Aldercy

Red rose buds, with amber, clove, tonka, Indian musk, fir, and tobacco. White Rose is one of my all-time best rose scents (coming from someone who "doesn't like" rose), and now I find that Red Rose is coming along pretty close behind it. Haven't layered yet, but am very interested to do so. This is a throbbing, deep, medieval sort of perfume, kind of gritty and spicy but with a little dollop of velvety, woodsy rose oil thrown in. It doesn't have a wide throw and stays shadowy and close to the skin. The clove doesn't actually smack me in the face... in fact, no one note does. It seems very well-blended. I'm really liking it.

This reaction is a year and a number of months late, but I got really excited when my bottles of Red Rose and White Rose arrived in the mail today and I saw that the roses were stylized War of the Roses type designs. In my head, I will now refer to these scents as Lancaster and York. (Or, even more obscurely, Lannister and Stark, for all you GRRM fans out there ).

Panther Moon reminds me very strongly of Temple Viper, including the odd grape note that I got from that one as well. My nose must interpret champaca as grape. Overall, it's very dark, spicy rough, and musky. I really thought I was going to like it more, but it's just not charming me as much as it ought to.

Yvaine is such a sorrowful, rich floral blend. But in addition to the magnolia and creamy lavender, I'm also getting a lot of understated musk off this one. I can't exactly say what kind or "color"-- it almost has a grainy, gray, misty quality to it that makes me think of "smoky" eye makeup. It mixes with the floral notes to create something really otherworldly and sophisticated and feminine. I think I might need a bottle of this one.

Highly musky with a cedar-infused amber base. The cedar-- quite spectacularly-- does not offend me in this blend. It's a true, woodsy smell and not the "damp closet" impression that I usually get. A warm, sensual, masculine, antiqued kind of scent. Spicy clean and very natural. Not an everyday blend for me, as I do find it a bit manly, but I'll definitely hold on to the imp.

This is a really fresh, but pleasantly peculiar, scent. The kind of scent that you could spritz the couch with before company comes and no one would think "Why the hell does her living room smell like a dungeon/saloon/cave/mad scientist's laboratory?" I mean, sometimes I personally like my living room to smell like a dungeon or saloon or cave or mad scientist's laboratory, but it does kind of turn heads. Medicine Show has the feel of an everyday air freshener... without the nasty chemicals and without the general suck. I do get the unexpected melon note that others have mentioned. Along with some other notes totally out of left field, when I really closely sniff the pillow I've sprayed-- like a hint of ambergris and a hint of citrus (maybe bergamot?). It's like that odd, fresh-but-deep quality in Y'ha-nthlei. And then under that, there's a bite of sweetness and definitely some clean sarsaparilla and lightly spiced woody tones. I don't get any bay rum or resins, though they could be buried under everything else just balancing things out. It's a very layered scent. I think I will definitely be getting the full-size bottle with my next Trading Post order.

I love this out of the imp. I was in the midst of a mass sniffing, sorting out which imps were good enough for a full skin test and which were awful enough to go right away, maybe with a cursory dab. I opened this one expecting not to like it at all based on notes, but was so impressed at the depth and richness that I immediately slathered myself. The murky resins under a glassy surface of sheer lavender... so lovely. Well... ten minutes later it smells like feet. And cheese. Exactly like feet and cheese. I'm really disappointed with my skin chemistry right now.

This smells exactly like a type of cookie my aunt bakes! They're dark, bitter cocoa with cayenne pepper, and they're so weirdly delicious. Well... that's what Ghoul Hooligan smells like at first-- what it's probably supposed to smell like-- and then my skin morphs it into something vaguely dirty and icky after about 10 minutes. I guess I'm amping the sports fan ghoul funk. Man, I wish it stayed in that initial stage. Would be good in a scent locket (which I don't have).

Golden honey, nicotiana, blue chamomile, and cistus. Out of everything I got in my decant order, I was probably least excited about the notes in Door, and had even considered cutting it out. But it's turning out to maybe be my favorite of the bunch, at least in the initial stages! It's weirdly similar to Black Lace and Gun Moll in that it has an elegant traditional vibe slightly undermined by a smoky note. But it's more herbal and down to earth than either of those scents, probably due to the chamomile, which is quite prominent. It's a sugared, floral chamomile when paired with the honey, but it still smells very "real" and gentle. Door has a lot of layers, and the overall effect is great. I could seriously see myself buying a bottle of this one. It would be lovely for everyday wear.

Hm. Kind of missing the glowing red musk and frankincense on this one. What red musk is there is kind of watered down, with hints of cold, distant cherry or rosewood. The whole blend is more powdery and "clean" than I would have expected-- it seems like it should have real body, you know? So I'm mostly getting tinny, perfumed metal, a little red musk, and baby powder.

Bottle 324 has more ginger than vanilla, I think! It's really spicy-- a hard, screaming red ginger with something reminiscent of woody cassia or cinnamon bark. There's also a hint of smoky musk-- just a bit of sultry gray in the background. The vanilla is really beaten into submission by the spices, but what's there is a sweet, warm, slightly aged vanilla-- not icky plastic. This being the first CT I dared to order (I've been afraid because they seem really hard to get rid of if you don't care for them-- I see sooo many on sales pages), I'm pleased. It's my kind of scent. Nothing to make me cringe. But it is quite similar to Saw-Scaled Viper, the only BPAL to date to irritate my skin with the volume of spice. Blend 324 is a little harsh in that way. Which is surprising because the description specifically says "no pennyroyal, no nuts, no cinnamon, no cassia." So I suppose the cinnamon/cassia note I get is probably not literally there-- but that ginger is just a real scorcher! I will have to go light on this one.

For being chestnut blossom, this is a lot nuttier than I would have expected! Usually that buttery nuttiness is a turn-off, but it's actually very soft and feminine in here, tempered by the musk and lily of the valley-- kept from getting too outright foody. I don't get a whole lot of magnolia or citrus. It's a warm, sophisticated floral musk draped in creamy roasted spice from the chestnut. I like it!

A heavy, creamed vanilla (it has an edge of plastic, but isn't quite ruined) with just a slight swirl of sweet red ginger and something more serious and incensey. I like this combination of notes, but the texture is coming off as kind of two-dimensional to me.

I snagged this baby on a frantic whim, THEN came and started reading reviews. I was instantly heartbroken by the almost constant lemon references-- because my skin loves to convert lemon into "lemon Pine Sol" and then proceed to amp it to high heaven. I prepared myself for needing to send Severin away as soon as he had arrived. But. I think I'm pleasantly surprised. It is heavily citrusy-- it's by far the most dominant note-- but it's not the bad kind of lemon, I don't think. I'll have to see how it wears over the next few hours, but so far it's looking like this is in the same citrus family as Cheshire Cat (one of the few citrus blends that works for me, and its a favorite). It's a realistic, very juicy lemon pleasantly anchored by a dusty, muskier base. The tea note is--very specifically-- a light brown, slightly sweet iced tea. I've never quite come across that particular sort of tea in BPAL before. I do not get heaps of leathery leather, but I can identify its influence. As a whole, the scent is a strange dichotomy of bright, sweet freshness and crumbly, aged darkness down at the bottom. It has very few notes, but a sharp complexity about it. I actually am really liking this.

Interesting! One does expect kind of a "brown" scent, but it really is a lot more green with the fresh, grassy, rather cold balsam note. Very "raw," as others have put it. Like paring away the bark of a plant and getting to the tender greenwood underneath. There is some dusty bookishness in there as well, but it's not exactly leather. Much more thin and papery. The vanilla is not very warm or distinct-- I think it's mostly just softening up the balsam and giving everything a rounder, deeper texture. Wait, I know what this is making me think of! It's what Amortentia smells like to Hermione Granger! "Freshly mown grass and new parchment!" /geek Anyway, I think it might benefit with a little age-- I would like the leather to perk up and the vanilla to do its thing a bit more, but it's still very neat. Unlike anything else I have.

2008 version. Okay, first of all, I misread "kush" as "khus"-- which is vetiver-- and was very confused by this scent for a minute. But I don't actually smell kush either, so we're not going to worry about that note. Aaanyway, Anactoria is really pretty. I get mostly bright, rich redcurrant (so much different than its heinous cousin blackcurrant), lovely rough Arabian musk (it does seem to have a distinct personality among the musks), and a bit of honey amber. It's powerful and womanly. Seems to come from a traditional place, but is just a little different. I'm a fan.

Oooh... this is a bizarre scent, and I like both dirt and rose notes. I particularly smell the rose leaf, which you wouldn't think would be distinguishable. But it's really quite prominent to me. The floral half of the rose is definitely not perfumey. Crumpled, darkened, unnaturally warm, damp and almost disturbingly rich. Like some kind of incredibly concentrated, red-so-dark-it's-black rose paste that's been churned and whipped with wet, fertile earth. That sounds kind of disgusting, but it's not. It's actually really cool.

Wow, the skin musk is a lot more prominent than I would have expected. I imagined the darker elements (tobacco, patchouli and resins) would have overwhelmed such a sweet, gauzy thing as skin musk. But the resins must be thin, translucent ones and the patchouli is nowhere to be found. The tobacco is just a wisp, much like in Black Lace. Luckily, I really like skin musk, so no problem there. I love the combination of vanilla and pine and wish it appeared more often. This is a great blend of the two (creamy, non-plastic vanilla with a bite of bright, slightly bitter evergreen), all drenched in skin musk. It reminds me of something else I have in my collection... It's like-- OMG... WAIT... it's LIKE GIANT VULVA AND GOLDEN PRIAPUS LITERALLY MADE A BABY. Beth, you silly trickster.

Sniffing this in the bottle, I prepared myself for disappointment. It smelled like an even richer, more buttery version of Jack. A thick, sluggish bakery scent. I like foody blends, but Pumpkin Queen seemed like it was going to be a case of overload. On the skin, however, I much better understand why this one is popular. Pumpkin is still dominant, but it smooths down into a drier, darker, more spicy scent. I get the ginger and warm orange peel. It's not so foody that it seems out of place on a person. The amber gives it a more traditional perfume feel, I think. I concur with hkhm that it's similar to Fearful Pleasure with pumpkin in place of apple. I think I will let this one hibernate until fall. I rarely have a problem wearing scents "out of season," but this one is just SO screamingly autumnal it feels downright silly in May.

Moxie is an extremely natural scent. It does not smell like you're wearing perfume, but like you've been zesting oranges, nibbling grapefruit and grating ginger. It is indeed very peppy and sunny and summery.

Mm, Gun Moll is almost exactly what I wanted. I think I was hoping for it to have more of a "red" feel, but I really like it. Kind of peppery and gritty (gunpowder and tobacco leaf)-- it has a strange incendiary quality about it. I almost feel like if I were to get too close to an open flame, I might go up! That aspect of the scent definitely overwhelms the lighter, floral notes (which were very prominent in the bottle, but not on my skin) which are just cottony, white backdrop scents. It's very musky and the clove is bitter and dirty and thoroughly entwined with the tobacco note... more clove cigarette than baking spice. No fruit (yay!) or honey at all for me. This is a very dry, very sparse, very dangerous scent on me. It suits the concept quite well. Something about this makes me think of Black Lace (I guess it's that traditional, slightly floral musk in combination with tobacco). Yet it's a darker, more gravelly, shredded Black Lace. Not nearly as smooth or high-minded. Like Black Lace got into some fisticuffs in the alley and came out the worse for wear.

I test with a toothpick or Q-tip or something from the lid for the first couple times if I'm not sure I'm going to keep something. But after that I admit I do not make a great effort to keep my skin away from the oil, since it's mine and I haven't noticed any great problems with it yet. I do worry if I have lotion or something on my hands, and go rinse them in water before handling my BPAL. But other than that, I use the wand caps or swipe the inside of the cap with my finger. I don't think I've really swapped anything that I've tested more than twice because I usually know I don't want it by then. But I've bought partials from people whose application habits I do not know, and it doesn't bother me. That's just personal though, and I understand how it could be a turn-off.* *I got a package (forum sale - international) the other day and the customs declaration form described the contents as "used cosmetics." Which is totally accurate. But I went, "OMG, I buy 'used cosmetics' from strangers on the internet! I wouldn't buy makeup in a store if I thought someone had used it! What's wrong with me?" And then I opened the package and sniffed my BPAL and forgot all about it. But it does sound really insane when I phrase it to myself that way. I guess I just trust you guys not to, I don't know, take a foot bath with BPAL and then funnel it back into the bottle and sell it. ... seriously, though, don't do that.

The dreaded grape Dimetapp! Powdery, medicinal, fake grape. Absolutely nothing else. I really need to learn to avoid wine notes entirely.

Wow, I am having a hard time pinning this one down. It's one of those really well-blended oils that just doesn't throw one note at you more than any other. I was worried about sandalwood, patchouli and iron (in that order of concern), but somehow felt I wanted to go for it anyway. And I'm glad I did, because I don't get a whiff of the usual sandalwood powder or even much of the patchouli. The metallic influence is there, but it's a cool, glassy metal (not really like the harsh impression 'iron filings' might convey). Overall, it's a gentle vanilla leather with a lot of unidentifiable pleasantries going on in the background. It's very natural and unassuming. I think I might even like it a little better than CC: Female.

A very tart vanilla with creamy clay and a hint of greenery. It has a rather gauzy texture about it and is, indeed, very feminine. I don't even get a smidgen of leather. Very bright and youthful. Thankfully, I don't think I need to lust after a bottle, but it is an all-around pleasant scent.