Naamah_Darling

In the bottle, this is floral and sweet – apple bloom (and a little fruit), with a whiff of cinnamon and rose. There's a green scent, not like a "cut" green but like a "still growing" green; like a garden just after the rain when the air is still cool but the sun is warm. On my skin, that apple smell nearly vanishes under some sharper floral note I can't identify. Jasmine, perhaps? I still smell rose, but these aren't store roses, these are real, fresh roses, green roses, and it's not overpowering. There is a fruity tone to it, but nothing cloying or sweet or foody. This is a very clean scent, without being soapy. On drydown the rose comes out a little more. The rest is . . . lilacs and violet? Can't be, because those hate my chemistry, and this is nice. There is no undertone, nothing woody or smoky, no base note. Very light. Once it's all dry and starts to fade, it does go a bit dusty/powdery on me, but it's not unpleasant. Like a lot of florals, it doesn't last long on my skin. This one works well, though, and I'll be keeping it for days when I need a pick-up. It's a very cheerful, calming scent, without being overwhelming or cloyingly sweet.

In the bottle: violets. Violets, violets, violets. Wet on skin: cool and peaceful, violet accented with the slight flush of rose. The lilac creeps out. This is very floral, very velvety, and very cool and wistful. It has a lot of throw, but the halo of it is sort of passively feminine, a general cool floral aura. Only right up on it can you smell the lilacs and violets passionately fighting it out. The tuberose is kind of off to one side just watching – I'm not getting much of it at all. My skin is really emphasizing the lilacs and violets in alternation. As it dries, it starts smelling aggressively soapy. Drat! I really love this in the bottle, it is so calm and refined, but I don't think it's going to work for me as a body scent. There's a reason I don't like most florals.

A clean, pale scent in the bottle, like a floral wreath – I think I'm getting musk, too, but I can't tell for sure. That might be the sandalwood. This is a very blended scent, complex, and in the bottle the layers haven't separated. Again, very clean and light, yet definite and assured. It's not a loud smell, but it isn't shy either. It's an unfailingly proud scent. On my skin, lovely and female while wet, and as it dries it . . . changes. Turns. It goes from cool and white to warm and golden as the musk comes up and the sandalwood begins to smolder. I'm not smelling the amber, which is a shame, as I love the smell of it. I'm not getting the vetiver either, which is also a shame, as I was hoping for more of an edge. Dry, I get a little of the edge I wanted; there's a hint of something sharper and more masculine, probably the vetiver, and the sandalwood is getting smoky. The smell is darkening, blackening at the edges. The amber at last makes a late entry, faintly, even as the scent is fading. This is really a beautiful scent. It's a bit light on me – I prefer a scent with some bottom, and I like sexy, earthy scents, but I might get a bottle of this sometime, for those nights out when I want to smell cool and distant and proud and not quite so smolderingly sexy. It ends up a bit smoky and musky, but also powdery in a pleasant sort of way. This scent is so complex and layered that I'm going to have to come back to it repeatedly to make heads or tails of it. Like a song you just can't listen to once. The overall effect is of a phosphorus flash of light, followed by flame, followed by a burn-down that leaves only crumbling ashes. The Fall is an apt metaphor. This is the scent of Lucifer in all his unbending pride.

In the bottle, this is a lovely not-too-sweet mix of dark and light florals, gently supported by a whiff of incense and the very faintest brush of greenery. There is a hint of sweetness the way cracked black pepper smells sweet. A lower-case floral, a scent that could easily have been overwhelming, but was not allowed to get out of control. Traditionally perfumey to me, but not old-ladyish. This is elegant and serene, and, yes, I can see sacred – there's a purity to it. These florals smell whole to me, it's as though I can smell the cut ends of the stems. On the skin, it has one smooth smell, a spicy floral that is not at all fruity, and not overly sweet. I'm still getting pepper, and something way down deep that's thick and almost tarry. It's enchanting, a little hair-raising, and very difficult to separate into distinct notes, since I'm not at all familiar with many of the listed ingredients. It sweetens a bit after a few minutes to the smell of funeral flowers. Soft and light but not powdery. Silken. As it dries, a slightly smoky/resinous scent comes out to tone down the floral wet phase, the dark promise of the opoponax and onycha, I think. Less sweet and more mysterious, but still very floral. The smoky/resinous scent I had hoped for never showed up, nor did the earthy undertone others have spoken of. Overall, an inviting pale scent veiling a hollow black core. I was expecting something earthier on me, but it's actually a soft, high scent; very cerebral.

A bright evergreen smell (fitting, since the oil itself is antifreeze-green) rises from the bottle – pine, eucalyptus, and lemon/lime – keen and bracing, with a sweet herbal undertone. It's about as tactful as a bike chain in the face, but it's very nice. Wet on skin it smells like campho-phenique, which is this awful gluey camphor ointment my mother used to smear on my bug bites. Not exactly the most appealing scent, even if the memory is a bit nostalgic. After a few seconds the lemon starts to surface, and I'm just getting a handle on whatever that other tone is, how nice!, and then – oh GOD AMMONIA – the fearsome smell of day-old cat urine suffuses my extremeties! I am glad I didn't run this through my hair. So glad. Because I am a masochist (and I'm alone in the house), I'm leaving this on to see if it improves. I can't believe it can smell this horrible forever. There's not a lot of throw to it, thank goodness. As long as I keep my hands far, far from my face, we're all good. If I touch my face for any reason, my eyes begin to water. The smell really is profound. After nearly 45 minutes, the cat pee smell has gone and left me with a sort of dry woodsy smell, still redolent of fir or eucalyptus. It wears off quickly, after only two hours. Two hours of something niceish is not worth 45 minutes of me smelling like cat pee. I don't want to hate it. In the bottle it is incredibly lovely. It just hates my skin, obviously, which is a crying freakin' shame, as I adore the scent of it in the glass enough to want to roll in it. Don't think that's going to happen, though. I'm heartbroken. So sad that it didn't work for me.

The dry, glorious warmth of the Savannah. A golden, spiced amber, proud, regal and ferocious. Bottled, amber is the dominant note, overlaid with a cool sweetness and a bit of something like seeds or grain – a sweetish, dryish, birdseedy smell. How very strange! Wet on the skin, it becomes amber spiced with the smell of . . . Pier 1 Imports. Wild, dry grasses and exotic woody tones. Vetiver, perhaps, though in moderation. There is spice here, ginger or cinnamon, but it is most definitely not a foody scent. There is probably a musk in the base note, but it's being firmly sat on by the amber. After an hour, it hasn't changed much. The spice scent has come out just enough for me to identify it more surely as cinnamon, but it's not overwhelming or candylike. A beautiful scent, warm but not hot, slightly sweet but not cloying, playful, but not too light. It's windy and dry and sunny. Beautiful. There's not a lot of throw to this one, sadly, because it's lovely like sunbeams. Three hours and its worn down almost completely without changing again. This smell is too good to pass up.

This review initiated me into the world of BPAL's leather blends, and as you can see, the results were quite . . . interesting. Even in the bottle this is sexy as Hell. So well-blended that while I can detect the influence of each ingredient, I cannot separate them. The sweet, black musk and the smoky leather keep the vetiver from being too grassy. Wow. It doesn't strike me as being too masculine, though, until I put it on. Then, holy God, it explodes. Grass and leather, with the musk sliding in like a tongue. Yes, I'm picturing licking boots.* This may be the sexiest thing I have smelled, ever. It's not that I like the smell all that much; actually, the grassy note kind of puts me off from wanting to smell like this myself. It's just that this smell goes straight into my hindbrain and wraps a fist around my nerves and says "KNEEL." I'm actually moaning involuntarily every time I sniff it. Once the vetiver settles down, this is a very base-note heavy scent, but there is nothing subtle about it at all. It has all the finesse and quietude of a truncheon to the crotch. I've never had a smell affect me physically like this. If this is what all leather scents are going to do to me, I think I may be in for a lot of trouble. An hour later, dry, it is still making my squishy bits twitch. The grass is still there, but it's mostly leather now, and the musk is much stronger – from licking to . . . well . . . swallowing. It's less urgent, more dangerous. This is the patience of a schemer, a plotter, or a skilled Dom; exquisite force, exquisitely applied. As it dries the leather and musk chase each other – the leather eventually wins, and has its way. Fully twelve hours later, and I can still smell it, strongly. I haven't had the heart to rinse it off and try something else. This is too sexy and delicious, and too dangerous, to turn my back on. This is a fascinating scent and one that would captivate me on someone else. The right someone. Frankly, I'm not sure I am forceful and domineering enough to wear it (and that's really saying something, since I'm plenty of both). This is a very demanding, headstrong smell that would require a great deal of strength, wickedness, and poise to carry off. Iago is not the be-all end-all of leather scents (for my money, that would be De Sade), but the addition of the vetiver makes this an utterly merciless blend with a lot more cruelty than De Sade. * Jason Isaacs' boots. Or Michael Sheen's.

In the bottle, it's a sweet, tangy musk blend with almost tart overtones, stirred by undercurrents of vanilla's smoothness. There's a faint hint of floral in the bottle – lavender, perhaps – that never really comes out on my skin. On me, it deepens and darkens to real, live warmth, with an unexpected sharp undertone that blooms and dies before I have a chance to identify it. The musk and vanilla and tea combination is really quite perfect; the musk tones down the vanilla so the sweetness is not overwhelming, the vanilla gives the musk something to cling to. And as it dries, there is a faint but persistent acrid lemon-and-tea-leaf smell, which settles down after about two hours. This dry, tannic scent is all that keeps this oil from being very, very feminine. Dorian is, as you might expect from the name, smooth, sophisticated, sexy, and above all, androgynous. A wonderful embodiment of poised desirability. Yummy, but not too forward. Actually, make that glorious. Glorious. I fell asleep with my face on my arm after testing this one, and dreamed I was hunting through the house trying to find the source of the wonderful cookie-tea-boy smell. I found Christian Kane in my bathroom, shirtless and tattooed, pouring vanilla-chamomile tea into the sink. You all can have a field day with that one. I'm not touching it.

In the bottle this is sharply herbal and woodsy, quite intensely masculine and jagged. Not unpleasant, just very manly. The green of the wood notes blend with the grass of what I assume is vetiver, and the result smells almost like camphor – a forward, sharp scent. Kind of an exciting, energetic smell. Wet on the skin, the sandalwood smooths the blend just a little, and there's something hazy and a little herbal pulling the two notes together – the vetiver evening out. It's more pleasant once it's had some time to slow down. Dry, given long enough to air out, it's not so overpowering, but it is still strongly masculine. It has no floral note to mellow it, and the sandalwood is not quite strong enough on my skin to balance out the harsh pine note. This one actually gave me a bit of a headache, and I had to wash it off. Just too much on me, and this scent has a lot of throw. This would be a good scent for those who enjoy strongly piney/herbal scents. Inexplicably, my domestic feline Tazendra greeted this one with enchanted licking. Cats.

In the bottle, this is coolly piney/woodsy, with an undertone of floral. The smell is cool and redolent of cypress or the woods. Appealing and clean, almost medicinal. Not unpleasant, by any means, but not particularly my thing. Wet on the skin, the pine moves up, accented by something almost citric, perhaps lime. As it dries, the woodsy topnote stays foremost, but a hint of floral comes out. Lily, maybe. This is a little harsh for my tastes. About an hour later, it's smoothed out to a woodsy/citrus purr with a smooth underscoring of cool florals. This is very pleasant and while I don't think I'll order more, it does seem to fit the image of a graveyard at night.

The essence of the most debauched hunger encapsulated into a perfume. Desire beyond love, anguish beyond sanity. Nutmeg, sassafras, black poppy and myrrh. Bottled, there's a lot of spice, with a root-beery whiff of sassafras and a bit of nutmeg. The combination is fierce, peppery, and energizing. Somewhat jagged and abrupt, complex but not immediately smooth. This has been called a medicinal scent, and it is, but it's medicinal in a patent-medicine sort of way. Like something that tastes nice, but might kill you. On the skin the myrrh warms up and underscores the sassafras and poppy, filling in the jagged note. It's a nice incensey smell, and becomes quite creamy and rich. The odd fuzzy note of the sassafras is an excellent addition, and prevents this from being too terrifically feminine; it combines with the myrrh very nicely. There is a vaguely burnt smell to it, smoky and low. Like a root beer float at a soda fountain in a tobacconist's shop in back of a new-age bookstore. Cool! Dry, it's all sassafras and myrrh, with the nutmeg just flirting around the edges. This one never smelled particularly floral, that note is in there purely as accent. It's smoky and exotic, but that sassafras keeps yanking it right back around to someplace dark and comfortable, which is what gives the scent its appeal. It's always teetering on the edge of one or the other. Wearing down, the sassafras at last fades enough to be balanced by the myrrh and a final whiff of spices. Here again, it seems rather dark. This scent is masculine, I suppose, in that it's not really a sexy smell as much as a mysterious and incongruous one. This is a very distinctive odor, and on the right person could be absolutely devastating, since the scent is so singular and personal. There is something a little sidelong and sinister about this one . . . the smells are quite contradictory, yet one gets the feeling they're conspiring against you. The sassafras is the friendly face this oil wears, drawing you in. Then the myrrh numbs you and you slowly go under. I like this one a lot. It's quite strange and unexpected.

In the bottle, it's very, very traditionally masculine and smells almost piney. On the skin, the sharpness comes down just a little, and lets room for an extremely faint undercurrent of something smoother and cool to come out. I can't say what I'm smelling, as I don't smell patchouli or lavender or jasmine, just one smoothly-blended scent. The combination must be enough to alter them all. It's very clean. An hour later: still very masculine and traditionally cologne-y, without being offensive about it. I can finally smell the patchouli and the jasmine, just a little, but this is far from a womanly smell. It's a sexy smell, and I'd love to put it on a man. Sadly, while I'm occasionally tomboyish, on me this is ALL MAN, and I just can't wear it without feeling like I'm about to grow man parts. This didn't change much as it wore off. It just sort of faded politely into the background.

Still in the bottle, the sharp sweetness of the carnation and cassia mixes with the sandalwood for a light, sweet scent deepened with incense. It is rather traditionally perfume-y, yet sexy. On the skin, the sweetness dies back, and the warm undertones spring up, musk and cassia and sandalwood . . . some other spices. There's a hint of vanilla here, and the floral note is just that – a note. It isn't overwhelming in the slightest. It is, in fact, quite pleasant, and while not as blatantly sexual a scent as Scherezade, it is nevertheless quite inviting. Dry, it has a smoothly blended scent that is utterly distinctive, and very smooth. I suspect most of it is sandalwood and musk. Quite pleasant, and quite sexy. My husband liked this one a lot.

In the bottle, It does, indeed, smell strongly of spices and musk, with a lingering after-scent of . . . what is that? It's not a floral smell, but there's a warm aftertone to this one that comes across as a little rosy. On the skin, the musk warms up and the spices come out, underscored with a warm tone . . . not quite rose and not quite vanilla. Not intense, very subtle. It could even be incense of some kind . . . myrrh? Is that the saffron? Whatever it is, I like it. It's very, very sexy, and very warm. Redly female. An hour or so later, I want to hold me down and lick me. This stuff is pure sin, and not a breath of fruit or cloying sweetness. This scent does not linger much. I suppose slathering is not such a bad thing. This is definitely a scent you could rub anywhere. I can't wait to run it through my hair!

On opening the bottle, the lime and citron come parading out, with the musk and lilac lurking somewhere in the shadows. On the skin, the heavy citrus topnotes die back, and the soft, almost watery undercurrent of the musk/lilac surfaces, like a hint of menace. A deceptively calming scent, which I suppose is the point, if you want to murder your lover with a knife. After several hours, the scent evens out, a hint of the citrus topnotes reappear, and the musk and lilac have blended into one smooth scent that is both clean and feminine. On me, it's a bit powdery, but not overwhelmingly so. This may be a man's scent, but it would work well on women, too, once it's settled down. Rich, but not as complex as it first appeared. I wanted to like this one more than I do, but I do still like it.