astarinel

I love this. The strawberry note is fresh and juicy without being candied, and the vanilla is soft and creamy and slightly floral. It's sweet and delicate, and almost a touch foody from the creamy vanilla, but not quite. As it dries, the strawberry fades a little, and the sandalwood and honey come out more. Very pretty and wearable, medium/low throw.

I really was looking forward to this because my RPG characters all tend to be Paladin or Cleric types. In the bottle: Leather, sandalwood, grass. This is the softer brown leather (Olisbos, CC: Female) as opposed to the sharper black leather (De Sade, Whip). I was expecting something more bright and metallic, as I think "big shiny metal armor" when I think of my Paladin characters. However, this scent reminds me more of the iconic Paladin horse -- soft saddle leather, warm grass, gentle woods in the background. It's a pleasant scent, but it doesn't really say "Paladin" to me and I hope the released version has more of the self-righteous holy knight feel that I love. It ends up being a bit too leathery and masculine for me. People who like Dead Man's Hand and other soft leathery cowboy scents will like this proto, I think. This type of blend suits my boyfriend, but I don't think he can have this one with his tendency to play chaotic rogues and wizards.

Devil's Night is definitely my favorite smoky-sweet scent. It's a Halloween LE, but it's returned a bunch of times. Devil's Night: This is the scent of autumn night, fires in the distance, with a touch of boozy swoon, playful sugar and thuggish musk.

I also liked this, but I'm now wondering if there are decanting/batch variations, because it seems like I primarily got an entirely different group of prominent notes. The resins and musks here were really lovely on my skin, dark and rich and even a little bit sweet. I didn't get much hay, and there certainly wasn't anything dry or dusty about this scent for me. I'm having a serious debate, though. I feel like I'd want at least a couple more imps of this or a partial, if it would be this same lovely resinous earthy musky scent, but I definitely don't want more if it isn't going to be the same! I like white mint, also, but I didn't really get any of it here. This scent had a very dark golden-brown feeling to me.

Pretty much exactly what it says -- the mango reminds me of a mango drink or smoothie, sweet and creamy. I was worried about the plastic of doom, as creamy notes have a history of going sort of flat and unpleasant on my skin, but I'm not getting that here. I really like the white chocolate buttercream aspect better than I expected to, it smells like it would be an amazing cupcake icing or something similar. My favorite box of chocolates scent is definitely Milk Chocolate Buttercream, and I find the note to be a bit similar. Whatever goes into these buttercream blends works on me a lot better than the straight up cream or chocolate blends. I like this much better than I expected to, and may have to track down a bit more of it. I don't think I have anything with such a prominent mango note, and I'm really enjoying it.

I really like the tea note in this. However, I have problems with lemon verbena, and it is definitely not playing nice here. I normally like anise, although it can tend to dominate a blend for me, but I don't get any from this blend. I'm very disappointed at the verbena taking over, I can smell this amazing almost smoky tea scent underneath verging-on-lemon-cleaner verbena. A really nice tea scent, though, and like no other tea scent I've tried before. Curse you lemon verbena!

Very simple, a clean and soft vanilla musk. Definitely less sweet and feminine than vanilla-heavy blends usually are for me. The wine and sandalwood are lightly present, but the musk is definitely the main player here. Low throw, definitely a skin-scent. This is nice, but I have a lot of vanilla and white musk scents with more going on, so I don't think I have room for one that reminds me of blends I already have, only less complex. It seems like it would definitely be nice to use in layering, however.

I find this one a bit odd, but I rather like it anyway! I have a tendency to amp lemongrass, which is keeping me from loving this blend. The tea is really bright and the ginger adds a nice bit of spice. The grains definitely remind me of oatmeal, something thick and almost foody. The honey is soft and adds a little sweetness. It puts me in mind of breakfast in an interesting way. Definitely one of the more unique blends I've tried lately, but ultimately not all that wearable for me thanks to that punch of lemongrass.

Add me to the chorus of voices that find this blend doesn't really work with their skin chemistries. I was hoping that the cream would play nicely, although cream notes tend to go flat and a bit sour for me. I've been looking for a spicy chai-like blend, but a lot of spices tend to get dry and slightly musty on me. Unfortunately, this blend is no exception here. I don't smell any honey really, and the ginger is definitely the fresh ginger of Polynesian Pop/Mother Ginger rather than the foody-deep ginger of Gingerbread Poppet/Shub-Niggurath. Clove just must be one of those spices that doesn't work well on me, because this is definitely getting a little dry and unpleasantly musty. This really just doesn't work on my skin. Disappointing!

I was hoping the peach would be prominent in this, and it is in the imp. However, on my skin, this is a pretty unremarkable and "perfumey" peachy-floral with a bit of a soapy edge. I'm going to blame the rose geranium there, as I normally enjoy gardenia. It reminds me a little of Peach Moon, in that the peach is very light and fresh and the blend ends up being primarily floral to my nose. I definitely agree with the comments calling it a very springlike scent, as it's light and fresh, but it doesn't really grab my interest in any way.

Apple blossom is one of the few florals that I really enjoy -- it smells to me somehow like pale, airy apples. Honey is one of my favorite notes ever, and I don't really have an association with white mint, so away we go! The honey here is a very light, delicate honey, neither cloying nor sticky. The apple blossom is light and airy, and I can smell the white mint adding a touch of soft herbal. It doesn't really smell minty, but it adds a little crispness to the scent. I've smelled a lot of honey blends, and although I love my rich and sweet honeys, like in Josie and O, this honey is light and delicate and pretty. I didn't expect to love this blend, but it's the only one out of the many Yules I tried this year that I consider bottle-worthy. It's pretty and light and wearable -- similar to the honey in Door, but the apple blossom makes this one a little more fruity and wearable for me than the herbs in Door. Also, despite its lightness, I definitely found this blend had pretty decent lasting power on me. A wonderful scent, wearable, and still a little unique.

Of all the snow notes, this one is probably my least favorite, as it strikes me as the mintiest. I prefer the sweet/spicy (I don't really know how to describe it better!) snow note in Snow Moon, but this is more like the snow in Cloister Graveyard in the Snow or the slush in Nuclear Winter. After the reviews mentioning berries, I was really hopeful that those would be more prominent, however they just aren't on my skin. I expected this scent to be a little more sweet and berried, but it's more of a chilly, crisp outdoorsy scent. It's pretty, but not really what I prefer in my perfumes.

This reminds me a bit of Red Moon '07, however, the thing that really makes this blend unique is the aquatic/ozone feeling added to all those warm summery notes. I'm impressed that the ozone note is not doing that dryer sheet thing it can do on my skin, and the scent is sort of a balance between these warm and dry and cool and wet aspects. Although it's unique, it's not the kind of thing I really reach for to wear, but if you love summer scents and enjoyed Red Moon '07, this is lighter on the musk and the aquatic/ozone really adds something special. I'm glad I tried it, but I'll be happy with my bottle of Red Moon.

This one reminded me of Joyful Moon, but I'm not sure it's because the scents are so very similar (other than having vanilla and floral notes in common), but my disappointment with both was the same, and so they're together in my mind. In the decant, this was a soft, creamy vanilla musk with a whisper of floral. However, on my skin, one of the floral notes amped up and became soapy, and it just killed the blend for me. If I smelled hard, I still smelled that wonderful soft vanilla musk, but sitting atop it was this high pitched soapy floral. I am going to guess that one of the "summer flowers" in here is a lily or rose type, because those are definitely my personal soapy floral bane.

I got a decant of this because the note list sounded so unique, I wanted to try at least a couple Yules that I wouldn't be constantly comparing to other perfumes! The primary note in this is the grape, which smells definitely cold and chilly, like a frosty glass of white wine. The chamomile and balsam of peru add a resinous, herbal bouquet. It's a very clean, pale, crisp sort of scent, but a bit too much like I poured a nice glass of white wine on myself for me to want to wear as perfume. It is definitely not a sweet scent, the other notes keep it more fresh and herbal than sweet, and the grape note is lovely and not at all artificial-grape smelling.

This one ultimately reminds me of a lot of other "wintry" blends, and doesn't have as much to make it stand out as I had hoped. The snow note is the one I prefer, that also is in Snow Moon, and it reminds me of Snow Moon a bit, but where Snow Moon has a winter woods at night sort of feel to me, Whoop is more a cheerful daytime sun on snow kind of scent. It would make a decent atmosphere scent, I think, but I don't get any of the sweeter or foodier notes here, it stays primarily a snow and pine scent. It's nice, but not really the sort of scent I prefer wearing as perfume -- I have wintry atmosphere sprays and Snow Moon to satisfy my desire for snow notes and evergreens.

I am beginning to believe that orange blossom is just one of those notes that doesn't work with my nose chemistry, rather than fails on my skin chemistry. When I asked other people to smell this they thought it was perfectly nice, but all I could smell was the horrible sharp bitterness of orange blossom, so this review will probably not be very helpful to anyone who doesn't apparently hate even the tiniest whiff of the note. I was hopeful that this would be primarily the other notes, and in the decant I mostly smelled vanillaish tea, so I went ahead and skin tested anyway. Unfortunately for me, what could have been a pleasant vanilla sandalwood spiced tea is topped with the icky metallic orange blossom. When I sniff hard, I can pick out the other notes, all of which are lovely. If you don't hate orange blossom as hard as I appear to, this seems to be a warm, well-blended vanilla scent. It reminds me a tiny bit of Unveiled from last year's Shunga series, I think because that also struck me as a complex vanilla tea scent.

Like many of the others who tried this blend, I was expecting the gingerbread component here to remind me more of Gingerbread Poppet, with vanilla and marshmallow cream topping it off. However, the ginger note here is definitely not the "bakery" ginger in Poppet and some other blends, but it's the bright ginger in Polynesian Pop. This is nice, but as someone who already has bottles of both Gingerbread Poppet for a rich, foody ginger and Polynesian Pop for a fizzy ginger, this one doesn't stand out from other gingery blends enough to grab my attention. I definitely don't get anything creamy, vanilla, or marshmallow-y from this blend, which are the notes I was really hoping to find. I'll be sticking with my bottle of Poppet.

I am going to add my voice to the chorus of "Watermelon Jolly Ranchers!" I like those, though, so I'm feeling good about this one as I skin test. It smells very fruity and candied wet, and the plum note in this is a dead ringer for the plum note in Bordello/Countess Willie to my nose. I am getting tiny whiffs of the apricot and floral, and it is very light-hearted and sweet and pleasant to wear and smell. However, since I already have a bottle of Bordello, and Sugar Plum Fairy is primarily plums to my nose, I don't really need any of this blend. If, however, you liked Bordello but not the amaretto, or Countess Willie but not the red musk, this is an alternative you might be interested in.

This is one of those chocolate blends where I can see the globs of chocolate in the imp, and it's pretty hard to mix up. I think I got some of the chocolate, though, so onward with a skin test! The chocolate and honey are most prominent at first, but the tart pom is somehow getting all blurred and musty underneath the sticky sweet notes. As it dries on my skin, the blend evens out more, but there's something in here that is just not working with both my skin chemistry and my nose chemistry. It just smells "off" somehow. I realize this review isn't very helpful, but even though the note list for this one is simple, I'm really not entirely sure what is making me not like this blend, but not like it I do!

In the imp, this is very rich, almost buttery vanilla topped with mint, with a little bit of chilliness lurking in the background, and I am thrilled! However, when I put it on, it morphs into the exact opposite of what I wanted. I was hoping for a Tokyo-Stomp-esque vanilla mint topped with the snow note I adore, without much pine or wood. As it dries onto my skin, the green woodsiness emerges, edged with that ozone note that goes dryer sheets on me. It ends up being a very evocative, wintry outdoors scent, which is pretty in its own right but not the sort of thing I like to wear, and definitely not what I was hoping this would be.

The package just arrived, and I couldn't resist a brief test, though I will probably go back and re-test once the contents have had some time to relax and settle. In the bottle, this is really sweet, sticky, candy peach. I've tried a lot of BPAL peach scents, and this one is unique and reminds me of peach hard candies rather than the fruit itself. On, that remains the dominant note, but I start to get whiffs of candy strawberry and a slight creaminess that I am hoping will come out more as this settles and ages, because if those notes were balanced this would be really fabulous. As it is, it's a little heavy on the candy peach note, which is nice, but doesn't have the depth to keep me interested by itself. As the other Beaver Moons have been pretty heavy on the cheesecake, and that note gets stronger to me as it ages (Beaver Moon '07 was originally much more cherry to me than it is now), I am keeping my fingers crossed that this one undergoes the same shift.

Immediately applied, the first thing that hits me is cherrrrry. Wow, that's a sweet maraschino cherry, very candy and reminiscent of the cherry note in MB: Bloody Mary to me. The amaretto is definitely present behind the cherry, adding boozy almond. This smells like something I would happily drink. I fortunately am not getting saffron, as I'm not a fan of the note, and coconut, which is usually pretty strong on me, doesn't start to peek its head out until the drydown. The cherry and almond are really the stars of this show. A dark, delicious boozy cherry complemented by a sweet almond. This is along the lines of what I hoped last year's Suck It would be like, and I intend to test it more closely versus my cherry scents to see how it stacks up in death matches.

This is VERY coffee. Unlike last year's Pumpkin V, which was heavily pumpkin, this is primarily coffee to my nose and the pumpkin takes a bit of a backseat. Unfortunately, the same thing happens with this one that happened with Pumpkin V when it hit my skin -- the pumpkin starts to go overly buttery, and something in the coffee starts going bitter, leaving an unpleasant contrast between heavy pumpkin and burnt coffee. A definite fail with my skin chemistry, and continued disappointment for me with all of BPAL's coffee scents.

Apples. Definitely not overly sweet apples, very crisp. There's fresh apples, and sort of an airy note, and a bit of light spicing that puts me in mind of cider. I don't get much cranberry that I can readily identify, but that's probably what is keeping this from going too sweet. This would make a really, really awesome autumnal atmospheric spray. I have a lot of apple scents, though, and I don't think I'd reach for this more than the others, particularly Fearful Pleasure.