Viridian

Black Opal is my favorite and I lament it daily! I find Haunted to be in the same vein as both Black Opal and Shalimar (though I can't really wear Shalimar as it's crazy strong to me, and neither BPAL is.) Morocco is a bit similar in feel to me, too, though without the distinct vanilla note. I've been told that tonka is the note in Black Opal that I love so much, and though it didn't work on me, Rum-Soaked French Tonka might be worth trying out - not sure if it's still lab-available but it was so recent that you shouldn't have much trouble tracking some down.

Floral sandalwood. Jasmine? Lily, maybe, but something I've worn and liked. I'm getting a white flower right up front that eventually fades into a sandalwood/vanilla. It's a little more floral on me than what I'd want it for, but it's a very quiet floral.

Ordered this because I've been trying to isolate what I love so much about some of the vanilla-like bpals that aren't explicitly vanilla. I don't mind tonka as a listed note in blend, but something about this does not work for me at all. In the bottle it's like vanilla root beer spiked with rum. On my skin, the root beer aspect is stronger, and I get something almost floral out of it. It's not what I was hoping for, and though I do get hints of the cherry-vanilla-almond descriptions others are getting, it's mostly weird floral root beer on me.

This is nothing I would have ever picked out for myself had I not smelled it - I thought it would be way too masculine on me, and red musk doesn't always overwhelm me with goodness. But I skin-tested and was very pleasantly surprised. My first impression, wet, without knowing any of the notes at all, was mint. Maybe even chocolate mint - there's something about the piney coldness that just screams minty to me even though it's not the mint of lick it or any of the other mint blends I have. The mint fades after a little while into this warm, snuggly, sweet scent - amber and dragon's blood are playing nice, I think, giving me something reminiscent of Dragon's Milk. Overall this scent is cold and warm at the same time, to me, and just very nice and somehow unlike anything else I own. Glad I settled upon this one of all the dragon blends!

I finally tracked down a bottle of this after coveting it for years based on the description and reviews. In the bottle this smells like a very cool, green, slightly fruity scent. On me, however, it becomes a very floral musk. I lose almost all of the refreshing springy qualities it has while wet, except the peachy scent. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet - it was a stronger scent than I was looking for the first time I wore it, but when I re-tried it on one wrist today I'm thinking it's incredibly pretty. I wish more of the tea and ginger were evident, but maybe in a scent locket I'd get more of my preferred notes.

In the bottle this is a slightly fizzy ginger-lime-vanilla. Heavy on the vanilla and something a little spicy. When I put it on it immediately smells kinda sticky, heavier on the fig and very sweet. At this point I start to think it's going to be a little much in the summer heat and will want to put it away til fall. Fortunately this stage doesn't last long, and it settles back down into a pleasant, sweet, slightly spicy, slightly lime-y vanilla. The vanilla reminds me a little of Love's Philosophy, which also has the saffron and cream notes (and interestingly also gives me that slight "soda" note at first!) Love this one a lot right now and so glad I got my hands on a bottle.

Very cool, zmulls. I'm an actress and a musician, and I honestly don't usually wear any scent in performance because it gets very warm under stage lights and I don't want to interfere with anyone else's breathing up there. I'll occasionally wear something simple and inoffensive, quiet and vanilla or lavender based so it's calming to me, but I don't want anyone else to be able to smell it in that particular setting. I will, however, occasionally wear something that makes me feel super-crazy-awesome to auditions because most of my BPALs have low throw and auditioners aren't going to smell me all the way across the room. If I'm ever singing solo somewhere I might branch out a little more, too.

On me this is the same kind of cool, herbal floral that reminds me of the Blue Moon blends a little, though those tend to smell a little more "wet floral" to me. I see all they actually have in common is the green tea. It's very calm and smells like a spring evening to me. It's going into my spring/summer floral rotation along with Blue Moon, Blue Morpho, and Leanan Sidhe, so I'd say if you love those sorts of florals try to track this one down.

This smells almost exactly like Boo on my skin. I use it as an after-shower moisturizer, and once it's settled down I get the same sugary, cottony scent that Boo has. It'll be nice for layering with vanillas or just for evenings when I don't want a heavy scent, because while it is super, super sweet, it's less concentrated than the perfume oil and fades down to just a veil of vanilla fluff.

I found that Leanan Sidhe dries down to the same floral base as The Unicorn after a little while on me.

This is a very sweet, syrupy, musky coconut. I actually don't even get that much coconut, specifically - because I know it's in there, I can smell it, but it reminds me of a sweetened amber musk, like Haunted, with an extra jolt of sweetness and heavier on the muskiness. I'm not 100% sure I like the musk note - I guess the ambrette seed? - but I like the opening and the late drydown a lot. It's very very sweet and dark. I would've liked more of the coconut to stick around.

Finally a rose that I don't amp to the heavens! I like rose and keep ending up with more rose-dominant scents even in my attempts to narrow it down to one, max two, roses. This may need to be one of those roses. It's a quieter rose on me, kept in check by the oud. By the second hour it's very woody with a hint of resin and a non-overwhelming amount of rose. Very well balanced, and I think it'll only get better with age as the oud note deepens.

Tested out this lab frimp without much in the way of expectations, because while I like rose, I've started to drift away from liking rose on me because of the way I amp almost anything with rose into single-note rose. Wet, I can pick out the lab's black musk, similar to the musk in Darkness, which is the first bottle I ever purchased and my first favorite - also, sadly, one I don't enjoy as much any more because I don't love floral musks the way I used to. Still, this is nice, and once upon a time I might've made this my go-to rose. The dark musk and amber deepen and ground the rose so it's not a sharp piercing loud rose at all, and it wears much closer to the skin so I don't feel like I'm walking around in a cloud of rose all day. It stays fairly true through the drydown, with the amber and musk remaining in the very late drydown stages once the rose has faded off.

Melisande the Puppet Mistress is strongly violet + jasmine on me, and goes really soft-powdery because of the vanilla. Brusque Violet is more strongly violet than I think you're describing, but it has mint which could give it that green sense.

Not sure I like this version. It's definitely heavy on the spice, so much so that I wondered if I'd gotten a mislabeled bottle. It still starts off decently enough, but after a while it starts to go a little bit plasticy and I never quite get a sense of sugar cookies. I'm going to let this one sit for a month or two and see if the spice settles down. It's not BAD, but it's not what I was expecting. ETA: a year later, I like this one a lot more. It's much more cookie-ish. It's still more of a snickerdoodle than a sugar cookie, but still really good.

Try to find the most recent Berry Moon. The 2011 one is very raspberryish to me, but the earlier one is more perfumey. Monster Bait: Bloody Mary might be hard to find, but it's cherry and strawberry together, to me. Bon Vivant is a GC scent and it's fizzy strawberries. Blood Kiss is another GC that is honey, clove and cherry.

On me this is a spicier version of Pumpkin Latte without the coffee. I'm not sure there even IS any pumpkin in here, since it's listed in the name but not the list of ingredients, but I don't get a lot of pumpkin from Pumpkin Latte either, just spiced coffee. This is spiced tea. I'm not sure I need both, but I can't say for sure which is my favorite, either. They're both really good. I can pick out the licorice (or fennel? They smell similar to me) and it adds depth and more of a "tea" sense. Overall really good if you like sweet, spicy scents!

Was frimped this, otherwise I never would have tried it with all the woods and vetiver. It smells just vaguely enough like the inside of a church to be evocative. Not something I really want to wear (for one, it's got a lot of throw and I tend to be in closeish quarters with scent-sensitive people a lot) but a candle in this scent, or using it as a home fragrance, would be interesting. I like it a lot more than I'd anticipated based on the notes, because woods don't play well on me. I think myrrh makes it work because myrrh plays really nicely with my chemistry. I kind of just want to keep my imp around to sniff now and then.

Picked this up in a fit of impulse, because violet leaf, tea, myrrh, and saffron are usually winners. Wet, this is floral and tea, a little sharp, a little citrusy? On skin initially I get more of the violet leaf, still definitely tea, and still that citrusy feel. No red musk at all early on, which is good because I'm fairly indifferent to red musk. No crypt dust or saffron at all yet. Once it dries down it's mostly a lovely floral with a hint of something grounding it. It's very pretty. I'm not sure I get "vampire" from it, but I don't get dust either, and that's good because sometimes dust doesn't work AT ALL for me. The only thing making this not 100% a keeper for me is that I have so many florals that are pretty and I don't need all of them, so I'll have to revisit some of my others to see if this knocks one out or not. Edit: in the late drydown I do finally get some of the dust and saffron, but it's not unpleasantly dusty at all. Just a subtle dryness.

I bought this one on kind of a whim because I like the painting and because Athena is associated with my alma mater and also with one a screen name that I used elsewhere on the internet. I was iffy about the notes but none of them screamed BAD (except maybe cumin), so I went for it. Wet, this is all cinnamon. Cinnamon is kind of utility scent for me - I love it in Blockbuster (the BPAL one, not the TAL), which I wear kind of as aromatherapy/intent-focusing perfume, and in cooking, but I'm indifferent to it as just a smell-pretty scent. Thankfully, after a few seconds on skin other notes balance out the cinnamon. It's very golden-smelling, with the orange and amber, and the other notes just lending it complexity. This and Tree of Life are my first Salons and if all Salons are this nicely blended I may have to investigate more of them.

I love the painting, but I was unsure of the scent because woody, mossy scents don't always work for me, and chocolate + orange has historically also not been great on me. I tried this purely because it was mentioned that the tonka in it was reminiscent of Black Opal, which I missed out on a bottle of. In the bottle, chocolate is most prominent, with orange and some green-ness in the background. On, wet, I get a lot more orange, but still chocolate, with the woods and moss and sage kind of soft and faintly grounding the scent. Not a lot of tonka until it's dry, and I wouldn't know there was matcha tea in here unless I read it, but I kind of think that's what's giving me the hint of cool green-ness. Later, this fades down to a very soft scent - it's nice but barely detectable, which is I think when the tonka is left. This is the point where I can smell the faint resemblance to Black Opal. It's not really a replacement, but it's similarly soft and has a hint of coolness about it in the same way, but it's a more complex and not-that-similar scent until the late drydown. It is, however, lovely and soft in the same way throughout - this is not a strong sharp woodsy scent at all! Overall it's really beautiful and I'm glad I took a chance on it.

Black Opal was my perfect vanilla, and now it's gone. Anything with that same light, cottony vanilla? I have deeper vanillas and stronger vanillas, but I loved that barely-there scent.

What's the closest still readily available thing to Black Opal? I fell absolutely desperately in love with the imp that was included in my Weenie order, and now it's discontinued. I'm so very sad.

In the imp and wet on skin this smells syrupy, edible, and a little musky. Almost immediately I get the mint, but still that dark syrupy feel underneath - maybe the tobacco and the orange giving that impression. It's yummy at this stage, and there's something reminiscent of Death on a Pale Horse, to me - something about the mint-citrus-musk. It's like Death's darker sibling. The mint doesn't last at all, nor the orange blossom. It becomes musk and something woody. Still warm and kind of comforting, but a little more masculine. I'd probably enjoy this on my husband. The clove is just an undertone on me - I get a hint of a pleasant spice (I love clove!) underneath, which might also be contributing to the initial semi-foody sense I get from this scent. Verdict: if I can't get my husband to like it, maybe I'll use the rest of my imp as a linen scent for my sheets; it's somehow really comforting. I want to snuggle under a fluffy blanket with this scent.

Wet, this is grapey floral, I guess jasmine though I get a rosey feel from it at times. As it dries down this goes a little more classically perfumey than I'd been expecting - it's a dark floral with a little bit of a linen note. I definitely pick up the opium poppy, as it reminds me of Darkness, which used to be my signature BPAL. I wish I got a little more of the amber-vanilla-honey, but maybe as it ages those notes will peek out more. It's very pretty on me,but I need to inventory and compare to see if it's special enough to keep. I feel like I have similar scents and I'm starting to move out of loving florals as well as I used to.