Macha

Other than the LE Rose Red (which is hard to get a hold of right now, though keep your eyes open for its possible return in a few months) I would recommend you try London or Rose Cross.

Blown up to twice actual size, but... Does this count?

Chaos Theory DCXLIX (#649) In the bottle: Wine and currants. This is a very purplish red burgundy kind of scent, very thick and rich. Wet, on skin: There are flowers in here too, heady and rich. The more I smell this, the more I think that it's a combination of Hunter Moon and Dia De Los Muertos, all autumn wine and flowers with the faintest hint of smoke. It's not quite the same: no autumn leaves, chocolate or blood, but it has many of the same elements to it. Dry, on skin: It dries down to a lovely rich musky note that's lightly sprinkled with wine. Conclusion: Oh, I love this. It's just a really beautiful fragrance.

I can answer part of that: it's ALL 100% natural. The Lab uses no synthetics. As for 100% essential oils? They've never made any such claim. The web site states that all blends are 85-100% pure perfume oil, and made from plant-derrived oils.

If it happened (and it won't) I imagine it would be in the realm of $2,000 not $200. But honestly, it ain't gonna happen.

My step-father used to have this tea he would make for me when I was sick: in a sauce pan combine the juice of two lemons (preferably from the garden), a pinch of lemon rind, several sprigs of mint (also from the back yard,) a tea bag, and a giant dollop of honey. Boil, cool, and strain. And that's what this smells like. There's something a little herby going on here, too, though I'm not sure if it's thyme or something else. The lemon and mint though, are just so bright and zingy and awake! that I can't help sit a little straighter, focus a bit harder. Oh, this is so very nice.

Okay, first, it's important to understand something: honey and I do not get along. Not as perfume, anyway. I love to cook with honey. Honey in my tea? Fantastic. Honey on my skin? A chemistry disaster. I like this. What was that? You can't hear me? *sigh* Fine. I LIKE THIS! I didn't expect to like Honey Moon. I expected it to go fusty and awful the way all of the honey based scents seem to on my skin, but the floral background, and most specifically the thyme, kept this from every going horribly wrong. Instead, it just continued to smell like honey -- not a cloying sweet honey, but the lovely mellow honey that I prefer. It's a close skin scent on me but with fantastic staying power, and probably the best example of had yet of how wrongly I can judge the scents I will and won't like. I thought I'd love strawberry moon and hate honey. It didn't end up being quite a solid reversal (I like strawberry moon, just not as much as I thought I would) but honey is also something I would absolutely wear again.

Chaos Theory #XIII (13) In the Bottle: Oooo....sandalwood. That is the very first impression that greets me. It's not just sandalwood, but smells slightly alcoholic, highly drinkable. I think there's amber in here: it strikes my nose in much the same way the Lion or Silk Road did, and with the same urge to drink it. Must. Not. Drink. Chaos. Theory. (Good grief, that sounds like a superhero's origin story doesn't it? Mild mannered artist by day, defender of the city by night! All thanks to a bottle of Chaos Theory!!) Wet, on skin: Oh, this is lovely. It's warm and golden and sweet, faintly spicy and feels just like sitting outside on a beautiful day and drinking King Midas' Golden Elixir. The sandalwood (or really, whatever that is: I could certainly be mistaken) is gorgeous and gives such beautiful depth to the whole fragrance. To me this feels like sitting on velvet on top of a golden pyramid and watching the sun rise over the Nile. It's just a glowing fragrance, elegant, regal, and utterly worthy of the sun-god of your choice. Dry, on skin: The blend begins to morph as it ages. A few hours later, and it's changed to pure vanilla and amber, with a tiny bit of white musk. It is beautiful and cozy and very comforting, and while it's by no means a perfect match to either, I find myself thinking of two discontinued fragrances that I miss very much: Antique Lace and Unseelie. (Astarte, sweet woman that she is, sent me an imp of Unseelie that arrived just today, and this does at times seem a more golden version of that elusive beauty.) In the Bottle: XIII has good throw and phenomenal staying power, and basically, is just perfect. I am thrilled by how beautiful this is, and it goes without saying that I'm going to hoard this bottle like a greedy, greedy wench, knowing that its like will never pass my way again. Footnote: weird lessons in synchronicity. I just noticed that Aurelius, who lives (in LA terms, anyway) relatively close by, received Chaos Theory #XIV! That's spooky/funny, cause I know we didn't order our bottles at the same time!

Depends....if you paid with Paypal, right away. If you paid through CCnow, it could be several weeks, even a month, after you placed the order.

That sort of sounds like an issue you need to work out with the lab....unfortunately we can't change what they charge you. The problem in this case is not weight, but rather mailing out in an envelope versus a box. The lab always mails out packages priority and using a box. And checking the USPS web site....sending that to Chile does indeed cost a minimum of $14.00. It would be cheaper if the lab used padded envelopes, but I don't believe they'll do that anytime soon.

Dublin

Nope. She's stressed out and overworked, and coming in after all the lab folk have gone home so she can work until 3am in the morning or so mixing up the blends. That said, I'm hoping that things will be calming down for Beth Real. Soon. Now.

Although this doesn't really apply so much to BPAL perfumes, this seemed the place to put this: The Evironmental Work Group's report on the safety of ingredients used in personal care products, including commercial perfumes. (Warning: too close a look at this may cause you to lose sleep at night, but it IS very informative.) Also: The Fragrance Products Information Network, which has a lot of information on fragrance allergies.

Honestly, the first thing I thought of wasn't cardamom but rather the pepper. It's like with cinnamon: a lot of people can eat cinnamon but complain of burns if it's applied to the skin. Or...i don't know...maybe the bamboo is the culprit. The lab doesn use it very often. If it is the cardamom though - the lab uses it enough that you can test. Do you have any of the following oils? Absinthe, Nephilim, Bastet, Ides of March or Lex Talionis. All use cardamom.

There aren't any synthetic ingredients used in BPAL perfume, but of course that in no way means you couldn't be having an allergic reaction to something natural. The body's reactions do change as well. People often spontaneously develop an allergy to something that they previously never had any problem at all with, so that makes it really very difficult to say which culprit is the allergen. Edit: That wasn't very helpful, was it? The only real recommendation I can give is to take note of that reaction, and be careful with any perfumes that share similar notes. You can also try checking to see if you have a reaction to any of the common oils (jojoba, avocado, almond, etc.) sometimes used in perfume oils.

The trick with Moxie, I think, is to make sure you can smell it yourself, so I would absolutely recommend an aromatherapy locket or some other device that you can sniff when you feel yourself becoming a little anxious.

There's no way to get the shampoo without the patchouli? A lot of smaller shops will offer an unscented version if you ask....

Centzon Totochin went a bit sweetish on me. Tezcatlipoca is much darker, in my opinion.

Whippoorwill, The Lion and Silk Road all have chai-like elements to them, in my opinion. None of them are a perfect hit however. I'm half tempted to see how Silk Road and Milk Moon mix, when I get the later bottle.

That's a hard one! Honestly, I don't know a good equivalent to Antique Lace. It was fairly unique. Joseybird thinks Morocco reminds her of it (if my memory serve me correctly) but my own impression is 180 degrees from that. I would recommend Zephyr, which at least has qualities in common, even if it's not the same. As for Baobhan Sith, the closest match I ever found was an LE, Queen of Diamonds, but that's not going to be any easier to acquire. Most people on the boards seem to think (and I agree) that Beth probably WILL bring this back just as soon as a reasonably-priced, good-quality grapefruit harvest comes in, so you may just wish to wait it out. And turn to the various other lovely citrus blends to salve your craving until then. Any other opinions on this?

There isn't much to add about Miskatonic University that hasn't already been said. It starts out on me as extremely strong sweet Irish coffee, adds woody notes as it dries, and is uniformly lovely from start to finish. I would like to add that it's strong. Very strong. Possibly the strongest BPAL perfume I've encountered to date. A tiny dab at 6am this morning is still perceptibly there at 8pm, and wafted strongly enough that several co-workers made comments about how good my coffee smelled upon entering my office. Needless to say, it was my perfume they were smelling, not my coffee! ETA: Make that "Stayed strong from 6am until 11pm, when I showered it off!"

There seems to be a lot of confusion in regards to Dunwich and Kingsport, two scents in this series which, on the surface at least, are both aquatics of a similar vein. Being blessed enough to have both these bottles in my possession, please allow me to assure people that they could not be more different. Sure, they're both aquatic, but to me it is like comparing the Pacific Ocean to the pond in my backyard -- H20 is the limit of their similarity. In the Bottle: I would say this is a very green aquatic, moist and mossy. Although I'm really looking for it because of Alectonox's review, I'm not smelling any ozone at all to this, and none of the ocean tang of Kingsport. To my mind, this is still water, water that doesn't move around much. Wet, on skin: It hits my hand and goes soapy, which I believe is likely because of those "marsh lillies" although it could just be moss, which sometimes does this as well with my chemistry. I can't say I much like this stage of things, but I will persevere because I love the concept so much. Dry, on skin: Ah, now that's better. This has turned into a deep, woodsy, damp scent. It's spot on for reminding me of a marsh, with every connotation of that: the crisp clean smell of night, moss dragging from the trees, stagnant water and the faint sweetness of water flowers...or corpses. Oh, such a dangerously unsettling fragrance, so perfect for Dunwich. Conclusion: I find Dunwich and Kingsport to both be extraordinarily evocative of the literary locations they reference, and Dunwich is a town in decay, where it can be dangerous to wander off at night. Every play World of Warcraft? This is the smell of Darkshire. It really is everything I had hoped it would be.

Disappointment? Thy name is Tulzcha. Out of all the scents of the Springtime in Arkham collection, it was inevitable that at least one wouldn't live up to my expectations. My review of Tulzcha is pretty simple: go scroll back up and read Pekeana's. What she described is exactly what happened to me too. What started out as a wonderful, crisp and delightful combination of mints quickly turned into cucumber, a little pepper and no mint at all. She loved that. I'm less thrilled. Of course, there's nothing wrong with the cucumber. It's a very clean scent, certainly. I just really love mint, and my skin doesn't like to hold on to it. Before it loses all the mint though, this is a sublimely cool, delightful fragrance, so into the scent locket it goes.

It's difficult to fight the temptation to compare with Gingerbread Poppet, so screw it, I won't bother fighting: Shub-Niggurath is ALL I had hoped Gingerbread Poppet would be. GP was too cakey for me, too floury, too tame, not sharp and biting enough. I love ginger, particularly when it has fire and heat. There are no safety words in my relationship with ginger. From the bottle, I knew Shub-Niggurath could fulfill my ginger fantasies (Satan's Gingersnaps indeed! OMG SO perfect!) This is unabashedly sexy, naughty, dark ginger. The wonderful surprise of Shub-Niggurath was the way in which it morphed on me into the unmistakable smell of fresh ginger, of the finest ginger juice straight from the cutting board in the kitchen. That is a wonderfully bright and wide awake smell that I've never before seen reproduced in any ginger perfume, and I'm quite in awe that Beth managed it here. As the perfume dries, it goes back to being spicy strong ginger cookies, just loaded with cardamom and spices. All the stages of it are wonderful. Just smelling it makes my toes curl. If you like ginger, this is GOOD (and if you don't like ginger, this probably isn't the scent for you.) That is just an incredible, dead sexy fragrance with great throw and staying power and I love, love, love it.

Woah. Umm....that's sure is some strong Vetiver and Saffron you got there, Mr. Azathoth. Really strong. I had no idea that the chaos of nuclear fire was so...masculine. So masculine that in my mind I can't help but picture some incredibly testosterone-laden God of War trying this fragrance and saying, "Umm....this is nice, but do you have anything a little more sissy I can try? That is much too manly for me." Oh great, Mr. Azathoth, now you've gone and made the God of War cry and pine for some pansy little fragrance like Dracul or Czernobog. I suspect that impression might be different if the tangerine had ever really showed up to the party, but sadly cedar and black amber appear to have hijacked tangerine, tied him up, and dumped him in a very unpleasant part of a deep, dank, stone dungeon in preparation for dark rites to the Great Old Ones. Sorry, ol' chap. It would have been nice to have met you. Hope you like the sound of flutes. Azathoth is not for me, but I will, of course, have to try this out on my boyfriend.