purrbox

ok, i guess i'm insane, but i don't smell grapefruit from this in the slightest. to me, in the imp anyway, it smells *just* like over ripe bananas. i mean, bananas that are SO over ripe that they're squishy and the peels are totally brown. bananas you put in your cabinent and forgot about for a couple weeks. there's a definate undertone of sweet, fruity rot with the banana smell. i muscled through my initial "omg i'm gonna puke" reaction and tried some on, and it did change a little bit when dry. it became a little powdery.. i think i could detect some amber in there somewhere. but the banana scent was still present, and ultimately i had to wash it off. naturally, the scents i *don't* like are always the ones with the most staying power, because i had to scrub my wrists 4 or 5 times before i could get it completely off. the main problem i have with this is the image of over ripe bananas conjures up the memory of the fruit flies that came in on bananas and infested my kitchen a while back. god, what a nightmare. those things are a real bitch to kill- the kitchen was completely intolerable for a couple of weeks before i finally found a fruit fly armageddon bug bomb. but i digress. anyway, i don't think i'll ever be able to eat another banana as long as i live, and i don't particularly want to smell like one either. so off r'yleh goes to the swap pile. ETA: maybe my imp has aged? i got it as a frimp with another bottle i bought on ebay. when i look at the oil it does look a little thicker than normal, so possibly it's aged and that's the problem.

eh... it's ok. i'm not really riled up about it one way or another. in the bottle it does have a salty, marine quality, which is rather evocative of the name. but on me it's generic boys soap. smells clean, and not unpleasant, but not anything i'd care to wear. i can't smell any violets or ivy, or anything really, other than just that soap smell... i don't know how to describe it better than that. this was a disappointment, because i generally like aquatic scents.

holy piney pine sol batman! the description did not include pine, but it is present and profound. but artificial, like the trees you put in your mirror so your car won't smell. once i've had it on for 20 minutes or so it gets marginally better, it actually smelled like snow- or a snowy forest. nice. unfortunately, 20 minutes after that it faded away to nothing at all. major disappointment. i've wanted to try skadi for a while now, but since virtually everyone who reviewed snow bunny mentioned that it is reminiscent of skadi, i suppose i'd better stay away after all. hmmph.

Slivers of warm, pulsating blood forever crystallized in golden amber resin. i could've sworn i already reviewed this... but i couldn't find it when i looked just now. maybe i am losing my mind? well if you see me here twice i apologize. this smells like plain old amber to me. it's the smell of amber essential oil i use for scenting candles. i don't get any dragon's blood. it's nice, but it's very heavy, and not anything i want to wear in the summer. it becomes very cloying in the heat. for winter though, it's a good amber blend, but it does get a little powdery after an hour or so.

dry, i don't get a lot of cherry from this. i get mainly the dragon's blood and myrrh, which unfortunately, turn very powdery on me. there is, however, a decidely bloody, metallic tang to this in the bottle and before it's completely dry on my skin. i suppose that's the cherry, but it vanishes almost immediately once it's dry. disappointing.

i'm coming to the realization that cassia is the devil. in this, as in monster bait: underbed, it's literally ALL i can smell. wet, dry, it doesn't matter, it's cassia, period. it's got a profoundly chemical 'after smell' (you know, like after taste? heh) that makes my head spin. it dwarfs all other notes, and it makes me physically nauseaus. i can't handle it, had to wash it off immediately. i've learned my lesson, i'll never buy anything with cassia/cinnamon in it again.

i really love this one. it smells like unsweetened tea with lemon. i don't get any papyrus or orris, but the lemony tea scent is wonderful. it is rather dry smelling, i suppose that it could constitute 'papery,' so maybe the papyrus is at work after all. in any case, i think it's very pretty and i adore it. unfortunately it has zero staying power on me. after about an hour it's almost totally gone, and i have to reapply often, so i figure my bottle of this is not long for this world. by the way, it layers very nicely with enraged bunny musk, if you like a soft, powdery lemon scent.

this is very nice. definately in the top 10 for me. it's light and fresh, and feminine... not particularly 'enraged' but very pleasant. i do smell a lot of lemon, even though that's not listed as one of the notes. go figure. it doesn't change much on me from what it smells like in the bottle, although in the bottle it is a little sharper... there's a slighty grassy undertone, but it's barely detectable. it's definately summery- it conjures up 'summer' to me, more so than spring. the musk seems like it should be on hot skin that's been sun warmed outside at like.. a summer music festival or something. *shrug* funny to me that the majority of people have said it smells "green" because to me, this definately conjures up pastel yellow. hee. i definately like it a lot, but it doesn't have much staying power, unfortunately. too bad it was a one day LE, because i'll probably use my bottle up pretty fast! edited to add: i forgot to mention, for those of you who enjoy the lemony-ness of it might like to try layering it with spirits of the dead, like i did. it cuts the tea scent of spirits, and makes a really lovely powdery lemon blend.

allow me to preface this review by saying this: i don't know what it is about this one, but something in it makes me really motion sick. even when my body is remaining stationary. i think it might be the sweet pea that disagrees with me so much, because several other blends i've tried that included it have really made me dizzy. on top of that, this one is way too floral for my taste in the bottle, but dries down EXTREMELY powdery. definately not a keeper.

this is wonnnnnnnderful. in the bottle i smell the fig right up front, but that mellows out a bit once it's on and dry, although it's still definately present, which i was happy about. when completely dry this is heavenly! have you ever had chocolate covered orange peel? i usually see it around christmas. the orange peel is candied. it's oddly gelatinous, and while very sweet, there's still a slight bitter tang from the oil in the peel. it loses a lot of the sharp citrus tang when candied and covered in the chocolate. i'm not describing it very well, but it's delicious. anyway, that's exactly what freak show smells like on me- chocolate covered orange peel to a T. i tend to slather myself in this because it does fade kind of quick, but that's my only complaint about it. it gets *ever* so slightly powdery once it's been on for an hour or so, but i think over all it's just lovely. one of my top 10, if not top 5, for sure.

I really love this one, but I can't distinguish any notes. Mostly because I don't know what toad flax, pixie moss, creeping phlox... well, anything other than bergamot, which I can't detect in this blend, is supposed to smell like! But I do know that this is a surprisingly fruity, berry-ish smell on me. The person that said it smells like a forest where Smurfs would live hit it right on the head- this has got to be the exact smell of the Smurf village. It's oddly 'purple' smelling to me, and it stays pretty true on my skin to what it smells like in the bottle. In the bottle it is a little sharper, but on the dry down it gets a bit sweeter and softer. It's a lot different than what I was expecting. From the description, and the maple, birch, cypress and pine notes, I really expected it to be a lot more woody and earthy. I was pleasantly surprised, because it does still conjure up a 'foresty' image, but "unapproachable?" Nah, I don't think so. You'd expect to run into not only Smurfs, but fairies, elves, sprites, talking frogs, and any number of other fairytale creatures. It's lovely imagery, but I was expecting something dark and brooding, more fundamentally Lovecraftian. But I'm not disappointed with the smell, in fact, this is one of my favorites! It's nice and light, summery. But it lasts a long time and has a fairly decent throw as well, which really pleased me because a lot of bpals fade very fast, or stay very close to my skin and I have to really hold my wrist *right* up to my nose to smell them. And i look like a real freak doing that every few seconds. Hee. *edited to say: The only bad thing I can think of about this is that I can see where some people's chemistry would quarrell with this one. I was just raving about it last night and my mom tried it on and immediately made a disgusted grimace and pronounced it vile. Her description was "berries and industrial strength cleaning fluid." And on her, that's exactly what it smelled like. Go figure! *runs off singing Fa La La La La Laaaaaa, La La La La Laaaaaa!* <---- smurf theme song for those of not such an advanced age as myself

this is actually one of my very favorite bpal scents so far. which really surprised me, because the smell directly from the bottle, while yummy, was nothing i wanted to smell like. prospective buyers of pumpkin patch 4 need to be forewarned that it morphs like *crazy* but, i think the post-morph scent is just divine. in the bottle i can smell the pumpkin, but no sandalwood or orris. there is something very, EXTREMELY buttery smelling coming from the bottle too. it smells VERY foody directly from the bottle. this worried me, because it smelled nice, but it was so extremely buttery that it didn't even smell like perfume. it smelled more like some kind of extract you'd use in baking. but i gave it a shot on my skin anyway. wet, the buttery smell mellows out almost immediately and i can smell the sandalwood straight away. i'm not really familiar with the lab's orris note, so i didn't know what to expect from that, but there was something vaguely floral underneath the pumpkiny incense smell people have mentioned so much. when completely dry this scent changes to something totally different, and entirely lovely. i don't know where it's coming from, and possibly i am completely insane, but the pumpkin mellows out quite a bit when dry and leaves behind a wonderfully light scent of mulled cider! it's crazy, because as far as i can tell, there's no apple note in this blend, but i definately smell it. the pumpkin is still there, but it's light and dry, and the sandalwood leaves a lovely smokiness. still not sure about the orris. maybe it's the cidery note i'm smelling. whatever the case, it's a beautiful, nostalgic scent to me. this is the EXACT smell of jerry smith's pumpkin farm in kenosha, wisconsin- the town where i went to college. i loved the pumpkin farm. the fragrance is very evocative of fall, but here it is the middle of june, and it is light enough to wear on a warm day and not become heady or cloying like some traditionally cold weather scents tend to do. the only down side to it is that the 'throw' is not very wide. i either have to slather myself in it, or hold my wrist very close to my nose in order to smell it. but that's ok, it just means that only a person who wants to get very close to me will be able to get a whiff, which is not entirely a bad thing. however, it does have lasting power, and hours later the scent is still very detectable when i hold my wrist to my nose.

nooooooooooooooo! why did this one have to be so vile? i was looking forward to it so much. i bought a 5 ml bottle of this blind, and was very dissappointed to realize that it's cassia, pure and simple. it's cassia and it is PROFOUND. i guess maybe i'm dumb, but i wasn't really sure what cassia would smell like, so i opened the bottle and was like 'ugh! what is this horrid burnt cinnamon roll on crack scent?" so i googled cassia and low and behold, it's basically a variation of cinnamon. well, that's ALL i could smell from underbed, wet in the bottle or dry on my skin, it was the same. no coconut, no cocoa, no angel food, (all 3 of which i love, and was expecting to be a wonderful blend together) just cassia. if bonne bell made a cinnabon flavored lip smacker (and for all i know, they might) it would smell just like underbed. processed cinnamon and something vaguely chemical... five milliliters of PURE EVIL. i wanted to love it, i really did, so i tried it on despite my initial bad reaction to the smell from the bottle. i was hoping it would grow on me, but in fact, it was literally nauseating, it made me feel seriously car sick, and eventually i had to scrub it off. but for those who do like it, it must be great, because let me tell you, it DOES have *incredible* staying power. i scrubbed my wrists 3 times last night, and when i woke up this morning it was still the first thing i could smell. strongly. so that didn't thrill me, because i didn't like it any better the next morning. there is a bizarre underlying chemical tang to it, that attributed to the nausea a great deal. for some reason, it reminds me of this raid bug spray that i've got for when ants get into my kitchen occasionally. the bug spray has a chemical apple smell, (it's unpleasant) and for some reason, after i'd had it on for a few hours, underbed had a similar note. underbed doesn't *actually* smell like the bug spray, but it does remind me of it- and therefor reminds me of bugs, which reminds me of an icky feeling. needless to say, i'm going to swap this one out asap. somebody PLEASE warn me of other bpal oils that smell even remotely similar to underbed, so that i can make sure to steer VERY clear of them!!!

funny, i felt exactly the same way about it. i'm not as good about picking out individual notes as a lot of people are under the best of circumstances, but with succubus, i couldn't discern a single one. strange. but it smelled nice. light, floral. pleasant. what's really wierd is, i put it on in the morning, then went to work as usual. after about 2 hours at work i kept thinking to myself 'did i use too many dryer sheets or something? why do i keep smelling bounce fabric softener?' you guessed it. the succubus had morphed into fabric softener. still nice though, it smells snuggly and soothing. i don't know that it's what i'd picture when i thought of what a succubus smelled like... it doesn't smell particularly seductive or sensual, but it is definately pleasant.

this is the only bpal fragrance that i have actively hated. something about it just does NOT work for me, and it just plain stinks. the first thing that popped into my head when i put it on was eric cartman saying "ugh! it smells like ass out hyah!" the patchouli is very strong, and smells like straight up soil. like when you've been digging in your garden. which might be ok, tempered with another sent, but the cloying apricot mixed with the dirt patchouli smell doesn't sit well with me. maybe it's just my chemistry, but as soon as it dried, it smelled like dirty, sweaty body (and not in a sexy way. in a 'please take a bath' way) and poison chemicals. NOT a favorite of mine.

i'm not a huge fan of this one. in the bottle it smelled kind of artificial, like poisoned maraschino cherries maybe? it was really sharp and cloyingly sweet. once i put it on and let it dry for a while it was definately more pleasant, but i'm not getting the almond smell everyone has been talking about. actually, on me it smelled exactly like the pure amber oil i use for dressing candles and such. it's nice, but it's very heady, powdery and way too sweet for my taste, as a perfume anyway. as a candle dressing or similar i might enjoy it more.