holborne

If you like French Tobacco I would try Visions of Autumn VII, one of this year's Weenies. Once it dries down, I find it indistinguishable from French Tobacco.

This had kind of an unpleasant sharp note to me when I first tried it on my skin -- kind of like Tide. But when it dried down, it was warm and lovely. I actually thought it was indistinguishable from French Tobacco once it dried down. So yeah, this was a winner for me.

Frankly, I don't think I've ever seen anyone making a recommendation for a LE without mentioning that it's a LE. Maybe it's happened once or twice that I've seen, but it certainly seems to be the convention to make a note that it might require hunting down. Certainly I don't think it happens so often that it's an occasion for a lecture about courtesy.

Just FYI, Sprinklecake is quite easy to find for sale on the Forum. If you really want that particular oil, you should be able to pick up one or two bottles with no trouble at all.

I will say that I'm not a huge fan of a lot of florals, although there are some I like a lot -- lily of the valley, peony, sweet pea, one or two others I'm not thinking of. So I snagged a bottle of this unsniffed. Alas, it does not work on me at all. Wet on my skin, it smells like sharp soap -- Tide detergent comes to mind. Dried down is pretty much more of the same. A shame, but I guess they can't all be winners. This will likely be going to a new home.

This is a very earthy scent, and also makes me think a bit of leather. It doesn't have that sort of hashish undertone that a lot of the patch scents have. I'm not a huge patchouli fan, so I was pleasantly surprised by this (I got a decant). I wouldn't buy a bottle of it, but I am glad I tried the decant.

Thorn-spiked vines, blood, and tears. Ok, I have to admit, I thought I'd hate this one (got it as a frimp). I generally dislike vetiver, and reading through the reviews didn't give me too much hope for it. But actually, it's quite nice. There is a definite vetiver note, especially sniffed directly from the imp, but once it's dry on my skin the vetiver fades to the background and it has a nice woody quality to it. I don't know that I'd wear this very often, but it would make a very nice scent in an oil burner. So, BPAL still has the capacity to surprise me, which is nice! Stuff like this is why I try to sniff things even if I think I probably won't like them.

Oh my god, I have the MAD LOVE for this. On my skin, it's mostly green, but not the really grassy kind of green that makes me think of lawn mowers; it's a gorgeous green that makes me think of the beginning of spring. And then a small note of floral creeps in -- just enough to make it beautiful without being sweet. I think there's a backup bottle in my future.

Yup. Was almost straight cinnamon on me. I was crushed because I also love marshamallow, but I don't care for cinnamon scent.

...Our ambergris accord is lightly balsamic, slightly woody, almost tobacco-like marine musk, and possesses a distinct salty animalic note that borders on sweet. The scent is extraordinarily versatile, and adds depth and complexity to a wide swath of fragrance families. On me, this was just straight up salty aquatic. I don't really care for aquatics, and I couldn't resist the urge to scrub it off. Not a winner for me.

I had the same problem with Mouse Circus -- lovely but lasted on my skin for literally five minutes and then like that *poof* it was gone. Sticky Pillowcase is a sweet candy scent -- sugar and marshamallow, mostly. No foody or rosy notes.

Sigh. The Wanderlust scents just don't agree with me, it seems. This is just pure laundry detergent on me when it first goes on; in ten minutes, it disappears completely -- no in between stage whatsoever. Oh well -- they can't all be winners, I guess.

I'd been wanting to try this for a long time and was finally able to get an imp. Wet on my skin, it starts out as kind of baby powdery. As it dries down, a lot more of the myrrh comes out, but it somehow blends seamlessly on my skin, as though it's organic. I don't get a lot of ylang ylang, but that's probably a good thing, as I find that scent somewhat sharp, and this isn't sharp at all. It doesn't have a ton of throw, and it fades somewhat quickly on me. However, it's a lovely scent, and very sexy; if I didn't prefer longer lasting oils I'd be ordering a bottle of this right now.

When I sniffed the imp of this, I have to say I smelled basically nothing. Wet on my skin, it was lemon lemon lemon. I don't really favor lemon scents, as even the nice ones remind me of either Pledge or Lemon Diet Coke. However, once it dried down, I was surprised how much I liked it. The lemon faded quite a bit, and it left a soft floral scent extremely reminiscent of "Pat the Bunny" (that's a good thing). So this turned out to be a nice floral, very good for people like me who don't care all that much for the overpowering florals. It's a little light for my taste, is the only thing. I probably won't buy a bottle, but certainly wouldn't turn one down in a swap.

Wet on my skin: I got sort of a weird resin-y, quasi-floral note and I didn't quite know what to make of it. Then I figured it out: ah, vetiver. Not my favorite. Dried down: smells precisely, and I do mean precisely, like the horseradish we use at the Passover seder. I'm sure there are some people who want to smell like horseradish, but alas, I am not one of them. Verdict: Nope.

Wet on my skin: Very sharp lavender, which I took for neroli at first. I don't really get any jasmine and I sure don't get any honeysuckle. Dry on skin: Soap, soap, and more soap. It tickles my nose to death. After a little while: Turns to jasmine with some Ivory soap mixed in. Verdict: Nope.

Ok, well. This one quickly went onto my top ten favorites list. I love both caramel scents and tobacco scents, and this one is the perfect blend of both; neither note dominates too much so it's delicately and perfectly balanced. It also has great throw (or sillage, if you prefer), and lasts a good long time, even on my skin, which tends to eat scent. Really, I almost licked my own arm to death after putting this one on. Holy cow. Will echo the people who said

Half-Elf from the RPG series is a beautiful woody scent. It's not similar to Belladonna at all, but it's lovely, in my opinion, with no rose (no floral note at all, I don't think). Karme is also about as green a scent as I've ever tried from the Lab. However, it may be a bit challenging to find.

Sorry, but this is absolutely disgusting. Smells like disinfectant in the rest room of a filthy restaurant. Awful awful awful.

This is extremely fruity fruit fruit; the plum pretty much hit me in the face when I opened the imp and wasn't any more subtle on my skin. (FWIW, I don't get the slightest whiff of amaretto.) However, fruit isn't exactly the smell I associate with a bordello. That would probably be something more like sweat, leather, and gin. This is more like a Froot Loop breakfast -- not the first thing I think about when I think of raw carnality. This scent is fine if you want to smell like an overripe Carmen Miranda; otherwise, you might want to give it a miss.

I don't really care much for rose, so I was a little dubious about this one, but I got it for the tea, which is a note I love. Fortunately, this one worked out well. I do get a bit of rose, but mostly this smells like Christmas spices (couldn't tell you precisely which ones) with a faint rose in the background. I don't get a whole lot of tea, which is too bad, but I still think this is a lovely blend. It also has the added bonus of being quite long-lasting on me, with good throw. That's especially impressive during the winter, when my skin is dry and scents tend to fade very quickly.

This one started out as a wine scent on me -- not very heavy on the grape like, say, Athens, but more like a light white wine. I liked it very much while it was wet. But eventually, the wine scent fades and it smells more strongly of clay or bricks. An interesting scent -- and I mean that in a good way, really -- but not one I could really see myself wearing under most circumstances. It would be good for someone looking for a very offbeat fragrence.

In the imp: smells like very spicy honey. Wet on my skin: doesn't change too much from the imp smell -- still smells like spicy honey. Dried: The spiciness recedes a bit, and it gets a little bit more amber-ish. It smells like not-too-sweet honey, like buckwheat honey or one of the more robust honeys. I don't get a lot of vanilla at all, so I guess I'm glad it wasn't that note I was after. On the whole, I really adore this one -- it's a sexy smell, and definitely not too sweet. It also has really good lasting power; I still smelled it on my hand the morning after I tested it.

Well, I was expecting to love this and I did. On me, it smells like gorgeous, fine leather, not like the cheap kind you find at flea markets and so forth. The tobacco is definitely there, but it's not overpowering; it reminds me of how my husband smells when he comes home from a cigar bar. I don't get a whole lot of opoponax, which for me is too bad, as it's one of my two or three favorite notes, but it's definitely there in the base note mixed in with the amber, working to mellow the whole blend out. I fell in love with this one at NYCC and bought a bottle on the spot; I'm sure I'll be getting a back up bottle soon.

Ok, I'm going to just cut right to the chase: this one smelled like rotting vegetables on me. (Sorry, I can't be more specific than that -- cucumber skins, maybe?). It's only the second BPAL where after putting it on, I squeaked and ran to the bathroom to scrub it off. (The other was Saturnalia, if you're interested.) Nuh-uh. DO. NOT. LIKE.