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Showing results for tags 'Yule 2013'.
Found 85 results
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Dusted with mineral-rich salts dredged from the foetid depths of the Nameless Sea! In The Bottle: Wow. Straight outta the bottle I'm indeed getting: cookies. caramel. sea salt. Wet On Skin: The same. It's like the 2012 Sugar Cookie plus salted caramel. Dry Down: In the dry down, a touch of the 'depths of the Nameless Sea' have emerged- usually aqua and water notes go all Mr Clean on me and it's a bad scene, but the foodie elements of this scent seem to be keeping it this side of just briny, which is going pretty well, actually. In All: Low to medium throw, I didn't put a ton on this time and I might continue to be cautious until I see how that briny note plays out over the course of an entire day. It seems to mellow pretty quickly, so there may be no issue. but if you tend to be on the fence with water notes, I'll proceed- but with caution.
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Winter Stars I went out at night alone; The young blood flowing beyond the sea Seemed to have drenched my spirit’s wings— I bore my sorrow heavily. But when I lifted up my head From shadows shaken on the snow, I saw Orion in the east Burn steadily as long ago. From windows in my father’s house, Dreaming my dreams on winter nights, I watched Orion as a girl Above another city’s lights. Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too, The world’s heart breaks beneath its wars, All things are changed, save in the east The faithful beauty of the stars. - Sara Teasdale Dreaming my dreams on winter nights: starry blue musk with mugwort, white mandarin, rockrose, and snow. In the bottle: The blue musk really stands out to me with a little bit of mugwort. Wet: Blue musk (it really DOES seem blue) and mugwort, with just a hint of rockrose and snow. Drydown: The blue musk stays the predominante scent. This is a very interesting scent and I've got nothing like it in my collection. Definitely will keep my bottle to see how it ages.
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Thick brown ale and aged port with cinnamon, black clove, lemon zest, allspice, cardamom, ginger, and brown sugar. So I didn't buy a bottle of Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Pyre last year, but this year I can't get enough of my decant and have been on a wild hunt. When Wassail appeared I bought a blind bottle immediately, hoping it would fill that warm, spicy, wintry comfort void. And it does! It definitely does. I definitely smell the ale and port, but it doesn't make my house smell like alcohol or anything. More like if you dumped a bunch of flat but not gross beer down the sink, that kind of lingering smell - but in a good way. I'm making this sound gross but it's really nice! I've been utterly dousing my living room furniture. The spices are very present as well, and it provides just the snuggly feel I was looking for. For those of you who hoard squirts of The Inn, this in no way smells like The Inn, but you might want to try it for that same effect of warm, sweet comfort that is foody and yet not foody. I might need a backup of this one.
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I'm all gone! Gingerbread with dried roses, rose leaf, Spanish moss, oakmoss and deep brown earth. This arrived frozen, under a foot of snow on my porch, and this was the first bottle I tried. In the bottle, I get dense moist gingerbread. I think the earth element really intensifies that aspect of chewy depth. Wet, a blast of foody ginger and faint rose, more like a wisp of rosehip, with the dried vitamin c tang that I love. The moss and dirt make me want to eat my arm. I AM SO IN LOVE. Dry, the ginger sticks around for hours on me, with the tang of rose getting softer and the earth elements taking the foreground. I wore this to bed and it stuck around till morning. The throw is pretty subtle, which I like. It is like a ginger rose cloud,sating my garden itch when the snow is piling on. This blend is an instant top ten for me. I love Shub best of the entire general catalog, so if you like that, do not miss this.
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The perfect vanilla mint. Wow, the description on this is spot-on. Vanilla mint! Rather light and fresh. Doesn't stick around long. Must try this on my sheets!
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Sado-masochistic holiday cheer: whip leather, cardamom, patchouli and bourbon. This complements the Spanked perfume and candle that I own. Gorgeous leather meets cardamon to make this a warm, red scent -- it conjures images of a newly spanked bottom. The patchouli and bourbon notes are on the edges of the scent, curious onlookers to the scene they just witnessed. This is the perfect spray for any room, though perhaps it is most fitting in the dungeon.
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The Snow-Shoe Goddess, Giantess, the Norse embodiment of winter. Frost-rimed winter berries, crisp pine needle, and a slush of bright snowy notes. This is one of the most beautiful things that I have ever had the pleasure to smell. Truly, they have encapsulated winter in this one fragrance. I don't know what the snowy notes are, but they are sparking and glittering throughout this icy-white/pale blue fragrance. It actually smells like SNOW. Pine is in the forefront, of course -- an evergreen forest, branches heavy with snow. There are hints of other evergreens that I cannot quite name -- spruce perhaps? The berries may account for the slight hint of warmth I get as an afterthought...bittersweet, frozen berries. Perhaps bayberry? This is absolutely an outdoor winter fragrance -- you can practically see the swirl of snowflakes escape from the bottle when you open it. One of my absolute favorite fragrances ever, and I only just opened it today! Pine/wood scents never change on my skin, but it has been going strong for a couple of hours now and just getting more and more beautiful, like a candle has been burning and it just strengthens as it warms. I hope I can get more when I run out!!
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Oh dear! I'm a quarter gone! Gingerbread and exotic Indonesian oils sugared with vanilla. Yay! The Yules of 2013 have begun!! I will start with my most anticipated one!! From the bottle: spicy warm gingerbread, yummy!! First applied on skin: I smell like gingerbread and warm cinnamon. A comforting, baked cinnamon, not the scary overly strong cinnamon that my skin can amp badly like Saw Scaled Viper. But no Snake Oil yet... After about 20 minutes: OMG I think I am in love.... Snake Oil is coming through and mixed with gingerbread it is simply AMAZING!!! I need to buy more bottles of this... like right now!! Verdict: When this scent was announced I was so excited! I even had mentioned in the Yule Stalking thread that I was hoping for a 'Snakes in the Gingerbread House' type scent! This scent combines two of my favorites into one and I am in heaven.... I never knew one could smell like a sexy gingerbread house, but it is possible!! If you like Gingerbread, if you Love Snake Oil, all I can say is HORDE THIS!! You'll be wanting more than one bottle, I swear!!
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Fainting and gasping, I looked at that unhallowed Erebus of titan toadstools, leprous fire, and slimy water, and saw the cloaked throngs forming a semicircle around the blazing pillar. It was the Yule-rite, older than man and fated to survive him; the primal rite of the solstice and of spring's promise beyond the snows; the rite of fire and evergreen, light and music. And in the Stygian grotto I saw them do the rite, and adore the sick pillar of flame, and throw into the water handfuls gouged out of the viscous vegetation which glittered green in the chlorotic glare. I saw this, and I saw something amorphously squatted far away from the light, piping noisomely on a flute; and as the thing piped I thought I heard noxious muffled flutterings in the foetid darkness where I could not see. But what frightened me most was that flaming column; spouting volcanically from depths profound and inconceivable, casting no shadows as healthy flame should, and coating the nitrous stone above with a nasty, venomous verdigris. For in all that seething combustion no warmth lay, but only the clamminess of death and corruption. Viscous vegetation, slimy water, suffocating incense: death cap and false morel with green frankincense, black copal, Spanish moss, celery seed, and lime rind over stagnant black liquid and decaying kelp. In the Bottle: This smells like putrid, decaying plant matter, like damp, rotting woods and leaves and mushrooms and all the things of the forest. I am not sure I am brave enough to skin test this. D: Okay it took me all day to work up to it, but here you go. Wet on skin: Oh God, gross, get it off!! Very green and rot-y smelling with a sickening sweet undertone. D: D: D: Dry: Sharp, putrid narcissus, like rotting narcissus flowers in the woods where some unholy ritual has been done. Unless the Elder Gods tell me to keep this scent, it will be finding a new home.
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I was far from home, and the spell of the eastern sea was upon me. In the twilight I heard it pounding on the rocks, and I knew it lay just over the hill where the twisting willows writhed against the clearing sky and the first stars of evening. And because my fathers had called me to the old town beyond, I pushed on through the shallow, new-fallen snow along the road that soared lonely up to where Aldebaran twinkled among the trees; on toward the very ancient town I had never seen but often dreamed of. Sea salt, kelp, and twisting willows. In the bottle: Beautiful aquatics and something just a little foody-woody. Wet: Gorgeous, salty aquatic! The foodieness turned mostly into a spicy wood. Drydown: This stays salty aquatic on me, it's really lovely but that little foodie note is just a tad disappointing for me, I will have to see if it ages out, because if it does this will be my perfect aquatic!
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Presently the old man drew back his hood and pointed to the family resemblance in his face, but I only shuddered, because I was sure that the face was merely a devilish waxen mask. The flopping animals were now scratching restlessly at the lichens, and I saw that the old man was nearly as restless himself. When one of the things began to waddle and edge away, he turned quickly to stop it; so that the suddenness of his motion dislodged the waxen mask from what should have been his head. And then, because that nightmare's position barred me from the stone staircase down which we had come, I flung myself into the oily underground river that bubbled somewhere to the caves of the sea; flung myself into that putrescent juice of earth's inner horrors before the madness of my screams could bring down upon me all the charnel legions these pest-gulfs might conceal. Perfect and absolute mental collapse: black pomegranate and vetiver with rose otto, rue, red patchouli, petitgrain, myrrh, and cacao absolute. In the bottle: VETIVER! And cocoa. It reminds me of Hershey's easter eggs, oddly. The kind that have the candy shell. Wet: Vetiver and cocoa still. I never thought the combination of those would go together but it's pretty interesting and works well. I wouldn't call this foodie either. Dry: Vetiver. This might as well be SN vetiver on me, I don't get much else at all. Still pretty okay though!
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Mine were an old people, and were old even when this land was settled three hundred years before. And they were strange, because they had come as dark furtive folk from opiate southern gardens of orchids, and spoken another tongue before they learnt the tongue of the blue-eyed fishers. And now they were scattered, and shared only the rituals of mysteries that none living could understand. I was the only one who came back that night to the old fishing town as legend bade, for only the poor and the lonely remember. Memories of alien gardens that crawl with wide swaths of vivid, soporific blossoms: gargantuan orchids, blood-purple poppies, and monstrous black peonies. At first sniff, something repulses me a little, like rotting flowers, but it's kind of... evocative... What was I expecting anyway from a blend that suggests "alien gardens"? However, the initial iffy scent burns off fairly quickly, and all is left is a soft, dark floral scent that stays quite close to the skin. It seems like a COLD dark scent - so that's kind of fun in a way. In fact, the more I think about it, and sniff my wrist, the more I like this - I feel it's one of those scents that could grow on me, especially if I let it settle for a while. I'm actually kind of glad to have a bottle, because it's fairly unique and a nice addition to the BPAL collection :-) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars for now.
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From a 13th century recipe plundered from the vaults of the Zadok family's cellars! In The Bottle: Oh man. My mouth *actually* watered. Even with the most foodie food scent, that NEVER happens. But this scent has tricked my face into thinking there is delicious cranberry juice hidden inside this tiny perfume bottle! Wet On Skin: Okay. It's behaving more like a foodie *perfume* than food now. Still delicious, but the cider part is making it more of a fragrance than something to eat. Dry Down: This is a really nice holiday scent. I feel really excited to have this in time for all the festivities this month! It's a perfect blend of raw fresh apple cider and cranberries. It's not a 'hard' cider, there's no ferment or boozy note in here and I find I'm actually glad for it. In All: The lower end of the medium-throw spectrum, this scent likes to cling and stay close to the skin. In addition to being a must-have for foodies, I would say this is a good addition to the collections of anyone looking for a solid holiday scent to wear to daytime parties and also dinners with friends and family all through the season. I can also see this being a great scent to diffuse into a room with an oil burner. Total keeper!
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It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind. It was the Yuletide, and I had come at last to the ancient sea town where my people had dwelt and kept festival in the elder time when festival was forbidden; where also they had commanded their sons to keep festival once every century, that the memory of primal secrets might not be forgotten. Corrupt incense twinging through the huddled roofs of Kingsport on winter solstice night. To my nose, this has a salty, almost cold aquatic note to it, with ominous incense running through it. While it does turn a bit soap-like on my skin, it is not an unpleasant scent. Instead, it is strangely reminiscent of a perfume I used to wear a long time ago, but it has a darker edge to it. This perfume almost seems to have up a forlorn, secretive energy to it: it has not forgotten the rituals from elder times.
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The man who had brought me now squirmed to a point directly beside the hideous flame, and made stiff ceremonial motions to the semicircle he faced. At certain stages of the ritual they did grovelling obeisance, especially when he held above his head that abhorrent Necronomicon he had taken with him; and I shared all the obeisances because I had been summoned to this festival by the writings of my forefathers. Then the old man made a signal to the half-seen flute-player in the darkness, which player thereupon changed its feeble drone to a scarce louder drone in another key; precipitating as it did so a horror unthinkable and unexpected. At this horror I sank nearly to the lichened earth, transfixed with a dread not of this nor any world, but only of the mad spaces between the stars. The mad spaces between the stars: oakmoss, myrrh, vetiver, rectified cade, ravinsara, wild verbena, and neroli. In the bottle: Vetiver and verbena with an undertone of the juniper cade. Very interesting. Wet: Mostly lemony verbena, actually very pleasant without being pledge. I get a hint of the neroli and the vetiver stays low in the background. This is a very dark oil in physical color! Dry: Much the same as wet, but maybe with a hint of the oakmoss. Really a very interesting scent, glad to have a bottle.
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We went out into the moonless and tortuous network of that incredibly ancient town; went out as the lights in the curtained windows disappeared one by one, and the Dog Star leered at the throng of cowled, cloaked figures that poured silently from every doorway and formed monstrous processions up this street and that, past the creaking signs and antediluvian gables, the thatched roofs and diamond-paned windows; threading precipitous lanes where decaying houses overlapped and crumbled together, gliding across open courts and churchyards where the bobbing lanthorns made eldritch drunken constellations. Dizzying, swirling, starry madness: eucalyptus sap, white tea leaf, and ambergris foam. In the bottle: Ooooh. This is LOVELY, it brings to mind an aquatic Herbert West for me. Oooh! Wet: Strong tea with a hint of reanimation agent. This is a seriously lovely scent, I am so surprised! Dry: definitely Herbert West and tea. This is a multibottle for us!
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There was an open space around the church; partly a churchyard with spectral shafts, and partly a half-paved square swept nearly bare of snow by the wind, and lined with unwholesomely archaic houses having peaked roofs and overhanging gables. Death-fires danced over the tombs, revealing gruesome vistas, though queerly failing to cast any shadows. Past the churchyard, where there were no houses, I could see over the hill's summit and watch the glimmer of stars on the harbour, though the town was invisible in the dark. Only once in a while a lanthorn bobbed horribly through serpentine alleys on its way to overtake the throng that was now slipping speechlessly into the church. I waited till the crowd had oozed into the black doorway, and till all the stragglers had followed. The old man was pulling at my sleeve, but I was determined to be the last. Then I finally went, the sinister man and the old spinning woman before me. Crossing the threshold into that swarming temple of unknown darkness, I turned once to look at the outside world as the churchyard phosphorescence cast a sickly glow on the hill-top pavement. And as I did so I shuddered. For though the wind had not left much snow, a few patches did remain on the path near the door; and in that fleeting backward look it seemed to my troubled eyes that they bore no mark of passing feet, not even mine. Icicles and stone illuminated by unholy fire. In the bottle: Snow and ice, as portrayed by camphor and mint. Wet: Minty camphor and a bit of something dusty and stale, like crumbling gravestones. Dry: Light, pale mint, with still just that hint of dustiness. I didn't get any fire at all.
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Beside the road at its crest a still higher summit rose, bleak and windswept, and I saw that it was a burying-ground where black gravestones stuck ghoulishly through the snow like the decayed fingernails of a gigantic corpse. The printless road was very lonely, and sometimes I thought I heard a distant horrible creaking as of a gibbet in the wind. They had hanged four kinsmen of mine for witchcraft in 1692, but I did not know just where. Despair and desolation in a potter's field: black soil and memories of screams on the pyre. In the bottle: a hint of dirt, a bit of snow. Wet: Dirt and vetiver alternating with that burned meat smell that's in Gore-Shock. Ick. Dry: No longer smells like meat... mostly. It's actually fairly pleasant now. Not sure if I'd want a second bottle, though.
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In dramatic contrast to the soft innocence of Snow White and the dew-kissed freshness of her sister, Rose Red, this is a blood red, voluptuous rose, velvet-petaled, at the height of bloom. Haughty and imperious, vain, yet incomparably lovely to the eye, but thick with thorns of jealousy, pride and hatred. Dear heavens. I cannot get over what a silky, luxurious rose this is. The oil is just gorgeous on my skin but the SCENT is heavenly. I have always been fond of the lab's dark red, heady rose, and it's at my very favorite in Peacock Queen, but I am just RUINED with it in bath oil form- It is a really good thing that I don't have a tub and am using it post shower right now because I would never.leave.the.bath. Thank you SO much Puddin', this is amazing. GOSH I wish it was GC!
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Snow-blanketed granite enveloped by a sea of spruce and pine. If you love atmospheric, pine forest scents, this is an absolute stunner. It starts off with loads of spruce, with a hint of coolness from the snow. The spruce is magnificent, just like a fresh cut tree hauled into the room. The stone note is not terribly strong, but there is a touch of Beth's sweet snow note that is peeking through marvelously. I spray just a touch of this and instantly, I have the holidays surrounding me. A perfect christmas tree scent, wild, true, and marvelous. It does start out a bit auto-freshener with the spruce but give it some time to develop and bloom. It's a perfect, quiet, Grimm's fairy tale snow forest!
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Ghastly secrets and terror-numb revelations: white mint, black amber, tallow, antediluvian woods, and sickly resins. (For reference, I tested this as a linen spray) This is mostly mint. Definitely the famous BPAL "white mint" note, with a strong background of very sweet amber. There is just a hint of something earthy, almost a mineral note that I think is from the resins. It reminds me a bit of the long DC'ed Black Opal. On the drydown, the woods give this a slightly masculine edge, and it smells a bit like a very expensive aftershave or cologne. Classy! I wouldn't mind my house smelling like this. No sign of the tallow. The throw is somewhat weak, but it find that common in mint blends. It is however, very long lasting. If you enjoy other sweet BPAL mint blends like Tokyo Stomp, Snowblind, and Lick It, but long for something a little more sophisticated and less candy-like, this will be right up your alley. It is also great for people who miss Lantern Ghost of Oiwa.
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Scent your home like a 17th century manor house at Yuletide! Warm gingerbread crafted with almonds, dates, aniseed, raw ginger root, and cinnamon. Review: Strongly almond dominant with sharp ginger and smooth cinnamon in second. The cinnamon will edge ginger into third if you wait. Dates are strong support to the almonds. The bready part of gingerbread takes a little longer to assemble, but is well worth it eventually pushing ahead of the cinnamon. The anise seed is soft, but lovely. This is gorgeous as it settles.
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Footworn Steps Leading Into a Dank, Suffocating Crypt Atmosphere Spray
Lethran posted a topic in Atmosphere
Maggoty with subterraneous evil: the scent of creeping deep green mosses, sweet rot, lantern oil, and sinuous incense drifting over dripping stone blocks, mushroom-moist soil, and crumbling mortar. In bottle: Rather disturbing. The moss and rot pop first, but the soil quickly steps in as support of both, with stone and mortar gently tingeing it. The Lantern oil gives the rot a chemical tinge. The rot becomes dominant quickly, though the moss stays strong. Given enough time, the unsettlingly sweet rot backs off, letting the moss shine. -
Very, very nice: honey-coated honeysuckle and sugar cane. Very very sweet and very very honeysuckly. It's obviously quite rich and takes a minute to sink into the skin properly, but once it does it feels very soft. I think it's kind of a lush, full on, late summer tropical garden vibe. (It's not the glop I would have chosen as most florals aren't my thing but all the Naughty scents were full of death notes)
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Very, very naughty: red musk, leather, bourbon vanilla, and red patchouli. Glop is a super moisturizing blend of several oils including shea butter(that's the more common name for the Latin name Butyrospermum parkii) and rice bran oil. In the jar, it has the consistency of face creme, so do be careful if you put a finger in there -- you might end up using more than you anticipate. Once applied, it leaves the skin very very smooth and uber moisturized. The best part, though, is the seductive scent of red musk and leather that wafts everywhere. The patchouli and bourbon vanilla aren't quite as prevalent to my nose, but perhaps with a bit of time, they might become more noticeable. I must say I am very happy with this Glop. I might just brave the Inquisition again to get another jar.
