miamaslegi

This is just lovely! What I get is a soft, gentle vetiver (which I love), a rich, smokey, incensy copal, and a drop of honey to sweeten things up. I never got the chocolate at all, surprisingly enough, or the corn and cotton blossom which I am thinking my nose lumped together with the honey as general sweetness. This is very, very nice - a smooth, dark, sweet blend that's definitely going on my wishlist!

171: IAN Only Lovers Left Alive "Y’know, for a zombie, you’re alright. A flicker of hero worship, tempered by naivety and an innately kind nature: shaggy leather, sweet rum absolute, and patchouli." In bottle: Sweet, sweet rum with a hint of leather. No patch in sight. Wet: Starts out with a shot of sweet, buttery rum (which I like a LOT). A soft, worn, brown leather is hiding just underneath with only the faintest breath of a gentle, non-dirty patchouli. Dry Down: The sweetness of the rum is backing off a bit with the leather coming more to the forefront. The patch is coming out, too. It's more herbal - almost medicinal - to my nose that a real down-and-dirty funky patch. Dry: The rum has burned off completely and the patch has gone into hiding. This is now pure leather on me. I like leather, but I also like rum and I wish it would've stuck around a bit to sweeten things up. Final Thoughts: I will test this again when it's not shark week (and I'm not 40% sick) and I will also try this on the man-thing. At the moment, this is straight-up leather. While that's not a bad thing at all, it's not an amazingly extra-spectacular thing, either. I'll definitely hang on to my bottle, though. 3.5/5

Well, it's not a BPAL-specific app, but I really like the Android app Memento. I think it's geared toward keeping track of collections and household inventory. I have it on my phone and I've got about a third of my bottles in it so far. I don't know the first thing about databases, but I've managed to wangle it around so that I have the info pertinent to me (name, collection, when I got it, the notes it contains, if I've tested it, if I think my manthing would let me put it on him, short testing notes, etc., etc.). I like that I can sort the lists any way I like and I can search for anything in the records - all Weenies, all scents including vetiver, all scents I rated with 3 stars, all scents I haven't tested, etc. You can apparently sync your databases with google docs, but I don't know anything about all that. It's really a great little app overall and I'm glad I found it! I thought I posted about it here, but I guess it was in another thread.

I may be crazy or my nose may be broken, but this reminds me a bit of Antique Lace! Not exact, of course, and not even super close, but kinda similar to my nose. I get the same sort of cozy, soft, sweet, creamy white feel from each. This is much softer, non-floral, and sticks quite close to my skin where AL is stronger and has all kinds of crazy throw on me. I can't pick out any specific notes in this, though. This is a beautiful, soft, sweet scent that's going to be perfect for those days when I just want to slow down, take a break, and stay snuggled up with a good book, a cup of tea, and my kitties - very comforting, like a squishy, fluffy hug. I'm so glad I went straight for a bottle of this and will probably get at least a couple more before the Yules come down!

I've noticed some interesting variations in my bottles of Samhain. My first bottle is from the start of the run last year and it smells . . . well, like Samhain - it's what all my other bottles are judged against simply because it is what IS Samhain to me. Fir-y and patchoul-y - earthy and cool and foresty and damp but very, very sweet, also. Almost like honey but not as warm and rich. I guess it's the combo of pumpkin and apple, but I can't specifically pick either one (or the spices) out. My second bottle, bought near the end of the run last year, smells less sweet and it has, for lack of better words, a twang to it. It's almost vinegary, but not unpleasant - just different. My only bottle from 2006 is Samhain + butter. I really like buttery scents, so that's A-OK with me. My only bottle from 2007 is Samhain + a sort of staticky, fuzzy, tingly (but not ozone-y) electrical smell. It makes me think of sniffing a bottle of Samhain while touching a Van de Graaff generator. The rest of my bottles (2004, 2009, and this year) all smell pretty much like Samhain "should" smell.

I'm a vetiver lover and a violet lover, so I could not pass this one up (and I had no idea that it apparently has a "bad reputation" ). I tested it out for the first time about this time last year - around Thanksgiving, I think it was. In the imp, I get mostly violet with just a whiff of vetiver deepening things up and tempering the violet's sweetness. On my skin, the vetiver steps up and is more evenly balanced with the violet, giving me an impression of dark, velvety purple and deep green-black swirled together. The smoky, woody greenness of the vetiver wonderfully grounds the violet, keeping it earthy rather than letting the violet wander off into powdery pastille territory. I knew from one test that I had to have a full bottle! This beauty is one of my very favorite GCs.

Something's going wonky with things when I try to quote your post, Wwindy, but - I only have tried Gnome once, maybe 9-10 months ago. It was the fizzy ginger sort and I really liked it a lot, so this is kind of depressing to hear.

I asked my roomie what he thought this smelled like on me. He scrunched his face up and considered it for a bit. "Flowery cramsicles," he said. And you know, it does smell like flowery creamsicles! The sandal (which reads as creamy to me, especially white sandalwood) and bergamot combine to give the impression of a creamsicle while ambergris, which I love, registers as gorgeously flowery but not floral, if that makes the slightest bit of sense. I never did get the white musk and I'm glad as it is usually too sharp for my tastes. Before my first sniff, I thought I'd really dislike this, but it's been the sleeper hit for me!

It seems like lots of the amber from the Lab is pure baby powder for me. This is no exception. I want a rich, plush, golden scent and I get dusty, sneezy powder. Amber, why u no love me??

Oddly, this is almost a Cinnamon SN on my skin! It's not a sharp, burny cinnamon or a candied Red Hots cinnamon, but a deep, smoky cinnamon. I get no lemon, no pumpkin, no marzipan, no buttercream, hardly any sweetness at all (and I tend to turn everything sweet!). Just a rich, dark, smoky cinnamon. I like it a lot, but it's definitely not what I was expecting!

On my skin, the worn leather, balsam, and cinnamon were perfectly balanced (and the cinnamon didn't make me itchy, so yay!). My brain registers leathers and balsams as "cool", so with the warmth of the cinnamon added to the mix, I had an interesting scent experience, for sure. A warm, slightly spicy, soft, snuggly-yet-open, brown scent. Very, very nice, and definitely backup-worthy if I can manage to snag one before they're all gone!

All I got from this was bitter, bitter, bitter citrus pith, like chewing on a grapefruit peel. I got no nuances, no wood, no musk, no anything but super bitter citrus. Ah well, you can't win 'em all, right?

Thanks Little Bird!

I'm curious about what the labels for the Conjure Bag oils look like. Are they the same as the other GC scents or are they different? I'm thinking about getting a bottle of Water of Notre Dame and that got me wondering about the labels.

January '12 oh, and its photo on scentbase is pretty. Yep, that's it! Thank you!!

Technically, Old Moon was January 2008. Thanks! ETA: How about the January '12 (?) version? I'm assuming that must be the one I have, since it's not the January '08 one.

What does the label on the '07 Old Moon look like?

Can I get a YSL Manifesto? I've never smelled it, so I don't have a clue what could be similar, but my mother likes it a lot, so I thought I'd ask you lovely peoples.

I am absolutely ordering many bottles of Samhain - it's probably my most loved BPAL, period (any year!). I really do want to try Samhainophobia, mainly because I love vetiver. I also want to try Ooky, A World Where There Are Octobers, Hell Gate of Ireland, Dia de los Muertos, and the Dorian, Morocco, and Samhain Pumpkin Patch scents. I'm sure there are some ones I'm missing, but Samhain is a multiple bottle must-buy, and the others are my absolute must-try oils (I'm having a feeling that Samhainophobia, Ooky and the Pumpkin Patch oils are going to warrant back up bottles, too).

To my nose, Chant d'Automne (The scent of the year's fall and the setting sun, ominous and foreboding: dried leaves, charred wood, blood musk, amber, khus, and Nicotiana tabacum.) from 2008 is just that sort of smell - earthy and smokey and leafy and cool with no warmth or spice or floral or anything else to detract from that perfect, evocative scent. It's one of my absolute favorite autumnal scents (one of my favorites, period, to be honest). I think it might be something worth checking out for you!

Yep, yep! That's probably your best bet - just wait a few days for the Weenies. Pumpkin V from last year's Weenies is delicious, though, fwiw.

I'm bringing this back to ask about the Midsummer's Night candles. My mother adores the smell of them (and I'm seriously trying to get her addicted to BPAL), so I was wondering if anyone has recommendations for similar scents. I've never smelled the candle, but I've read comparisons to Drakkar Noir (which I've never smelled, either). I'm almost positive I saw someone recommend Vicomte de Valmont as similar to both the candle and Drakkar Noir, so I'm going to dig out my imp of that to pass on to my mom, but are there any others that y'all can think of?

Thanks for that. I too received a frimp of Gnome and it looked and smelled just as you described. I was thinking of ordering one but now I think I'll skip that one. Huh, yeah, the lab told me all they checked their imps and Gnome is a dark oil. I didn't really know what to say to that, looking at the bottle I have next to the imp. I don't know how anyone can smell that oil and think it smells like fizzy ginger. Maybe they bottled up a bunch of the wrong oil? Far be it from me to tell them that they're wrong about their own product, but...yeah, that's not fizzy ginger! Thanks for the validation, I was starting to feel a bit crazy! FWIW, I have an imp of Gnome from, eh, about three/four months ago or so. Mine is a lighter oil and it's definitely fizzy, bubbly, carbonated ginger - makes me think of ginger ale. Velly intellesting . . .

I really, really wanted to love this. Really and truly. Chill twilit garden? Dirt? Moss? Incense? Yes, please. In the imp and wet, initially, on my skin, this was a heavy, heady floral. I couldn't pick out any specific flowers, but it didn't smell like jasmine to me. After a minute or two, however, this turned into a heavy, heady floral and poop. Not the, "Oh, I don't like this, it smells like crap." kind of poo, but like someone or something laid a turd on my arm. Like actual feces, which my roommate thought was the most hilarious thing ever. Usually, if I'm testing a scent and don't like it at first, I keep it on anyway just to make sure. This is the only BPAL in my several years of BPALism that I have had to wash off because it actually smelled foul. Boo on my skin/nose.

I'm not complaining, but the two bottles of Samhain I have from last year smell totally different. The first bottle I bought right when the Weenies appeared - it's (to me) a rich, fruity, almost honey-sweet scent. I have a bottle of the atmo spray, too, and it smells exactly the same to me. The second bottle of Samhain I bought about a week before the Weenies came down - it smells more like I expected Samhain to smell from the description. It's dry and woody with a sourish something in there somewhere. I love them both (though I love the first one a bit more) - it's just interesting to me to see how drastically different two bottles of the same scent can smell!