luxuria

This smells like purple-tinged metallic silver to me. Reminds me of what I wanted out of Neo-Tokyo but knew I probably wouldn't get- something that smells futuristic while still retaining qualities I love in my "normal" scents (mainly foodiness or sweetness, and peppermint is close enough to foody and sweet for me that it fits the bill perfectly.) The peppermint gives it a slight candy association to my nose- after years of being totally addicted to altoids, it's no wonder..however, the eucalyptus gives it a biting, metallic edge and the violets just round it out really nicely, staying in the background the entire time. I got this as a gimp and I would have never ordered it on my own. I really like this- and I mean REALLY like this. I'm definitely ordering a bottle come my next order. This makes me want to dress all cyber-like I could EASILY see this becoming one of my signature scents..yes, I think it shall!

There is something distinctly unpleasant about this blend wet. I suppose bitter would be the word, or acrid- for a moment, I was almost horrified that I'd bought a 5ml of this unsniffed. However, as it fades, I definitely pick up something similar to Dana O'Shee (almonds + the wet smell of my single note Vanilla Bean) but with a creamy, slightly waxy honey and just barely sprinkled with spice. The spices are vaguely reminiscent of the spices in Snake Oil- I swear I get the same distant whiff from the two every so often. This smells a lot fresher than I expected it to, rather than lush, but it's still very warm and nice. A good summer scent but of the more exotic variety. A shorter description of this would be: Dana O'Shee has a lovechild with Snake Oil who is drizzled with honey on a breezy, fresh summer's day. I am glad I have this one but I think i'll be saving it for warmer weather. It just definitely does not seem appropriate for cold weather of any kind, despite being a warm scent overall.

In the imp, this smelled like a slightly more male Belladonna. Same "oomph" to it, but less floral and deeper. On, it retains the same quality, but gets a heck of a lot manlier. It smells pretty mossy on me and I HATE mossy scents, so that wasn't a good thing. I smell some amber I think, which warms it up, and woody notes too..but there's definitely something earthy and almost slightly spicy mixed in. It's definitely masculine to me..the throw has something musky-manly that I traditionally associate with cologne. I'd like this on a guy but I'm still not terribly crazy about it. The whole "spicy moss" thing is slightly icky to me.

Queen of Hearts, Belle Epoque, or Snow White would be my personal choices!

Herbal lavender in the imp. It's sort of..sharp, too. Not quite the soft, hazy scent I'd expect would carry me off into deep sleep, but hey it does soften somewhat on the skin but not too much. I can't really pick out any other notes, I'm sure they're there though. Now..onto the important stuff! This didn't make any difference with my sleep whatsoever I always have trouble staying asleep once I fall asleep (which is a chore enough) but this unfortunately didn't help. I even slathered myself with so much one night I made myself sneeze and I still didn't notice any difference. Well..DAMN! I'm going to try the other dream formulas to see if there are any that do anything at all for me.

Carnal was way figgy on me, whereas Intrigue just smelled like pencil shavings.

This is a very light and strong floral. I smell the absolute barest hint of sandalwood, which grounds this a little bit, but the rest is all the lily. I don't smell any vanilla or mandarin. This definitely isn't the rich and decadent floral I was expecting. It gets kind of soapy and powdery on the drydown. Nice if you're a floral kind of person, but alas, that person is not me. From imp to skin to drydown, this is pretty linear and doesn't change.

I wish I got special attention from BPAL..I always put on something sexy when I see the guy I have a crush on in hopes that I'll draw him to me more then again, I think his sense of smell might be so burned out from smoking that he wouldn't be able to smell me anyway.

Perversion and Dorian don't actually smell similar (they're definitely different) but on me they have a VERY similar 'vibe.' So if you like one (specifically the vibe of it), I predict you'd like the other.

Hahaha I used to pronounce it B-P-A-L and then I saw this thread a while back, and Bee-Pal sounded catchier so I switched without meaning to. Bee-Pal it is in my head and to others who are addicted. It's "Black Phoenix" to the people who at least know what I'm talking about and "that perfume oil place" to people who don't.

Ick. This is a blend in the same family as Tamora and Glitter, which totally nauseate me. Something is choking me. Sickly sweet and light. Light as in notes, not actually a light fragrance because this is throttling me. While definitely not quite as bad as Glitter was, because this doesn't actually smell like ultra-concentrated pixi stix, this has a similar effect. It still smells like candy, though- painfully sweet citrus-flavored candy. It doesn't smell particularly floral on me. Ugh I need to wash this off, I feel seriously ill

Bold, bright mandarin paired with the sweet, sensual earthiness of fig. I wasn't sure what fig smelled like but I think I know what it is after this. And I want more! It's like a rich, reddish fruit smell. My skin doesn't pull out much mandarin overall. So I'm left smelling very much like fig. It's sweet and juicy but not quite 'sparkling' the way some fruity scents can be. It's also surprisingly strong. This one REALLY wafts. I'm not sure if I want a bottle but this will be nice and comforting for some occasions.

My "sexy night out" scents are Snake Oil and Perversion. O is more of a "sexy night in" thing to me because it's more of a skin scent.

Because of sometimes unlisted ingredients, if you're suspicious it is best to e-mail the lab (however, you should probably wait until beth and ted are back on the 3rd.)

I LOVE this. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE I cannot express my love enough! ..Okay, onto the reviewing part. I get the cocoa vanilla and sandalwood, and a bit of myrrh on the drydown. It's very warm and smooth and sweet (but not sickly sweet, and not as..densely sweet as Bliss, if that makes sense.) I also swear I smell something like coconut?? I don't get a "brownie" vibe, and I'd sooner stick with "cocoa" instead of "chocolate" because of the candy association with chocolate. This is just utterly heavenly. Chocolate is a note that works very well with my skin chemistry and this is no exception- nothing goes wonky from imp to my skin. Luckily I never get any incense from this. One of my top 3 now! [edit] Uh..so I got a bottle. .... DIFFERENT would be an understatement. UGH it smells so much like an entirely different perfume that I want to cry! It's alllllllllll MYRRH which in a large amount like that just smells crappy and soapy on my skin. I smell the barest hint of cocoa vanilla when it's wet but it's gone shortly thereafter. to put it bluntly, I HATE this version of Velvet. I've had the bottle about a month now and I haven't noticed the faintest bit of difference in aging, so I'm really at a loss about what to do..

You're 100% right- I LOVED it. Smells absolutely spot on. I'm always amazed when the lab does that with a scent. I also love how perfect it is for layering- it isn't overpowering or strong. I have a feeling it will layer particularly well with Perversion as well as the blends that already have clove in them.. I liked March Hare but I wish it was clovier. It's wonderful when some clove does come out but only so-so when it's all apricot. I think a 5ml of Three Witches is necessary for my next order. I haven't smelled it, but my 'unsniffed 5ml' instinct seems to be pretty good.

In the bottle: boozy chocolate roses. On my skin: very fancy smelling rose with a hint of the red wine. Only a hint. If I inhale very deeply I catch a whiff a very faint whiff of honey, but other than that this is little more than a pleasant, sophisticated rose perfume. I will have to try layering this with Bliss and will report back with results. I really wish I smelled more of the non-floral notes as they meshed in a peculiar, but very good smelling, way in the bottle. I have to add that this is one of the more "perfume-y" smelling BPALs, not headshop-y in the least. And that's a good thing imo, just shows what wonderful variety the lab has. I think this is my favorite rose blend, even though it doesn't have as much complexity as I would like. The rose scents I try keep getting better and better, so it seems that with every new one I review, it's my new favorite.

I thought it was absolutely certain that I would loathe this. I don't like herbs, I don't like green, and I'm not too big on florals. All together? However, the color of the oil was just too pretty to resist..a nice pale green. Wet, it smells very herby and floral but in a deep sort of way rather than a light one but without heavy. As it dries my skin pulls out some more wood. My overall impression is that this smells like a gorgeous forest at twilight. There's the trees, the leaves (lots of them!), some flowers on the ground and a teeny bit of earth, and it isn't light enough to smell "day" but not heavy enough for night. It also has a sort of sweet tinge to it, surprisingly. Not a sugared sweet, though. I'm not sure how to explain it. I like this- I'm not in love, but I do like it! [edit] This has really grown on me. And I mean REALLY. I have a bottle on the way. It's so lovely and different.

LOVE this. Love love love it. This about knocked me out with it's strength at first but I was quick enough to put it in isolation before I found it nauseating. With only a dab, it's wonderful. This starts out VEEERY boozy. STRONG rum component. A hit of coconut comes out as well, so it smells like a very strong coconut flavored alcoholic drink. After that, everything just kind of fades together perfectly. I smell all the listed components plus coconut- the chardonnay, rum, and coconut dance and mingle ontop of the very faint tobacco and leather, and my beloved tonka. The tonka comes out more and more as this dries and just skyrockets my opinion of this scent into absolute and total adoration. I liked it enough to begin with, but I'm speechless now. It's incredibly smooth and creamy but dark and sexy. This is not a day scent in any shape or form, but hell, I'm wearing it in the day anyway I can see where the "bondage ball" part of the description comes in. It's so PERFECT. Oh my, I have to restrain myself from just completely GUSHING about how gorgeous and sexy and wonderful this is This is definitely gender neutral leaning towards the feminine side. It isn't explicitly feminine, but definitely smells a lot more 'girly' than 'manly' to me. But not girly as in reminiscent of an innocent damsel in a sundress picking flowers on a summer afternoon. This is her antithesis. I was frightened to hear that the prototype had oakmoss in it, as that's about my least favorite note EVER. But I never picked up a trace of it in this blend. So fellow oakmoss-haters..fear not! It layers particularly well with the Sweet Clove single note. It really gives it sort of a "sexy people at a club" vibe rather than just "sexy." I think this very well may have knocked Snake Oil out of it's position as my #1 favorite blend. Hell, I think this might have knocked EVERYTHING I'VE EVER SMELLED IN MY LIFE down a notch.

I smell slightly lemony vanilla tea and something else (perhaps the fougere? not sure what that is) that just ties it all together. This is absolutely gender neutral. I ordered it because a] I love Dorian Gray and b] it sounded like my ideal men's fragrance, but I love it for myself! Mind you, I tend to be very girly with my fragrances and find that "gender neutral" means "leaning too far to the masculine side" a lot of the time. Not here! The lemon is the first thing to go but it takes a while. It just smells sophisticated, smooth, and slightly sweet (but in no way sickly.) It's sexy, but in a very subtle way. HIGHLY recommended, at least to try! I just read the previous two reviews and they're spot on imo, so pay attention to them! I am so getting a bottle of this. And it's also found a place in my top 10. [edit] I also have to add this has crrrazy lasting power and goes on pretty strong.

This smells EXACTLY like clove. If someone made me sniff this and then a jar of real cloves, I would not be able to tell the difference. What a PERFECT recreation. It isn't too strong, either. Very soft and will be absolutely wonderful for layering.

This smells woody with a slight bit of cocoa and something smokey. On my skin, it just smells like pencil shavings, as someone said. I decided to sit this out anyway..nope, the pencil shaving smell doesn't change, it just fades. In conclusion: This had potential but my skin turned it into pencil shavings and thus, is not for me.

Smells like herbal fruit in the imp. Except sort of..flat. I didn't like it, but tried it anyway.. This reminds me of babies. Like baby wipes, unused diapers, and other dainty but still vaguely unpleasant things. The fruit entirely went away and I can smell an undercurrent of herbs but this still overwhelmingly reminds me of babies. I don't smell any cinnamon and it isn't sweet in a typical sort of way. It in no way smells like candy. As it dries the unpleasant part fades, but still remains largely the same. I'd use this as a room scent in a nursery or something else along those lines. I just can't kill the "small children" assocation! Probably not an imp I'll keep. [edit] I tried again later and it smelled like bad breath on drydown. stupid skin.

Update on my clove situation: I didn't get clove out of Blood at any point, it was all dragon's blood and myrrh. The final drydown of March Hare was pretty clove-y and was absolutely DELICIOUS! It made me adore clove even more, even though I didn't think that was possible So for other people looking for clove that can stomach fruit, I would also recommend March Hare. Also, I might be nuts, but I think I remember someone saying Perversion smelled like clove cigarettes (even though it doesn't have clove in it), and I should be getting my 5ml of Perversion today or tomorrow..so I'll edit this post with my impressions of that one, too.

I know i've called about 50 BPAL scents "strange" but this one really takes the cake. I only get clove at the final drydown. Before that..it starts out smelling like apricot and..anise?! Where in the world am I getting that impression?! I also at one time got a faint whiff of..beer. Gross. If that had been a lasting impression, it would have killed the blend. The apricot is definitely juicy throughout, even when the clove emerges. I don't get any sort of "baked goods" vibe from this. I wish this were clove-ier on me, but nonetheless, I like it. When the clove does come out, it's a surprisingly amazing match with the apricot. I would have never guessed the two would smell decent together, let alone THIS good! Not top 10 material but still enjoyable. I'd like to make a body lotion out of this one. I may order a bottle just to do that.