Zorra

For a few seconds there was more than just jasmine. Then for an hour: straight jasmine and nothing else. After that hour something else gets a chance, I think it's the balsam. I would have liked to smell some of the other notes as well, but my skin seems to have eaten them.

To me this smells like Cheshire Cat with something lemony added (not lemon rind, not a herbal lemon note, but something lemony). I think what reminds me of Cheshire Cat is grapefruit and lavender and perhaps chamomile and some musk. I see mint mentioned in other reviews, and indeed that may be there also but only a hint of it, not at all a overpowering mint, not on me.

I get the lab's apple note with a bit of snake oil, no gardenia or plumeria at all. I am sorry about that, I was so curious to smell the combination of fruits and flowers in this one.

I am going to give this more time, but two weeks after my bottle arrived it still smells like candy. I think it's the mandarin note, but it doesn't smell like mandarin at all, it smells like artificial mandarin candy. I love mandarin in scents, but this is still so horrible on me I have to wash it off. ETA: OK, after I washed it off the remains weren't so bad, so I put it back on but much less than I usually wear. The screaming of the mandarin might be its collaboration with lavender. With less on my skin I am getting something wood, the pine perhaps? I really want to love this one, so I am giving it time.

I found a box with old decants and this was one of them. There was an initial lemon blast but it lasted less than a minute and the second time I applied it was no longer there. What I get is a slightly lemony evergreen and floral combination with a powdery undertone. If I had know it would age to this, I would probably have bought a bottle.

I bought this scent a year after it was available from the lab, so it has had some time to age. It is a dry cocoa on me with sadly no cinnamon that I can detect. I like cinnamon, I would have loved it to be there. There is more in this scent, something that went men's cologne on me when I tried the scent too soon after it traveled from the UK to the Netherlands. After a 3 weeks rest it has settled and no longer jumps at me, but it definitely does 'something' to the cocoa, lightens it a bit I think.

There hadn't been any reviews when I ordered this or the mentioning of tobacco and sweetness might have made me not order. Fortunately this is neither like tobacco on me (which goes very yucky) nor is it very sweet. There is an initial hint of loukhoum that I like, but it soon dies in only one note that remains and that is one I do not like. No fig, no vanilla, no amber, not even patchouli (although it may be below the part I don't like), and after that short moment when it was wet: no loukhoum. I must be amping something because there are more scents that are doing this to me. I'll give this one some time to age and hope for the best. (I could stop amping whatever it is, couldn't I?)

I dug up the imp again, it's a very aged imp by now. Is that why I am smelling... dragon blood? Vetiver, myrrh, (musk too I think) and dragon blood. It's great, but if I would buy a bottle would it smell like this?

I bought a partial bottle of this and got it last week. At first it was just ambergris with a tiny bit of fruitiness at the start, so I left it for a week to rest. Now it gives me a swirl of autumn leaves for about a second, after which it's straight ambergris again. I don't want just ambergris, I like complicated scents. Am I amping the ambergris so badly that it kills all the rest?

This is so strange: it started out as smoky vetiver and then I thought: do I smell mint? And now, after a couple of hours, it's mint with a woodsy undertone. No orange, no ylang ylang (which I both love) and no patchouli, unless that is the woodsy undertone. But mint? Later it was less minty again. I reapplied to see if I would get more of the other notes, but I don't. Smokey vetiver with a hint of mint, no orange, no ylang-ylang, no patchouli. ETA: After testing a few scents I came back to this one and this time I suddenly realized I did smell patchouli mixed with the vetiver. And a bit of orange on top of that. I may have to put this on a list for my next order.

I got a decant from this when it was new and I didn't care much for it. Today I went through a box of old decants and tried it again. I really really like it now. It must be the ageing, it may have been sharper before, I don't know. Now it's a fresh grassy scent to me with a soft amberlike note way in the back. A bit floral, but more grass than flowers. There has been a bit of rain but that is over now and it only made the scents fresher. Something like that. ETA: Argh, that didn't last long. After a few hours it started to scream 'aquatic' at me. So that's why I never wore it after the first test.

I like both rose and leather in a scent so I expected to enjoy this one. And if I had been prepared to be wearing a scent that is only rose, I might have enjoyed it, but I had expected there to be leather also. I smelled some leather in the imp, but once it hit my skin it was just rose.

A cacophony of curious scents: copaiba balsam, petitgrain, citrus rind, sinicuichi accord, betel nut, wasabi root, coconut palm, and wattleseed layered atop innumerable strange herbs, spices, and woods. When I first tried The Floating Market I was a bit disappointed: it started out with a herbal lemon note (lemongrass or lemon verbena or citronella, something like that) and after a while it was more smokey than anything else. And I had smokey perfumes I preferred. But today I am suddenly smelling something much closer to what I expected of this. There still is smoke, and herbal lemon, and I could imagine there to be a wasabi note indeed, but the scent is too complicated to pin it down to a few notes. Like the floating market: too many different smells to unmix them

I tracked my shipment today and it tells me my package is in "EAST CHINA AREA - CHINA, PEOPLES REPUBLIC" and "Please contact DHL". HELP! Why is my package in China? It it supposed to be going to The Netherlands! Must I indeed contact DHL and if so, how?

At the time I was too late for a decant of this in the decant circle that had all the other decants I wanted, but my decanter was so kind to send me a testable tiny bit of it. I loved it, but I couldn't order a bottle then (Europe, I need a lot of money and place a big order with the shipment cost). I got one much later through eBay. And then it didn't smell at all like my lovely decant, it was screaming (fake) almond on me with perhaps some sour honey, very unpleasant. I left the bottle to age because I suspected that the tiny bit in the decant had gone through a rapid ageing process. And I may have been right, because today my bottle smells like once the decant did. And now I find it hard to describe, because I don't really get any individual notes. The almond is still there, but it no longer screams. There probably is some honey too, but no longer of the kind that makes me wash off scents. I don't get individual cedar or myrrh, but I can imagine them being there in the blend. Olive oil? I don't smell anything that smells like the olive oil I use in the kitchen. Nor sesame. On the other hand: there is much more in this blend than the notes I do smell or could imagine, so they could be there. I like to think it's just so well blended that this is the reason I can't pick out individual notes.

I went to a very good performance about the life of Mata Hari and I thought BPAL should have a scent named after her. Then I discovered there was one and a friend sent me an imp she had. I wasn't sure if I would like it, because I have has some scents with a mahogany note that I didn't really like. I should not have feared the mahogany, for me it isn't there in this scent. What is more surprising, the roses only make a very short appearance. They disappear in no time at all, drowned in jasmine. I even tried layering with A Parliament of Foules because that is like nothing but roses on me. Forget it, Mata Hari made it disappear in seconds. I do get a mix of jasmine with something sweet that must be the tonka and vanilla and perhaps even the fig, just enough to take the edge of the jasmine. But where did the roses go? I mean, if a scent description starts with five roses one does expect to smell them. I am going to leave my imp alone for a week and see if anything changes with a bit more rest. I really want to love this scent because of the memory of that performance. (edit: typo.)

I got an imp of this as an extra with an imp I asked for. Surprisingly it's a scent I never tried, I do like patchouli. Which is what this is basically, it's a slightly sweet, slightly softened patchouli. I think it's the orange blossom that lightens it up and makes the patch less heavy. I don't get the carnation which is probably just as well because I have tried several scents with a carnation note that did unpleasant things on my skin. I don't now if I am getting the ambergris, I don't recognize that know well enough (perhaps I should collect some imps with an ambergris note and try to pin down what part is the ambergris). All together I really like Masquerade, although I am not sure if I like it enough to get a bottle. I will keep the imp at hand though, perhaps in one of my emergency imp sets.

There is this resiny sweet note that I think is the mahogany. But no currants, no wine. When I first tried this in 2013 I smelled a snow note, but not any more. I don't miss the snow, but I would have liked to smell some wine or berries (preferably the wine). I wonder if it will work to layer it with The Zadok Allen Vineyard, that one has a very strong wine. edit: typo

I was amazed to read the first reviews mentioning lavender, lemon(grass) and peppermint because I don't smell any of these. Perhaps the decant that someone sent me with a bottle I bought from them is old, there is not year on it and I know the lighter notes may disappear with time. My first thought was frankincense, thyme is a good possibility also. I didn't know what it was supposed to do until I read this thread so I can't say yet if it works for me. ETA: definitely frankincense and definitely a bit too old. So the rest was probably lost with time. It would probably no longer work because of that but I can't tell because I am not in need of protection.

I decided to test a couple of imps today and because so many seem to love Perversion I started with that one. As soon as it warmed on my skin I knew I didn't like it. I left it for a few minutes, but I had to wash it off. I had to wash three times before I didn't smell it unless I put my nose on my skin. Then I read the notes and knew I should have done that first: tobacco and I are not friends At all.

Why does this smell so lemony on me? Not lemon rind, but some lemony smelling plant, I couldn't say which though. I don't smell pine, or olive, or olibanum, it is not aquatic at all on me (and I worried about that because I am not very fond of aquatics), all I get when it touches my skin is this ... a lemon scent that is not lemon rind, not the fruit, but some plant, I just don't know which one.

I didn't think much of this scent a year ago. Today I tried it again and wow! Why didn't I get a bottle of this?!?

Are people comparing this to Bliss? Not at all! Bliss smells like plastic on me, this is a true chocolate scent! But the first time I tried it, very cautiously because of my horrible experiences with chocolate scents, the chocolate was only there when it was wet. After it had dried I smelled first coffee and sugar and then only brown sugar. Then I realized how little I had used so I reapplied and this time the coffee stayed also, but I still lost the chocolate on drydown. However, all good things in three and after all this is about the three kings, I had been cooking and washed my hands many times and when done I reapplied another time. And this time the chocolate stays! It's been four hours now and they're still all there: chocolate, coffee and brown sugar. Only the cinnamon I find hard to detect, but perhaps that is just because I am used to smell cinnamon with other spices and this time it is a sweet cinnamon. Thank you, three Kings, for this gift of scents. I must have been good in the past year!

I don't see The Marquis de Carabas mentioned yet (Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere): "A splash of bay rum, leather, dusty black wool, massoia bark, and opium residue." You would have to like the wool note though, it is rather strong (on me anyway). I love Lindworm, but of course that is rather hard to find. And Leather Phoenix has lots of leather but is hard to find, although I still see bottles of it offered in the forum sales thread.

Some scents with sandalwood (including those that do not have sandalwood as a note but some attar which still means there is sandalwood) give me an itchy skin where it was applied. The itch lasts for five days. With some scents it's a mild itch that may not appear until the next morning, some give me a horrible itch right away. The worst itches I got from scents that had neither sandalwood nor an attar in the description. One was The Book (and some other book scents gave me milder itches) and another one was Jolasveinar. I am sorry about the book note scents, because I liked those. And I am more sorry about some of the sandalwood scents because I very much like sandalwood. But there are also scents with sandalwood that do not give me an itch. Someone told me it is not the sandalwood itself that gives an itch, but the solvent that is used to extract the essential oil from the wood. So apparently it depends on the solvent used whether the sandalwood gives me an itch or not.