Browneyes

Imp + Wet: Peach and amber

Dry: It does settle down, warm up, and gain in depth. Some florals emerge, but not the vetiver (at least not clearly). It's nice but it doesn't wow me.

 

ETA: the amber is not as sharp in this one as in Bastet, which is good for me.

Imp: I can smell all three components easily

Wet: Rose predominates

Dry: Musky rose, slightly on the powdery side, but very realistic nonetheless. The rose is fully mature and open - tomorrow it will start to go droopy

Very nice, I will hang on to this imp!

 

ETA: I hardly every wear this, so I am swapping. It's too heady and powdery for me to really love. My #1 rose scent so far continues to be Harlot.

Imp: sharp floral

Wet: the florals come to life, predominantly rose and magnolia

Dry: sharp, smoky, heady floral, pretty, but not big bottle

Imp: Why do I smell something fruity?

Wet: Aha, so this is the lab dirt note (bear with the newbie, please)

Dry: Ugh. Not sure I like this. It definately has something rotten and decaying to it. The image of a zombi, an opened grave is very clear behind this scent. Formidably recreated. But I'm not sure I like to smell of this.

 

ETA: I swapped this. The craftsmanship of this (well, of every BPAL that I have tried) is incredible. But grave smell seriously just freaks me out

Imp: Oh no, the amber note is sharp like in Bastet

Wet: Citrus fruits (I'll also guess at blood orange and lemon) come out. It's a very lovely citrus!

Dry: Hm. The florals come out, and the citrus falls back. It's pretty but I get a "generic" feeling from it. Will maybe test again, but otherwise --> swap.

I ordered the imp for my sister to try, because she prefers light, soft scents, and this sounded perfect.

It is perfect in fact. Very white, and pure, almost sparkling. You can definately make the connection from the scent to the mental imagery of a unicorn.

It is a clean floral that luckily doesn't cross the soap line.

Frimp! Thank you labbies

Imp: wheew! alcohol
Wet: something vanilla-ish emerges. I guess it's the sugar, but I wasn't aware that this was sugar, and thought immediately of vanilla. I also agree with the "Snake Oil light" comparisons at this stage!
Dry: well, it's very pretty, but I found it was gone after about an hour (max)

Mmmm now this is good

 

Imp and wet: cocoa. But "real" cocoa in my mind, and not the funky choc. note that I get in Vice and Intrigue.

Dry: The soft vanilla and sandalwood notes come out, blending in with the cocoa. This is lovely. Really smooth and yummy.

 

The foodiness level of this is somewhat close to Miskatonic University. Not that they smell alike, but the foodiness level is alike if that makes sense.

If Boomslang is Velvet + Snake Oil I can't wait to order my bottle!

Imp: the cocoa note that I didn't particularly care for in Vice. uh-oh.

Wet: there it is!! ^

Dry: wood. Pencil shavings. And that "scratch n' sniff sticker" association that I get from this particular cocoa note.

 

So this is very reminiscent of 4th grade indeed. Bah! Will hang on to the imp until I'm sure though, because I really wanted to love this one.

Since this has already been so thoroughly reviewed I will only describe my mental imagery connected to the blend:

 

This is like sitting up in bed after recovering from the flu or something, and someone caring has just changed the bed linen for you, handed you a mug of hot milk sweetened with honey, and flavoured with ginger, and opened the windows to let the soft spring breeze and sunshine in.

This is really a clean and comforting scent in my mind. Very soft and pretty.

Some more foodies:

 

I would place

-Shub-Nigurrath in the bakery

-Vice in the gourmand

-Carnal in the fruity

 

Vice didn't do too well on me, but Shub was fantastic!

I like this! It's got a fun, bubbly, happy "personality"!

This is sweet, bright and juicy fruitiness. Mostly mandarin, hardly any fig. (mandarin=tangerine=clementine=satsuma? I never understood the difference )

Embalming Fluid is lovely!

Fresh, green, citrusy (but not too sharp), and definately aloe and green tea.

It kind of smells like... is it Elizabeth Arden's Green Tea perfume? It's very good though, and will be great as a summer scent

(This smells familiar. Maybe it's the Dior Addict comparisons?)

 

Anyways, not much to add to the previous reviews.

This is indeed a lovely warm, softly spicy, creamy, sweet (in a vanilla/musk combo kind of way), inoffensive, and alluring scent.

Two words: tea rose

 

Fine with me because I like rose. Very pretty. Good throw too, actually

 

ETA: Smells alot like the Crabtree & Evelyn Rosewater Hand & Body lotion that I have. This is pretty straightforward. I wouldn't get this if I didn't like rose.

Imp: boozy

Wet: the sweeter notes come out to play; the tobacco and tonka I presume!

Dry: I do understand the coconut associations, although there is not coconut in the blend, nor does it actually smell like generic "OMG tropical" sun-tan lotion on me. But the combination of notes do recall a sweet coconutty feeling. I get no leather though.

 

This is extremely wearable, I suppose one might call it slinky I like it alot!

This is heavy on the DB on my skin, but I love DB so that's good it has an undertone of musks, which seem to be okay on my skin (just recently had a bad experience with the musks in Smut as oposed to the loveliness which is Scherezade)

 

A keeper! Don't know if I will get a bottle of this one or of the plain DB once my imps of this one and of DB are used up. We shall see...

Imp: green figgy loveliness (I am looking for the perfect fig scent )

Wet: same

Dry: smooth, round, almost vanilla-ish, green figgy loveliness

 

Love this, will definatly have to consider a bottle in the future. But will wait until I have tried some more fig scents, just to be sure. This could be the ultimate one, though.

 

ETA: yep, bottle on the way. I also can't wait to own a pretty Rappaccini's Garden label bottle! To me this is the best fig scent of what I have tried within the BPAL repetoire, because it is a green fig scent, with fig leaves and not fig fruit - the latter is nice sometimes, I like it in Nephilim (I think it was) but often the dried fruit aspect of fig fruit scents just puts me off. Strangler Fig is green, creamy and sweet, without the dried fruit feel. LOVE.

Too lazy to break down the review into imp-wet-dry-verdict stages, but here goes:

 

 

Freshly baked, warm out of the oven, ginger cookies with lemon zest (or lemon icing?)

I love this, and I'm not that much of a foody person. This is really lovely though, not cloying or heavy at all.

 

And it is not purely foody either. It definately has a certain twist... a secret ingredient or something.

 

Try it!!!

 

ETA: I just had to come back and rave about this some more! I am definately going to order a bottle of this asap

 

ETA2: So I now have a bottle and the Shub soap from BPTP!

SMUT 2007

 

At the moment I'm a little bit sad.

I get the latex smell too With undertones of sugar and booze. Ew. And I thought musks love me?

 

Well, we'll see. I'm going to age it a bit, and test calmly later on, and hopefully I will be able to report a positive change in the same way that RainyDayGray experienced.

 

Awaiting a hopefully more positive ETA.

 

ETA: so... After my initial scare I braved up and tried it again, this time applying very cautiously. Still not good. Not as awful as the first time - But not delicious like I expected from the rave reviews. I compared it to Scherezade on my other leg (yes, leg) and I find that I much prefer Scherezade as far as red musk scents go. The latex undertones of Smut are not so obvious when I apply lightly but they do still linger unfortunately. I will hang on to the bottle for a couple of months though, and if aging/skin chemistry changes the scent for something very different and better on me, I will report back in a second edit...

 

ETA2: Almost 3 months later and OMFG this smells really good all of a sudden. I cracked it open tonight after not smelling it for several weeks and was stunned. I don't know if it's my nose that changed, but I'm more inclined to think it *is* the Smut that has changed. Now it's alot more... *smooth* is the word perhaps. That acrid/platicky/latex sharpness is all but gone, and the musk is alot rounder with undertones of liquor and sugar. It smells like sexy, dark, musky candy now and I love it!!!

Received in a swap

 

Imp: uhoh.. sour/ sharp resins. And rose. I like rose.

Wet: Warms up to red musk and rose. I'm not entirely sure what myrrh smells like, but if it's smoky, then yes, I definately get a smokiness.

Dry: Dries to something heavy. Powdery. Perfumey. Kind of a chic department-store perfume.

 

Evokative of a rich middle-aged woman in a big brown fur coat, big sunglasses, lots of gold jewelry, clacking on her high-heels through the perfume department of Harrods or something

So... not unpleasant (these notes tend to work well on me), but the image I get from the blend is not really me, so I don't think I'll wear it much!

Frimped in a swap, thanks littlewillow!

 

Imp + wet: Salty, watery, sweet citrus, and leaves. I am strongly reminded of a holiday in Greece a few years ago

Dry: Doesn't morph much, I still get the aquatic citrusy feel from it. The incense is ever so faint, like a whisp of smoke. I guess the visual imagery could be: standing under a lemon tree in the graveyard of a little chapel by the sea. In Greece

 

It's nice!

Received in a swap

 

Imp: Ooo this smells like cherry-liquer filled chocoates! I love those. It makes me want to open a box of them that I have just lying around... Must resist.

Wet: Anyways, wet on the skin I get all three components, definately! The cherry smell is still kind of a liquer-ish scent, and I can recognise the orange blossom smell from Dracul (although that's a very different oil). The cocoa note (not chocolate but cocoa) is giving the scent warmth, but I fear it might fade quite quickly.

Dry: The sharpness of the cherry-liquer-like smell fades. It becomes sweet, round, yet not sickly. Flirty. Fun. A little bit candy-ish, but I like it It's much more difficult to smell the individual notes now though.

 

I will keep this implet for a while, and look forward to trying my Enraged Groundhog Musk, which also has choc.covered cherry!

 

 

ETA: hmmm. after a short while it now smells exactly like those cute scented stickers (scratch n' sniff!) my 1st/2nd/3rd grade teachers used to give us on our homework when I was studying in an American school. hmm... I used to love those (I was 7) but I'm not sure I want to smell like them. So it goes from grown-up candies to childhood stickers

But still look forward to the EGM!

Received in a swap!

 

Imp: aha, being new to these scents, I now undrestand the the "eek VETIVER!" reaction.

Wet: still heavy on the vetiver. It's a sharp, sort of woody smell. My swapper had warned me, so I applied very lightly.

Dry: oh my. the violet blooms in this. the vetiver fades softly into the background, and wow... It's what makes the blend actually, if it works on you. I think that without the vetiver, this could become quite bland. But with the vetiver in the background of the floral, what's incredible is how real this smells.

It really is evocative of grubbing on your hands and knees in a forest to pick some sweet smelling flowers - only probably amplified by 100

This throws and lasts a long time <3

 

I really like this, so who knows - maybe more in the future! of course I still need to try +500 GC scents, but I'll remember Saturnalia.

The best example I have is a bottle of German black narcissus oil that I've been sitting on for a few months. I only have 4 ounces of it, so it has to go into a LE that is really, really special. Oils like Snow White and Rose Red contain oils that I can only get in late fall and winter.

 

I wonder what the black narcissus was used for Anyone know?

I also pine for the re-release of Rose Red I've never tried it, but I'm positively certain it would be my Holy Grail. Please Beth... Rose Red 2007?