LadyMedb

MAD for Dawn: Priestess - it is the sex. backthatelfup, have *you* actually tried Rose Red or The Peacock Queen yet? They're coming down for the year in a couple of weeks, and I think you should try them if you've decided you love rose!

Brilliant scent - huge amounts of oude and leather on initial application, then a big rosy initial drydown anchored by the cedar. Normally cedar is not a good scent at all on me, but here it keeps the rose from becoming too sharp. The post-drydown is the best - close to the skin and sweetly patchouli-incensy, with a hint of leather...most or all of the notes in perfect harmony. Yum. I wish it lasted a little bit longer! Overall, this is a unisex-leaning-towards-feminine scent, very sophisticated (in the sense that it reminds me of a lot of high-end niche perfumes I like) and well-blended. I think this will be even better after it's had time to sit a bit, though I slather it on every other day as things are now! Excellent work!

Ohhh, lily of the valley, old friend. You work so well on my skin, but I overdosed on you in my teens....I guess it's time for a revisit, though, because I kind of love this scent. I'm somewhat confused as to why the note listing contains both lotv and "muguet", since they're the same thing....maybe one's a bouquet of other scents meant to evoke lotv? Other people are getting actual lily from this, which may be the case, but it's not doing that soapy thing on me that lily so often does (whenever I find an exception, I buy a bottle). The hyacinth is the other note I'm really getting out of this in full force, but it's not too-sweet or candle-y or anything, just a lovely damp spring scent. Fantastic scent...light and sweet and well-blended....really all of the pleasure of florals, but none of the overpowering-ness, soapiness, or boredom. Might want a bottle come springtime, or sooner if I keep reaching for this imp.

So I think Melisande smells heaps like Silky Underwear/Alkmaar, though a little sharper and not as soft. I like both of them a LOT, so no real comments past that.

THE BLASPHEMARE RELIQUARY But, which saint's remains does this vessel hold Ethiopian myrrh, Damascus rose, boswellia, galbanum, and copal. OK, so I bought this unsniffed, because it had roses and incense. I was hoping it would be perfect for me... ...and it is! The roses come on first - they're dry, but not soapy. The rest of it smells kind of like Cathedral, which is an all-time favorite of mine. It dries down sweetly mysterious, and very balanced between the floral essences and the resins - the flowers are light and not overpowering, and the incense is divine. It's like a more sophisticated Rose Cross. Love it.

I got so much orange upon opening this that I really feared a cleaning-fluid scent. However, once this got on my skin, it became apparent that it really wanted to be oakmoss and patchouli. That's fine! I like those notes! In the end, it's a very earthy and dry scent, with some sweetness to it, but the notes just don't hang together well enough on me to make this anything special.

!!! This is everything I love about The Perfumed Garden (guess it's the apple and musk) but better-executed. Beth has long since mastered fruit-amber confections, but they've always been sweet, heady things (my beloved Verdandi comes to mind) - not so with this perfectly balanced confection, where every note sings clearly and perfectly. The petitgrain is a sparkling topnote - I think that's the citrusy thing everyone's mentioning, while the incensy-skin musk-y drydown is pure sex. This is definitely one of those "come a little closer" scents, but with so much complexity to it. SOOOO relieved this is going to be around for a bit, so I can see my way clear to the $26 for it.

Rather than weak, I find this tea to be a bit over-steeped, just like the unhinged nameless governess in my FAVORITE BOOK EVER. I went in wanting to love this, but quite unsure of the notes; however, I ACTUALLY LOVE IT. The dark tea keeps the violet from going to powder on me, and the violet keeps the tea from going to citrus up-your-nose madness. Well, it's madness, but it puts on a good show. Just like our "heroine". LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE.

I love lilac, but it's really hard to wear for me - I tend to like it better as a room scent than as a skin scent. Unfortunately, the olibanum doesn't hold it in check enough here. This goes to swaps.

Lavender and HEAPS of incense. Very dark, and a bit too sharp for my taste, but, as noted above, unique and interesting!

Would be old lady rose, as it's so powdery, but the frankincense and saffron brighten it up just enough. The Rose Cross comparison is apt. I'm quite fond of this one, but I have so many rosy incenses I'm getting picky, so I think I'll just stick with my imp. We'll see, though - I do reach for this quite a bit!

Best of the lot so far for me - incensy patchouli Anne Bonny/Cathedral-ness plus flowers. Kind of a no-brainer, and I'll probably buy a bottle despite the fact that I have a lot of other scents that smell like this one. That dusty resin thing comes alive on my skin!

This came soooooo close to being perfect...though I usually eschew fruity florals, the frankincense was divine on first application, and the lotus was watery and not too sweet, with the most subtle and well-blended pink rose one could imagine. So gentle, so girly, so balanced, until the pomegranate amped on my skin after an hour, making this just a bit umbrella-drinky for me. It was still lovely, but not something I could ever reach for.

Sharp-ity sharp sharp sharp (hi, bay), with no resiny softness whilst wet (the remark above about it being astringent applies to my experience of it, too), then turns around and dries down to dryer sheet leftover resin powder on me before I can even get to enjoy the sandalwood. This is the second resin I've tried this month that's done a "dryer sheet" morph, and what's weird is most resins really don't do this on me. I even double-checked today by wearing my beloved Cathedral, which still smells like heaven. I wonder what note my skin doesn't like, as I feel like I missed all of this scent's redeeming qualities somehow!

On first application, the cardamom/carnation thing was so smoky and yummy against the tonka and sugar that I was totally in love, but the spiciness wore off within two minutes. Weirdly, this ended up smelling just like Snow-flakes '06 on me. Does that mean that Snow-flakes has a white sugar/tonka accord? Or does my skin just like to make things smell kinda cool and creamy? In any case, I liked Snow-flakes a lot but didn't love it, and that's how I feel about Gypsy. I wonder why the major morph? I wonder why it seems to remind each of us of a different past blend? It's a mystery, and I think it may be down to skin chemistry even more than most BPALs!

I just get brown sugar, brown sugar, brown sugar, with the clove just kinda serving to make the brown sugar stronger...kinda cooked or burnt-smelling. Additionally, my skin amps brown sugar, it seems, so there was just no escaping the sweetness. I like sugar scents on the whole but this was like eating a little too much creme brulee - it gave my nose an uncomfortably full feeling! 'Course, some people can eat loads of creme brulee and not feel sick. I recommend this scent to them!

#12. This amounts to frankincense and Purple Phoenix (which I always sorta regretted selling). A little bit of grape fizzy soda, a little bit of Morgause's white flowers. I think I like this...and I was all set to be critical, too! A smidge powdery, but it gets lost in the overall pleasant purple resinous effect! Yum. ETA - dang, my skin chemistry makes this dryer sheets after an hour or so, with all the lovely purples and resins haunting me still. Hopefully someone else's skin won't do the same thing!

Ooh, I wanted it to be darker. You know how sometimes frankincense, when mixed with anything at all sharp, can come out smelling sorta like lemon pledge? That's what this did on my skin, and the vetiver did the men's cologne thing rather than the dirty smoke thing on my skin, unfortunately. I didn't get the red musk at all. I'm just not meant to wield the Witchblade.

This is definitely a "perfumy" BPAL, which I usually like. In a way, it's no exception, but the plum and the orange blossom....it's too much fruit. Dark and deliciously layered as it is, it's too much of a...here, I have to say it...fruity floral perfume for me to want to wear it every day. That said, SOMEONE SHOULD because it's so very well-blended!

I really thought I'd love this, because I love florals and resins together, and while benzoin and opopponax are always a welcome base in my book, the orchid plus the currant just make this a bit too sweet for me. This is not to say I don't smell the moss and the ambergris, too, but those dark warm notes kind of make the whole thing seem like a mish-mosh of good things on my skin, rather than a coherent whole. I guess it's hard to characterize why this isn't a keeper for me. There's too much of something in this blend, or not enough of something else, or maybe just too many very strong nice things, like I said before. I don't know. It's pretty enough, overall, though, and I'm sure someone else who isn't quite as set in their ways about dark florals (I have so many, anyway) as I am would really love it.

It's perfect - the darkest patchouli plus deep nag champa and the slight girly sweetness of grape. I can't quite smell the cereus, but it must be balancing out all those black and purple scents so that they're not too overpowering, because they're not - this is still quite a feminine blend. As it wears, the woody champa comes out more, which I like even better. I don't know what to say about Urd except that this is sexy perfection - the representative scent I think of when I think of BPAL's dark, beautiful reputation. Yes, it's kind of a hippie scent - that's the point! It's stunning no matter what you call it. I've received dozens of compliments on it, enabled a dear friend with it (she wears it almost daily) and it'll be in my top 5 forever.

I had a bottle of this for a while because I really enjoyed how fresh and different it was. However, I recently received an imp of it again and reminded myself of why I swapped it - there's just something candy-like, or candle-like about it...that pear note is just a bit too sweet, and it overpowers the general refreshing nature of the scent. I still maintain it's an excellent choice for when you want to cool off on a humid summer day, though.

Sin's yummy. My favorite cinnamon blend for itself is Priala, but you have to like that dark incensy thing that goes with it. My favorite blend with cinnamon in it, though? El Dia de los Reyes......just throw away your usual feelings about foodies and breathe in the rich, cinnamon-y chocolate! I'd recommend Harlot for any true cinnamon lover, too - it was too much like roses and red-hots for me, but that's because I wanted less cinnamon in it, not MOAR like it has!!

You might try Pannychis. It's not creamy in the sense of "cream", but the jasmine is smooth and milky. Ooh, I'm in love with Flowering Chrysanthemums too, and my bottle is so lowwwwwwww.....

This is a beautifully balanced rose/jasmine/musk do-up, and I just love it. It's not too sweet, and not too sharp. It goes a teeny-tiny bit soapy, but not in a dry way...instead, kind of in a clean way that makes up for the almost-sour skin scent of it (which I like, too). Again, it's really wonderfully balanced, which means a lot to me, because I love all the notes in it, but usually when I see them all together they turn to disaster, not joy like this! Nuit is a floral embrace, ethereal but warm and real. What a lovely blend! ETA - this is perfect on hot summer days. It's light in feel but still kind of mysterious and dark in character.