Moryssa

*opens imp* Hmm... this reminds me of Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo, which gave me a headache... it's not as strong, though, so maybe it won't be as bad? *dabs on back of hand* Oh yeah, definitely ACJM... sharp and icky. *waits 20 minutes or so* What is that smell? Huh... apparently, it's me. It's still got a sharpness to it, that I'm 95% sure is Ylang-ylang... but there's something else there smells like "dirt". And that's a GOOD thing for me. I know it's weird, but "dirt"=clean-smelling to me. Maybe it's just because I got a good night's sleep last night, but I'm not as frustrated as I expected to be considering 2 of my 3 co-workers are out sick today, so I'm having to do their work as well as my own, my boss scheduled a meeting with me to discuss my attendance (which I know is more because of the fact that I was 2-3 minutes late every day last week than because of any actual "attendance" issues. *sigh*), my car is on its last legs (so to speak) and the brakes are making horrid noises, and my boyfriend's going to be gone for the next week. So overall... I get the hint of dirt, which is nice, but there's the sharpness of the ylang-ylang, which I just don't think I can get past. I don't get any jasmine in this whatsoever, and my skin amps the tiniest bit of jasmine into a single note.

Heh. I just put "Crawdad Dream". I figured they could figure that much out. I was also amused by the fact that the item code for Sturgeon Moon was "ONEFISHTWOFISH". I didn't have a problem with my order this time, but it was fairly small (4 bottles). It is going to cause a problem for the folks who order like 10 bottles at a time as well as imp packs, though. --M

Yep, that's how I do it. I wouldn't worry about it yet... I'm not sure what the process at the lab is, but they don't always process EVERY order from a given date before processing some orders for later dates. And it's always possible that the Clink-n-ship email somehow got lost. --M

This reminds me a lot of The Passionate Shepherd at first-- I'm sure it's the green grassiness. The overall mental image that I get, though, is of clover. As in, when I was young and used to sit in the clover patches in my yard, looking for 4-leaf clovers and making necklaces out of the flowers. Where the Shepherd was a bit overpowering for me, though, this is absolutely perfect. once it starts interacting with my skin, the grassiness fades off and it turns into a gorgeous light floral. No particular note stands out to me, although I'm really surprised to find out that there are no lilies in this one. It does turn a little soapy (which isn't a bad thing in my mind) and I think it's usually lily that I get that from. I amp jasmine like crazy (which is ok, since I love jasmine 90% of the time) and I don't even get a whiff of it in this blend, so I don't think you jasmine-haters need to worry. This is absolutely beautiful, and it's going to the top of my "Buy a bottle of this as soon as humanly possible" list. --M

I'm pretty sure this was a freebie, either from the lab or from a swap, 'cause I'd normally avoid anything that has Red Musk in it, especially when it's described as "screeching white musk" (sounds a little too Ozone-y to me) colliding with "a howl of red musk"... and then also has "sharp" grapefruit. I like white musk, but I hate sharp-smelling things, red musk usually equals Very Bad, and I hate grapefruit (the smell and the taste). So I NEVER would have ordered this. And that would have been a horrible, horrible loss. I randomly picked this one out of my "untested" imp case this morning. I didn't remember the notes off hand, and I usually try to test the scent before I look up the notes to see what I'm smelling. This one surprised me... it's definitely fruity, but it smells more like cherries to me, and there's something a little *smoother* to it... which I attribute to the red musk. I get no real citrus from it (yay!) and there's nothing really "sharp" about it either. It's just a smooth red fruity scent. I'm not sure if it's a definite bottle purchase or not, but it's definitely at least an "I wouldn't mind if more of this found it's way into my posession". --M

There are definitely at least 2 different types of jasmine in the BPAL blends... I don't know which is which, though, and I don't know how to tell them apart without testing. I absolutely LOVE New Orleans, which pretty much turns into a soft jasmine single note on me. I keep hearing that there's honeysuckle and other things in there, but you couldn't prove it by sniffing my wrist. There's also another type of jasmine that is sharper and pretty nasty (IMO, of course ) that I've discovered in quite a few of the voodoo blends (Love Me is the most notable one in my mind, although Come To Me also has it, just not quite as strongly). I want to say that The Presence of Love also had the icky jasmine in it, but it may have been the grapefruit in that one that turned me off. --M

I think I figured out what my problem was... My bank card expired in January. I have a replacement, but the exp date is different. After all of the kerfluffle last week, I added the new card as a back-up funding source, and then when I placed a lab order today, it looks like it took the $2 from my PayPal balance and then withdrew the rest from my checking account. Still not sure exactly *why* it resulted in such strangeness, but it looks to have been corrected now. --M

And again today... I sent a payment to someone for a decant circle. I have $2 in my PayPal account, but instead of using that, it did an eCheck for the full amount from my checking account. Is there some setting that I need to look at in my account? I'm really confused now. --M

Huh. That's weird. 'Cause it's done it at least 3-4 times for me. It's never split it accross funding sources for me. I have my account set up with my bank account as the primary and the Credit Card (which is actually a debit card and attached to the same account ) as the secondary funding. --M

I believe that PayPal will only use your PayPal balance if it covers the ENTIRE amount of the order. It won't split it so that it will use your PayPal balance and then just take the rest out of your bank account. That was my interpretation of why they chose last Lunacy to take $60 out of my bank account instead of using the $56 that was in my PayPal account and just withdraw $4. I believe I did find something somewhere EVENTUALLY about it in their documentation, but it's definitely not clear. --M

I finally remembered to bring in my notepad, so here are a few quick notes that I took when testing... Screeching Parrot - SOUR Grapefruit. OMG!Grapefruit. Not much other than grapefruit on my skin. Rangoon Riptide - Initially, this smells like juicy fruit chewing gum to me. Very subtle in its fruitiness, even though it's got several in there. They all blend together rather than any one fruit standing out. Te Po = Kind of Pine Sol-y, which is odd, based on the notes. I swear, though, I get pine cleaner from it... not overpoweringly strong, and not *bad*, but that's the impression I get from it. I have a feeling it was the combination of almond, black cherry, and vodka. Upa Upa = Coconut & Pineapple. :9 After it dried, the alcohol note gives it a little bit of an underlying bitterness, but initially, it's all coconut & pineapple. Golden Wave = Cantelope? It's some sort of melon-y smell, and it's not watermelon. Blue Fire = Blueberry gin. Heavy on the blueberry, but the gin ruins it completely for me. Opuhi = Love's Philosophy Lite Moana - Pink Grapefruit. Not as sour as Parrot, but it's still grapefruit (which isn't a good thing to my nose). I do remember that it dried down to a nicer scent, but there was still a strange grapefruit-y scent to it. Moai = smokey. Reminds me of Death of Autumn in its smokiness, except it's much more acrid. Boo Bam, Marae, and Tupapau I don't have any specific notes about... but I do remember that Tupapau was the one I kept re-testing as a potential bottle purchase, and Marae was close behind it. --M

If I liked the smell of gin, this would have been perfect. It smells like blueberry gin. Unfortunately, the smell of gin makes me utterly nauseous (Twenty-One is possibly the nastiest thing I have ever smelled-- no offense to the labbies, of course, it's just the way my nose works) so once it starts to push its way through the blueberries, it's time for me to go scrub my wrist. --M

This has the same bottled smokiness in it that I get from Death of Autumn. It's definitely acrid and ashy. It wasn't something that screamed "Get me off of here NOW", but the more I sniffed at it, the more I decided I just didn't care for it. I didn't get much greenery from it at all, although there was *something* that kept trying to peek through from underneath the smoke... that something had more of a perfume-y/cologne-y smell to it, though. While it did mellow out more as it dried, it still wasn't something that I need a bottle of at all. --M

I sent a text message to a friend after my first try of this one, and all it said was "Opuhi = Love's Philosophy Lite". Love's Philosophy is one of the few vanilla blends that I can handle, and Opuhi is very similar to it, except not quite as vanilla-y. --M

You are referring to the actual containers that hold the oil, yes? They're not plastic-- they're glass. However, here is a list of perfume paraphernalia suppliers... and here is a discussion topic about all things bottles/containers/supplies. I think that most people either get the 1/32 oz vials from Sunburst Bottle Company or from Pilot Vials, but I'm not sure. (both companies are in the list of suppliers linked above). I just placed an order with PV myself at the end of last week, so I'm still waiting for it to arrive. --M

When I first started looking at BPAL, vanilla was one of the things that I just *knew* I was going to like. Then I discovered that while I love vanilla in candles and oil burners, I really don't like it in perfume. Very few of the vanilla-y scents have been mild enough that they aren't making me nauseous. Love's Philosophy was one that I tossed in at the last minute on my decant order. Everyone was swooning at the very idea of it, so I figured "What the heck. I'll try it, see what the big deal is, and if I don't like it, I'm sure I can swap it." I got my decants, and I've decided: YOU CAN'T HAVE IT! IT'S MINE! MINE!MINE!MINE!!! *ahem* I definitely get the slightly-minty note that others mentioned. It's not really *mint*, though, so much as it's the *impression* of mint. I can't really pick out the individual notes at all, and it doesn't really smell like vanilla, per se... to me, the overwhelming impression is of yellow cake batter. :9 I'm not a foody person at all. I don't really want to smell like I'd dumped a glass of Irish cream on myself (Misk U) or like a Fruitcake. However, I want to start licking my own arm when I'm wearing Love's Philosophy. --M

I'm beginning to think I'm the only person in the world who loves jasmine. I don't specifically associate scents with colors, but I've noticed that I tend to pick out certain types of scents based on the colors or fabrics that I'm wearing on any given day. Since I was wearing browns today, I was in the mood for something evocative of "earth" and "dirt". It's been a while since I tried Crossroads, but in my mind, it was primarily dirt, with some herbs and maybe some light florals, so I grabbed it as I was running out the door. In the bottle, it smells earthy, but not as much as I expected. I think I was expecting something more like Zombi or Yggdrasill (which I probably misspelled). So while I do smell the earth, it's softened-- probably by the florals. Once I put it on, I kept getting a whiff of something that reminded me of Dragon's Blood. Since there aren't any notes listed in the lab's description, I just accepted that and kept going. Half an hour later, I sniffed my wrist and said "Hey... this smells like New Orleans!" Since New Orleans is pretty much a single note of Jasmine on my skin, I'm ok with this. It's been about 2 hours or so now, and I still smell jasmine, but it's muted somewhat. It's definitely not as strong as New Orleans, and it does have an undercurrent of something "earthy". I really do love this. It's been on my list of "Wouldn't mind a bottle of this" from the beginning, and I'm thinking it might need to move up into "I WANT a bottle of this." --M

bookishbunny: Try this thread. --M

This one is so *hard* to describe. Fireweaver was with me when I opened up the package, and I had 2 imps of Black Opal (one I'd ordered, the other was a frimp)... I immediately pulled it out and tried it on because it had been recommended to me so much. I sniffed, paused, sniffed again, and went "Huh." Fireweaver asked what it was like, and I'm like "Umm... odd..." So she grabbed my wrist and sniffed a couple of times, then said "You're right... odd." It's got a creamy vanilla aspect to it, but it's definitely NOT a foody scent. It smells like lightly-vanilla-coated rocks. And that just confuses the hell outta me. --M

Since I've had 2 separate imps of Zombi that have mysteriously not made it to me with anything *in* them, I can't compare it with Deep In Earth in how they both actually react to my skin... Deep In Earth is very similar to how Zombi smells in the bottle, though. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about this one. I love mossy/herby scents, and this definitely falls in that category. It's a little sharper than I expected, but that also gives it kind of a "clean" smell. It's got a stronger throw than most all of the other oils of the type that I've tried. I put it on about 6 hours ago, and it's *still* strong enough that I get a whiff almost everytime I move my arm. it's mellowed out and it's as complex, but it's still very similar to how it smelled when I first put it on, too, so it doesn't seem to have morphed all that much. I like... but I'm not entirely sure I need a bottle of it. I think I'll have to test again in a couple of weeks. --M

I tried Jester yesterday and I kept having to remind myself that it wasn't Midwinter's Eve that I'd put on. I haven't tried them side-by-side, but they seem VERY similar to my nose. --M

I did a search for scents that had cinnamon, since you mentioned cinnamon rolls... the only two that sounded even remotely close would be Eclipse (which everyone said in reviews smelled more like almonds than anything else) and Gingerbread Poppet (gingerbread). The only other ones that *might* be somewhat close, based on notes and some of the reviews, would be Eat Me (angelfood cake) or Dana O'Shee. *shrug* Since I haven't tried any of the 4, I really can't say one way or the other, though. --M

This is... strange. I've been wary of this one since I've discovered that pretty much anything with "snow", "ice", or "frost" makes me utterly nauseous and is a migraine trigger. (Sidenote: WalMart has a liquid potpourri named "Frost". I was a bit surprised to discover that it has the EXACT SAME effect on me. At least now I know that it's more universal, and not just the BPAL. ) So I tentatively opened the imp for this one (decant from a circle. Yay! ) and took a quick sniff. "Hmm... coconut? Wait... there's no snow in this!" After putting it on, I still find it hard to describe... it's not quite vanilla and not quite coconut and not quite almond, but it's like a faint congolmeration fo the three. Someone else mentioned a frozen pina colada, and I can almost agree with that... except it's more like a Pina Colada Shaved Ice, with extra vanilla cream. Unfortunately, it seems to be fading very quickly for me. --M

I'm scratching my head over all the posts that say "This is pure rose"... 'cause I don't smell a rose at all. I think my nose is broken. I'm guessing it's the Rosewood that I'm smelling, but I'm not positive, since I don't know what that's supposed to smell like. All I know is that I put on this oil, and the only thing I can think of is my grandmother. It doesn't smell like my Maw-maw, but rather, it reminds me of her house. It's the house that I spent my summers in from kindergarten through 4th grade or so... There was a room to the left as you walked in the front door that always had the doors to it closed. It wasn't locked, and they didn't care if I went in there, but the doors were always closed. There was a tall four-poster bed (at least 2.5-3 feet off the floor) against one wall, a mirrored armoire against another, and on the wall between the 2 doors into the room, there was an old chest. I suppose it was sort of a hope chest, because I remember Maw-Maw pulling special things out of it, like silver dollars and old pictures... but I remember blankets and bedclothes being kept in there as well. I have no idea if the furniture in that room, and the hope chest specifically, was made of rosewood. I haven't seen it in... 25 years? But I can picture that room in my mind, now. And I miss my Maw-maw. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, since I'm sitting here at work crying) it fades completely away within 45 minutes to an hour of me putting it on. --M

Hurricane is one of the ones I mentioned in my first post that gave me a headache and made me nauseous. I tried Jolly Roger yesterday. I can definitely smell the leather in it (I told you-- my skin finds the slightest hint of a leather note and goes "OOOOooo!!! LEATHER!!!!" ) but it's a saltwater-soaked leather. So even though it had the leather hint to it, it actually wasn't that bad. I'd still like one that didn't have the leather, but this will do in a pinch. --M