Torrain

In imp: lemon and grapefruit. Mostly grapefruit. On my skin, grapefruit with leather, and the lemon and white tea are coming out. Spritzily energetic. 5 min: a much softer scent. The amber and orchid have come out, and maybe a little kush as well—I couldn't tell. Overall it smells like grapefruit and amber, with a hint of tea and leather—and oh, *there's* the hint of kush. Right then. 10 min: Still mostly grapefruit and amber, with the leather (further enriched by kush?) and tea in the background. 15 min: white tea's getting a little stronger, coming out to match the grapefruit and amber. Leather in the background. Also, John says he likes it; not bad, although he's not sure how to describe it and it seems a little strange. 30, 45 min: amber and grapefruit with leather; white tea's still there, but not quite as strong. Like Tempest, it smells perfume-y. Unlike Tempest, it seems pretty close to androgynous. Pretty reserved and luxurious; floor-to-ceiling glass windows in a skyscaper, looking out across a glittering cityscape, plush overstuffed leather furniture. 1 hr, 1:30: grapefruit and leather with an amber base * yay.* Definitely hanging on to this one, and probably picking up more. G'bless the frimps that fortune favours us with. Love and coffee, Frances

In the imp: cold flowers. On my skin: cold white flowers, and the scent promptly gets much stronger. 5 min: lilies and something sweet. Unfortunately, by the time it's dried, the Ghost is a pale floral on me--and just a pale floral, nothing spicy or sweet or special. It's nice enough, but unremarkable, and doesn't move me the way other BPAL oils do. Swap pile. Love and coffee, Frances

In the imp, dark and smoky. Hits my skin and goes toasty sweet for a second, then dries out in a flash. Dark and faintly hot and gritty. 3 min: ...burnt honey? Burnt sugar and smoke with musk, maybe? There's a clearer note coming in... 6 min: that sweetness and... something refreshing. I'm looking at the reviews, and I don't think it's quite the vetivert someone mentioned. 8 min: vanilla? I mean, still that sweet almost gritty darkness, but I would *swear* that's vanilla. 10 min: okay. Clearing nose with coffee grounds. ...vanilla. Vanilla incense carried along on something dark and sweet. Musk in the background. 15 min: dark sweet musk; or sweet musk in the dark, whichever you prefer. Almost like black musk and tonka? 20 min: sweet musk in the smoky dark. 25 min: the sweetness is becoming a little more pronounced, but the overall effect is the same. 30 min: getting a little fainter, otherwise the same. There's a sweet refreshing note in there; some kind of sweet resin? If this sticks around, it's going on the bottle list. If not, I'll still hang onto and possibly pick up more imps. 1 hr: Hasn't faded much more, and still has a hint of that sweet resiny note that's rather refreshing. Still has dark and smoky vanilla^W tonka-like qualities. It's seeming more a cosy darkness than a sinister one, but the rest of the description stands. 1:45: faint sweet tonka, which sticks around; I've mostly lost the darker notes. Lovely while it lasts, and pleasant on the drydown. Love and coffee, Frances

In imp: starts out smelling sharp and acrid... like rubbing alcohol over dead grass. On my skin, it's acetone. Rapidly sweetening acetone with dried flowers. 5 min: grass and chlorine. Smells like a backyard swimming pool on a cold day. 15 min: rubbing alcohol with flowers in it. Not worried yet. Heard it would smellike acetone for the first fifteen minutes, anyway. 20 min: ...wow, fast change. Sweet grass and smoke. 30 min: smoky floral. 40 min: soapy floral with a hint of smoke. I feel this one will perhaps not be working on me. 50 min: soapy floral. 1:20: warm and soapy floral. I am unmoved. 2:00: soapy floral. Not my thing. Swap pile. Love and coffee, Frances

In the imp, this smells like vetiver and something musky/grimy—like bad chocolate, somehow. Not picking up any of the plants. It hits my skin and goes to a kind of fizzy soapy smell, some kind of country-scented industrial strength cleaner. I'm beginning to pick out the anise. 4 min: damp moss (which is a very nice smell) and heavy anise. Radical improvement. Hopefully this will keep getting better. 10-15 min: moss and anise and something soft and sweet. It smells like coconut, actually. Overall impression is currently “Get your licorice out of my Shanghai Tunnel.” 1 hr: baby powder with anise. Hell. Things I have learned: anise comes out very very strongly on my skin. A *hint* of it? Good grief. It's practically all I can smell. Love and coffee, Frances (who was hoping for something creepy. *sneef*)

In imp: pepper and what has to be passion flower, because I'm pretty sure that's not honeysuckle. On my skin, the pepper really amps (how on earth does pepper smell pink, anyway? I mean, it *does*, it's just kind of surprising.) and there's a refreshing floral—might be passion flower or might be passion flower with a little amber, not sure. 5 min: a very bright juicy smell. Still not getting much honeysuckle, which is all to the good for me. 10 min: amber and passion flower. Possibly very slightly peppered passion flower. Warm and outgoing; makes me think of Lush (the store, not anything in particular). 15 min: amber, and passion flower that would like you to know it's a sweet and juicy smell. 30 min: oh, good, the amber and passion flower have come to an accord. Passion flower lays claim to two-thirds of the territory, and has a fling with pepper, while amber sits sedately back and lays wonderful warm groundwork. Has hit its groove and sticks around in this vein for at least another hour. 3:25:passion flower's faded; now getting amber with a little pepper. Definitely worth keeping around. Love and coffee, Frances

In decant: sweet tea and thick milk. On my skin, it's moss and milk. Hint of tobacco creeping in. Eeep. I begin to worry. 7 min: moss and tobacco in the rain. 11 min: same, although the moss appears to be sprouting into something more enthusiastically green. I'm imagining carrot-tops. 15 min: Definitely greener. This smells like putting on an old coat and going out into the garden on a not-too-cold day to putter around in the rain. (With condensed milk somewhere in the picture.) It's like a damper cosily-shabby sibling to The Apothecary. 30 min: sweet thick milk and tobacco. I've lost the green... and it stays gone through to the hours mark, at least. Drat. I was really having hopes there in its adolescence for a bit. Oh, Shads. I tried you twice, I really hoped... Couldn't you've had a *little* more mildew? *sigh* 1:30: it's mellowed down to sweetish milk and tea. Nicer than it was half an hour ago, not nearly as interesting as it was at fifteen minutes. Stays like that until at least the three hour mark. Not really something I could see myself wearing, although I *might* put it in an oil warmer if I was in a very specific mood. Love and coffee, Franecs

In decant: bitingly sweet berry. On my skin: the carnation and amber come out, making it a much richer softer scent. 5 min: Carnation, amber, and a little musk; rich soft smell with a little twinge of spice at the edge. 10 min: sweet, soft, and a weird impression of heat. Maybe one of the spices was cinnamon? Picking up a little berry over amber, musk and the flowers. 15 min: amber and musk, and something sweet and hot—I definitely think it's cinnamon, and I guess the sweetness is heliotrope. Bright and warm, like a street party on a summer night with strings of lights draping through the air. 30 min: sweet berries and musk over amber. Hint of spice wafting overtop (I think the fact that the oil's actually warm on my skin my have had me overestimating how much it smelt like cinnamon). Not a really complex scent, and it seems to be cooling a bit, but pleasant enough. I'm getting a hint of wax out of somewhere, though. 45 min: sweet berries, wax, and musky amber. Smells like the aforementioned street party, lit with candles on tables rather than strings of lights. Still a warm scent, though not as bright as before, and the musk combined with the impression of darkness is giving it a rather creepily intimate overtone. 1 hr: berry-scented wax with musky amber. I really really like the musky amber, but the wax element is kind of off-putting. I don't mind the berries—they add a lovely dark red spicy note to the whole thing—but they don't combine well with the wax. S'yeah. It's a perfectly good warm dark sexy smell if you can just get past the mental image of heavily scented candles. 1:40: sweet, warm, and sexy; berries and amber and musk. I've lost the wax note, and am happy for it. It's gone from evoking the lit party on the street outside to the dimly candlelit room inside a quiet building, with just you and one other person whose face (whose mask?) you can't quite make out in the dim light. Continues that way into the 2-hour mark. Why oh why do I hardly ever fall this hard for a scent that's currently in the Lab's general catalogue? Love and coffee, Frances

In decant: lemon candy! With a bit of bite from the lemongrass. On my skin, the orange blossom comes out fast and pretty thick. 5 min: Damn, that orange blossom means business. I'm getting a little lemongrass on the side, and maybe a hint of honey. 10 min: still the orange blossom and the side of lemongrass. Not being a huge fan ATM—the orange blossom is definitely floral (and not soapy or baby-powdery at all), but on me it's coming out as a very thick, heavy floral indeed, with a faint impression of orange skin. Will see how this settles out. 15 min: same. 30 min, 40 min: the lemongrass is rallying a little, but it's still mostly a heavy floral. Faint echoes of playdough. Still holding out faint hope. 1 hr: Plastic orange blossom with scent sprayed on, in a room where lemongrass was dropped on the floor. 1:45: plastic orange blossoms, with a touch of honey. I don't think this one's gonna work. 2:40: lemongrass and a little honey on plastic orange blossoms. Phoo. It's a shame, because all the other notes--tea and sugar and lemongrass and honey, and even mint-that-never-sticks-around--are ones I love and will wear for hours. But the orange blossom just pounded them all into the dirt. Love and coffee, Frances

In the imp: lemon and vetiver. On my skin, something pinched and dry starts coming out: I'm pretty sure that's the fougere, with a hint of sage. Frankincense blossoming... (I love the first two minutes of an oil on my skin, when everything's shifting around and settling down.) Kind of dry and lemony. 5 min: powdery sage and lemon. Not baby powder, but powdery-dry, almost dusty. 10 min: same. There's a kind of blasted sweet note creeping in at the edges, and a bit of resin—I guess that's the labdanum. Still a very dry scent, and still living up to its description. 15 min: the frankincense is coming out a little, and the scent as a whole is softening very slightly. The sage is getting stronger, and between that and the frankincense and the labdanum's sweet note, it's turning into a more pleasant smell. Still not cosy at all, but at least pretty enough to wear when I'm not looking for a specific mood. 30 min: Frankincense/sandalwood with the dry resin of labdanum and a fainter hint of sage. I might be getting the faintest hint of lemon in the background, behind a little of the fougere. 45 min: Dry frankincense and sage with a little labdanum. Resiny-dusty and dry, though if this is any kind of dark on me, it's the darkness you get when you step into a building after the sundazzle of high noon. 1 hr: same, although I think the labdanum's coming out as the time passes. Call if labdanum with frankincense for a little thickness and sage to lift the scent a little. 1:20: nah, looks like the prominence of labdanum just there was a fluke. Back to the 45 minute description. Nice. 2:11: Frankincense and sandalwood. 3 hr: frankincense, rather faint. Fades a little quickly on me, but I like it quite well. It's not a warm scent, but it's not quite as white, green, or water-crisp as a lot of the cool scents that I like, and the variety is pleasant. Love and coffee, Frances

On my skin, smoke and cognac starts coming out. 2 min: hint of dry soft musk—I think it's being padded by the cotton. Still the cognac, dry and now sweeter... 8 min: cognac and cotton and musk. Somehow it's a very cosy white scent; I think it's the cotton that's producing this impression. Makes me think of lying in a warm bed with your love when it's a a cold and sunlit winter's day outside, knowing that despite the recent passing (what? It *is* a mourning scent) you have each other and being secure in that. Oh bloody hell, this kind of image/setting evocation usually means that I'm going to go hunting down bottles on eBay... 45 min: sweet and musky, with a solid soft backnote of cotton vanilla... Oh, it smells good. About an hour in, it's solidly cream-cotton, with warm and spice from the musk, vanilla, and cognac. I'm not really getting much tobacco or incense, but that's okay. Continues to be lovely for hours. (Since testing, a very kind friend sent me her empty bottle and a decant to start filling it with. This scent is *really* lovely; I'm kicking myself for not grabbing a bottle when I had the chance.) Love and coffee, Frances

In imp: wow, that's shifting a lot. Smells like sweet flowers, and peppermint tea. Kinda. In all directions. On my skin, it's minty. Oh, that never lasts. And... something like hay. And earth. And-- --good grief, I'm flashbacking to a stable. A stable where someone's just put something green and somewhat minty out for a treat for the horses. 2 min: oh, thank goodness. A touch of the floral coming back. That scent was just getting weird. 5 min: Floral, with a minty-spicy overtone. Not really picking up the sandalwood—maybe a hint in the background. 10 min: Mint and florals—not rich, but strong (I want to call them “white”, but that sounds too delicate). 15 min: florals over a solid base of sandalwood. 30 min: think layers of warm florals over sandalwood; somehow refreshing, rather than relaxing. Odd. 1 hr: very faint sandalwood. Hmh. Lasts hours, pleasant enough, but I end up getting a faint plastic-y undertone and it doesn't smell good, just okay. Swappable, I think. Love and coffee, Frances

In the decant: tart white plants and florals. On my skin: the same, but sweeter. Florals—specifically lavender—start coming out. 1 min: oh do not give me baby powder. 5 min: lavender baby powder and vetiver. 8 min: tart and sweet. Lavender baby powder's tapered off, and there's a hint of something sweet—blackberry or maybe tonka—with the vetiver. 1 hr: rather faint. It's a light purple floral; there's something white and dusty in there, and a hint of berry sweetness. 2 hr: a faintly warm pale purple and white floral, with something sweet in the background 7 hrs: Wow. Still there. Faint and sweet—I think it's the tonka. This stuff lasts like mad. Will try again with more oil, see if the scent sticks around a little more strongly or develops more texture. Love and coffee, Frances

In imp: egh. Much too strong. On my skin: gardenia. Possibly with gladiola. Please god that mellows soon. 5 min: mellowed. Getting some of the white tea, and either amber or patchouli warming it; I think it's the amber. Still something floral as a background note; will give it a little longer to calm down. 20 min: flowers are rallying: rose, clean and sweet, with amber and patchouli warming it. Not sure if I've lost the white tea or not. Still, a mad improvement over the imp and the first two minutes. 40 min: the flowers appear to have disappeared. There is the faintest scent of amber and patchouli. I'm very confused. Perhaps I insulted it, and it packed its bags and snuck off while I wasn't looking? 1 hr 25: hmh. Very faint, but it smells sweet and soft (my guess is rose and amber) and I'm getting a hint of white tea. Perhaps it's rallying. 2 hr 20: very faint rose and white tea. At three hours, faint rose, with even fainter hint of white tea. At six hours, very faint roses. It's nice to have a rose scent that doesn't go to floral soap on me, and I always like white tea. Bit of a rough introduction, but it's worth hanging onto as a pleasant light floral scent. Love and coffee, Frances

On my skin, it's peppery-sweet, turning rapidly to a kind of peppery that's not cool, exactly, but refreshing. Not quite floral... I think it's the Spanish moss and patchouli along with the spice of pepper and clove. 10 min: Primarily pepper and Spanish moss, with hints of vanilla and clove. This is turning out really well. 35 min: Spanish moss and vanilla with red pepper. It's refreshing and sweet and spicy all at once. I may need to pick some up. Looking back on this review, I feel I have not properly emphasized exactly how good the Spanish moss and vanilla combination is. It's warm and energetic and cosy, and I'm going to go looking for other things that have that combination purely on the strength of this oil. 1 hr 20: Mostly the moss and vanilla; the pepper's faded back a bit, and the smell as a whole has gotten fainter. Still, I definitely want to start picking up more of this. 2:45 quite faint, mostly vanilla. Still pleasant, though I wish the other notes had lasted longer. 5 hours: vanilla still present, unsurprisingly. Love and coffee, Frances

In the imp, dark and... oceany. Okay. On my skin, though, I completely lose the dark. 2 min: Hmh. Smells like ocean breeze air freshener. This isn't a bad thing, but I hope it develops somehow. 5 min: hint of a strong white floral. Oh please don't go to floral air freshener on me. Please please please. 10 min: somewhat floral ocean spray. The kind that comes in a white can with a logo of a pale blue wave. 20 min: same. 35 min: kind of losing the ocean vibe, and getting pure floral air freshener. Dammit, I am having *no* luck lately. 1 hr: floral soap?? Oh well. I have no idea what gave it that lovely dark smell in the imp, but it clearly doesn't like my skin. 1.5 hr: Huh. It's come around somewhat; a pale marine-y floral. Nicer than it was. Still don't think I'll keep it; I was so hoping to get something marine and dark, and this is very bright and sprightly. Love and coffee, Frances

In the imp, smells like tart musk. On my skin, orchid promptly starts coming out; it's orchid and juniper now. 1 min: juniper and bergamot, the orchid's backing off and the patchouli's coming out. The musk is sitting somewhere in the background, which isn't really unusual; white musk takes a while to come out on me. 3 min: juniper and bergamot, still--it's a really odd sort of *arch* scent--with sweet patchouli overtop. It's complex, but I'm not sure I like it. Mind you, only three minutes in, will see how it develops. 10 min: juniper and patchouli, and it's *not* working. It's a dry sharp acerbic scent with a hint of sweet--it's like biting into an underripe banana from a tree that's been sprayed with pesticide. 1 hr (I took a break to make dinner, and left it on because sometimes the scents *do* develop in radically surprising ways): mellowed. It's juniper and patchouli, and it smells like furniture polish. Not for me. Love and coffee, Frances

On my skin: peach and pear! Quickly getting a slight floral hint. 4 min: pale and somehow crunchy florals. Guessing that's the sweet pea, or the moonflower, or the snapdragon. ...and then it stayed that way for over two hours. It's nice enough, but nothing special, and I've been spoilt by BPAL. I usually get more interaction from a scent; keeping track of how they develop is part of the fun of trying them out. Ended up swapping it to a friend for something else I wanted to try out (Iambe, actually). Love and coffee, Frances

In bottle: dim and sharp and faintly sweet. On my skin: oh god. It smells like the paint thinner my dad used to use painting miniature soldiers. I am not going to cry. 5 min: woody with an acerbic sweetness, if that makes any sense. 15 min: sweet and somewhat dusty. It's a pale packed sort of sweetness, almost powdery—like vanilla sugar would smell on me if it went all dusty the way the chocolate note does. 30 min: fading pretty fast. Pale and sweet. I can't pick out any wood. 45 min: Faint, smells the same. 1 hr: Did I mention faint? It's an okay sweet smell, but I think I'd need to slather to get it, and I'm really kind of disappointed that I didn't get any of the lovely sharp or dark notes that were there for the first five minutes—this barely even has the body to be called vanilla. Plus the mental associations with the way the oil smells in the imp are just a little rough on me. A/y, it continues this way for hours. Passed it on to a friend. Love and coffee, Frances

A plant of true arcane power, mandrake has been used in a multitude of ways by witches, magicians and thaumaturgists for eons to many, many vastly different ends. Whole pieces are carried for protection, or are used in poppet magick. Ground herb can be utilized in spells for money, lust or defense. The lore of the mandrake does not limit it to magickal use. The root was chewed as a simple anasthesia, and it has been widely employed as a sleep drug. *sigh* On my skin: forty minutes of pencil shavings. Then another half-hour of pencil shavings. After about an hour and a half, it gets a faintly metallic tone, like the pencil sharpener producing those pencil shavings. At 3 hours, it's woody and acridly dry. I so wanted this to work on me. Sent it off to a better home, in a box with "Goe, and catche a falling starre,/Get with child a mandrake roote..." on the lid and a small sketch of the Mandrake from the 1485 Herbarius on the side. Love and coffee, Frances

In imp: vetiver and black musk, I think. I don't know about ajowan or opoponax, so this is going to be an interesting one. On my skin, it's more refreshing—vetiver?—and something kind of licoricey-sweet starts popping up almost immediately. 5 min: having looked up ajowan, and seen its connections to dill, caraway, and cumin, I am guessing that's the scent I'm getting (maybe with a little tamarind). The refreshing impression has stepped back into the background a bit; I think that's the opoponax, not vetiver. I'm still getting a sweet note in with the spice, and I'm guessing that's the mimosa. ...you know, this might not have been the smartest thing to test when I still have my curry lunch on the desk beside me. 15 min: It's lovely--cool, airy-light, black, and refreshing, like a midnight sky. There's a hint of heat in there that grounds it, keeps it from just being a pretty scent that doesn't have anything to do with me; for some reason, I'm getting the mental image of sheared licorice. 30 min: it's traded coolness for warmth; the black musk seems to be coming out, but very decorously. Still a black and airy scent—it really is evoking Zann's garrett and the view out the window, at least for me. 45 min: oh I love this. Have I mentioned that I love this? It's delicate and black and fresh and faintly warm in a way that's just a little too sharp to be cosy-- --good god. It's Edward Gorey. This oil is Edward Gorey. 1:15: continuing in its lovely caraway-sweet darkness. 1:45 same. It starts fading after perhaps two and a half or three hours, and after about six hours, it's faint and very sweet; pure mimosa, I think. I wish it lasted a little longer, but I'm really really happy with this.

In bottle: a chill and peachy floral. On skin: promptly warms up; I think that's the amber and a little very pale musk coming out. 3 min: crisp and warm, like flowers with stiff thick stalks and juicy insides. I don't know enough of these scents to pick out precisely which ones are coming out; call it a pale amber floral with cool watery notes in the background? 5 min: more crisp, less warm. Still much the same. I can see how this evokes shoggoths--some pale clear and shifting jelly, surrounded above by white landscapes under Antarctic sun, and perhaps water running secretly beneath the ice. It's not a *cold* scent, just a bright and pale one, cool and self-contained and remote. (Honestly, this is what I'd expect from the description of Lady of Shalott.) 10 min: pale florals (with amber?), with an undertone of something I can't quite smell--I keep imagining glass. It reminds me a lot of Kataniya, how there's a "space" in the scent where my nose hardly picks up anything but my mind is *sure* of exactly what's there. In Kataniya, it's hot metal; here, it's glass with a thin puddle of clear water overtop. Like looking at a fountain installation where blossoms are strewn across glass that has a very fine stream of pure clear water running silently overtop, keeping them fresh and cool. 20 min: same, although the impression of glass has faded a bit. I think I might be picking up a *faint* tease of lime. 30 min: pale cool floral, slightly warmed by ambery musk. 1 hr: pale cool floral, with slightly spicy (?? maybe the lime doing something odd?) musk in the background. 1.5 hours: warmed up nicely to a pale golden floral. There's an odd hint of something cold-hot running through it, like the spice burn you'd get biting into cold food. (Shoggoths dissolving victims in acid, yesssssss...) I like it very much. Sadly, it makes my husband sneeze, so I'll be keeping it for days when we aren't going to see each other. Love and coffee, Frances

Ginger and jasmine comes right out—oddly, getting an impression like a particularly lovely candy/liqueur filling for a chocolate. Not cloying, but definitely sweet. ~3 min: vanilla coming out, and beating back the jasmine—more ginger vanilla. (A brief note: the mix keeps reminding me of coconut. Like the inside of a Bounty bar.) 10 min: a bit of apricot coming out, I think. Given that this is me, the vanilla's coming out pretty clearly; it's kept from being too mellow-sweet by the ginger. Hoping that faint trace of apricot doesn't go bad like it did in March Hare. 30 min: vanilla and apricot, lovely and warm. 1.5 hrs: Same. Nice. Keeper, I think. Doesn't have the ...archness? ...sharpness? I'd expect from a siren, but still lovely. Love and coffee, Frances

On my skin: tea leaf and maybe a hint of ginger. The moss starts coming out, as does something soapy... seriously, about a minute in, it's turned to liquid handsoap. Possibly Ivory. 5 min: The sweetness of the fig is coming out, and there's a faint hint of green in the background (couldn't tell you if it was grass or herbs). It's not a bad small, overall--very light. Evokes mental images of standing at the sink in a wooden shed and lathering your hands clean while looking out the window at a clear warm day. 20 min: Slightly more herby, not as sweet, still soapy. The pleasant summery impression continues through until about the two-hour mark... 2 hrs: The ginger (and possibly tea leaf) is coming out, and the soap has all but faded. Still a clean scent, but now warm and spicy rather than light and green. Definitely like this: it's a clean scent without being either solitary green or pale and crisp (both of which I like, but it's nice to get a change of pace). Love and coffee, Frances

Lemony jasmine/honeysuckle. On my wrist, it's pure honeysuckle, with possibly the faintest trace of lemon drowning under there somewhere. 15 min: honeysuckle's fading a bit; the jasmine is getting somewhat noticeable. 25 min: jasmine and honeysuckle. Not getting anything else. It stays purely the same through the next hour, with the only change being that it fades to something nearly indiscernable. I guess my skin just never gave it anything to hang onto. Love and coffee, Frances