lady_pandora

What's weird, though, is that BPAL has kind of...increased my understanding of department store perfumes too? I'd basically stopped wearing them because the initial burst of alcohol+harsh topnotes usually made me feel like they were trying to set my nose on fire. But after trying a lot of BPALs and getting better at picking out notes and following the progression of BPAL throughout the day, I have a lot more patience for the initial burst of those other scents too and am better able to pick out their notes as well. I don't really buy them pretty much ever--I like BPAL better and it's often a better value for the money--but if someone gives me some as a gift or something, I can wear it occasionally and appreciate it more than I used to.

I had a similar thing happen to me. So to go with this, don't be afraid to try anything that comes your way, even if it sounds like you'll hate it. One of my favorite scents (Vixen) is one I would have never picked out to try when I first got into bpal. I try to skin test everything that I end up with, even if I think I won't like it. I just make sure to do the testing at home, where I can wash it off if it doesn't react well with my skin chemistry. (If you get a really stubborn one that doesn't wash off, you can try a bit of lemon juice on it, that usually help get of lingering bad scents. Or a bit of cooking oil, then lemon juice, then the soap. I've had some strong smell things.) Definitely keep track of things, you'll see patterns and learn more of what is more likely to be a good oil for you. (I have a spreadsheet with things I've tried and liked, and another of things I didn't like.) (And if you haven't already, check out the for sale section, it helps out so much when you have lots of things you want to try, you can get some really good deals there.) Yup. Trying it on at home cannot be overstated. There's a big difference between something turning to stank while you're on your couch watching TV, and something turning to stank when you're slammed at work or on a date or something. And definitely try lots of things. I started out thinking I would mostly like florals and have instead turned into more of an incense nut.

I'd say try each of them, sometime when you don't need to be anywhere that day (like, just a kicking around the house day), so if they stink, you aren't stuck at work/the mall/whatever smelling like rancid ass. If you like the way they smell, great! If you don't, maybe it's the elapsed time, maybe you just never would have liked that scent anyway. I'd say as long as it smells good to you, don't worry too much about whether it smells exactly like its old self. They all change a bit as they age anyway. You can also read reviews on here to see if what you smell is in the general range of what other people have experienced. But a lot of them will probably be fine, in any case. My BPAL comes in "generations"--I tend to buy a lot at once and then nothing for 2-3 years and then a lot at once again--and my oldest "generation" is from 2005. A lot of that was used up or lost in the intervening years, but some of the ones I still have are fine. Some of them get better over time, some lose something, some don't seem to change much at all.

First impression of Neutral is bubble bath. I get some kind of soft fruit scent I can't place, along with a soapy note, and together they're making bubble bath smell. At about the half-hour point it's recognizable as musk. It's a soft, light, femme, powdery, florally musk and reminds me of some of the perfumes my grandmother favored (not "old ladies," mind, but my specific grandmother). It stays close to the skin and doesn't morph much. Unlike Druid (the only other RPG I've tried so far), I think Neutral really does need to be layered to reach its full potential. Druid felt more "complete" in itself. I may have to experiment to figure out what this might go with. I do find it pleasant and it seems to work well with my chemistry.

This is an old post, but Morocco kind of went to a Dark Vanilla-ish place on me.

A dizzying eddy of four teas brushed with light herbs and a breath of peony. This was a frimp with a purchase from another forumite. Dormouse, on me, is a light, fresh, clean, soapy scent. It feels like the color light sea green. I think I can detect some green tea, but can't pick out any other individual note. It reads as gender-neutral to me, and I also think it would make a good shampoo or body wash scent. It's polite and utterly worksafe--you won't smell like you're coming off a freaky sex session or three-day bender. On me, it's not a morpher and it smelled like a near dupe of another BPAL I'd tried before. I had to go back through my old posts to remember which it was--and holy crap, I've been BPALing for almost ten years--and it was Empyreal Mist that this reminded me of. Dormouse is a scent that I don't see myself using a ton, but it definitely has its niche and will get some use. Edited to add lab description.

This was a frimp I got with my 2013 Lupers and somehow never got around to trying, so my review is of an imp that's been aged about a year and a half. In vial: Pine. Wet: Pine, plus something that's registering as a mint to me. Not peppermint. Maybe spearmint. It's a little aftershavey. Drydown: The mint burns off quickly, taking the aftershave feel with it--it's gone in 5-10 minutes. It leaves behind the pine and something a little sweet. Like JazzieCazzie, I find the sweet note reminiscent of myrrh and the lovely sweet rounding-out it does to a lot of blends. Maybe this is the incense part of pitch incense? I don't know. But I like it. Dry: Pretty much the same as the drydown but drier, for lack of a more helpful term. It's really quite beautiful, and comfortable. Like a dark green cuddly blanket. Overall: Druid works great with my skin chemistry and evokes the concept really well. While it's meant to be RPG Druid rather than real-life religious Druid, I could see it making a good ritual oil for some contexts. The Green Man might smell like this. The only thing it doesn't quite go with is my scent "personality," as it skews more masculine than what I generally want. I don't want to be the person wearing this oil--I want to make out with the person wearing this oil. Verdict: Give to Boyfriend and glomp him.

I got woodsmoke from Mad Sweeney, though that may have just been oddball skin chemistry. It was more whiskey-y on other people.

Bengal! It's spice-o-rama and has honey in it.

I didn't expect this to work on me, but I think it does. I haven't decided if it's "me," but it definitely smells nice. In the imp, I get a whiff of lemon along with something green and soapy. On, it turns quickly to a spicy tea scent with a little bit of lemon and a very light men's-cologne type scent. Doesn't morph much. It's quite nice, actually, and fresh-smelling. I'm not sure if I want to keep it or put it on the boyfriend. It goes a little more traditionally "masculine" than my favorites, but I do think my chemistry is working well with it and it's not trying anything funky. Which is especially nice because lemon never behaves this well on me! Edit, December 4, 2014 Dorian definitely changes with age, unlike his namesake. I really like this now! The wet stage is tea with lemon. And hallelujah and praise the Goddess of good-smelling things, I actually mean tea with lemon, and not LEMON and tea, which is what my skin does far too often instead. I mean, the lemon actually smells like it's submerged in tea! It brings back a nice scent memory of the tea with lemon I used to drink a lot in college. There's a bit of the men's-cologne thing hanging around at this stage too. Dry, it's more vanilla and musk with a hint of sugar. It's very second-skin, very sexy, without shouting "PERFUME!" And it's not masculine on me at all after the opening stages. I still kind of want to see what it'll smell like on the boyfriend, but I like it juuuust fine on me.

This is an old, old decant that I'm finally getting around to reviewing. This is amazing. It smells like someone took aged Snake Oil and dumped Smut on top of it. It reminds me of both of those oils but is better than either one. It smells like this gorgeously blended mix of vanilla, spices, musk, booze, and sugar. If any one note predominates, it's the vanilla, but overall it's really well balanced and nothing is drowning out the rest of the notes. It also has reasonable throw and a ton of staying power, and on me is not much of a morpher--it was amazing at 9am this morning, and it's amazing now at 8pm and smells just about the same.

In the bottle: a floral blend whose notes I can't pick apart. On me: JASMINE JASMINE JASMINE JASMINE JASMINE I guess I've finally settled the question of which I amp more, amber or jasmine. Jasmine has dispatched all the other tributes and stands triumphant in the arena. Jasmine jasmine jasmine. To give you an idea of how much I amp jasmine, here is a list of the notes Corinna has in common with Peitho, other than the jasmine note: --- Yet they are nearly identical on me, if memory serves. I think this is that same bright, slightly fizzy jasmine note I got from Peitho. I haven't worn Peitho in years and now I want to test them together to see if my scent memory is accurate. I actually do like it, for what it's worth. It's just that I wish I could get more of the complexity out of it. I thought there were enough other notes in this, including amber (which usually loves me), that jasmine would take a back seat, but no.

The first stage of this on me is a super-sweet burst of vanilla. It's not foody vanilla on me, definitely perfume vanilla, but it's really really sweet. A little cloying. Someone mentioned Love's Baby Soft and that's about right--not that it smells exactly like Love's Baby Soft, but it does remind me of the kinds of perfumes my mom always wanted me to wear as a teen because they were "innocent." The next stage is a close sibling of O. The vanilla and the amber work together to make this smell like a less complex version of O; I liked it, but kept wanting to layer it with a honey scent and just recreate O. It was one of those scents I like but wasn't sure if I could find a niche for, since I already have O and like it just that little bit better. And then, it turns to Play-doh and sweet pea. Ack.

This starts out with a bright, astringent burst. I think this is the ginger, but my nose is trying to read it as a citrus note. It's a little air-freshener-y. On my right wrist, it has dried down to a subtler, less tart and more bitter version of this "citrus" note. On my left, it's a lovely soft honey scent with just a hint of the "citrus." I can't make heads or tails of this one. It's really cold out and it just arrived today, so maybe it's still wonky from transit. I'll test it again another day. ETA: So I forgot about this oil and then went out for dinner. And then as I was sitting there waiting for my appetizer, suddenly I smelled GREAT. Talk about your slow burn. The ginger finally quit smelling like lemons and started smelling like the ginger from Bengal. The honey rounds it out with a nice warm sweetness--and really, the whole thing kind of reminds me of Bengal a bit. It obviously doesn't have some of the notes Bengal does, but it's a cousin. I can't make out red currant at all, or sugar cane--I'm just amping ginger and honey and it's lovely. It's now about an hour after the sudden "OMG awesome!" moment and it has stayed true to that.

Mother Shub's Stygian Nougat is really unusual. This is the kind of perfume you're only going to get from a quirky business like BPAL. This is not like anything else I've ever tried, and in the end I think I like it. But it's definitely weird! Initially, I get this huge herbal blast. I know lavender and I know nougat and I know honey and this ain't them, so I'm guessing it's the thyme. It's really overpowering in this first phase--sort of astringent and bitter and medicinal. It teeters on a fine line between smelling like a food ingredient and smelling like really nice men's grooming products without ever fully committing to smelling like either. There's a hint of sweetness at the fringes, and I'm not sure if it's the honey or nougat or if it's something intrinsic to the thyme. At about the 1-hour point, though, it changes. The herbal scent stops being astringent and becomes smoky instead. I can smell lavender now too, and the honey is just sort of rounding everything out without having a presence of its own. I can see where the "stygian" and "somnolent" come in--this is really relaxing, like an aromatherapy oil for sleep. In fact, I might use it for exactly that. It doesn't end up being the least bit foody on me. Update after some aging, as of October 2014: This has calmed down into something I like better than I did at first. That initial herbal blast only lasts a minute or so, and then moves over so that a soft nougatty note can take over. Then over the next hour or so, the nougat fades out and lavender becomes the dominant note. I'd already planned to use it for sleep, and in the last week or two, I've finally been doing that. It works really well. The nougat is comforting and warm as I first get into bed, and then the lavender does its magic. When i wake up in the morning, I can't smell any of it remaining at all. It helps me get to sleep and stay asleep. All this time later, I kind of wish I'd gotten more than a decant of Stygian Nougat, and I may look for GCs that have similar notes.

It took me a while to figure out what this reminded me of--it was strongly reminiscent of another BPAL but I couldn't place it. When I finally did, it was with a big D'oh, because it's a favorite of mine: Miskatonic University. It's not a dead ringer. It has the rum note instead of the whiskey note, and no coffee. But it has the same cookie-ness to it that reminds me of toasted coconut or toasted almonds or both, and smells a little burny if I mash my wrist right into my nose but is really lovely in the throw. A nice warm nostalgic Yule scent.

I just had to try this, because Anne Boleyn. And the good news is, I really like it! Whoso List to Hunt starts out in the initial stage as mostly wood and musk. It's pinging my memory centers and pinging them hard but I can't place what it reminds me of. There's an elusive hint of rose, too, and I agree with heavenlyrabbit that the way it hides in the back of the blend is really symbolic--there's a rose here, but you've got to get through this forbidden forest to find it. The overall impression is bold, unusual, assertive, and really, really lovely. It would make a good autumn scent. It fits Anne perfectly--I don't know what kind of perfume she really wore, but I like to think she'd have liked this. I read a novel once where she chose more animalic scents than the women around her, and while fictional, it's stuck with me. It dries down to a slightly powdery amber-rose combination--I think the musk is still here, but it's quieter now. This dry stage is soft and subtle and would work well as an everyday scent because it's not overpowering in any way. It's very "classic perfume" and I can picture it in a tiny ornate glass bottle. I give Whoso List to Hunt a 4/5 and I definitely think it's going to be a keeper for me. I really like this.

I can't decide if I love Hunger or hate it, and it's for tangly emotional reasons. Note-wise, this is a big blast of orange blossom and vanilla--I'm not sure if I can pick out narcissus or even if I know what narcissus actually smells like. But the orange blossom and the vanilla are BIG and BOLD and LOUD. They're not foody on me. There is no creamsicle here. They are both distinctly "perfumey" and not "foody" on my skin, while still being recognizable as orange blossom and vanilla. It's a little powdery, very sweet, a touch cloying, and as I walk around wearing it and trying to sort out my feelings about it, I realize what it smells like: Emeraude. I realize I've been misremembering what Emeraude smells like on me for 18ish years because this is it. I even looked up Emeraude's notes to see if my nose was on crack, and among other things I turned up orange and vanilla. The thing is, Emeraude and I have a Story. I got it as a gift in high school from my grandmother. I didn't exactly like it at the time--I felt it was too old for me. But I adored my grandmother for always giving me these gifts of grown women's perfume whether I liked the individual scents or not--she was the first person to take me seriously as a young woman. But then there's more. We were poor. There were always things wrong with our plumbing, laundry piled up, etc., etc., and to go into as little detail as possible, I did not shower as often as I liked at the time, nor always wear the freshest clothes, and to mask my stank I would slather on that damn Emeraude from my grandmother. So when I smell Hunger, I smell a kid who needs a shower and is marinated in this orange-vanilla perfume that's too old for her and other kids in class are asking what that awful smell is. It's like being haunted by my own younger self. But then, I think it actually does smell good on me. If I could compartmentalize off the memories, I would guess that a stranger standing next to me would say I smell good in this. A little powdery, but there are worse things. So I guess the question is, do I want to wear Hunger? Is this scent something I want to reclaim? I'm in my thirties now and have a good life, and maybe I do want to. Or maybe I want to never wear this perfume again. The jury is still out. Update, retested ~2 years later: I find this more nostalgic than disturbing now, and a wearable blend. It's also changed some--I can smell the decadent narcissus more now

Lemon lemon lemon lemon LEMON! (Imagine that in the voice of the dog from the Beggin' Strips commercials.) Embalming Fluid is really, really, lemony. Lemon is normally not my thing, but it's more agreeable here than in a lot of other blends I've tried. Part of it is that it's registering as more of a food/drink lemon than a cleaning-products lemon than some other oils I've tried. I'm reminded of limoncello, maybe, or a lemon ice. Part of it is also, I think, that I was expecting lemon from the get-go based on the reviews. I think I'm more tolerant of lemon when I know to expect it, rather than when I buy a scent with fifty different notes and my skin turns it to Lemon SN. I'm still not sure if it's me. I'm always keeping these bright citrusy scents around for warm weather, and then some of them I still don't wear when the warm weather arrives. I think I'll wait to make a decision until the summer on whether to swap/give this away.

Titania is an ethereal, super-feminine scent. If it were a color, it would be a pale green. The notes I smell are pear, some florals I can't identify, and something vaguely bubblegummy. It gives an impression of water without smelling of ozone. It's not a heavy scent at all--it's pretty faint on me. I could see this being a lovely, subtle scent for warm weather.

This was a frimp from the Lab. I rarely do well with aquatics, but I'm learning to never say never with BPAL...Beth actually made me like vetiver last night, so you never know. In vial: Soap. Wet: My first impression is of a bathroom shared between opposite-sex partners--I smell both a masculine soap like Irish Spring and a feminine soap like Dove. Drydown: I'm wanting to place The Sea Foams Milk on a spectrum between two other aquatic BPALs I've tried: Windward Passage and Sea of Glass. The Sea Foams Milk is not as soapy nor as masculine as Windward Passage, but it reminds me a little of it somehow. It also reminds me of Sea of Glass, though Sea Foams Milk is not quite as sharp due to it not having that strong lemon note. The upshot is that I do like it somewhat better than Sea of Glass, which was an unmitigated trainwreck on my skin. Dry: This is reminding me of something like CKone. I don't know if it really smells like CKone, as it's been years since I smelled it, but it has a similar vibe: unisex, a little soapy, expensive, sleek, and having a quality that always reads as "sharp" or "piercing" to me but that others read as "clean." Upper middle class college students in 1996. If it were a color, it would be a steely silver. Verdict: Not for me, and if I had any more of it on, I'd likely have a headache. But a well-done blend that will appeal to others. ETA: After trying to wash it off, I can finally smell the milk note. Weird. I'm not really digging it, though.

It's not often that I remember exactly where I first learned a word. Vetiver is one of the words with which I do remember my first encounter. It was in the book Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand and was continually associated with the fairy-queen figure in that book. I could tell it was some kind of plant, but of course couldn't imagine the smell just from the word. And so, when I first started experimenting with BPAL, I was disappointed to find that vetiver and I just did not get along. It either turned to men's aftershave or cigarette smoke on my skin. We didn't get along. And then there's Sloth. This was a frimp from the Lab, and left to my own devices I'd have avoided it like the plague. Vetiver is one of my death notes, don'tcha know? I looked up the descriptions on all my frimps and figured I'd give this one a fair shot but would probably be giving or swapping it away. Heck, the whole reason I'm trying it so late in the day was so that if it was putrid, I wouldn't have to be out in public smelling awful. Thing is? I like it. There is no men's deodorant here, nor cigarette smoke. The vetiver is behaving for the first time ever on my skin. It smells like a dark, herby, green, mysterious, spicy, maybe even slightly minty scent. I can't pick out myrrh, but myrrh and I usually get along, and maybe it's what's rounding out the vetiver into something wearable here. And there is a bit of dustiness to it--I can see where people are getting "basement." Yet it's not going full basement on me but staying "green." It reminds me of dark green velvet. It reminds me of Elizabeth Hand's fairy queen. Or maybe Sleeping Beauty, and I mean specifically Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty in that first scene where she's sleeping amid green velvet in her dusty room. I wonder what it would do if I layered it with a rose. Sloth indeed...sexy sloth? I don't know yet what I'll wear this for, because it's miles away from my usual oils, but I'm definitely going to use it. Thank you Lab. (And darn you Lab for making me reevaluate a death note! lol) Edit, 4/2/14: I did a ritual last night that called for vetiver and myrrh oil. Voila, I had Sloth! It worked great in the ritual and, even though I've taken a shower and all, the scent is still hanging around me today. It's wonderful.

In imp: Honey. But I've also been sniffing at the Jezebel and O that were in this same order, and this honey is softer or lighter somehow. Like...if it were a musical note, it would be higher on the scale. Wet on wrist, this is still a light honey. I feel like there's something in here lightening it up but not really showing itself off, like maybe a really faint fruit note. After a few minutes it really starts wafting off me. It's lovely. If it were a color, it would be soft pale yellow. It's such a comfort-type scent. I feel like the fruit thing is still lurking and maybe sandalwood? I had a sudden flash of Hymn to Proserpine. If there really is sandalwood in this, it's the same sandalwood. I think the fruit thing might be orange. But really, the fruit note is not dominant at all and in fact doesn't really have a presence of its own, if that makes any sense. It's more like it's hiding in the background affecting the honey. I also think I may smell a little vanilla, but I'm not sure how much of that is the power of suggestion (I'm reading reviews as I type this, trying to pin down the fruity note and see what others thought).It's soft and lovely and actually seems to have a fair amount of throw but isn't overpowering. Next phase--the honey seems to diverge into a waxy scent and a perfumy scent. The perfumy scent is making me think sandalwood again, and maybe vanilla. This split is most prominent if I sniff right at my wrist--the throw still has a lot of the warm honey to it. Then, and I don't know if this is a change or if my nose is just acclimating myself to it, it all seems to roll back together into the honey/slight fruit/occasional flashes of possibly sandalwood mix. It reminds me a little bit of Hymn to Proserpine, which I gave away years ago when I thought (possibly mistakenly--there was a LOT going on at the time, emotionally and physically) that it was giving me headaches and have missed ever since. Lights of Men's Lives is like getting that back, but with honey too. I think this is a 5/5.

This one takes about an hour to settle down on me--at first it seems like the amber and cocoa are at war with each other. The cocoa is too sharp during this stage and the amber is doing its usual amp-to-the-heavens thing that it does on me. Dry, this is actually really nice. There's a definite sense of dry-cocoa about it; it smells a lot like sniffing the powder hot chocolate is made from. And the amber hangs around being soft and golden and keeping the blend from seeming too dry. This works better on me than most chocolate BPALs do. It's not quite me, but it's not bad and it has a soft, comforting vibe. ETA: The following morning? Smells like Cocoa Puffs!

I wore Miskatonic U for Thanksgiving, because it smells like my mom's cookies. I may do that again for the family Christmas shindig. For Yule with the boyfriend, probably something warm and sexy like Jezebel or maybe my last gasp of Haunted Palace.