myoubi

I don't understand why this one doesn't get more BPAL fandom love... it's beautiful! Fans of Ice Queen, Skadi and possibly Snow White should all at least /try/ this one. Scent: In the bottle it has that cold, delicately lemony scent that all BPAL snowy blends have, along with what I think is juniper. I smell one of the crisper florals as well -- definately not the rose, maybe the narcissus. Immediately applied, it smells -- mm! like a kinder, gentler Ice Queen, Ice Queen sans those hard pale musks. After about ten minutes of frozen forest it sweetens abruptly, and enters a phase of surprising warmth. It's some interaction of scents that I can't name that actually smells warm and mellow, not floral-y at all, almost berryish. After abut five minutes of that, the florals become more apparent, and it's like a gently-frosted forest full of spring flower shoots. The crocus in particular is prominent; curiously, the rose stays in the background, as does (thank God) the dahlia. It stays like this -- warm florals in the foreground, frosted pine behind them -- until it fades. Tone: This isn't a cold scent. As many people have said, although it's pine-y, it's also warm and sweet -- which is odd given it has such a strong snow note. I'd wear this more in winter, it's not quite a summer cool-down scent. This reminds me of my favourite parts of Ice Queen and Snow White -- Snow White's mellow sweetness without that coconutty smear, Ice Queen's cold berry forest without those brittle musks. Verdict: Beautiful. I don't need more (I have too many cold scents already :/) but I'm keeping my bottle. ETA: After a couple of hours, this reminds me strongly of Snow White without that coconutty sweet note.... which is what I disliked most about Snow White. Perfect!

I'm reviewing this blend based mostly on scent, since I'm not using it in ritual work and thus am not sure what I ought to expect, effect-wise. Scent: In the imp, this is a sweet, fresh, almost candyish melon, quite powerful at first. I can't smell anything else. On my skin, the melon mellows (whee!) and for a moment i get an almost spicy note. It retains its sugary quality as it dries. There's something other than melon in there grounding the scent, and it's definately aquatic in character, but it's not at all peppery or jarring. This is a sweet, bright, dewy melon that dries down to a sweet, gentle, sugary melon. I don't usually like fruit scents, but this one is lurrrve.

I wanted to try numb based on the name alone, and it does live up to its description. It is gelid and frosty -- that's the coldest, numbest, frozenest violet I've ever smelled. It's as faraway smelling as if you took a flower and encased it in ice, and then tried to describe how it looks. It's actually quite pleasant -- if you like violet. As it happens, I don't. It's a bit curious -- nobody loves poor lil' Numb, but everyone is mad for Faith.

INGENUE -- I'd buy three or four bottles of the stuff, and all of them Unseelie -- everything I've heard suggests that it's shockingly beautiful. It sounds like my kind of wispy, ethereal floral-with-character. Hopehopehope...

cedar drawer liners + lemon pledge. not for me.

A tawdry Hollywood tragedy, the essence of innocence lost amongst casting couch cushions. Wild clover and gentle melon interlaced with violet leaf, water lilies, smooth wooden notes, and blushing rose. I would bathe in this if I could On me this actually has very little throw and stays close to my skin -- if I put my wrist to my nose and huff, I can just smell sweet melon and grassy clover, with some kind of wood (rosewood?) underneath. It's very subtle and the notes blend beautifully. I get very little melon at all, and the rose, if there is any, is of a particularly pale and almost aquatic variety. I wish I had more, and I'm hoping against hope it gets resurrected

I've gone through my whole life without nightmares. Why now? Tonight's were strange. That I can remember... there was one where I was in the company of a young boy whom I thought was a serial killer, and I had to get away without making himsuspicious, and it was in the middle of nowhere and Sophia wasn't pickin gup her phone. There was a part where someone shut a girl's face in a waffle iron - a blistering-hot, plugged in waffle iron. There had been steam coming out of the device before, but as it covered her face and she struggled to get it off the steam turned red... it sounds comical now, but it was really horrible. I wanted to wake up. The earlier one, that I remember less, was one where the world had gone strange... I remember that /I/ had been in another world, a through-the-looking-glass type of experience, and as frightening as that world was I had to go back there, it was my job to fix something. (And for me, th way that I could get back into the world was to drink a cup of tea -- Green tea, said the man with the fingers, was the easy way. Black tea was the respected way. Red tea wasn't spoken about, but it was clear that there were three options, so red tea must have been the third) I rode the bus (yes, there was a bus) from the other world into this one, intending not to stay long. I wasn't supposed to stay long, but then I thought, what if I got some supplies? Flashlights, batteries, stuff I could use. And I had to get back, but I think I decided to get some supplies. The world-that-is-this-world was strange, it was dark... and I was walking through an aboveground tunnel, made of brick I remember, and I was a little scared because it was after dark and the tunnel was small and I'd never really liked them anyway. There were people around me -- not many, there were two people ahead of me and some people behind. And I remember I was a little scared as a young girl, of the man ahead of me.. but then, the young couple behind me just sat down. They just sat down cross-legged in the tunnel, as though they couldn't go any farther. And after a few steps, so did the man in front of me -- this tough guy in a leather jacket -- just sat down too, like he'd given up. I went a few metres farther, out of their sight and round a curve, an then I sat down too, more because I was tired than anything, and some people from university (Leo and Elyssa and I think Boyce) came through the tunnels. They were talking about someone, someone dangerous -- a practical joker gone too far. I asked them what was going on, and the said that all of a sudden the world had gone strange, dark and dangerous. I asked them why everyone was just sittin down, and Elyssa said, "They've givenup -- they don't know how to deal with this world. The tunnels are full of them." And I asked what the current danger was, who they were running from, and Elyssa and Leo exchanged a look, and Elyssa said "Well -- it's cats." And then I woke up.

In Michigan I found this beautiful frilly pink dress. It's foofy and lacy and has puffed sleeves, and looks like it was made for a five-year-old and then scaled up with room for a bosom. I love it. I pranced around the store for a good fifteen minutes, trying on shoes and wasting time because I didn't want to get out of the pretty dress. I love looking like a girl. But I wear jeans all the time. I don't mind jeans, there's nothing wrong with them. But I have lots of gorgeous skirts and dresses. I wear jeans all the time because to dress like a girl is to attract notice, and I don't want to attract notice. Tomorrow I am going to dress like a girl. I will be uncomfortable, because even if people aren't looking at me, I'll feel like people are looking at me. I will feel weird. And I will make myself do this every day until either I get acclimated or I don't secretly want to do it anymore, as uncomfortable as it sometimes makes me. I am also going to learn to do my hair! Because given the price of my dye jobs, putting it in a ponytail just doesn't cut it!

They don't come often, when I feel like SC. It's a powerful blend, and I don't wear it much at all -- it's not my usual sort of smell, so I have to be in the mood. Although SC is a very ladylike, /very/ sexy scent, because it's also a dark and a heady scent it also seems a bit rebellious to me -- for wear on days when I feel like not being my usual blonde self, when I feel like schlumping around in dark jeans and my rhinestone tiger hoodie, burying myself in a book, and generally absenting myself from the normal interacting world. If Shub is my comfort scent -- like a soft cashmere blanket on a cold day -- Snake Charmer is my push-off scent, something that means I've decided to step outside the world of normal human interaction, whether by being vampy or aggressive or sulky or bookish. today was definately a Snake Charmer day.

GOJIRA! indeed

This reminds me a lot of Ice Queen -- there must be at least one common ingredient, surely, because they both have a very cold, hard-edged tone to them. like little_galaxie, I also think this smells like a very high-end conventional fragrance. SCENT: This starts out reminding me strongly of Ice Queen. It's very grapefruity, but it almost reminds me of white musk for some reason -- both fragrances have a brittleness and a hardness to them. As it settles, the grapefruit dissolves and lets the mandarin warm the scent a little bit. This is a floral, but not an obvious one -- I don't get the orchid sweetness or the gentle mellowness I associate with rose. I don't know what lemon bark smells like, but judging from the chilly nature of the scent, it may be that that I am smelling. Then, after 10 minutes it changes again: the freezing citrus backs off just a touch, opening the gates just slightly for a mellow orchid mandarin. TONE: This is not a nice happy perfume. It's not friendly. It's not agressive. The Queen is cold and high and hard and incredibly aloof. It's also a demanding fragrance -- it's not something I'd just put on unthinkingly. This is one I'd wear if I was shopping in the most expensive district in town and didn't want anyone to bother me: it carries with it a sense of entitlement and hauteur. VERDICT: Oh, I already have too many icy chilly scents. Why do I need another? But I really like the Queen, I do. I may get tired of her eventually, but right now she fills a niche well.

I just had a nap -- an unintentional nap -- and dreamt that Vic came back, was around, said hi. I dreamt that we hung out for a while (I think Vanessa brought her over) and that it was kind of awkward but that she actually explained why she'd disappeared. Why is my subconscious throwing /that/ at me while I sleep? weird.

So far I have made $120 from sales Unfortunately I did sell a half-bottle of my beloved La Fee Verte... but considering I have the equivalent of 6 5mL's (between partials and decants) and considering that I have never even gone through an imp, I think it's okay. I wore LFV today and was reminded of why I love it the way I do I keep getting whiffs of this glorious sweet lightly-herbal creaminess before realising that it's coming from my cleavage Unless something comes up, the $$ from my sales will be saved for updates.. the coming update, and then the Blue Moon update. I'm going to need at least two bottles of Blue Moon if it's anything like hte last formulation, which sounds /right/ up my alley h_f is gallivanting around London, going to parties and getting drunk on cheap whisky (shame! go for the expensive stuff.) I am jealous, abit, but mostly I wish she was back here because I miss her! Oh yeah, and I found some Unseelie. One decant, but that should be fine. No matter how lovely it is, I'm sure it won't be enough to displace my favourites and so I won't need more.

and bought some partial (very, very partial) bottles at better-than-reasonable prices, but those cost $10 which is what I made off of one decant of Spooky so that's no big deal So far I've made $56, and I hope to make a little more. All of it is going towards the update on the 13th. I'll probably ship it to Amy's address, and as such I might even combine orders with her -- she wants a 5mL of Kyoto and an imp pack! Yessss, another enablee, although I suspect this is more out of indulgence for me than true obsession. Either way, it spreads the love. You can't get much for $56, especially considering shipping... but Mom will be wiring some money into my account to buy Sheila a scent locket [she saw mine and was /instantly/ taken with it] and so I'll just ask her for a couple of dollars extra to round out my shipping costs -- shouldn't be too hard. The update is probably going to be full of shinies, at least that's what's buzzing and bumbling on the fora... and given Beth's hints, the slow boil seems warranted There's not much I'm craving right now, other than 5mL's of The Hermit and Brisingamen, but those can be laid aside if the 13th offers up some particularly tasty morsels. Oh, and I'm on Zoloft again! Yaaay! And Amy might (/might/) be coming down for the 28th of April :(

I'm excited about MB: biggerCritters, and I'm contemplating purchasing a critter just to get the bottle with the Speshul label. I'm doing this mostly because I had horrible nightmares last night. I can't remember most of them but what I can remember was horrible -- my worst fears, oozing out of my subconscious to get me. Not monsters or the supernatural... being abandoned by the people I care about, and knowing I deserved it. I'm so glad I'm awake. It wasn't a good night. [small]I dreamed, among other things, that Hannah didn't care about me any more... that was horrible. Some of the taint of that is still sitting in my mind.[/small]

**smacks head** D'oh! I'm such an idiot :/ I should have searched before I posted a new topic.. mods, go ahead and smack me.

Ice Queen = "Destroy Everything You Touch" (Ladtron)

My girlfriend smokes clove cigarettes, and the scent of clove reminds me of her. Since we're long-distance, I'd like to find a clove scent to put on and curl up in for when I miss her... and I'd prefer it was a BPAL scent, because my fanatical obsession has begun to enable her. I've tried March Hare, and it smells sticky and thick and after a while turns to spoilt jam -- not a nice clove at all. I also have a bottle of the Ecstasy of Passion, but the clove doesn't come out particularly strongly on me (I wish it did ). Anyone have any suggestions for the truest clove scent they know?

and so you know what I did? I went upstairs, put my wrist to my bottle of Shub, and upended the thing. Then I proceeded to smear the resulting puddle of lemonginger goodness all over my forearms, my neck, my temples and the extra got rubbed onto my hips. That is the first time I have /ever/ upended a bottle onto my skin -- I almost alllways take from the cap, and not more than one little droplet. I smell like ginger. The whole HOUSE smells like ginger. and you know what? I totally do not care. It is just /that bad/ of a day. Now I'm going to drink some tea and watch House MD until I run out of episodes. House's snarkitude will make everything better (if that man wore BPAL, he would wear Shub. I know it).

Shubshubshubshub shubshubshubshub love.... After sniffing this once at a Meet-n-Sniff I knew it had to be mine. After making do with an imp for weeks, my bottle finally arrived! Scent: In the bottle this is a predominantly lemony ginger blend, dark and fresh and rooty. On my skin the citrus burns off in a matter of seconds, leaving me swathed in a comforting haze of ginger and something earthy or resiny beneath it. This isn't a sweet wimpy ginger like in Gingerbread Poppet -- although it retains just a little of the Poppet's natural sweet foodiness, I wouldn't call this a foody blend unless your grandma's ginger cake was very low on sugar and high on zing. After a couple of hours the major gingeriness cools, leaving dark cream resins with a little rub of dark ginger. I don't smell incense per se at any point, but there's definately _some_thing underlying the scent that just doesn't come up and smack you in the nose. Tone: Warm and comforting, this one has throw. It wafts, and although the drydown is much more subtle than the initial half-hour, this isn't one I forsee having to reapply frequently. It's a backbone blend, and fills the niche of cuddle-by-the-fire-comfort-scent that I thought would be Misk U's job. I wouldn't really call it sexy, but I can see how some people might find it an angrier blend. Verdict: Especially in wintertime or on rainy days (like today!)

as a trillion other reviewers have said, this one smells like... cinnamon. Not sugary in the slightest, it smells like the earthy woody powdery spicy smell of a broken cinnamon stick. Gorgeous, and nothing at all like how we've come to expect "cinnamon" to smell/taste. So glad I got to try this one.

Preconceived notions: It's musk. It will hate me. I just know it. White musk is pleasant but often too harsh on me, and red musk, while so lovely to sniff, can only occasionally be coaxed into behaving the same way on my skin. I grabbed this because I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. Scent: in the imp, it's beautiful. It's not an I-am-animal-sweat-from-/sex/ smell like a lot of darker musks go on me, although it's definately a dark scent... this is almost too velvety and spicy to be a musk. It could be a perfume in itself. As it dries the spiciness comes out more, and it sweetens, developing almost a powderiness after half an hour that reminds me of the way amber goes on my skin (except a touch sweeter, maybe not in a good way). Tone: It's the best part of Snake Oil but without the Snake Oil, velvet-soft and sensual and sexy without the screeching scentedness that Snake Oil has. Don't get me wrong, it took me a while but I've definately come around to SO -- but if this was available in bottle form it'd replace my year-old Snake Oil in a heartbeat. This is definately in SO and probably in Snake Charmer as well, and I wish it was in more blends; it's a very distinctive spicy musk that slinks and smells exotic, but in its SN form doesn't scream perfume! Verdict: it's beautiful! Really, it's gorgeous. And if I had a bottle, I'd want to wear it every day in winter and surround myself with it -- in fact, if I could buy bottles of this stuff, I might just ditch most of my collection and wear it every day. But I don't have a bottle, I have an imp, and that's where things get tetchy, because if I love and cherish an imp too much I never end up wearing it. So unfortunately, this one may just be too gorgeous for me to keep around. But it is /stunning/. Heartily reccomended to people who love musk and hate musk, and who love Snake Oil and hate Snake Oil. *for the record, this is a note that becomes more prominent in aged SO than fresh SO, to my nose, so if you like this musk bear that in mind

a little OT, but when I saw 'Bridal Perfume' in the subject line I instantly thought: Havisham! srsly, I'm saving up an imp of that to wear on /my/ wedding day, should it ever come... On a more serious note, I vote Morocco. It has an almost Antique Lace feel to it, without the absolute sweetness and femininity of AL -- it's a little more grounded, has a little something extra.

Apparently The Girl loves Hope. I usually wear MB: Closet around her (she likes that on me too ) but yesterday it was warm, so I reached for Hope... she wouldn't stop sniffing and nibbling at my neck all night. I'm sooo glad I have a 5mL coming! My standard I-want-attention scent is (oddly) Monster Bait: Closet. It has never failed yet...

...and normally I don't care who spends money on what. But lately I've been noticing a trend in some parts of BPAL fandom -- prices are on the rise, in a huge way. This always happens to a certain extent between updates, but I've seen a couple of bottles go for amounts that really make me raise my eyebrows, if only because I can't compete with that kind of cash. I throw around a lot of money -- aside from Starbuck's, my BPAL collection is basically the only thing I spend my spare cash /on/ -- but I can't compete with some of this, and it's making me blue. Storyville -- $140 for a full 5mL Queen of Spades -- $113 for a 60% full 5mL these are just two that I remember off the top of my head. I feel very lucky to have managed a swap for an imp of Storyville, and so I'm content; I just hope that this increase in prices isn't going to continue and become 'normal'. I have enough of a problem keeping cash as it is... this'll either make me totally broke, or make me break my habit.