Wwindy

Oh yeah -- oatmeal cookies with hints of maple and musk! Different and fascinating! I'm normally not a foodie by any means, but this is surprisingly wearable. It does fade relatively quickly on me, though. ETA: "You smell like the breakfast bar I ate this morning." "But in a sexy way, right?" "Um. Not really." *sigh* OK, maybe not as wearable as I thought...

Smoky dead leaves, with a very strong vetiver edge. The musk smells red to my nose; it starts out way in the background, but gets significantly more prominent as the blend dries. The vetiver calms down at about the same rate as the musk comes out, with some added warmth from the mild amber. The initial vetiver-y blast is indeed intense -- but if you can stick it out through that, Chant d'Automne does mellow out nicely.

I got a lot of cucumber from Horn of Amalthea, but it burned off relatively quickly -- and I know that blend's tough to get hold of at the moment.

This blend morphed like crazy on me. I kept mentally revising my review the whole time I was wearing it! Fresh on from the decant, it's all rose and green cactus. About ten minutes later, I get a HUGE BLAST of honey sweetness -- like I've drenched myself in pure honey. Maybe a half hour after that, if I stick my nose right up to my wrists or the crooks of my elbows (and I do mean right up to), I get a gorgeous, sexy smoky/woody scent... but the throw is still entirely sweet, slightly green rose. I love that yummy tobacco-copal mix on the surface of my skin, but I don't think I can bear to put up with the billowing wafts of sticky-sweet rose for the sake of a faint trace I can't even smell without snorfling myself! Ah well...

I can smell this trying very, very hard to be dandelion and birch on my skin, but something here just isn't working -- the end result is a rather artificial, perfume-y pale greenish-white scent. Not for me, I think.

I snarfed up Lamia's unloved imp, and am so glad I did! I've been insisting forever that I can't wear fruit notes, but have lately been proven wrong by the mango in Diwali and the apple in Snow Glass Apples, both of which I adore. So, I went looking for other BPAL apple... and Verdandi is perfect. I love amber, I love apple, and apparently I love whatever the "deep herbs" here are! Darned if I can identify them; all I can pick out is a faint hint of dusty green over the crisp red apple and warm soft amber. The apple smells very natural and realistic. The amber isn't powdery or even particularly prominent -- it's quietly lurking close to the skin, deepening and rounding out the scent. The duration is relatively short in terms of maintaining any significant throw (maybe two or three hours for having anyone besides me be able to smell anything), but I can still catch faint whiffs even after a good six hours and am content with that. This isn't sweet or foody at all on me, just gorgeous and soft and perfect for the end of the summer/beginning of fall. I'm looking forward to wearing it all autumn, actually!

O "blackened fruit gums", whyfor dost thou mess with my poor hapless nose? I like most of the components in this blend, but am woefully undecided about the overall effect. The musk, frankincense, and spices seem most prominent in the vial rather than during wearing (although today my boss said, "You smell like spices!" -- yay!). On initial application I can pick out the lavender, a nice trace of smoke, and a bit of fresh green leafiness. The current and fruit gums take over on drydown, however; there's an aura of jammy sticky cooked fruit here that I'm just not thrilled about. We'll see what my guys think about this one -- left to my own devices I'm not sure I'd keep it, but if they love it I might reconsider...

I get mostly fig and amber from this, too. It's a lovely combination -- very warm and rich, not particularly foody. The orange is there at first, a bit sharp and tangy, but it burns off quickly (a good thing, says this anti-citrus person!);a lingering trace of something herbal remains. Like most of the Grindhouse ladies I've tried so far, this one doesn't stick around long, unfortunately.

Oh dear. This blend really, really doesn't like my chemistry, it seems... The initial application gave me a very mannish evergreen blast from the juniper. When that dried down, I was hoping for the woods and/or the musk or even the lilac -- but what I got was orchid, which smells like stale department-store perfume on me. Not good in either phase. I can't even swap the imp, because the cap broke off in a way that it partially adhered to the top of the vial! *sigh*

Earthy, slightly woody raspberries! In the vial I can smell other notes -- particularly the frankincense, and the almost hairspray-like (to my nose) overtones of the benzoin, but on my skin this is raspberry with a grounding of faint wood and even fainter patchouli. Overall this is very light, and very short-lived. I like it, but I wish more of the notes showed up and stuck around.

This should have been so fabulous on me! The dragon's blood is stomping all over everything else. In addition, the dragon's blood in combination with (I think) the sand note winds up perilously close to soapy. I don't get dry or spicy or fiery at all -- no tobacco, no ginger, just floral dragon's blood with a bit of red musk sweetness and soapy-clean overtones. *sigh* My decant has already been sitting for a while, but maybe I'll put it back for another chunk of time and see if the dragon's blood will die back a bit.

Yep yep, rose and incense! No surprises here. This one did fool me a little, actually. I put a quick swipe on one wrist to see what it was going to be like, was thrilled to find it mostly incense-y, and therefore slathered with abandon... then I got hit with the Rose Bomb! It's a fairly elegant, non-powdery rose on me, but it is the dominant note. The staying power on this is excellent -- my initial application lasted hours longer than I generally expect BPAL to stick around. The throw seemed good to me too, but that may just be because I so seldom wear rose that my nose kept reacting to it!

I don't thinkso, but it's so hard to gage... oh. Actually, you may be right -- I ordered a dish I'd had before at Olive Garden recently and thought it seemed different, although I'm pretty sure Olive Garden does up all their stuff in giant pre-prepped batches that are all *supposed* to be the same... I'm nowhere near as good (bad?) as a friend of mine who can tell when his wife opens a scented product on another floor of their house, though! I agree about the sitting around question. I'm still wondering about the "decanters not giving blends time to meld" thing, though -- I see so many eager folks who run to test their bottles as soon as they arrive, that you'd think there'd be just as many reviews from people working with fresh unblended bottles as from folks with fresh unmelded decants. It's hard to tell from anecdotal evidence. (And just a quick question for Andra -- I'm wondering about the thread move, since it seems like what we're discussing is specifically not about skin chemistry but rather blend composition and perception. Is it going to be confusing for people to find the two issues mixed?)

Skin musk, smoky vanilla, pine pitch, patchouli, Indian resins, golden honey, and tobacco. Ta-da! This is exactly what I was hoping Hexennacht '08 would be -- sexy smoky forest witchery! Hex revised didn't quite do it for me, but Illustrated Woman is gorgeous. At first I get mostly the drop-dead stunning musk (which does seem amber-y to my nose); as the blend dries down, the tobacco comes out more and more, with the pine, honey, and vanilla playing supporting roles. The exception is on my wrists, where the vanilla is significantly more pronounced than in the crooks of my elbows or elsewhere. The throw doesn't seem particularly big; in fact, I suspect this is sticking pretty close to my skin. I don't care, though -- as long as I can smell it I'm a happy woman! (ETA Lab description)

I get the cardamom and something vaguely grassy. There's a slightly plasticky, almost pickle-like edge to the spice (I think that's the wood doing something weird to it), and the plant matter is ominously ... uh... not fresh. Like it might be on the verge of mildewing, actually. This one is not playing nice with my chemistry. Woe! ETA: I just couldn't believe this one wasn't working for me, so I went back and tried it again. This time when it was wet it started out not just pickle-y, but salty green olive-y! There's something faintly grassy and something almost nutty going on underneath the awfulness -- but whatever that one horrible note is, I just can't cope with it. Off to wash my wrist!

Such a gorgeous note list, and such a fascinating blend in the vial! Amber, cream accord, skin musk, and teak are all generally fabulous on me, and indeed they are here. The apple blossom is very faint on me, probably a good thing since I'm not a huge fan of either florals or fruit. I don't even mind the sweet caramel, which is quite strong in the imp and on initial application -- it meshes nicely with the other notes, and dies down somewhat as the blend dries. Alas, what it leaves in its place is something oddly gritty and discordant, not really burnt but... aha, I know! On my skin it smells like heated-up brown sugar, as opposed to caramel, if that makes any sense. I like everything here except that one off-putting element; I'll test again in a few days and see if it works better then. Otherwise I think I'll be keeping my decant, but not going for a bottle.

Really? Huh. I don't know if my nose is totally unreliable or if I've just had seriously bad luck, but I don't think I've ever received a bottle either from the Lab or second-hand that smelled exactly the same as my imp or decant of the same blend. I don't mind, because (usually) it's all good, but I've just sort of learned that I can't ever count on a bottle smelling like the imp did. And yes, I'm talking Lab imps and Lab bottles, although same thing goes for decants and Lab bottles. For example, I loved my frimps of Morocco and Scherezade, and while I love the bottles I ordered too, they're noticeably different, even after a couple of months. Likewise, my Lab bottles of Heavenly Love & Earthly Love and Mr. Jacquel are significantly different from the decants I got. Amusingly, I currently own two decants of HL&EL and have had two different Lab bottles in my possession, and all four have been different! Then again, maybe I'm just crazy...

Whoa, what a blast of clove and carnation! Very heady, very rich. The clove is ... sweeter? mellower? more rounded? than it is in Smiling Spider -- I think that may be the patchouli in there smoothing things out. The throw is entirely clove and carnation on me, though; the patchouli and pepper seem mostly to be working behind the scenes. Close to the skin, the tea and cardamom notes strike my nose as oddly sour, but fade fast. The gorgeous clove note sticks around longer than anything else. (ETA: Hmmm, I forgot TSS had patchouli too -- my nose must not be good enough to pick out what's making the difference here!)

Kinder, gentler Snake Oil! Call me crazy, but that's all I can think about Inez right now... On me Inez is almost entirely vanilla shaded by musk and a touch of amber. I got a hint of the woods and possibly the faintest ghost of myrrh from applying to drier areas of skin (like the backs of my hands), but those notes faded very quickly. Overall, a lovely, warm, sexy vanilla. Nice!

Awwwww, phooey. I'm a Leo and I adore amber and frankincense, but this blend doesn't work at all for me. You'd never know from sniffing it on my skin what the notes are supposed to be -- what I get is a weirdly strong cherry smell mixed with something sharp and herbal. I'll retest another time, but I'm not optimistic this one will ever play nice with my chemistry. Woe!

A luxuriously soft, elegantly draped black cashmere sweater of a scent! The initial stage and subsequent throw is mostly clove -- but not sweet or foody in any way -- while closeup sniffs give all musk and wood. Very dark, very warm, very much giving the impression of poise and style... yet somehow working for me even on this hot June Friday afternoon! Just gorgeous.

Many years ago I was spending a weekend at a rural campsite, and late one night I was out in the woods when I started catching whiffs of the most incredible smell. I couldn't figure out what it was! I kept trying to track down the elusive smell, and eventually I wound up walking all the way around the lake to discover a pipe-smoking friend indulging in his most treasured "for special occasions" pipe tobacco! Riding the Goat smells exactly like the pipesmoke that was so good I followed it all the way around the lake, except smoked in an old-fashioned den with wood panelling instead of by the lake. I do get the odd sour note mentioned by some reviewers near the beginning, but on me it's more like a pimiento sort of sharpness; that fades quickly, and after that it's all sweet woody pipesmoke. Yum.

This blend is such a tease! On first applying, I got a gorgeous burst of effervescent, glowing mead... which vanished, almost instantaneously. I don't think I've ever slathered so much on an initial test, and still -- my skin just drinks this stuff up as if it were... uh... tasty sweet alcohol or something! I tried reapplying heavily mid-day; that time around, my results were slightly less sweet, with more of a prominent ivy note, but also a slightly plasticky element. And then -- poof! -- gone again. Come back, Litha, come back! Sniffing my decant seems to be the best shot I have at actually checking this blend out, so: In the vial, Litha reminds me a bit of Chimera (the cinnamon in that hardly shows up on me at all, so it's probably the honeysuckle + copal combo that feels familiar) or No. 93 Engine (not sure what's pinging that comparison, but my nose is insisting there's something in common). If only I could get it to stick around on my skin and share its loveliness...

What a quirky, offbeat scent! Without the note list in front of me, I don't think I'd ever successfully identify the elements here. The herbs here seem very green on my skin -- the thyme and verbena smell like crushed leaves and stems rubbed between the fingers, rather than dried plants. The thyme is, as previously noted by many reviewers, crazy strong and extremely distinctive. You might not be able to pinpoint what it is, but it stands out! After drydown, I'm getting predominantly the thyme, followed by the green aspect of the verbena (rather than the lemon -- much to my relief, I get virtually no lemon). The lavender and almond are very subtle; my weirdo left side chemistry brings those notes out a touch more noticeably in the crook of my left elbow as compared to my right, but they're not particularly strong even on the left. It's very difficult to describe this scent coherently. Am I getting occasional moments where it lurches precariously into bug-spray territory? Yep. Veering from there into kitchen prep time? Yep. And yet somehow it still works! Intriguing. I got my decant from the inimitable tartchef, who's enabling my search for not-overly-citrusy "wake up" BPAL. This one definitely does the trick! I smell crisp and herbal and ... could that possibly be the scent of alertness? Woohoo!

I ordered a bottle of Pirate Moon when it first appeared and swapped it away soon thereafter. This blend was just too thin and sharp on me -- all I got was acrid astringency, with no presence at all from any of the richer notes. I have to admit I'm curious about it now, though... I wonder if it would have aged into something nicer if I'd hung on to it!