abejita

By now, I know what BPAL will work on me or be to my tastes, and which won't. But every now and then, something surprises me. This should be an instant favorite for me, but my skin is doing something terrible. Something about the dark musk and vetiver are combining to make this smell not only overwhelmingly amp-y, but cheap and cologne-y. My skin chemistry is usually very cooperative, but every now and then a vetiver or a black musk will go off horribly on me. This is one of those times. I'm so sad, because, hello, opium, tonka, and frankincense should be the perfect blend on me.

CXX It took me a minute to realize what was in this one. It's very heavy on the myrrh. Asp Viper is one of my all-time favorite oils, and this is very much like Asp Viper sans almond. The oils are even the same color and consistency. I am a huge myrrh fan, so this is perfect. I can't wait to get more CTs. Making these based off beloved GC oils was a wonderful idea.

This has a note in common with Crumpet Rebellion, and has a breath of Shub Niggurath. I absolutely love this rendition of 13. It's the best one yet and I'm a little regretful that I only ordered one bottle. It's absolutely not a chocolate scent. This is all spice, all the time, on a brown sugar (perhaps slightly burnt, in a good way) base. Yet, not foody. I've worn it three days in a row, and I so rarely do that.

This is a round, ripe, voluptuous scent from the juicy berries and figs. The leather grounds it (and makes it dirrrrty), the cream smooths it, the cognac classes it up. I can get every note, but at the same time, the blending is perfect. I know that sounds impossible, but it just is. I am absolutely in love. I am not a huge fruit lover, unless it's a really dark fruit, a la Snake Charmer. But this is just naughty. It's such a sophisticated, seductive scent. Wearing it makes me feel very womanly and very powerful. Color me surprised. My next order will have a backup, as this has shot up to my top ten.

I can't believe that this isn't getting more love. This is the most coffee-ing coffee scent that ever did coff. Seriously. It makes Misk U look like a few drops of spilled coffee on a library floor and Pinched with Four Aces is totally just Folger's Crystals and cigarette butts in comparison. This scent takes me back to Christmas in Germany. There are a lot of Turkish immigrants in Germany running cafes that serve Turkish coffee. I've only had it once, and this is an absolutely perfect representation. It's thick and *just* barely sweet. I am not getting any booziness or harshness from this at all. I smell absolutely delicious. This is one of those oils. I will never get tired of this and I am willing to bet that when I leave the house today, I will turn heads with my deliciousness.

Dry? Dry?! Ivy, darling, you are a crazy person! Okay, so the description says dry olibanum, but still! Scattered Gloom is rich and smooth. When I put the dot of oil on my hand to test it, the oil seemed thicker than most BPAL, with a consistency a bit like Candy Butcher. I made my plea for this one in particular because it had two of my absolute loves, opoponax and opium (not the floral!). Olibanum and black currant are also winners on me. I couldn't be any happier with this blend. It's a beautiful showcase for opoponax and the opium. The currant is not at all fruity, but adds a deep, dark sweetness that is absolutely NOT candylike. I'm in love. Try this if you like Schwarzer Mond, Chrysanthemum Moon, Penitence, Lycaon, the Minotaur. Try this if you wanted to like Masabakes or Ligur, but didn't.

I got a decant and I tried it on the man I'm seeing these days and it was instant love. I'm not a leather fan, but somehow this is so warm and rich with the musks that it works. He thought so too, he inhaled and immediately mentioned Xmas presenty goodness. I ordered him a bottle tonight.

This one is for aging. I get almost entirely Dorian from it at this point, with a pale lavender character. No Snake Oil in evidence. My bf smelled it on me and informed me, "You smell like girl." He commented that there was a baby powder smell, too. I think he's smelling the white musk. I like it now, but I think it will be much better after a few months.

Every year I try the pumpkin patch and every year I trade them away. I love pumpkin, but for some reason, none of the PP blends ever stand out to me as remarkable or particularly wearable, even. I got decants this year because they looked very different from previous years and I had some tentative hopes. This is it. This is the Pumpkin Patch blend for me. I am so not a fruity blend person, but this is luscious. Something about the myrrh and coconut binds everything together and smooths it all out. I don't get the mango and persimmon as distinct scents, though I'm very familiar with both notes. They are just a bright, sweet/tangy fruit. The pumpkin does have a buttery aspect, but it isn't overwhelming and seems to dissipate awhile after drydown. I wore this around my bf and his parents and as soon as I walked in the room they commented on a nice, spicy-sweet scent.

This is a scent that I should dislike. As my likes with BPAL have evolved, I've migrated firmly away from the fruity (with a few exceptions-- none of which are apple) and I've never much cared for cold scents. This is it. This is everything I dislike, made good. It smells like snow, glass, and apples. Really. The sweet/tart of the apple is utterly not candylike. It's crisp. The air/snow is crisp as well. And there is definitely something crystalline about it, though not mineral. This is a BPAL classic and I'm so glad to have it.

Wow, these labels are so much prettier than last years! DXXXII = 532 This smells so familiar. I swapped away my bottles, so I can't do a side to side, but I recognize some notes in common with Hungry Ghost Moon and Tamamo No Mae. There's a high, effervescent gingery-candy-fruity note, as well as something deeper tying it all together. This is very nice, but it's not the kind of scent I would reach for. Off to the swaps!

This one lived up to my expectations in every way. It's dry, warm, and clean. There's something comforting and lazy about it. It makes me think of fat bumblebees and buzzing cicadas. I'm not getting the insect repellant thing other people are mentioning at all. This isn't a huge smash hit, but it's different enough from my usual scent stash that I will hold onto it and wear it. I'd really love to smell it on the boy, though.

I don't know what it is with me and myrrh lately. It sees like anything with myrrh is just extra special good. This is a clingy skin-scent, the kind that sends bursts of scent as your body warms. I get mostly the myrrh/amber/vanilla/wood thing, but it's very warm. Something about it reminds me of the texture and heft of chamois cloth. The spicy carnation adds just the right amount of bite to the whole thing. It's another of my beloved golden scents, with a burst of red from the carnation. I predict that this will work on 1/2 the folks who get it, and they'll be madly in love. I'm one of those people. Try this if you like O, L'Estate, and Haloes. Or try it if you wanted to like any of those, but they just didn't work out on you.

The comparisons with Haloes are very apt here. Where they differ is that Haloes is drier and woodier, while L'Estate has a more fuzzy, earthy kind of warmth. I've discovered that, while Egyptian Amber will always be my one true love, Nepalese amber is a close second. The two ambers meld beautifully. The synesthesia is fun, I perceive the ambers as having a nubby texture, like raw silk. The sunflower reminds me of one of the top notes of Et Lux Fuit, which is absolutely fine by me. I am not the hugest fan of lily, but I'm finding that in blends like this I enjoy the note. The golden musk seems to make this scent heat up, melding it to my skin. This isn't just the pinnacle of summer, it's high noon at high summer, reveling in its glory.

I can't believe I haven't reviewed this yet. It's one of my all-time favorites. I originally got this as a decant in a 2ml shortie, on a whim. It was decently aged. I'm not a citrus fan in general, so I figured I'd try it and then pass it on. I didn't even try it for a very long time. I just more or less forgot about it. I picked it out of the box one day and gave it a go. Of course, I put it on while I had the laptop in my lap and spilled about 25% of it just below the keyboard. When I quit cursing over having spilled oil on a computer, I inhaled. Instant love. The citrus was subdued, not at all dominant. Myrrh and almond have always been two of my favorite notes, and together they meld beautifully. Couple that with the Snake Oil, and it's all beautifully sweet, dark, and smooth. This has become my surprise favorite of the Snake Pit, and has a place on my all-time Top Ten list. This oil and Shub Niggurath are the ones that have garnered the most unsolicited compliments on me.

In short: This is everything I wanted Litha to be... and more. I am absolutely astounded at how much I love this blend. I have been searching high and low for the perfect honey blend. Litha was a jumbled herbally mess on my skin. O smells nice on me, but is much more amber/vanilla. Osun smelled like old honey powder, in a bad way. Honey Moon was just unremarkable flowers with a faint honey backdrop. Hony Mone has too much flower and powder. And every other honey blend I tried just wasn't THE honey I wanted, no matter how much I liked the scent otherwise. I even looked to other brands and the closest I managed to get was Arcana's Queen of Crossbones, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. Enter Mead Moon. Oh honey perfection. My love, my darling. It's rich, it's golden, it's sweet, it's intoxicating. The other notes are present, but they are a supporting cast that rounds out and completes the honey. It's not skewed towards lemon, herbal, or spice. It's a perfect balance. I am going to ask people going to Will Call to pick up more bottles for me. I never, ever want to be without Mead Moon. Oh, yeah, fairly strong throw and normal wear length. 10/10.

The beeswax absolute makes this blend for me. I like all the notes very much as a rule... except peach. I'm not a peach hater, but I do tend to amp it beyond reason. I was hopeful, though, because spice is usually the only thing to temper peach on me. The carnation and cardamom cut through the peach and the beeswax binds everything together in golden smoothness. This oil really evokes summer to me. Not the dry, unbearable heat part, but the bright, abundant part. I wouldn't consider this a primarily fruit blend. It has a fruity component, but it's over all so very well blended. I don't get the Tamamo No Mae similarity (I so did not like that blend), but Tamora is the closest. I like this better than Tamora, though.

I'm getting more honey than anything else, followed by patchouli. The fig gives it roundness, lushness, and the almond is very gentle. It's so warm and intimate. I'd love to have the scent as an oil.

I lived in a Hare Krishna temple for several years. Champaca flower smells nothing like nag champa. The Hindu temple smell is a combination, probably, of several types of incense and the ghee lamps. Where I lived, we used a lot of keshar chandan incense as well as nag champa.

On me, this is primarily a honeycomb, currant, and gardenia blend. It's a very good mix. It reminds me a bit of Sacred Whore of Babylon. It's pretty, very feminine, and playful, maybe a little whimsical. I don't really get the connection between the scent and the painting, but I like it nonetheless.

In the vial, I was a little worried because it seemed bitter and woody. But on my skin it's so warm and rich. I agree with a lot of the other reviewers in that there's food notes to this, but it's not a foody blend at all. I'm surprised that I don't get the apricot, really, since that note usualy amps on me to dizzying heights. It's a golden woody and warm tonka/vanilla scent on me and very evocative of its namesake.

This smells exactly like a liqueur I drank a lot in Spain: Crema Catalana. It's sort of a creamy egg liqueur with a touch of warm spice to it. It's light and a little rich at the same time, and very pleasant to wear.

For me, this is all light, puffy, and sweet. I like it, it's very much a marshmallow poof, but it just isn't me. I guess I prefer my marshmallow toasted. It reminds me very much of Midway, and I traded that one away as well. Off to the swaps.

Even though this blend is highly touted as one of the classics, I never got around to trying it. It was the leather and chardonnay that put me off. I'm not into leather and wine notes. On testing it, though, I'm finding out why it's so well loved. The leather and tonka blend into something thick, warm, and sexy. The chardonnay stays a bit grape-y in my locket, but on my skin it just adds some complementary sweetness. The rum gives it more depth, there's something very sugar cane-y, rather than just boozy. I've tried it, and now I get why it's so popular. Very, very sexy.

I don't know why I haven't reviewed this yet. It was one of my first bottles, and remains one of my best loved. I have the first version, so it's nicely aged. Basically, the blend is a mixture of several of my all-time favorite notes. White opium, Sudanese coconut, amber, spice. They mix and meld beautifully into a rich haze. I've read other reviews that say something to the effect that this is a non-foody foody, and I can see that. The caramel, currant, and black coconut do that, but the resins and tobacco scale it back considerably. It's very much evocative of it's name. I love this blend and hope it continues to be released every year.