filigree_shadow

Has it been a month since I wrote anything here? Sheesh. I thought it had been maybe a couple of weeks. I would really like to start writing more in this blog because I don't have any RL friends who are into BPAL, except my husband. My LJ journal is mostly just full of entries that have a company's name in the title and then a list of all their products I've tried and whether or not I liked them. I suppose it's not helpful to anyone but me. And I don't want to be all over the place making all kinds of posts everywhere about every BPAL oil I try because I don't want to be a pest. Plus, it seems like it's very easy to irritate people on the Internet, so I'm cautious about that. (If someone heard me talking it would sound different from the way text looks.) People tell me that I have an extremely expressive face, and I also gesture with my hands a lot, and all of that gets lost when I type. So I guess I'll just post here. It seems pretty unobtrusive. And I'm pretty sure no one is reading this anyway.

ETA: I actually wrote this on about April 8th, I just never figured out the Publish button thingie until just now. Allrighty, figuring out how to set up this blog wasn't too rough. I wanted to start a blog because my BPAL habit is getting out of control. Not in terms of sheer numbers of imps and bottles, mind you -- that would be silly. Clearly I can never have enough BPAL. The part that is out of control is the organization of it. I have a box for keeper bottles, a box for keeper imps, a box for swaps, and a box for imps I haven't tested yet. I also have a box for frimps from the Lab because I like to keep those separate so I know which ones were "straight form the Lab" for swaps. Everything in my "keep" boxes has labels on the top. The imp labels are color-coded by scent category. I have a color-coded spreadsheet that lists all the oils, their categories, their notes, a basic summary of what I read of their reviews, and my own thoughts on them. And apart from that, it's a DISASTER. I forget I bought an imp from my wishlist and I buy it again from someone else. My to-be-tested imp box is overflowing. I can't sell or swap anything to save my life, so I end up with like 3 imps of Jabberwocky that I'll never wear. I begin to panic because I'm terrified I'll swap something that has been tampered with before I got it unbeknownst to me, and then I'll get blacklisted in the whole community, so I start to think I need at least 2 of everything before I can sell it so I can compare them and make sure they both seem legit. I have reviews of some scents and not some of others, and I've already swapped away a few imps that I didn't write reviews/thoughts for, so now I'm thinking I'll have to buy the buggers again. And the biggest horror of all: What if my tastes change? What if my skin smells different today because I used the Decadence smooch? What if something I thought I hated and swapped away turned out to be something that I will love 1 year from now? I better just keep everything... I keep telling myself I will NOT buy any more until I get this situation straightened out. But here I am at 11:00 on a Friday night trolling the sales posts to see if by some miracle someone has an imp of Spanked they want to sell. Sigh.

My blog never gets bumped whenever I add a new entry. Sigh. Poor little guy. It hurts his feelings. And even though I have written several entries, in the blog list it still has a big fat ZERO for number of entries. I wonder what this "Publish" button is for...

Got an imp of this in a swap from the lovely Ryvre. Black Orchid smells very perfumey to me. It's not really overtly floral or creamy, and it's not sharp either. Dark perfumey. I don't smell any dirt, which surprises me because that one always shows up strongly on me if it's there at all. It reminds me a lot of a scent I'm familiar with, and I thought it might be Prada perfume, so I put a tiny dab of it on my other arm. Yep, that's what Black Orchid reminds me of. Prada has no orchid in it, but it's that same stinging, kind of metallic, haughty expensive perfume scent. But Black Orchid, unsurprisingly, is much better. Much better. I would get a big bottle of this right now if I could.

The lovely Sunnie also sent me an imp of Black Lily in a swap! It's not what I expected, although to be honest I'm not sure what I expected. Wet it smelled a little too green on me, and then it went through a heady floral stage, but when it's dry it smells creamy and rich. It's not a little-girl innocent floral, it's a womanly floral. Not overtly sweet or powdery. Stays true to that scent for a long time, too.

I decided to do a small test at home when I'm not around many people. I put a drop on my head and throat and over my heart -- I paid special attention to my throat. To me, it smells like incense over a strong sweet resin, but it has a bright quality to it as well. While wearing it, I found myself laughing more easily, and conversation was less stilted. I felt like I didn't need to hunt for words. My husband's friend came over and sat next to me on the couch and talked to me for a while, and he doesn't often do that. I like the scent, and I like the way it makes me feel -- also it lasts a long time and has strong throw. I am planning to wear this again when I'm around more people, now that I feel comfortable with its effects.

Dark brown oils are usually good ones for me -- so as soon as I saw Chokmah in the imp I wanted to try it right away. At first I smelled something like a pine/juniper scent, which I didn't like. But after about 30 minutes it smells and awful lot like Snake Oil. It has that same powdery vanilla quality with some yummy spice. On my skin, Chokmah is Snake Oil without the heavy powdery note. It has more bite, too. I didn't expect to get sexy out of a blend called Chokmah, but that's definitely what I got. (And you won't hear me complaining about that at all.) Wouldn't mind having a bottle of this one...

Tintagel is quite interesting to me because I know from trying other blends that my skin amps juniper and dragon's blood. I was wondering which one would win in Tintagel -- I was hoping for dragon's blood. Guess which one won? Neither. It's leather. All leather. I've tried it twice now, and both times I got a lot of juniper for the first ten minutes and then after that mainly leather with a little bit of spice. I know that not many people are getting leather out of Tintagel, but I am thrilled to find a GC that smells close enough to Spanked on me that I will no longer worry about not having a bottle of Spanked.

Incense and resin, that's what this smells like on my skin. A bit like cedar and frankincense. And then it starts to get a bit powdery and much softer. I'm not sure what it is with the Celestials... I've tried 5 of them and none of them have worked for me.

This smells to me like clove-flavored candy. I have no idea why I get that impression, but there's something very sweet about it, in addition to the clove (which is strong). In one sniff it smells like cinnamon-apples, and then I in the next sniff all I can think of is clove buds. Too spicy for me personally, but I think spice fans will like this one.

The musk is subtle in this one, but it's there. It's kind of green in a grassy way. It's not as animalistic as I had expected, it's actually kind of soft. It's going a little powdery, too. Buck Moon smells a whole lot like Enraged Bunny Musk to my nose. The Bunny Musk is a little greener and Buck Moon is a little earthier, but they're very similar. Think I'll give this one to the hubby and see what he thinks.

I tried this oil without looking at the notes, and as soon as I put it on my skin I looked at the imp again because I thought I had picked up Lick It by mistake. Nope, this is Tulzscha. The severe mintyness (mintitude? mintosity?) backs off a lot in the first ten minutes or so, and what's left is almost a 50/50 cucumber-mint combination. It's got a little bit of bite to it, and I think it's more complex than just a plain mint scent. The cucumber makes it smell a little earthy to me, but it's still a fresh, bright blend.

[My eternal gratitude to Mistress Tera, who sent me an imp of white musk single note -- I got that imp two days before I got the EBM bottle, and I now I know exactly what white musk smells like (it smells slightly lemony and sweet on my skin before drying out to a powdery musk scent).] EBM smells musky and powdery to me, but despite the lemony quality in the white musk single note, I get no lemons in EBM. It's sweeter and softer than I expected it to be. Rather feminine. 'Fraid I've got no idea what cotton blossom smells like... and I'm not really sure about clover either. But I do know that this smells fluffy and powdery and soft. It doesn't last very long, though (barely there after an hour). This is not the type of scent I usually wear, but I like it anyway. Most of the other musk blends I have are quite dark -- this is a pleasant change for me, and I'm happy to have this bottle in my collection!

This is the 2006 version. Beltane is like a gentle romp through a meadow. It smells playful and ... I want to say "hopeful," but that sounds kind of weird when talking about a scent. It actually does smell like that to me, though. It's mostly a fresh green scent and smells very clean. It has a slight floral quality to it, but it's like when flowers are just budding, not like when they're in full-bloom. I see what the previous reviewer meant about smelling something like chamomile -- the herbs are soft and gentle, not at all sharp or astringent. It becomes slightly powdery on me after about an hour or so, but not a lot, and certainly not enough to bother me. It has excellent throw, too. It's not going to bowl anyone over, but you don't need to have your nose right next to it to smell it. This one is a keeper for me. Total success.

Underpants is by far my fave of the Monster Baits. It's a gorgeous creamy vanilla-sandalwood scent with just a little bit of rum. The saffron isn't really peeking out too much at first, but it comes out more over time. It's not overly sweet or even overly foody, which surprises me. No one note is overpowering the scent, it's all blended beautifully. I am a sucker for foody and vanilla scents, and truthfully I think this is one of the best ones I've tried. I could wear this all the time. In fact maybe I will! I have Snake Charmer in my scent locket right now and Underpants on my wrists and I am in a cloud of pure heaven. These two go really well together.

I have a chemistry test tomorrow (calculating pH in acid and base reactions, buffers, etc. -- really *yawn* stuff), and I still have an entire chapter to read. I am having a lot of trouble filtering out stress noise so that I can clear my head to study. So I decided to try White Light. Sniffed the imp, liked the scent, attempted to put myself in the right frame of mind (no ritual, just intent)... and right as I touched the oil to my skin I developed a pounding headache. The kind of headache where it makes me feel queasy in my stomach. My head still hurts, and that was an hour ago. This all might be entirely coincidental, but now I have such a negative association with this scent (even now when I catch wafts of it I feel very uneasy and queasy) I don't think I will be able to try it again. I feel very sad about this, especially after hearing how well it has worked for others.

I like both boozey and foody, and I thought I'd like this. I was right. At first it smells mainly like butterscotch, with a little bit of rum. Just like the other reviewers said. But the extreme buttery quality fades pretty quickly... after a few minutes it's mostly rum with a little butterscotch twinge to it, and also a little bit of spice. Smells more tropical over time.

Smells fruity but not overly. Smells floral but not overly. This one's not a stand-out for me. It's not offensive, but there's nothing in it that grabs my attention. Plus it's very soft.

I loved this from the very second I opened the imp. Put it on my skin... gorgeous. Just the right kind of combination for me. It's a little sweet, a little bit spicy, and a little bit dark, and not too far in any one direction. In truth, the sweetness of it reminds me of tangerines at first. But the vetiver and opium poppy make for a languid combination, and they end up dominating in the end. Yep, I love this.

This is a beautiful, calming scent. Myrrh brings frankincense's sweetness down to a very pleasant level. It smells very slightly floral -- but only if you're really looking for it. This is probably one of the few incense scents I would wear on my skin. BPAL has the only frankincense note in perfume oil that I've liked. Other companies' frankincense is too sweet or too dry on me. BPAL's is lovely.

This one was a little nose-crinkly for me. I like patchouli, but this is really woody and pungent. I kinda smell like band-aids. Saturnalia also smelled like band-aids on me, and they both have vetiver in them. I am really surprised about this because I always thought vetiver was my friend. Maybe it depends on the blend. Or maybe I'm totally wrong and it's the red patchouli that's smelling like ick. It does start to smell a bit better after 15-20 minutes, but there's no way I'll ever be able to stand walking around smelling like a 5-foot Curad. This one's going to swaps.

I put this on and said, "Mmmm!" and held my arm out to my hubby, who said, "Mmmm!" He said "Smells like rum!" as I was saying "Smells like coconuts!" It's not quite so Pina Colada after a few minutes, and the tobacco comes out. Sweet, silky, very tropical blend. We like this one.

I didn't like this at first -- it smelled just like pine. Don’t know why… pine isn't listed in the description. I can't smell the juniper berries, which smell like lemon on me, or the oakmoss (which is just fine with me). The hubby tried it on and we didn't really like it on him either. But after about 10 minutes it turned into patchouli and myrrh. Much nicer. This is the strongest myrrh I've smelled in a BPAL oil, and it's lovely. I think it's a little too masculine for me personally, but I like the scent a lot. Smells good on the hubby now too.

Also called Gallows Literature. A dime novel rife with melodrama, horror, madness and cruelty; a ten cent analogy of vice and virtue in conflict. Soft perfume evocative of noir heroines over rich red grave loam. There's a sort of honey sweetness to this one, but unfortunately there is also a strong dirt smell, which doesn't agree with me. I like the way it smells in the imp though, so I think I'll try it in a scent locket. ETA: Lab's description.

This is basically completely cassia on my skin. There is a slight cake undertone to it, but barely. I put it on before going to bed, read my book for an hour or so, continuing to check to see if anything peeks out from behind the cassia... nope. I got a snoot full of cassia every time I sniffed it. I don't smell any coconut. Strange that both of the Monster Baits I've tried have one overpoweringly amped note on my skin. This one is cassia, Closet was bourbon. Maybe I'll have better luck with Underpants.