few other people have made about it smelling musty and mildewy. Earthy it may be, but not a healthy kind of earth. It's sort of a cross between half-worked compost and wet clothes that were left in a locker way too long... I can smell the rose note in it too, but despite my skin usually amping florals, it's not very strong, and just adds a faint ovetone of sickly sweetness to the overall impression of unwholesome decay. And while I suppose that's appropriate for zombies, it certainly wasn't a scent I wanted on me. Grade: D

This was very much not what I was expecting. For something with "flame" in the name, I'd have thought it would be much spicier. I tend to like fiery scents, but this didn't really seem like one to me. It was just sweet, faintly warm and... well, I hate to say bland, but that's kind of what's coming to mind. It didn't really seem to have a lot of depth or character to it. Mind you, I may not have been experiencing it at its best, as I tried it along with several other oils at once from a friend's collection last night, but most of the others I could get a distinct impression of, while this one just seemed vaguely sweet and sort of generically perfumey, albeit not to an extent that was really annoying or headache-inducing the way commercial perfumes can sometimes be for me. It was thoroughly inoffensive, but it was also, well, pretty blah. And disappeared fairly quickly on the drydown. All in all, kind of a non-event, sad to say. Grade: C

I had high hopes for this one, but it didn't really work on me. As with Greed, there were elements to it that I liked, but then there was some note in it that just threw it completely off for me. I'm not sure what it was -- I'm thinking maybe the leather, because amber, myrrh and musk are usually pretty safe bets on me, though I haven't yet sorted out all of Beth's different musks from each other scent-wise. But there was something in it that was dry and tickly and a little bit... The best way I can think of to put it is fake-smelling. A bit like that plastic-offgassing smell in new cars. It wasn't exactly a bad scent, but that one note kept it from really being a good scent, either, at least on me. It's always kind of frustrating when that happens. Grade: B (was: C) ETA (Dec 16/05): I tried this a few months back, and didn't like it much, but that was also during an evening playing with a friend's BPAL collection, where I tried on a whole lot of things. So when an imp of Loviatar recently fell into our hands, even though it was mainly Kettu who wanted it, I decided to give it another try. And really, it's not bad. I like it better now than I did before, anyway. I still think the leather note in it is a bit strong for my tastes, but it's not as plasticky-smelling as I recalled it being. Musk and amber and myrrh can pretty much do no wrong in my eyes (nose?), so it's mainly the leather that's the not-so-great note in here, but it's not messing with it as much as it seemed to be before. For a scent named for a goddess, this is some pretty butch stuff! A lot of the scent I like are labelled as gender neutral or even "traditionally masculine", but this almost verges on too masculine for me. It would certainly work equally well on a man, and does indeed come across as sexy in a very aggressive, take-charge way, but it's not out of place on a woman. Overall, still not likely to become a top favourite, but I think I can safely bump it from the C I originally gave it to a B.

I tried this briefly at a friend's place once, along with a whole lot of other scents, and didn't like it much then, but when I got a frimp of it from the Lab I figured it deserved another try. It's actually not too bad, this time around. The florals don't dominate it as much as I expected. And I can recognize the tartness of hibiscus from Maenad, which is a good note for toning down excessive sweetness. And the wine thankfully does not turn to grape candy on me the way it sometimes does. It's got a nice multilayered complexity to it, though it's still a fairly light and gentle scent, not at all what I'd associate with Kali. The eventual drydown actually reminds me a bit of Amsterdam. All in all, a complex and interesting scent, but probably not really "me". Grade: C+/B-

I had high hopes for this one after all the recommendations, and I was not disappointed, at all. It smelled lovely enough in the vial, when I got a quick whiff at the meet'n'sniff, that I knew I had to get some, and when I finally did manage to score an imp, I was very eager to try it out. It didn't come into its full beauty right away -- it was certainly nice on first application, wild and foresty and a little smoky, but at the time I thought it wasn't necessarily any more nice than what are probably its closest scent-relatives, Black Forest and Nocnitsa. But as it's dried down... Mmmmmm! All kinds of richness and complexity have been unfolding. I like those two, but I really do like this more. It's got all kinds of foresty goodness, plus some kind of slight fruity note like wild berries that reminds me of Bewitched, a touch of smoke and/or incense, a whiff of wild flowers, a faint undercurrent of musk... It's like the scent equivalent of an incredibly intricate painting that you notice new details in every time you look at it. And miraculously enough, while most of my favourite BPAL scents seem to fade quickly on me, this one actually has some staying power, and only gets more beautiful as it unfolds. So I think it's official -- while this is not going to replace Bewitched, my favourite up until now, in my affections, I think it's equalled it, and the two are now tied for the honour of Best BPAL Scent Ever, in my view. Grade: A+

Interesting... The earthy notes don't really come out for me at all in this one. It's very light, and reminds me a bit of a slightly spicier version of Incantation. Now, I did not like Incantation, but given that my major objection to it was its blandness, a spicier version is not a bad thing. Like Incantation, it's got a sort of soapy undertone to it - not sure what that's from. But it manages to avoid the dish-soap scent of that one with the subtle traces of spices and herby notes. I really was expecting something stronger, though - spicier and earthier. But the spices are fairly subdued and I'm barely getting the earthy/woodsy notes at all. Still, all in all, it's not a bad scent. On the drydown, it reminds me of Fleurs de Thé (Tea Flowers) from Yves Rocher, which I kind of like. But overall, it's a much softer, subtler scent, and closer to a traditional perfume than I would have expected. I think it might suit my partner more than it suits me. Grade: C+/B-

I wanted to like this more than I did. I hadn't specificially put it on my wish list, since the coconut scared me a bit (didn't want to smell like cheap sunscreen!), but when I got it as a freebie in a swap, I thought it was definitely worth trying. It had some intriguing notes in it (hazelnut and white musk sounded good to me), and smelled interesting in the imp, but once I put it on -- well, the one bit of good news was that I didn't have to worry too much about the coconut. It was the iris, instead, that seemed to surge up and overpower everything, so that it just became overwhelmingly, cloyingly, sweet and floral. Kind of like Black Lotus. I could faintly smell the coconut, and even more faintly, traces of the notes I'd actually wanted to smell, but mainly it was just hyper-sweet floral overkill. I ended up having to wash it off because it was just too much. Oh well. Should I ever decide I want to smell like Captain Jack Sparrow, I'll just have to try Jolly Roger instead. Grade: D

I would second Nocnitsa for emerald green, and suggest Blood for ruby red. And... let's see: Bastet or The Lion for topaz, and the The Raven for sapphire.

Oooh, I think we have a winner here. Trying to find a foresty scent that really works on me has been a challenge, but I think trying enough different things coupled with the fact that my tastes seem to be expanding a bit may have produced results. At first whiff, Nocnitsa is very sharp and piney, with almost a eucalyptus edge -- quite reminiscent of Loup Garou. But then as it settles in all kinds of other dimensions start to unfold. There's a resinous depth, a slight earthiness, and, as some people have commented, some sort of fruity note, though the Lab description doesn't list anything like that. On drydown, it really reminds of nothing so much as my beloved Bewitched, with maybe a touch of Tintagel, too. It's not identical to either, but has a very similar feel. It's dark and earthy and wild-smelling, but also a little sweet and incensey at the same time... Very nice. And very northern-smelling, somehow -- it puts me very much in mind of my parents' land in northeastern Ontario, which is all pine and spruce and rock and moss, and the air there has a certain indefinable sweetness. It's fading down a bit faster than I'd like, but hell, most BPAL scents I like seem to do that. Can't really hold that against any one of them any more (well, except maybe Thanatopsis, which holds the record for most mayfly-ish lifespan, having done a full disappearing act inside of 15 minutes). Grade: B+, at least. Repeated wearings might bump it up to A, we'll see.

My very first limited edition, received as a freebie in an LJ purchase! But alas, it doesn't seem to really suit me. At first whiff, very strongly floral! Almost overwhelmingly so. Eventually, a bit more of a woody note begins to emerge, and a touch of bitterness almost reminiscent of the bitter edge to Belladonna, but these never really seem to blend with the florals or balance them; they just replace them. And then the whole scent proceeds to fade away, fairly quickly. I can hardly smell it any more and it's barely been an hour. It smells like it could have been nice if the different notes had actually melded together instead of just taking turns and then all pulling a disappearing act together, but as it is, it never really comes together, at least on my skin. If I had to pick a scent to express the feeling of Beltane, I'd be more likely to go with Dublin. Grade: C

I wouldn't have picked this, but I got it as an extra in an LJ purchase, and the odd combination of notes did intrigue me. It does smell sort of interesting and discordant, with strongly contrasting notes clashing together, but ultimately the high sharp sweetness of the florals and the ozone/metallic elements just fuse into something resembling a typical commercial, synthetic perfume. Did I mention I dislike most commercial perfumes intensely? I had to wash it off inside of half an hour. Grade: D

I really wanted to like this scent more than I did. "Shadowy and fierce", queen of the the fae -- what's not to like? And at first sniff, it was not bad at all -- kind of floral-but-not, in the way that Dublin is on me. Wild flowers with a foresty backdrop, and a definite complexity to it. Unfortunately, before long the floral notes in it came surging up and overpowering everything else, making it way too sweet for me. Curse my skin's tendency to amp florals -- if it had kept the initial balance it had, I probably would have liked it. Oh well. It would be a great scent for someone who was more of a floral fan than me, or at least had different skin chemisty. My partner likes it, though, and her skin handles florals better than mine, so this one goes to her instead of to the swap pile. Grade: C

Hmmm... Sharp and pungent in the vial, and when wet, but within a few minutes it settles in and a really nice depth and complexity begin to emerge. It definitely falls into the same "poisonous herbal" scent family as Belladonna, but is a little more androgynous, with less of a floral element. There's a slight hint of flowers there, but also a strong woodsy/piney element to it, and above all an intense sharp greenness like freshly crushed herbs. And yes, a touch of that bitter poisonous edge that Belladonna has, but just enough to give it character. Overall, it's kind of a gender-neutral version of Belladonna. I think I am really looking forward to Rappaccini's Garden. The poison-plant scents aren't really my top favourite category, but I do quite like them, and there are are some days when they're exactly what I need. Grade: B

Fascinating to read over the other reviews of this one -- people have gotten such wildly different impressions from it! I wish I could have gotten what some of the other people did from Crossroads, something earthy and incensey, but no... For the most part, I got "I AM JASMINE, HEAR ME ROAR!" On first contact especially, this was an overwhelmingly, almost blindingly strong floral. After catching just a faint whiff of it when my partner opened the vial last week, I put off trying it until the very end of my 16-imp Lab order. But eventually it couldn't be put off any longer... I do tend to try absolutely everything that comes my way, albeit lightly if I'm afraid of them as it was with this one. So, jasmine overkill indeed. But over the following half-hour, it did mellow considerably. There was a definite darker undertone there, grounding it a bit, and eventually a bit of a herbal edge that made it a bit like the jasmine tea you get in Chinese restaurants, and I found myself starting to like it a bit, though it never stopped being predominantly floral. However, it also disappeared almost entirely after that half-hour, which is weird considering how fiercely strong it was when I first put it on. But now I have to press my nose right to my wrists to smell it. And what I do smell now is not bad at all -- the (very) faint trace that remains of it has mellowed to a gentle, well-behaved jasmine, rather than the avenging goddess Jasmine intent on crushing all other scents under her merciless heel. If it had hit that point sooner and then stuck around longer, I might have liked it more, but no. However, it is not getting swapped, because my partner is in love with it and wants a big bottle. It does seem to work better on her than on me -- the floral element is not as overpowering on her skin. But she's also a big fan of the dark florals, like the Raven and Dance of Death, which this seems to be roughly in the same family as. Me -- I don't dislike them exactly, but they just don't work so well on me, or at least not the ones I've tried thus far. Grade: C+

Just had to seek out this thread and add my newest discovery: Blood! I tried it for the first time today, and the reaction it got from my (female) partner was really something. When she sniffed my wrist, her eyes went really wide and she said "Oh, YUM!" and took several more deep sniffs. And ever since (that was about an hour ago), she's been creeping up behind me and sniffing my neck or arms, nuzzling and/or biting me, and dropping comments like "Damn, you smell good!" I don't think I've seen her react that way to any scent I've worn, ever. So for me, at least, Blood is now the offical BPAL scent for the girl-loving girl! I'm pretty femme (albeit not the stereotypical Barbie doll type of femme), but I could definitely see it working equally well on a butch. It smells, strong, sexy, powerful, and a little bit dangerous. But I'd also enthusiastically second the earlier recommendations of Sin and Fenris Wolf. Both are sexy in a fairly androgynous, gender-bending way. You might want to give Coyote and Serpent's Kiss a try, too.

I was a little apprehensive about trying this, because of the cherry -- fruity scents are kind of dodgy on me. I really don't like them when the fruit is too strong and they become candy-sweet, but a little bit of fruit in a balanced blend with other things can be nice. Some of the reviews of Blood that I've seen have compared it to cherry cough syrup, so I was a little nervous. However, it smelled more resinous than fruity in the vial, so I took the plunge, though I applied it fairly lightly. And thus far, it's surprisingly nice. The clove comes out most strongly; it's quite aggressively spicy on me. And the resins back it up nicely -- I'm getting predominantly spicy dragon's blood, with a touch of grounding myrrh and only a subtle whiff of cherry, which suits me just fine. But we'll see how it develops over time... 30 minutes later: Hey! Where are you going? Come back! Grrr, why does my skin always seem to drink up the scents I like the best? *applies more, and more heavily this time* Uh-oh. Where did that sudden, overpowering cherry scent come from? That wasn't there the first time! Talk about a sneaky trick... Oh, OK, the cherry seems to be dying down a bit now. Thank the Gods. Eventual verdict: slather it on enough and it eventually sort of stays, though not strongly (then again, it could just be my nose getting used to it), and with that nice, spicy-resinous scent, not the cherry-overkill that briefly emerged on re-application. It's actually a bit reminiscent of Tintagel, another one I quite like, in that spicy-incensey-scented-candles sort of way, but with more edge. It's like a don't-fuck-with-me version of Tintagel -- maybe Morgan LeFay's castle rather than Arthur's. And definitely a keeper -- the only thing stopping this from being a A is the lack of staying power. Grade: A (was B+) Edit: OK, I originally gave this a B+, but I think I really have to upgrade it to an A. My partner came home not long after I'd posted this review (and re-applied Blood again, since it was fading again), and when she sniffed my wrist, her eyes went really wide and she said "Oh, YUM!" and took several more deep sniffs. And ever since (that was about an hour ago), she's been creeping up behind me and sniffing my neck or arms, nuzzling and/or biting me, and dropping comments like "Damn, you smell good!" I don't think I've seen her react that way to any scent I've worn, ever. Any perfume that gets that kind of reaction from my girl gets an A!

I ordered this one partly out of curiosity, since it seemed like such an odd combination of ingredients. And it's certainly unique, and a bit of a mindfuck -- my nose can't figure out whether to interpret it as food or incense. There do seem to be some odd elements in it that aren't accounted for by the notes listed in the lab description -- it has a sort of minty edge, especially when freshly applied. Looking at the past reviews, I see I wasn't the only one who got that. And later when drying down, there's an odd, slightly unpleasant aspect to it that seems almost grain-like, but a little off. Maybe fermenting grain? I don't know, maybe that's just my skin chemistry playing tricks on me. It's not really as rich as I'd have expected, either -- there's a sort of dry blandness to it that's reminiscent of why I didn't like Incantation. Overall, interesting and worth a try, but not something I'd really wear on a regular basis. Grade: C