Ghost_Light

The first time I tried this, it was late in the evening and I was on muscle relaxants. In other words, not quite myself and often my sniffer will reflect that. My first (altered) perception of F5 was "Gah! Jasmine! And something under the jasmine!" I tried it again. In the imp - very bitter. citrus, minty bitterness. Wet - Bitter and very, very citrus. Something under it that was.....how did my hubby put it..."cleanser-y." Dry - The same. The harshness was, I think it was the verbena, which can get a little sharp, even in Shanghai. There seemed to be something in the floral spectrum trying to make an appearance as well, but it was so acrid I could not shake the impression of jasmine. Keping the imp? I gave it to Geolinguist Bottle? Only for Geolinguist.

When I tried this at the sniff party, I loved it. As so often happens, the almonds ran up and took over my nose, but the myrrh and musk came in with a smoky sweetness that took over almost immediately. Geolinguist suggested that, while it was very nice, Hecate smelled more like my Ren Fair character than me (which was hours of hilarity as people demanded to know why Geolinguist knows what a pirate wench smells like). I loved it, but there was something off about it. Not an off odor, it smelled divine, just something that made it not quite "fit". When I flew home to surprise my mom for her birthday, I brought some imps for us to try together (Enabling? Me?). That is how I discovered why Hecate didn't fit me. Where Hecate was huge on me, a real in your face "Hellooooooooo Nurse!" scent, on my mother it was subtle, brilliantly blended and...okay, I'm going to say it....sexy. Dead sexy. Hecate didn't fit me because I was playing dress up in my mother's scent. Keeping the imp? It seems to want to keep me. I've gotten 3 or 4 of them and I pass them along to mom. Bottle? Only for mom.

This is a wonderfully contrary, confusing smell. I was very confused when I took my first notes on it. Thusly, this will be a very confusing review. The first time I tried this, I thought it was Eat Me. At the first test, it got an unsolicited compliment from my hubby, which NEVER happens. In the imp - I smelled white cake. Wet - white cake On - sweet cake with something almost musky under it. It stayed wonderful all day long, quite a feat since that was a 13+ hour day. The sweetness faded into a wonderfully warm vanilla smell. When I reapplied it at home and gave my hubby a hug, I got another "Mmmmm....you smell good. I don't know that that is, but it's GOOD!!" and he started sniffing me all over. I was convinced this was Eat Me. I went to try it on again.....I don't have an imp of Eat Me. At least not one that I can find anywhere. So, I tried Drink Me (again, I am sure) This time it faded down almost immediately to a toast-smell. Familiar, comforting, not quite what was the first time. Hubby's comment "Mmmm..that's.....no, that's not the one. It's nice, but it's not it." 3rd try - Cherry, frosting and cake....Cake....CAKE...aaaannnd toast. Not sure what is going on there. I like this one, but I want that first experience back.

Zombi, of course! I've been terribly single-minded this year and on a zombie kick. I tried to do a zombie costume last year, but I had to replace one of the actresses in our show so all of my energy went to that and I tanked. This year I got a ratty white formal from our costume storage, a bouquet of stems and really got my makeup right.

I have had the same problem, and I really agree with the advice that practice and sniffing a lot of imps helps a lot. I'm lucky to have a friend with an amazing nose who just happens to know what things like ambergris and lemon verbena smell like, so I always make Geolinguist sniff and explain what he gets to me, which is helping me to refine my nose a lot.

My notes from the sniff party were simply "Mead and almond" followed by "Figgy." Comparing that to the Lab description, I had to guess that this was the point when the wine started to go to my head. Trying it again, I was expecting almond followed by honey and maybe some boozy notes. In the imp it smelled very sweet, a little bit nutty but not the big punch I usually get from almond. Did I grab the wrong imp? *re-check label* Nope, Hellcat. Wet it was very, very, very brightly sweet - almost a fruity note to it. Okay, I am really thinking I grabbed the wrong imp. *re-check label* Nope, still Hellcat. Dry, I got wisps of amaretto. Very delicate. No really strong individual honey or almond note. A friend described it as "....and I don't mean this the wrong way because you smell very nice, but it kind of smells like potpourri." The more I sniffed it, the more I had to concede that he had a really good bead on the scent. Honey tends to overwhelm all other notes on me, and this honey was soooooooo bright it was almost like fruit and sunshine. After a few hours it faded down to the normal honey note. *sigh* Keeping the imp? Nah. Bottle: No, thank you.

I always worry about trying on a new scent before going to work on a show where the people paying me don't know me well, but since Geolinguist had tried it on before, I knew it didn't have any really odd notes that could amp and turn scary on me (I still fear the iris from The Mock Turtle's Lesson). In the imp, all I could smell were almonds. As soon as I put it on, I was overwhelmed with the almond note, but that always seems to happen with me and almond. Lurking under the almond was something darker, sweeter, but I couldn't really get my nose around it. Almond always seems to rush forward, take over for a few minutes, then find something else to hide behind. In this case, it was sandalwood. And sandalwood it stayed. It had a very nice throw, but it didn't last very long on me. Keeping the imp: Eh. Bottle: No, thank you.

A very kind forum-soul sent this one to Geolinguist. As soon as he opened the envelope, I snatched up this imp and ran around, mad with squees. I love green tea. I love lemon verbena. This scent was at the top of my wishlist. Until I tried it on. I remembered that I love lemon verbena. I remembered that I love tea. I forgot that I amp florals. I didn't know that jasmine could be such a harsh mistress. The tea and verbena made a lovely base, but the jasmine was just too sharp and too strong for me. Everyone who sniffed my wrist made the same face:

I loved Swank so much that I was really look forward to another boozy, fun scent. Unfortunately, this is not the one for me. It was just so sweet and so young I didn't care for it. I didn't get the Strawberry Shortcake/plastic that some people posted about, I just wasn't grabbed by what I did get. I sent it off to a friend's god-daughters, so hopefully they will fall in love with it.

First impression/in the imp: this smells more like "perfume" than any other BPAL I have tried. The first time I wore it was at my sniff party. I really amped the lemon verbena wonderfully at first and the mix of that and the other florals in the background made it fluctuate between being too pretty and girl to being very adult and sexy. Very appropriate for the name, but not entirely to my taste. The second time, I decided to have a sniff-off between Lolita and Shanghai since they share so many notes. Poor Lolita never got a chance to show her adult side. My right wrist smelled like a 14-year-old girl in pigtails working on a lollipop all day long. It was just far, far too young for me. Not to my taste. Keeping the imp? I'd love to give this imp to one of the teenage girls at the theatre, someone who is that age and could really wear it, but I don't want to explain that to any of the mums. Bottle: No thanks.

My friend, Eden, came over to look at my imp collection and asked what Eden smelled like. I told her it smelled like Coconut. All coconut, all the time. That was my first experience with it at my sniff party, which is why I have made a habit of trying every imp at least twice. Today was the day for Eden. In the imp, I smelled all coconut with just a trace of something darker and sweeter behind it. The fig perhaps? As soon as I put it on, almond ran up and punched me in the nose (luckily, I am not opposed to that), then ran to hide behind the coconut. Twice I started to offer my wrist for someone to sniff, then changed my mind and had the person still remark "Ooo, coconut!" As I wore it, the coconut (with that meaty, rich maybe-fig sweetness still lurking behind it) began to mingle with a whisper of sandalwood. I was in heaven for a good 7 hours. Then something else began to creep in behind it. It was undefinable at first, I thought it might be more of the sandalwood, which grew stronger by the hour. Could it be? No, no. I'm going to deny it. I like this scent far, far too much for it to be THAT. About 9 hours in, there was no denying it any longer. It had moved in to stay. Candle wax. I smelled exactly like a fat, waxy sandalwood candle. Farewell, Eden. Would that honey were kinder to me, we could have been life-long companions.

This ended up being the Keyser Soze of BPAL on me. It starts wonderfully; the honey and the ginger create a nice, spicy base to the sweetness of it. It was subtle, it was warm..... and just like that - it was gone. About an hour later it came back transformed into pure honey, which I like, but I liked the starting notes much better. Not for me.

Something in Blood Rose turned into a rose-powder on me and Bess can as well. I'm guessing at least one of the rose notes is not my friend.

In the imp, I thought it smelled like a slightly darker, stronger version of Swank. Putting it on, I became more convinced that this was Swank on Steroids. Huuugely boozy/bubbly. Huuugely sweet. I was kind of grooving on that for the first couple of hours. But after about 2 or 3 hours, the bubbly/boozy died down and the sweet? It just kept getting bigger. And bigger. And bigger... Anyone remember that Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Hobbes tries Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs for the first time? Yeah, that is an exact portrait of Ghost_Light on Bordello. After about 4 or 5 hours it mellowed down to a pretty fruity scent. At about 6 to 8 hours, I smelled like cotton candy. Luckily my husband thought it smelled like pastries, so he didn't mind it too much.

I find that both Thaelia and Sudha Segara end on a Happy Honey note. And no, I don't know what Happy Honey is either, that's just the best description I have: *sniff sniff* ooooo! *bounce bounce" Happy Honey!!

I think I very well might have the oddest skin chemistry on the board. In the imp I can clearly smell a kind of floral tea aroma. 2 of my friends got a strong citrus bite at the party. Last night I could clearly pick out the grapefruit with that tea/floral bite underneath. I put it on.....lilac! And not fake perfume lilac, but the actual smell of being a little girl and going outside the play under huge purple cones of blossoms. It must be the grapefruit that evokes the sharp tang of fresh greenery. This is my new Happy Place scent. I am just in love with it, though utterly perplexed. Am I the only one who manages to take ginger, apple blossoms, grapefruit and white tea and make them come out lilac? Keeping the imp? Just you TRY to take this one out of my box! Bottle: Oh yes, please.

I tried this on yesterday because I was feeling brave. Sniffing the imp I got strong mint and lime...ooo..this is going to be exciting. I thought I was going to smell like a yummy mohito all day long. Little did I know what was actually in store. Dabbing it on: Oh! Oh! There is the min....helloooooooo iris!! The flowers just bloomed and gobbled any trace of the mint, vodka and lime. Aquatics? What's that? Iris lives here but, luckily, the iris was pleasant. Unexpected, but pleasant. Within a couple minutes: warn powder...powder go. Not a bad powder, but nowhere near as nice as the soft rosy-powder of Blood Rose on me. Then I got in the car to drive to work. That was when it all went wrong. By the time I got to the office, all those the soft, delicate florals had turned mean. I now smelled like a grandma. On me, this hoped-for libation turned into the strongest little old lady perfume I've ever smelled and it just kept getting stronger. I felt like I'd been mugged by a nursing home. Keeping the imp? Botte? :D

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Scarecrow and Swank are both scents that never end on me. Aizen-Myoo has been the only one that fades out very quickly for me, and even then it mostly dies down to what my husband refers to as "that grape scent they all have" and what I think of as "that BPAl floral". I'm starting to wonder if the Desdemona leak affected all my imps.

I love this scent! I started off smelling like Juicy Fruit or Starbursts, so I wasn't too sure about it. I was hoping for a little bit of juniper since my other favorite so far has been Scarecrow. My husband really didn't care for his first sniff, he said it was decidedly Juicy Fruit gum. As it dried, I started getting a very nice spicy undertone to the strong fruit. In the car on the way to a party, my husband actually said I smelled nice (hooray! a first!). Coincidentally, I brought a pomegranate vodka to the party, so I spent a good portion of the night doing a side-by-side comparison of my shot glass and my wrist. Both were amazing. I am definitely ordering more of this one!

I liked the way this one begins and ends. In the vial and wet it has a nicely spicy citrus smell just under the surface with more flowery notes rising to the surface.... ...and then it begins to dry. I could not place exactly what the nasty element was at first, but my friend Paul nailed it. He said I smelled like a cheap candle shop. For a good long period in the middle of wearing this, I smell as though I took a fat, cheap vanilla candle and rubbed it against my skin as hard as I could. Bleh.

Now this was a scent I was hoping for! On me it starts off with the same spicy floral scents that Bess begins and ends with, but doesn't do the "Oh crap! This stinks like chemical roses!" period that dominates the middle of Bess on me. It was the first one I tried that picked a nice scent and just stayed on it for hours. I think my skin really likes the carnation scents. or the carnation combined with the lilly. I really like this one a lot. Sadly, I amp florals like nobody's business so if I wear this one, everyone around me better like it too. And my hubby really, really hates this scent.

This scent was not at all what I was expecting. In the imp it smelled very floral, almost cloyingly so, with just a nip of citrus. I get no rosemary and no mint. When I put it on, the floral/citrus really rose to the the occasion. I could not pick out any clear notes, just a blend of the two. A friend commented that it wasn't really food or flower. As it dried, it went into an extended period of chemical/carpet floral/bleeeegh! If I can ride that out, it fades into a very nice spicy floral aroma. Overall, I was hoping for something spicier, more rosemary and without the mess in the middle.

This was the frimp from my first order and I am very pleased it was included. I never would have picked it out for myself. I was rather intimidated by how masculine it sounded in the reviews but I opened it so my friend Paul and I could try a side-by-side comparison. In the vial it just smelled like GRASS! Overpoweringly green. On Paul, it faded very quickly, moving from the grass notes to kind of a warm juniper scent and then settling on a nice, clean, soapy note before it vanished. On me, it stays forever. It starts out grassy and then picks up a very strong juniper note. It makes me feel very tough when I wear it, but I am occasionally self-conscious about smelling like a boy. And did I mention it stays forever? I put it on in the late morning yesterday and I could still smell it when I woke up this morning. It has faded into a kind of warm, grassy-sweet scent, but it is still there.