DarthArwen

This started with a heavy, dry spice scent that made me check if it wasn't accidentally Pumpkin V from 2009 - which I generally find too heavy to wear. It mellowed down in maybe 20-30 minutes and became a very pleasantly foody spice scent. Not really what I had expected and not as distinct from things like Pumpkin Latte as I had hoped, but I'll be wearing it nonetheless.

Oh man, if only my favourite scents had a tenth of the strength/throw of Hell's Belle. I had an imp of it, mixed it with 4 parts jojoba oil. Literally just touched the roller ball to my throat on either side. Developed a headache from the overpowering scent (I think I just get floral (Magnolia or Oleander mix? Not sure) to the power of 100. Washed it off, but still smelled it quite strongly. Four days later the scent is still in the hoodie I was wearing then (the oil didn't touch the fabric) and it is now at a strength I would describe as 'Heavy throw, very present, but wearable'. I can't even imagine what the pure oil would have done, but it wouldn't have been fun. Basically this is a scent I like best when it is in its bottle standing on the other side of the room, and I just occasionally get a whiff of it on the air.

Nobody? *sadface*

I have Rituals Hammam foamy shower gel - it says it's eucalyptus and rosemary. I LOVE the scent, but it doesn't stick around long, and just mixing essential oils gets you something very different. Is there something of the lab that smells like it?

I love this, I suspect I'll be wearing it all winter! It starts as a really heavy, dry spice scent - cinnamon and clove. Rather overpowering especially from up close. Then as it dries it starts to waft off a delicious baking scent - the spices more mellow, the vanilla and hazelnut and pumpkin come out. I'm not getting the chocolate, but the scent that comes off (the heavy spice scent sticks close to the skin - if I press my nose against it then I'm still getting that) is amazingly like speculaas (Dutch spice cookies) baking. Yum.

Dark chocolate and pepper-smoked caramel. Oh dark chocolate, why can't our love be mutual? I was so looking forward to this scent, and it smells absolutely gorgeous in the bottle. On my skin it rapidly fades until after 5-10 minutes there's nothing left but dust and very faint trace of caramel. *cries* In contrast the milk chocolate scents, which I think are too candy-like to wear, come across loud and clear on me. I think I might work this into a massage oil or something. It does smell so very nice...

I had high hopes for De Sade but it was just incredibly acrid, chemically treated leather Brom Bones smells like my leather coat. Clean but real leathery, it's lovely. I wear it when I'm feeling anxious and need a boost. I only wish it had the tiniest hint of beeswax/honey so it would sweeten just slightly and evoke the scent of freshly cleaned tack..

This started off quite pleasant on me, but soon faded to a faint, watery mint. Kind of.. meh

I got Dragon's Claw as a frimp and I quite like sandalwood so was hopeful... tested it with a friend and it was ROSE! It was the weirdest thing, it was pure rose. On me it faded after about half an hour (I'd only used a tiny bit and glad of it because rose is not good on me). On her it eventually (after about 45 mins) turned into very nice sandalwood.

Tested this with a friend. Mutual response: "WTF, ROSE???" Half an hour later she was wondering what the nice woodish smell on her knee was. For her, worth suffering through the rose stage. For me it just faded as rose. Weird.

This is fruit, but a dark, sophisticated fruit. It's lovely and sweet on me, not sickly and not perfumey. I'm so pleased! I think this is going to be my new fave in the 'girly' category :-)

Replying to myself half a year later... have tried all three now Bliss is the best chocolate scent, in the sense that it's true milk chocolate. I like it, but it's a bit candy-ish and childish Candy Butcher wasn't chocolate on me at all, though it smelled gorgeous in the imp. Just morphed to faint-sweet on my skin. Bummer. Though a bit of a relief too since it's been discontinued since. Gluttony is not chocolate on me, but a gorgeous yummy foody smell. This is one of my favourites of all BPAL. Wonderfully comforting I-smell-nommable scent.

I'm a bit of a pyromane and was hoping for a nice campfire smell, but what I get is dirty pine-ish cleaning liquid. Euagh

I get this as warm dry soil. It's not unpleasant, but not something I want to smell of. Shame, I had hopes of this one! I think I might let it age for a bit (it's lab fresh now) and retest it later in the hope that it'll work better.

I was SO ready to love this. Love the concept, love the scent out of the imp. Yum. Like Gluttony with added coffee. Mmmm. Sadly on my skin the coffee immediately disappears, leaving me with... dust. Possibly some wood. Not Good. With regrets, but to the swapbox.

I'm surprised to see so many comparisons to Bengal here, because I immediately said 'Plunder!' I love spice scents so I had to try this one. Straight off I get cinnamon, pepper, tea and a hint of ginger. Maybe a trace of incense in there too. It's very dry, which is why I thought of Plunder - Bengal isn't dry on me at all, except when it's aged a couple of years. Silk Road is nice, but I didn't think it was different enough or special enough to really make it stand out. It also gave me a bit of skin irritation. I think I'll put this one in the swap box.

I love Gluttony, so I had high hopes for Cockaigne. sadly the wine totally knocked it over the head and drowned out the foody goodness. Wine clearly doesn't like me...

My notes say: 'Freshly showered man in comfy leather coat . Yum.' That about describes it. I love the scent of leather and this is what I hoped De Sade would be - like a well-worn leather coat. De Sade is just incredibly acrid and chemically treated leather on me. Brom starts off as 'too much for me' but mellows out and then works really nicely. Brom is yummy, though I'm teetering between 'I can pull this off' and 'I need a guy to smear this on'. Maybe it depends on the mood. The only thing that would have improved it for me would be the tiniest hint of beeswax - then it would have had a perfect horse-stable-hot-man-just-cleaned-tack balance.

This is the first time I bought a bottle unsniffed. Am a horsey person so had high hopes. Put some on this morning and it was mostly lemoney. Tried to hold back disappointment. Please no, let this work for me! I left for my appointment and when i sat down in the bus caught a whiff coming up from my cleavage. OMG YES MMMMmmm! For me it takes a while to settle in and for the lemon to back off, but then I get a gorgeous late-summer-outdoors hay and grass scent. Comforting and sooo good. It actually reminds me rather strongly of The Lion (one of my faves). I'm so pleased with this scent!

Not a question but a comment.. I really really wish the lab would send out an order confirmation email, especially because the process from ordering to shipping takes so long. When paying through paypal you only get the 'your money was sent' email from PP and then the next one, weeks later, is the click and ship - for nervous newbies that's like several weeks of thinking that your money was sent into the void, that BPAL is a scam, etc. A few of my friends made an order after i got them into BPAL and they were all worried about this. When I explained that it always works like this, each of them said it was ridiculous to not actually receive any confirmation, and I agree. I think it's very UNcustomerfriendly - not at all representative of how helpful and friendly the lab actually is. So please Lab, figure out an automagic email system that sends out "you have ordered this and this, your order will be processed, you will receive an email when it's being shipped" kind of emails. I bet it would cut down hugely on the worried "I didn't hear anything" emails you're currently having to answer in person.

Dark chocolate with a heavy cream undertone. I got Bliss and love it, but wished it was more a pure chocolate scent and less candy-ish. I finally located an imp of Candy Butcher and couldn't wait (in fact I very nearly bought a bottle unsniffed) Turns out it's good I waited for an imp. From the imp I get that lovely dark chocolate smell, and my heart rejoiced. Then I applied it, and for about 20 seconds I was soooo pleased and thinking "I will DEFINITELY get a bottle of this wonderful stuff" and then... there's a sweet note that completely overpowers it. It's rather cloying and reminds me a little bit of Milk Moon and Beaver Moon. Might be the cream? Though it reminds me slightly of berries. Gone is the lovely dark chocolate scent. *wail*

Got this a while ago and it's been sitting in the sell/swap box about as long... My notes say 'Subtle as a rino. Reminds of old bathroom freshener. Not my thing.' I've retested it (very very gingerly, on my ankle) for the purposes of this review.. and I can't say that I feel different. The bathroom freshener association has disappeared, and instead I'm getting a whiff of a scent I can only define as 'nappies'. I've caught that in the odd other oil and wonder which notes, or combination of them, bring that out. In any case, Follow Me Boy will stay in the sell/swap box..

This was in my first order nearly a year ago; I'm a sailing person, so the description appealed to me. My notes only say "pure men's cologne" and I scored it a 4 out of 10. It's been sitting in my 'for saile/swap' box for a while and I thought I'd retest it.. I don't know if it caught me as a particular point in my skin chemistry, if it's improved with age or if my nose has improved, but it's less clear-cut now. I can definitely smell the aquatics now and it's really quite pleasant - kind of a light clean smell that a man could wear to the office. (how very non-piratey). I like it now, but it's not something I'd wear and I'm single. Sorry Jack, I've revised my opinion, but you're staying in the sell/swap box. 7/10 for aptness, but by no means a favourite.

This sounded good, almost all the notes normally work for me and I'd heard lots of good things, so I really wanted to like this. This is the following is a visual representation of what happened when I put it on.. MARZIPAN MARZIPAN MARZIPAN MARZIPAN maybe some other stuff mixed into it but I can't make it out MARZIPAN MARZIPAN MARZIPAN MARZIPAN MARZIPAN So um.. yeah. It didn't work for me. 'cause I don't really like marzipan. I'd love to try this with the almond note left out.

This will go on record as the only floral I really like (at least so far). It's really fresh and bright, like a huge tropical flower in the rainforest somewhere. Very nice.