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Lemony tea. Fresh and invigorating. Very pretty, but not distinctly unlike the lemony tea scents I've tried from the GC. I feel like the anise could have made this more of a standout, but I guess my skin chemistry had other ideas because that note is not showing up at all for me.

This is a great, pretty, cheerful scent. I always enjoy scents like this when I test them, but for some reason I never wear them. Not sure why.

I don't like aquatics, or pine scents, or jasmine, or most floral notes. OK, so why is this amazing?

 

Honestly, I never wear aquatics or anything with a noticeable pine note. I keep trying aquatics thinking one of them might work for me, but they never do. They're too salty or ozoney or they remind me too much of a men's cologne. This one, though... it's watery in a pretty way, with the pine a nice solid background and the florals sweet and feminine. It also smells slightly like pineapple for some reason, which in my book is not bad at all. Gives it kind of a sweet tropical overtone.

 

Hey, whaddya know. I think I found my aquatic winner. Only took me 5 years!

This smells like rye bread to me. I'm suddenly in the mood for a delicious reuben sandwich.

 

Can't see myself wearing it as a perfume.

This is the 2009 version.

 

When I first put this on it was citrusy and bright and cheery, and I thought I was going to like it. But then it turned powdery and strange. Crap. I suspect frankincense is the issue here. We often don't get along. When it's dry it smells like a very vaguely citrusy chalky incense. Not gonna work for me.

Smoky chocolate. Interesting. Because of the smoke, it smells a little like it has a wood note in it, to me. Cassia is usually a deal-breaker for me because I amp it a lot and I don't like it very well, but it's not overpowering in this one. It's right at the level where I wish it was in other perfumes.

 

Because of the chocolate and what smells like a wood note, this reminds me a bit of How Doth the Little Crocodile. Except this is a spicier scent.

 

ETA: The longer this dries down, the more I like it. It has gone from "eh, maybe I'll keep this decant" to "wow, that's really nice." I'm going to wear it for a day and see how it goes.

All I smell at first is loam. It's a very sweet dirt, not the dark muddy sort. After about an hour it gets a little bit herby, but mostly it still smells like dirt.

Very sweet floral -- I think maybe Lily of the Valley is just a little too sweet for me. I think I can smell a smidge of sandalwood underneath because it smells dusty.

Very summery. Big huge green grass. After about an hour or so it's a lot softer and seems vaguely floral, sort of like a meadow. When it was wet it was pretty sharp.

I didn't like this much when I first put it on, but when it dried it got a whole lot nicer. I like rosewood -- Seance is one of my favorite scents -- and this is great. I probably only need one rosewood blend, and I think Seance is the one. This is a close runner-up, though.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to smell like, but when I first put it on it was very sweet. Sweet as in some sort of exotic fruit that I wouldn't know the name of. After about 30 minutes it got a lot softer and smoother.

 

It's very nice, but I'm not sure that fruity note is my favorite fruit ever.

 

ETA: After about 90 minutes or so, I keep sniffing the air and wondering where that cologne-like scent is coming from. I tracked it down to the test spot of Meliai. It smells kinda like one of those sporty colognes at this stage. It is still not bad -- in fact I'm actually enjoying it -- but still probably not something I'd wear with any sort of regularity.

I have no idea why I never reviewed this scent. It's been a favorite for a long time. You'd think it would smell masculine, with the word "King" in it, but it doesn't. It smells like soft dark fruits with musk. Kind of a hazy plum, with a wisp of coconut.

 

Basically, there is nothing wrong about this scent. Everything goes together perfectly. I wish this one and Queen of Spades could be resurrected. These are two of my most favorite BPAL scents, but I can hardly ever wear them because I have so little oil.

Lemony tea and ginger. It smells crisp, bright, and fun.

 

This is the sort of scent that I enjoy but for some reason never wear. I don't know why that is. Maybe because whenever I'm in the mood for a sweet, tea-ish sort of scent, I automatically go straight for the Dorian bottle. I don't like this one as much as Dorian, but it's certainly not bad at all.

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.