Syzygy

There's a truck stop in Snow Shoe, PA that I've been to about a hundred times where, along with cheap eats and the usual sundries, you can buy those big-ass scented pillar candles.* One time, stopping for supper on a long trip, my beau and I decided we were gonna buy one of those big-ass scented pillar candles because dammit, big-ass scented pillar candles are just plain cool. Problem was, they all smelled sickeningly sweet. We finally found a red one we liked. The scent was called "Fire", and it smelled like the red candles my mother used to burn at Christmas: a kind of red, waxy, vaguely spicy scent. We couldn't quite pin it down, but it was pleasant and kind of consoling. We bought it, took it home and enjoyed the fragrance whenever we burned it. Dragon's Blood smells just like that pillar candle, right down to the waxiness. Weird! But I like it. It's a nice smell that brings back good memories. I don't want to wear this, and it's probably not doing what it's supposed to on me anyway, but I think I'd like to use it as a room scent. Thanks for the freebie, Lab! * Not to be confused with big ass-scented pillar candles. There is a difference.

This is a warm, rich, comforting blend. The sassafrass and vanilla make it smell like a good, creamy root beer, but a touch of woods gives it more dimension. It's got some pretty strong throw, too. Not something I'd usually wear, and I don't think a bottle is in the works, but it looks like I'll be using up the imp anyway: it's a terrific bedtime scent.

My first Lunacy, and it's a keeper. I have no freakin' clue what's going on in here. I don't get 'crisp' or 'fresh' like other people have described. It starts out as a sharp jumble, then settles into a sweet, mellow scent that hangs in there for a good long time. Different notes appear from time to time without any major shifts: this is a quiet little morpher. This doesn't smell like sweets so much as a ghost's faded memory of sweets: I used to love ginger candy as a child. I can almost remember... Too ghostly to be real, and thus little consolation for the living who require what is warm and solid. This is the smell of comfort food for ghosts.

First of all a thousand thank-yous to quikslvr for running the Salon decant circle that allowed me to try some of these blends without my credit card spontaneously combusting. This stuff smells worth the extra money even before it's on the skin. Just sniffing this in the imp, you can tell Beth means business. I applied Two Monsters with the same sort of anticipation that a guitar geek would feel watching Hendrix about to rip into a kickass solo. Unlike that guitar geek, I can't give you a note-by-note description, but I'll do my best. The base of this scent is dark and rich. I can't pick out any one note with the possible exception of leather. The patchouli is behaving itself rather than making this go all head shop, for which I am grateful. After a little while a spark of orange appears (must be the pittosporum, as someone else pointed out) and blossoms, incongruously cheery and whimsical against the deeper, darker notes. Hello orange! What's a sunny, friendly little note like you doing--ow! Here comes the white pepper, adding a sharp little bite just when you least expected it. Maybe this isn't so friendly after all. Well, what did you expect? Bosch didn't call the drawing Two Fuzzy Puppies, you know. This is the scent of someone dangerous and charming, someone who can be so much fun to be around that you forget (at your peril) about their notorious temper. This is someone funny, quick with a smile and a snarky joke...and just as quick to take your head clean off without a moment's warning if you're not careful. Its a spot-on olfactory representation of the artwork: "Watch your step. We may look cute, but we are, after all, monsters."

Attend ye now my tale of heartbreak and woe. Tenochtitlan is a marvel of a scent, the very first that showed me just how amazing and complex a perfume can be, the places it can take you. Bubblegum in the vial, it turns to succulent prickly pear on the skin. Then the prickly pear backs off a bit and the sage and florals come through, but not so strongly as to make this all about the flowers. Spicy coriander heats things up around the edges, every so often a little bit of the prickly pear resurfaces, and it's all against a background of low-key amber: the warm, beating heart of the desert in bloom. I adore it. It is, hands down, my favorite BPAL. Signature scent? Holy grail? This is it. This is me. This is what I want to smell like every day. It's not a come-do-me scent by any stretch, but it always got me a lot of lovely attention from a gentleman admirer when I wore it around him, and I think it was because I always felt so good when I wore it, like I was standing in the desert in my most beloved old hiking clothes, watching the sun set over baked earth and gray-green plants with soft-petaled purple flowers, dust on my boots...just happy to be where I wanted to be, and completely comfortable in my own skin. And when you feel that good, people notice. Tenochtitlan is a masterpiece, and I hereby throw my virtual self down to place virtual kisses on Beth's virtual feet for having created it. "Enough of this rhapsodizing!" you say. "You promised heartbreak and woe! Where's the heartbreak and woe?" Here's the heartbreak and woe: A few months ago my doctor changed my thyroid med. It needed to be done, and I feel much better on the new med and dosage. Unfortunately, the change seems to have altered my chemistry, and Tenochtitlan hasn't smelled quite right on me since. It's still nice, but the notes don't behave as they did before (the flowers amp, the prickly pear hides, the coriander is unpredictable), and that perfect harmony is gone. There are other scents I love, but I've yet to find another that resonated with me the way Tenochtitlan did. It seems so odd to be so affected by a perfume, but I am truly unhappy with this loss. Ah, but it was a glorious love while it lasted, and I'll never give up hope that it may someday return.

Well, Officer, I was minding my own business, sorting through some perfume samples I'd just got in the mail, and I noticed a freebie in there. It said 'Veil' on the label. And I...I don't know what I was thinking, Officer, I mean, it seemed harmless enough, and so I...I opened it up and dabbed a little on, and...and... Thank you. [accepts Kleenex, blows nose] No, no, I'm okay now. Thanks. [deep breath] Okay, where was I? Oh. Yeah. So I opened the imp and I dabbed a little on my wrist...and...all of a sudden they just...it was a bunch of them, they just jumped out of nowhere and started attacking me! And they--[sob]--they--they made me smell so...so girly! Oh, god... [sob] What? No, no, I didn't recognize any of them. I don't know their names. There were so many of them, and they all came at me at once! But they were all flowers, all of them, I...I know that. I managed to get up and run to the bathroom, but they followed me in there, and I grabbed the soap and I scrubbed and I scrubbed, and they finally went away... What's that? Oh. Well, I don't know if I'd recognize them from pictures, but if you think it'll help you catch those bastards... Sure. Sure, I'll look at some mugshots. [blows nose, opens Burpee catalog]

Because I adore the smell of lilacs, Whitechapel is one of the few exceptions to my No Florals, Dammit rule. It was the lime note, though, that made me spring for an imp. While the initial rush of lime and citron is quite strong, those notes quickly settle down to let a gorgeous, musk-deepened lilac take center stage. This is a dead-perfect lilac note here, folks. There is a row of lilac bushes next to my Post Office, and every day during the all-too-brief time that the lilacs are in bloom, I have to stop on my way to get the mail and just stand there for a blissful moment, eyes closed, inhaling the fragrance that seems to me the essence of springtime. Whitechapel smells exactly like those lilacs, with just a little bit of citrus sparkle brightening things around the edges. I tend to enjoy more complex scents for the olfactory journeys they can contain, but there's a lot to be said for simplicity as well. Whitechapel is uncomplicated and beautiful, and it's perfect that way.

We don't always recognize a love waiting to happen. Sometimes we need a little push. Eat snails? No way! But the waiter's really pushing the escargot, so we try some and then oh my god, we have to order more. Or maybe you finally agree to go out with this guy your friend wants to set you up with, and you're only doing it so she'll finally shut up...and next thing you know, it's 4 a.m. at some all-night diner, and you and he are surrounded by empty coffee cups and deep in the most fascinating conversation you've had in years... Or maybe a Labbie tosses an imp of Cathode in with your order even after you've read the description and said, "Ehh, no." Bless that Labbie! Cathode was one of the last scents I ever thought I'd love, but love it I do. It's not a peppermint candy smell as I feared it would be, but a lovely cool mint that's rounded out and given a nice dark depth by the moss. Something in here is a touch masculine--the ambergris?--and the effect is off-putting, but in a good way, if that makes sense. Whatever that distancing note is, it dies down after a bit and lets the moss work its magic. Then it's beautifully cool and soft, like a deep green bed of moss, the kind that looks so inviting you just want to curl up and take a nap on it, feeling the sunlight and shadows play over your skin, listening to the leaves whisper in the breeze. Cathode isn't a warm, friendly, come-hug-me scent. Cathode wears a white lab coat, carries a clipboard and watches you from behind steel-rimmed spectacles. He's not an unfeeling bastard by any means; he just wants to scope you out a bit before he lets you get close. And when he does let you get close and he takes off those spectacles, he's got the deepest, darkest green eyes you ever got lost in. You should totally go out with him. No, really! Trust me! You'll love him, you just have to get to know him. You two could go out to dinner; I know this place that has the most fantastic escargot...

Wow. This is just gorgeous. I can't pick out any individual notes; it's just a sweet, rich, golden scent with something in there giving it a quiet glow like a halo. Beautiful and calming. My imp (bought from LittleGreyKitten, who generously threw in a second imp for free!) couldn't have arrived at a better time. The night I first tried this I had to sit through a very long, very contentious meeting. Tempers were flaring all around me, accusations and veiled insults knifed through the air...and every so often I'd catch a whiff of warm, mellow sweetness, and it created my own little oasis of peace in the midst of all that tension. It's perfect. And naturally, it's an LE. Guess I'll just have to hunt around for more and hope Beth rereleases it someday.

Anise may not be listed, but anise is what I smell. Anise and a sweet note that combine to make me smell like a Good & Plenty. Seriously, I put this on and all I can see is pink, white and black. Too bad I can't stand anise.

So they put poor Annabel Lee in her sepulchre, and they must have put all the cucumber, sage and moss in there with her, because I certainly can't find them here. Instead, I get whacked with a bunch of cloyingly sweet flowers. Drat! And I was so looking forward to the cucumber and moss!

At first this is all honey, a bit powdery around the edges. Then an herbal note starts creeping in...and it turns into some cleaning product that I recognize but cannot place for the life of me. Oh, well. Next!

In the interest of saving time, instead of hashing out a regular review, I'm just going to copy the email I sent to my mother. Before she got fed up and went Congregational, she used to mourn about not having tried hard enough to give her kids a proper Catholic upbringing. I, on the other hand, have repeatedly thanked her for this perceived laxity. Having provided that bit of backstory: Subject: Well, this should amuse you... Today I'm wearing an oil that I like a lot and find very comforting and will probably purchase a whole bottle of. What does it smell like? CHURCH INCENSE. I smell like freakin' CATHOLIC MASS. It's NOT FUNNY. Love, Your lucky-to-have-escaped-a-heavily-Catholic-upbringing daughter P.S.: It's called The Scales of Deprivation, if you were wondering. P.P.S.: I'm going out cruising for altar boys after work.

This Lab freebie is honeysuckle right out of the gate, and that's the way it stays. This is, as others have said, a 'yellow' scent. It's warm and thoroughly pleasant, but I'm not into florals. However, there is a nice bonus effect: it reminds me of some honeysuckle-scented Avon something-or-other my Mom had years ago. Smelling this, I took a nice little trip down Memory Lane, recalling how, as a kid, I used to love to lock myself in the bathroom and 'experiment' with Mom's girly stuff: applying and peeling off strawberry facial mask gel, using big fluffy powder puffs to apply scented powders with a gratifying POOF, dissolving bath beads in the sink, etc. Fun times. So, while Eos doesn't do it for me as a scent to wear, it scores high marks for nostalgia value. I gave the imp to Mom and hope she'll enjoy it.

Oh my goodness. My fear of florals made me a bit leery of trying something with carnation in it, but this is just so, so good. The dark, sweet plum takes center stage, the carnation shading it with just enough warm spice so that it's not all about Hey, I smell like fruit! What fun! As usual, I don't notice the musk as a detectable scent so much as an effect: it softens and deepens the other notes. This is a rich, sweet, dark red-purple scent, mature and womanly. I'm so not dressed for it. For this blend, I feel like I should be wearing wine-red velvet and silk, my hair held up with bands of gold, more golden bands adorning my bare arms. A cushy velvet couch and a few comely, half-naked slaves offering me platters of fruit and little honeyed cakes wouldn't hurt, either. Just a suggestion.

In the imp, there's the promising smell of honey and spice. On my skin, it does indeed smell like chai. I'm thrilled...until it all goes wrong. All the sweetness vanishes, and what's left is harsh and a little acrid--must be the peppers? And will you look at that, my skin is turning red! It's my very first BPAL skin reaction! I feel like I'm part of the club now. Well, at least the scent didn't work out: I'd feel a lot worse if it irritated my skin and smelled heavenly. Looks like my quest for a good spicy scent isn't over yet. Fine, then. I love a good challenge. I'll not give up until the grail is mine. There's nothing for us here, lads--we're off to Morocco! (Ah, those Wanderlust blends--don't they make you feel just dashing?)

This one was rubber from the get-go. Went on rubber, dried rubber, stayed rubber. Looks like I got the stretch of Silk Road that runs through Akron.

White Rabbit is a lot like Bunnicula: best at night. My chemistry must change during the day or something, because if I put this on in the morning, it just turns into dryer sheets. But slather some on at bedtime, and I drift off to sleep comforted by the cozy smell of tea with milk and ginger and just a hint of clean linen. Curiouser and curiouser! When White Rabbit behaves, it's very, very nice. I'm considering a 5ml for use as a bedtime scent.

A freebie from the Lab. On me, it immediately turned into such a powdery old-lady floral that I had to wash it off before I broke out in doilies. I rechristened it Grannytown and gave the imp to my mother, who fell in love with it. I ordered her a 5ml, which she is eagerly anticipating.

A lethal poison bundled up in a dainty, innocent little package that was oft times found in ancient witches’ flying ointments and astral projection balms. A warm, soft, ruddy scent, earthy and mild. Death Cap. Baby. Why you wanna treat me so bad, baby? Why can't you love me the way I wanna love you? I knew from the very first that you were the one for me, the one I'd been looking for. I knew it even before I met you. I could tell just by the things people were saying about you, baby: warm, sweet, earthy, named after a poisonous mushroom...baby, we were made for each other, don't you see? Didn't I place that order all because of you? Didn't I go crazy waiting for the day you'd come to me? And when that day finally came, didn't I jump for joy right there in the Post Office? Out of all those imps, weren't you the first one I reached for? I want to love you, baby. But you just won't give me a chance. You stick around for a little while, show me a little of that earthy sweetness, and then you fade away before I can get close, and all I'm left with is a whisper of vanilla. Why, baby? I thought maybe you needed some space, a little time alone. So I backed off for a couple weeks. But it didn't make a difference. You just won't stay with me. Baby, was it something I said? Something I did? Come on, baby, tell me. I know we can make this work. It has to work. It's our destiny. I'll change, baby, I swear I will. I'll do whatever you want me to. Would you like me better if I wore a scent locket? OK, then.

Amber, musk and peach have all played nice with my skin chemistry in the past, so unless the myrtle turns out to be evil, I really don't see how this one can fail. In the imp: Peeeeeaaaach. On the skin: Whoa. Y'know, usually when I apply a scent, it's a bit harsh and unpleasant for a minute until my skin adjusts to it. When oil hits my skin, flowers do not instantly bloom, no, nor do ripe fruits spill from woven baskets, nor exotic spices waft from market stalls. No, my skin does not put out the welcome mat. You know the paranoid guy who lives alone and when you knock on his door, he opens it just enough for you to see he's still got the chain fastened, and he peers suspiciously at you and asks who are you and what do you want and demands to see some I.D., and then he makes you stand out there for a couple more minutes while he decides whether or not to let you in? That's how my skin reacts to perfume. Until now, that is. Aglaea and my skin hit it off like that. The minute it goes on, the most incredible candy-sweet peach scent wafts from my wrists. It calms down fairly quickly, and I can detect an herbal note that makes a perfect backdrop for the peach. Where's the amber, though? It doesn't really make itself known for another half hour or so, when it appears as a warm, quiet afterglow tinged with peach. I think the musk might be working at this stage, too. Verdict: A glorious, warmhearted winner. Aglaea's like a grown-up version of Fae, still unabashedly in love with the world but with a warm maturity tempering its sweetness. I couldn't order a bottle fast enough. This is the one I reach for on those days when I need cheering up or I know work's going to be particularly stressful. I just can't seem to stay in a bad mood when I'm wearing it. Brava, Beth!

After several disappointing attempts with this scent--one of the most eagerly anticipated that I have tried--I am forced to admit defeat. Evidently, I am one of those unfortunates whose skin firmly believes that when life gives you lemons, you should turn them into Pledge. If it were lime instead of lemon in here, I would be bathing in this stuff all summer long.

On my skin: A heavy, cloying, overbuttered mess that sinks straight to the bottom of my lungs and sits there like a stone. In the oil burner: A warm, slightly spicy pumpkin. A little more spice, and it would smell exactly like baking pumpkin bread. Cozy, welcoming, utterly yummy. Verdict: A fantastic room scent--just keep it off my skin!

In the imp: Berries. On: Major berries. Uh-oh. Is that all there is? No! After a little while something wonderful happens--my uneducated nose suspects it might be the musk and sage working their magic--and the berries go through a perfectly gorgeous phase that I can only describe as velvety. This phase doesn't last, I'm sorry to say, because it's deep and rich and rounded and I can't unglue my nose from my wrist while it lasts. But Bewitched eventually settles into a creamy berry scent that's lovely in its own right. This is some really nice stuff. It does tend to get too strong and synthetic-smelling if you're not careful, but a lighter application is all it takes to get around that problem. The jury's still out on whether or not to buy a whole bottle o' berries, but I will definitely use up the imp. If it keeps working this well, a 5ml may be in my future.

The first time I tried this, first onstage was GINGER! followed by JASMINE! And that was pretty much the whole show. Vanilla and apricot never even made it out of the dressing room. I let the imp sit for a few weeks and then tried it again this morning. This time the jasmine was nowhere to be found, and the vanilla did show up a little, but once again it was all about the ginger: I smelled like a freshly opened bottle of Canada Dry ginger ale. Love to drink the stuff, don't wanna smell like it. Methinks Siren is not the one for me. Note: A couple hours later, at work, I decided what the heck and dabbed on a little White Rabbit, a scent that's cozy enough when the linen note isn't amping itself into dryer sheet territory. Which, of course, it promptly did, and now I smell like...Canada Dryer Sheets. You layering fans may consider yourselves warned.