LiberAmoris

Othello on me is a powdery rose. I'm not getting any of the spices, just powder and roses. It reminds me of some pressed powder my late grandmother used to have that smelled slightly of roses. It's very pretty, it's just not something I see myself wearing too often. I prefer the 'juicier' roses, like in Rose Red and Persephone. I do think Othello would be devasting on a man....

If Morocco and the Queen of Spades had a love child, it would be The Living Flame! I love this blend---spicy vanilla, sandalwood, those mysterious eastern spices, berries, and sexy musk. On my way home from work, not one, but TWO complete strangers complimented me on my perfume on the subway...both nice-looking gentlemen, I should add... That's really all it takes to sell me on a blend. I'm so glad I bought two bottles of this stuff---one is going to a good friend for her birthday present, and I know she's going to love it!

This haunting, exotic scent is named in honor of the shapeshifting demons from Hindu mythology. Sandalwood with rose and patchouli. Rakshasa smells just like polished wood to me. I think it's quite lovely and very relaxing, good for meditation and long weekends. Unfortunately, on my skin a sour citrus note comes out---quite different from the scent in the vial. I'm going to use this up in my oil burner, as it is just gorgeous until it hits my skin.

The Sacred Ho was a freebie from the Lab, thanks so much Labbies! Like viciousviolet, I immediately thought: Dragon's Milk + Gardenia. That combination always smells like banana for some reason...what can I say, I'm weird. This reminds me a lot of both Blood Countess and Serpent's Kiss. I think this is one blend that I would love to smell on someone standing near me, but it's just not really me. I'm going to give this imp to a friend and hope she wears it the next time we hang out!

Nosferatu is really quite an accomplishment. I love Murnau's film for its technical brilliance and innovation, and was eagerly anticipating this blend. I was initially surprised at how fresh and grassy it smelled, as I thought it would be darker somehow. But really, the florals and wine are perfect, as there is a sensuality and inverted pleasure that is invoked by these decadent notes. The slinky malevolence comes out much later on my skin, as the grassiness recedes and the smell of the ground and earth rises up against it. Somehow it smells like being cornered, like a threat that is both fearsome and desired. There is that one shot in the Murnau film in which the bedroom door opens on its own, and Count Orlok ghosts down the hallway and into the room in one smooth foregone conclusion. Yeah, that's what this blend reminds me of. Vampiric associations aside, Nosferatu also reminds me of summer days spent outside all day and night, and the memory of sunlight still trapped on the skin and clothes and hair of one's beloved, hours after the sun has gone down. A sexy, strange, provoking blend that I'm glad I have a bottle of.

Neo-Tokyo really does transport me to a Japanese garden: bamboo, cherry blossom, orchids, running water, terraced sand and those perfect rocks that are mountains in miniature.... The metallic tang reminds me of the proximity of the ocean or a early morning rain. I also smell white tea in here, or perhaps my imagination is just working overtime. For me, Neo-Tokyo is a BPAL blend that has spaces within it. The notes have air around them, and silence. It reminds me of reading haiku and tanka poems, in which the volta (or turn) at the end of line allows the reader to take a breath. On my skin, this plays across much like Vinland, which I also love. I have so many bottles already, but I think this might eventually have a space in my big bottle collection.

De Sade is pure I annoited myself in this to get myself into character to play a Dominatrix-turned-cabbie role for one of my boyfriend's short film projects (no, not that kind of short film). De Sade definitely helped me connect with the character's past! It's pure, unadulterated leather, with no mercy.

La Belle au Bois Dormant is another BPAL blend in which I can smell all the notes. Like others above, It also reminds me a lot of Titania. I'm not the hugest fan of tuberose, but the pear and plumeria really balance it out in this blend. I wore this to bed last night (I thought Sleeping Beauty would be appropriate for one trying to get some beauty sleep) and it had a very lovely and comforting effect. I think I'll save my imp for a day in which I wear a floral, girly dress (currently penciled in for sometime in 2006). Blends like La Belle au Bois Dormant remind me that I should have more flowers around the apartment. The floral oils and essences that BPAL uses as notes are so beautifully true that they really are uplifting harbingers of spring.

Ophelia smells to me like Persephone's little sister. There is that same note in both that for the first five minutes reminds me of a nail polish remover I once had, and then it fades into sumptous rose. Ophelia is watery and lovely. I don't know if I need a big bottle, but I'm going to use up the imp and go from there. Another good candidate for the summer months when I want something feminine and fetching to go with my skirts and heels.

:wades into Dorian review thread: Well, tea is not usually the best note on my skin, but of all the tea blends I've tried, Dorian is the loveliest. Tea with lemon... and a little vanilla cake with clotted cream on the side! This is more foody than sexy on me, but at some point, when you're hungry, you're hungry, right? I now suddenly have a craving for tea and cake.

I am not a fan of vetiver. So I was more than a little hestitant to try Santa Muerte, even though the description was so amazing. But I had the same experience that Caitfish had---the vetiver is very noticeable at first, but quickly backs off and then remains simply to darken up the blend a bit and temper the sweetness of the florals. For me Santa Muerte quickly moved into a dark floral and stayed there. It was like a mixed bouquet of dried, withered roses and living, vibrant ones. Underneath, the current of the cactus flowers adds an aloe-y lushness to the blend, something green and watery. Yet there is also a dryness to this, a kind of arid wind that lifts the notes away from each other at moments so they are distinguishable on their own. Comparisons to Dia de los Muertos and Kali come to mind...although Santa Muerte does not smell like either of those, I feel like I can smell elements of each of these blends in Santa Muerte. The drydown is really different from the wet stage---I'm so glad that I waited a bit so that I could experience this Saint.

Moscow is a really well-blended floral, very polished and smooth. The top notes on my skin are the tangerine, jasmine and rose, with the carnation and lily supporting. The amber, bergamot and musk are only detectable as a subtle base for the floral notes to rest upon. Moscow reminds me of another classy floral---Venice. Both blends have me envisioning an enormous floral bouquet in the foyer of some great, gilded marble hall. The drydown of Moscow also reminded me of Mata Hari's drydown, sans coffee and tonka. All in all, another gorgeous floral blend from Beth. It makes me wish I had somewhere more interesting to go today than down the hall to the laundry room!

Amber, amber, amber! I love amber and Brisingamen is mostly amber on me. I can't smell the carnation or myrtle or apple blossom---just rich, delicious amber. It's like The Lion without the savannah spices and grasses. Because I already have a bottle of The Lion, I think I'll hold off on a bottle of Brisingamen. But it's lovely and it's on The List. Even my boyfriend, the one who thinks everything smells like 'spicy cookies', thought this one was exceptional.

Rose Cross is definitely an ecclesiastical rose incense, very lovely. Beth's a master with the roses and I find Rose Cross to be in the same vein as Blood Rose, The Empress, and Spellbound, all of which I love. A warming, beautiful, and penitent blend.

Wow. House of Night is one of Beth's blends where when it comes to reviewing, I literally don't know where to start. I have no idea what the components could be in this---it's so well blended that it flows together seamlessly. All I can say is that when I first put this on my skin, it felt like the temperature around me dropped, and the smell of the forest at night (as mentioned above) was all around me. Like a cool undercurrent of fresh air filled with the smell of the ground and evergreens. Once it's on for a while, I definitely see the comparions to Samhain. The drydown is very similar on me. I am tucking this imp away to use on fall nights when the temperature starts to drop. Really an amazing blend.

Intrigue smells like grated zest from the root of some dark tree. There's a sense of humidity and smoke that wafts through Intrigue as well. It reminds me of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It's not my favorite fig blend (that would be Nemesis), but it's an amazing achievement.

Centzon Totochtin smells like a chocolate rum ball washed down with a glass of wine. Even though just sniffing the imp makes my mouth water, on my skin wine/blood notes have a habit of turning. For some reason they always go vetivery. Centzon Totochtin smells like Intrigue meets Grog meets Dragon's Blood. I really want to love it, but it doesn't love me.

A raven-haired Fairy Queen of Ireland. One of her eternal duties dictates that she must hold a midnight court every season and hear the pleas of married Irishwomen. The court serves only to determine whether or not husbands are adequately serving their wife’s sexual needs. A judicious yet powerfully sensual blend, a mingling of justice and sexuality: sage, sweet pea, bold pale musk and warm tonka. Aeval is very pretty, but I think I have learned that I am not a fan of sweetpea. On my skin it's all sagey sweetpea with a bit of a grapey note. The tonka and musk seem to be enveloped and subdued. I think it's just a bit too flower-ful and sweet for me. Will be passing it on to a friend who loves the florals. I have a feeling this will be amazing on her.

Grog smells incredible in the imp (must go out and buy ingredients for Slippery Nipples immediately!) but on my skin it did the same thing that Hellcat did, which was go powdery and take on a strange tangy sweetness. Roadhouse, Gluttony, and O also seem to go through this particular transformation on me, so I wonder if they share a note. However, I layered some Grog with a bit of Anne Bonny....and hello! Anne seemed happy to have some company of the variety. They got on smashingly. I think I'll use up the rest of my imp in pirate-themed layering or as a room scent.

Wow, I had the same experience as some of the reviewers above---Chaste Moon changes dramatically from the bottle to the skin. In the bottle, it seemed like a nearly one-dimensional astringent butter note. On my skin: kapow! Chaste Moon is like an olfactory Big Bang. Notes coming out from nowhere: milk, white cherry/almond, a tinge of coconut, something indeed pineapple-y, those waxy white flowers from Snow White, butter, and the barest brush of cinnamon. As it wore on, I also got the same tea/linen note that I get from White Rabbit and Dorian. Chaste Moon brings to mind a vanilla coconut cake laid out for tea, decorated with sugared white flowers. It’s delightful.

When I was 8 or 9, my aunt and uncle went to Hawaii and brought me back a plastic lei, a grass skirt and a neon green and yellow-trimmed bikini top--- all happily reeking of pikaki. Pele is like a grown-up version of my little hula costume, an incredibly faint tropical scent that sticks close to the skin and seems really intimately luxurious. I’ve had this imp for a while and use it when I need a shot of something summery and beautiful. Not something I absolutely need a bottle of but very, very nice.

High John the Conqueror is one of those imps I keep in reserve. I like knowing it's there, even though I don't need a bottle of it. For me this was less grapey and more melony, with a lush and sweet herbal greenness. I’ve tried this on a few separate occasions in order to give it a good empirical testing. My extremely unscientific results: Um, it seems to work. On Day 1 of wearing it my boss gave me two extra paid days off, for no apparent reason. I was out of days for the year because of an unexpected health problem, and although he is normally a by-the-book kind of guy, he told me that he would be giving me some extra comp time. I am going to chalk this partly up to High John and partly up to the fact that he’s a really compassionate person. On Day 2 of testing, I was able to look a work nemesis straight in the face and tell them that they needed to stop badgering and harassing me. This is something I think I would be able to do without High John, but it really gave me a boost of confidence that helped carry me through an awkward moment. And yesterday I wore it and was able to finally put some chronic low-grade pain behind me. Somehow High John just carried me over the way a Tylenol might---but High John smells so much better!

Eternal is an unchecked gardenia on my skin that brims with nameless white flowers and the human scent of loss. Somehow this reminds me of a film shot in black and white---there is something stark about it, but perhaps it is just the ringing refrain of and death shall have no dominion. A wonderful adaptation of the Dylan Thomas poem, but gardenia does not love my skin. If you like gardenia, this would be a winner. I can definitely identify the gardenia note here as quite multi-tonal and true-to-life. ETA: Formatting. Don't drink and review. Sheesh.

Another case of where the lab knows best. This was never on my list of things to order, but I kept getting lovely freebie imps of Dragon's Milk with my orders (thanks, generous Lab Rats!) and of course, it just wore me down. Well, that and the fact that I consistently get more compliments on Dragon's Milk than almost any other BPAL I wear. What can I say, the mens love it. I wore it out to a bar last weekend and my boyfriend's (engaged) best friend from college kept commenting on how spicy and creamy I smelled. He even joked that he was going to steal my scarf in order to take the scent home with him. When I can invoke a nearly chivalric response with a blend, I got to give props where they are due: Dragon's Milk clearly has some kind of hypnotic power and I am all kinds of for it.

The Queen of Diamonds, in my house, did not get a lot of wear in the wintertime, maybe because I was so overwhelmed with all the amazing Yule blends that Beth released. But now that the thaw seems to have finally taken hold, and spring is definitely here, I find myself really loving this blend. And it seems perfect for this weather---on me it’s a cascade of light flowers with very subtle white grapefruit and a dusky underpinning of some kind of wood---white sandalwood or the barest hint of cedar. All of the supporting notes---the lemon bark, orchid, rose, and mandarin---are detectable but expertly blended. The Queen of Diamonds is very classy, regal, and upstanding. She’s perfect to wear to work or anyplace I want to give off a pulled-together, professional vibe. As close to a ‘classic’ perfume as I have experienced yet with Beth’s blends. And I love to wear the Queen with her mate the King---they layer so well together!