crimescenecleanup

I get play-doh and plastic notes from the sweeter vanilla scents - antique lace, velvet, etc. almonds and musks are fine on me. I hear that vanilla gets better with age - will aging these bottle for a few months or even a year help cut down on the play-doh note? Has anybody tried this?

Ok, those savvy to Ancient Greek, classics majors, linguists, and the like - What's the proper pronunciation for Sybaris? Which syllable is stressed? And for that matter, Sybarite. Also, Aeaea is driving me batty I, too, am tempted to say it A-e-a-e-a like E-i-e-i-o, 'cause that's the only way I can remember the spelling. But I say it "I(long) -a (long)-yah"

Tziporra - I never wore Blood countess for long enough to test this theory, but I see it has a lilac note. and BPAL lilac note gives me a fierce headache in all the others blends it's in. Perhaps that's it? amnerine - tonka is toxic, but not immediately. It's only through prolonged use and exposure that it can be considered toxic and/or a carcinogen, and as far as I know, that was only known from studies involving the use of cigars, cigarettes, and foods flavored with a particular extract of tonka. So as long as you aren't ingesting it in large quantities, you're probably ok. The lab may be using a tonka-scented oil that's safe, or perhaps there's nothing to fear from skin exposure. If you are concerned about slathering yourself in any of the tonka blends on a daily basis and exposing yourself to too much, perhaps email the lab and ask them about it.

I've run into post office troubles as well. The reason they don't want people shipping perfumes is because most do use alcohol, which is extremely flammable. I'm not sure how most commercial outfits that ship perfume get around this, perhaps they have a special permit? Anyway, I do know that the US postal service will not allow private individuals to ship alcohol based perfumes for this reason. I've had an absolutely terrible time trying to explain to postal workers and customs agents that BPAL products are not alcohol based, so now I just say "It's a fragrance oil" or "it's an essential oil blend" and that seems to go over ok.

Oh my. I was so looking forward to this one, because I adore frankicense, white musk, and osmanthus, and being into herbal medicine, I'm quite intrigued by the Nile Lily, or Blue River Lotus. Straight out of the bottle, the osmanthus gives this a very "perfumey" quality - not the lingering chemical overtone one associates with modern perfumes, but more the astringent, flowery sweetness of a good classic perfume. The smell of osmanthus always reminds me of strongly scented jasmine tea, and it's definitely a strong note in this blend. On the skin...blueberries?!?! Blueberry jam?!?! With an overtone of musk?!? What? Now I love blueberries, but this is odd. Odd in a "I love it - it's like fresh fruit"! way, but I can't think of any other cosmetic product I've smelled that reminded me of...blueberries. Maybe it's the Nile Lily? Well, at any rate, it's a cool, musky, fruity scent at this stage...it definitely has a "blue" feel. The osmanthus is still perfumey, and the frankincense is powdery, hardly there at all. Aaaaah, here we go. The drydown stage is really lovely. The osmanthus has settled a bit and developed a rich, dry, tea-like quality on drydown, while the frankincense has developed into a deep, true resin base note, and the Nile Lily comes across as sweet and fresh, while the white musk has the creamiest and softest drydown of any of the BPAL musk scents I've tried so far. About an hour after wearing it the sweetness has become little more than a whisper, and this has become a lovely, musky, dry, cool scent. This is so beautifully blended, I'm very glad that I found a bottle!

KABUKI!

Ha! I always marvel at how the lab can bottle a sense of humor. I once heard the new Shojo-Beat scents described as "very teeny-bopper", and I wondered how that could be possible. How can a perfume be "teeny-bopper"? well Teenage Cannibal has succeeded, in the very best way. This is totally the first perfume a girl would get hooked on wearing - foody and sweet and fruity and innocent but just grown-up enough that a 13 year old reading Tiger Beat would think it was really cool. Straight out of the bottle, I get a sweet bubble-gum scent, probably the pear and candyfloss, with a juicy grapefruit-lemon-ginger smoothie. Underneath is a thick, rich cream scent that reminds me of coconut cream used for cooking, or a really decadent ice cream. It's that mellow, heavy cream note that is distinct from BPAL's milk note, for which I am thankful. It has very strong throw and good lasting power. The citrus-ginger tang and overall brightness of this scent makes me think of bottled sunshine. I am convinced now that the teenage cannibal is a valley girl. This is totally not the kind of scent that I would usually wear, but I like it so much I might hold on to it, just for those summery days when I'm feeling immature and goofy. It's not something I would wear to the office, but it would be a good scent for miniature golfing or hanging out at the mall with girlfriends or rollerblading near the beach. So what if I smell like bubblegum? I smell like really delicious bubblegum, and that's what matters.

Leo 2007. I will take out 1mL of BPAL from a bottle and dilute it in a 5mL roller bottle with an after-bath oil blend, so I can use it as a roll-on and slather it. Leo is one of those scents that stays strong, even when diluted, and I love it. I'm gone through two and half rollerbottles and my 5mL is half empty already.

Thank you, Angharad! I appreciate the reply. I feel like a jerk for using CCNow and Paypal, but I'll email the lab soon and see what's up.

'face palm' I'm an idiot. I was placing an order about a month ago, and using the website CCNow shopping cart, I thought "Oh! A paypal logo! I have money in my paypal account!" and promptly paid for my order with paypal using CCNow. Wondering if I should email the lab because I hadn't gotten a C'n'S yet, I went back to check the website for contact information, and checked the FAQ, and lo and behold, there are all kinds of disclaimers to NOT use CCNow when paying with paypal. I don't want to bother the nice labbies any more than is necessary. How do I go about fixing this in a way that minimizes my own stupidity, and the amount of work the lab has to do? Do I cancel the order through CCNow? Do I email the lab directly?

Banded Sea Snake is a lovely moss scent, and Danse Macabre was very mossy on me.

I just bought a bottle of this, aged one year, off of a forumite. In the bottle it smells strongly of BPALs sharp green tea note. On the skin, it's by far the most "medicinal" of all of the BPAL herbal blends I've tried. I immediately thought "herbal cough drops and Vick's VapoRub!" - with just a hint of syrupy, smoky Snake Oil vanilla that warms and gradually takes over. It's beautifully blended, but you can still discern individual notes. I expected this to have a strong, cold peppermint or wintermint note. Instead I get a very strong, musty horehound, just like horehound pastilles, and the pennyroyal note from BPAL's "Pain" without the sharpness of lavender. On its own, as a compliment to the horehound, the pennyroyal is very mellow and smells like the dried tea sachets. There's also a strong and bitter menthol note in the background, and a hint of fresh spearmint. That's my guess for the four mints, anyway. After a few minutes the Snake Oil really comes to the forefront, but stays creamy and light, and a sweet, oily bergamot creeps into the mix, while the four mints stay strong all the way through. There's a lingering bitter note in this too, that might just be the smoky note from snake oil and the green tea note coming together, that reminds me of an ashtray. It's not unpleasant, just unexpected, because from the all the herbal greenery and the fruity bergamot and the vanilla make me think this will turn into a sweet blend. It never does - there's something musty and earthy and ashen about it, underneath that delicious Snake oil and mint. I like it a lot. Six hours later it's still going strong in the scent locket and on my hair, but it's barely noticeable on skin. For those who like visual descriptions of scents, this makes me think of a cold, misty meadow early in the morning. It's a dark green, shifting scent. It also make think of old-fashioned apothecary shops - probably because of the horehound and menthol. Overall, a really unique blend, and one I never would have expected to find. Brilliant!

I second Madame Tracy. That was the queen of powdery old lady scents.

Voodoo Lily. It was this very regal, golden-purple floral that reminded me of my step-grandma and her large collection of fancy perfume bottles, flashy rhinestone jewelry, and couture handbags.

hmmm... I don't now of any with both of those notes, but I would recommend Spirit of the Komachi Cherry Tree. Green Phoenix has a papaya note, but i haven't tried it so I don't know how strong it is. As for tropical fruit notes, I think the BPAL guava note in 51 and Xanthe, the weeping clown is gorgeous. You might want to try one of those.

The peppery one I keep hearing about is La Mort Qui Danse. And this may be a little off topic, but I found Ogun to have a really wonderful, dry red pepper note. It's very fruity and fresh smelling, but the dry tobacco and pepper really give it a nice bite, and make it totally unisex.

I hope this is the right place to post this, as it's very similar to WidgetAlley's question. I placed an order with the lab last night. When I put the order through, I wrote down the total with shipping and what I had ordered in my ledger book. I order 1 lunacy, 1 salon, and 1 GC scent. This morning when I checked my email, I looked over the CCNOW confirmation message, and it listed the lunacy bottle, 2 of the GC scent, and no salon, with a completely different total. I've got no problem with the order - I don't mind having an extra bottle of the GC on hand to gift out, and I can always order the salon scent another time. But I am a little concerned that the shopping cart feature and order page are displaying one thing as my final order, and CCNOW is billing for another. I haven't seen much talk on the forum about this happening, so I doubt it's a glitch in the website. Could it be a problem with my cookie setting? I use Firefox on a windows box. I allow cookies but clear the private data cache daily. Has anyone else encountered this problem? edited to mention that after there has been an update, I sometimes have to refresh the page several time, so it probably has something to do with my browser or network settings.

Can I third Titania? It's gorgeous and adult and definitely a fairy-princess scent.

I second Drink Me. It turned out like pineapple upside-down cake on me. very sweet and buttery. Elegba seems to have a strong pineapple note for some people. It smelled like a pina colada to me. And Tzadikim Nistarim smells like ambrosia to me - pineapple and citrus with coconut and cream.

Ok, I'm way confused. In the bottle this is a crisp dark musk with leaves and woods and vanilla in the background and a hint of wine and evergreen...but not pine. On my skin, this is...Blood. Not real metallic blood, but BPAL blood accord, with cloves and vanilla musk and tons of Dragon's blood resin. I recognize the waxy, creamy note I always get from Dragon's blood. Now I amp the blood notes like nothing else but this is ridiculous. I get CLOVES DRAGON"S BLOOD VANILLA CLOVES DRAGON"S BLOOD VANILLA musk CLOVES DRAGON"S BLOOD VANILLA and something spicy that burns and tickles my nose but isn't immediately identifiable as cinnamon or cassia or the usual "firey" scents that cause me trouble. This is actually very similar to The Chilling Cellar on me, weirdly enough. It's not unpleasant by any means, just not what I was expecting. If it didn't smell so awesome in the bottle I'd think I got a mislabeled Hunter Moon. 'sigh' maybe if I age it it will be better on my skin. I sure hope so. I guess this will either be a swap or a strictly scent locket/hair scent

Something has happened to my skin chemistry in recent weeks that causes BPAL scents to stay pretty much the same throughout the whole drydown process. I really like this change and I hope it sticks around. Anyway. Yvaine was a scent i was really looking forward to. I've never been a fan of lavender in perfume or florals in general, but I loved the character, and I thought, if anyone pull it off, Beth could. I wasn't disapointed. Yvaine is very true to the description - cold and crystalline. The color it evokes is dark blue or indigo. I'm really curious what species of lavender was used, because unlike the usual biting, weedy astringency I get from lavender this is very clean and cool and ethereal. I want to say there's a hint of lilac in there somewhere, but I'm not sure. The magnolia is very gentle and just sort of rounds it out, and has that almost medicinal (but not unpleasant) scent I usually get from magnolias. This is a floral without any sweetness, mysterious and sparkling. At first it was super light and airy on my skin, which has been devouring BPAL lately never to be smelled again so I slathered it on my pulse points and hair hoping that some would survive, and totally forgot the awesome throw and staying power of lavender essential oil. I spilled a couple drops on the counter while I was doing this, and my partner came rushing in saying "what on earth is that? an air freshener or something? It's very floral...only...not? I can smell it from the opposite end of the house. Woops. So, yes, this does have immense throw and staying power, as I can testify that it was still very true and very pretty twelve hours later. Luckily the overwhelming scent of Yvaine dissapated quite a bit when I opened a window and cleaned up the spilled drops. Also, either I completely lack the ability to throw or amp scents anymore or Yvaine mellows out a bit on the drydown because my friends could only notice the scent when they came close to hug me, and everyone liked it. So all in all - a unique beauty, cold, feisty and totally lovable - just like Yvaine from Stardust.

Yep, I too, am mourning the fact that I didn't stock up on more than one bottle. The label is great - a pirate flag and the wedding date. very striking. in the bottle all I get is a hint of salt and citrus and something fresh. On the skin, I get lots and lots of fresh green palm leaves, fresh ocean breeze (no kidding!), salty air, balsam, dates, sun-warmed wood, a hint of ambergris, a touch of sparkling lime, and a really dreamy musk. after a long drydown this is fresh and green and citrusy while the woods and musk just kind of chill in the background. A perfectly unisex scent. Beautiful, complex, fresh, sexy.

Calliope, perhaps? It has lavender and thyme.

Dana' O Shee is a creamy sweet grain scent to try. Eden is also creamy and sweet, but completely different from Dana'O Shee. Both are worth a try. If you are looking specifically for the type of rice pudding with cinnamon in it, try these. The Chilling Cellar actually reminded me of rice pudding. It has a lovely spice note. Strangler Fig was a spicy vanilla on me. Tombstone in it's drydown phase might also work. (yeah, i know the creamy rice pudding thing was the last thing I expected from Tombstone, but there it was, and a lot of people get it) A lot of people get rice pudding like notes from Wolfsbane, which I think has the same cedar and maybe sassafras, like Tombstone. And of course, Egg'd Mailbox if you can find it. And possibly Egg Nog

This is such a rich, crisp Red Delicious apple. And the sugar...my gods, the sugar. I never was a fan of sugar or sweetness in BPAL scents but this stuff is incredible. Like dark caramel and fresh sugarcane. So complex, and so dark.