filigree_shadow

Curses. Another red musk blend that I like. Dammit. I like nearly all the red musk blends I try, and I always say, "Oh I need to do some side-by-side comparisons to figure out which ones I want to keep," and then I never do it. This one is sweet and gently musky and definitely pretty. The red musk in it isn't as loud as it often is. Well, add another one to the list of red musk perfumes I need to compare. Man, I really need to get around to doing that.

I thought this would be great because I like all those notes, but, um... no. The sassafras smells medicinal, kinda bitter. I don't know if that's the combination of tea and sassafras or what, but this ends up smelling too harsh for me.

I'm not a fan of fizzy/effervescent scents, but I keep trying them hoping that one will grab me. I was surprised to discover that I like this one. It's not overly fizzy, or overly sweet. The absinthe part of it isn't as bold as it is in other perfumes, and the two blend very well together. It smells balanced. It's sweet and cute and just a little bubbly. If I didn't already have a whole bottle of La Fee Verte to get through, I'd be on the lookout for more of this one.

This smells like a very traditional dark floral perfume. Narcissus and jasmine and poppy. I don't know which perfumes it smells like because... well, scents like this are the reason why I started wearing BPAL perfumes instead of expensive perfume house perfumes. I don't like the ones that smell like this. I know the ones that smell like this are often thought to be sexy, but not to me.

Sweet coconut -- not the suntan lotion kind, but the foody kind. Sadly it's also the kind that turns into plastic on my skin.

This is an odd scent. It seems like anise is the strongest note on me, backed up by buttered toast. I might like it better without the anise scent, but as it is, this is a no go on me. When I sniff it, all I can think of is those little bowls of fennel they have sitting out by the entrance of Indian restaurants. It smells like a toasty version of that.

This is weird. I put it on and got a big blast of something that smelled alcoholic. Boozy. Then that faded off, and I smelled a rather medicinal cherry note, plus a soft almond and ... roses? Definitely floral. Kinda loud floral. This smells nothing like almond pastry goodness on me. I have no idea what happened here.

When I first put this on, it smelled exactly like DOUGH. Like if you were making rolls or bread or something from scratch, and you ate some of the dough. Very unmistakably that exact scent. I swear I smell yeast rising when I sniff it. It kept smelling like dough, but then the cinnamon came out, strongly. After, oh, an hour or so, it smelled more like some sort of cinnamon roll. I guess there's supposed to be cocoa in this, but the spice is so strong on me that I can't really tell. I like foodie scents. Big fan of the ones that smell like cookies and cake. But dough? Hm. Not sure on that one. It smells great, I'm just not sure it's what I really want in a perfume. I'd be all over it as a room scent in my kitchen, though.

I expected to swoon over this one, partly because it seems so popular and partly because I like all the notes in it. I figured I'd put it on and be awash in scented glory. Er, not so much. When I first put it on, it was so soft I had to put on more. It was barely there. A very, very subdued vanilla-ish mild ambery scent. A little bland, to be honest. After about 30 minutes or so, when I sniffed it again, I could smell leather in it for sure. Probably one of the most feminine leather blends I've tried. Instead of being wowed, though, I thought it smelled a little too cologne-y for me. I felt cheated. So, I tried gently rolling the decant and then putting some on a different part of my arm, just to see what would happen. WHOA vanilla orchid. Big time. Almost a candy-ish floral. That didn't happen the first time. And now when the leather peeks out, it's covered by a pretty floral scent. Much, much better. Not leather-cologne at all, much more feminine. OK, now I like it.

I thought this might be green and springy, but it's not really either of those things. It smells lightly floral, lightly herby, and a little sweet, like fruity. It's not very strong, though.

Very floral. My ability to pick out florals isn't that great, but I don't really smell rose in this. It smells more like lily to me. One of those more heady white flowers rather than rose. It doesn't smell exactly like that -- like maybe there's something else with it -- but like I said, not that great at picking out flower notes. I like it okay, but my husband is really not thrilled at all about floral scents, and I don't think he wants our house smelling like this.

I have no idea what's in this, but I know what it smells like: My imp box. You know that particular scent that wafts out of your imp box when you open it, and you recognize it immediately? OK, until now, the only way I've been able to smell that scent is to be sitting right next to my imp box. It's kind of a sweet, fruity scent, but mingled in with all other kinds of stuff. Since getting a sample of this atmosphere spray, now two whole rooms of my house smell like that. I haven't bought any atmosphere sprays because I burn tarts all the time, and that fills up my house with scent. There was one spray that tempted me... um... Erebos. I tried a sample of that and loved it, but the sprays are pricey and I didn't really have the money. This one? Different story. I will find the money for this one. It's not just a great scent, it's one that is particularly wonderful to me because it smells like one of my favorite things in the world: my BPAL imp box.

Well, color me disappointed. With those notes, this really should have worked on me. It doesn't. I thought it had something herby or rooty in it before I looked at the notes -- there's something in it that smells sour and bitter. And something else that smells like a hideously sweet powder. I have no idea what's going on here. I don't have bad luck with orange blossom -- I usually like it. Sandalwood and champaca are always winners for me. Not problematic notes at all. But this? Ew. It's very strange.

I didn't read the description for this before I put it on, and I really thought it had orange in it. Or orange blossom -- something like that. It smells orange-y to me. Like ginger too, but in a soft way. The ginger isn't overwhelming. I do detect that fizziness that other people have talked about, and although normally I don't like that kind of thing, it seems to suit this scent. It gets less fizzy and more musky as it dries, and that orange note I smelled at first isn't as strong. I like it. It feels kind of like a novelty scent to me rather than an everyday scent, though, and I don't wear those very much.

I thought this would be more floral than it is. Actually, I wouldn't call this a floral scent at all. It's a soft and musky, with a light incense over the top. It does seem slightly powdery too -- some ambers do that on me. It's sweet, and it's definitely what I'd describe as a skin scent. You know, those ones that aren't strong and don't have any particular note that stands out, they're just kind of soft, a little bland, and not obnoxious at all.

My decant just says Orange Phoenix, not Orange Phoenix v6, but I can't find any other review thread for this scent, so I guess this is the one I've got. Anyway, it smells like fizzy orange blossom to me. Definitely some kind of floral in there with the orange. It's all right, but not my thing.

This is very BPALy. You smell this, you think Yep, that's BPAL. That's what I thought when I put it on, and then I looked at all the previous reviews that mention how it reminds them of another one, so I think I'm not the only one. To me it smells sort of like Fenris Wolf, Scherezade, and linen. Plus kind of a little bit of powder. I guess that's because it smells like a dark musky hazy red musk sort of scent with something soft in it (that must be the linen). The musk definitely smells like red musk plus another kind of musk -- it doesn't smell as loud or as obvious as red musk usually does. I like this, but I feel like I already have some similar scents.

Yeah, it's like a milky cream with ginger in it, and it does kinda smell slightly like buttered popcorn. I like it, but I've tried enough scents sort of like this enough to know that I really like it for about 10 minutes and then I'm ready to smell something else. It does seem comforting in a sweet, familiar sort of way, so I want to hang on to my decant, but I don't think I'd ever use a whole bottle of it. ETA: Oh. My husband says "Ew. Sickly sweet." So I guess I won't keep it.

Sticky, dark, pine tar. It's not hugely complex -- that's pretty much just what it smells like. There's a little bit of campfire smoke over the top, too. It's strong and very evocative of a forest.

I saw peach mentioned in other reviews, but I don't smell that until it's dry -- and even then I can't tell it's peach, just some sort of unidentifiable fruit. It smells like gardenia with a heady, jasminey edge, but it's softened by that fruit note. It doesn't smell bad, it's just not the sort of floral scent that I like.

Weird. This smells like a bright tropical floral on me, quite similar to Vasakasajja. Nothing like what I expected from reading the notes. No heady jasmine at all -- more like almost a fruity floral with a cute musk under it. As I was reading through the reviews, no one else mentioned that. Makes me wonder if my decant was mislabeled or something.

This sounds good in theory, and it would have smelled good on me too... except for the frankincense. I can smell something nice underneath it, but the frankincense goes too high-pitched and hazy and drowns out the rest of the scent. It does that to me a lot. I can only take really small doses of frankincense.

This smells like what red ginger oil would smell like on someone who just got out of a chlorinated swimming pool. Eugh. Really not great on my skin. Something has gone awry.

I've tried this twice now because the first result was bizarre and I thought there must be some mistake. Nope. Same result second time. This smells like me. I mean, exactly. I can't really even tell I have perfume on. This is exactly what my skin smells like all the time. Some combination of all the various products (soap, lotion, mousse, shower gel, etc.) that I use produces this scent. Soft, a little woods-ish, lightly floral. I probably don't need to keep my decant, because... well, I already smell like this. What's the point? The most shocking thing of all is that there's spikenard in this, my #1 most hated note of all time.

Disclaimer: I don't think I've ever kept an apple scent that I've tried. It's just not really my thing. I put this one on thinking it was probably going to be a big blast of apples, but it wasn't. I let it sit on my wrist for about 20 minutes while I did other stuff, and when I sniffed it to write this review, I couldn't figure out what I was smelling. Certainly didn't seem identifiable as apples. So I put on some more oil and tried again. Now when it's wet, it seems like I can smell something that's vaguely apple-ish, but not hugely. It kind of smells like apples and.... oh, what's that woody viney note. Galangal? It's that one note that smells a little woody and a little bitter, and I usually try to avoid that note. This one's not a winner for me, but I didn't really expect that it would be.