Caper

Black licorice root, aged red patchouli, white sandalwood, orange blossom, lemon peel, and dried jewel-toned fruits. Out of the four Song of Nature bottles I ordered unsniffed I decided to try this one first. In the bottle it smells great. I get a sort of masculine scent, which is probably the sandalwood as I associate that with my dh because it smells wonderful on him. I am always afraid of licorice and anise because I loathe them. I can barely detect a hint of it wet, it reminds me of Tarasque, so maybe a hint of tea? Mixed with the gentle licorice and sandalwood base, I get a touch of freshness from the lemon peel. As it dries I definitely get more of the orange blossom and red patchouli I associate with Ravenous. The lemon and licorice really brighten it up with a higher pitched scent where Ravenous is very sultry and low. I like it. I love Ravenous and this is like a work appropriate version that isn't as sexy. What I don't get is the jewel-toned fruits. I expected something a bit heavier on the fruit, but I don't think that this scent needs anything heavier on the fruit because it is perfect the way it is.

A holiday tradition! The festive scent of chestnuts being roasted on Arkham's neighborhood sacrificial pyre: chestnuts, sweet incense, smoldering oak and cedar logs, evocation herbs, and a hint of brown sugar. This is incredibly evocative. I can smell the smoke and a nutty sweetness. I feel like I'm outside near a bonfire with roasted chestnuts and a hint of sweet sugar. It is like a Misk U bonfire night. I'm getting a back up for sure.

Hothrun Dath, Sidney Sime. White sand, blue musk, ho leaf, oudh, mugwort, bamboo, white myrrh, and opium tar. Imp: dark amber oil that smells like opium tar and myrrh maybe? I feel like I know what most of the notes should smell like but I can't pick them out here. It smells enticing though and I'm excited to see what it does on my skin. Wet: definitely myrrh and opium tar. There is something slightly sweet and woody hanging around the edges, maybe the musk and bamboo? My dh says it is slightly medicinal and I think it smells like the woody herbs my acupuncturist had me drink when I was pregnant. Dry: this mellows into a dry woodsy sort of scent. I can definitely make out the opium tar, possibly because it is one of my favorites, and I feel like the blue musk is kind of settling the blend like musk usually does. Throw is moderate. All in all, I really like this. It is very different from any other blends that I have and the only thing holding me back from a bottle is if it would be work appropriate. It might be a touch masculine for work.

Licorice is a note I just dislike. I know it isn't listed, but I can definitely smell it in here. When I first tried it on I got licorice and lemon. I had to check the notes to find the mate, which can read lemon to me. After it settled down, I got black tea, which is another note that just doesn't work. So, licorice/lemon/black tea. I agree with the reviewer above that said it seems like a watery cardamom. I was hoping for some more support from the cedar or tonka, but this is a thin reedy scent and I'm going to pass it on.

This definitely starts out strong on the patch, which is fine with me, because I love patchouli. It definitely softens and lightens one the patch as the vanilla comes out and sweetens (slightly) the blend. The vanilla is definitely of the dry variety, and not overpowering at all. I'd say that this is really a nice vanilla/patch blend with a bit of smokiness from the oude and a bit of spicy from the pepper. Normally champaca is not good on me, but this blend doesn't seem to emphasize the champaca at all. It there for sure, just lightly. I agree with Balame though, I have blends that out patch it, and blends that out resin it, so I'll keep my decant for a bit, but I'm not going to get a bottle.

I just want to start with the fact that I love thyme in perfume. It starts with a beautiful blend of citrus alternating between sweet orange and bitter grapefruit. The blue cedar is lurking underneath and the hinoki wood is nowhere to be found. I do get the thyme from time to time (sorry) and it adds an interesting element to an otherwise citrusy blend. It increases in prominence as the citrus fades. The white musk holds it together with the cedar, but isn't overpowering like it sometimes can be. This is by far my favorite of the butterflies and if I didn't already have a gazillion bottles of perfume I'd grab one. As it is, I'll keep my decant and stash it in my summer collection. After one more sniff I think I'm going to put out a swap request for this one. Yum.

This one reminds me of another BPAL like crazy. It might be French Tobacco, but I passed my decant on ages ago so I can't retest. I wish it had a touch more vanilla, or something, I'm not quite sure what. I'm pretty meh about it. In that it isn't a bad scent at all, but I'm not really drawn to tobacco as a note and while I was thinking the leaf aspect might be a bit greener, it isn't. I'm sure lots of people will love this one though.

I, uh, whoa. In the decant, this was woodsy and a little sweet. Fairly simple and did remind me a touch of Atlas. As soon as I put it on, I got a straight Harris Ranch, the dreaded section of I-5, nothing but cowpies. So weird! I tried sniffing multiple times, but nope. It was to gagging levels. It did settle a bit to a woodsy ickiness, but then I scrubbed it off. This one is definitely not for me.

Sea buckthorn berry, salt musk, white nectarine, kelp, oakmoss, green musk, and elemi. Yay!! I have been waiting for a review of this one since people first began posting, and now that I've received my decants, I'm going to get a review up! There have been several blends over the last few years that have had the sea buckthorn berry/kelp/moss trio in the notes. Octopus: Pale moss, white kelp, sea buckthorn berry, ambergris accord, Somalian frankincense, rose geranium, and salt. Alcie: Just a hint of gorgon blood: bright nectarine, honey, sandalwood, green musk, sea buckthorn berry, and oakmoss. I've enjoyed both of them but the rose geranium in Octopus, and the honey in Alcie just weren't working for me. Carp and Octopus doesn't have the same level of nectarine as Alcie and it is less salty than Octopus. It wears close to the skin, and starts off with a light freshness that reminds me of an expensive alcohol-based perfume I can't remember. It settles down into a gentle sea scent with a hint of fruitiness. All in all, I really like it, and I would recommend it if you liked Octopus and were looking for something less salty, or if you liked Alcie but were looking for less fruity/sweetness. There is a hint of soap at the end, but I think that is a typical interpretation of these types of scents and it doesn't bother me a bit.

I get a weird Zest/ Irish Spring vibe from this. I like the vetiver/ambergris/myrrh combo, but I think I need that without the floral note. I might mix my decant into an atmo spray, since it is very clean smelling to me.

I was thinking this same thing about the Lupers. I don't think I'm going to get any bottles this round because I already bought multiple decants of the ones I want and I don't think I need to upgrade. I also didn't realize that component amounts were so limited. It must be hard trying to buy enough to make the bottles you need, but not so much that you have it sitting around. I sometimes wonder about the random supplies of fragrance materrials, like where would you even find someone selling them? There must be this whole unseen supply chain that ends up going into BPAL.

This is SO weird! I have a decant that I received with an order, it is very heavy on the amber, and smells almost like the tobacco sn. I finally swapped for a bottle and it is all florals, with a nod to amber on the drydown. I'm not sure if I should try to layer it with something more tobacco heavy (since that is what my awesome decant reads to me as- le lethe is close), or try to find a different bottle?

I should know by now that I can only wear dark or white chocolate, and this isn't it. This is the chocolate of Gelt and El Día de los Reyes and it is powdery and chalky and dusty. I do eventually get the Lust notes, but the milk chocolate takes a long time to dissipate.

I get coconut at first, plus that sometimes weird thing that coconut does (like Elegba) and it hits this weird celery-like note. Then I get a strong cherry blossom and a hint of sweet pea, then it goes sweet and creamy. This is really pretty and it reminds me a LOT of Snow White. I will probably skip a bottle, but my decant is staying for sure, and I hope I don't regret not getting a bottle in case this ages into something more beautiful than it already is. ETA- the dry-down is nice, but I'm passing on my decant, mostly because I'm overwhelmed by my decant collection lately.

It is very astringent in the decant, and I can't tell which note is causing that, maybe the cypress? I do get a hint of sweet apple and oak, but it quickly fades into dirt. I was hoping for more woodsy/apple with a hint of brightness from the cypress, but I'm getting more soil and woods with a touch of apples. Cypress completely fades, leaving the soil and greenness behind. Not exactly what I was expecting, and not bad, but not bottle-worthy either.

Whoa mint! I love mint, so this is nice for me. Next comes an edge of citrus, and I love citrus, so this is also nice for me. Ten minutes in and the mint is still going strong; I'm not getting a lot of morphing here and it is staying a bright orange/mint blend. About a half hour in, the mint has stepped down and the orange is moving into a gentle blend with the white musk, this is awesome, and pretty much exactly what I was expecting. Luckily the lemon-y green tea isn't overpowering, but just part of the citrus.

Okay, so I'm going to be the dissenting opinion here (and pat myself on the back for waiting for my decants instead of springing for a blind bottle), but this smells like licorice and root beer to me. It settles down after about five minutes into a soft coffee scent, but the strange hint of florals is just making this weird. I really think it is the champaca that doesn't work for me. I should know better by now, but everything else in this is full of win so I thought it wouldn't matter. It isn't necessarily _bad_, and as it dries it softens into a sweetish coffee scent, but it definitely isn't grabbing me when wet and mostly just okay when dry. It could be because I just swapped for IXHV4 and I'm loving the strong creamy coffee so much that I'm a touch disappointed by the softer more gentle coffee that I'm getting here. ETA- about two hours in I'm really liking this. I'm still not going to get a bottle, but I will be keeping the decant in the hopes that the weird start mellows out.

This one went weirdly sickening on me. Something in it reminded me of being queasy asmes I had to wash it off. I did not smell root beer, just sickly sweet yuckiness, sorry!

OMG, my review for Solar Phoenix is cracking me up. In case you doubted how much I hate rose you should read this. http://www.bpal.org/topic/79261-solar-phoenix/page__view__findpost__p__2253039

Solar Phoenix is it, so yellow rose. A blessing of nobility, leadership, and generosity: Roman chamomile, yellow rose, pineapple, bay laurel, frankincense, heliotrope, and Ceylon cinnamon. I think Croquet might be okay too, but it has been a long time since I tried it. Everything else is rose rose rose. Okay, I lied, it looks like I also like rose when I can't smell it at all, that would be Alice (carnation is the floral I get, plus I layer with the SN carnation so that might be helping) and aged Pink Snowballs. I am currently working on a bottle of 2011, but 2009 is nice too.

Pink Plastic Flamingo (dandelion pink yumminess) Yemaya (melon-y clean smelling) Olokun

The orchid makes me think Die Sundë, Vom Tod Verfolgt because it feels similar to Our Lady of Pain. http://www.bpal.org/topic/78647-die-sunde-vom-tod-verfolgt/page__p__2226653__hl__pickman__fromsearch__1#entry2226653

The variation in Hesiod's is really much more of a sweet/woodsy/deep vs pale/thin/bitter than a specific note like vanilla. I managed to track down several decants that happened at the beginning (decant circles on here that all ordered and shipped around the same time) and they are identical. It makes sense that the first lot of 60-70 bottles is the same, since the reviews all seem to be about the same for the first part, and then a different lot, with different concentrations or something, happened and the next lot has that chemical smell and is just different. I mean, I can tell they are _supposed_ to be similar! but they just aren't. The only issue for me is that I'm then reselling/swapping something that I know is different. Like how I paid $22 for Beaver Moon 2011 and then sold it for $10 because it had no lavender or cheesecake and I didn't feel right selling it knowing that it was an off bottle. The same thing happened with Pumpkin Masala Rooibos because I bought a bottle from someone that let me know it was a "woodsy" version, which sounds fine, but when I got it, it smelled nothing like my decant or the other bottle I had and was basically a SN Fennel. Since we can't return bottles to the lab, even for something really off, we end up either eating the cost of the completely different bottles, or passing something on to someone else that is expecting one thing and ending up with an unmixed bottle. I'd love to be able to say that spending $23 on something that is not right is not a big deal for me, and tbh, it's less of a big deal than it used to be, but $23 down the drain does matter.

Count me in too unfortunately. It almost makes me want to either buy blind bottles instead of decants, or just buy decants and never try to upgrade to a bottle. My Spanked Atmosphere Spray, that I totally almost skipped because leather is not one of my favorites, is incredibly heavy on the leather with hardly any of the other oils that I loved so much in my decant. It is so disheartening.

This one reminds me of Lemon-Scented Sticky Bat, and I adore that, so I adore this. Luckily I don't get any florals, just a sweet lemonade scent. I got a decant and then a full bottle.