Lucchesa

I amp lily of the valley, so not surprisingly that was the predominant note on me here, tempered by the pale musk. This is a beautiful, lemony lily blend, very wearable. I'm not really certain what osmanthus smells like, so I'm not sure if the citrusy vibe comes from the flower or the frankincense, which otherwise stays mostly in the background for me. Lovely!

I find dried rose petals one of the lab's most evocative scents. In Zombi they were too melancholy for me, but here the combination of fresh and dried flowers and the dusty woods is really lovely. I don't get the camphor or toothpaste scent some reviewers have complained of, but I wonder if that's what reads as dusty to me. (The faintest whiff of mothballs in my grandmother's closet?) This didn't morph a lot on me; the woods and florals settled into gentle balance and stayed there. A dry, haunting scent.

This was weird and bad on me, and not in the direction that cedar and saffron can sometimes send a scent, so I'm blaming chiuri bark and Nepalese spices and avoiding them like the plague in the future (shouldn't be hard). Of course since I disliked it, it lasted forever. I didn't get a forest smell but a sort of astringent herby incense, which made me think of my friend who spent a year in a Nepalese monastery eating water buffalo.

This may be the citrus blend I have been looking for forever! The combination of the blood orange and bergamot with the stone fruits is just stunning. Half an hour after application, the geranium is beginning to emerge. I have no idea what langsat smells like, and I'm not getting any cardamom, which is one of my favorite scents, but I'm not sure it would really contribute much here anyway. So far my skin is not sucking it into a black hole like it usually does with citrus scents. While this does have a cheerful sunshine vibe, oranges are in season in winter, and I think it will be delightful to wear to warm up dull, cold winter days. Absolutely beautiful, and I'm hoping it will have a decent wear length as well.

Veronica Franco is a heroine of mine, so I tried this for the name, not the notes. I got very little fruit from this; it was a delicate floral dominated by the iris, with some fuzzy oakmoss in the background, and it didn't last long on me at all. Sadly, not for me. ETA Retested this today and thought Veronica was glorious? Why is this in my swapbox, I wondered. Then an hour later she was gone, and I remembered why. Oh well, I'm glad I got to try this one.

I am always on the lookout for almond scents, and this one is a beauty. It doesn't fall easily into a category - almond without being foody, rose without being too floral, etc. Feminine but not girly or seductress -- you could easily wear this one to work, or to a garden party, or to have tea with friends or even visiting royalty. My decant has aged into quite a viscous fluid, and the almond is most prominent when wet. As it dries the rose emerges, but it's not one of those big hit-you-over-the-head roses. My skin tends to eat up tea notes, so I don't perceive a lot of tea here though I'm sure it's tying things together. The dragon's blood blends really nicely with the rest and doesn't do that sickly sweet thing. All the notes combine into a lovely skin scent which manages to last a long time.

I never thought I would say this, but I wish I could make out more vetiver in Anathema. (And this I say all too often, but I could not have guessed any of the notes in this blend from sniffing blind. I was thinking lily or some other powerful floral. But the honeysuckle here is plenty potent, and I am not as familiar with the opium note.) Anathema is strong, heady floral on me, the kind of thing a villainess in a Bond movie might wear to dance a sultry tango with the hero. It's gorgeous, but I'm having trouble imagining where it would fit into my more mundane kind of life. Straight, strong florals are not usually my thing. I will keep the imp, though, because who knows, maybe someday I will have to sashay into that role. I am still hoping for the vetiver to come out and muddy the waters somewhat. I've had it on for over half an hour now, and no sign of it.

Oh, this is lovely! I am a huge fan of beeswax and candle scents, and this is the sunny springtime cousin of Lights of Men's Lives, with the bees still busy in the fields. The hyssop is reminiscent of Tzadikim Nistarim, another of my favorite blends. It's the wrong scent for this time of year, but it will go on my 5 ml long list for the spring.

There are definitely cocoa globules suspended in my bottle. I wanted to try this because I saw it described somewhere as like Golden Priapus with cocoa, and I love Golden Priapus. This is definitely cedar as opposed to the pine of GP, but it's a gorgeous, well-behaving cedar, which is a comfort note for me and blends beautifully with the chocolate and hint of vanilla. Unisex and not at all foody. I like this a great deal.

I bought a bottle of 2016 Jacob's Ladder here on the forums recently to wear to my nephew Jacob's bar mitzvah later this month, if I liked it. And it's beautiful. Some of my favorite blends are amber based, but this one seems like more of a pure amber blend than any of them. I can't really pick out any of the other notes - maybe a little nuttiness from the ambrette seed, a little sweetness from the tonka, but they really just seem to support making the amber even more amber-like. And as some reviewers have commented, it has more of an old-fashioned, perfumey vibe than anything else I wear regularly, but it's absolutely lovely, and while I might not reach for it every day, I will wear it with pride for Jacob's bar mitzvah and whenever I want to smell sophisticated and feminine.

Whoopie Cushion reminded me a lot of Akuma, which I haven't smelled for a while because I traded it away. It was a near miss on me. I was hoping the patchouli and red musk would keep it from being too cloyingly sweet, and the red musk did behave and not take over as it usually does, but the raspberry is just too much for me. As LizziesLuck says, sickly sweet. I'll pass this one on.

That sounds like a brilliant costume! I want to suggest The Other Miss Spink - from Coraline - an over the top tuberose gardenia with tea and biscuit crumbs gone cobwebby and grotesque. I haven't actually smelled this but it sounds perfect for Umbridge!

Not sure if my decant is a 2014 or 2015 one, just that it's not brand new. And I won't be ordering a new bottle because this is just too much allspice on me. I don't get pumpkin per se so much as the dry "pumpkin pie spice" blend, and evidently I'm amping the allspice at the expense of the lovely cinnamon, clove and ginger. Oh well, I'm glad I got to try it.

For me this is all Bonne Bell Lip Smackers cherry lip gloss, the kind in the fat tubes we used to carry in the back pockets of our Dittos. It's an incredibly evocative blast from the past, but it's not what I want to smell like as an adult.

Lovely butter rum-caramel-vanilla scent, just about as foodie as you can get and not so boozy that it can't be worn to work. I only got the faintest hint of berries, but fortunately they didn't go plasticky on me. It seems to be lasting well. ETA It took a couple hours, but the berries eventually emerged. This has good staying power on me -- Do You Like Clowns? is long gone, but the caramel rum is still hanging on.

The saffron oudh in Mors Syphilitica reminds me of the golden oudh in Nevertheless She Persisted and is the dominant note here for me -- I applied about 30 minutes ago and am still waiting for the sandalwood to make an appearance. Apparently I amp oudh because both this and NSP are quite strong on me, which is true of very little BPAL. Fortunately it's very pretty on me, and I don't get the poopy effect that some people experience. I was afraid this would be too sharp and dry. Red sandalwood can go to pencil shavings on me, and saffron can be almost dusty sometimes. But it is instead deep and rich, and too heady for work -- more of a sultry nighttime perfume. Given the potency, I suspect the imp will last me a while, and if I'm reaching for it a lot, I will be on the lookout for a bottle.

I am a sucker for just about any scent with candles or the like in the description, so this was almost certain to make me happy. On my skin I get the lovely BPAL beeswax/flame note, a creaminess that must be ewe's milk but doesn't go into that sour milk territory, a tiny bit of the snow note and a tiny bit of blackberry. I don't know if it lasts long enough that I will need to seek out a bottle - I wish it were as strong on me as on some of the other reviewers. But I am delighted to have the decant.

I have this unfortunate habit of falling in love with impossible to find DC GCs, and here I go again. Tanin'iver is marvelous on me. Patch and pom, dragon's blood and cassia -- and no skin reaction a la Inferno, so I dodged that bullet. Just yummy and complex with a pretty solid wear length. The smoke is barely perceptible. Maybe if I layered Sin and Dragon's Blood and a little Blood Kiss I would end up with something similar?

For something light and creamy and lovely, it lasts a long time on my skin, which usually sucks such blends into oblivion. This is the only decant I own with mallow -- I was thinking marshmallow before I checked the notes -- so I didn't know what to expect, but it's lovely and I will have to look for more. I don't get any bitterness from the neroli; it's all dreamy orange blossom. Sweet, light and ethereal but it sticks around -- this stuff is great!

I like this way more than I expected to. The Lab's pastry note (e.g. Eat Me) can be just awful on me, but apparently I can do sponge cake It is super strawberry frosting sweet, especially on initial application, but the grapefruit prevents it from being cloying, and eventually I get a bit of the carnation as well. Delicious!

I love puppers! All the puppers! I find Covfefe kind of sharp -- I like the bourbon or rum scents better than gin. And Santa Eularia went into cleanser territory on my skin. So if were for me, Tweedledee would be the one, but everyone is different.

I don't know the B&BW scent, but Al-Shairan is orange spice: clove, peach and orange with cinnamon, patchouli and dark incense. Santa Eularia des Riu is more orange/herbs: Citrus, jasmine, Mediterranean herbs, lavender, orange blossom. Tweedledee is fun: Kumquat, white pepper, white tea and orange blossom. Would she like Covfefe? orange marshmallow cream, bitter lemon, black pepper, orange carnation, and gin. You're a Seattle area person, right? Did you see this? http://www.bpal.org/topic/92276-seattle-fallish-2017/ I'm hoping to go if I can and I'd love to meet you!

I love almond and I love exotic scents like Bastet, so I was very excited to try this. The almond I could smell in the imp became very faint once it hit my skin. I got some jasmine and some oakmoss, but before long the red sandalwood took over almost completely. This is the sandalwood that reads like cedar on my skin. And I have plenty of cedar-y scents, so this one is not a standout on me.

If you love Malediction, go to the Malediction reviews here, see who else loves it, and check their profiles to see what other scents they enjoy. There's a vetiver thread in BPAL chatter that might have some good suggestions. Seconding some of Sprout's that I've tried: Titus Andronicus Tzadikim Nistarim Fenris Wolf Satyr Troll Loup Garou Iago Others I've tried that you might consider: Czernobog Nero Lear, Magus -- both on the dry side, woody El Dorado Smokestack--terrible on me but my friend Theresa loves it I haven't tried Sloth but it might be in your wheelhouse -- vetiver & myrrh. The fewer notes, the easier it is to pick out what does & doesn't work. Look through the American Gods descriptions -- things like Black Hats, Glass Eye or Mr. Wednesday might work, and lots of others, most of them things I would never ever try (Techincal Boy...) Then look for decants on the forums sales or swaps pages so you can try things out before making a big investment. Decant circles (under swaps) are a great way to try new releases. There are LOTS of non-sweet options, though. Good luck!

I recently was lucky enough to acquire a bottle of Bogle, and it works really well on me. It is a perfect blend for the transition between summer and autumn. Testing blind I was thinking there was plum in the mix (probably the redcurrant) and bergamot (king mandarin) and maybe almond; I would not have guessed vetiver at all. The ginger is more like the spice rack kind than the screechy raw variant, the vanilla and pumpkin act as rich grounding notes, and it all works together beautifully. Bogle makes me think of having a picnic in the Napa Valley on a gorgeous crisp fall day when all the grapevines have turned brilliant reds and yellows. Low throw and wear length, but I am perfectly happy to reapply.