sarada

Yay! I never thought I'd get a chance to sample this, as I was not yet browsing the site regularly enough when it was released to notice the limited edition scents or to get in on them before they were gone. (Oh, the dark ages of my existence!) I just got a teeny sample and have a full imp on the way, just in time for the season that I think this scent will be perfect for. First I should mention that I had always misread the description to say "frozen forever in lime", so I was prepared for a lime-rose scent, and I think that it actually matches that after all. It definitely comes across as the most tender, fresh green rosebud possible, still frosted with the very last ice of winter before spring's warmth releases it. It is also one of the BPAL scents that most reminds me of perfume in the perfumey sense -- but without the alcohol, of course. This is a very fresh, crisp, rain-soaked floral, without any of the associations that I have with "perfume" though. "Perfume" makes me think of old ladies caked in powdery makeup wearing wide Easter bonnets with a cloying artificial cloud hovering around them. BPAL perfumes just capture what is the most beautiful in nature, and although I do not go for florals in general this is one of the few that I could see myself wearing. I definitely could relate the rose in this to that most beautiful cold rose in Old London; the main sensations that I get are a tender green, the palest pink and a frosted white. I'm thinking this will be the thing to wear around Easter this year, when frost on the ground does battle with the first flowers. I hope they bring it back some day, I would definitely make this one of the very few floral bottles that I buy.

Purple incense -- ahhh, this is just what I hoped for. I bought a bottle of this unsniffed on the hope that it would be like Queen of Spades, and yes, it is almost exactly like Queen of Spades on me! Round, dark, overripe plum and berry swathed in golden smoke -- I don't really get any florals from this at all except the slightest whiff of powdery lilac in the background when I sniff the bottle...on my skin these wonderful rich smoky incense notes propel the dark bloody juice of purple fruit. I only got to try a little bit of Queen of Spades but the things that I liked about it, are identical to the things that I like in Blood Countess. Medea also dries down to a similar smoky purple on me, but I love Blood Countess even more. It feels regal, bloody, and evil. So glad I got a bottle, I will want more in the future and I'm already going to put this up in my top 15!

Definitely Black Forest and Dublin...two of my all time favorites! Maybe Yggdrasil, which although it is woody is very light and airy. I think of Belladonna as herbal and dry...Envy dries down to something very like Belladonna for me, though I enjoy the minty lime twist that it has in the beginning.

Got this from Madame Nyx, and I quite like it...if there is a family of scents that we can classify as Misty/Gossamer, then this definitely fits. I don't like a lot of things outside of the wood/resin family because most things become very powdery on me, but these wonderful gossamer mist scents really linger and stay true to their in-the-bottle scent, becoming slightly incensy, which I love. The main impression that I get from Arachne is that I have just walked into a room in very early spring where the windows are open, and a slightly chill breeze is wafting the curtains -- there is still a lingering fragrance in the room where someone was just burning strawberry incense. Dreamy, ethereal, and sweetly smoky -- miraculously, no powder smell. Just to be a little more vague, I'll also say it makes me think of an antique faded photograph...it's as though you're reaching for something insubstantial and fleeting, like a spiderweb (a ha!), and just when your fingers close around it, it vanishes. Hmm, that also sounds a little like cotton candy...this also smells a bit like that! I've never smelled anything exactly like this. Put this alongside Unicorn and Dublin as scents in the "misty" category that I love, though they are all completely unique! ETA: Trying it again a year later, after a few months of not smelling it and I really do love it even though it only lasts five minutes on me. I agree with everything I wrote before, but will add that my bf said immediately upon my wearing it "I smell tuberose." Or, he said, some kind of orchid. He used to live in a house with a greenhouse full of orchids so.....perhaps there is some kind of orchid in this, or tuberose. It's the first useful thing anyone has ever said to me when I was wearing a perfume.

I am lucky enough to have a bottle of this thanks to a wonderful forum member, and I hope that it becomes available for more to try, as this is simply amazing. I keep looking down at my arm and expect to see it smeared with dark, fresh soil or mud from working in a garden all day. This is the pure scent of soil after rain. In terms of other BPAL fragrances, it is like Zombi, without the roses. I think it might be the very same rich earthy notes. I'm sitting here indoors on a bitterly cold day but when I sniff my wrist I am transported into a summer day where the moist soil is drying down in the sun and I am holding a little shovel and some tomato plants. It becomes slightly sweet, like the darkest patchouli, after the initial grittiness dies down and I think this is one that will cling to the skin for quite some time. I can't say it better than the above review, that this is the epitome of deep, chocolatey earth. I imagine this is what the soil must smell like where patchouli grows. Please, lab, make this a catalog scent! We need to smell like Earth! ETA: The above review is for the Black Broom version. The Limited Edition version smells the same to my nose...I think the BB version was a little dustier. I am taking back my patchouli comparison now though as I think that's just my own nose confusing earth scents.

I have no idea why I love this scent, but I do. It doesn't really smell like anything else I've tried...but it is unique in the way that Dublin is unique -- something completely fresh, and crisp, pure and refreshing, a sort of round sparkling sweetness. A cold stream in a misty morning in early spring with the last snow still melting in the shade. Florals do not like me, but Unicorn does, because it is not overtly floral. It is more reminiscent of air and water...with flowers nearby. I think of opalescent bubbles hanging in the air and then bursting. The "sweet herbs" must be lending a slightly fruity or citric sweetness...maybe there's some bergamot? I'm not sure. But I like it. A lot. It's somewhere between Szepasszony and Dublin as far as being crisp and clear and slightly aquatic, but also lush, misty and blooming. A definite bottle of this.

I really love grapefruit. In the imp, this is spectacular grapefruit, similar to the smell in Cheshire Cat that I was surprised to learn was grapefruit, as well. I really want to drink it. Since citrus/tea combinations appeal to me for the spring/summer months I was eager to try this one -- I like Embalming Fluid and Phantasm, can kind of dig Shanghai and Apothecary -- so this seemed the logical next choice. The grapefruit keeps sparkling for awhile on my skin but it very quickly turns to a powdery, bathroom-freshener kind of smell. That's something that I don't care for at all, and I'm not sure what causes it. I have great luck with other citrus smells...perhaps it's the apple blossom all going to powder on me. Maybe it's the white tea. Green tea and black tea like me...but white tea? Perhaps it's too weak or bitter to emerge on my scent-devouring wrists. After awhile, the bathroom freshener small just continues and eventually fades but I never quite get the grapefruit back. I like all of the individual components listed here but my skin refuses to do anything with it. I think I will keep it for spring/summer though as I am stocking up on any kind of citrus/tea that I can for those months. I think the winner though in the sparkling fruity tea category is going to be Aizen-Myoo!

I tried Bayou a few months ago when I began to seriously get into BPAL and thought at the time it was too floral and too sweet. I just got to try some again and now that I've had some time to develop my sniffing ability and really learn more about some of the notes the lab uses, I think I appreciate it more. Ultimately though it's too perfumey and floral for my tastes. The aquatic aspect of Bayou it its most appealing characteristic -- describing this as blue-green couldn't be more accurate! It actually reminds me of some of the hothouses in Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania -- you go into these vast glass buildings full of humid, exotic flowers and foliage, and the scent of warmth and water and flowers are intoxicating. As a perfume, on me, it becomes an old lady smell though. But I prefer it to many other florals because of that aquatic note and the whisper of moss and shadow. As for a wet, mossy smell I prefer Ulalume, but even that is too floral for me. I'd like to get more moss and evergreen out of this (being a big fan of Burial, Loup Garou and some other green scents like that) but the humid, sticky flowers really dominate. I might consider wearing this outdoors on a warm day that I am going to be in the shade. I'm glad I got to try it again now that I've been wrist-sniffing for awhile!

Depraved is my fave, as far as something that is a deep, earthy apricot, like something freshly plucked from the tree. Some appreciation for patchouli is required. On the other side of the spectrum, Fae is a deiliriously ethereal peach, sparkling and glistening -- and in between, Imp has the same sparkling peach but it also has the earthy tones in it as well. Those are my picks!

With Fenris Wolf I think I have tried all of the amber and red musk scents currently available -- a combination that I am very fond of. Spellbound has it, plus roses -- Sin has it, plus cinnamon (I forget if it technically has musk, but it has the same strong amber and warm smell at least), Scherezade seems to have it as well, with a bit of dry spiciness. Fenris Wolf shares something in common with all of these, though on me the amber and musk really dominate. Actually, after it dries a little Fenris Wolf smells exactly like Sin. It doesn't have cinnamon in it, yet there's still a slight spice that comes out when it is dry. I think the amber must really take over on me, and it becomes sweet, golden and slightly spicy (where is that coming from??). There is darker, woody component which I recognized as sandalwood but it is never distinct, it is obscured by the amber glaze. This is a great scent for me, as I like this family of scents, but it is so similar to Sin that I don't think I would need a separate bottle of this. A little woodier, a little less spicy, but overall it's a lovely sharp woody amber. I would say that if you were torn between this an Sin, get Sin if you want a shot of cinnamon and get Fenris Wolf if you don't!

I got a small sample of this from a forumite! I missed out on the Samhain blends last year because I wasn't paying close attention to LEs at that time and most of them seemed too foody to me. I've been using up my sample of this throughout the day -- it's very, very complex. Florals seems to be the most prominent to me, and it's a little bit headache-inducing, though I'm not sure what is causing that. I am pretty sure that cactus blossom and cereus are among the flowers that I DO like, though. There is very little foody in this to me which is a good thing -- I can't stand foody smells. But there's that slight whiff of dad's pipe tobacco, and something spicy and sugary. There is so much going on in this scent...what I like the best though are the hints of smoke and desert that develop when I put this in my hair. It fades to something unspecific and vague on my wrists, burnt sugar and a funeral parlor floral. I think I would have ordered a 5 ml of this if I had noticed when it was available, but I probably would have not used the whole thing...an imp or two would probably be nice for autumn though. This does really nice things in my hair, because it loses those cloying floral notes (is there jasmine in this? i'm zeroing in one what gives me headaches and that is one of the things...), and wafts up the smoky leaves and Mexican bakery smells. I feel like I had to reapply it constantly though to get the notes that I like, and it's beginning to make me light-headed...I have a feeling people would tell me I smelled good if I wore it out around October time though!

I remember reading at some point that BPAL oils containing "musk" are derived from non-animal natural sources such as floral sources. Whatever they are, they are incredible -- I always avoided musk in the past, and I'm assuming that the ones that I avoided disagreed with me because they were synthetic. But these musks -- especially the red musk, and the "light musks" in perfumes like Ice Queen, are completely unlike anything else I've ever encountered. Anyway, I think they're from floral sources, that was my two cents. I will wait to see what the experts have to say!

What can I do to possibly get some Graveyard Dirt?? I opted out of the recent Black Broom mass order and now I am hoping that future acts of kindness on the part of LA-area forum members might enable me to grab some of this! I want nothing more than to smell like earth, and it sounds like I would just want to pour this all over myself. Seriously, this one sounds like a dream to me!!

I'm thinking that it would either be something in the dragon's blood, spicy or fruity realm or a combination of all three. Some of the ones I've tried that I would classify like that are the Dragon's Blood fragrances, anything else with "Blood" in the name, Lilith, Bordello, Jester, (those three are berry-riffic), Three Witches, Wrath, (for spicy)....and the deeper darker rose smells (Spellbound, Black Rose...). I personally tend to think of Scherezade and Sin and Lust as red smells but as much darker ones, more like dried blood than vibrant, pulsing red. I tend to personally prefer those that I think of as "dried blood"...I am thinking that Living Flame is might wind up having something more spicy and fruity going on, but who knows!

Thanks tart! I looked high and low for a thread on that. Searching on words like "bottle" yields quite a few hits though! I feel confident these will last long enough for me to get a good use out of all of them..

A mournful, poignant scent, thick with foreboding. Soft golden amber darkened with a touch of murky black musk. Oh yes, this is a classic. Haunted must be comprised of the same base notes that I love in many other blends. Amber and musk are a classic combination and one that works very well for me, personally, staying on my skin forever and turning into a very mellow, soft, resinous scent. It dries down to almost the same fragrance as Black Forest, strangely enough -- the amber dominates and sticks around, with the musk mainly just acting as its shadow. That's about right...a golden, regal amber walking down a dusty corridor, shadowed by musk. This is also similar to the background fragrance in blends like Spellbound that I love, but it's much less overwhelming than that scent in particular. It just settles down on my skin, takes up residence and hangs around for a long time, like a room where incense has been burning. The smoke is gone, but the scent lingers. This is a good thing to be haunted by. I will have to get a big bottle of this eventually.

This is an incredible scent -- I feel like I've walked into a fruit market, with golden and orange globes piled high and wafts of tangy sweetness drifting off of them in the early morning light. Er, not that I've ever been up that early. But that's what I imagine. I can actually TASTE fruit when I inhale deeply. The western fruits that this most resembles, to me, are grapefruit and citrus peel and pineapple, with the cherry blossom scent coming out a bit later. It's a scintillating fragrance, but I think that the black tea keeps it from being too fruity or from turning into bubblegum on me. While I can't specifically smell the tea note, I think that its presence is asserted by the way it blends these fruits together into something more aromatic than sugary, and adds a deeper base note. It smells more like an herbal fruit tea than a black tea, but it still smells like something I'd want to drink. This will definitely be a summer scent for me. I don't know if I'll be able to find these actual fruits anywhere to try them and see how close they match the notes in this scent but I wish I could!

I wasn't sure quite what to make of The Hermit, and asked my friend who is a professional Tarot reader to try it out and see how it matched her understanding of the card. My own impressions were: aquatic, dusty, herbal. Here is what she said: I am thinking there is a trace amount of pine or fir and some moss intermingled with a lake aquatic rather than an ocean aquatic. It reminds me of this time of the year (February)...that light scent before the buds push through where everything smells like it's melting. It smells like ice melting under a fir tree in late February or early March. My compliments to the lab to getting the metaphysical construct right. It definitely smells like being on a journey at night and the scents seem almost imperceptible but they are there guiding you along your path like a lantern. I will be asking her expert Tarot opinion on other of these oils as I get them! ETA: Now that my aforementioned friend is a forum member, I offer my own thoughts, having tried it again several years later! This strikes me as one of the floral scents that i classify as "chemical" because of the way it strikes my nose. I recognize the note that turns me away from Asphodel and Darkness. I'm thinking it's narcissus, or black narcissus, although opium/poppy is also a possibility. There's also a moist, succulent aquatic sweetness that is probably lotus. I guess from the number of people who find this fruity that there is probably some lotus in there...always a culprit for the fruity-floral scent. All in all I find it to be a very chemical-smelling wet, rainy floral to me with some sharp herbal edges. Since my initial sniff a couple of years ago I've come to recognize notes a lot better and I recognize a lot of notes I don't like. It shares something with Hod as well, another one that made me wrinkle my nose because it just smelled very harsh and chemical. My nose is just not built to like that note!

I've been trying to wrap my head around this one for a couple of days. Initially I thought "Ooh! I want a bottle!" when I first sniffed it. Then almost immediately I changed my mind, and thought that I wanted to swap it. Now it seems as though each time I smell it, it comes across as a completely different animal. I'll probably use up the whole imp in the process of trying to decide if I like it or not! I am a big fan of patchouli, and the way it interacts with ylang ylang is sometimes so profoundly wonderful I am speechless (Tisiphone). But red patchouli doesn't seem to agree with me so much -- it strikes a wrong note for me in Malediction and smells far too sharp and bitter until it dies down in that blend. I think that it is giving me the same problem in this blend. And dark myrrh always seems to 'ruin' scents for me -- I like a lot of blends ~except~ for the dark myrrh, which somehow smells...well, malevolent. And not in a good way. It has sort of a sleazy feeling for me that makes me uncomfortable. That dark myrrh is overpowering in Malice in the bottle and when I first apply it. Then, it goes through this stage where it smells like dark roses, and powder. Strange. Finally, it all comes together as muted spices, darkened woods...maybe somewhere deep inside an alcove in an opium den, a figure sits shrouded in a dark purple cape...well, that's the image I get, anyway. I like it best after the drydown, and it lingers for a very long time. I'm just uncomfortable in its early stages. When it goes through that powdery middle stage it also kind of smells like an old lady's perfume to me...the kind that I'd smell on people in church and wrinkle my nose, when I was a child. I think I will be avoiding dark myrrh blends though, because it usually makes the difference between my genuinely liking a scent, and just being able to tolerate it now and then.

I've tried this several different times and I always seem to swap it away, though I like the ingredients. It's just a little too light and sugary for me. In the bottle it's very light, sugary sweet and there's a hint of that lovely green tea smell that you get in a lot of bath gels, soaps and the like -- this reminds me of a Te Tao shower gel, I think. But it's definitely sugary -- the blackberry scent in this is also present in Glasgow I think, which has a similarly powdery, sugary fruit scent to it. Once on the skin it continues to be very sweet and the tea note dominates after awhile. A very nice green scent but I feel as though there's too much sugar in this tea...and I like my blackberries very dark and bursting with almost wine-like flavour. I am always delighted to get Bewitched in as a freebie and I wear it once and enjoy it but it's just too light and sweet for my regular rotation. Great for summer wear I think if you enjoy very sweet scents. I don't get any musk from this, by the way -- I'm very weird with musk, I usually get a strong whiff of it when I first apply something with musk in it, but this was all sugar on me....it's as if you made iced blackberry-sage tea and drowned it in sugar. Very nice but I don't think it's going to work for me!

I'm glad I waited a little bit to review this -- at first I liked it in the imp but it wasn't until I wore it a couple of times and ordered a bottle that the magic really started to happen. Dracul is one of my TOP THREE scents right now, much to my surprise. I was afraid of the tobacco note but it's turning out to work wonders in conjunction with these other deep, woody, minty, slightly spicy scents. This clings to my hair and my skin all day and I feel enshrouded in a cloud of smoke and mystery. Pine and mint are already two of my favorite smells, but the smokiness of this blend really takes them to another level and makes them last, and last, and last -- deep, dark, burning wood in a cold forest. But it does not become entirely dark and cloying because of those subtle golden-orange touches from the clove, cumin and orange blossom. Clove and cumin do remind me of a warm, masculine, comforting presence, as though you are in someone's warm embrace in the cold, beneath a woolen cloak. I cannot get enough of this scent. I want to always have this to turn to for warmth and comfort. Dracul is seductive and refined...I'm hypnotized, and I can't turn away. But who would want to? I hope they never stop making this. This will be a scent to stockpile for the ages.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love pumpkins and Halloween -- I like to be surrounded with images of pumpkins and jack o'lanterns all year, everywhere I go! I don't much get along with "foody" scents though and I've found that "pumpkin spice" as a candle, room or body fragrance usually turns my stomach even though I love pumpkin pie if it's on a plate. So, Jack turns out to be a very bad thing where I'm concerned. I honestly can't even open an imp of this without getting sick, and I feel bad about that since I try to give all the oils a chance and see how they develop on me. But the overwhelming scent of butter makes my head spin, my stomach clench and I feel queasy for about an hour afterwards every time I get it in my head that I'm going to try one of the "buttery" scents like Jack, or Hellcat, etc. Strangely enough I keep getting freebies of them with my orders though! But that's OK because I am more than happy to pass them on to others. All that I can smell in Jack is the overwhelming scent of burnt butter, and unfortunately I can't get any closer to it than that. I might have an allergy to something in this but I'm not going to be able to test it thoroughly to find out. I think that this would definitely work for people who like foody, "pumpkin spice" type scents and autumn smells, but although autumn/Halloween is my favorite season, I am going to have to choose dry, woody scents to celebrate with this year!

I've wanted to try this one but never put it on a wish list or order because most of the blends I've tried with anise in them come out as being nothing BUT anise on me, and while I'm not wholly opposed to that licoricey smell in food (I love fennel seeds, for instance) I don't like it as a perfume. So when the lab gave me a bonus imp of this I was glad to get to try it! This is much different than I expected. I thought I'd be overwhelmed with licorice and lemon, which was the combo that I think I smelled in Mystery, but since I have never smelled real absinthe (I'm a teetotaller but I like the IDEA of absinthe) I don't know how this compares. I'm guessing that the unidentified scent that I get is wormwood -- something slightly bitter and herbal. Fortunately, the anise scent that at first comes out strong on my skin quickly burns away and is replaced by glorious mint. I also like lemon when it's not too strong, so the slight hint of lemon is nicely balanced in this. Again, cardamom was something I didn't think I'd like in a pefume. I love the spice and use it in Indian cooking, but I don't like to wear spices. Happily, all of the BPAL scents I've tried that have a spicy element in them, incorporate it so nicely that it just adds a bit of energy and fire to a blend and keeps it going nicely on my skin without overpowering it. Like I said, this wasn't exactly as I expected, and that is a good thing -- where I expected to be smacked in the face with a licorice stick, there's just a slightly sweet and spicy quality to this underlying the wonderful minty herbs. Minty herbs are my friend. Definitely want more of this -- not sure if I could use up a bottle, but an imp or two would be great! It fades very quickly on me as do ALL perfumes that aren't heavily incense-laden, but I can see wearing it occasionally.

If I accomplish nothing else in this lifetime, I WILL review all of the Mad Tea Party scents! I've tried all but one, now...but strangely enough Alice was one of the very first I ever got as a freebie, back in April 2004, and I haven't reviewed her until now! For one thing, most of my original imp evaporated before I got a chance to get to know her. I didn't know anything about proper imp storage back then, you see. Milk, honey, carnation, rose and bergamot. Hmm, out of those, the only one that I like is bergamot. Oh, and rose, but I can't smell rose in here! But I have learned that one cannot make assumptions, with these oils...and it turns out that I do like milk and honey together, sometimes. Carnation surprised me as well as I never thought of it as such a spicy scent. So the spicy floral, the lemony herbal bergamot and the smooth, luscious milk and honey do work together in their own peculiar way. I don't smell the rose in this at all, it must blend in with the carnation somehow...I love rose so usually I pick it out right away...perhaps on another's skin the rose would come out more. Curiouser and curiouser...I don't think I'm going to like it, but whenever I dab some on, I keep sniffing at it and thinking of how nice it would be to wear on a spring or summer day. This is a scent for sunny days, for summer in a calico dress, for strange adventures in the herb garden, for all of childhood's innocence, optimism and creativity. I used up what little was left of my imp and then immediately got another as a freebie from the lab! But I looked at my growing collection and decided to give it to a friend who very specifically loves milk and honey very very much...and my once-a-year-when-I'm-in-the-mood-for-it relationship with this scent doesn't justify my hoarding it. I have a feeling Alice will wander back into my life again eventually! Edited several times for silly typing errors and the like.

I had to overcome my aversion to vanilla to try this, because it just sounds like such an appetizing and unusual combination. I'm fairly horrified of anything vaguely foody, but I LOVE tea, and I spill at least three cups' worth a day on myself, so I'm planning to try every single tea scent. First impression: fortune cookies that are lightly flavoured with orange, dunked in black tea! It doesn't smell like orange, but I think the ginger must be giving it that little kick as it often comes across to me as citrusy. This starts out as a very mild, sweet, gingery vanilla tea. Not too much vanilla -- not enough to make me queasy, the way vanilla usually does. Just enough to add a slightly sweet edge to it. I don't smell any of the pepper or linen in the bottle, but when it hits my skin all kinds of interesting things happen. The lemony scent comes out more -- I think the ginger is playing tricks on me again -- and I think that the thing that takes this out of being too sweet is probably the light crackle of white pepper. I don't get the linen until drydown, when there's a vaguely crisp, fresh scent underneath, and the full, rich scent of lemony tea comes out. I feel like I'm in a tea shop sampling all the different containers full of tea, and they're all blending together on the tip of my nose! This is much sweeter than my usual favorites, since I go for wood, incense and very heavy, dark scents, but the list of ingredients in this is too much to pass up. Running over all of them in my head is a delight, as I envision a table set for tea, and the teacup is running away from the creamer while a crisp ginger cookie dances with a jar of honey. This is a real wrist-sniffer...each stage reveals a new marvelous layer, and you keep coming back for more to see what happens next! It's an adventure, that's for sure. I don't know what it smells like to other people when I'm wearing it -- probably the lemony ginger smell and the milky sweetness more than anything -- but I certainly enjoy watching the story unfold as it dries. ETA: I never remembered to edit this to say that for some reason White Rabbit wound up scampering away from me. My initial impressions were replaced by a strong scent of burning plastic and sour milk and...I don't know, I'd like to try it again some day to see if my nose changes again but I really dislike the "milk" note so it was probably never meant to be.