lookingglass

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. White sandalwood, honey, and champaca. Straight out of the bottle, the champaca's fresh, incensey floral is most forward, almost citrusy, but soft, with a hint of green stem. Honey adds a slightly sweet, ambery, roundness. The sandalwood in the drydown is young and fresh, slightly powdery. The overall feel is a very springlike floriental, that dries down to a fresh skin scent, which I'll enjoy wearing in hot weather. It has light sillage and average wearlength.

...are distorted versions of their "real" perfumes: sticky sweet, cobwebby, and grotesque. I LOVE this scent! It is actually more like how I expected Miss Forcible herself would smell, based on the musk emphasis in her description, and a big dash of my own wishful thinking. Comparitively, though, The Other Miss Forcible is more complex, sexed up, disturbing, and Other, of course, and I anticipate wearing it much more often. I smell more musk here than in the former Miss Forcible, perhaps black: slightly masculine, light, yet with a scalpy creaminess. While it could be considered more sweet, as musks can be, and does have a burt sugar quality, it's less foody; the cookie/buttery note is less prominent, and the dustiness reads like incense. It reminds me of La Befana without the violet, (add dried anise stars), quite a bit, and feels like a similar geige-violet color. The play of soft, sweet, and dark, combines into a very wearable oriental. Even fresh on the skin, it smells like a lingering favorite scent on a scarf or sweater. It's familiar, and fits into my BPAL wardrobe comfortably. I can see myself reaching for this when I want something like Dance of Death, but slightly more playful and modern.

This is just what I needed to hold me over till the Weens drop! A dark, brooding, woodsy, fall invoking blend. I'm reminded of bakoor incense. I find it deeply grounding and not overly harsh. The patchouli, vetiver, and agarwood equally emerge, with the hay note adding softness. It wears close to the skin and melds into it. A smooth, warm, round, earthy blend that's creamy without being overly sweet. I love, love, love it!!

Proceeds from this blend will be donated to Planned Parenthood. Golden sandalwood, soft leather, champaca resin, and coconut. I love skin scents that are soft, deep, and incensey for Spring. Keichu really does this for me. The mild acidity of the leather gives this scent lift, and it's not at all overpowering because it blends so well with the tang of the wood. The champaca is light, like a floral tea. Coconut plays a subtle but unifying role, beautifully rounding out and sweetening the blend. It has a similar feel to Hippie Ghost, another favorite of mine, in that it is both earthy and airy.

LE LÈTHÈ Viens sur mon coeur, âme cruelle et sourde, Tigre adoré, monstre aux airs indolents; Je veux longtemps plonger mes doigts tremblants Dans l'épaisseur de ta crinière lourde; Dans tes jupons remplis de ton parfum Ensevelir ma tête endolorie, Et respirer, comme une fleur flétrie, Le doux relent de mon amour défunt. Je veux dormir! dormir plutôt que vivre! Dans un sommeil aussi doux que la mort, J'étalerai mes baisers sans remords Sur ton beau corps poli comme le cuivre. Pour engloutir mes sanglots apaisés Rien ne me vaut l'abîme de ta couche; L'oubli puissant habite sur ta bouche, Et le Léthé coule dans tes baisers. À mon destin, désormais mon délice, J'obéirai comme un prédestiné; Martyr docile, innocent condamné, Dont la ferveur attise le supplice, Je sucerai, pour noyer ma rancoeur, Le népenthès et la bonne ciguë Aux bouts charmants de cette gorge aiguë Qui n'a jamais emprisonné de coeur. - Come, lie upon my breast, cruel, insensitive soul, Adored tigress, monster with the indolent air; I want to plunge trembling fingers for a long time In the thickness of your heavy mane, To bury my head, full of pain In your skirts redolent of your perfume, To inhale, as from a withered flower, The moldy sweetness of my defunct love. I wish to sleep! to sleep rather than live! In a slumber doubtful as death, I shall remorselessly cover with my kisses Your lovely body polished like copper. To bury my subdued sobbing Nothing equals the abyss of your bed, Potent oblivion dwells upon your lips And Lethe flows in your kisses. My fate, hereafter my delight, I'll obey like one predestined; Docile martyr, innocent man condemned, Whose fervor aggravates the punishment. I shall suck, to drown my rancor, Nepenthe and the good hemlock From the charming tips of those pointed breasts That have never guarded a heart. - Charles Baudelaire, translated by William Aggeler Red musk and sweat-damp golden skin musk with labdanum, golden amber, nutmeg, tobacco absolute, black orchid, and hemlock accord. Oh, my love... out of all the scents from the Weenie update, I have to say I was looking forward to Le Lethe the most and am instantly smitten. Welcome to the GC, baby!!! The nutmeg and musk were the main "yea!" notes for me, but all listed are generally winners-combined they are intoxicatingly lovely. Wet this is a chewy, rich tobacco incense. Its almost like a more feme version of Old Demons of the First Class. Drying out, the pungent red and sweet, salty skin musk swirl and become only slightly bittersweet from the herbaceous note. It now reminds me a bit of a deeper, less floral the Arbor all vamped up. I'm not getting any flowers here, it just melds with the dark, powdery incense and musk. The amber note really smells like a whiff of Sin, which I am totally psyched about because I cannot wear Sin anymore due to the cinnamon (I get all red, sensitive thing that I am). While she does not scream NUTMEG!!! as I hoped she would, this is an immediate big bottle purchase. My skin loves it. Complex incense, bright without being cheery, sweet, resinous, sticks around for hours, smells amazing right up to the nose (the love bite test) AND you can smell it through bullet proof glass. Plus, it has that tantalizing geekarific cross referencing deal: mythology, Baudelaire, and (perhaps inadvertently) True Blood S4. Wicked. ***ETA: nutmeg has amped in the aging!!! <3

In the perfume, I also tried to capture the blue-violet-white of an afterimage and the silence of a snuffed candle. The scent is dry with age, taut with loss, grief, and heartbreak, and sorrowful in the unspeakable desolation of simply being forgotten. This is breathtakingly beautiful, and so how I would expect The Ghost Children to smell. Out of the bottle, it's green and herbal, almost citrusy, quite like the Apothecary. It quickly dries down, though, to a Ouija like scent, white roses, with bits of tart green stems, Victorian and natural. It's floaty and fresh, very innocent smelling...just tiny flowers for a while...nothing heavy or too dusty to weigh it down. It never goes sour like some florals can, and is not soapy. Dried out, it reminds me of White Light in how soft, and glowy, while still being creamy (maybe a bit of wood?) it is. There's a bit more knowing in the end, a depth, and richness. It is a very fresh but full perfume, delicate yet not so innocent... like a posy, wrapped in a fading blue ribbon, carefully tucked away in a box. It does smell faded quite quickly after application. It's brilliant, really, how that concept becomes captured. I was not so secretly hoping that this would be a close second of our beloved, departed, Antique Lace, but alas, it is not; her characteristic vanilla musk is absent. I do adore the Ghost Children, but they are closer kin to Ouija (without the wintergreen note that can sometimes be present-I am therefore, actually preferring it over Ouija!). These babies have found a home in my BPAL box. Now, to hunt for their eyes...

Pumpkin candyfloss spiked with black licorice, black currant, and smoked maple. Straight out of the bottle, this is all spicy pumpkin. Drying down, the licorice and currant and both subtly tone down the line between bright spice and fluffy candyfloss. It dries out with delicious maple candy's subtle sweetness, but fiery and dry. It's just as delightful as I hoped: a brilliantly sultry take on a foody scent.

OMG. This is a patchouli wearin' Snake Oil, who has Womb Furie and Dragon's Milk as godparents! I kind of laughed when I put it on because I imagined Snake Oil sipping a Coke and getting a kiss on each cheek at the same time. Dragon Smooched Snake Oil is mostly our beloved Snake Oil, amped with knarly patchouli, sweet honey, and drippy, red dragon's blood. I find it less vanilla-y and spicy that regular SO, and way more red and kind of fruity, like dragon's blood can be. It reminds me quite a bit of Mme Moriarty in feel. I also wear and love Mme Moriarty quite a bit, but I'll wear Dragon Smooched SO when I wanna feel a bit sillier and embrace happy accidents.

SONNET D'AUTOMNE Ils me disent, tes yeux, clairs comme le cristal: "Pour toi, bizarre amant, quel est donc mon mérite?" - Sois charmante et tais-toi! Mon coeur, que tout irrite, Excepté la candeur de l'antique animal, Ne veut pas te montrer son secret infernal, Berceuse dont la main aux longs sommeils m'invite, Ni sa noire légende avec la flamme écrite. Je hais la passion et l'esprit me fait mal! Aimons-nous doucement. L'Amour dans sa guérite, Ténébreux, embusqué, bande son arc fatal. Je connais les engins de son vieil arsenal: Crime, horreur et folie! - Ô pâle marguerite! Comme moi n'es-tu pas un soleil automnal, Ô ma si blanche, ô ma si froide Marguerite? - They say to me, your eyes, clear as crystal: "For you, bizarre lover, what is my merit then?" - Be charming and be still! My heart, which all things irk, Except the candor of the animals of old, Does not wish to reveal its black secret to you, Whose lulling hands invite me to long sleep, Nor its somber legend written with flame. I hate passion; intelligence makes me suffer! Let us love each other sweetly. Tenebrous Love, Ambushed in his shelter, stretches his fatal bow. I know all the weapons of his old arsenal: Crime, horror, and madness! - pale marguerite! Are you not, like me, an autumnal sun, O my Marguerite, so white and so cold? - Charles Baudelaire, translated by William Aggeler Tenebrous Love: a shivering white musk with vanilla-infused white cocoa, amber incense, and dead, dry leaves. This kid is biz-arre. Right onto the skin this is the crispy, decaying dried leaves note like from Death of Autumn, which I will mourn to the grave. Ooooooh, yeah. Dark, kinda moldy and acidic. My kinda thing. But then...morph...mint? What the hell? It smells like it's changing into the Last Unicorn. Now, with the Last Unicorn I blamed this minty/misty niff on the lilac, but methinks it be the white chocolate! WHY?!?! Gaaaaaah!!!! At this stage of the game, I'm not very happy. My leaves are gone and it smells a lot like lavender and chamomile baby powder and White Rabbit. Again-why? It smells...good...pleasant...like back in 05 when I wore White Rabbit and was nursing my babies...but I'm kind of freaking out. She's changed from Doc Martin's on the pavement to ballet slippers in the nursery, from fall to winter, in a matter of moments. THEN, she sweetens up and mellows out considerably, looses the "minty" and much of the "baby", and becomes more musky...sexier. Now, while it is still a sweet and cool scent, it feels a lot like a cousin of Snow White and Antique Lace. Hours later she's a wisp of clean, sweet, warm, slightly ambery vanilla musk. My kids say I smell really good. Shhh...Me and Sonnet...we are going to have to get to know each other a little better. Maybe I'm just being a gunshy freaky bitch, but I think she's...crazy. Like, she seemed really fierce and independent at first but it turns out she might be really squishy and girly. Is she putting on some kind of act? I know...I KNOW! That's a HORRIBLE thing to say. We are definitely having some issues. I'm just not used to it! I need to get used to it. I want to like her! I have every reason TO like her. She's complex, keeps me on my toes, stays close to the skin, likes to snuggle, good with the kids. It's the SHIFT, it's the mystery mint thing... It's not you, it's ME! I thought you'd be darker, creepier, more autumny. I want to get to know you...I DO! OMG! You smell GOOD! What do you WANT from ME?!?! Sigh... Let's go for a ride, bitch...I think we can work it out. It's gonna be really interesting to see how she works out for other people.

YAAAAS! THIS is how I like green scents. It reminds me a bit of GC Medea; it has a similar herbs/leaves/dark fruit/incense vibe. Wet on the skin it's fresh green leaves and pomegranate juice, but slightly bitter, too, like pomegranate seeds. The honey is slightly sticky, sweet, and green as well. The cognac, oude, and vetiver dry down is sweet, dark, woody, brooding amazingness. I'm reminded of the way the Hex store smells. Mmmm, hmmmm!

This scent is golden, light, and lovely sweet sandalwood with a bit of depth. I think anyone of any age could easily wear this and it would be perfect for layering. I wish my skin didn't eat it right up! It reminds me a bit of Scholar's Tower, which I also have to slather to fully enjoy.

THIS smells like Christmas feels to me: the house warm and filled with people wearing vintage, ambery perfume, smoking pipes, baking spiced sweets, the tree set up, and bringing in logs for the fire.

I love a jammy rose! Obsequens is a bright, flashy, sexy red rose. I'm getting a red musk with red rose-fresh and virile...slightly sweaty on the dry down. The patchouli and leather are very faint, just making the scent feel more mature, a faint shadow. I find this to be a very modern rose perfume, and enjoy it much more than many.

Yum, yum, yum! This has a subtle fresh, fruity top (mixed sweet fruits...peach...?plum...?) that goes great with freshly washed hair; drying out it is all sexy, dark, caramelized sugar. It's so good! I agree, it smells like aged Sugar Skull OG. DEEEVINE!

The Dead Leaves note smells quite green here mixed with the honey, like a freshly fallen raked pile of leaves...only their ends are crispy and dry. I get almost a neroli note-slightly bitter, green snapped stem...The saffron adds a soft, golden dusting. Oude and patchouli are embraced on the drydown, grounding the drying leaves with an earthy, slightly bodily, not too animalic sweetness. It's at once fresh and dry and warm, like modern chypres. I'm very happy here. Yes, I think this could be worn year round.

Scholars' Tower is my new favorite and latest full bottle purchase. It is a deliciously bookish scent, shelves, paper, and all, with wafts of incense and a creamy, sweet, honeyed, glowing, amber. It is so evocative of the illustration. I don't find it to have harsh edges at all. It is both atmospheric and one with my skin. It is intellectual, and easy to wear, like someone who really knows themselves. I highly recommend this sleeper and am shocked that it's not more talked about.

I find honey and beeswax scents super cozy: Lights of Men's Lives, O, and Hand of Glory come to mind.

Diabolical voluptuousness, a siren song from the grave: juniper and yew brushing against blackened violets and funeral roses, red musk and hot blood, veined white marble and icy, brittle musk, all pulsing with the sinister, hypnotic scent of patchouli, amber, oude, and cubeb. Apparently I bought this as a gift for a friend back in 2009! I was at his house last night and saw it on his perfume tray and dabbed some on. Holy. Mother. of GOD! Even my partner commented on the depth and complexity of this scent. Without knowing the notes, he said that I smelled like a sexy vamp at a funeral...surrounded by lush but quickly wilting blooms. It reminds me much of Spellbound, but not quite as rosey or incensey...more murkey red musk. Damn, it's good. I might have to go steal it back!

Give me your funky, your difficult, your vamps, warmed with the blood and filth of mere mortals! This scent is FABLOUS! She's unabashed, unafraid, self confident, and honest. She is wild witch kin to power house 80's frags like Chanel's Coco. Fresh on the skin yeah, the castoreum is very forward: weird, bodily, and skanky. But we don't slut shame around here! Oh, no! You OWN that sexuality, Betch! She is leather clad and dewy. Where did she come from? A bar? A dungeon? A concert? Somehow it could have been anywhere. Is she sweaty? Oily? So many questions! Drying down almost immediately, take a second look...lean in... she's now not quite as shocking. She's kind of sweet, isn't she, the way she cocks her head when she looks at you; yes, you're afraid, because you know you're seen...she makes you look at your self. The scent of incense is intoxicating...somehow freshening the air and making your thoughts go deeper, deeper...deeper............ Dried out she is embers of precious wood made flesh...round edges chard, center glowing. She's quieted, but make no mistake, she still has power. You know she makes things happen, and you want to do her bidding. I'm so glad she's mine.

So. Much. YES! The is beautiful, earthy, dank, leathery, vanilla...a homage to bondage. Slather. Yum. Lasts for hours.

Why...in the world...did I wait 10 years (?!) to try this scent?! One of my first perfumes was street vendor Egyptian Musk oil. It was thick, golden, clean, and sweet, and became impossible to find. I sniff EM oil in health food stores now and it's often so light I can hardly smell it, with either plasticy or bready notes, and no longevity. So sad. But! I can smell my old friend clearly in this blend, along with a dusty sweet, bookish note, and some cool watery notes that I don't find too soapy, surprisingly. It reminds me of getting showered and dressed in high school: sometimes I would use my grandmother's Chantilly dusting power before putting on my Egyptian Musk and red lipstick, grabbing my stack of books before heading out the door. I don't find it particularly masculine, either. It's an instant favorite of mine...soothing, clean, familiar...Thank you, BPAL. I really needed Mr. Ibis. <3

I am in love with the sweet, honey rose of The Best Lies...

When you don't have time to burn incense, spray this instead! It got "Mmmmm....incense!" from all the teens in my house. It's not too smokey, which I'm thankful for. It's a fine melange of tangy and sweet resins with a slight woodiness. I love it!

This is the kind of scent that haunts me. I knew I'd love it. I experienced it. I did. And I walked away. I dismissed her quickly because I have so many scents that are honey forward...but I need it. I can't stop thinking about her. Wet the honey's slap is strong and thickly sexy, slighly animalic, a bit fresh, but not as green as some BPAL honeys. It quickly dries down a bit, melting into my skin, and rose emerges...blush colored roses..a bit lighter than my skin, which is Classic Ivory in most brands of foundation. Quiet. Unassuming. But not innocent. I think of her as Pink Snowball's older, psychic sister. An oriental gourmand-sweet but not silly-as if flesh transformed into an expensive, exotic confection...the scent of a vampiric desire. Most of all, The Best Lies smells like that very idea: the answer that appeases that incessant gnawing, that little desire that continues to creep, sweating under your collar...that intangible question that slinks beneath your nightclothes...that all will be "rosey". There's an unspoken wisdom, behind that sweet, fresh, relief, though...My justification not to bring her home fails me because it speaks a truth I need to hear.

When I smelled this scent, I laughed out loud it was so spot on. This smells just like a dead wife learning in to speak to me, strawberry daiquiri on her breath; I can smell a faint whiff of her perfume, too...her clothes crusty and musty with earth. Wet, it's a chemically blast of preservation chemicals and earth, and the drydown warms up to something almost lifelike...reanimated, slightly putrefied, with the illusion of freshness, but not really alive. Creepy awesomeness!