filigree_shadow

Had no idea what to expect from this scent. It smells like a herby lemon/citrus scent, but the herbs aren't harsh at all, they're super soft. Like I said, I wasn't sure what to expect from this, and I was surprised to like it as much as I do. It's unusual, definitely not overly floral or overly herby. It's soft and smells rather elegant to me, and I think that's the first time I've ever said that about a citrusy scent.

I really hoped this one would work on me, and in the beginning I thought it would. It smelled like sweet pretty pears. Then while drying it smelled like creamy pears. Nice! But dry, it smells like BPAL's honey note... which does not get along with my skin chemistry and smells like play-doh. There's barely any pear left at all after 15 minutes, and it's just a sweet honey scent.

For sure champaca. Reminds me a lot of nag champa incense. I can't really smell much of anything else, to be honest. Mostly just nag champa.

I usually like lilac, but for some reason this one isn't working for me. It smells like a very sweet, dry lilac. I like my lilacs to smell soft and petaly. Orris tends to smell quite "dry" on me, and I think it's not my favorite combination with lilac.

I feel like this maybe should have worked on me? I don't hate any of those notes, and "gentle" is exactly how I like anise. But something in this smells off to me. I can't put my finger on what it is. It's not bad, it just smells distorted somehow. Like it was trying to be something else, but it's off. I don't know how else to explain it. I think that apple blossom and anise/clove is not my favorite combination. I'm guessing that's what's going on here.

As nearly everyone has said this smells very marshmallowy and pink. It definitely does remind me of Velvet Unicorn, like if it was next to I Fell in Love with a Floating Brain. I don't really smell any dandelion in it, which for me is good because I don't like dandelion. I do have trouble with certain BPAL notes smelling like plastic on me, but happily this one doesn't.

I think my imp is pretty aged at this point, because I'm having a lot of trouble identifying particular notes, and it's certainly not the heady floral soapy perfumey scent other people have described. It's light, sweet, pretty, and a little woody. It seems like I can tell there's sandalwood in this, and the sweetness seems to be coming from the tea. I don't know what this imp smelled like when it was new, but I bet aging has helped. It's pretty nice, and I'm not a fan of florals.

A very resiny blend on me -- almost sticky. The frankincense is quite sweet, and I don't really smell any fruit. I'm not usually much of a fan of frankincense, and I feel like I'd probably like this better without it. I enjoy those deep smooth types of resin scents, and this one for sure isn't dark enough for me.

Sweet, bright aquatic that manages to be slightly perfumey on me. Sometimes ambergris gives a blend that "perfumey" quality, and that's probably what's doing it here. I'm not used to aquatics smelling sweet... if more of them smelled like this I'd probably like them better. Most aquatics smell roughly the same on me for some reason, and I have difficulty telling them apart. This one is different, and I'm surprised. I like it.

This smells good. I can’t quite put my finger on what I like about it, but I’ve tried it twice now and I’ve liked it both times. It doesn’t really smell like one singular thing, just kind of a soft resin scent. Not herby at all, really. A little sweet. Wears like a skin scent. I’m sure that I’ll continue to like this every time I wear it, but I’m also sure that it’s never going to be a stand-out favorite. But super nice for those days when I don’t really feel like smelling like PERFUME -- I feel like maybe someone might assume that I just naturally smell like this, like some sort of awesome human.

There are a ton of notes in this thing, and it’s pretty hard to pick out any one note. If I had to guess, I’d say that I can smell the lemon verbena, patchouli, and frankincense. Can’t really isolate any of the floral notes, not even carnation, and that one’s usually strong on me. There’s a couple of resins in here that make it smell smooth rather than a jangled mess, and it really does come together quite well in the end. It’s six years aged at this point, and of course the lemon isn’t as strong and the resins are deeper. It’s really quite nice now, as scents like this often are.

Basically might as well be a white gardenia single note on me. With a bit of magnolia. Which smells a lot like gardenia. There’s a little musk underneath it, but this scent is really only for people who like gardenia. Sadly, that is not me.

I don’t really like BPAL’s pomegranate note, but I must have gotten this as a frimp somehow, so I tried it. Surprisingly, not bad. I usually like the red musk and anise combination and I like it here too. Unfortunately I’m not a huge fan of adding pom to it, but this isn’t one of the pom scents that I dislike so much I want to scrub right off.

This has a list of notes in it that would make you think it might smell herby, but it doesn’t. At all. It smells like sweet milk – lots of tonka and a light nutty overtone. I thought this was one of the ones that has rice milk in it, actually, and I was surprised that it wasn’t listed in the notes. I tried this quite a while ago and really liked my decant, so I tracked down a bottle but the bottle smelled different, and not quite as good. So I re-homed that one and I think I'll just keep this decant.

I got this one because I thought it would be awesome resiny musk, but it’s not working for me, sadly. The rose is a lot stronger than I was hoping for, and it smells a little dusty and powdery. I’m glad I tried it, but it’s not for me.

Hm. Based on those notes, I expected to either love this or hate it. Like, amber sometimes goes powdery, and coconut sometimes smells like plastic, and ylang ylang is almost always way too sweet and ruins a blend for me, and ambergris is sometimes powdery too... yikes, now that I'm writing this out, I wonder why the hell I wanted to try this. I like orange blossom, but those other notes are always iffy. Welp, I'm often confusing, even to myself. What I got out of it is a soft, lightly coconut (and I do mean a bare hint), perfumey musk. It's sweet, pretty, and unfortunately awfully generic. It smells to me like the type of perfume someone would wear if she doesn't have much of a preference about what perfume she wears. Like, "Oh, I'll just pick a super bland one so I don't stand out at all." And that, for sure, is not my style.

This is from 2009. I don't get any of the acetone scent that a bunch of other reviewers mentioned. It smells like red applies, and on me it's not very nutty at all, really more juicy-smelling than anything else. Quite red. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of BPAL's pomegranate notes because they don't smell great on me, and although that's not prominent here it is kind of pushing the apple notes into an air freshener type of scent. Which is not all that fantastic. I just tried To Autumn yesterday, and that is a very dry, leafy apple scent -- much more my style. I will stick with that one.

I do not remember now why I wanted to try this one, since I'm not a big fan of hay notes, ambergris is iffy, and what the hell does catnip smell like. I don't know what I expected, but here's what I got: A soft lemony yellow floral that's more than a little "perfumey." I don't dislike it, but I'm super picky about florals and this isn't the type that I prefer.

Sweet, licorice and cacoa. Pretty straightforward. Sometimes that anise/licorice note is incredibly strong on me and lasts forfrickingever (e.g., Kabuki), way past the point where I want to smell it any more and definitely into the stage where I fairly desperately want to smell something else now. This one's not doing that. The licorice note is much softer than I expected, and this is sweeter than I expected.

When I first put this on it was a really dry cocoa scent and I didn't like it much. When it dried, it got smoother, and the coconut came out. It ended up smelling kind of like coconut and wood. It really changed a lot. I can't say that I don't like it, but I don't think it's my sort of scent. I don't know, something feels off about it. But I hardly ever like coconut scents, so maybe that's it.

Mmmmm. I like this one. I'm generally not a fan of apple scents, but this one is startlingly beautiful. The apple smells very dry (I guess that's the dry leaves), with a hint of moss. It's a surprisingly good combination. This would be a perfect fall scent for me. I like Mum Moon a lot too, and several of the pumpkins, and this would be pretty awesome to get into that rotation. What year was this out? 2008? Oh marvelous. I waited 7 years to try it. I bet finding a bottle is not going to be easy. Dammit. I'm not that bright.

I expected this to be rooty and herbal and vaguely horrifying (I don't like that kind of scent), and when I first put it on it seemed pretty pee-yoo. But I gave it a while. The bay rum note was shouting a lot, and I wasn't super happy about that. But when it dried down, it turned into this very pleasant, only marginally masculine, sweet and kind of clean-smelling planty vanilla. On me, this scent reminds me a lot of Tombstone. It's softer, for sure. But, I actually like Tombstone better. Maybe out of familiarity. I doubt I'll have trouble finding a home for the decant.

I sometimes have a problem with BPAL's strawberry note smelling artificial and kind of like plastic, so I'm iffy on trying strawberry scents. But I was pleased to discover it behaves just fine in this one! It's a very sweet, bright red strawberry scent. Very cute. I like it.

From the notes, I expected this one to smell very planty, or at least like hay or a field or something. I don't usually like that kind of scent, so I wasn't very interested in this but decided to try it anyway. It doesn't smell like I thought at all. Sweet rice milk, almond blossoms, and the whole thing smells dry but smooth. It's quite intriguing. I like it a lot, and I didn't expect to.

I love red musk and myrrh, but I don't like carnation (it's usually way too loud on me, and not my favorite floral note anyway) and honey very often does that weird play-doh badness on me (I can't wear scents like O at all). So I wasn't expecting much here, but I always try everything, just in case. Imagine my surprise. The carnation is very nicely balanced here and not overpowering, and even more unbelievably, the honey isn't ruining it at all. In fact, I think it's making it smell better. It's making the red musk smell smoother and sexier, if that's even possible. Deep, smooth, and fairly unrelenting. Not a playful scent. A purposeful one. Very, very nice.