edenssixthday

The Brides of Dracula - This is a nice, unassuming woody-floral. It’s very gentle, feminine and softly fragrant. I don’t smell the honey in this blend at all, nor the plum blossom. The calla lily and skin musk are the dominant notes, and it’s only just the tiniest hint spicy, but not a sharp, biting spice, more of a mild spice. It’s very pretty, but incredibly light on my skin. Even “slathering” it doesn’t increase the level of throw. It’s ultra-subtle and soft. It’s pretty, but too soft for my taste. After 30 minutes, I can’t smell it at all.

Almond milk, sarsaparilla, tobacco smoke, black patchouli and white pine bark. The Organ Grinder - I wanted so badly to like this one because I was so excited about the almond milk and sarsaparilla combination. Sadly, the strongest notes on me are the black patchouli and the white pine bark, two notes that just don’t work for me at all. I can smell the sweet, rooty sarsasparilla behind the top notes, and I love it and hope Beth makes more blends someday using this note, but with the patchouli and pine bark, this scent is just way too heavy, dry and masculine to suit my taste.

Melisande, the Puppet Mistress - I love all of those notes in this except for jasmine, and unfortunately, the jasmine is the top note. It’s not as horrific as jasmine can often be because it is tempered significantly by the creamy vanilla bean scent and the sweetness of the violet blends gorgeously with the jasmine, which I would have never guessed. Still, it’s predominantly jasmine and therefore, really needs to go to a new home.

Sol Invictus - My first reaction to this scent is that it is very much in the same category of scents as The Haunted Palace and Tamora. In fact, when I looked at all three of their scent descriptions, it made sense why I had a moment of insanity and thought maybe I could give up all of my BPAL and just hang on to these three. They share a lot of notes and similar notes in common, leading me to a greater awareness of what notes I like and what notes I like in combination with one another. Sol Invictus is the perfect melding of all the notes in it. I swear every one of these single notes was made with the purpose in mind of joining together to become Sol Invictus someday. This is the perfect scent. It is warm and golden and sweet and slightly powdery and absolutely perfect in every way. I really just can’t get enough of this blend. I wish it had a stronger level of throw and greater wear length, but it’s so gorgeous that I don’t mind slathering and reapplying to get the full effect of the scent. Superb!

Stardust - I had an unpleasant reaction to Stardust 2006, and since I loved Stardust 2005, I figured I’d better try them side-by-side so I could compare. First off, Stardust 2006 is a dark oil with a strong green tinge. Stardust 2005 is much more golden. Stardust 2005 is much stronger on the tobacco and Stardust 2006 is much stronger on the uh… well, the more negative aspects of a big night of parties, meaning, I distinctly smell … dare I say it? Um… I smell… vomit. That’s what I recoiled from the first time I tried the 2006 version. On my skin, something in this blend turns to vomit. Just slightly – like someone vomited and the cleaned it up, but you can still catch whiffs of it. Ick. I adore my Stardust 2005, but have a strong need to get all the Stardust 2006 out of my life. Sadly, my decant group didn’t fill up for this scent, so I’m stuck with quite a full load of Stardust 2006. Maybe it’ll age nicely and smell better in a year.

Yemaya - I normally dislike grape scents, but the grape works amazingly well with the melon in this blend. It’s very similar to the TAL Yemaya, but the honeydew scent seems stronger and there's a stronger aquatic aspect to this blend. The sea mosses definitely lend a deep, murky, aquatic note that is just gorgeous. The first time I tried this, I had also just applied melon-flavored lipgloss by coincidence, and I was surrounded in the scent of melons, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I love this scent. It’s not good for a cold, heavy, winter day, but it’s going to be perfect next summer, when the sun is shining and the air is hot and I want a refreshing perfume scent wafting around me. This scent is very, very strong (a teeny tiny bit on my wrist and my whole body is swathed in honeydew scent for hours) and has incredibly long staying power.

Pumpkin Queen - I don’t normally like pumpkin scents, and there are few I can hang with, but this one knocks my socks off. I mean, it’s GORGEOUS. I’m really surprised at how un-buttery the pumpkin is. I’m also surprised at how creamy this scent is, considering how many spicy and bright notes are in this blend. (When I wore it around my mom, she thought I was wearing a vanilla perfume!) The spices in this blend are definitely there, giving the pumpkin amazing body and kick, but it’s not overpowering. Every note blends so incredibly well together, and I really just can’t get enough of this. I loved it enough to buy a bottle, which for me, is saying a lot, considering my usual aversion to pumpkin. The sillage is very strong, although the staying power isn’t so great on my skin and has to be reapplied every couple of hours.

Samhain 2006 - Sharp, earthy, heavy, sweet, and slightly spicy. It's not as suffocatingly heavy as the 2005 version, but it’s still too heavy for me. The apple in the 2006 version is much stronger than it's been in previous years, and the pumpkin doesn't become the least bit buttery, which is nice. Still, I just can't hang with the black patchouli (it smells like tar on me), and while I don't have to wash it off, as I did with the 2005 version, I can't imagine ever having a desire to wear this blend.

Panacea Elixir IX: TKO - Ooh, this is a really great scent! I was fully expecting a lavender or chamomile blend due to the purpose of this oil, but it’s not! It does open up with a hint of soft lavender, but its subtle and sweetened with a load of sugared vanilla. There is the sharp and astringent touch of eucalyptus or something similar, but that fades away completely as the blend dries on my skin. Upon full drydown, I can't smell the lavender, either. All I smell is ultra-sweet vanilla bean – it's the same vanilla bean note used in Snake Oil, but the blend is completely different from Snake Oil. The vanilla bean is buried in heaping mounds of sugar and somewhat reminds me of the scent of my Burt's Bees marshmallow cream. It's almost too sweet for my taste, and yet I can't seem to stop using it! While I haven't had much luck with it helping to konk me out at night, it smells so good that at least I'm happy to know how dang good I smell while I'm relax and try to fall asleep.

Harvest Moon 2006 - I am amazed at the number and variety of notes in this blend. On my skin, most of the notes don’t appear at all. It's predominantly apple, bamboo, and dust on my skin. There's the slightest hint of juicy, warm fruits, but it seems like just a drop was added to the bottle. Overall, it's a very earthy and autumnal blend, and due to its "dusty" nature, isn't a scent I find myself drawn to, although I am thrilled that the apple isn’t turning rancid on me as apple usually does. The throw is light and as with most lunar blends, it doesn’t last long on my skin.

Taurus - This is such a perfect Taurus scent! It's so earthy and grounded, practical and resolute. The scent is predominantly sandalwood with a hint of oakmoss and the slightest touch of rose. It's a very classic-smelling blend and while it's not going to win any awards for originality and creativity, it's one of those blends that would be a reliably perfect scent for all places and situations. It’s really fantastic and if Beth ever did a special limited edition run of the astrological blends (hint, hint!), I'd buy a bottle of this one. I would probably buy two, actually, and give one to my husband, who is Taurean to the bone and as long as the rose would stay subdued, he would smell wonderful wearing this blend. The throw is light and the staying power is about average.

Trick #2 - This is an extra-special review for me because it's my 1000th BPAL review!!! This is an incredibly thick and heavy scent. The pepper and patchouli are the dominant notes, but even though I can't distinguish the berries and vanilla as distinctly individual notes, it's obvious they work together to sweeten up the thickness and depth caused by the darker notes like the pine pitch. It's difficult to describe this scent. All I know is that it's very heavy, deep, robust, thick, yet slightly sweet and slightly spicy and very sexy. It’s like nothing I’ve ever smelled before, and while it’s not one I'd wear for every day use, I'm glad I got a bottle of it so I can wear it on occasion. Both the sillage and the staying power are strong and impeccable.

Cupid Complaining to Venus - I didn’t have much hope for this scent, as most of the notes don’t generally work on me, no matter what other notes accompany them. However, this seems to be an exception to the rule. The apple blossom doesn't become overpowering on me, the honey smells sweet and not remotely dominating (although it is the strongest note), the red sandalwood is barely discernible, the thyme stays far in the background, and the fig and peach blend gorgeously with the honey and apple. This is a very sweet, fruity scent, but it's not juicy like many fruit blends. In fact, it's almost more like a fruit-and-honey-cream type scent. It's soft and gentle, yet fresh, sweet, and positively delightful. This blend has a moderate level of throw and staying power. I don't think it's really going to suit my winter scent tastes, but I could easily see wanting to wear this in late-spring and summer months.

Okay, how fun is it to have a perfume with the word "chickens" in it? I love it! Sadly, I don’t care for the fragrance. It's green, green, green. It's the green of freshly-trampled grass covered with morning dew. It's the green of newly-plucked she-loves-me-not daisy flowers. It's the green of the still-bleeding stalks of any number of just-clipped garden flowers and herbs. The scent is so pungent that it’s dizzying. It’s incredibly pungent, but yes, it smells like a garden that's growing with shameless abandon from the nourishment of the warm sun. As lovely as the images are that this scent evokes, it's altogether way too green for me, and the grass note is one that I'm allergic to and it's got to be washed off before I get so dizzy that I fall off my seat.

When first sniffing this in the vial, I was positive I was going to like it. It smells like warm sweet wine and incense. When I applied the scent, I was initially not so sure about it anymore, as the bourbon geranium was fairly strong, but almost instantly, it moved into the background and the lemon peel, saffron, myrrh, incense, tangerine and wine became the strongest notes. It’s amazing that I can identify each of these as “the strongest” of the notes, since there are so many, but they honestly blend in such amazing unison, none of them overpowering the others. I’m blown away at how the lemon peel actually adds to this blend, rather than ruining it, as lemon notes normally will. I’m also surprised at how gorgeous the lemon peel and myrrh smell next to each other. I would have never guessed that combination could be so winsome. The saffron lends a really fascinating, sweet-spice mildness to the blend that seems to keep the tangerine from being overblown in its citrus brightness. I really can’t get over what a phenomenal fragrance this is. It smells like something LUSH would have come up with for a soap and bath ballistic scent. This is a beautiful and really unique scent. It’s warm, smoky and spicy enough that I think it would be a perfect winter scent, yet it’s bright, fresh, and fruity enough that I think it would be a fantastic summer scent, as well. I wish the throw were a bit stronger, but otherwise, it’s really terrific.

Les Anges Déchus - Well, I don’t know what half (or more!) of the notes in this blend smell like, but I can tell you that this blend is masculine, earthy, and very warm. The moss and leather (fortunately, notes I recognize!) are the dominant notes in this blend, and the overall feel of this is sexy, yet down-to-earth, warm and cozy. It reminds me of the scent of your sweater at the end of a slow, meandering walk in the Northern Woods of the Boundary Waters wilderness, when the distinct scent of the woods and the water sticks to your clothing, and makes you feel alive and in sync with nature. This is really a beautiful scent, but not one I would wear myself; rather, it’s one I would prefer to smell on my husband. The throw and staying power are both moderate.

The moment I opened this blend, it scared the bejeebus out of me. It’s dark and heavy, thick and smoky, husky and gritty. I can wear every note in this blend sometimes and not other times – it all just depends on what other notes they’re blended with. In this case, the black musk, vetiver, and patchouli blend together to create a scent that is so heavy as to be suffocating, and it even causes my lungs to constrict a touch. Even though this scent becomes a touch more palatable as it warms up on my skin and the vetiver moves into the forefront, supported by a soft bit of sweet spiciness, it's still too pungent for me. At best, when I smell this, I think of what it must taste like to lick the bottom of an ashtray, and at worst -- when I let my imagination really run wild -- I’m certain this is the odor of charred human flesh rotting in the depths of Hades. The throw is very, very strong, as is the wear length.

The Cup of Death - I love almost all of the notes in this blend, with the exception of bois du rose and lavender, which is hit or miss on me (miss, more often than not). It opens up with a strong, herbal blast of lavender, punctuated with the slightly sweet woodiness of peach tree leaf. Behind that is the similarly earthy scent of rosewood, which is one of the few scents that causes me to recoil. Fortunately, the rosewood is subtle, and just as I’m beginning to realize that I can actually handle the rosewood in this scent, I also notice the sharpness of the lavender beginning to calm down and likewise become less aromatic. It’s at this stage that the bright green scent of the myrtle begins to slither into the forefront of the blend, and I notice the scent has changed almost completely from how it smelled when I first applied it. The scent becomes more green, herbal, and slightly bitter the longer I wear it, and the less and less does it smell like sweet peach blossoms. I never do smell the sandalwood in this blend, although I’m sure it is helping to boost the earthy, and slightly woody notes that seem to be the only unchanging aspect of this blend. It morphs dramatically on me from beginning to end. It’s a truly fascinating scent, but quite astringent and herbal on me and while it’s a scent I could see myself using for aromatherapy purposes, I couldn’t quite pull this off as a personal perfume fragrance.

The High Priest Not To Be Described - Mmmm… this is a sexy scent! It's masculine in the same vein as Spanked and Count Dracula. The musk and incense are the dominant notes initially, but as it warms up on my skin, the pimento and pepper give the blend a scratchy spiciness. About 20 minutes after I apply the oil, I start to detect the leather in this blend, which is working so amazingly well with the spicy notes. The mild chamomile is the perfect finishing touch to this blend, keeping it from being melodramatic and over-the-top. This is a wonderful blend and if I didn't have plenty of Spanked and Count Dracula in my possession, I would definitely be relying on this as my manly-spicy-leather scent; however, since I have those (Count Dracula, in particular), I don't really have much need for this one. The throw is light, but the staying power is long.

This isn’t really my type of blend. I'm not normally a fan of honey, tea or sugary scents, and as much as I like hibiscus tea, I don’t care for hibiscus notes for personal fragrance. The osmanthus is most definitely the strongest note – very green, pungent, and almost herbal (but not quite). The honey keeps the green note from being overly-aromatic, and is actually a nice, mild note. The rest just smells like sweetened iced tea to me, and makes me think of summertime. While I would love to walk through a garden that smells like this, it’s not appealing to me at all as a perfume; however, I have a feeling that people who tend to be drawn toward the Asian-inspired scents, especially those that are fresh, light, and tea-based, would really enjoy this. It is lovely, it’s just not for me.

The Arrival at the Sabbath and Homage to the Devil - This smells so delectable in the vial, like some sort of decadent booze-drenched dessert developed in the South. However, once it hits my skin, the benzoin and caramel amp up on my skin, and become sickeningly sweet (as those two notes usually do on me). There is a very strong current of sweet booziness running through this blend, and as the blend dries down, I detect the softest touch of a floral note, but can’t identify it for the life of me because it’s just so faint. I never do smell the woody notes in this blend. This is the strongest scent of all the Salons I’ve tried so far, which tend to be exceptionally subtle on my skin. There’s nothing subtle about this one. I tend to not like sweet, gourmand blends, but if you like smelling like hard sauce or sweet whiskey sauce, then this is most definitely the blend for you.

The Music of Erich Zahn - I was really excited to try this one because it has tamarind in it, and I love tamarind, but don’t think I’ve ever smelled it in a perfume. When I apply it, the very first note I detect is the ajowan – very pungent and herbal, blended with the opoponax, a heavy and bitter scent. Almost immediately, I note the vetiver, but rather than being dark and gritty as it usually is, it is sweetened by something warm and almost honey-like, although not as uber-sweet as honey. Looking at the ingredient list, I think that may be the tamarind, because I can’t figure out what else it would be – perhaps the tamarind and black musk working together to warm and soften the vetiver. As this blend warms up on my skin, the soft, sweet scent of mimosa blossoms lifts the scent, giving it an almost creamy and feminine quality that it didn’t have before. The vetiver and tamarind remain the most dominant notes in this blend with the opoponax, mimosa and black musk as supporting notes. After the initial opening blast of the thyme-like ajowan scent, it completely disappears. I think this would be a great scent for vetiver lovers. It’s gorgeous, very unique, and distinct. It’s not what I’d call a pretty scent – it’s more raw and earthy, yet it has a feminine sexiness about it that I just adore. The sillage is moderate, but the staying power is very, very strong.

Trick #1 - This is predominantly a musk, leather, patchouli and ginger scent on me. The notes all blend so well together, but it’s the thread of vanilla running through it that really seems to “finish” this scent, making it dark and sexy, yet sweet and alluring. The scent doesn’t morph from application to the point when it fades. The throw is slightly above average and the staying power is quite long, as I would expect from the “dark” notes in this blend, which always seem to love my skin.

Quincey Morris - Oooh, this is a wonderful blend! When I sniff it in the bottle, it smells exactly like the leather in Dead Man’s Hand, but the moment it touches my skin, it softens and gets a little sweeter and sexier. While Dead Man’s Hand smells like a tack room, Quincey Morris smells like the most sexy and romantic cowboy you’ve ever met. Gah -- this blend is a cowboy romance film in a bottle! The notes are so exquisitely blended that I cannot distinguish any of the notes other than the leather, yet I can tell they are there – with the exception of the cedar, which I don’t smell at all (and which thrills me since cedar tends to ruin things for me). I don’t see myself wearing this often, but I think I will save it and wear it when I go see my mom’s horses show, or other times when I’m in a cowboy kind of mood. Even more importantly, I’m going to save my bottle of this in the hopes that my husband will wear it. He’s the furthest thing from a cowboy, but cowboy or not, this is a very sexy man-scent.

Devil's Night 2006 - Devil's Night '06 doesn't appeal to me nearly as much as the 2005 version. To me, it's sweeter and boozier, and I can't smell the autumn leaves and smoke in it nearly as strongly as I can in the '05 version. The '05 version is the perfect combination of earthy notes and foody notes and I was positively blown away by it when I first tried it. the '06 version just isn't doing that for me. It's still nice, but doesn't seem to have the depth and earthiness that '05 had. I'll gladly hang on to my '05, but not the '06.