shriekingviolet

Initial Impression:

Plums, ripe and rosy!

 

After Wearing It:

Mmmm this is such a gorgeous plum scent. Wet and during the first hour, Midwinter's Eve smells wet and juicy, just bursting with the sweet juiciness of the best plums. I love plums because their scent manages to be bright yet dark at once, and ME really captures that. It's sweet without being too candyish.

 

After a while the plum scent mellows a bit and something that smells oddly like gingerale bubbles up in the background, giving the scent an additional cheerful dimension. It's slightly boosy smelling at the point, making me think of plum wine. It's jubilant and beautiful, very festive in deed though I don't feel that this scent is too terribly seasonal. I've never really associated plums with Christmas, so I could just as easily wear this scent in July as I could in December.

 

Final Thoughts:

Very nice, though I usually like my fruity scents to have something extra added to them to make them darker or earthier so I might experiment with layering this with other oils. This would absolutely smell divine as a room scent too. Can't wait to try it in a burner!

hey everyone, finally made a tenative appointment to get the board moved by the software company. Unfortunately they don't have an exact date/time to give me on when the move will start but I'm told it'll be this week as soon as a rep gets assigned and shouldn't take more than a day. So I just wanted to tell everyone to back up any important info they might have on the boards right now. Not because it'll be lost, but because I don't want anyone to be without something when the boards are done. So grab your swap info and anything you might need at a moment's notice (lol no homework assigments this time though, right?) now.

Site Description:

 

Initial Impression:

Smells like hot cherries and spice.

 

After Wearing It:

Wet and in the bottle, Bastet made me shudder in delight. My first thought on putting it on was that Bastet smelled like LOVE, though I'm not exactly sure where the thought came from. It certainly is a sexy scent, but there were no visions of romance or lust coming from the oil, it was just my reaction to it.

 

Wet the almond note is really strong in it, though it was one of those shifty almond notes that smell deceptively like cherry and not too much like almond. The lotus in the blend probably helped this impression. I could smell the amber too in the background, really warming the scent up.

 

The almond/cherry not that was so strong in the beginning backed off rather quickly, and within twenty minutes or so was just a whisper. From then on, Bastet was all about amber, rich, warm and lovely. The blend was very spicy and a bit smoky. In the middle stages I could definitely smell the myrrh, saffron and the cardamom as the provided a glorious pedestal to the amber.

 

Bastet is just exotic and blazing, evocative of grand marble temples, large comfortable cushions made of luxurious, golden fabrics, and air thick with perfumed smoke. Of just lazing around in splendor, quick smug about the fact that it's all for you and you quite deserve it all, much like a spoiled feline so it's very appropriate!

 

Final Thoughts:

I love this lots! So glad I got a bottle. It just wears beautifully, and since I'm such an amber fan, there's no way I couldn't adore this.

OK so I'm still waiting on hearing back from the board software's support, I'm still hitting roadblocks on my own, and if I have to look at anymore code right now, I'll gouge my eyes out and then throw up, so I'm giving your boards back in the old location for the time being.

 

I'm sure you all want to chatter about holiday things and the Yule orders you're receiving (just got mine in today! haven't had a chance to really look at it), so knock yourselves out. And if everyone could please save any non-emergency forum tech-related PMs or posts until after the holidays, I'd appreciate it. I work retail so I'm in especially fragile state of mind right now (few things are as frazzling as working retail at Christmas time) and I don't think I could deal well with the added stress of having to rethink the forum move (which will happen after the new year, unless I get an appointment to have someone move it for me earlier) or something new you'd like to see implemented. Even if you're trying to be helpful. I should say that if you do have a real problem that you can't work around yourself, of course I want to hear about it. Just nothing nonessential for the next two weeks pretty please.

 

That said, welcome back everyone.

 

(cross-posted to the LJ and the progress log)

forum will come down late tonight, probably around 12 CST.

Hey ladies & gents!

 

This is just a heads up to let everyone know that the boards are going to be down for at least a day or two sometime next week. The board will be moved to a new location, and unfortunately because it's so big, it's going to take a lot of time and effort on my part to transfer the database to insure that everyone's posts, records, etc. are kept in tact. For those who remember the first move last February, it took at least 8-9 hours for me to bring the boards over, and now the database in many times that size. Also, once we go back up, the forum will be at a new location: bpal.org!

 

But the move is a very good (and very necessary) as I got a killer deal on a hosting package ('twas a sale I couldn't refuse given the way you guys drive up bandwidth costs) that will allow me to worry much less about our bandwidth usage. Plus the new host is a bigger company who can offer faster support, so I'll be better able to fix problems that aren't script related (like the one we had with our email server that causes the email notification problems recently) in a more timely manner.

 

I'm not sure exactly what day next week the forum will go down as I'm not sure what my work schedule will be, but I'll let you know in this thread as soon as I figure it out. I'm planning on it being midweek, so possibly Tuesday. And I'll be keeping a progress log somewhere (I'll post the url on the bpal community LJ), to keep everyone informed on where we are and how much longer it might take.

 

In the meantime, might I suggest figuring out IRC if you haven't already? The BPAL chat channel seems to get a lot of activity during downtime.

Initial Impression:

Oh orgasm in a bottle. Yummy burnt, brown sugar with creamy caramel. I want to roll in this.

 

After Wearing It:

On this had none of the creaminess I smelled in the bottle which was a little disappointing. I love the smell of caramel, so I was really excited about this when I sniffed it in the bottle. But fir a while, this just smelled hot and dry. Could smell that burnt brown sugar everyone else smelled, plus plenty of spice. Reminded me a bit of cinnamon toast without the butter. It's odd, it smelled like sugar without actually being too sweet. Just hot, spicy, with a vaguely grainy texture.

 

After thre hours though, the heat and the spice tone themselves down and Sugar Skull smells much smoother and sweeter. Plus every now and then I caught the insinuation of fruity notes that lurked in the bottom of this fragrance. For very short periods every hour or so after hour 3, I'd smelled a very clear, round juicy fruit note piercing through the spicy-sweet atmosphere of Sugar Skull. It smelled something like peaches or apricots in that it had a fuzzy-sweet-syrupy tone to it. But better than either of those as I'm usually not such a fan of apricots or peaches. But then it'd fade back as if I had imagined it, only to reappear sometime later. It added a very mysterious and beautiful element to Sugar Skull.

 

Final Thoughts:

I really liked this one! Definitely like it in the bottle and in the ending phases than I do when I first put it on, but it's still wonderful. It's just such a buoyant yet warm and sexy scent.

Initial Impression:

Mmm a really warm grape-y wine.

 

After Wearing It:

This smells of very warm red wine on me but with a very animalistic edge to it. I can't pinpoint exactly what I'm smelling, because it doesn't really smell like musk and it doesn't smell like civet. It's kind of like the smell of fur, like the haze of a (just washed!) dog. That unusually pleasant puppy smell.

 

During the life of this scent, I kept getting flashes of drinking hot, spiced whine in a dim pub somewhere from times past. Big leather arm chairs, roaring fires, and a cheer in the air that comes from the joy of a successful hunt. People have been out all in in the chilled, autumn air, pursuing game (fox would be appropriate, though it's rare than anything is actually caught in a fox hunt) and have now retired to warm themselves by the fire and with large flasks of sweet wine while boasting about the accomplishments of the day. The scent of the outdoors clings to them, the smell of their hounds and horses and blends with the scents of the warmth of the room, the smoke of the fire, and the wine they drink as they celebrate long into the night. It's a very warm and glowy scent, dark but cheerful too.

 

Final Thoughts:

This is a really unique and evocative scent! I'm not sure if I'll wear it often, but I'm very glad to have it a part of my collection.

Initial Impression:

Bright, citrusy overtones over something warm and deeper.

 

After Wearing It:

I've been meaning to review this oil for ages, but have sadly fallen out of my old reviewing routine and keep forgetting to review what I wear. But I'm trying to catch up on a few now, so bear in mine my impressions here aren't quite fresh!

 

In the wet and the drying phase of this oil, Red moon smells sweltering. It's the very portrait of August, in that it's the scent of the heat of summer at its zenith: that oppressive baking feeling in the air that manages to somehow feel both humid and arid simultaneously. It smells strong, majestic and powerful; a scent colored in tones of rust and orange. In this stage, the dragon's blood and amber are very prominent, enhancing the heated aura of the fragrance and adding a metallic, bloodied quality to red moon. There's also a fine thread of orange running through the scent, which was the only fruity note I experience during the life of the fragrance.

 

After an hour and a half or so, the heat of the oil starts to wane, moving away away from oppressively hot and toward pleasantly warm. The dragon blood in particular mutes itself as the sweeter notes rise to the top. The heliotrope and chamomile blend with the amber to give Red Moon a new warm, sweet and almost bubbly quality that's gorgeous.

 

Final Thoughts:

The fragrance lasts a good long time on me (at least 10 hours) and has a decent amount of throw. It's just a lovely scent from start to finish and it so wonderfully captures the end of summer: the heatstroke rending conditions of its last push to the slow decline in temperature before we are released to the relief of autumn. So lovely & unique, I'm glad I got a 10ml of this one!

They were Limited Editions...a few months ago?  I don't remember exactly when.

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first week of august!

Initial Impression:

OMG, sweet lovely fall. Almost intoxicating in its golden goodness. *Swoon!*

 

After Wearing It:

God I love this. For the first our it's very intensely fruity, primarily apple with touches of ripe, dark berries (more blackberries than cherries) and subtly but well spiced. I'm usually not much into apple scents as they're usually too sweet without being warm, but the way they were blended into Lughnasadh just blew me away. It just smells like the best kind of hot mulled cider.

 

As the scent "ages" on my skin, the fruit notes mellow some. Not disappear, just mellow, and the spices come more to the foreground. I'm amazed how well the cinnamon, cloves and..... something else? can be so prominent in the scent at this stage and still stay so marvelously smooth. It was warm, but not fiery. Just toasty warm in that comforting, insulating way. There's impressions of the smell of corn bread baking in the background, and the occasional wave of firesmoke blowing in, and both just give Lughnasadh that much more character.

 

This is just fall bottled. It's the reprieve from the scorching heat of summer and rejoicing in the abundance that fall brings before you have to worry about saving for winter. It's just a perfectly glorious, warming, cheering scent that I love to wear. I agree with Amy too, it does have a similar tone to Samhain but is less earthy and without the heavy pumpkin note.

 

Final Thoughts:

I'm so glad I bought two bottles of this! I'd hate to have to be sparing with it because it's such a mood booster and I know I'll wear it all year. If Beth rereleases this next summer, I'll buy it then too.

I've just posted the new set of board guidelines. A lot has been added so it is very important that you read all of them. And because I've found that a good number of people just skim or ignore the admin messages I post, I've had to make it to where everyone's posting and swapping privileges are suspended until you've PMed me to let me know that you have read the board guidelines, at which point I'll reinstate them. And yes, I know they're long, but they're important and I spent a lot of time on them, so just read them. There will be no test to assure that you did indeed read them, but should anyone post a question in the next month that was clearly stated in the guidelines, they'll not be be in my good graces.

 

Ah and so people don't have to ask later, the rewards program starts tomorrow. I still have some editting I have to do before we can begin.

 

Now everyone go read the guidelines, and then PM me to let me know you've done so and I'll let you post again.

Initial Impression:
minty and light but buttery too, sort of like those buttermint candies

After Wearing It:
God this is gorgeous! Wet and for the hour after it dries, Snowblind is so buttery and sweet, yet escapes smelling redundantly like vanilla. Underneath the buttery folds of this is a strong, yet soft mint. It's a very noticeable note, making the buttery-ness of this oil still manage to smell cool, but there's nothing sharp about it at all. There's some lemon here too I think, but it doesn't present itself in the usual fashion. It's very much a supporting character, and just makes everything smell a bit fuzzy. There's also an impression of nuts here, not so much the smell, but there's the texture of fragrance I associate with a true almond note. It smells a lot like buttermint candies.

Together, all of the notes in Snowblind make it smell cool but not cold. It's like sitting inside where it's nice and warm, staring out the window at the blizzard outside. The warmth of the room is all around you, but the cold from outside radiates from the glass, teasing you with the chill of the outdoors even though you're not touching it. The fuzziness of the scent makes me think of a really heavy storm, where the view of your yard is obscured by the falling snow.

As the fragrance wears on, it doesn't change much, it just fades softly and pulls its intensity closer and closer to the skin until it just sits there like a blanket (i.e. strong on the skin if you sniff it, but little throw) which seems appropriate. It makes the final hours of Snowblind reminiscent of what a landscape looks like after a heavy snowstorm.

Final Thoughts:
This is a wonderful winter scent for gals like me who hate winter. I hate the cold, I hate snow, I hate ice, I hate coats. I hate, I hate, I hate. But this does remind me of the things I DO like about this time of year. Like sweaters or sitting with my feet over a heating vent. Or how beautiful snow can be before anyone touches it, and I don't have to actually walk in it (and thus start to hate it). How amazingly bright the night is when they sky is clear and there's a good blanket of snow on the ground. It's so delicious too, in its minty-buttery goodness. I'm so glad blessed me with some of this!

Initial Impression:

Strong grainy smell with a sweet white undertone. Buttery overnotes.

 

After Wearing It:

Wet, this is gorgeously buttery. Smooth to the point of being slippery, warm, golden and wonderful. Butter and grains is all I smell and it is so delicious. I want to eat it, I want to drink it, I want to pour the entire bottle onto my skin and rub it in, just to be as velvety as Harvest Moon is.

 

Unfortunately, this stage didn't last. Less than an hour later all I could smell from this was white wine. Semi-sweet pale white. Which is nice, even agreeable with my chemistry, but ultimately a disappointment considering how wild I was about the inital phase of the fragrance. Plus, this oil didn't last long on me: 4 hours later and it was gone!

 

Final Thoughts:

I'm happy to have a bottle of this, but because of the low lifespan and the brevity of my favorite stage, I probably wouldn't be tempted to repurchase. Which is good because it's LE.

Initial Impression:
Sweeter than I expected from the description. I think I smell something like mallow flower.

After Wearing It:
From start to finish what struck me most about this oil is how sweet it was, which wasn't something I would expected from the description. But in the bottle, wet on my skin and finally dry and fading on my skin, it remains very sweet. Not honey sweet, or sugary sweet, but that odd sort of floral sweet that made me think of mallow flower, but perhaps it's lotus (which always smells a bit bubblegum sweet to me). It's puzzling....

Wet and in the very first dry stage of Antique Lace remind me a lot of Alice. It's a sweet floral with a milky (but not quite creamy) undercurrent, and the tone of it all was powdery. For a while I thought I smelled a traces of carnation, but that's gone now and I'm not quite as sure. I thought the same about jasmine a little later, but that too has retreated back into blend.

The visual impression I kept getting from this fragrance is of old valentines, with faded colors and slightly crumpled edges but otherwise well preserved. Sweet sentiments from years long gone, given to you by people whom you barely remember, but the sentiment of the moment is as clear now as it was when the token was new. It's a very feminine scent: soft, romantic, frilly, sweet and full of fondness. The scent of a woman digging through her box of emotional souvenirs who can look with a bit of wistfulness at her more carefree years and yet regret nothing that she has done to move beyond that time.

Final Thoughts:
This is a really pretty scent, dainty, delicate and yes really sweet. It has great lasting power (I'm almost at hour 9 and it still has strength and a good amount of throw). I really like it but I'm not quite sure it's me. I love sweet scents, but I usually want them to be warmer than this one was. I'll definitely hang on to it for a little longer and wear it a few more times before I decide.

Initial Impression:

Mmm sweet and rummy. Love the smell of rum, LOVE IT.

 

After Wearing It:

Ohgodsohgodsohgods, this is so lovely. Wet, Grog is much sweeter, creamier and more buttery than I would have imagined. It was so yummy that after just dabbing it on and sniffing it, I immediately went back to the bottle and put more on because I want to reek of it! It was just sweet, lightly-but-well spiced, boozy perfection that I wanted to drink down.

 

This scent really put me into a party mood almost immediately. I really mourned the fact that it was Monday night and I couldn't go out after putting it on. But I felt that same happy glow with grog that I feel with a good buzz. It gave me a terrible case of the smiles that I rarely achieve stone sober, and it elevated my mood to that buoyant place normally reached by a really great night out. Nothing masculine about it at all during the first few hours. It's not feminine, but it's not masculine either, so I would really suggest that all of the ladies here who are buying this scent for a guy in their life to try it themselves first. You may find this is way too good for them!

 

In the last stages of Grog, the sweet, creamy elements of the fragrance mutes a bit and the spiciness and heat of it goes way up. It does get more masculine, but not so much so that it would smell out of place on a female. It still stays strong and gives off a lot of throw as well (I put it on about 7 hours ago), so it's a real winner as far as staying power goes.

 

If pirates rum tastes this good, I'd definitely give up my life of fairly good morals and try to revive the life of debauchery and robbery at high seas. The tarnish on my karma would be worth the life of good feeling! Gods I love this!!

 

Final Thoughts:

I've always loved rum as a note in more complex blends, but I wasn't so sure about having it alone as a fragrance so Grog wasn't high up on my list. But this proved to really be an instance where Beth knew best, and I'm soooo grateful for her sending me a bottle of this. If this is the rum note that shows up in Egg Nog, that scent is going to be positively divine!

I can't speak for last year's Yule LE's, but none of the other LE's from this year (Lunacy, June Gloom, etcetera) have had special labels.  The new ones sound cool, though!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The chaos theory & k/s ones did! The Chaos Theory bottles had all white labels and had little multicolored snow flakes on them, and the King & Queen had their card on them. And if I'm not mistaken (too lazy to run up and check), the Lunacy oils had a different color border on their labels. Most scents (minus the celestials) with the standard label have blue borders, but I'm pretty sure that at least my bottle of Red Moon had a red border. Which isn't much of a change, but it's something.

 

Wow ! SV! You got some scents that people have just become able to order on the Yule update! You must review Grog and Antique Lace when you get a chance:)

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I will! hopefully within the next few days.

Hi everyone! Sorry this took longer than expected. I naively assumed that the differences in the code and naming conventions for 2.0 (what I had been working on to test things out) and 2.0.1 would be minimal, but they turned out to be enough that I had to rebuild the new skin. Which is mostly what I've been doing today.

 

Plus you guys are so chatty that it took a lot longer to back up all of the posts last night than I thought it would. The table JUST containing the posts was 75 mb zipped, which is over ten times the size of what the entire database for the forum was 7 months ago. So that took an extra hour that I didn't expect and sent me to bed last night with less done that I had anticipated.

 

There's still some things that are unfinished, but they're things I can do later as I think the board has been closed for long enough. You'll notice that the option to choose your own font and post color are gone from the user control panel. They're coming back, but the old mod I did doesn't work on the new code, and another mod I tried to do the same thing turned out to be complete crap so I abandoned it. I figured it could be one of those little things I could work on in the wee hours on the morning in the near future when the forum is at its low point traffic-wise. The mood feature has gone text-only for the moment, because the old images looked bad with this skin. They'll come back when I have time to make them (i.e. within the two week or so).

 

And yes we have a new skin! Thought it was time, and I wanted something that sort of fit the season. The old skin will be coming back as an additional option, as well as another skin I have half-finished as well. There's also still the forum default option (the one that came with the software) available if you want the most work-friendly option. You can find a drop-box to allow you to switch skins on the bottom of every page.

 

If you have any questions on the new features, if you think something's missing or moved and don't know where it went, you find a bug, etc. PM me, don't start a new thread about it. I'm happy to answer any questions or concerns you all might have, but I really get irritated if I have to field lots of chatter from the peanut gallery when I'm trying to work on stuff. Soon as we (the mods & I) can manage, we'll put something together outlying the new features as well as updating the board guidelines, at which point, you can start using the questions & forum ideas areas for this sort talk. But I really prefer one-on-one communication for questions.

 

Again thanks for your patience guys! I appreciate it!

Due to a lot of aesthetic stubborness on my part, some pretty big changes in the way the new version of the software handles skins, and its neuroses in the way it reinterprets html, I'm behind on what I need to have done to upgrade tomorrow (err today). The upgrade's still happening this weekend, but I'm not sure when exactly. Could be tomorrow night, could be Saturday. We'll see.

 

So if you come to find the board down sometime this weekend, that's what's happening. I'll be working as fast as I can, but it still will take a few hours at least once I close the board to upgrade everything. So be patient. I will post my email address in which you can reach me during the event, but I wouldn't encourage you to use it unless the board has been down for more than 8 hours.

There was already a thread about this, back on the second page of the bpal faq area of this board, so I'm merging it.

 

The search feature will be your friend in the future, yeah?

Just giving everyone some advanced warning, the boards will be down during part of the day on Friday October 29th. Not sure for how long, though by conservative estimates I'm betting on 5 hours but it could be all day, or what time I'll begin. Though I suspect I'll either start in the wee hours of the morning when board traffic is at its lowest or it'll be right after I get home from class which is about 1 pm CST. Depends on how prepared I am or industrious I'm feeling. I know this is a bit of a pain as this will come on the heels of an update, but the lab staff (at least the ones who post here regularly) will be gone on vacation that day anyway so it's a good time for it in that it can't interfere with the customer relations aspect of the forum. Plus I'm off from work that day.

 

But the good news is that after the board is back up, we'll be running on upgraded software and ipb 2.0 has some really fun/useful new features.

 

BUT if it starts taking longer than you think it should, do start praying for my sanity. I'll probably be sitting here very frazzled and angry and in need of good energy to smooth out the kinks of the upgrade progress.

some how I don't think freezing oils would be a great idea. I would think it'd mess up the consistency either when you froze the, or during the thawing process.

Initial Impression:

Lovely wood base that smells sweet and robust around the edges. Very round.

 

After Wearing It:

I smell a lot of dragon's blood in this blend. It's not as sweet or as berryish as it smells in other oils, but rather a burnt red variety. It's warm and rusty core to a very outdoorsy blend. There's smoke and fire here, but it's gentle, subtle. The scent of a bonfire fueled by autumn leaves burning upwind caught on the air.

 

The scent overall reminds me of what I'd think the personification of memory would smell like. It's tone is dusty and distant, but it keeps pulling up a whisper of something else familiar from its depths. Wildfire is passingly sweet, blazing hot at times, sometimes rustic and sentimental... It flickers constantly yet it doesn't seem to change much. It's paradoxical in nature.

 

Final Thoughts:

This is a really interesting scent, but I'm not sure it's really me as a perfume. I enjoyed it though, so I will try to find a better use for it.

Initial Impression:

Similar to his queen, but stronger, bolder. A sweet banquet of notes laid over more masculine outdoorsy notes. So gorgeous!

 

After Wearing It:

Wet and slightly beyond, King of Spades was all wood notes. The tone of it was fluid, shifting from dusty and dry to dark and piercing, but all woody. Not unpleasant, but definitely more masculine than I had been expecting from the note list.

 

After about an hour and a half the vetivert and other woody notes retreated a bit, not much, but just enough for some of the sweeter notes to make their presence known. The vanilla and coconut were very soft here, and ultimately transparent. It was a very "grandfatherly" type of scent: warm and kind with its sweet touches, but full of masculinity, knowledge, and sometimes discipline.

 

It wasn't until hour four that the fruit notes came out at all, and even then it was only little by little. But the progress was rather constant. By hour seven, I was surprised to find that King of Spades now smelled predominantly of sweet plums and berries, sweetened with vanilla and coconut, but kept from smelling candylike at all mostly by the white musk with the wood notes then just whispers of their earlier presence. It was amazing, and I totally loved it. I wish this stage hadn't taken so long to reach and that it stayed around longer. But sadly, this was the last leg of the fragrance, and two hours after THAT, I could hardly smell the King at all.

 

Final Thoughts:

This oil was a real surprise for me. It morphed more on me than most oils, and I felt differently about each stage. From the note list, I was expecting to like this one more than Queen of Spades, but now I'm not as sure. I need to wear this a few more times to really get a feel for it, because this King is a real tricky one.

Initial Impression:

Smells of the fresh outdoors, but more like fields than forests, blended with ripe apples and sweet wine.

 

After Wearing It:

The scent smelled a lot grasser on me that expected. When I read the description I thought the myrrh and blackberry wine notes would stick out more, but it didn't. Instead, what I got was more of an earthy blend that was heavy on the "herbal" notes like sage & hops, with the apple cider component glazing the entire thing. I reminded me of the hayrides at twilight, drinking cider with friends and hanging out in barns. Very appropriate for a fall scent! The sage and hops back off as time wears on, and the final hours of Mabon's lifespan smell predominantly of apple cider, though with less spice.

 

Final Thoughts:

This scent is a nice mood setter, very golden and dusty, but not really me. I think it'd work much better as a room scent.