this machine

Oh holy hell. I think the salon may be the actual death of me. So far i have tried three scents from it, and they may be the most gorgeous, unique, complex, and intriguing scents i've tried so far. They're definitely way, way up there, if not the top. I ordered a bottle of two monsters unsniffed (a first for me!), and i love it. I have one small hangup about it - the champaca flower. This is silly i know, but i have this fear that i will smell like That One Incense to people, which bothers me. See, i used to wear lush's karma fragrance for years and years, and often times when someone would comment on the scent it would be "ARE YOU WEARING PATCHOULI?! we didn't know you were a hippie maureen," and i'd be like uhhh, pipe down there, i'm wearing a gorgeous scent that contains some patchouli, but no, i'm not just wearing patchouli. I'm always amazed at how some people only smell that one thing, which i know isn't there fault i guess, we all smell things differently. Anyway, ramble ramble...my original point is that i don't want to just smell like i bathed myself in a room of incense, or have it be interpreted as such. Incense is great and all, but i associate smelling like nag champa with the dirty and filthy rich but pretending to be poor college stoner hippies. All this to say, i love two monsters and i will probably keep wearing it and just wonder quietly if anyone thinks i smell like i scent myself by laying in my room burning nag champa all day. I'm not up to actual reviews of them, but resurrection of the flesh...hoo boy, depending on the total drydown, i may love this. Satan and death blows me away and makes my head spin when wet and in the initial drydown, but i need a few wears of it to see how i feel about its eventual complete drydown. I am so frigging excited about the rest of The Salon scents.

Man, the only place i can find selling a print of bat-woman by penot is selling it for $110. Augh! I don't know where else or how else to look. I need a sugardaddy.

Wow, this reminds me so much of all those vanilla-based perfumes that got really popular when i was in junior high and high school. It evokes pure teenage perfume for me. It's been five minutes and i can't take it, i must wash. It's just the exact opposite of what i want in a perfume. Sorry antique lace! I feel bad for hating any of you bpal scents, but alas, it does happen.

So my bff just announced yesterday that and he his girlfriend, also my friend, are moving to LA this fall. I celebrated and asked lots of questions and all that good stuff, but i have to say one of my first background thoughts was OMIGAWD NOW WHEN I VISIT THEM ALL THE TIME I WILL DO IT OVER WILL-CALLS AND I WILL ACTUALLY...SEE...THE LAB. I can't help it, i associate LA with bpal now so it HAD to be one of the first things that popped into my head. My excitement about having friends in LA, both for the fact of LA and for bpal, really knows no bounds. Seriously. Seeeeeriously.

Yea, i'm sure they're in for all kinds of surprises, rent not the least of them! They will be working for at least that first year while they apply to grad and med schools, but they don't know what that work will be yet. She's a midwife actually so hopefully she'll find some way she can do some of that for a while. Basically it's all up in the air for them at this point! Hell, they could change their plans again and there goes my dream of having a place to stay while i visit the lab. Heh heh.

He's not sure yet at all. He had a totally different plan until last night when they realized Plan A was never going to work, and that really they just wanted to get to california. They have friends in LA they visited recently and were surprised by loving the city (they honestly thought they'd hate it), and they decided to go for it. Do you live there? Any recs for areas they should check out as far as living?

Anne bonny is beautiful and packed full of patchouli and sandalwood, plus frankincense. Definitely hippie, though of course it depends how it wears on you. Someone i know wears it and it smells almost fruity on her skin. I find that some of the more incensey scents make think hippie - sri lanka for example, or cairo. Scherezade is a musky one that does the same. Greed is a truly deeply gorgeous patchouli scent that is wearable for me because the heliotrope and copal round it out in a way that makes it not-too-hippie (because personally i don't like to smell hippie-ish, even though i like many hippie-associated scents). Perhaps it would work for you.

First on, this is strong, dry cocoa to me, with a hint of flowers in the back. Dirty flowers. As it dries the cocoa fades but never disappears. The leather becomes a decently strong middle note for me, and the flowers are still a nice background touch, not prominent at all. I'm sure the incense is in here but my nose isn't trained enough to pick it out. This has a nice waft to it. After half an hour to an hour, i get occasional wafts of the overall scent, and a few wafts of just a beautiful clean dirt smell (yes, clean dirt. if ya know what i mean, ya know what i mean). That's undoubtedly the patchouli, of course. I really enjoy this one. The cocoa is the element that could very easily put me off, yet in this scent the way it layers and blends with everything else makes it unique and appealing, which is how i would describe the overall scent as well. Unique and appealing.

I don't have too deep an analysis of this one. Descriptions of it being light, innocent and so forth seem accurate to me, but really the thought that popped into my head when i tried this is "this smells like perfume for ten year olds!!" Could be for you, but not for me.

The rose and jasmine are prominent for me here, I think I can get the lily too, and maybe a hint of the spice of carnation. Lily and carnation are both florals i enjoy, though lily is hard for me to wear too much. This is not bad but ultimately just doesn't jump out at me as far as a floral i'd like to wear (not surprising since i don't usually wear florals).

For starters: Not too shabby, i'm smelling what i think is the orris, and the amber, and it's definitely gilded and glowy. Dried down/fading: This gets more floral on me the more it dries, and it ultimately becomes a floral i don't like (admittedly, most florals i don't like). Rose is probably the ultimate culprit.

Everything i own, and what's on order: 5ml Alone Cathode Enraged Orangutan Musk Geek Intrigue Litha Masquerade Medicine Show Montresor Pit and The Pendulum, The Red Lantern Snake Charmer Snow White Two Monsters 5ml Pending Dee Harvest Moon Chrysanthemum Moon Carnaval Diabolique Phantom Calliope Mme Moriarty Organ Grinder Doc Constantine Gennivre Midnight on the Midway Antonino Death of the Grave Digger Imps Alecto Alone And There Was a Great Cry in Egypt Apothecary, The Arcana Bathsheba Black Phoenix Black Tower, The Blood Moon Blood Pearl Bow & Crown of Conquest, The Budding Moon Cairo Carceri D'Invenzione Carnal Carnivàle Caterpillar, The Cathode Clio Coyote Cracked Bell, The Czernobog Death Cap Dee Dracul Drink Me Elegba Enraged Orangutan Musk Envy Fenris Wolf Florence Fortunato Frumious Bandersnatch Geek Glasgow Gommorah Great Sword of War, The Greed Gypsy Queen Hades Hellion Herr Drosselmeyer Hetairae Intrigue Jolly Roger Juke Joint Kabuki Lampades Litha Lucretia Magus Masque, The Masquerade Medicine Show Melpomene Montresor Morella Nefertiti Nephilim Nocnitsa Nyarlathotep Ochosi Odin Old Scratch Orpheus Ozymandias Perversion Pit & The Pendulum, The Ravenous Red Lantern Red Queen, The Resurrection of the Flesh Saint-germain Salomé Satan and Death with Sin Intervening Scarecrow Scherezade Severin Shadow Silk Road Snake Charmer Snake Oil Snow White Spanked Sri Lanka Tezcatlipoca Torture King Two Monsters Tzadikim Nistarim Vixen Voodoo Yew Trees Imps Pending none

Hologost, i had the same experience with Alone, though it didn't effect me on my wrists, just where i put it on my neck (more sensitive skin there so that makes sense i guess). The only thing i can think is that it's the cardamom, but i have other blends with cardamom that don't seem to do that to me.

Last night i really wore spanked for the first time. I very luckily came into a special rare imp which i then swapped for spanked, and wow. I now understand why people hoard and drop mad cash on ebay for this. I tested it lightly when i first got it and loved it, though i was surprised by it's similarity to geek (same leather i think, and a similarity in the cardamom vs cinnamon part too). Similarity is too strong really, but i related them in my mind, probably because i love geek so much. Anyway, last night i went to the local music awards ball with the bf (he didn't win this year, too bad), and i looked smashing and decided it was time to break out the spanked. I didn't spare on it either - something that beautiful is meant to be used. DAMN did i smell good. Damn damn damn. That is one fucking gorgeous oil. It was a totally different experience really wearing it instead of having just a tiny swipe on my wrist while i hung around home. I felt like a million bucks, and now i have the twitching, drooling urge to hunt me down some spanked and drop some scary cash on it. I've been trying to stay in control about those super-coveted limited editions, because it's just such a loop to get into. But yikes. I covet. In other news, i got a frimp of the bow and crown of conquest, my first white musk-containing scent. I hate white musk based on a friend who used to wear it (body shop's white musk though), and a few floral-based frimps i've hated. But this little puppy, boy howdy. Good stuff. I think it reminds me a bit of st. germain, which would make sense. It's really nice, and i'm pleased that i now know not every white musk will make me gag. But now i really want king of spades and lenore. Sigh. Anyone wanna swap me?

In the vial, it's sweet fruity boozy cake, just like it says it will be. I put it on, and it smells the same. The cake is there, and i don't love it but don't dislike it as much as the cake in Underbed. I'm not really a foody girl, generally speaking, you see. But i had to try these anyway of course. A few minutes later, and wait...am i reviewing Monster: Closet, or Montresor? I actually had to go back to the imp and sniff it to make sure i didn't hallucinate the earlier cake smell. Nope, it's there, but the cake goes away quickly and i swear i'm wearing montresor. Gotta be the booze, blackberry, and sweetness of the cake mimicking the dark fruit, wine, and vanilla of montresor. When i put my nose to my wrist i get a very slight difference between them, but i can't say what it is. It's not even a cake-related smell as far as i can tell. I really can't name it, but it's pretty irrelevant because the throw of closet is totally montresor on me. Which is great, because i love me some montresor.

The black fruit and vanilla oaken notes of fine Medoc and De Grâve, but not a hint of the elusive Amontillado. In the bottle, this definitely smells a tiny bit funky, like wine that's just turning and i don't know what else. But upon application it quickly becomes a sweet (but not too), dark, fruity scent - i can see it's relation to wine but it's sweeter than that, i'm assuming due to the vanilla. It's warm, and delicious, and has great throw and staying power on me. I'm a huge fan.

I sometimes look back at my arrival to bpal, not so very long ago, and laugh at the way i was picking scents. At the time i had been wearing lush's karma for something like 6 or 7 years. Before that the only scents i'd loved were a vial of egyptian amber i got when i was a teenager at a little hippie store in yellowsprings ohio, a tin of solid amber perfume, and a bottle of woody sandalwood from the body shop. I knew that karma contained patchouli and some orange too, and i knew i also loved vetiver. So when i found bpal i nearly crapped myself over all the scents with those notes. I wanted all resins and musks and vetiver and some woods and just anything dark and NOT a fruit or a flower and definitely nothing foody. Ugh, foody! I avoided those like the plague. Through the wonder of frimps and some imp lots i bought off of ebay that contained one or two things i thought i wanted and an assortment of others i didn't, i discovered that i was a bit off in my original assesment. I still love all those elements, and i'm still not an outright floral or fruity kinda gal. I like anne bonny and czernobog, but my range goes so much further than that! I like some dirty, gritty dark scents, but more and more i'm loving certain select fruits (currant, FIG, orange, and more), and certain florals (heliotrope, carnation), and even certain foody scents (red lantern is food to me!). Even vanilla is sneaking in here and there. Oh bpal, look what you've done to me. You've made me so happy, and so guilty for all the money spent. I wish i could stop that damn guilt!

A very good point p_s. Very good indeed. Funny you should mention that about vixen. I heard the same comparison, and i have an imp but it's weird, i find that it smells nothing like what i expected. It actually reminds me of the Shalimar perfume my mom used to wear. I've sometimes wondered if it's mislabelled (it's a decant i think), and think i should find another imp of it some day to compare.

oh man, seriously on the smelling like a cupcake. i find that so disturbing. i want to EAT piles of cupcakes (or cake or cookies etc), not smell like i just rolled in said piles of whatever. [weird, i wanted to reply to your comment a long time ago but i swear the "reply" option wasn't here before. hmph, who knows.]

Yep, it's spicey cakey coconutty goodness...if i were eating it. This is a beautiful blend, but this is one of the gourmand ones that is just too much like wearing my dessert. I go back and forth on cassia - i only have it in two blends, this and red phoenix, and sometimes i like red phoenix and sometimes that cassia gets me. In this one the cassia balances okay, but overall i'm just not this much of a foody-scent gal.

This is root root root and wood. Not dirt-like but earthy nonethless. I'm reminded of ginseng gum i used to chew (this doesn't strike me as sweet though, it's just that rooty, earthy association), and a little of going into a small old log cabin that's been closed up for the winter and the sun is out and you open the door and it's warm and the air is close and heavy with wood and earth. Gorgeous, though as others have said, very little staying power.

This is one of maybe two bpal blends i've ever tried that have actually repulsed me. I definitely get the sickly sweet grape, like it's fermenting, and something else that has the most distinctive and, to me, icky smell...herbs maybe? Someone mentioned vinegar and i can definitely see that, as the smell is sharp and not pleasant to me (i hate vinegar). I can't even do it the courtesy of sniffing for longer and trying to make my untrained nose pick out some more notes...it's just blargh. Sorry tum!

This contains two danger notes: honey and rose. And yet...and yet...i put it on and i'm instantly enamoured. Swooning, more like. So heavy, so complex, so warm and musky and...well, way too complex for my untrained nose to break down. I think this particular honey (did someone mention beeswax? maybe that makes the difference for me) warms this up in a way that i love. The incense, the spicey carnation... Wait, i got it! I think i finally figured out what this reminds me of as i'm typing this review. I knew it was something from my childhood, and i think it's some kind of cosmetic that was commonly used. Oooo! I know, it's this mary kay pink-waxy face goop (no idea what it was called, this is from 25-30 years ago) that my mom used to put on my face when i'd go out to play in the snow for a long time, to keep it getting chapped from the cold. It was a really heavy night cream i think, had to be terrible for the pores. But that's it! There's a similarity there that makes me gravitate toward this scent like crazy. Phew! BUT. Sadly, after maybe 20 minutes the rose rears its head and goes soapy. Not a tolerable soapy either. Argh! However, last night when i really slathered it on to give it a true testing, i think after an hour or so the soap might have gone away. But i was drifting off to sleep and not trusting my nose. Current Conclusion: heavy, warm, very complex, perfumey in a good way. honey and carnation and incense. whether the rose will kill it for me remains to be seen.

I find that sometimes i have a hard time determining if i actually like a scent and want to wear it, or if i just think it's really cool, unique, unusual, etc. I also find that sometimes i smell a scent and think oh yea, i like that, cool, and then i keep it around and sniff it now and then and maybe wear it once or twice and then realize i actually don't like it all, that if i had picked up a bottle off a perfume counter at the mall and smelled something like that i'd be grossed out. But i'm so blinded by excitement about these scents that sometimes i think that i like scents that i actually don't like at all. It's absurd. Hasn't happened with any rose scents yet though. No siree. The one other note i need to confirm that i hate is white musk, but i haven't gotten a white musk blend yet because it's much more fun to get ones i'm pretty sure i'll like.

This smells nothing like what i thought it would, and i have a very hard time defining it other than it is rather perfumey, and it reminds me of EO musk. I'm guessing it's the costus that has the distinctive smell here that is almost kind of floral, but not really. It's definitely very warm to me, and dry but not powdery. Man, this is a weird one, and i can't decide whether i want to wear it more or not.