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BPAL Madness!

orata

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Everything posted by orata

  1. orata

    Harikata

    ...and off bpalscentsual's bottle went, to me, and I am so pleased with it! I wasn't impressed at first but the second time I tested it, I fell in love. It reminds me strongly of The Harp of Cnoc I'Chosgair in feel, even if they don't share any notes but vanilla--a creamy, golden vanilla-musky skin scent with just a touch of florals and greenness. The notes are well blended for me, although osmanthus is slightly more prominent in the mix. So good! I just love it.
  2. orata

    Harikata

    ...and off bpalscentsual's bottle went, to me, and I am so pleased with it! I wasn't impressed at first but the second time I tested it, I fell in love. It reminds me strongly of The Harp of Cnoc I'Chosgair in feel, even if they don't share any notes but vanilla--a creamy, golden vanilla-musky skin scent with just a touch of florals and greenness. The notes are well blended for me, although osmanthus is slightly more prominent in the mix. So good! I just love it.
  3. orata

    Pears - different BPAL pear scents

    Thalia! Plumeria, pear and white champagne. Sounds like exactly what you're looking for
  4. orata

    Lady in Speckled Pink Kimono

    This smells very, very similar to The Dormouse to me, which tells me it must be mainly the peony note they share hitting my nose. Minus the strong fresh, grassy green tea note of The Dormouse, but it does have a slightly green/astringent tea-like undertone to it for some reason. I thought it would be more vanilla-ish. I actually don't smell vanilla in this, and it's not a creamy scent to me. It comes across as a fresh, clean, flowery green scent, and I'd probably be in love if I didn't already have The Dormouse and didn't keep thinking "where is the green tea?" I just got the decant today, so I'll see if future tests or a longer wear time change my mind, but for now it's a "use up my decant but don't need more" type of scent.
  5. I was trying some Khrysee I got in a swap and it reminded me very strongly of a less-peachy Tamora!
  6. YMMV, but I made a note in my spreadsheet about the drydown of Odin being somewhat similar to Night Hag--dry smoky wood. It starts with lots of vetiver though.
  7. orata

    Looking for a BPAL that Resembles a Favorite Perfume

    Ave Maria Gratia Plena might be worth a try. It has jasmine, orris, and sandalwood. Maybe Defututa, Salome, or Vasilissa? They all have jasmine and sandalwood notes. Re vanilla--I just bought a bottle of Castitas from Black Phoenix Trading Post and it is a lovely sweet vanilla blend! I'm going to try using it as a moisturizer by itself. Other vanilla-heavy GC scents that frequently get recommended: Snake Oil, Detestable Putrescence (pure vanilla AFAIK), Mouse's Long and Sad Tale, Eat Me, Tombstone, Lyonesse, Sachs, Liz
  8. orata

    Blood Kiss

    There is a Chinese loquat honey cough syrup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nin_Jiom_Pei_Pa_Koa) that smells EXACTLY like Blood Kiss in the wet stage. I love that medicine, so that's not bad. Vetiver started to come out as it dried and I was kind of unsure about how I felt about Blood Kiss, but once it was completely dry, I liked it again. Lots of cherries and wine and a bit of darkness from the vetiver, opium, clove, and musk that keeps it from smelling too Robitussin-y. It reminds me a lot of Madame Moriarty once it's dry--that dark strong fruitiness with vanilla--but minus the patchouli.
  9. orata

    Lemon, Lemon, Lemony Goodness

    The only one I can think of is the Neil Gaiman scent Lemon-Scented Sticky Bat, but I'm sure someone else will be along with more suggestions!
  10. orata

    Sangria Champagne

    I got both this and Mango Lychee Champagne. I liked this one better right off the bat, as I found it more instantly appealing, mellow, and wearable, but after wearing both for a while, I did like how much the fizziness lasted in MLC. Anyway. This is delicious! A mixture of soda-pop effervescence and fresh fruits (red wine/grape, apple? Maybe orange?) I am wary of booze notes because I'm not a huge fan of smelling like alcohol, but this is nice and doesn't leave me smelling like I've doused myself in the demon drink. As it wears on, the fizziness fades and it becomes more of a fruit punch scent with just a touch of fizz. Whatever the fruit notes are, this smells fairly mellow, sweet, and natural, not fermented, fake, or cloying.
  11. orata

    Mango Lychee Champagne

    So good! This scent has a ton of champagne fizziness, but it doesn't smell boozy so much as soda-pop-sparkly to me. I wasn't a fan of Bon Vivant, and I was afraid this could easily go the same direction of oversweet fake fruit and booze, but thankfully it stayed nice all the way through. It's a real mood lifter. The fruit notes smell primarily like the slightly sharp and sour green mango from Tweedledum to me, without the patchouli dirtiness of that scent. Not the most realistic scent, and it doesn't smell like ripe lush mangoes to me, but it also doesn't scream "plastic" or "air freshener" like I find some fruit scents can. I do smell the slightly floral and appley sweetness of lychee, too. I'm surprised the other reviewers find it smells more like lychee--to my nose it's very much a green mango scent. Not much of a morpher; it stays similar in the wet and dry stages, bright, fizzy, fruity, and happy. I got Sangria Champagne as well and I like that one slightly better overall, but the fizzy quality definitely persists longer in this scent.
  12. orata

    Pale Student of Unhallowed Arts

    This is lovely, though it doesn't smell like cologne to me. Instead, it smells like soda pop. Very clean and effervescent. Almost like ginger ale or 7-Up to me--the generic airplane soda type of ginger ale that's not really strongly gingery, more fizzy, sweet, and vaguely citrussy. I could see this having juniper in it, and maybe white musk, but the main impression is that light, barely sweet, very pale and clean effervescence I associate with soda scents.
  13. orata

    Scent for Halloween?

    I wore Halloween: Las Vegas last night, with an extra dab of Snake Oil, and it felt perfect. Wine, smoke, cake.
  14. orata

    Honey and Beeswax scents

    My faves are Deadly Nightshade Honey, Lights of Men's Lives, and Against Idleness and Mischief--have you tried any of those? I found them less sweet than O.
  15. orata

    Yules?

    I have bottles of Pink Snowballs (sweet soft rose), A Wonderful Light (warm orange beeswax), and Beautiful and Adored (musky, girly fruity floral) so far and I really love them all. Haven't gotten my decants yet, so this list may grow
  16. orata

    Lime!

    I didn't like the dragon's blood in The Zoom, but it had a nice fresh lime note.
  17. I find Crowley similar to Mme Moriarty, without so much of the red fruit aspects--you could try layering it with something fruity.
  18. orata

    Vasilissa

    This is a gorgeous scent. Very sweet, which I knew it would be, but also much fruitier than I had expected, which I suppose must be the pink musk--smells like an abstraction of strawberries and caramel. It dries down creamy and sugary-sweet, with grounding notes that I think are the sandalwood (but a nice, smooth, non-dry sandalwood), amber, and perhaps the jasmine, but no overt florals really ever come forward for me.
  19. orata

    The Lights of Men's Lives

    A natural, gentle, slightly vanillic beeswax scent drying down to a soft smoky note. Lovely, soothing, comforting. The throw isn't too strong on me. It was one of those happy scents where I put it on, forgot what I had applied, and then an hour later was like "what is that gorgeous smell?"--in this case, a sort of vanilla-tinged smoke. I was scared this would be either too sweet or aggressively smoky (still have bad memories of the insane smoke in a Milk Chocolate, Bacon, and Cassia sniffie I was frimped). I love it!
  20. orata

    Venice

    Lemon Pledge, roses, and jasmine, with some sandalwood in the mix as well. I wanted to love this for sentimental reasons since I used to live in Venice (my main scent memories from that time are of the horrible sulfurous smells coming out of the canals, though) but it was kind of a kick in the face from brash, soapy florals with a cameo appearance of furniture polish. I'm not sure I can see how it dries down--may need to wash it off as I'm getting a headache.
  21. orata

    A Wonderful Light

    First off, this throws out a huge warm glow of amber, rounded, creamy, and lovely. There is a slightly pomandery orange zest scent (with a hint of fragrant, bitter oils--like bicyclette said, it's definitely orange zest and not orange juice). I get the same sort of smokey honey-vanilla combo as in Defututa, too, with a nearly plasticky note to it that I also associate with tonka bean. There's a little sparkle that I think may be from the linden, but it's not coming out as a prominent note--it's mainly amber and orange zest to me. It dries down to a very comforting, warm scent, with lots of vanilla and beeswaxy honey (in fact, it smells much more like beeswax than like honey to me), with a slightly bitter, almost medicinal note to it underneath if I put my nose right up to my wrist. It reminded me a little of O as well, but it's not nearly as powdery and sweet. I'm also a little bothered by the bitter undertone, but it's mainly detectable from close up. From further away, it's more just a warm, lovely beeswax, amber, and vanilla.
  22. orata

    What BPAL would this fictional character wear?

    Robotic Scarab maybe?
  23. orata

    What BPAL would this fictional character wear?

    Twenty-One, of course
  24. orata

    Beaver Moon 2011

    So much lavender. SO MUCH. TOO MUCH. It is backed with some cloyingly sweet cheesecake and maybe a tiny whiff of honey, but the overall effect is a sharp, bitter, almost medicinal cloud of lavender with a powerful throw, rather than the creamy cheesecake goodness hinting at lavender that I was hoping for. (I don't smell crust or anything, just LAVENDER and a little cake.) I guess I don't like lavender as much as I thought I did! I think I have the cheesecake version rather than the incense version that people have been discussing, but I still don't like it.
  25. orata

    Lady Death: Savage

    I found this very pleasant when wet, sort of a thin, watery, citrussy bergamot lemonade type of scent. Not a sharp or powerful citrus at all, definitely thin, pale, and rather weak, like a teabag of Earl Grey on its second steeping. However, in the drydown, the bergamot faded back a bit, and along with the white musk and vanilla (mmm!) some kind of gross, sickly-smelling resin made an appearance and made me feel sort of nauseous. Not sure what the culprit was--maybe the labdanum or styrax? Or it could be a stray bitter undercurrent from the caraway or wormwood? Like drinking a really big glass of watered-down lemonade with just a little bit of dirty dishwater still in it; almost nice, but something was just off. The scent feels rounded, soft in texture, and a little cool. I really wanted to like this, and the Will Call reviews comparing it to Liz made me think I'd love it, but it didn't work out for me. Perhaps I'll try it again in a while if a decant makes its way into my hands again, in case aging mellows out that killer component, but at the moment it just doesn't work for me.
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