myth

I wasn't sure I would like this because I generally avoid almond, and orange can be iffy. Here, however, they both work just as well as they do in Fruitcake. I guess if you pair them with cookies or cake I will like them. This to me smells like the love child of Fruitcake and Crumpet Rebellion. It is the buttery pastry from Crumpet, with almond and orange instead of berry. The booze isn't strong, and there's some spice to it. I LOVE this. I wore it one day I knew was going to be rough, and the scent of it wafting from from my neckline was a balm to a stressful day.

Frankincense, sandalwood, amber, and smoke compelled me to try this one, even though ozone is almost always a deal-breaker and I generally avoid florals. Recent success with Goblin Rider had me feeling optimistic. Here ozone unfortunately beats everything else into submission once it gets settled on my skin, and all I get is a headache-inducing floralish dryer sheet. Feh on chemistry that amps what it hates to the complete exclusion of what it loves.

This one starts out very fruity-winey on my skin, and I don't really smell the leather, which for me is good. Unfortunately something soon turns sour, and it becomes cheap-wine-gone-bad. This was a long shot blend for me to begin with, and it most definitely doesn't agree with me.

This one did not work on me... I got two distinct strains from this scent, and they did not pair well together. I can smell the frank and myrrh subtle underneath, but overriding the incense is the cola that everyone else has been talking about. It's weird. Very weird. And made me feel a little ill in the end, alas.

All the reviews talking about incense kicked me over the edge into swapping for a bottle of this unsniffed. Sadly this doesn't work on me... at all. I don't get incense or woods, I just get a sour floral and the kind of musk that turns perfumey on my skin. Sometimes a soapy edge wafts up. Of all the things that could've potentially gone right with this blend... none of them did. Alas, it's back off to the swaps with this orphan bottle.

MCXCVIII The person I got this from said wood & resin, but I get something soapy-sharp. On wet I smell the sharpness and and something vaguely like hairspray, which is a common way certain notes go bad on me. Also a touch of something green and maybe some wood. The sharp-soapness is going over to a men's cologne smell. I'm not sure what to compare this to because I don't like those kind of scents, but it's a clean masculine scent with some wood and ozone I think.

I'm actually a little afraid to review this yet, because I've tested it three times now and it's changed each time. The first time the leaves were very strong, and freshly applied it made me think of the L'Autunno room spray... it had that same bitterish leaf note. Then as it began to dry the fruit came up, and it smelled like a beautiful marriage of both the L'Autunno spray and perfume oil. But I'm recovering from a bad head cold, so I've revisited those impressions a couple of times. The bitter leaves were still very apparent on second try, but I got more fruit. Now, two days after receiving it the oil has had ample time to settle from its travels, and while there are leaves still at first it very quickly becomes O HAI FROOT. Apple? It smells like apple cider, but there are no apples listed. These fruits smell ripe, almost dried. I'm getting a spicy, cidery sort of smell, like you might get from those simmering potpourris. But I don't mean that in a bad/fake smell way. This is pretty much fall harvest in a bottle. Very evocative. It might be a little too much on the fruity side for me, but I'm going to hang onto it and let it age and wear in a bit before I make any final decisions. I'm a sucker for fall scents.

This is reeeally nice. On application, the leaves and charred wood come right up. I can smell the tobacco and khus swirling underneath. These merge into a foresty impression as the blood musk announces its presence, first with an almost salty tang. It then settles into the scent overall and becomes... blood musk... I don't know how else to describe it. A skin musk with tinge of blood salt. Still surrounded by dry, crackling leaves and smoke. Add in the richness of the amber [which is not discernable as an individual note, but I can "feel" it in here] and this blend dries down with an amazing smokey-sex-red-musk depth that is from the family of scents including VQ, Hellion, and Snake Charmer. [No, it doesn't smell LIKE those blends, but it has a similar vibe and complexity, wearing a fall coat.] I think this is what I'd hoped for from Hexxenacht, which went horribly soapy on me. Verdict: blood musk and amber sex up some smoky fall leaves for the win. I *might* need a backup of this one.

Bleak pencils! Ok, but no really, I love it. But yeah, this is the cedar that makes people think of pencils, in case someone was wondering. I love cedar! I love pencils. Can I even smell the graphite? I am all about dark resins and wood. This scent is... sleek. It's not heavy enough to be black... it's the light-absorbing sheen of graphite, the silvery suede of weathered wood. It's grey that's not quite black, not quite silver, that you just can't quite focus on because the little bit of light it reflects shifts and dances. Thankfully I don't at all get what I think of as ozone. No soap, no whiff of cheap men's cologne. Black pine? Hmmm... have to say no. Love pine, not finding it here. Opoponax = myrrh... this is a dark variety then, there's no greenness here as sometimes found in light myrrhs. During dry-down it blends well into the scent and melds with the incense impression. Late in dry down I can smell a tinge of its warmth remaining after the chill has departed. Overall this is wood and incense. The darkness is ephemeral and does not weigh you down, the scent is surprisingly light in throw and wearlength. It is a perfect winter scent for me. To my nose it shares similarity with The Pit and the Pendulum.

Thanks to the generosity of fairnymph I was able to try this scent. This is a lovely little soft, warm fragrance that once you smell it, you realize it smells exactly like what you think oakmoss would. It smells like lichen! It's dry though; there's no moistness to it. Maybe ever just so slightly salty. Very light throw. Quite pleasant and comforting to my nose, very evocative of a tree with moss on it in the forest.

CLVI [156] Previous review. Err. This smells like Head and Shoulders shampoo on me; I can't think of anything else to compare it to. It's pretty terrible.

Sort of… floral? Some wood? Something powdery? I'm not great at noteless identification, so I had to come look at the reviews, and I see they repeatedly mention violet. Not sure what violet smells like, but it has a sort of soapy floral effect on me. In the end it's sort of a soapy-powdery-moist floral, with a touch of that rotting smell thick florals can have sometimes. Definitely not for me. So different from the later one that I adore!

At first this was nose-burningly sharp, with a medicinal feel of something almost minty-eucalyptus. As it dried that faded a bit and it didn't hurt my nose as much, and became identifiable as lavender [if I'd read these reviews first I would've recognized it instantly]. A little later and I'm getting that woodiness others have mentioned, but to me it smells like cedar. Shortly thereafter it goes *poof* off my skin. It's an odd little scent... at first it was terrible, but it dried down surprisingly nice with the sneak attack of the woods. Too bad it disappeared so fast after that! Edited to add that after reapplying I could smell the pepper another reviewer mentioned. This time it came out with the lavender. I still smell cedar over pine though.

It's always the especially stinky headache-inducing ones that seem to cling relentlessly to my skin. No amount or kind of soap gets them off. The other night I had something stinky on that I wanted off, but I couldn't get up at the moment [i forget what I was doing, maybe a cat on my lap ] so I reached for the jar of Villainess Jai Mahal Whipped that sits on my desk. Rubbed a little dollop into the spot a la the oil-cleansing method. Rubbed it in, wiped with a tissue, repeat once more. The smell was gone. Since the oil-cleansing method has taught us that oil removes oil much more effectively than soaps do, this makes total sense. And as a bonus the spot smelled like Jai Mahal instead!

My current favorite drink is called "Pineapple Upside-down Cake." It is vanilla vodka, coconut rum, and pineapple juice. This is the scent version of that drink. I love it! I bought a bottle untested, knowing that it was either going to be made of very much fail, or made of incredible win. WIN! The combination of all these things is astoundingly delicious. I was afraid this might come on too fruity, but it doesn't; this is indeed a syrupy, sugar-carmelised pineapple, rather than a bright fruit. There was a chance the vanilla would go plastic, but it doesn't; this is a dark vanilla, like sniffing real vanilla extract from the bottle. There was also a chance the coconut would go plastic, but it didn't; it's got that kind of woody, almost sandalwood-like edge that makes me wonder if it isn't perhaps black coconut. I worried that the rum would be too strong and alcoholic, but it isn't; this isn't the smell of spiced rum, it's the suggestion of it. Oftentimes booze blends are so boozy I'd be afraid to drive while wearing them, but I do not sniff this and smell alcohol. I just smell all the yummy things that could be in a really good tropical drink. The stealth kind of drink, where you don't taste or smell alcohol at all, you just get blitzed. Like my Pineapple Upside-down Cake. Elegba came out super boozy and turned into a fakey plastic vanilla-coconut. This instead acts like Death Adder does, in that is a darker, sexy kind of scent. It is a tropical drink for the midnight liaison, not the noonday lounge on the beach. It faded pretty quickly the first few times I wore it, right after I got it. [so much so that I panicked and got a backup bottle. ] I wore it this past weekend, however, and it seemed to last longer. I *did* put it in my hair this time, and I think that really made the difference. I caught a whiff of it the next morning as I got up and began moving around! This is pretty much a perfect summer scent for me; I adore it.

In our paean to all the mysteries surrounding this enigmatic number, there are thirteen lucky and unlucky components, including white chocolate, dark chocolate, apple blossom, honeysuckle, frankincense, allspice, nutmeg, black tea, tonka, and sandalwood. Floral notes hate me, and I usually amp them to the exclusion of everything else. There have been a couple of exceptions though, so when I saw this 13 all loaded with spice and resin, I hoped that those pesky flowers would wilt away under those notes. Alas. The white and dark chocolates combine to be milk chocolate, and milk chocolates don't appeal to me as much. Cocoa blends like Boomslang, Wulric and Velvet are fantastic. But the Bliss, Gluttonys and Candy Butchers tend not to go so well. This doesn't head over the line into plastic hell like it could have though... it stays a pretty nice milk chocolate. It the resins came out to play it would probably be wonderful. Instead there is this flower in my chocolate. Only slightly appley, which is good because apple note hates me too. But too much floral. Floral chocolate. Where oh where are my frankincense, sandalwood and spice? They ran away from the flowers, and I'm afraid I have to follow them. The October '06 13 remains the only one that has worked on me. [edited to add lab description!]

I'm hard-pressed to say this smells like rootbeer. At first it seems almost perfumey, but my first test dried down to a rich vanilla-ey yumness. It's so hard to pin down at first. As it dries the vanilla comes out more and more, but no plastic! Subsequent tests have seemed to become more and more buttery. At first I was thinking to get a bottle, but now... maybe not. I can't quite decide, it might be too sweety-thick for me to really wear. I'm going to hang on to the imp and give it some more wear though; I'm so mood-oriented with scents that something I dislike one day will be delicious the next, so my last test may have just been on a bad day. Overall it's sweet and very creamy. I found it to have a powerful throw and to not need a heavy application.

Oh dear. Here is exactly what I wrote in my spreadsheet notes: LOL. I don't know what else to say. I love smoke, but this isn't woodsmoke or camp smoke, it's gritty industrial ashy smoke. It was just awful on me; one of those scents that makes me feel vaguely ill. Definite similarities to Djinn, which had pretty much the same effect on me. I'd seen wc proto reviews that talked about wood, and smoke that I hoped might be wood smoke, but alas, twas not to be for me.

Polished metallic notes, glossy leather, frankincense, star anise, and thin lubricating oils. It's odd... I *love* the smell of leather via the real thing, but for some reason leather notes in bpal make me feel somewhat sick to my stomach; I'm not sure what it is but they react very badly for me. So I wasn't really hoping for much out of this one, because usually whichever note doesn't work on me is the one I amp in a blend. I also don't like metallic notes, because they go straight to men's cheap cologne. Soooo, imagine my surprise to find how lovely this is on me. All the notes blend together so smoothly, I don't get an O HAI THAR from any of the things I don't like. It *does* lean just a tad toward men's cologne, but it manages to stay right over the line into acceptable territory. I like "manly" scents, I just can't usually do them with leather or metallic in them, so I'm fairly pleased that this comes off on me as a nicely blended, smooth, dusky, sophisticated scent... more manly than feminine, definitely, but quite nice. [edited to add lab description!]

This to me smells exactly like Black Lace minus the cotton note. Which is kinda bad, because I really did not like Black Lace; it gave me a headache. And I was so certain I'd love AM that I bought a whole bottle right off the bat. Weeeelllll.... maybe. Most of my problem with BL was the cotton note, so this is already far better on me that it was. It's a bit thick... there's an almost powdery aspect to it that makes it feel very heavy, and that's coming from someone who usually loves the heavier/darker scents. It's not exactly what I was expecting or hoping for, but since I got a whole bottle I've tried it several times and it's growing on me I think. But if you're one of those folk who adored Black Lace, definitely give this one a try.

Ahhaha... and the person who reviewed just above me is the lovely person whose bottle I'm now caressing. Oh Chokmah... how I so unexpectedly love thee. I passed on a decant circle back when the Sephiroths were being discontinued, because I figured there was no point in liking something that was about to be taken away. D'oh! [cue the BPAL version of *Oops, I did it again!*] On me Chokmah is like a three-way with Doc Buzzard, Schwarzer Mond, and Scorpio 07. It's a darkly resinous scent... not bitter or funky dark, instead it's syrupy dark. I can kinda see the rootbeer comparisons, but I'm not sure it would've occurred to me if I hadn't read the other reviews first. The throw is a heady, sweetish resin that you might expect to find only in the most exotic and intoxicating situations.

In the bottle and on wet: Single note dandelion. As though I had just walked out into my front yard, plucked one that's in full bloom, and sniffed. Juicy-crisp green stem and bright yellow flower that leaves a pollen spot on the tip of your nose. Dry down: the juicy green recedes, a warmer slightly powdery aura surrounds the dandelion flower that is still at the center of it. If you came back to your plucked flower later in the day after it was wilted and beginning to dry, you might smell this. Sage? Hmmm, not specifically. Where is the clove? I dunno what BoG should smell like. Fig? No. Chamomile? Not identifiably. I'm thinking the sage and chamomile might be combining to add that soft powdery aura that floats just underneath the dandelion in the later stage. There could also be the barest touch of clove mingling with that. But none of those notes are there on their own, I don't say "oh hello clove!" Mostly it's dandelion, on my skin. I find myself drawn by this one even though I typically don't care for floral scents at all.

In the bottle and on wet: There is a sharp sort of skanky note at first that's scary. [i see from reading the other reviews that some are getting it as pickle.] Under that I can smell wood and something that reminds me of the recent Scorpio. In the first minute or so the skank rolls off [this is SO hard to describe... it makes me think of mustard and feet but it is really neither of those] and a soft powderyness rises from underneath. On me this isn't *ewww Johnson & Johnson's* powder, it's more of a feminine powder. The fur rolls in at this stage, and if you put the powder and fur together it might smell like the fur coat of a rich old lady that over time has taken on a bit of her scent. Here what used to be the skank seems to have morphed into a sort of bitter dry leaf scent. In the end this is more soft fur and musk than woods and leaves... it's not fur *in* the woods, it's fur that has been playing in the woods and is now home curled up before the fire. It's a warm and comforting kind of scent, but if you find a touch of powder off-putting it might not be for you. I was hoping for more woods, myself, so I'm kinda on the fence as to whether I'll keep it or not. It's in a similar vein as the recent Hunter Moon [only without the wine] and a tad reminiscent of Scorpio which I lurve so much I have a little hoard of it, so I'm thinking I might not really need this one too.

My hope is that DD will sell the new exclusive scent on their website like they did the last one. While I am here... how much loooooooonger 'til the WF Roswell has the Salons? I'm dying from a lack of Heavenly & Earthly love over here!

I will say... the ability to get samples is a must for me buying scents. I am very picky about smells, and lots of things give me headaches. Until I discovered alcohol-free bpal I didn't even wear perfume of any kind, and I always try to buy unscented products for other stuff. A HUGE HYOOOGE part of what enabled me so well is the swapping comms. I don't mind taking chances on things I know I can swap if they don't like me. I think the way it's built an online community and allowed / not discouraged the aftermarket has been really critical to bpal's expanding success. I think it's kinda cool that at this point they can transfer the benefit of that online community to grow the retailers. Because you do have to be careful when you're "competing" with your resellers. One of my clients sells his products online and via small retailers, and he does have to be careful about not stepping on their toes with his online sales [ie a customer buys from the store, then sees his web addy on the product label and makes future orders online... that's not so great for the retailer]. But there is a large segment of people who will sniff and buy on-site but never go online and purchase scented products, and it's good to be able to reach both markets. I'm hoping this means we'll have will-calls here eventually, too. Because that would be all kinds of fun.