Lady_Ell

The intoxicating perfume of exotic incenses wafting on warm desert breezes. Arabian spices wind through a blend of warm musk, carnation, red sandalwood and cassia. I like to put this on when I am cold - smelling it warms me right up and makes me feel like someone wrapped me up in butter, sprinkled vanilla beans, cinnamon, and a little sugar on me, and set me out to bake in the sun. The musk keeps it from being too sweet-smelling, and although these aren't really components of the oil, the best things I can use to describe the smell are "Tunisian Pastry shop" or "butter" but it isn't a foody smell, somehow. Basically I can say that the word golden sums it up in my mind, but it isn't helpful on a forum. This one isn't as sweet as Snake Oil, its more like her older, wiser cousin. The scent from the bottle is pretty much the same as how it is on my skin. This might be my favorite. In the top 3 for sure.

A reformulation and modernization of a true Classical Greek perfume, myrrhine: voluptuous myrrh, golden honey, red wine, and sweet flowers. The first time I smelled this, just out of the Imp's Ear, I was kind of overpowered by the mix of honey-floral-cherry tones, which just seemed sickly sweet. But I knew it would smell different on my skin, and it does. 2 hours later: It has dried into a mix of baby powder, cotton candy, and a really sweet flower smell - like honeysuckle. It's OK, but I'm not a huge baby powder fan and the combination just doesn't seem to be something that I feel matches with my personality. I feel like I don't smell like me in it. 5 hours later: I now smell like a mix of honey and honeysuckle. The baby powder smell is gone. But this is still too sweet for me, I think.

The Dark Side of Water: clean and purifying, yet menacing -- lotus and juniper with a hint of mint. A scent dragged up from the depths to the Stygian shore This was the first BPAL fragrance that I bought, with the intent of making a scent that smelled like the field area of my dissertation in the Italian Alps. I had been looking to recreate the smell of this wonderful place (mint, pine, cold mist and clouds and drizzle and clean, cold air) and having no luck with alcohol-based perfumes. Undertow, however, does this perfectly. It's strongly minty with a cold pine undercurrent when wet, and (on me at least) turns to a white-chocolate and mint finish when dry. If I put some on my clothes, it stays more piney-minty smelling than it does on my skin. <span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>ETA: (removed pictures since I am not renewing the domain they're hosted at, and don't want any broken links!)</span>

The sublimely beautiful, fiercely independent, impeccably cultured, fascinatingly worldly and witty courtesans of ancient Greece. A seductive and dazzling blend of golden honey, fiery patchouli, sweet fig and clove, and a blushing touch of ylang ylang. I had such hopes for this - it contains all of my favorite elements in the description, but Hetairae is quite different than what I expected. So far it smells like soapy dandelion greens with a hint of spice. It's settling down a bit and there are ominous hints of That Craft Store Smell starting to appear, but I'm not certain they will make their full debut. The jury is still out on this one; I'll let you know in a few hours. A few hours later: Hetairae doesn't go totally craft store, but it does disappear within an hour and the soapy dandelion smell doesn't go away. Poo. Maybe I'll try it again in a few weeks and see how it goes then.

Hi - I checked in Suggestions already, but thought I'd post here. I'm looking for a scent with coconut in it... I don't want something that smells too much like Hawaiian Tropic or Malibu rum, but I definitely am looking for a noticeable coconut smell. Some people have suggested the Star (Tarot oil) but that sounds too fleetingly coconut, or Spooky, which is Limited Edition and also very chocolate-y (which I'm not a huge fan of). Ideas? Thanks!

This smells like cedar on me. A very clean, woody scent. It's great. I feel very grounded and mature when I wear it. It reminds me of Loup Garou without the juniper. I got this as an extra imp in my last order and gave it to my husband. He really really really likes it, has been wearing it nonstop since then, and describes it as such: "this white sandalwood is really the shit, it smells like kyoto circa '81 (minus urine, japan always smells like urine)" He's a big sandalwood fan, growing up in Japan and all, and going to a Japanese pre-school in a Buddhist monastery that always had sandalwood incense burning. Not sure what he means about the urine, but at least this doesn't smell like urine. Four enthusiastic thumbs up.

Pretty self-explanatory... but here goes. This is a very sweet coconut, not toasted at all. More like a mix of the sugary shredded stuff that you find in the baking section of the grocery store, with a coconut cream/suntan oil kick that I love. It's a very light/bright sweetness, which lasts for hours and hours, and even days if you wear it to bed and it gets on your pillow. I layered it with Old Sybaris to calm it down a little, and that smelled really nice. Unfortunately and oddly, however, Single Note Coconut gave me a horrid itchy-red-burning rash whenever I put it on skin that was more delicate (like the insides of my elbows). It smelled so good, though, that I suffered through and it went away after about 15 minutes. I'll keep the imp to tart up my Tarot: Star and to layer with Old Sybaris. It's a nice summery smell.

I had been looking for that traditional Sandalwood smell, like a hippie-head-shop sandalwood smell, and figured that BPAL would do it even better, so I got a 5 mL of Red Sandalwood. In the bottle, this is a strong woody smell, less perfumey and less "red" and "oily" smelling than the oils you get at hippie stores. It hits you high up in the sinuses and smells like the inside of an unfinished chest of drawers (in the best possible way). Unfortunately, my chemistry doesn't allow a traditional sandalwood smell to develop. It turns spicy and powdery and dry if left to its own devices. I was a little disappointed but instead of being too sad, decided to have some layering fun. I layered it with O. And it smells fan-fucking-tastic. I'm going to go on a layering frenzy and see what other combinations I can come up with. Snake Oil, you're next.

An ethereal, piercing blend of eucalyptus, citrus and mints. Out of the bottle this smells like more than the sum of its parts. It has a slightly bitter note that I can't place, and it certainly is piercing. The citrus is dominant when wet and while drying, but after a few hours I found that it became a kind of soapy smell with something reminiscent of patchouli (but not exactly patchouli). I think that on someone else this would be a great scent, but it just didn't work on me since it reminded me too much of Dial soap and gave me a bit of a headache.

Well. I'm glad there's so many fans of this, so I can swap mine away. The ingredients sounded perfect for me, and I loooooove Seance. I was hoping it would be a more sultry Seance. Well. While Seance is a soft, fresh, dewy, pink, sugar-coated rose, Parliament of Foules is a wet, rancid, rotting rose that wafts over salty, rotting wood that's been soaked in Bactine. There is some resin in here that does not work on me (the salty rotting wood Bactine smell). It's the same resin in Anne Bonny and Jolly Roger. I will stick to Seance for my rose scent. You can't top perfection, I guess. And I'll swap this one away.

Darker and smokier than Snake Oil. Less powdery and more sophistocated and slinky than Snake Charmer. I llllloooooooovvvvvvvvvveeeeeeee it.

I LOVE this. Cinnamon and cardamom and something gingery-hot, and dirt. I love it love it love it love it love it! The gardenia thankfully keeps its stanky self in the background, leaving me wrapped in patchouli goodness. Did I say... I LOVE THIS? I do. I love this.

Elizabeth sent this to Sedge for me (aka the "piney roomie") although she said that to her it smelled a little bit like pee. Well. Right out of the bottle it does not smell promising, more like someone pissed on the side of a pine tree. But I persevered and put some on. The pee smell dissipates immediately and the resulting pine needle smell is divine. On me it turns sweet with a lightly spiced pine note that somehow works out to be more than the sum of its parts. I have to experiment more with this one, and I think I'll stick with Belladonna or Black Forest for my pine needs, but it taught me a valuable lesson: try things on before you make a judgement. Update: this fades fast. It's only been a couple of hours and I can't smell a thing, and I liberally doused myself. Even though I love pine scents, maybe this is my lesson: they fade on me and maybe I should concentrate on other things.

Well, call me mystified. I just tried on some Dorian - I hadn't ordered it due to the "blend of three musks" or however it was described because I was afraid of getting what I can only describe as That Musk Smell (which on me ends up like cat butt and a loogey) but I don't! I get a gorgeous and slinky vanilla sugar tea thing going on, with the dusty essence of an elegant fur coat in the back of the closet and a hint of lemon zest.

I had grand hopes for this (tangerine, saffron, etc.) but it makes me smell like a 14-year-old boy who bought his first bottle of Drakkar Noir and spilled it all over himself.

Butter, butterscotch, and then a puff of light girly flowers. Like honeysuckle. Something about this makes me uneasy, because it reminds me strongly of something I wore in early high school. But I'll get over it, because this is really very pretty. It dries down to a nice powdery vanilla after a few hours. I do feel quite chaste when I wear it, though. Not sexy at all, but light and bright and pretty.

OK, now that I've worn it nonstop for a few days, let me give a formal review of Shub-Niggurath. Starts off kind of astringent-hot-ginger, with a floury undertone. Not flower, but flour. Burns for a bit, then settles into the absolute most gorgeousest hot-spicy-ginger-cookie-candied-ginger-thing you would ever want. Like a mix of freshly ground dried ginger, crystallized ginger, and fresh ginger to give it that extra bite/kick, and bit of sugar to balance things out. I say this all the time, but this is probably my favorite oil blend so far. I mean, it's seriously amazing. I can't stop smelling my arm, I forgot to put on deodorant when i went to a show tonight and it goes totally well with my own stink and I was glad I forgot to put deodorant on because the oil just matched me so well and made the whole package feel *right*. Sorry if that's more than you all wanted to know, but it's true. WHY did I not order like 100 bottles of this? Shit.

I think Helping Hand will have to be a room scent for me. It smells nice and minty sweet with a bright pink edge in the bottle but once it's on me it goes papery-chalky and reminds me of the bubble gum toothpaste grit they use on your teeth at the dentist's office.

I almost didn't try this on, because I thought that roses all went soapy old lady on me. I am wrong about this and I am glad that I am wrong. In the bottle this reminds me of Rose Red; a very wet, dewy rose. When I put it on, the rose sweetens up a bit and still stays cool and damp. There's something else in here that keeps it from getting soapy and overpowering, though, and I don't know if that's the rosewood or the hazel (I don't know what hazel smells like). Once it's dry it smells like a cool, damp rose with the barest hint of vanilla caster sugar. This doesn't go old lady or ghostly or attic-y or potpourri or dry or dusty on me at all. I am about to head my ass over to the Swaps area to see if anyone has a bottle they're willing to trade. I adore this.

OK, so I had to try this because I used to wear a generic version of this combination of oils from some hippie store back in high school. From BPAL experience, certain rose types amp themselves up on my skin and become soapy, and sandalwood goes straight to powder, and patchouli smells great. Put these together and all these things occur, although not in an unpleasant way. This is a STRONG blend that has throw and persistence. I ended up getting it on the sleeves of my sweatshirt yesterday and today it's still there, smelling much nicer (i.e. like what it's supposed to smell like - no powder, no soap) on my clothes than on me. This has lots of nostalgic appeal, and when I wear it again it'll be applied to my clothing rather than to my body.

I am so glad I bought this for Mr. L. He wears DeSade and Severin pretty much exclusively, and they smell terrific on him. Dead Man's Hand is like the brown, dusty, worn, casual leather compared to DeSade's black, fancier, newer leather and Severin's pale and delicate leather. Even though they are all leather, they all smell very different. Dead Man's Hand is for when you feel a little manlier/grungier than DeSade's stern austerity or Severin's foppishness. Very sexy.

Huh - I thought I reviewed this a year ago. Guess not. I love how this smells one me (apricot and clove, exactly) but it tends to go a bit Yankee Candle on me after a while (the apricot changes to general-fruit-sugars and the clove changes a bit to Generic Spice). I still like it, but me smelling like a candle in a grandmother's house tends to creep Mr. L out, so it's not in rotation. On my mom this smells just like Play-Doh. I think this is one that will smell better when it isn't touching me. I'd like to try it again, but in an oil burner.

In the vial: sweet sweet sweet with a touch of grape. On skin: this smelled like smushed Concord grapes and sugar, just starting to turn moldy and alcoholic.

Severin is a nice citrusy leather. If citrus goes sweet on you, it could work.

The Star is a good choice. My Chaos Theory (XXI) I think is exactly what you're probably looking for, but unfortuntely it's almost gone. I wish that the Lab had written down the Chaos ingredients because I know that XXI would be massively popular. But then again... it wouldn't be chaos if it was organized and recorded, right?