Cedar

YAY MINT! I love mint and can never get enough mint scents. Truly the saddest day of my life was when my package of two imps of Nine Mysteries, which a friend of mine basically sold her soul to get, was stolen off my doorstep by my asstastic neighbors. But I love this scent. Wet, it's mintmintmintymint. I love it. As it dries, it balances with the vanilla scent of the Snake Oil and becomes a nice sort of sweet mint. I don't get any green tea at all, or maybe it's just hidden...or I need my nose fixed. Dry, it's Snake Oil with a little bit of bergamot, which makes me not sure I want to keep it because I'm one of those chemical oddities on whom Snake Oil smells like Play-Doh. I'll have to think about it, maybe try it again in a week.

In the bottle: Rosemary and lemon. Wet, on skin: I'm getting something sharp and icky, and I'm going to blame the florals because I hate florals. They always smell very commercial-perfumey-synthetic on me. I was hoping they wouldn't be strong enough to overpower the non-florals, which are quite nice. Drying: I'm back to getting the lemon, rosemary, and amber, but it's fading so fast I can barely tell. I think I'll probably end up selling this one, because I just don't like it enough to keep it around with all the others I've got. For herbals, I prefer The Apothecary.

I accidentally mixed half the bottle into perfume this morning, but that's okay, because I plan to keep it. In the bottle, I get mostly the tomato leaf and berries, with a top note of cedar (yay!) wood. As it dries, the berry scent balances with the wood notes. It's nice, but not too woodsy, something I can wear year round. (Being from north Jersey, I was totally convinced that when I heard Beth was putting out a "Jersey Devil" scent that it would smell like oil and petrochemical refineries. I'm glad it smells like the Pine Barrens instead!)

Wet: Pine. It smells much like Dublin does. But I love Dublin, so I stuck with it. Looking back at the ingredient list, what I'm probably smelling is the oakmoss; it tends to come through strong on me. The woodsy scent had a slight fruit undertone, which came through more as the oil dried. Drying: It's sweeter now and the amber comes through, with a hint of sandalwood. I also get a little citrus in there. Verdict: Glad I bought two bottles. It's a keeper, and something I think I could wear year-round. I was worried about the

I got bottle XCI, and I love it, but heck if I know what's in it. It's mostly some type of red fruit: pomegranate, or maybe persimmon or even passionfruit? Whatever it is, I love it. It's got a top note of a dark spice, not quite clove, but maybe bergamot. I love this, especially as a summer-into-fall sort of scent. Now if only I knew exactly what was in it.

So, how late to this party am I? I'm very fussy about what I wear, and I held off on buying Dorian for the longest time because I didn't think I would like the musk. Normally, musks and I are not friends. But I'd seen all the raves about it, so I took the plunge. Wow. I don't get any musk at all, or maybe that's what comes through as the kind of spicy temperance behind the vanilla. Or maybe that's what other people are referring to as the lemon? Maybe. In any event, vanilla tea is really the perfect description. It's got that sweet vanilla scent that I like (sugar scents usually work well on me) but it's not cloying (hello musk or lemon or whatever). It's definitely catapulted to the top of my list.

The good news: I love this scent. On me, there's almost no change from the way it smells in the bottle. The bad news: It's nothing like its description. I get the pomegranate, oh, absolutely. It's beautiful and warm and sweet with definite sugared overtones. It doesn't smell crisp to me at all, though, not the way 21 does. It has the deep, strong fruity scent like Baneberry, and it lasts forever, which is great. It's especially nice in the winter, when the warmth of the scent combats the outside icky. It's also very sophisticated, and a nice fruit scent to wear outside of the normal peach-raspberry-citrus.

I have to learn to not buy floral blends, because except for Alice and Seance, they all turn on me. This scent was really lovely in the bottle, rose with an incense undertone and a little wood. Once I put it on, though, the rose and wood evaporate very quickly and it's all gardenia all the time, which would be great if I liked gardenia, but I don't. I think this would be a very relaxing room scent, but I can't wear it.

Verdict: This scent is the key to world peace, I think. Or I could just be lucky; my skin tends to handle foody scents well. In the bottle: The cinnamon is quite sharp, and the nutmeg comes in just behind this, followed by the gingerbread and something almost buttery. On me/drying: Well, not a whole lot of difference. It's a gingerbread cookie and I love love love it. (Food scents don't tend to change from the bottle on my skin.) It's very comforting and warm. My only complaint is that it doesn't have a lot of throw and it doesn't last as long as some others. And now for a story: I'm a librarian, and one of my shelvers came over earlier to ask me a question about Twenty-One (the BPAL, not the game). I mentioned that my scent of the day was Gingerbread Poppet, and she said, "You know, when I was shelving cookbooks earlier I thought to myself, 'I must be crazy, because I swear I smell cake or cookies or something.'" Um, yeah, that'd be me Apply after a bath in Lush Cinnamon Kisses bubble bath for maximum gingerbread happiness.

I love berry scents but hate raspberry anything, so I was really excited to see this offered. In the bottle, I get about 75% deep, dark berry and 25% green herbal something. Wet, it gives me almost all berries, and it's just like the description, very dark and bulging with a sweet overtone. It's more sophisticated than other berry/herbal scents I've tried. While it dries, a lot more of the green scent comes through and the sweetness fades to something a little fresher. It's not that complex, but I think that's what I like about it. Somedays I just don't feel very complicated It's one of those scents to wear when you don't know what to wear.

I really can't decide whether I love this or to send it to the swap pile. In the bottle: Maple syrup. It's a great fall scent, one that I think would work especially well layered with a spicy fragrance. Different, but not bad. On me: Exactly the same as it is in the bottle, except that I'm getting a little more fruit under the sugar. Still overwhelmingly maple syrup, but a coworker swears she can smell a tobacco note, too. I can't, but it'd be nice. Verdict: Probably going to sell or swap it. It's not that I have a strong dislike for it, it's just not something I can see myself wearing often enough to warrant owning a 5mL bottle.

I really expected to love this, because I love Swank and rose is the only floral I like, so yay. When I put it on, I got a very equal balance of rose and pomegranate, but I found that the rose isn't the rose I like, for all the sense that makes. I prefer that my rose be sharp rather than sweet, and the combination of rose and pomegranate made this a little sweeter than I would like. It also faded in about five minutes. I think I'll make a perfume spray of the imp I got, but I'm not rushing to buy a 5mL.

This scent has earned a place with Alice, Midway, and Storm Moon on my BPAL Crack Hall Of Fame And Empty Wallets. In one word, I'd have to say that this smells like Christmas, which sounds silly, but it's true. I get a blend of pine and something that to my untrained nose smells like cinnamon. It's not that far a scent from Yuletide to me. There isn't much rose, but what I think *is* there kind of tempers the perfume from being too pine-y. This is a wake-you-up scent, but it's pleasant, something to look forward to.

In the bottle: Ginger tea. It's refreshing, and I like that it's herbal without being too "green." Wet: I get more of the tea scent, and something sweeter that might be the fig, but the tea is still strong. It's refreshing, but not in the sharp way that, say, Embalming Fluid is. I only get a little of the moss, and it's more of an afterthought Dry: It's BPAL crack. I've only recently gotten into herbal scents, and I love that this one is not overpowering. Maybe it's not the most "unique" scent BPAL makes, but I like it and it's one of the few that I can see myself wearing year round. Getting a big bottle of this one.

Roses are the only floral I can stand, so I'm always on the search for a nice rose scent. I loved Rose Red, but Moon Rose and Two, Five, & Seven were a failure, so when I got a frimp of Seance I figured I'd give it a shot. In the bottle: Love! It has the same rose family scent that Rose Red does: It's sharper, less sweet, but unlike Rose Red, there are definite wood undertones in this one. It's got the same sort of scent to it that my mother-in-law's rosary does. Wet: A really nice blend of rose and wood, with a very mild spiciness. Or that could be the pumpkin body spray I'm already wearing. Oops. Still, love. Drying: Still lots of rose, but it doesn't whack you across the nose the way Rose Red does. The wood tempers it a little. Dry: The balance between the rose (about 60%) and the wood (maybe 40%) is great. This is definitely my backup for when my Rose Red runs out.