Epiphany

This was one of those that I chose on a whim, mainly because it has sage and I love BPAL's sage note This did not disappoint. Wet, this is all sage--not a bad thing at all. This was a lovely, silvery, very real sage scent. In the dry-down, the sage melded into the other notes seamlessly. I tend to amp cedar, but here it does not overwhelm at all, but instead creates this incredible backdrop for the other notes. My husband and I both agree that, somehow, this smells like MD Ren Fest. It has an incredible depth and complexity and is comforting in a way that I expect from a really good sage scent. I will need a bottle of this.

This is very interesting. It is pale, fruity, and softly lemony. I really enjoy it, but I think it overall may be just *slightly* too much like a nice glycerin soap (this is my downfall with lighter scents). It's truly lovely and light and I think is a wonderful spring scent for those sunny, but still cool days. Definitely worth trying, especially if you don't tend to turn basically any floral into soap the way I do.

I was super excited about this as the combination of notes should be really nice on me. Wet, it is all in-my-face almond, with nothing else. On the dry-down, the honey and coconut come through, but they are overlying a bitter, almost skunky note. I don't know what in the world is doing that or what combination of things is going off, but it is really disappointingly not working.

This smells like Easter, likely due to the way I amp the narcissus combined with the softer vanilla. I saw someone else mention that they thought it had that bubblegum lotus scent and I also get that impression here. A sweet, candy-like floral. Just...too much on the floral for me (which is not a surprise, I just am always willing to try things 'cause with BPAL you never know). If you either don't amp floral or just really love that note, give it a try.

Knowing that I amp white florals, but also amp tobacco, my hope was that the tobacco would moderate the floral. However, this just isn't the case and on me, it's all floral, floral, floral soap. I think if you're a person for whom white florals work, this will be lovely, but it's not for me.

This smells like sex on me. It smells like sex on my man. Basically this is sex in a bottle for me. Wet and dry it's Snake Oil tempered with a soft leather, utterly intoxicating. The comparisons to Western Diamondback are obviously apt as they both contain Snake Oil and leather, but they are two very different scents in my mind. Whereas WD feels like a more casual, day out in the sun type of scent for me, Snake Skin reads as something I'd put on for date night and may therefore never make it out of the house....

Revisiting Lupers from last year (especially because I cannot remember what most of them smelled like). Immediately on my skin, this smells like some Japanese strawberry gummy candies that I had recently. It seems to disappear almost immediately and I layer it on two more times to try to get a sense of it. This seems odd as my skin generally amps up red musk and vanilla (not in a bad way), but for the life of me, I can barely smell anything at all...Huffing my arm close to my skin, there is that light cherry blossom floral underlying strawberry (less candy-like now) and tinge of vanilla--it is really lovely, but just seems to cling so close that I'm not sure how wearable I would find it on a regular basis.

Retesting Lupers from last year because I cannot remember them at all. This is such a unique scent--one of the reasons I'm always curious to sniff various blends, even if they don't sound like something I would wear. Wet it is a strangely sharp and astringent evergreen, which I am attributing to the lavender's influence. As it dries, the sharpness fades somewhat, though it remains a very assertive scent, and the rose melds into the lavender and wood. Ultimately, it gets a bit muddled and soapy on me. I think the rose + sandalwood + lavender just can't figure out what to do, but that first blast of scent is so intense that I'm glad I got to test it.

Retesting Lupers from last year. So, I remember I was super excited about this because red leather is my favorite leather (Red Rider ftw) and I loooove honey. How could this not be amazing (and why don't I remember it?). Anyway, wet on it's sort of a weird muddle of sweetness, I'm very confused. As it dries, the honey begins rolling out in a sweet, almost boozy wave and the leather settles into the background. Definitely getting more honey than leather. Fully dry, this is nice--oddly I get some rose along with the honey and leather. It is soft and supple, almost downy, but there's something about it that isn't quite selling me 100%. Perhaps future testing is needed...

Revisiting Lupers from last year. I tend to be cautious about cream accord as it can go quite bitter on me, but in the imp this smells like a sister to Glowing Vulva (as noted by the first poster). Wet on my skin, it definitely has a GV vibe...which is amazing. As it dries, the lotus comes out a bit more and I have a moment where I'm concerned that this is going to turn into bubblegum, but that fades quickly and it settles into this lovely soft vanilla haze. As it wears, the sandalwood asserts itself more and it really is reminiscent of a less spicy GV. I'm loving this and have no idea why I didn't order a bottle last year....

Revisiting my Luper decants from last year, I couldn't remember this one, even though it's one that I was most excited to try. Wet on my skin, it's sort of a muddle of scents and difficult to pick anything out, but then...that "thin whiff of rose" begins to stage a hostile takeover. Pretty soon, I have a very dry (maybe that's the leather and tonka trying to help) rose single note. A few minutes later and the leather starts presenting itself a bit more, but the rose is still very, very much the dominant force and continues to be so as it stays on my skin. Ah, rose, why must you be such a bully. ETA: About two hours into wearing it and the rose has toned back so that this is mostly leather and...soap? So weird.

I'm still on the hunt for another wine blend that works as well as Halloween Las Vegas does for me. Wet, this is pretty much all wine--bright, bold, cascading. As it dries, the wine is still very much the up-front note, but I also begin to get the yew. An hour plus after application, it's still primarily wine, with a bit of a resinous undertone. I like it quite a bit, but it's still not close to HLV, so I'll just keep my decant.

I was drawn to this scent because of the unusual blend of notes. In the decant, all I can smell is a the bright aquatic papyrus and it's the same on my skin--basically a single note, with no hint of the myrrh or frosting. As it dries down, the myrrh (and perhaps a bit of the frosting) begin to assert themselves through the papyrus, but it is a faint dusting of scent. Ultimately, it dries to something a bit soapy, as papyrus tends to do on my skin, but with a hint of myrrh. ETA: Ok, so hours (like 4 hours later) the soap completely disappears and I'm left with the most amazing vanilla myrrh frosting. Seriously, it's an edible myrrh scent. It's glorious, but I don't think I can deal with the papyrus soap for the preceding several hours. ...I'll have to repeat my skin test to see what happens.

I am so confused by this scent...maybe it's the white myrrh, but I get this sort of...clean powdery scent. Not straight up baby-powder, it's more pleasant than that, but it's definitely much more 'clean' smelling than I was expecting. I can't pick out a single individual note, they are all blended into this soft, white puff of scent. There's something about it that I really like, but it's not a perfume I'd wear on a regular basis.

This was one of those, "Hm...that could be amazing, but it could also be meh scents" for me. I love the lab's ivy and leaf notes, but they don't always love me and the other notes in the blend are generally uninspiring on my skin. But I'm trying to steer my scent collection away from "ANYTHING WITH VANILLA!" so I opted to get a decant. Wet: the sharp scent of ivy that I love so much and a nice, loamy grave dirt. Lovely, but not exactly something I'd wear regularly. Drying: This is getting dustier, more like a swirl of dried leaves and loam. The ivy fades. Drydown: I was driving home the other night trying to figure out what that incredible smell was--it was so familiar. It took me a second, because I wasn't associating it with this particular blend, but: chrysanthemums. Somehow this dries down to chrysanthemum on me. I'm not sure what's doing it...but it's a dead ringer for dried chrysanthemum blossoms/chrysanthemum tea. THAT IS A GOOD THING. I double checked today to make sure that I wasn't just making things up, and yep, still chrysanthemums. I'm just hoping that if I buy a bottle, the bottle will have the same dry down as my decant.