Mermaid-on-Land

I got this in the Oriental Floral imp pack. Cranberry is the most prominent note. It's sweet but not sugary, and also a bit tart. This is strong when first applied, but the throw faded quite a bit in the immediate dry down. I was starting to think it was just all absorbed really fast but then I started to catch a sniff of the scent when I moved around. I don't get much of the spices and no ginger that I noticed, but I maybe get the lilies? I'm not good at picking out individual florals yet. It's mostly gone at 5 hours. I'm kinda conflicted. Sometimes I like it. Other times it smells like a fruity air freshener. I need to test again. The color is a desaturated smoky cranberry. On further test, I decide I like it much better, I get more of the sense of ‘torchbearer of hecate’ (which would be awesome to smell like!) I think I’ve made up my mind, I like this. Overall it's a smoky-sweet-tart cranberry. Definitely gonna use my imp up!

At first all I smell is vetiver. Not really strong vetiver because the throw's not that strong, but pretty much just vetiver right now. I think this is the first time vetiver has struck me as smelling truly planty or grassy, and not just as an underlying note. Soon the China rain comes out and I love that. This smells exactly like a rainstorm. It's a rainy day out so i decided to wear this to emphasize the weather, it worked I feel like I brought a little of the grey, cloudy, rainy weather inside with me. The throw is actually better with drying. It is definitely "high pitched and clear" as the description says. It sweetens slightly over an hour or two to a very lightly powdery version of the same. The color vibe to me is grey pearlescent cloudy skies. On further dry down (3+ hours) vetiver makes a reappearance. I really like this one. It smells so much like a rainstorm I can practically feel the chill wind and rain drops. Too bad it's discontinued I think I'd like to eventually get a bottle if it was still available.

This is astringent strong tea right on application. I really love how strong the tea is! I was expecting it would be mostly florals with a light hint of tea, but no, it's very assertive in this. I mostly get green tea just because of the sharpness. It smells like wet tea leaves. The peony isn't overly floral, it actually blends quite well with the astringency of the tea. A strong hint of sharp soap comes in and out but I like soapy scents so I don't really mind, plus it goes away in like 5 minutes (that might be the bergamot everyone else noticed, it sometimes smells like soap on me). The herbs bring out the sharpness as well. I like this one, it's light but still has a bite to it. The color impression I get is pink and crystal clear, like looking at a pink flower through a glass block (weirdly specific). Unfortunately it seems to fade fairly fast on me *pouts*. Something in the dry down reminds me of the light white musk at the end of Embalming Fluid, but as far as light scents go I think I like this one better. Sadly though, like most light scents, the throw isn't very strong on me. Oh well, I'll definitely use the imp and I think it'll be good for really hot days this summer.

OMG this smells amazing! I immediately get all the notes. Milk, honey, carnation and bergamot. The carnation switches between being more creamy and more planty. It's very fresh but also I'm getting the cinnamon spiciness as well. Carnation is the strongest note for me, with milk and honey to sweeten. Rose and bergamot are more in the background. The bergamot gives it a tea-like vibe without being overly TEA. The rose is soft and almost more rose-water like.The color vibe is creamy off-white and very pale pink.I wasn't expecting this to be a favorite because it seems very light from the description and I tend to like heavier, darker scents. And it is light and fresh. But I spent the whole drive to work just sniffing my wrist and going 'omg this smells soooo good!' This is sweet and clean, almost but not quite soapy. The throw is surprisingly good and so is the staying power. I really just love this one. Instant fave and I might even have to hunt down some more carnation blends. Innocent and whimsical yet mischievous as other reviewers stated. My favorite of the Alice in Wonderland blends so far

I got The Contrast as a free tester with a forum purchase. Uh oh, fingers crossed I don't fall in love here and end up getting pulled into the luper blends. I'm already in over my head here just with GC lol. Ok so this is a very thick oil. On first application, it's smoky sharp, thin and dusty, with an underlying sweetness. I like this so far, darn it. Eventually the sweetness morphs into a strongly bubblegum scent. Then it kind of shifts back and forth between the two in a tug of war. The vanilla is mostly for me adding sweetness without being really apparent. It's also the first time I've tried a scent with benzoin so I'm not too familiar with that note. After a couple hours, the bubblegum has faded and it's mostly resinous sweet. Not as fond of the bubblegum as that initial sweet smoky dustiness but I still overall like this. I kinda see why it's 'contrast' lol, they're two pretty different ends of the spectrum. I quite like it but I'm not obsessed with it, won't need to frantically hunt down a bottle. I enjoyed my tester tho. It was pretty strong close to the wrist but I didn't notice much throw from far away. It lasted at least 6 hours. As a side note, I think it might be a chemistry thing for me because no other reviews mention bubblegum.

Yum! Foody pumpkin and cinnamon pie spice! The peach rounds it out and sweetens it, but I wouldn't notice it was there if I didn't read the notes, it's a subtle addition. This is delicious, I'm craving pumpkin pie and fall weather. The throw is good. I think the spices stick around a bit longer than the pumpkin and peach. Something about the spices remind me of a craft store when they put out the fall/Halloween displays, which is nostalgic to me. The throw fades kinda fast but stays as a skin scent for a long time. The color to me is glowing orange and yellow. Sometimes I have days when I'm just in a "fall mood" and this would be perfect for when summer is endless and autumn needs to be here like yesterday. It really captures the feeling of autumn for me. Bring on the sweaters and scarves!

Got this in a forum purchase Out of the vial, whaaaat cigarette smoke?! Right out of the imp this is super acrid and strong. On me it seriously smells exactly like someone is smoking a cigarette nearby. Somehow this seems hot and cold at the same time. In about ten minutes it morphs into burning plastic and eucalyptus. Where the hell is eucalyptus coming from? If I sniff my wrist it's all eucalyptus. The throw is again somewhat cigarette smelling. I think something in this went VERY wrong on me. I didn't get any of the spices mentioned in other reviews. The smoke wasn't the sweet smoky note from like, Dracul or Lampades, it was distinctly cigarette-like. (I hate the smell of cigarettes) There was no sweetness to this on me. Gaaaah, not for me! I might give this another chance later on to see if this was a fluke or maybe I put too much on but I think its my skin chemistry not getting along with one or more of the notes. Just wish I knew which one...

Got this from a sale on the forum This is very sweet right out of the vial. I smell mostly dirt, pretty strongly, but *sweet* dirt. It's pretty strong. In a couple minutes I start getting the papery white notes, they're crisp and clean for being a dirt-based perfume. I really like this one, I think. An hour or so in, I start getting an acidic note that gives it a perfumey tinge and the sweetness cuts a bit. I was a little intimidated at first because of the strong dirt smell right on application (I've never tried one in this scent family) but it's actually very wearable when it's on. Throw is still pretty good at this point. Eventually it dries down to a sweet, slightly powdery scent. I really like this one, it had good throw on me and lasted quite a while before it lost its sillage. I kept catching a bit of the scent moving around at work. That phase lasted probably about 4-5 hours. Color vibe is deep brown and grayish white.

Got this as part of the oriental floral imp pack. This smells really good, a sharp greenness right out of the bottle that calms down a bit after application and drying. It becomes a lily dominant scent with an underlying bite. The throw is good at first, especially for a light floral. it faded a bit when dried but still has surprisingly good throw. This is a clean soapy floral with an undercurrent of something a bit mildly spicier. Actually on further thought I can't decide if it's "spicy" or “sharp". The color feeling from this is medium green and warm cream. This one's not as strong as some of the others I've tried so far and I tend to prefer stronger scents, but I really like this one and will keep the imp for days I feel like a lighter, fresher perfume.

In the bottle, the first sniff impression is almost minty. I'm not too familiar with most of the notes in this. Applying and wet stages, I think I get the indigo musk and something darkly floral. A bit of something somewhat spicy, or maybe sharp is the word I'm looking for? The plum isn't overly sweet. I can barely detect it. Most notes in this blend together to me, it's hard to pick them out. The throw is great, I can detect it just standing still. LUV. For colors (maybe due to the night blooming flowers) I get a blue/purple/black vibe from this. It smells very true to concept for me. Plum appears subtly later on, which sweetens it a bit. Then the plum and the floral aspect take turns as to which is the most dominant note. A coworker told me I smelled good too! Oh and I've been wearing it for a solid 15 hours and my mom suddenly said, oooh what perfume are you wearing, you smell really good! So The Night-Raven stays really well on me too! One of my favorites so far.

Got this one as part of the oriental floral imp pack. This starts off sharply citrusy and bitter, which I really liked. I wish this stage would've stuck around longer. However, citrus, I have found out, fades REALLY fast on me. This stage faded in about 5 min to sweet and somewhat pastry-like. It somehow reminded me of a light and crumbly pastry, like a scone. I didn't really notice the tea, but maybe some of the floral aspect of cherry blossom in the pastry stage. Little throw on me once the citrus fades, it lasted pretty well at 3 hours but totally disappeared by 6 or 7. This one changed quite a bit from wet to dry. I like it enough to keep the imp but probably not for a bottle. If citrus had more staying power on me I think it would've smelled very different on the dry-down based on other reviews. It seems like a light, cheerful scent to me.

Got this as a frimp from the lab with an imp pack order! Totally different from the other ones I've tried so far. I have previously smelled frankincense resin and loved the smell, i remember thinking it almost had a lemony quality to it. I can't quite separate the myrrh from what i remember of frankincense here as it blends pretty well to my unpracticed nose lol but it smells great when I sniff my wrist. Sadly, the first time i tried it I could only smell it up close It had very little throw on me. This is sweet and incensey. It's definitely a very clean incensey smell, like other reviews mention, not a smoky quality at all; and it has a very bright feeling to me, not any darkness to it. It develops a tiny bit of a dusty note a couple hours in which I don't mind. I don't really catch the scent much moving around. This gets maybe just a little sweeter as it dries, and loses the dustiness eventually. It smells really good, and perhaps even picks up a bit more throw far into the dry down. Hmm, after I wrote the initial notes for this, I wore it a second time and had a random person ask if it was vanilla perfume. Maybe it has more throw on me than I realized? Also, I don't pick it up as vanilla at all but it definitely has a sweetness to it. I really like resinous and incensy scents in general and this is really pretty, i'll definitely use the imp!

Oooh this smells good! I immediately really get that honey wine note. Strangely it's not just honey, it's different and more watery than honey in a bear bottle. This smells sweet but not cloying or heavy; it's actually a very fresh variety of sweet. Omg reading through the description again it hit me what this smell reminds me of! It smells (to me) just like a cup of tea sweetened by honey. I really like this one. I think the lighter freshness is from the lilac? I can't quite pick out the myrrh in this one, and only the slightest hint of sweet resins. I do get the smell of tea leaves though, which I love. The tea comes out a bit further in. It starts out pretty strongly honey and then morphs to mostly tea, then they kinda combine. On second thought, it's not so much tea as damp tea leaves. The whole scent has a damp humid quality actually, it really vividly makes me think of taking a sip of hot tea with honey and the steam creating humidity. The throw is really good, i can smell it without really trying. It eventually fades to a watery sweet floral about 5 hours or so in, and I can somewhat pick it up at around 12 hours if I sniff my wrist. The color association to me is clear dark amber, like tea in a cup. Another favorite!

Hi! This is my first review I've been wanting to try BPAL for forever now and finally got to when I got an Oriental Floral imp pack as a gift! This is the first scent I tried from it, so here goes... It smells really good right away, I mostly get the rose and red wine at first, and they stay the dominant notes on me for pretty much the entire time I wear it. The sandalwood I think warms it up a bit and gives it an almost vanilla-ish but only slightly sweet vibe at first that gradually becomes dryer and less sweet. This is kind of along the lines of what I would hope for from an oil from the oriental floral category. It's a darker, heavier floral on me (which i like!). I don't have that practiced of a nose yet lol so I don't know if I quite pick out the jasmine but i think i smell a bit of a floral other than rose. I also don't quite pick out the myrrh at first but i think it's giving it some of the darker heavier vibe i mentioned, and towards the end the resinous smell comes out a bit more. It smells a bit spicier closer to the wrist but from far it smells more floral/wine. I think the throw is great, I had a couple people tell me they liked my perfume, and when i'm moving around i catch the scent pretty often. It stays on the whole day on me, I can still smell it pretty well by the end of the night. Overall the scent to me seems like a deep velvet burgundy color if i was going to associate a color with it. I was actually surprised by how much I loved the rose in this, I've never really gone for rose perfumes before. This is one of my favorites out of the few I've tried so far! Yay! First review done! Update: having tried a couple more wine scents, just want to point out that the wine here is a very sweet wine scent. Some of the others I've tried have been more dry, but this one is definitely a sweet wine!