Tigerkatze

my very first review ever, and the first oil I really LIKED from all the imps I've tried. The other night I put it in my bath, had the window open and candles lit in spring twilight, and Zombi was the perfect bath scent: languid, dark, sensual. First of all it smells nothing like the lurching, staggering, half-rotten undead I associate with the word "Zombi." In the bottle I smell damp dark earth and flowers including roses. I see summer evening in a garden or graveyard, maybe some fireflies around, in a humid, languid climate. Wet: the roses are laid on fresh earth, along with some other flowers (jasmine?) but the roses are center stage. Dry: roses and a background of damp, mossy earth. Faded: Roses. Dark ones, but only roses. I like rose scents, but it seems my skin turns many scents too sweet; this is perfect. Overall: this is sexy, dark roses blooming (wilting? Just picked?) on a summer day in a nevertheless cool and mossy-green place. And it spreads on my skin, which I like. Although I dosed myself with it on all pressure points then went to bed, the scent was mostly gone by morning, but my sheets still smell like Zombi. This is the first bottle I've ordered, which is good because my imp is almost empty!

So far, Black Tower is VERY sweet (don't get this being masculine/military at all) but dark enough that it's OK. Fenris Wolf is a hit - animaly that dries to musky. Black Annis was a NO - something coconutty combined with something chemically made me feel literally nauseated. Had to scrub it off with dish soap and the lingering scent is kind of OK. Zombi is rose and wet, green, mossy earth. Feminine, even sexy (who'd guess from the name?) but not sweet.

I'm new to BPAL and have just tried: Bastet (ok after it dried then wore in) Anne Bonny (cloying incense-y, not fierce at all) Black Forest (very sweet and cloying - the pine disappeared in seconds) Scherezade (same as Anne Bonny - the difference was minimal) The Lion (VERY sweet, sickeningly so, and didn't change as it dried) Dragon's Blood (started like red jellybeans, changed to cough syrup, dried a bit better) Wanton (VERY perfumy and sweet, might be OK though) I still have some more samples to try, but am feeling less than impressed. Normally, I like incensey perfumes, amber, musk, anything dark. But I don't like super perfumy smells or food as scent. In this thread some people have mentioned Anne Bonny and Black Forest as being good non-sweet oils, but on me, they went cloying and sticky-sweet. While I like sweet scents (Amber resin on its own, Body Shop's White Musk) I guess these here at BPAL go sweet quickly on me. I have another order coming with: Black Annis, Black Tower, Bloodlust, Fenris Wolf, Haunted, Nosferatu, Omen, and Zombi hoping that these aren't so cloyingly head-shop-perfume sweet on me. If anyone can recommend anything, I'll search the reviews and add them to my list. Otherwise, I am tempted to just send the whole batch to my friend in Los Angeles - at least she is near the BPAL shop, and maybe one or more will work for her, as she's curious about BPAL. It is kind of frustrating when you search through all the names and all the reviews and then have such disappointing results... Tigerkatze

for people who are wondering why friends don't get turned on to BPAL, maybe this newbie can explain... Lots of people on Beauty Bottle, Long Hair Forum, etc. love this stuff. So I thought I'd see if I can find a replacement for Eden Botanicals' Androgeny's Child, my #1 favorite scent of all time. All of the different lingo, names, families, etc. here are quite confusing if that's not your sort of thing. While I am open to the idea of wearing perfume with funny smelling names (much more so than to wearing pricey "designer" perfumes) it seems like the way they smell changes from person to person. How's a newbie to get started? The very kind tartChef has sent me some samples of stuff she had that was on my interest list, but it's been over a month and it hasn't come. I guess if I lived in Los Angeles I could find BPAL in a shop, but globalization hasn't gotten that far yet here - we just started seeing Ben and Jerry's ice cream about a year ago! So if you want your friend to get into BPAL, giving her a sample pack (I did this with Goth Rosary and it worked, but they have everything in small plastic samples, basically a card soaked in the scent, and with 25 or so scents this works) - let her try it and see why these are your faves, etc. Still looking for that Androgeny's Child replacement...sigh...

Hi, I'm new here and a bit overwhelmed by all the information and lingo. Ideally I am looking for a replacement for my favorite fragrance oil of all time, Androgeny's Child by Eden Botanicals, which they CHANGED THE FORMULA on. I have about 1/4 a bottle of the old, about 3/4 a bottle of the new. The old is warm, sexy, animalistic...the new smells like coconut on me and is cloying. The company seems happy with their change; I even phoned with them about it. Something about the ingredients' availability. Amber, Frankincense, Cedar, and Agarwood are the main scents, I think there was some sandalwood in there. Warm, rich, surrounding, very natural on my skin. My second favorite scent is Etro's Messe de Minuit. Dark, spicy, dangerous, wild, musky, some dirt and moss in there. I was wearing this on the full-moon weekend, camping, that my love and I came together. Any scents you experts here could recommend? I also like Goth Rosary's Heathen, Wicked, and Crypt, Donna Karan's Black Cashmere, Obsession for Men, Body Shop White Musk, Frankincense, Sandalwood, Oak Moss, or Patchouli neat... I've tried searching for these ingredients alone on the site but end up getting weird mixes with mixed reviews, and of course, the Androgeny's Child combination isn't there. help? thanks, newbie Tigerkatze