veronicafranco

in order of wet, drying, dry, i get

carnation!

sybaris?

carnation with amber.

so i think the notes are carnation, clove, amber and tonka.

 

in the sybaris? phase it's more wearable than actual sybaris on me, but that's what is preventing me from going for a bottle yet. will retest and ponder. this did come out of a freezing cold mailbox and straight onto my arm!

ok, no one be mad at me, but it's the fragrance part of those little cashmere bouquet soaps you get in motels.

except with a bit of coolness, a sort of depth from the pepper/leaf scents, and some reallly pretty muskiz.

a lot nicer than that might sound, actually...

 

eta: trying this a few months later. the pepper/leaf sharpness is too much for me until i've been wearing this for a few hours. at that point, the camellia musk is quite pretty, but i'm not sure i'll really wear it through the pepper phase. i wonder if aging takes away veggie notes? heh.

ohhhhhh yeah. this is what i used to wish commercial perfumes would smell like. rich and warm, with the spicy edge i can only get from clove + patchouli (maybe the ginger is helping here). this is my first testing, but if i get a bottle of a yule, i think it'll be this one. just YOM.

 

eta: ok, after further testing this has a weird kind of fruitiness when it's first applied. i think it's the vanilla-saffron combo. anyway, it still dries down awesomely spicy and i still think i may need a bottle...

wow. there really is a coldness in my nose as i breathe this scent.

which, other than that, smells like a... frosty pina colada?

 

i'm keeping the decant for summer!

jacob's ladder for putting-up-the-tree day!

well, i was thematically uninspired and just wore inez. mildly spicy vanilla goes with the aromas of thanksgiving foods, right? one of my fav tv chefs says vanilla is the underwear of baking... plus it calms my nerves.

 

we actually had a lunch/appetizer sort of party yesterday at my house, and i'm going to the big turkey day today, potluck style at a relative's house. maybe i will wear something more creative today....

hmmm. i wonder if i'll like cicadas enough to wear for thxgiving. sounds like it would be cool.

midnight mass for christmas eve.

last year i got it in my head that les bijoux smelled christmassy...

well, i was wearing silk road all day yesterday for a spicy golden-orange fall effect, although i guess the name has nothing to do with anything, and it didn't go with my costume either...

 

today i'm trying the girl again to be sure i don't love her. which has even less to do with anything. oh well. halloween is not my main holiday anyway.

when i first got this decant, it just seemed too new. like the notes hadn't melded together yet. i pulled it out today (with the bath oil as well) and like it better. honey and amber are notes i always like, berry is great if i'm in a mood for fruity scents (today is so gray it just needed a "colorful" smell somewhere), and the sweet-tart currant notes beth has been using lately are growing on me. i do wish i got pink pepper from it, which i really don't at all. i've been known to layer on a drop of aged hermia to "pep" it up.

 

also, this got a compliment from my odd coworker, who sat down next to me at lunch and said "you smell nice, did you shower?" (so i gave him crap for having commented on how i smelled like play doh one day last school year, when i was wearing haunted. because, warrior queen, right?)

i was so jonesing for this decant!! EVERYONE likes the girl.

 

i pop it open, apply and... eh. mailboxitis? The Most Wonderful Week of the Month? it smells like wintergreen marshmallows (which should never be marketed), and the kind of commercial sweetsweetgirly perfume i never like. please let this change in a week or two.

 

though there should be an actual law of olfactory physics (which should be an actual branch of physics) stating that the number of people who are insane for a blend (with overall hype being some kind of coefficient) is inversely proportional to how good it will smell on me. we can call it "the girl's law."

i get

1 clove with juicyfruit (i guess that's the red musk)

2 after a long time - frankincense

3 left on my clothes - snake oil.

 

will retry in a week or two. otherwise - oh well, at least i don't need a bottle

i ordered a decant of this before reading the reviews, then expected not to like it with the foodiness. when i sniff close to my arm it's too buttery, but the mix of musk, juniper, delicate floral, and chestnut in the throw is actually quite nice and unusual. i would definitely like more "moonlit musk" blends!

ooooh. my first bptp polish. in the bottle, i was afraid it would be too purple; but as others have said, it looks more seashell pink on. (except in very bright direct sunlight, when it's still lavender.) i love the gold shimmer. i only ever paint my toenails, not my fingernails, and i like low-maintenance, neutral/fair colors i can wear even after they start wearing off/growing out. this definitely goes in that category. i like it so much i looked up the perfume to see what was in it (not sure the oil would be me, but the polish definitely is).

i vote for illyria! regan, hermia and juliet, especially.

i feel sort of that way when i wear eustephanos, although from the notes i'm not sure why. rose is dressy for me, i think. that may not make much sense? heh. anyway, i'd only wear a drop or two, in the situation you describe.

 

also ave maria gratia plena. so rosewood is a theme for me. (also the scent description about the angel and adonis and stuff mentions distance, i'm pretty sure.)

 

 

thanks for the frimp, lab!!

this is definitely a white floral. clean, in a soap/shampoo way, as others have said. it's classic and pretty, though i wouldn't say it's my style and will probably re-frimp it to someone who would love it more.

yum. what this smells very much like to me is Sheol (similar with the lily and frankincense), only unlike that scent, this has no bitter phase while it's drying down on me. (i also get no ginger.) it's bright and rich and sweet. i didn't get to smell the old Tiger Lily, but i'm a fan of this one for sure.

ooh. this is very sweet, bright, almost honey-like (reminds me of a vanilla mead moon in a way). gentle and graceful enough to be cordelia's fragrance, in my opinion.

hmmm. i loved the first whiff of this from the bottle - hey, a bpal that really smells like "perfume"! on, i'm a little taken aback by the saltiness of what i suppose is the ambergris. (or maybe it's a moss that doesn't agree with me.) when well dried down, i only notice this edge if i sniff close to my skin (not in the throw). everything else makes for a really beautifully blended, dark and velvety floral - i was a little worried about the gardenia but i think that's what gives it the velvet "texture."

 

when i've worn it for many hours, i'm pretty much left with black lily, which is fun for me, as she and i have a nice history.

welcome! if you are foodyish, you would probably also like sweet berry/apple sorts of scents (hymn to proserpine and les bijoux are two faves of mine). troll the "recommendations" section of the forum, too (hmm, they might move this thread there )

thanks, lab, for a frimp i'd always wanted to try! a midsummer night's dream is one of my all-time favorite works of literature on the planet.

 

i agree with those who say this is a sweet sort of masculine, and those who get a crabtree and evelyn vibe. it's nice at first, but on my skin, something turns kind of heavy and sour and not to my taste. i may try to sneak it onto the prince. although he's slightly bpal-resistant, things tend to smell extremely great on him that don't work on me...

when this is wet, it smells like inexpensive hair care products?

but let it dry a bit, and wow. swap bubblegum/sugar for a darker pink berry note, and this is just like a CT:IV that i have. very pink peppery (the combination of carnation and pink pepper is great). though i love pink pepper and carnation, and now know that i love them together, the sugar is a bit much for me, but people who love sugar scents should definitely try this! i don't rule out wanting to wear this on frilly girly tea party sorts of days.

eta: after a few hours, all the pinkness is suddenly gone and i'm left with a vanilla wrist. hmm.

yay! i finally got an imp of this from the lab to try. i have a long-term interest in hetairae and related figures in other cultures (see forum name!), and clove and honey are two of my favorite scents of all time, so had to try this one.

 

so i don't tend to like fig scents when they're still wet, and this one is not an exception. they smell kind of gritty at first. i put a drop on the outside of my wrist, went "ylang ylang that doesn't make me hurl? huh, and wet fig, oh well," and started going about my usual busy morning.

 

and 15 or 20 minutes later, started catching wafts of this warm spicy honey almost-incense fragrance that is totally working for me.

 

see, in point of fact, i have all these unfinished and possibly never-to-be-published stories in my head, and one of my favorite characters in them is basically the same kind of girl as these here hetairae. (not by birth/class/job, but by how she acts.) and when i first started sampling bpal, it was with the goal of finding something that would smell like her very distinctive honey-incense perfume. well, this is as close as i've ever come!

oh la la.

 

the lovely ralenth sent me a testable sniffie of this one. i hadn't tried it on my own because it sounded like one of those SSEEXXYY kinda scents that i can't pull off. however, it's delish. i think this is what i sorta thought schwarzer mond should smell like... dark, complex, rich, just a bit too sweet to be unisex. like a lot of frankincensey things, it sweetens more the longer i wear it (i think it takes a while for the currant to emerge on me, which adds rich sweetness too). i don't get the tobacco or black musk strongly at all. while it's drying, there is a temporary but pretty potent teaky phase, though.

 

so this is a bpal first for me - a tobacco scent that i really like! and would wear more of if i had it.

 

crap, ralenth, you enabler, you.

from other reviews, i was expecting much more pear than i get from this. i'm getting mostly sweet amber/musk, a bit of patchouli, and when it's been dry a while, the metallic pyrite edge - which last time i wore it, actually combined with the other notes to do a benzoin sort of thing. i think this is my favorite of the le mat scents, but pretty much i'm planning to wear all 3 together.