Urpflanze

The first scent from the lab that reminds me of India. Patchouli, for sure, and other rich subcontinental resins. All various resin, though, nothing else. Like a great incense. My skin keeps it pretty close and doesn't throw much, but it is a wonderful, evocative scent.

Wet, this is a really nice coconut scent. Dry it was sort of mild and inoffensive. A little too subtle for my tastes. Fuzzy coconut, but not much of it and not much else. The strangeness of the musk doesn't come out on me.

The Antikythera Mechanism is the first scent from BPAL that I tried. I was immediately sold on the concept. The first deep sea diving suits, sea worn metals, ancient science, pirates: done. I put it on and was very impressed. On me the tobacco comes out strongly and offers an edge of that raisin-prune smell. The woods have never dominated for me. They compliment but do not compete with the overall impression of tobacco-vanilla. It reminded me of the very best possibilities of men's cologne. I smelled expensive. Like a Greek aristocrat with a yacht. After a time, it reminded me so much of a creme brulee with raisins (tobacco really) that I thought it was maybe too sweet for me. Undeniably delicious...but I worried it was maybe too delicious. I overthought it. I turned to the unsweetened wood and metal of ninth cage and didn't look back for awhile. Then I wore it at work and realized that I really like the light sweetness this has - it is not remotely cloying and it is comforting and pleasing. I think people reach for foodie scents because smelling sweet things (i.e. vanilla) feels good. When you aren't thinking about what you are wearing and you catch a whiff of it, your pre-conceived ideas about what you ought to be wearing (for your style, personality, gender, etc.) are gone and all you get is whether or not you like it. And I like this. ALOT. Antikythera Mechanism, like Dee, gives the gentleman some sweetness without too much. One day, perhaps I will realize that Dorian smells like more than lemon lavender cookies. Until then, I'll wear scents like this. Oh and women can pull this off with panache, I think, skin chemistry allowing. Nothing should ever smell powdery in this one unless something goes awry. If it works for you, it works consistently and for hours. Decent throw. Edit: I want to add that I think the concept here is not the smell of the mechanism itself so much as the divers who discovered it at the turn of the 20th century. It isn't so much the scent of the victorian gentleman as the 19th century nautical gentleman-adventurer (pipe tobacco, the wood of boats, a light vanilla to evoke the sweet love affair with the sea). He's not working class, but he's seen plenty of real work.

Yes, it lives up to the hype. The overall effect is a smoky vanilla. Evocative of the spectral dark. Nothing to complain about here. A perfectly blended scent. The hemp note binds the vanilla and patchouli well. I don't find it too woodsy, but then I don't find straight up pine and juniper too woodsy. This one is a no-brainer, the french fries of perfume. What's not to like? Men could wear it too, I think, especially fans of vanilla. I find it a tiny bit sweet for my personal tastes - nice for lounging about the house but maybe a little too sweet vanilla incense scented for work. I am now looking for another blend with hemp and patchouli together, that combo is unexpectedly wonderful.

Nothing but rose on me. Ugh. Ly. I smell like a grandma. Not my grandma, per se. Her Estee Lauder sillage is too distinctive to be confused with this. It goes as far back in my memory as anything. At the beginning of time, there was Estee Lauder perfume evolving out of the unlit murk spanned between love and strife. Someone's grandma smells like this. Gents beware - this one can be pretty floral.

This scent is unusual. Solid leather, no question. Unctuous mossy leather. Very evocative of the target occult curiosity. I don't get any specific herb or green note - but the leather smell is a bit...off...as if it were strangely cured. It is rustic. DW very much likes it, thinks it evokes Dr. Livingstone or some rainforest expiditionary. Maybe some wood in there, maybe sandalwood. This is the first scent I genuinely love/hate as sometimes, for a reason obscure to me, it reminds me of fast food. The smell of grease and...bbq sauce or mayonnaise even? No... maybe not, maybe it just smells like odd preservatives. Weird. Not temporary and consistent from 2 trials. I think my nose-imagination is the culprit, not my skin. Something about this sickens and intrigues in fits. I think it would require a feat of the spirit to overcome a distaste of the smell and own it - a harrowing hazard might produce the needed attitude to say, "Oh I have shrunken head juice on me again! [Chuckle, chuckle]." One would have to be a real adventurer. Or just really like tanned leather. That'll work too. This one has good throw and lasts as long or longer than any I've tried (8 hours solid on even a small dab). Highly recommended for the man (or lady too?) who really likes leather but wants an exotic leather.

Nero is invigorating. Pine, for sure, but not reminiscent either or Christmas or of cleaner, which is impressive. Lemon juice, not rind. The bay and rosemary make a nice round herbal backdrop. Something smells a little spicy like ginger...Bay? The bay adds maybe the tiniest bit of dirty, spicy sweetness? I think I'm just getting to know bay here. I can see 'medicinal' but definitely in a good way and only for a little while at the beginning. If you like strongly herbal scents, this is a very interesting and well blended one. It reminds me of Hinoki bath salts. It even smells vaguely salty. On the dry down it is spicier on me than I expected from reading reviews. The bay comes out strong on me, I guess. That's a good thing here, it makes it more interesting. The throw is a little different - it throws lemon fruit, maybe a little apple even, but not the pine that you get when you go in close. Then...wham! Japanese hot springs! It doesn't scream 'matricide' to me, but neither does it seem the smell of a man who cares where his mom is or what she's up to. It smells so good, its self-absorbing.

Rich sandalwood and lemon rind. Dry (i.e. not sweet), wet (i.e. clean citrus) yet dark (i.e. burnt wood). I'm surprised that burnt wood can smell so refreshing. I wonder if this classes as 'aquatic' which I usually read as sporty (what most men's deodorant is trying to be). Here is a scent I would feel confident reviewing even if there were no other opinions to gauge by. It comes out of the bottle strong, stays strong, makes perfect sense with its listed notes and has insane, even magickal, throw. The lab took this bit very seriously: "Thou art gather'd in a cloud/ And for ever shalt thou dwell/ In the spirit of this spell." This scent is like armor - bracing, clean and non-stop. Moreover, I can smell a drop of this in the next room. That would be bad, but since it smells great, not so much. It does feel strangely...protective. So many of these scents just confuse me and I have to admit my nose isn't yet up to saying what is good about them or what the problem might be - except too much vetiver, which is obvious (I'm looking at you saturnalia and malediction). But Incantation has bound and burnt its vetiver. I'm happy to see sandalwood own your pushy ass, vetsy. Restrained vetiver is a very good thing: a hint of smoke and dry grass. I see only two dangers in this awesome scent, and they are really interpretive failures: 1) it could smell like freshly waxed table, wood and citrus you know. But, hell, I'll be this table. Still, use a coaster. We're not barbarians. 2) it could, in passing, evoke men's aftershave/shower gel. I guess I'll just have to deal with the fact that people may think I'm cleaner than I am. Drat. Advertisement: This gives you all the 24 hour protection of a pentagram burnt into the floor!

Impression: I am a robot and I just went for a very refreshing swim. (I guess in thin, clean flaxseed oil or something that robots would like to swim in.) I think I get separate notes if I try: leather, metal, resin. Maybe anise? I think so. But really this scent is one of those that transcends its notes to a round smell-scape. It's a bit confusing because it seems sophisticated yet also maybe sporty. In theory, it ought to smell of the working class machinist. But that's why I still say: I am a swimming robot - refined, sporty machine. I keep smelling it; it keeps intriguing. I agree that this is what I thought Steamworks would be, while No. 93 Engine, Antikythera and Phoenix Steamworks underwhelmed me with steampunkiness (while having other virtues, to be sure). This one smells refined (read Victorian) yet like exotic metallics (read complex, overwrought mechanisms). The imp was a sniffy, so i didn't get too much from the wand,but the scent seems to lack throw. Still, it smells really good. To me, this is a fresh man scent, but it could definitely work unisex. Edit: I can't stop thinking about this. I've scraped every last bit of moisture from the sniffy like a desperate junkie. It is gobsmacking. Golden resiny warmth balanced by a bright, wet edge. A warm frankincense infused, brassy scarab with leather wings that still smell of crushed star anise from the fingers of its maker, a curiosities dealer in steampunk hong kong. Impolight was right in calling it "eroticized C3PO" - golden, metallic refinement - absolute perfection. I had some chinese floormates once that made 5 spice flavored potatoes regularly, the halls smelled of cassia and star anise and golden potatoey loveliness. This scent is even better (and I really like potatoes).

I haven't tested much more than a score of bpals, but The Ninth Cage is my favorite so far. The notes here seem obvious (there is almost total consensus among reviewers): metal and wood (oak, apparently). On me, those notes stay solid and harmonious from start to finish. No phases, no funny stuff, no sniffing around to try to find what you loved about it a couple minutes ago. What you smell is what you get. It goes strong for four hours or so and then lingers for another ten. I like that it is simple, long-lasting and lets me smell like an inanimate object: a rusted lock, a rain-soaked barrel, a penny forgotten on a tree stump or, if you prefer some romance, like treasure hauled up from Davy Jones' Locker. Somehow this scent manages to be bluntly masculine while seeming effortless. If you ask me, it's because you smell like stuff, not like people. Now it is a little too bad that The Ninth Cage itself, unicorn trapper that it is, is hardly to be celebrated, because this scent is a class act. Perhaps it isn't the cage's fault that Mommy Fortuna had some broken ideas about how to make a dollar. But on to the real question: Does this scent make me want to magically trap things of beauty? I dunno. I'm gonna say...ummm, no?