filigree_shadow

I got an imp of Prague as a freebie with either a Lab order or a swap a long time ago, during the phase in which I turned up my nose at florals. I kept it but didn't try it for a while. Then I saw a post from someone saying something like "Prague is the perfect reminder that it's spring!" and since it was one of the first few days of spring I decided to give it a whirl. Whoever said that was right -- Prague is absolutely perfect for March and April. I think I wore it for at least four days in a row in late March last year. It is definitely floral, no doubt about it, but it smells so hopeful and soft that I couldn't resist it, even though I usually dislike florals. I don't wear Prague in the fall or winter at all, but in another 6 weeks or so it's going to be in heavy rotation on my wear list.

I have a bottle of The Unicorn, and it's one of the scents I pack whenever I'm going to visit my family or my in-laws. It's a clean, white, crisp scent that I am absolutely sure will be offensive to no one. It's pretty, feminine, and sweet, and I could be wrong but I think it's one of the few BPAL oils that contains linden blossom. It's the linden blossom and very soft herbs in this that make it smell different from the other white floral perfumes I have. There's an extremely alluring soft creaminess to this that my other white florals don't seem to have. This one is definitely a favorite of mine -- it's kind of my standard "being around family" scent.

This is a discreet floral on my skin -- the floral notes don't jump out at me, they stay in the background. Mostly it seems to be musk and spice (clove, I think), but it's sweet. I think it's quite sexy and sensual. I really like Hell's Belle a lot. It's been on and off and back on and back off my "to buy" bottle list for nearly a year now. It seems like whenever I put it on I'm reminded of how much I like it, but for some reason when I haven't worn it in a while I forget that I liked it so much. It's more of an understated sexy than blends like Sin and Vixen, and I'm guessing that when I am looking for something sexy I reach for the ones that are rather in-your-face about it. The more I smell this, though, the more I like it. I'm putting this back on my bottle list, and dammit it's going to stay there this time.

The ozone is not nearly as strong in this as usual, it just gives the blend a nice kind of metallic perfumey aspect. I really like the black currant in this -- it gives it character but doesn't make the scent overly fruity. The white musk smells really good with the resin and ozone. The first time I tried this I thought it would be a good scent for spring, and I still think so. Very nice. I like this a lot.

Amber, saffron and bergamot with mandarin, nutmeg, Bulgar rose, musk and sandalwood. This kind of smells like a masculine cologne to me at first. It's spicy and has just a little bit of rose and bergamot. It's going a little bit powdery on me, but not overly. I like the scent of this, but it's a little too floral for me personally.

This is mostly nutty on me, with a powdery sweet smell over the top that's slightly bitter -- from some sort of spice, maybe? Not really very creamy. I like this type of scent as a room scent, but I don't usually wear something this extremely foody or spicy as perfume.

The florals in this are particularly sweet in this, I think from the wine. It seems like the last time I tried this a few months ago it was darker. It's definitely sweeter than I remember. The wine is a little much for me, and the honey is doing that wonky thing that honey usually does on me. I bet this is very pretty on people who can wear the honey note just fine, though.

My mom is an elementary school teacher, and she's getting ready to retire at the end of this school year. Last year she bought her parents' farmhouse after my grandma died. She has many siblings, and although the land was divided up between them they weren't sure what to do about the house and buildings. A couple of my first cousins were interested in it, but they couldn't afford it. So, since my dad passed away a year and a half ago and my mom would like to live closer to her siblings (who are all in the same general area except one), she bought it. Her original plan was to tear down the old chicken coop and the old barn that Grandpa built (they really needed to come down, and they're already gone now), and then tear down the old farmhouse and build a new house on the same site. When it was time to really make decisions about the house, though, she started thinking of all kinds of reasons why she didn't want to tear it down. A couple of months ago she finally decided to stop talking about building a new house and just fix up the old one. By the time she's done, it probably will be more expensive than just building a new house. But it wouldn't be that house. The house she grew up in. She was the first child in the family who was born in the hospital instead of at home, so she wasn't technically born there, but her older sisters were. Grandma died in that house, too. In the 1950s Grandpa added on a new kitchen and bathroom (before then they only had an outhouse) plus an extra upstairs bedroom. He built it himself, with timber he had cut down out back. He also built all the cabinetry in the kitchen and bathroom. Grandpa was a farmer, not a carpenter, but he built it. The wallpaper Grandma had hung in the 1950s was still there. There was some flooring in the upstairs that dated to the 1920s. That house had not changed one iota since before I was born, with the exception of new furniture in the living room and new carpet in the downstairs. That's it. My mom couldn't stand to think of tearing it down. I'm glad she's fixing up the old house. I can't imagine that house not being there. Throughout my childhood we lived in four different houses, and my parents lived in several different places since I left home, but Grandma and Grandpa always lived in the same spot. The house my other grandparents lived in has already been torn down -- the people who bought it only wanted the riverfront property and wanted to put up a whole new house. So my only real "home" link any more is to that farm. My grandparents moved into that house the day they got married in 1938 and never moved from it. Grandpa bought it from someone in his family -- his mother grew up on that same farm (different house at that time, but the same farm). That little plot of land there at the bend in the road with a creek running behind it and the best well water you've ever tasted in your life has been in my family since about 1850. The big red barn has my family's surname and the year 1891 etched into one of the doors. It was never a big farm -- only a few hundred acres -- and it was nothing fancy, but it was clean and well-kept. My three sisters have no interest in living in the middle of nowhere on midwestern farmland, but I love that little 20 acres that is now my mom's. So my sisters and I kind of have an agreement that whenever that land gets passed on, it'll be mine to retire to. I told my mother than I have no problem putting a clause in my own will specifying that the land will be sold only to a descendant of my grandparents no matter what other offers may be. My ancestors have lived on that land for so long, it feels like it belongs to us -- even without the deed. So many things in life change so fast... but some things need to stay the same.

I completely agree with everything you said there, and I think you said it beautifully.

I dreamed about my grandparents' house a lot when it was unclear what would happen to it right after Grandma died. For a while it seemed like one of my cousins would buy it, and I was totally against that. He is, shall we say, not the tidiest of farmers. There are farms that look nice and clean and lovely, and then there are those ones that have a barn that hasn't been painted in 20 years and has half the roof caved in, and there's all sorts of junk and tractor parts sitting around in the yard. If my grandparents' farm had turned into a mess, I would have been LIVID. Whenever I think too much about the house I mostly grew up in and how I'll never live there again and the people who live there now have changed everything in the house, I get teary-eyed. Actually I think that's pretty natural, but I think people don't talk about it much. It seems like I more often hear people say something like "I never want to see that house again" after they lived somewhere during a bad time in their lives. It makes me feel really thankful to have had so many powerfully good memories associated with a place I lived.

This is kind of a sticky cedar blend, but it's warmed up in a lovely way by the vanilla. I remember that I tried Tombstone many months ago and thought it smelled strongly of sassafras. I didn't care for that, so I swapped it off. I'm trying it again right now as part of the GC Circular Swap, and this imp is one of the old-timey tarted ones. It smells about one hundred times better than I remember. Letting it sit and age for a while apparently makes it smell rich and warm. I think this would smell particularly good on my husband -- I wonder if I can persuade him to buy a 5ml of it and let it sit in his BPAL box for a couple of years. (I doubt it will be a difficult mission since the movie Tombstone is one of his favorites of all time. He'll be my huckleberry.)

Dove's Heart has a powdery sharp lavender scent, some other florals too, but I don't know what. To be honest I don't care for the scent and would not wear this as perfume, but I have found it to be powerful in meditation. Extraordinarily centering and calming. Very peaceful.

Ah, Bess. She and I kind of have a love/hate relationship. I really, truly do not like any of the notes in Bess (except for orange flower, which is iffy). I avoid all those notes like the plague, particularly rosemary. I have an imp of Bess, and sometimes I put it on, remembering that although I dislike the notes there was something about it that worked on me. Sometimes I hate her because of the grape spirit (which smells good, I just don't like it as a perfume), and sometimes her rosemary hates me (the herbiness takes over). But some days, I catch myself sneaking sniffs of my wrist and thinking, "Wow, that smells so elegant and regal. Why don't I wear this more often?" And then I think, "No! No! It's Bess! All those notes I don't like, remember?!" But I keep sniffing, and the more I sniff the more I like it. It's like I'm trying to convince myself that I don't like it, but in spite of myself I often like it quite a lot.

On me, Rose Cross is mostly sweet frankincense with a little bit of rose. The rose seems like kind of a green rose (what I usually think of as a thorny rose). This isn't really a soft scent -- I don't mean it's strong, I mean it's kind of hazy. Not round. But it has a simplicity that I like. I hope that people who like frankincense will give it a try; it's pretty combined with the rose.

I had just decided to put away my laptop and go to bed when the announcement email popped up in my InBox. I didn't even know there was a chance it might go live tonight, so it was a big surprise. But YAY, I didn't miss the update! Here are my thoughts (apart from the general about Neil Gaiman scents!): THE CAROUSEL: AMERICAN GODS BILQUIS: Honey, myrrh, lily of the valley, rose otto, fig leaf, almond, ambrette, red apple, and warm musk. I will love to try a decant of this because I like a lot of those notes. I had to be picky about which bottles I got, though, due to a rather small PayPal balance, so I decided against ordering a bottle of this. The honey, ambrette, and red apple are possible no-nos on me. MAD SWEENEY: Barrel-aged whiskey and oak. Not sure on this one... I like oak but whiskey is iffy. MAMA-JI: Spices, cardamom, nutmeg, and flowers. I don't think that one's going to work on me either. I usually stay away from spices. MR. IBIS: Papyrus, vanilla flower, Egyptian musk, African musk, aloe ferox, white sandalwood. I have to try this one as soon as possible. I really like all those notes. I ordered a bottle. MR. JACQUEL: Golden amber, hyssop, North African patchouli, and embalming spices. This could be really great -- when I was reading the description I accidentally read "embalming spices" as "embalming herbs" and remembered that the herbs haven't worked on me. I didn't order a bottle because of that, and now that I realize I mis-read the description I wish I would have tried a bottle. THE CAROUSEL: ANANSI BOYS MR. NANCY: Sugar cookies with bay rum, tobacco, and lime. I love sugar cookies and I like those additional notes! This was the first one I saw that I didn't even have to consider -- I knew instantly that it would be in my order. SPIDER: White ginger, artemesia, vetiver, nutmeg, King mandarin, bergamot, and lime. This one threw me for a total loop. I have no idea what that will smell like. I'll be on the lookout for decants for sale as soon as people start getting their bottles. LIMITED EDITION: LUNACIES CROW MOON: This is the final Full Moon of winter. The call of the crow signals the end of the frost, and their scent, of vervain, black violet, white musk, and Chinese cedar, is brushed by the last cold wind of winter on their wings, and the scent of evergreen boughs touched by the season’s final flowers and the first blossoms of spring: wintersweet, green-barked dogwood, primrose, snowdrop, and lenten rose hellebore bouquet. I got this because I get all the lunacies, but I am almost positive that the "cold wind of winter" aspect is going to mess up the scent for me. It always does. OBOROT Balkan fir sap, dark mosses, Greek Mountain tea flower, black pine, salty ocean spray, deep black earth, and a moon-touched magickal incense of sandarac, frankincense, and ravensara. I got this one too for the same reason, but fir, pine, moss, and earth are all bad on me. I don't expect I'm going to like it, but I'm willing to give it a shot. LIMITED EDITION FIRE PIG A new year’s blessing! Peony, China’s national flower, with bamboo for flexibility, plum blossom for perseverance, courage, and hope, tangerine for wealth, orange for happiness, lychee for household peace, pine resin for constancy, golden kumquat, pussy willow, and quince for prosperity, narcissus and King mandarin for good fortune, and peach blossom for longevity, with a splash of blazing red of dragon’s blood… to help you scare away the rampaging Nian. Well, I did like Peony Moon, except that I thought it didn't seem to be too terribly complex -- this one sounds a lot more interesting. I'm not sure about it though, and since it'll be up for a while I figured I could take some time deciding on it.

I'm a junkie! I'm a junkie! I loooove testing BPAL before I go to bed. It's dark out, and I have something like Dead Can Dance on the stereo, and it's just me and some lovely scents. It's one of my very favorite alone-time times. It seems so calming to me, and a little indulgent, too.

I just caught myself in the act of chewing a fingernail. It had a little tear in one side, and now it's gone. This upsets me because my new year's resolution for 2006 was to stop chewing my fingernails. It's a habit I'd had since I was a kid. I bit my fingernails all the time, and my hands never looked pretty and womanly. They always looked beat-up and rough because of having terrible fingernails. So I quit. I reallly, honestly quit. I spent all of 2006 trying to figure out how to care for fingernails because I'd never had them before. They'd get long and I'd say "Wow, look at my long fingernails!" My husband would say, "Yep. Here's the nail clippers." It took me almost a year to use the clippers because I was so upset about the idea of cutting down the fingernails that I had been so good about growing. I was filing, filing, filing constantly. This winter I've learned about nail brittleness. Almost all of my fingernails have started to get cracks on the edges, fairly far down. I tried to glue a couple of them, but that only held for a few days at the most. Plus I messed with them absent-mindedly. Yesterday I realized that so many of them had those cracks that I'd better just cut them all down. I cut them to a reasonable short length. A little white crescent moon on the ends of my fingernails. The problem is that now they're so short they're the perfect biting height. Earlier tonight I was feeling annoyed and irritated about something, and before I knew it I'd lost a fingernail. Crap! Now I have to go through that whole agonizing torture of forcing myself NOT to mess with my fingernails all over again until these grow out. Luckily they grow fast (I never knew my fingernails grew so rapidly until I started letting them grow -- they're like weeds!), but it'll still be several weeks before I can stop thinking "DO NOT BITE FINGERNAILS!!!" in the back of my mind at all times. But, hey. If a bitten fingernail is the worst thing to happen to me this week, that's a damn good week, in my book.

Thanks for the tips! It does feel very weird having short nails after having long ones for so long. Obviously when I was growing them it was a gradual change that I didn't notice so much. But this new short thing is a drastic change. Heehee. Growing my fingernails was in fact an attempt to be more sexy, but that was a year ago. Painting them bright red today, though -- that's definitely part of Operation Sex Kitten.

I'd like to know that too, particularly the Ashtanyika scents. I recently discovered that I LOVE Vasakasajja, and I would like to be able to pronounce it correctly. I've been saying "vah-SAHK-ah-sah-JHAH" but I have no idea whether that's even close. Can someone help me? As an aside: I tried Googling it, and the first page of search results was mostly BPAL decant circles.

This smells exactly like pink bubblegum to me at first. I don't mean sort of like bubblegum, I mean that exact scent. When it dries it smells more like fruits, but not juicy fruits, kind of acidic fruits. The pepper isn't really helping. I think my skin must have some trouble with certain fruits -- it turned both Migo Brain Canister and Fruit Moon into an acidic fruit scent. It's messing up this one, too. Although this doesn't work on me, I bet it smells fabulous on other people.

Woah. I don't know what I was expecting from this scent, but this isn't it. I was taken by surprise. This smells like the inside of a cedar chest. Dry, very woody. Hardly any rose at all. Slightly smoky, but not a hazy smoke, an acrid smoke. This scent reminds me of an antiques shop.

Oddly, this smells quite perfumey on me at first. But then the tea scent starts to come out, with a startlingly sweet orange blossom too. The mint is very soft -- exactly the way I like mint. (The only way I like mint, to be honest.) Lemongrass is a dreaded note for me, but it doesn't even come close to ruining this blend for me. It seems to be giving the scent a slightly herbal feel, which I don't object to at all. I like this. It smells classic and elegant, clean and pretty.

This does seem to be a masculine scent at first, but when it dries it softens up a lot from the almond milk. I'm not really getting sarsaparilla out of this (if that smells like what I think it smells like -- I might be thinking of something else). Mostly patchouli, cold-ish and dry pine, and that sweet almond milk. I think this is lovely. I asked my husband to try it, and it is much creamier on my skin than on his. Hm, that's interesting. For once something smells better on me than on him! (This is the first time in our BPAL history that's happened.) I'm growing to like this more and more the longer I wear it. I'll need to get a bottle of this one, I think.

This is sweeter than I thought it would be -- I had sort of assumed that the cassis and cardamom would run riot over everything else, but they don't (although they are prominent). It smells mainly like a spicy verbena scent, which is an odd combination but not at all unpleasant, with a very rich patchouli underneath. Overall this is too spicy for me to wear, but I do like the scent.

This smells medicinal, like cough syrup or something. Anise, probably? It reminds me of Good n' Plenty candy. It gets a little more fruity over time (and maybe slightly floral) but I really don't like the beginning part.