LiberAmoris

I ordered an imp of Shadow Witch Orchid even though my skin's had uneven luck with the Lab's orchid note. Wet on my skin, it's a strong, sharp orchid with ylang ylang. Uh oh. But as it dries, the orchid becomes creamier and sweeter, with an slight sliver of what smells like honey. It retains an edge, which seems very appropriate. An hour later, it's a soft and dreamy orchid, tropical and lush. Another lovely RG blend.

Baneberry is blackberry and what smells a bit like ylang ylang on me. Once those settle down, I get orris and a flower note that reminds me of tulips. I am really enjoying the RG blends! On me they are florals that have their sweetness perfectly balanced with root and earth notes.

Love Black Hellebore. The gorgeous peony is supported by that herbal root note that almost has a touch of anise to it. The rose is so faint here it's just barely a pink breath. This one goes on the big bottle list for the springtime. So pretty without being a flat-out floral. I really like the root note which makes it grounded and slightly earthy.

I was really looking forward to Lurid even though I was leery of the ozone. The description just seemed so...dynamic. And I love black currant. I'm not disappointed. It's an even mix of black currant, lavender and white musk on me, with underpinnings of what smells a little like patchouli or amber and of course, a big bolt of ozone. The ozone definitely makes the blend a bit 'perfumey' as it imparts that distinctive odor, but it is offset by the currant and lavender. This is one of those blends that makes me a happy BPALer, because it is just so creative and unique. Lurid waffles a bit on my skin, going a tad 'soapy' at times but then redeeming itself by broadcasting black currant and Beth's yummy white musk. This one is just too curious to give up, though. Definitely a keeper.

Wow, this one is absolutely true to description on me. It's dirt (like in Graveyard Dirt) with bay rum and the flower/moss twist that I feel like I recognize from the sexy, swampy NOLA-inspired blends in the general catalog. The bourbon note is a topnote on me---it's fleeting and burns off by the time the drydown kicks in. The end result is a mossy bay rum with just the tiniest hint of the magnolia. I really like it, but I don't need more than an imp of it, as I probably will use it to call up memories of New Orleans rather than wear it as perfume. This seems much more solemn than the Jazz Funerals I've seen, but somehow that feels right.

Sparkling, uncomplicated pomegranate with a touch of juniper. It's tart, but at the same time it's almost candy-sweet on my skin. I love pomegranate, and this and Persephone are my favorites thus far. Swank would be another good going-out perfume, or I think it would be great for work as it is very fresh and inoffensive.

I was so excited to see this blend's inspiration, which is from a fantastic poem by James Merrill called Lost In Translation. Merrill, whose father helped found Merrill Lynch, spent summers in the Hamptons and wrote his poem about the seclusion and isolation the Hamptons offered from NYC, long before they became an ostentatious playground for the misbehavior of the upper crust that they are now famous for. The poem turns on several 'translations', available here. The Hamptons is absolutely a cosmo to me, heavy on the junipery gin with a splash of tart cranberry. It's a bit sparkling and effervescent and surprisingly refreshing and lighthearted. I'm keeping my imp for next summer.

Green ivy and crawling vines, shady cedar trees and mossy ground...and pumpkin. The pumpkin seems the most 'buried' here, as compared to the rest of the patch, making this blend very outdoorsy and a little bit spooky. This is darkness falling over the pumpkin patch, with all its attendant forms and familiars.

Mmmm, I swear this smells like delicious buttery pumpkin with dry violets and sandalwood on me...not sure how that is possible, but it smells great. There's a rooty note that blends well with the sandalwood to create a very earthy pumpkin, like a real pumpkin patch at nightfall. Very enjoyable.

The pomegranate and pumpkin combo in the bottle is wonderful, but on my skin I also get a 'bubble gum' note that is very stubborn. Pomegranate usually does really well by me, so it's disappointing. If it smelled on me the way it smelled in the bottle, I'd be in pumpkin heaven!

Another great pumpkin blend. The cocoa is strong in the bottle, but once on the skin it recedes and I get mostly the hazelnut/walnut combo with a subdued pumpkin note that almost smells baked. It dries down to a very soft and hazy pumpkin pie on my skin.

Yum! Apple cider with mulling spices and the type of pumpkin I get from Jack---but with a tamed-down butter note. This is absolutely yummy and not too sweet or too spicy. Gah! So good. This is now at the top of my favorite BPAL autumn blends list.

2005 Version Compared to last year's, this year's Dia seems to have more tobacco and florals and less chocolate and foody notes. It wears less like a smoky gourmand and more like a smoky floral. It's nice in its own right, but I think I enjoy the smoke note in Devil's Night more. What can I say, I have a sweet tooth!

Annabel Lee is so lovely. On me it's a haunting blend of sweet pea, peony, sage, cucumber and oakmoss, in that order of prominence. It has a sea-swept, moonlit, unfulfilled quality to it that matches its inspiration perfectly. The overall effect on me is a dreamy light floral with green, sea-brine soaked undertones. It also has the feeling of being carried on air---it feels open and drifting rather than pent up and compressed. I cannot stop sniffing myself, it's just such a pretty and sad blend. It smells like longing.

Yep, The Haunted Palace is gorgeous. Ripe redolent oranges, lush red roses, and sweet heliotrope and gardenia---with vanilla and amber and musk at the bottom. The oranges melt away over time, leaving a second skin ambery floral that is just gorgeous. I have to agree with other reviewers, this is one infectiously happy blend. Bright and flirtatious, it's a decadent tumult of good cheer in a bottle. I don't think I could be gloomy wearing this one!

The City in the Sea smells much the way I imagined it to: light violet, ozone, ivy, light sandalwood, and something green and herbal that must be the kelp. I'm not getting any mint, just the tingle of the ozone. Aquatics tend to go straight to soap on my skin, and as beautiful as this one is in the bottle, it's nowhere near as enchanting on my skin. My chemistry just robs it of its dimensionality and magic. Luckily I have other Poe blends to console me!

I love what Beth does with patchouli and Alone is no exception. Dark patchouli, sandalwood, and cardamom create an almost raisin-y note, or something deeper and richer, like date or spiced fig. The gardenia and lily of the valley (muguet) sweeten but do not come forward on my skin as prominent notes. The labdanum is very woody and almost marshy, lending it an slightly herbacous, outdoorsy feel. The result is a rich, resinous blend that has just a tracery of white florals around the edges. In my mind, it fits in the same 'family' of rich resin blends as Urd, Sin, and Snake Charmer, although it is also very unique. It does smell a bit reclusive, like the smell of a lonely cabin built under the shade of giant trees whose taproots come up through the floor boards.

Wow. In the bottle, sweet creamed corn, the real deal, off the cob. On my skin, maple-sweet corn with cinnamon. It does bear a strong resemblance to Sugar Skull. The corn note is so real it's uncanny. Once it dries down, it does smell like candy corn, small-batched in copper pots with primo ingredients. It also smells like caramel corn. Yum! I wasn't so sure about it in the beginning (I spent a couple dicey years in Iowa and now the smell of corn is not such a great association) but the end result is scrummy.

Like other reviewers, I had a reaction of "Sugar Cookie!" when I first opened Devil's Night. For me, it's a smoky gourmand blend---cool nights, bonfires, and freshly baked cookies. The musk here is delectable. I was so hoping that this one would be love at first sniff and it is. I'm glad I got ahead of myself and ordered another bottle based on my unbridaled optimism.

Decadence is an orange pomander blend that smells like the holidays to me. I got an imp of this last year as a freebie from the Lab, tried it once, wasn't crazy about it, and promptly forgot that i had it. In reorganizing the depths of my perfume stash, I came upon it, and now I love it! The almond note burns off pretty quickly on my skin and then it's just mellow orange, spiced with what smells like cinnamon and clove. It's a little like mulled wine. I think there might be a floral in here as well, as the ultimate drydown on my skin smells like a creamy little orange flower. Yum. This weather is perfect for Decadence, and it is a real treat to be out in the cool October night, catching whiffs of it spiraling around me. It's a beautiful blend.

Umbra is like Sin on me, plus vetiver. I was really hoping that this would be a blend that would have me rethinking my position on vetiver, but it just does such weird things on my skin here that I think I'll stick with my beloved Sin. Does smell a lot like Lush's Middle Earth soap, which my BF loves, so I think I will be passing this imp on for him to wear.

With Delirium, I get the rose, apple, and lemon but somewhere in the intersection of those notes I also get a very creamy note, almost milk-like. In the air around me it smells like cut apples and roses in a dairy. It sounds weird but it smells really nice! The lemon makes me feel very alert and I will keep this imp computer-side, for when I want to wear something that is smooth but will also improve my concentration.

Wow, in recent memory there is not a blend that smelled less promising in the imp than Siren. It smelled like sugars breaking down on someone's breath, or overripe fruit. But I've learned that the ones that smell best in the vial often smell vile on me, while the ones that seem less of an instant love affair often change so much on my skin that I am wooed and won by them. I applied from the imp sparingly, given the exhortations to do so in this thread (thank you). Wet, it was not good on me. It smelled the same as in the imp. But I decided to persist and wait for the drydown, or to quote Monty Python: "Wait for it!" Dry, Siren smells like the love child of March Hare, Black Phoenix, and Pele. It's a mix of apricot and cola spices with a slight incensey vibe and a tropical flair. I also detect a slight chocolate note that comes and goes. I am surprised by how much I enjoy the drydown, it's very sexy. It definitely has a decadent, vintagey kind of glamour to it---and I think it would be an absolute magnet in public, as it emanates a kind of raw sexuality and brazen confidence. I'm definitely keeping the imp, to do some controlled tests of its range and power.

A vase of tiger lilies filled with honey instead of water... It's almost as if they're drawing up the honey and trumpeting its sweetness in addition to their own. Tiger Lily is really syrupy, right on that line of being too unbearably so for me to comfortably wear. For some reason, I love the sweet foody blends but sweet florals trigger a bit of nausea. On the drydown it morphs into mostly honey on my skin, with underpinnings of lilies---like a corsage pinned on a beekeeper. Not my most favorite honey blend in the catalogue, but very nice and I imagine it could be a devastatingly sexy midsummer perfume, sure to draw the bees.

Thanatos is a tough one to describe. The closest I can come to encapsulating it is to say that it smells like someone took a bottle of Rose Cross and aged it for 100 years in a moss-lined box made of sandalwood. If that perfume was then unearthed and mixed with an equal part of amber and worn to a Black Mass, that would be Thanatos. I love the darkness and mystique of this blend but it has the kind of rose that always dries down to a dill-like smell on me. I think it might be the intersection of the rose with something else, but it's definitely going in the direction of pickle. It's a beautiful blend though, and if my skin wasn't busy messing it up, I'd be wearing it all day.