Reedsong

I love BPAL amber in the bottle, but my skin usually turns it into baby powder, so even with its rarity I was hesitant to try this one; eventually curiosity won. I mean, come on - it's Ded! And Moroz! It starts with that soft mint that edenssixthday describes so well, like a cool forest wind, and then softens into a light, only slightly powdery (woo!), resinous amber. This scent brings up good memories for me, because it reminds me of an old curio or antique shop full of old woods and dusty knick-knacks. My grandmother had a small antique shop, and I'm reminded of that and her when I smell this. It's a warm, kindly, sweet scent, very appropriate for its name, and I too hope the component issues are resolved one day. I wouldn't often feel like wearing this fragrance, but would keep at least an imp around for those days when I was feeling...you know...moroz.

At first, the orange goes psychotic and makes me smell like that awful fake orange punch that groceries sell in the dairy case - you know, the stuff that's right by the orange juice, but obviously shares nothing in common with an orange-fruit except the colour? Anyway, for about ten minutes I smell like a kid's dream come true, and then (WHEW!) the evil fruit fades. What's left: the exact blend I hoped for, ambergris and civet! I smell musky, a little powdery, very masculine and almost animalistic. This is marvelous, and I'm so thrilled to have an imp of it that I could just dance around like a little kid with a glass of...um...not orange punch. Edit: And then...fruit punch Kool-Aid. It goes into this very bizarre cherry dry-down that makes me want to scrub my wrists. I almost want to cry at the disappointment. How could two of my favourite notes betray me so?!

Pulse Points makes me think of a deep, lascivious, pouting plum hue; it's an extremely sophisticated, mature scent, almost too posh and brooding for me to get away with wearing. Clearly, these are evil pulse points being anointed here. This is a pulse that quickens only slightly as its owner kills people. Pulses that quicken a lot more as everyone in the vicinity gets evilly seduced and then has their wallets rifled. Obviously, I really love this scent. I look like a librarian, so it takes something extraordinary to make me feel dangerously sexy; Pulse Points is it. I'm going to treasure this imp, and hunt down more if I can. (Hey, here's where the 'wallet rifling' above could come in handy... )

My nickname for this scent is "Crème de Smex." In the bottle, it's indeed forest, herbs, and sweet air, but on my skin it goes to a dark, creamy musk. It actually gets stronger on my skin, radiating all around me (so that occasionally I get lovely whiffs), and just smells so appealing and sensual in a very primal way. To me, this is as much an aphrodisiac as TAL Flame of Desire, and I don't wear it very often because it's awfully distracting! Love, love, love Buck Moon. (No, not like that. )

Spoooooooooky! I purchased a half-bottle of this from The Great Pru, Provider of Spooky, and I treasure it. It's very strange because I normally hate chocolate and mint together. I scoff at green ice cream with black bits in it; I never order Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies; I don't brush my teeth and then drink hot chocolate, so why the hell do I like Spooky?? But it's so awesome - nice rummy buttery chocolate-y minty decadence on my wrists. It has decent throw and fades rather gracefully into a thin chocolate vapour. This is my comfort scent; I usually reach for Spooky when I'm having a really bad day, and it almost never fails to make me smile. Because...you know...it's Spooooooky, and there are very few things that cannot be cured by the Vaunted Spooktacular One. SPOOOOOOOOOKY!

I got to try this out from a friend who submitted to the Inquisition, and I wanted to steal her bottle. Trick 2 is deep, dark resin, a smoky perfume, like burning pine branches outdoors on a fall night. It's sexy yet woodsy; if Druids made aphrodesiacs, this would be their best-selling blend. What an awesome scent.

Oh, White Moon. Thy idea beauteous, thy shirt design exquisite, thy description perfect. But I receivéd the bottle, sank to my knees, and cried, "Oh, my gods, why hast thou forsaken me?!?" For yea, verily, it smelleth familiar and soapy, and not the cleanliness of the angels but something more sinister... But I did open my mind and heart, and applied the White to my wrists, radiant with hope that skin chemistry would purge the soapy revulsion from mine nostrils. Then, a familiar fragrance did surround me, and I knew it at once for mine enemy: Toilet Duck. Out, foul fiend! Out of mine sanctuary! Thou shalt not join my imp box to pollute my other scents with thy washrooméd quackery! Alas, White Moon hath failed me, or perhaps it was I who failéd the White.

In the imp, this smelled like bubble gum, and I was immediately wary. On my skin, though, it transformed into the exact description: flowers and sugared incense, and it's lovely. I expected to like this one the best of the CDs, and it's lived up to my expectations.

Okay, okay. Normally my reviews are kooky, but I'll try to play this one straight since this imp of CTIII: DCCCL (850) traveled all the way from England and the loving hands of Colere to be with me today. Imp: In the imp, I smell butter, cream, cake, ginger, and - I hate to say it - vanilla. It smells sweet and inviting, like a warm kitchen full of baking smells, like a less biting Shub. Skin: The cream and ginger are the two predominant notes, and something slightly deeper is starting to emerge. It's not quite a musk or patchouli, but something that reminds me of that "dark" feeling... Skin +10: The ginger is almost completely gone, and now only a hint of the butter and cream. The main fragrance now is something flat by comparison, and woody. It's not sweet enough to be sandalwood, but more like pencil shavings or a fresh-cut log. Creamy wood? Huh? Skin +15: Still a bit of the butter and cream. The 'cream' is going more flat, and I'm wondering if there's actually some beeswax in this. A tree with a beehive in it. Skin +20: This stays very close to my skin and is almost completely gone. Still a beeswax-wood with a tiny bit of the spice lingering. (However, you have to keep in mind that my skin is bizarre and managed to transform Carceri d'Invenzione (rosewood/tobacco), for example, into tuberose.) I like this, but I'm not heartbroken to pass it on; I'd have to really slather to get any kind of staying power from it. Still very glad I got to try it!

Thirteen is the shortest enablement turnaround I've ever experienced. Let's review the sequence of events: Thursday: Receive sniffy. Apply to skin. Am instantly surrounded by rich white chocolate with just enough of a touch of mandarin to keep it interesting, just delicious and wonderful. Sniffy now completely empty. Crap. Friday: Look for bottle. Must have bottle. Ah! Bottle located! Send PM. Saturday: Receive reply. Buy bottle. Well. That was quick. If you look in my box, you'll see clearly that the last thing I need is another bottle. But that's what Thirteen did to me!! I think it represents the number to which my IQ fell while I was sniffing it. Rich pale chocolate-y goodness. Mmmmmm. Thirteen.

It's hard to pick out individual notes here; the florals work so well together that the overall impression is of a mildly sweet, rich scent. The scent starts off wispy, almost nonexistent, but deepens and develops on dry-down, with a light throw. I definitely get stargazer lily and peach blossom, and I think even a bit of the beeswax and vanilla bean! It's so refined, and...well, the description says it. There's a distinct 'love' energy to this one, if that makes any sense, a shy and lovely feeling in wearing it. This is so perfect to the verse and the concept that I'm stunned - and thrilled to have a whole bottle!

This is a dark, wet lily, perfume-y and languorously sweet. It's like someone took a regular lily and coated the petals with despair and angst. Oddly enough, though, it lasts for about ten minutes on my skin before getting eaten. I can only surmise that Black Lily has osmosed into my bloodstream and is now transporting fragrance through my entire body. Cool.

This is such a lovely honey - golden, mildly sweet, very warm and 'intimate.' It's not at all cloying, as I would afraid it would be. I understand now why I've loved all of the Lab's blends that include honey! What a wonderful scent. There really isn't much more to say - I can't exactly wax rhapsodic about the nuances of a single note. "Honey single note - there are distinct shades of lemon and petunia!" Uh... no.

With all due respect to the Master of Lightning...ewwwww. In the imp, this is a very intriguing scent; I can actually smell each different note of the ofrenda listed, and I was excited to try it. Typically, though, my fruit-hating skin chemistry took over, and once the oil hit my wrists, it morphed from "interesting mixture of different offeratory elements" to "overripe bananas, overripe pineapple, and sickly coconut." I wish this smelled half as good on me as it did in the vial!

Smelled the imp. Watermelon. Applied it to my skin. Watermelon. Dry-down. Watermelon. Dammit. I smell like a pre-teen girl's lip gloss. It's a pretty safe bet that sweet fruit blends will hate me, and this one's no exception, I'm afraid.

When I apply this, it dries down to kind of a musky sweet cinnamon, very sexy and appealing, with a short wear length and average throw. Then I went and read the description. There's no cinnamon in this. And after reading the description, I can smell the listed notes more distinctly, particularly the amber and rosewood - but how on earth did I get cinnamon out of this? I've always said that my nose is dumb enough to be confused by Blue Cheese SN. I now have my proof, with this imp of Golden Priapus. Still, since it's TEH SMEX, I don't really care what's in it!

"HELLO!" screams this blend on my skin. "I AM A LARGE PERFUME-Y ORCHID!! DID YOU SMELL THAT? NO?! *WAFT WAFT WAFT* HOW ABOUT NOW??" So..yeah. My skin amps this one just a tad. It's good for when I'm jogging and want to be enveloped in a haze of scent that will help me forget how much it hurts to jog. This is a dark, perfume-y floral, and is almost exactly how I expected the blend to smell, from the name. I'm pleased that my imp is going to last forever because I only need a little bit.

Flame of Desire is my absolute favourite TAL. I love everything about it. In texture, it's thick and viscous; in colour, a perfect deep mahogany; the scent is such a wonderful dark, musky civet, very sexy and powerful. When I use it alone, Flame of Desire helps put me in a desirous mindset, and I mean this in a very general sense. It reminds me of my deepest dreams, the things I keep hidden and might otherwise ignore. With a partner, it does exactly as the name implies: kindles a passionate flame, intensifies desire, and the wonderful fragrance certainly doesn't hurt. In fact, my only regret is that Flame isn't available as a general BPAL scent; I'd wear it all the time if it were!!

Nine Muses. Let me see how to sum up my opinion of this blend. There we go. The fragrance is awful, don't get me wrong. It's lemon Pledge in all of its Pledgely glory. But good lord, does it work. I use this blend whenever I want to compose, write, or do anything expressive. Having said that, be sure you have the time frame when using this one. Once, I applied it when I only had a half-hour before a work shift, and ended up dashing back and forth from my computer keyboard to my piano keyboard when a new composition idea hit! Another time, I tried to use it when I was completely stressed out about a writing deadline, and was simply too focused on the deadline to be inspired by anything. Used with visualisation and respect, this oil does wonderful things!

In the bottle and on my skin, TAL Changó is proof that the gods have a sense of humour. It combines the rotting bananas of Manila with the icky coconut of Elegba, the fruity wretchedness of Fruit Moon, and that weird tobacco-ish note in Ogún to produce probably one of the most vile BPAL or TAL scents I've ever tried. Wow. I used it for the first time a few days ago for a ritual. I was feeling very angry over the indiscretions and lies of an ex, and since I associate Changó strongly with justice, I applied this blend and then began 'talking' to him about the situation. I lit a candle and explained how I felt, that I was mad, but that I knew stupid blind anger would lead nowhere, and asked him to give justice in the situation. As I finished my request, asking for justice in whatever manner he saw fit - the candle flame leaped up once with an audible hiss, and then went out. Regardless of the final outcome of this interesting 'omen,' I do know that I felt closer to Changó and his strong, vibrant energies while using this oil, and will keep and use it despite the smell.

This is the perfect Oshún blend in every respect - soft, sweet honey, beautiful and indescribably elegant. I've done several river rituals for Oshún and have made certain to bring a little of this lovely oil for her each time. In fact, it's my feeling that she likes it and requests it (though, of course, that's debatable based on what you believe! ). This TAL oil is good for anointing, offering, or both, and each time I've used it, the sense I've had is very positive and loving. I would definitely recommend this blend to anyone interested in working with orisha Oshún.

Bottle: Scent-wise, this is a mess. Whatever that salty note in Undine that almost made me gag, it's here. I also smell incense, candle wax, fruit, spice, musk, a trace of floral - it's as if every offering (including the dancers' sweat) that could be made to the loa has been mashed together into one bottle. Strange, and I'm so glad that I didn't smell the bottle before applying the oil. Skin: Once I put this on, it dries down to a very pretty spicy-incense-musk that's very reminiscent of the fragrance in the temple after a few hours of dancing, burning candles, and some rum thrown into the mix. Wonderfully evocative. Use: I used this blend for the first time tonight when making offerings to the loa in my temple-room. I was tired and did not expect to experience much except the sense of satisfaction that comes with service - but I was quite surprised. I felt greatly attuned with the energies of the temple, and very loving as I 'spoke' from my heart to the loa. Several times I caught a whiff of the scent, and each time it brought me back to the temple in New Orleans and reminded me of the greater community of practitioners. So this simple ritual became more moving than I expected, and I know that TAL Temple of the Loas helped that shift in consciousness to a near-trance state, enraptured and joyous. I had a feeling that this oil would be special to me, and I'm glad to be correct. I would recommend that people try it, but since it's very rare - I'll say instead that you don't need it, you hate it, and you want to give all of yours to me. Yes.

Dammit, Et Lux. Why? Why did you have to do this to me? I virtuously avoided Et Lux Fuit for weeks, laughing at the description because I hated about half of the notes used in the fragrance. Hell, I remember being so smugly relieved at that update because I didn't want any of the scents, and my wallet breathed a big sign of relief. But I had to admit, I was curious. There was honey in it! Everyone said it was 'yellow'-scented! (Like my beloved Nihil...) It had a Latin name!! Finally, I broke down and swapped for a half-imp, using my F5 logic: "I'm going to hate this, so I simply must try it!" *breaks down weeping* I loved it! *sobbing in shame* I hate being wrong. Et Lux Fuit is creamy honey golden goodness. It's mildly sweet with a decent throw; I can smell it, but it's not overwhelming. So lovely and elegant! It smells sweetly luxurious and opulent, the kind of fragrance I'd like to wear with a pretty dress or to a formal event. However, since the French verb "fuir" means "to flee," I will always think of this scent as "And the Light Flees." Which is much more in keeping with the dark BPAL image anyway.

Each bottle of Chaos Theory is truly unique, a fragrant fractal, and exercise in the joy of chance and uncertainty! Each is a one-of-a-kind, utterly random combination of scents, the composition of which is based on whim, mood and gut instinct. CTIII: MV: I swapped for this. Because how could you not want an imp of the Chaos Theory That Smells Like a Sharpie?? In the imp, it actually smells pretty appealing. A spicy medicinal cherry. I like it! It keeps that quality for a few minutes on my skin, and then on the dry-down, some spices come out that I was not expecting. I smell something green, either thyme or oregano, and something odd like cardamom. Curried cherry with a slight soapy quality. This is really weird... And then, I pick up the Sharpie that moonarcana included in my package. They're similar. Good lord. However, I have to admit the unthinkable: I actually like the Sharpie Chaos Theory. It amuses me, and I can take comfort in the fact that I definitely will smell unique. Previously reviewed by moonarcana.

Dear Chaos Theory III: CCLXXXIV: Let me first preface this letter by saying You are the perfect coffee-chocolate scent. Your rich, caffeinated goodness is more stimulating than Misk U. Your dark, velvety chocolate richness is more wonderful than Lump of Coal. As you dry down, you remind me of the imagined effect were I to melt a Coffee Crisp and rub it on my wrists. You are absolutely magical, and my only regret to acquiring you via trade is that I have only one imp of you. I promise I will never wear you around anyone that gets on my nerves, for they do not deserve to smell the beauteous glory that is You, Oh Coffee Crisply One. I'd also like to officially laugh heartily at the above review of the Sharpie Chaos Theory. Love and kisses, The Corinthians Also Reedsong. Last reviewed by sarahmarie.