Magda

It's all ylang ylang in the imp, but after a minute or so on my skin the resins start to come out. There's a hint of something sickly-sweet (ylang ylang sometimes goes sour on my skin) and I'll have to wait it out to see if it will overwhelm the blend or mellow down. Thankfully, it mellows down and it's a sexy, resinous scent, more sweet than dry, but not overly so. I get an immediate body response to it (in a very good way), I think because it smells like this fantastic honey powder that I've quite enjoyed, um, licking off of people. It's that powdery honey scent over a base of resins and musk and, um...yeah. I should maybe stop smelling my arm, now. Only I can't, and I kind of want to lick it, and I haven't had a date in a really long time... Ahem. Sorry. This is a wonderful scent. I like it a lot.

I won't lie. I got this just because I wanted to smell Beth's interpretation of crumbling stone and hot desert air. In the imp, it smells like alcohol--not the kind you drink, but perfumers' alcohol. On my skin it loses the alcohol scent but retains the perfumey feeling, masculine at first but then shifting suddenly to a more feminine, classic smell. It smells like my grandmother's bedroom, especially her makeup table where I used to sit and try on all her jewelry--and that's a good thing. I can't pick out a single note and it doesn't smell like summer in the desert (not in my desert, anyway), but I'm in love with it. It's so complex, or maybe so simple. I can't even tell if it's masculine or feminine--it's both at the same time. It's clean and classic and dry and lonely and sweet and airy and...yeah. I like.

In the imp it's all sweet fruitiness. This does not bode well as my skin amps up fruit like mad. When I put it on, it smells like grapes. I check the vial because this smells happy and light, not at all like the poem. After a minute I think I get some strawberry but, no, still grapes. Hmmm, is that a little bit of tobacco? Nope. Grapes. Not fat purple grapes but tiny little white grapes. I kind of want to eat them. Maybe this is what that snozberry wallpaper in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory smelled like. It's very nice. After a while I get a tiny little smidge of honey, a hint of musk, but mostly just grapes. Luckily, I like grapes. I'm definitely keeping this one for the days when I want to smell lighthearted and fun.

In the imp it's all powdery spices. When I put it on -- whoa sandalwood! I sort of like the way head shops smell, but I don't want to smell like that. Thankfully the head shop-y sandalwood fades almost immediately. After about five minutes, I get a hint of rose when I sniff my wrists. The throw is still all sandalwood, now dry and elegant. Ten minutes later and it's changed a lot. It's a fantastic blend of floral and resins and spice, difficult to pick out any one note though if I think about it I can identify the amber, sandalwood, and rose. After about an hour I get a little touch of bergamot. It doesn't have much throw, which is both surprising and nice. Sometimes I just don't want to club people over the head with my sandalwood blends, and this will do very nicely on those days. As an overall vibe, this makes me think of going out to a very nice restaurant with people who read a lot and order very good red wine and can probably speak French. For some reason, this also smells expensive. I can't put my finger on why, exactly, but if I smelled this on someone else I'd assume it was far too pricey for my little wallet.

The first note I get is amber. I love amber and amber loves me. Despite the fact that I'm just supposed to be sniffing and planned on trying another imp first, I slather this on. The amber is very similar to the amber in Hymn to Prosperine -- a bit less heady and sweet. The pink pepper comes out right away, giving this a slight herbal edge, but as it dries the florals come out to play. The combination of floral and spice makes me think of carnation, though I doubt there's really any in this blend. This is a gorgeous amber with a hint of floral overtones. I'm not a floral girl, really, and this isn't really floral, either. It's just there mingling with the amber and the spice. I think this will be a good daytime amber, just enough creamy sensuality without hitting anybody over the head with it. Amber + what my nose thinks is carnation = delicious!

I decided on a blend of Punkie Night and The Doormouse, crisp, tart apples and freshly brewed tea with just a hint of florals and spice. Very summery and a good, sensible scent to match my Ravenclaw outfit.

Herbal, crisp, clean, and all man. Which is fine by me, since I ignore gender labels when it comes to scents and just wear what I like, and I like this. The notes blend so nicely that I can't pick them out, though I think on me the thyme is coming out a bit more than the others and there's something that makes me think of juniper berries. It's sexy in a clean-cut, "If you think I look fantastic in this suit, you should see me out of it," sort of way. And it's just...I don't know how to put it except that it makes me more alert. Not edgy or hyper, just awake and alert. I put this on while settling down to read my book, expecting to take a nap after half an hour or so since I was groggy, but instead I became much less tired and wanted to get up and do things. It has to be the Wilde since, really, I always want to nap. This is a great daytime scent, traditionally masculine but I wouldn't mind snuggling up to a woman who smelled like this at all.

Luminescent, glowing, and otherworldly: green mandarin, neroli, honeydew, white amber, guava, freesia, white and green musks hovering over desert scrub, smashed wood, and the dry, biting scent of night air over the Groom Lake salt flats. This is not the type of scent I usually prefer. I like dark, heavy scents, thick with resin and vanilla and incense. If I go lighter, I prefer mints or pine, definitely not aquatics and fruits. Until now, that is. This is just...unbelievably gorgeous. It's lightly fruity, slightly floral, with musks that make it more sexy than sweet even though it's never heavy. There's a salty hint of ozone without the unpleasant nose-tingling that I tend to associate with ozones and aquatics. It feels beachy to me, like palm trees and coconuts and suntan lotion--without smelling like any of those things. Everything just blends so well that I can't pick out one note over another, and it's such a gorgeous combination that I feel sexy and sophisticated and pretty even in Arizona's 100+ degree heat. I'm kind of in love with this one. (eta description)

I had no idea that Darkness, Chaos, Madness, and Decay would smell so yummy. It's a very sexy, resinous scent--like sandalwood drizzled with caramelized sugar and dark rum. Other people have mentioned vetiver, which is usually very cruel to me, amping up and smacking my poor sinuses around until they're ready to cry. I don't get any of that, thankfully. Instead, as it dries it starts to turn just a little bit smokier, kind of like burning leaves, which is very nice. This doesn't feel sinister at all on me. It feels more like a warm duvet to wrap around you when there's a chill in the air and the leaves are turning and you don't have anything you have to do except sit by a fire and drink tea--very comforting and calming.

My grandfather used to make his own hot chocolate. He'd heat cream or half-and-half on the stove and then grate dark chocolate into it. It was absolutely heavenly, and I've been spoiled for hot chocolate ever since--that powdered stuff just won't cut it. In the bottle and upon application, Candy Butcher smells exactly like that, like really good dark chocolate and cream to mellow the acidity. As it dries down, I get an almost fruity scent. It's still mostly chocolate on me, but there's something coming out making it more complex, kind of like smoky fruit incense. Even though I can still pick out the chocolate, I don't think someone smelling this on my wrist would identify chocolate as the main note. After another hour, it makes me think of a light musk slathered in cocoa butter. It's a lush, sophisticated gourmand scent, and quite lovely.

In the bottle: Creamy almond with a hint of pine Wet on skin: smoky, sexy pine. As it dries the sarsparilla comes out, sweetening it up just a bit. This is definitely a masculine scent, but since I pretty much ignore gender designations when it comes to perfume, I'll have no trouble wearing this a lot. On me, the scent is creamy pine with a background of smoky incense. It didn't have much throw at first, but then about an hour after I applied it, it really blossomed and I felt surrounded (but not overwhelmed) by the scent. After five or six hours, the smokiness really comes out, and the last hour is pure smoke, but the nice kind, like sitting around a campfire, watching leaves crinkle in the flame.

In the bottle: Soap Wet on skin: Flowery soap Drydown: Very luxurious incense and floral French milled soap Overall: Well, poo. I had such high hopes for this. I'm going to stick it in the back of my BPAL box and see if aging makes it any less soapy on me.

In the bottle: cherries Wet on skin: cherry cola After ten minutes or so, it becomes darker, spicy and slightly smoky. The patchouli comes out and the cherry moves into the background. The cardamom and cassis dominate at this stage. After about an hour, the cassis and cardamom calm down and all the scents are nicely intermingled. It smells, in a way, like a cherry spice candle, but a very expensive cherry spice candle--the kind you'd pay $80 for in a boutique, not the kind you'd get at a craft store. It's a fantastic fall scent, a Thanksgiving sort of scent, fruit and spice in equal amounts. It makes me want to wrap myself up in a warm sweater and sit by the fire drinking hot tea. Unfortunately, it's 100 degrees in Tucson right now, but when the mercury drops down to 85, I'm totally going to wear this all the time.

I'm going to say this scent is unisex, but that's probably because I love a lot of masculine scents on me. Theodosius is, to put it bluntly, the scent of a sexy boy dipped in citrus tea and rolled in sugar. I'm going to wear this all the time, but if I smelled a guy wearing this, it would probably make me want to slam him up against a wall and make out with him.

Opium? Love it. Red musk? It sings on my skin. Civet? I was always too afraid to try it. I got this as a frimp with my Hungry Ghost Moon order, and it was such a pretty, thick reddish brown that I had to sniff it right away. Mmm. I put it on my wrists and...mmmm. Delicious. Then I looked up the notes and...civet? That's what civet smells like? It's not cat pee on me at all, it's just delicious and slightly feral. I actually do feel somewhat debauched when I smell this, like I should be draped across a bed covered in silks and velvets, my hair in picturesque disarray, lazily eating a bowl of dark berries after an afternoon spent satisfying all my desires. Why do I always connect the scents I love with sex? Two good things are even better combined, I suppose. *is an unabashed perv*

CCCLXXVII (which, according to an online Roman Numeral Translator is 377) I was very nervous about this, since I don't have a ton of money to throw around and I plan what I'm going to order very carefully. I took a calculated risk ordering a bottle of this, and luckily it paid off. In the bottle it's cacao bean, smelling almost exactly like Comptoir Sud Pacifique's "Amour de Cacao." On my skin, though, it blooms into this amazingly spicey floral clove scent, the floral hiding behind the spiceyness and just teasing me by peeking out now and again. It's a rich floral, but nothing I can put my finger on. It's not jasmine or rose, it's somehow deeper than that? Maybe heliotrope? After about fifteen minutes, the clove calms down (would Beth have put clove in this? Would that violate the "no known irritants" rule? Maybe it's actually carnation) and the chocolate comes back up. Now I smell like spicy floral chocolate. Frame of reference for Lush-ites, it's kind of like Potion mixed with Sonic Death Monkey. I sort of want to make out with myself, I smell so good.

In the bottle, this smelled...not good. It wasn't completely repellent, it just had a cheap sort of smell, like those $3.99 fragrance oils you can get in hippie shops with names like "Peaceful Aura" or "Magickal Mist." I kept putting off trying it on my skin, but then today I figured I wasn't going anywhere, plus I wanted to do some tarot work, so I might as well just try it. Almost immediately, that harsh, plasticy smell disappated leaving behind a lush, creamy floral. I don't get jasmine from it. I went out into my garden to check, and it doesn't smell like star jasmine or night blooming jasmine. To me it smells like pikaki, or maybe moonflower. It's very sweet but doesn't amp on my skin the way jasmine tends to. Beneath the floral there's some incense that gives it a hippie shop feel again, but this time in a good way. I assumed I'd wear this mostly for tarot work, since I don't generally feel like floral perfumes fit me, however with the layer of spice and herbs beneath the floral, The Moon is multifacited enough for me to wear as a day-to-day perfume. I think I'm also going to use it for dreamwork, since it just feels like it would be good for that.

I think you should definitely give Xiuhtecuhtli another try. I tried it in the winter and it was horrible on me, but on a whim I tried it the other day and the tropical blooms and just a hint of incense were absolutely gorgeous, and perfect for the 110 degree heat. Of coure, it's not humid here at all, so that may make a difference. I don't really have anything new to add--Embalming Fluid, Dublin, Shanghai, Obatala, Shango, and Aizen-Myoo are what work best on me when it's crazy hot out.

Dried banana chips and soft pretzels. I like it, though. I'm definitely going to keep the imp around to sniff when I need a comfort food pick-me-up.

Mmmm. This is how I like my rose--swirled with incense and musk until it's dizzy. I'm not a rose girl, but this is lush and luscious, heady and heavy-lidded. It makes me want to lounge in a velvet-lined room, eat ripe fruit off a silver platter, letting the juice run down my fingers. This scent deserves rich red wine and liquid eyeliner and slow kisses.

At first this starts out wonderfully--astringent green tea and herbs. It's very green and fresh, calming and invigorating at the same time. Then, after about half an hour, something jumps out and grabs me by the throat. It's not listed in the notes, but I'm pretty sure it's my eternal nemisis, vetiver. It slithers into my sinuses and cackles gleefully as my skull begins to throb. I scrub it off thoroughly but it remains, taunting me. Why is it that my skin insists upon holding on to and amping up the one note guaranteed to give me a migraine? Off to the swaps box it goes. Sigh...it really was lovely at first, though.

Wet on the skin, this is pineapple so tart it makes my tongue curl. It stays predominantly pineapple on me, with tiny little hints of banana and sugar. The best part (for me at least) is that when I put my nose to my wrist I get tropical fruit, but when I get whiffs of it from a few feet away it's like a sexy, fruity red musk. Since I love red musk, this makes me very happy. I think this will be my new summer scent. Edited because I can't spell, and because the longer I wear this, the more I'm starting to think that the lovely throw I interpret as red musk is really the chiles deepening the fruit. It's delicious, no matter what it is.

I never liked foody scents before. I disliked vanilla and wouldn't even consider wearing something with chocolate in it, of all things. Then I discovered BPAL and, like a lot of people, had my ideas of what works on me and what doesn't turned upside down. Dorian started the ball rolling, when I realized that not only do I like Beth's vanilla, I love it, crave it, maybe even need it. So, I've been giving other foody scents a try, and the Monster Bait series is just so fun that I couldn't resist, even with things like chocolate and coconut in the blend. I've never wanted to eat myself before, either, but I'm very close to trying just a nibble of my wrist, just a little one. Right out of the bottle it was almost pure cassia, which I liked because cassia and cinnamon both work well on me. It took about half an hour before I started getting a very dry cocoa scent, like very high quality bittersweet baking chocolate, and underneath that a creamy white cake scent that I think must be the coconut. Yes, it does smell like a sugary vanilla cake swirled with cinnamon and dusted with bittersweet cocoa, but somehow it's not a foody scent. I don't smell like a little girl or like a bakery, I smell...well, sexy, to be honest. Maybe it's the cassia, but Underbed makes me want to put on something slinky and dance slow and close to Janis Joplin's Kozmic Blues. To me, Smut was do me, do me, do me now, tackle the next person I see and have my way with them, and while Underbed's just as sexy, it's a sexy that takes its time. It's the scent of a slow tease and a long buildup. Apparently, foreplay smells like cocoa, cassia, coconut, and angelfood cake. Who knew?

This is wet, but it's not aquatic like, say, Sea of Glass, which is good since aquatics and I don't get along. It's not sea spray, it's mist, it's big drops of morning dew glistening on peonies. It's the scent of an ice-cold stream, a pale aqua veil. I can't pick out any individual notes--it's floral but not heady, fresh but not herbal, sweet but not fruity. When I lived in Portland, I'd get up early and walk around campus in the thick morning fog, walk past the reflecting pond to the rose garden, onto the forest trails, enveloped by mist. It was my morning meditation and my favorite part of the day. That's what WoND smells like, like peace and beauty and cool damp air. It makes me think of soap even though it doesn't go soapy. It's just clean and tranquil, the surface of a pond. Can you tell I'm a little bit in love with it? This, to me, is the perfect Piscean scent. I put it on before I took a nap and dreamed of angels--not the sort of clichéd idea of angels as attractive women with white wings, but real angels, celestial beings that I can't even describe they were so beautiful and splendid and awe-inspiring. This has moved to my big bottle list, knocking even the next lunacy update out of the top spot.

I discovered quite by accident that Moxie works amazingly well to relieve all the nastiness both right before and during my period. I put some on because I wanted a little more confidence, took a good strong whiff of my wrist and--poof! My cramps disappeared and I no longer wanted to throttle inanimate objects. It did make me crave grapefruit, though. (edited because I can't spell)