Ice

I have to second the Tum == grape assessment.

Y'know, the first time I sniffed this, I thought, "Ick." The first time I tried it, I thought, "Ehn." But trying it for the second time today was a completely different story. This is gorgeous warm spice, all rich and languorous. And even better, it's lasted for-ev-er. I put a small dab on each wrist and on my throat twelve hours ago, and I can still catch a whiff occasionally when I turn my head. All day it's been with me... not overwhelmingly or constantly, but as a soft aura and an occasional stronger fleeting scent when I move. I'm glad I decided to give it another chance, and Scherezade may be going on the bottle list...

I thought I'd love Jezebel, but it's just nauseatingly sweet on me. My skin seems to love the orange blossom and honey and amplifies it like crazy. No sandalwood or roses, sadly... I think those might've tempered the tooth-rotting candy sweetness. Ah, well. For the swap pile, most likely.

Mmm.... this one is delicious. Big, lush, dewy-wet blood red roses, wrapped in spicy, warm cinnamon. The rose and the cinnamon are about equally balanced on me, and the cinnamon gives it a nice bite. And the roses are *real* roses... I was not expecting such a fresh, living rose scent, and I adore it. Uber-sexy, this one.

Mmm. I need a big bottle of this. The ginger is amazingly lovely... it's got a nice zing, and it gives me energy. The milk and honey give it a creamy-sweet background. On me, it wafts a bit and lasts a while... I'm still noticing it when I move, hours later. This is an instant favorite for me.

This is a scent that needs to warm up before I like it. I got a few drops on some clothing and I really didn't care for the smell. It seemed like it had a potential, but there was one note that just seemed... off-key. Like beautiful music where one instrument needs tuning or is just enough off the beat to be jarring. I tried it again today on my skin and I like it much better. It's warm, very yellow (but not quite sparkling enough to call golden on me), and not at all sweet. I think the saffron is a predominant note on me. I like it, but I don't *love* it. Which is sad, because I adore Bastet the goddess, and I was hoping I'd equally love Bastet the perfume.

This is such a beautiful cool floral. It feels clean, wet, and very white. Definitely a keeper.

I only put Morocco on earlier this morning, but I think it's already one of my favorites. It's a bit sweet, almost in a milky kind of way, with a lot of warmth and spice, but it's not *too* sweet. It's not quite a perfect comparison, but the milkiness, spiciness, and sweetness remind me a little of a hot mug of chai. It's exotic and comforting, it doesn't demand that everybody pay attention to it, but I can't stop sniffing my wrists. I loves it muchly.

Bayou sounded interesting, but I don't think it's for me. It goes on strong, with a smell that immediately made me think "swamp". It's hard to describe, but it's sort of a cloying semi-sweet, semi-bitter vegetation and stagnant water smell. I gave it about a half hour to calm down, but it stayed strong on me. Eventually I wiped it off; it doesn't agree with my nose so much. Maybe if I'd left it on longer the flowers would have bloomed and the swampy smell would have left, but I didn't want to keep it on that long. I *am* impressed that it smells like I'd imagine a bayou to smell, and I'm glad to read from other reviews that other people have better luck with it.

Whimsical, temperamental, radiant and ravishingly beautiful Goddess of Volcanoes, Fire, Lightning and Dance. She is the Mother of Eruptions and the personification of destructive power. Volcanic eruptions are said to be a side-effect of her jealous rages and her epic quarrels with her siblings are legendary. This perfume embodies her gentler, benign aspect as the capricious Goddess of Dance: muguet and Hawaiian white ginger enveloped by warm, damp tropical blooms. I fell in love with Pele the first time I opened the imp (it was the first BPAL I ever sniffed, and it was a wonderful way to start). On first whiff, I thought, "It smells like Hawaii." There's something really special about the air there. Maybe it was that I'd just gotten out of the stale airplane air, but it was the first thing I noticed. The air there is damp and heavier than I'm used to, but not unpleasantly so, and it smells like flowers. While I was waiting for the luggage, my mother bought a beautiful creamy yellow-and-white flower lei for me. It lasted a few days (with some help from the refrigerator), and I remember exactly how it felt around my neck.... very soft, damp, and cool, and with a beautiful clean and creamy scent. Pele is just like that, and I get a mental image of the yellow and white lei every time I sniff the imp. It stays true, but it does fade pretty quickly on me. It's beautiful while it lasts, though, and I'm hoping it'll help if I put a little more on next time. Driving in Beltway traffic was a lot more pleasant with Pele wafting in and out. I introduced my mother to it, and she loved it as well. I've now got two 5 mLs on the way... one for me and one for her birthday.

My nose, sadly, is not well-trained to pick out the subtleties of BPAL scents yet... in the bottle, Machu Picchu smells like fairly generic perfume to me. Once on my skin, however, I can start to pick out a few things. It's sweet, but not too sweet, and feels very green and warm gold (the amber, maybe?). Fruity, and very *wet*. I wouldn't call it a *wild* scent, quite, but it's not tame. The name is probably influencing me a lot, but I imagine a crumbling old clifftop fortress, completely overgrown with leafy trees and ropy vines, all perpetually rainforest-damp and lush. Over time, it faded slowly, but stayed more or less the same (to my newbie nose, anyway). Really, really beautiful scent.