filigree_shadow

Disclaimer: I have ZERO idea of what any of these notes are supposed to smell like, other than violet and snow. What I do know: This smells more rooty/barky/herby than I expected. I thought it would be kind of a soft floral, and instead it's a little harsh, and it's only chilly if you try to hallucinate snow while you're sniffing it. Mostly it smells like a rather bitter floral. Some people totally love this sort of scent, but it's not my type. Good news: It gets nicer as it gets drier. And yes, I'm drunk. What, you've never been drunk on a Wednesday? Don't judge. There's hockey on, and it's been a rough week.

I think it's safe to say at this point that none of the "Champagne" BPALs are ever going to be my Holy Grail scent. This smells kind of like fizzy gin on me. Maybe a very slight citrus -- not as strong citrus as Sprite, but just a hint. Not really getting ant rose at all from this.

Aww, this was discontinued? That's too bad. It's one of the BPALs that would be entirely suitable for a child. It smells clean and fresh, but the amber and sandalwood make it smell just grown-up enough that a 10-year-old girl would feel soooooo grown-up if she were wearing this. I like it. It's unusual and not offensive at all.

Wet, this smells gross. Sorry, but it does. It smells like someone has dragged in sticky wet rose petals on the bottom of their shoes into a gas station bathroom. (For some reason pomegranate has been showing up in damn near everything in the past couple of years, and it smells like cheap disgusting bathroom air freshener on me. It is really not pleasant.) However... when this is dry, it is a lot better. The resins combine with the rose to give it kind of a sticky rosewood scent, which is not half bad in my book. I'm quite fond of rosewood. However, that dastardly pom is still lurking. Bleah. I like rosewood enough that I don't want it to smell distorted -- I like it just as it is. Don't want that gross pomegranate with it.

Nice, lived-in leather and a little bit of something smoky. This is a very, very comforting scent to me, and I am definitely giving this to my husband to try.

I was dying to try this because although I love the scent of Egg Nog, BPAL's Egg Nog perfume smells like plastic on me. I've tried different years, and yeah... all plastic. But! COFFEE?!? Maybe if you add coffee, a note I usually love, that would cover up the plastic smell and make it wearable for me!?!? Uhhh, no. This is better than just plain Egg Nog, and I do love the coffee note, but I can still smell the plastic. Dammit. You guys who can wear this one better be wearing it when you're out and about so people like me can enjoy it!

This smells like kind of a bright chypre. Peppery and sweet, but mossy and bold, too. It smells very complex, and to be honest I assumed this was an LE until I looked it up -- I was surprised to find out it was a GC. Super nice addition to the catalog. Great scent!

Very soft and pretty amber with cognac just playing over the top of it. This does not smell like you just doused yourself in a bottle of cognac. It's just a hint. And this amber is amazingly one of the ones that is not going powdery on me. Very nice.

Despite Blood Moon 05's awful failure on me (smelled like moldy grains), I wanted to give this one a shot. This smells like musk and incense, and it has an outdoorsy feel to it. I wonder if one of the musks is white musk because I'm getting an ever-so-slight whiff of dryer sheets in here. I think this is one of the musky-outdoorsy blends that does not smell masculine to me. This one would feel right at home on a woman. It goes through a phase where it even smells like a rather haughty perfume. But mostly it smells calming and relaxing and comforting to me.

On me, this smells like a HUGE wallop of honey, with maybe something soft and powdery behind it. Probably some sort of amber -- ambers often turn powdery on me. I know lots of you guys are crazy for the BPAL honey note, but my skin chemistry has never been fond of it. It tends to smell more like play-doh than honey on my skin. So... although this is honestly one of the few honey perfumes I actually like, I'll pass it along. I'm sure someone else will adore this when she wears it.

Definitely a favorite of the Halloweenies from this year. I think this was the only 5ml I ordered straight from the Lab from this update, and that was a great decision! I love BPAL's pumpkin, and I almost always love foodie scents unless they do that weird burnt plastic thing or the dreaded play-doh thing. This one does neither -- it is cute and fluffy and adorable, with not so much pumpkin that you feel like you're drowning in buttery pumpkin. It's pretty much perfect. I've worn this many times since October and plan to keep wearing it! I have no qualms about wearing pumpkin scents outside of the rigid restraints of autumn.

This is supposed to smell like "grave-cold phantasmal iron links"? Hunh. Okay, well, it does smell chilly, but I'm not getting a ton of metal out of it. It smells more aquatic than metal to me. There's something else in there that smells like one of the sour citrus notes -- more likely lime than yuzu. Smells rather fresh and clean to me, and not horrifying and oppressive at all.

This starts out smelling exactly like a traditional perfume, with the quality I usually describe as "stinging." And then it settles into a barely-there whiff of baby powder. It's not bad at all, just not the kind of thing I usually go for with perfume.

Not much wine in this for me, but sweet cake, a little bit of Snake Oil, and the sorts of desert flowers that smell like some of BPAL's Mexican inspired florals. From the description I was worried this would be boozey and tobacco-smokey, and end up smelling like stale smoke in a bar. Nope! Not at all. Sweet, sugary, sexy. I did not order a bottle of this but I wish I would have. I've worn it at least 6 or 7 times from my decant, and I've loved it every time.

Smells like leather and tobacco on me. Hint of coffee. Nice, but definitely masculine. My husband is a fiend for BPAL's leather notes, and he wears scents like this a lot... which is very likely why this smells definitely masculine to me. Doesn't smell like me at all -- smells like my husband. I will pass the decant over to him.

Hmmm. Not really sure what to say about this one. It's kind of equally a hazy lavender and a sweet fruit. I don't really get any jasmine or linen from it. Kind of a nice herbaly fruit blend.

I got this one because all those notes sound great except pomegranate. Aaaaaand guess what it smells like most strongly? Yep. See, the thing is, pomegranate smells like bathroom air freshener on me. That's not something I'm looking for in a personal fragrance. I keep trying oils with pomegranate in, though, just in case at some point it's so soft I can't really smell it. Not this one, though. I can tell it smells nice underneath there, but I just can't do the pom.

Kind of a dusty violet scent on me. Not super strong on the violets (which is surprising because that note tends to amp a lot on me), but it smells like a watery violet... except it also smells dusty. It's a little bit of an odd combination. It's not bad, and I don't object to it -- I'm not rushing off to wash it off or anything. It's nice enough. Just not really my thing.

Red musks blends almost always smell very similar on me because that note is so strong on my skin. I always end up saying the same thing in my reviews: "Yes, this is really nice, but one of these days I'm going to have to do a side-by-side comparison of all the great red musk blends so I can pick just one or two that I want to keep." I swear, I say that every time. Same thing this time. This smells great, and the clove with the red musk is a nice combination. This seems sweeter than red musk blends usually are on me, too. I like this one and will keep it in the running for the eventual side-by-side.

Very, very pretty. Soft shimmering musk with just a hint of cocoa and vanilla and dry sweetness. I like this one a lot. ETA: Well, I have to edit this. I did a full wear of this one today, rather than just a test, and the "dead dry leaves" aspect of it came out waaaaay more on my throat than it did on my arm. One of my wrists smells sweet and sort of like a cocoa musk, and the other wrist smells like it has spikenard on it. Spikenard is a note that will very definitively KILL any perfume for me if I can detect it at all. I hate it. "Dead dry leaves" don't smell exactly like spikenard, but close enough that whenever I get a whiff of it I crinkle my nose. Really not what I want to smell like. So... off to swaps after all. Dammit. That one had some promise.

Yep, it smells like pot. Not exactly, but pretty close. And because of that, I won't be able to wear this. Because of my profession, I can't have people even thinking that I might be tokin' up.

I've worn this one four or five times since I got it. I keep putting it on thinking that I can't remember whether I liked it last time, but based on the notes it should be a good one. I put it on, give it a sniff and think Sure, that should be fine, and go on with my day. And as far as I can remember, that's where it ends. I can't remember ever wearing this scent and thinking Hey, something smells good -- oh, it's the Changeling! Apparently I put it on and then instantly forget I have it on and don't interact with the scent at all. Kinda odd. That doesn't usually happen with me. I like it -- it has the squashy pumpkin scent to it rather than the buttery pumpkin scent, and I do like that. It's less foody. I like the blonde wood and the linen. Basically there isn't anything about this scent that I don't like. It smells nice. It just doesn't seem to be knocking my socks off for some reason.

Vanilla-infused white honey, magnolia, skin musk, ylang ylang, and beeswax with patchouli, olibanum, kurundu, and a feral brown musk. I expected this to be light and pretty, and instead it smells pretty much exactly like baby powder on me. It doesn't smell bad, it just smells like... powder.

Dark, electrically charged perfume. It smells clean and sultry at the same time. Very interesting and pretty. Good for nighttime.

Smells like a sweet, tropical floral on me, with a hint of banana. Not too much of the caramel scent others are describing. It reminds me a bit of some of the Mexican-themed BPAL perfumes, in that it is an unusual sweet floral.