llachlome

Received this as a frimp in my last order. It smells like burning. Not like burnt woods, not like burnt grasses, not like any specific thing being burnt, just… the quality of burning itself. It's an interesting scent, and fits its description and purpose very well. It's a little too harsh for me to wear it on it's own, but I think it could be great layered with something sweeter. Perhaps I could even use it to make O wearable.

I thought I was going to love this, since I love vanilla and I love amber, and it had so many glowing reviews. Unfortunately, O is pure, over-powering honey on me, from the first sniff in the imp to... well, not drydown, actually. I couldn't make it through the drying process; I tried to hold out, but both times I tried O, I had to scrub it off after five minutes. And it still didn't go away. I washed it with soap and near-steaming water, and while it cut down on O's admittedly impressive throw, I could still smell it whenever I put my hand near my wrist for a good ten hours or so. I didn't get any amber, and any vanilla there might have been only went into making the honey sweeter. I'm going to look on the bright side and consider this a valuable learning experience; at least now I know that my skin amps honey, and that I should avoid it in the future.

This started out as a bright, sparkling fresh apricot scent, with the other notes adding themselves one by one. Early on in the drydown, the white musk asserts itself, smoothing out the apricot and making it a warmer and mellower scent, with all of the glitter gone. It's still lovely, but I preferred the intitial smell. A little later on, the orange blossom comes through. Orange blossom has a tendency to smell like disinfectant on me, and Katharina is no exception. Pity. It doesn't quite work on me, but for those who can wear orange blossom and like softer fruity scents, it should be worth a trial imp at the very least.

A nocturnal bounty of fae dew-kissed petals and pale fruits: white grape, white peach, iced pear, musk rose, sweet pea, moonflower and snapdragon. In the imp:Pure, fruity goodness. Rich and deep without being heavy. Wet: It's still pure, fruity goodness. It really does smell like a blue summer night. Dry: Sometimes little whiffs of two kinds of flowers come through the fruit. One is sweet and almost honeysuckle-like (I want to say it's sweet pea, but I've never smelled sweet pea on it's own), while the other is a little crisper, adding a touch of moonlight to the night. It's still predominantly fruity, though, and it's truly gorgeous. It makes me feel both a bright and a calm kind of happiness at the same time. And it's got great staying power. A week later: Cantaloupe. Cantaloupe in the vial, cantaloupe when first applied, cantaloupe in the drydown, with the beautiful fruity smell I loved hovering faintly in the background. ::cries:: I thought Titania was going to be my Great BPAL Love, and then... cantaloupe. Drat.

MMMMMSOGOOD. In the vial, it was a bright, almost metallic peach, but my first thoughts when I put it on were, "golden desert candy". There's nothing dry about it at all, so I suppose it's just color association: rich golden sunlight on paler golden sand. It smells warm and smooth and truly like the sum of its ingredients; the vanilla bean and peach and amber rise up sometimes, but mostly it's just, well, yummy golden desert candy, the operative word being 'yum'. (It's not candyish in a bad or childish way, it's just… yummy.) I used to get a more peachy overtone blended in with the vanilla, but now it's mostly just that golden not-any-one-thing-smell. Which is a pity, since I'm craving a good peach scent and neither Fae nor Imp worked on me, but it's still a beautiful smell anyway. As it ages, it turns into a slightly more ambery golden-brown, but the vanillic yum still hangs around. It's my favorite BPAL scent so far, and best of all, I can wear it at any time of the month: it turns into a glorious spiced amber when my hormones change. As far as throw goes, it's not an über-faint blend, but it doesn't have the sort of invasive throw that some of the others have. I can smell it in a cozy little bubble all around me, but rooms aren't going to smell like it when I leave them, and other people aren't going to have to smell it if they don't want to. (Unless someone puts their head on my shoulder, at which point, they sort of lose the right to complain about my perfume.) In conclusion: yum, and absolutely bottle-worthy.