Voleuse

This starts out a nice, staticky citrus on me (a sweetish lemon), but it gets very ozoney in a short time. It's pretty, but as others have noted, ends up being like dryer sheets. Ah, well!

This is a gorgeous, gorgeous butterscotch on first application. My nose is out of practice, but this also reminds me of a richer, glossier version of the MVJBA pancake scent. Don't ask me why. After about twenty minutes, I get a really strong wave of the "blackbeetles" portion of the blend, which is kind of like dirty licorice to my nose, with only a faint echo of the butterscotch. Still later, the butterscotch returns, but about half as sweet, with hints of dirt and a bit of incense behind it. Neato! This one's a morpher, but turns out quite subtle and sweet.

This smells, to me, what Samhain would be like if it was a bright noontime scent. It's predominantly dried leaves to my nose, but with the added note of crunchy dried flowers and tea leaves. It's sweet, but a faded sweetness, at least on me. It's not really my thing, but I think it's a nice companion to Samhain, and a neatly evocative scent.

This is soapy to my nose--probably the lily + sandalwood combination, which reminds me of fancier soaps. It's clean and perfumey, though over time it becomes an almost old-fashioned rose perfume to my nose, with notes of lily and carnation. It's still a little soapy, but pretty.

Oooooooh. This leather is smoky and soft--not suede, but worn butter-soft through age. Over time, the incense and woods of the blend start to emerge, lending a grounding sweetness to the smokiness of the blend, but it stays mostly leather on me. This is gorgeous--super-sensual and sexy, and I suspect it will age really well.

Hmmmmm! This is very foresty on first sniff, and more specifically, forest + honey. A sun-brightened fall day, and my memories of visiting the redwood forests when I was a kid. The evergreen hits first, but the woods are warm and grounding underneath the evergreen and honey sweetness. This isn't something I'd typically wear, but I'm really captured by it.

White apple with orris, agave nectar, moonflower, white sandalwood, and lotus root. On first application, I thought this was a relatively juicy apple, but it's more that it's an intensely sweet scent--the lotus root does that bubblegum thing, but it's less sugary because of the agave note. This is pretty! The moonflower lends the overall scent a cool, white note that I like. The apple and sandalwood keep it from being flowery, but overall this is a light scent. It's clean and sweet, with hints of wood--I get the mental image of a gazebo in an apple orchard at night, if that makes any sense. Very serene and feminine at once.

This is straight-up patchouli on me, and intensely so. There's a woodsy sort of aspect to it--the tobacco, maybe--that keeps it from becoming too intense. Over time, the cocoa starts to peek through, and it's definitely the globby dark cocoa of Boomslang (and I mean that in the smell sense, not just the literal blobbiness of the cocoa absolute). This makes for a neato headshoppy blend that I like, smoky with peeping hints of sweetness. That said, it's definitely as strong as everybody says it is, so if you shy away from patchouli in general, this might not be the scent for you.

This feels like a fluffy vanilla-pumpkin scent (baked, but not in a cake way), but there's a slightly sharp fruit note that I can't quite identify. It morphs into something grounded, somewhere halfway between nutty and burnt leaves, but the entire scent fades so quickly on me, I can't really parse it. At the end of a few minutes, I only get the faintest hint of pumpkin, and a bit of guava, I think.

Well, this is just delicious. I am predisposed to like any appley scent BPAL does (Verdandi is a standby for me), but this is super-true appley scent with a lovely punch of autumn spices, to boot. It's mostly apple juice + cinnamon + a bit of butterscotch, but the cinnamon slowly blooms over time, lending an extra punch of spice to the blend. I don't get any citrus, which is fine--it's a nice spicy apple for me, in the end.

I was worried this might be super-lavendery, and while it's not soapy lavender (as it usually ends up on me), it is not as violet-y as I had hoped. This is a nice, subtle lavender with washes of violet and hints amber to it. It plays close to the skin, and has an extra-elusive sweetness--fig, I think. I get a tiny hint of wood, as well, but I often get that impression with lavender.

The white musk + amber is, as always, kind of generic on first application, but it the cocoa and incense quickly lends some complexity. Over time, the white musk provides a cool base underneath a sweeter vanilla, with faint hints of smokiness (more incense than leaves on me). The throw is mid-range for me--not too close to the skin, but not something you'd catch across the room, either. The longer I wear BPAL, the more I think white musk scents just aren't for me. This is super-pretty and, I think, pretty nice on my skin, but I feel more comfortable with warmer scents, and white musk ends up pretty cold on me, even with the smoky notes. (As the poem advertises, I suppose. Ha!)

This is a boozy berry on first application, but in time it becomes a citrus-berry cocktail. It's sweet and tart at once. The papaya isn't strong, but I think it smooths out the other notes so that it isn't too spiky-sweet. On me, the lemongrass ends up being a lemony dominant note, with an underlying sweet boozy note.

Incensey! This is all myrrh and galbanum (I think) on first sniff--a very deep and churchy sort of incense. I don't smell the blue musk on its own, but in combination with the incense notes, this becomes a very masculine sort of scent, heavy with the faintest echo of licorice-sweetness.

As pear was the last note in the scent description, I didn't expect this to be so juicy and sweet. It loses the juiciness after a minute, but it keeps the sweetness through the flare of warm incense. In the background is a hint of carnation--like a bouquet in the back of the room--and something that hints of coconut, but doesn't actually smell like it. Like coconut ice cream, except not cold. On me, this ends up being a sweet and warm candle-y sort of scent--like one of those Bath and Body Works candles, but more real.