Nepthys

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. Almond, wild fig, red rose petals, cardamom, and oudh. Absolutely beautiful. At first sniff, it reminded me of Bastet but then it became more complex and turned into a very warm smell dominated by almond and cardamom, with a hint of red rose. If it evokes anything, it's a Middle Eastern bazaar on a warm desert night. I normally don't do rose well and I worried about this working - but this is an occasion when the rose takes a back seat and lets the other notes dominate. I just love it.

Ivan Shishkin Snow-draped fir, spruce, and pine. I love pine and snow scents, and this year there was a lot to choose from in that department. I went with this one and it was definitely the right choice. It's the perfect blend of a snowy softness and a fresh winter air/forest scent. Some tree scents are far too sharp for me, and sometimes the lab's snow scent doesn't work for me - this completely sidesteps both of those issues. Really glad I blind-bottled this one because it's just gorgeous.

Our first anniversary! We were still working from the basement at the time, so to speak. (It was actually the spare room at Ted’s place.) In 2003, the scent categories on our site were Bewitching Brews, Funereal Oils, Dark Elements, Sin & Salvation, Love Potions, and Diabolus, and a selection of conjure and hoodoo recipes that I had reformulated for cosmetic use, including #20 Love Oil, All Night Long, Crucible of Courage, High John the Conqueror, and Van Van. Some of the first scents (our original posse!) available on the site were Anathema, Black Rose, Haunted, Darkness, Debauchery, Faustus, Pulse Points, Satyr, Silentium Amoris, Thanatopsis, Venom, Vixen, my interpretation of the four elements (Burial, Inferno, Hurricane, and Undertow) and, of course, Snake Oil. Snake Oil was the first, and Snake Oil will always be part and parcel of who I am. At the end of 2003, we offered the first LEs (Samhain and Spooky) and the first LE series ran (“Five fiendishly festive holiday scents!”), limited to one-hundred 5mLs and seventy-five 10mLs of each: Gingerbread Poppet, Midwinter’s Eve, Rose Red, Snow White, and Yuletide. Cotton Phoenix has a base of our foundation scent, Snake Oil, with a sliver of Snow White, almond milk, and a pillowy poof of marshmallow layered over a sheer cotton blossom musk. It's happened: I've found a new scent to join my pantheon of all-time beloved BPALs. In the bottle and on, it's mostly an almond/marzipan blur of Dana O'Shee and Snake Oil. Every now and then a sniff will conjure the ghost of Snow White mixed in. I love Snake Oil but can get sick of it quickly - somehow that doesn't happen with Cotton Phoenix, it's not heavy or cloying at all. Definitely buying a backup bottle.

Blush amber, wild carnation, French lavender, hay absolute, strawberry candyfloss, and vanilla cream. In the bottle, this didn't seem like anything I'd like. On my wrist it was a 180 - I loved this and it's my favorite Luper so far. These notes are blended together so expertly it's hard to pick them apart. However, lavender is eventually what predominates, graced with an underlying note of amber. I get no strawberry or vanilla at all for the first half hour and then slowly the vanilla comes out. It's a very light, feminine scent, more of a traditional perfume than one of the Lab's more experimental blends. Highly recommended.

Thick lumps of pumpkin cake with cardamom-cream frosting and a dusting of cinnamon. Absolutely love this. The perfect blend of pumpkin and cake, just like I wanted. This reminds me of visiting roadside cider/donut stands in the fall, where you could pick out a pumpkin and then buy some fresh-baked sugary treats to take home. Some of the Lab foodie scents turn cloying on me but the pumpkin keeps this fresh.

You dirty bird. Incredibly sexy and a must-have for any Perversion fans. Everything dark and alluring about Perversion is still here, but it's shot through with bright streaks of the pumpkin spice. In that way, it smells exactly like you'd expect it to - it doesn't become a different creation. Absolutely gorgeous scent for adventurous autumn nights.

[No additional description provided.] Of the 4 Weenies I bought, this was the biggest surprise. Probably because my previous Dead Leaves scents were heavy on the dead leaf part, especially my hair glosses - and so they really conveyed autumn. This one smells like reading a library book in a garden on an overcast summer day. The leaf and champaca blossom merge together and the coconut is just faintly there. It all works beautifully together, like something a shy goth girl would wear. I'm positive this will be popular because it's a light, pretty scent you could wear year round.

Like the first reviewer said, this does remind me of a Bath and Body or Victoria Secret scent. Feminine, light, girlish. The cherry blossoms are the strongest note on me, not quite drowning out the strawberries, and I get very little musk. What's nice - and this is where it deviates from a mall scent - is that there's nothing fake or chemical about it. This reminds me of how a woman would smell at a fancy outdoor dinner party on a spring evening. I've already tried partnering it with Eat the Strawberries and Pink Moon and both work beautifully for those of you who like it pink.

Perfectly warming, spiked with a splash of spiced rum. I was nervous about buying this. It sounded beautiful, but I was worried it would become overwhelming as time wore on. Luckily, that doesn't happen. This is heavier on the gingerbread than eggnog, and it works perfectly. It smells like your kitchen on a winter afternoon when you're baking for a holiday party. Rich and cozy without being too sweet. And it lingers beautifully - the following day I could still smell it. Really glad I got this.

This came out smelling less sweet than the oil, but settled into my hair as a chilly, refreshing winter scent - exactly what I wanted from it. Unfortunately it was undetectable within an hour.I have to hold my hair to my nose and sniff deeply to even get a ghost of it. That said, I think it still works as a nice "cleanser" when your hair needs to smell a little fresher after being at work or in a bar.

I wasn't a fan of Snow White when I had a bottle, so I didn't know what to expect from this based on the other reviews. Somehow, though, it works - two scents that I would never associate with each other work beautifully together. Initially it's an equal balance of snow and Snake Oil, then it dries down to a warm sweet snow.

I was afraid this would turn into coffee on me. I needn't have worried - there's only a faint whiff of chai and the cinnamon vanishes within minutes, leaving a syrupy cake smell that reminds me of Monster' Underpants. It's pleasant and sweet but not what I was hoping for. I may layer it with more cinnamon scents to see if I can amp that part of it.

Ive run away from a little old woman, A little old man, A barn full of threshers, And I can run away from you, I can! I was tempted by several Gingerbreads, but this is the one I picked. And wow do I love it. In the bottle I got a sharp, acrid whiff of pepper and winced. But as soon as I actually put this one, that vanished and I got a very warm blend of sugar-crusted gingerbread. I've had gingerbread scents before that went dull and too earthy, and I've had "vanilla sugar" scents that were sickly sweet. Neither of those are a problem here. This is such a cozy winter scent that is never overwhelming while having good staying power. Don't miss this one.

Gingerbread with amber, sandalwood, black patchouli and cinnamon. Absolutely stunning. I actually tried this on blind - unbelievably, I forgot what I ended up ordering for Yule this year. I retrieved my order from a dark mailbox, grabbed a bottle at random and applied before driving off to the mall. I had NO idea what it could be but it smelled absolutely incredible and so I couldn't wait to get to a lighted parking lot and see that I had applied... Gingerbread Sin. I was stunned because the ginger in this is so cool and refined on me, unlike last year's much warmer Gingerbread Snake. This smells like a sophisticated, classy, expensive perfume (yet it's cuddly at the same time.) I could see this in an elaborate crystal bottle. While I can smell hints of Sin in it, this doesn't come off as a hybrid of Sin and Gingerbread but rather an entirely new scent. Patchouli always makes me nervous but it's barely detectable here. Probably the strongest note on me is the amber, which warms it up a little eventually. Otherwise it stays the same, no morphing. I imagine this is going to be wildly popular and would encourage anyone on the fence to get a bottle. It's probably one of my favorite BPALs of all time.

Regrettably, this one was all smoke and old wood on me, like you'd imagine a closet in an old pub would smell. No vanilla silk and the honey flickers in and out. It's surprisingly masculine on me and smells a lot like my Yankee Candle "Cozy by the Fire" - definitely a hearth smell. It's not bad, just not my thing.

We have a shapeshifter here. First wearing: 95% magnolia and 5% vanilla, no honey musk at all. It disappeared after 20 minutes. Second wearing: a delicate blend of honey and magnolia that is just lovely and fades after about 2 hours. Most scents can't be warm and light at the same time, I find, but this one does it perfectly. We'll see if it keeps changing on me.

This starts out on me as the perfect mix of earth and honey and dead leaves. So much that I think a decant isn't enough, I need a full bottle. And for about an hour, it's glorious... and then goes to flat, dead wood. Ah well.

Initially this is just beautiful - a perfect blend of pumpkin and feminine softness. About 30 minutes in, the vanilla cream dominates everything and it gets extremely cloying - no pumpkin at all. Might become more of a room scent than a me scent.

Based on the ingredients, I thought this would be heavy and possibly cloying. I was SO wrong on both counts! This is light and perfect while being sophisticated and seductive. This is going to be one of my all-time favorite BPALs, I can tell. It's just delightful. And it completely lives up to its name. On me, no particular ingredient dominates. I can just slightly detect the leather and amber and red musk. Carmelized tobacco? Nowhere to be found. Really it's just an expert blend. If you were on the fence about getting a bottle, go ahead and splurge.

Much as I wanted this, I could see multiple ways for it to go wrong - the most likely being the oudh and patchouli making it too earthy for me. That actually didn't happen; this is a nice warm scent that smells like a creamy wine-earth mix. It's similar to other fall BPAL scents I have like Autumn III (I think that's the name of it) from last year but I'm still glad I got a bottle.

I love the idea of a snow scent, but actual snow scents - from BPAL and elsewhere - rarely hit the mark for me. Maybe because I grew up surrounded by the real thing. Anyhow. This is my favorite snow scent from the lab so far. (2014 edition.) It's very soft and comforting, like slipping into new sheets - cool but cozy too. It's what I imagined Snow Bunny would be like years back. It's not terribly mint on me, but more like a soft, powdery snow sweetened by a breath of cinnamon and spearmint. My only complaint: it fades quickly. On the upside, it's not overwhelming to others.

I'll admit, I really wanted a perfume called The White Witch. Alas, this doesn't work on me. If I sniff it up close, it's quite pretty and I can pick out the rose and amber and musk; but just going about the course of my day, I feel cloaked in a overbearing head shop incense smell.

I got the first Devil's Night ever and fell in love with it - it was such a rich autumn night smell. So I was excited to try the '14 version. Unfortunately, this was my one fail of my 5 bottles. It's a light, candyish scent with a faintly artificial plastic note, and it evaporates fast. I'm going to play with layering it with others before giving up on it entirely.

On me, this is like a muted, more thoughtful Womb Furie. Very cuddly and warm and autumnal - it makes me feel like I'm burrowing into a beloved sweater. I get almost no cinnamon at all - it's pretty much straight up honeyed patchouli, with a flicker of vanilla. Of the 5 Weenie bottles I ordered, October and Halloween 1914 are "outside scents" and this is an "inside scent" of a warm cozy evening.

This was one of the Weenies I was most looking forward to and when I opened the bottle, my heart sank - it just smelled like wet wood and dirt. Same once it went on my wrist. But after about 20 minutes, it morphed into a rich autumn smell that reminded me of walking down a country road late on a fall night. This actually could be called Devil's Night too - it's evocative of fall nights outdoors, that smokey smell of trees and earth with something sweet. Definitely glad I got a bottle and waited it out.