urraca

Stephanotis, cyclamen, heliotrope, white rose and gardenia. In the vial it is beautiful soft white flowers. Wet on skin, the gardenia dominates, I think, and it smells a little like what Hell's Belle wore before she grew up. It's a little incensy and smoky. That fades after a couple of hours and stephanotis and white rose take their turn until stephanotis leaves the stage to white rose. This is my favourite time of the scent but I think I lik Penthus better for white rose, so no big bottle for me.

The Hesperides are the Nymphs of the Evening who dwell in a verdant garden located in the Arcadian Mountains, guarded by the terrible three-headed dragon, Ladon. Within their garden lives the tree that bears Hera’s sacred Golden Apples. Their perfume is that of sturdy oak bark, dew-kissed leaves, twilight mist and crisp apple. This is an imp with an identity crisis because its label says "Hamadryad." I got it in a swap from Brianne and she said she was sure it was Hesperides, and I agree. This is a pure apple experience on me. In the vial it smells like cheap apple juice but once on it turns into pure essence of crisp juicy apple and stays that way. In the first hour of so I get occasional wafts of powdery spice which some will like but I don't, but fortunately they don't last long, leaving a lovely aquatic apple scent. I don't get the bark or the leaves, alas. I'm not sure how much I want to smell like an apple though, so I will probably just stick to this imp.

Clean and dark is a good way to describe this scent. In the vial and fresh on my skin it did evoke a salty masrh, but it was a scent I recognize from an Annick Goutal perfume that I do not like much, so I was worried. That note fades quickly though into a sharper green scent. Then the sharp note fades and it remains green and wet smelling. It does not at all smell like rot, but it evokes rotting vegetation, an ecosystem at work that needs you not at all, thank you very much. One of the notes in the dry down reminded me, well, of pot. The scent lasts for quite a while and continues to morph in interesting ways. I do find it a little more masculine than I prefer but I'd love to slather this on an unsuspecting man.

I guess my expectations were low from this because I left it to the very last to try of all my imps from sales, swaps, etc. I wish I hadn't waited so long! It is just gorgeous. It is a beautifully balanced mix of resins, woods, and flowers that goes on and stays true, not too dry and not too sweet. This balance really does evoke my idea of Nefertiti --- beauty and dust, fertility on the border of the desert. The floral has me really interested. Egyptian lily? What's that --- papyrus? Could this be the calamus that is in Penthus.? If so that explains why I like it so much. It is warm and full smelling. The only problem with this is that it only lasts a few hours on me.

Got this in a swap and I am so happy I have had a chance to try it. In the vial it is lemon and green herbs but wet on my skin it changes to lemon balm (good, because I like that better than lemon) and soft, warm florals. The flowers in it make it feel very much to me like a lemon blam version of Midnight, with which it shares some notes (like moonflower, phlox, and evening primrose), another scent I love. In the drydown, the honeysuckle comes out more, but never dominates it. If it ever comes back I'll buy a bottle, for me and for the bats.

I was curious to try this because it has many notes I like or love --- florals, violet, sandalwood, vetiver --- and one I don't like, --- musk, but I'd never tried golden musk. Alas, the musk did dominate so I won't get more. I''ll use the imp though when I want to wear something dark, rich, and complex. The musk and amber stay in the forefront of this the whole time and the flowers (white flowers, I expect) are nearby in the background. I don't get much violet or any vetiver at all. For a brief time amber and sandalwood are at the top and that was really lovely, but alas it didn't last long.

This goes on as a lovely rose scent, very much like London, with a hint of lemon on top of it, probably lemon verbena. Yes, I know it isn't listed as one of the notes. Lemon and rose is an odd combination, but nicer than I would have thought. The lemon fades and I am left with a perfectly presentable rose. No spice notes, thank goodness. I've never met a BPAL rose I didn't like, but this does fade quite quickly on me, so no big bottle, I think. I will enjoy the imp.

Sigh. I got this because many of its notes (rose, lily, carnation, jasmine) are in my favourite commercial perfume (Bellodgia). But on me, this is all musk, musk, musk and something smelling a little like burnt rubber. How can this be?

This was much nicer than I expected. It has some notes that disagree with me --- musk and spice, so I feared the worst, but these never turned up. It began as a tart berry backed with some kind of pine scent --- I would guess a balsam since it smelled just like the balsam sachets my grandmother used to make. There was also a slight non unpleasant odour of turpentine. I was floored to see no pine scents listed among the notes when I went back to check. The balsam faded and I was left with a fruity scent, not too sweet, which is a good thing (for me). When that faded I was left with amber --- also something not in the listed notes. Lilies? Ginger? Never found them either. I will enjoy my imp very much.

This is very incensey patchouli on me. I don't get much of the florals and I don't even get the vetiver, which is a surprise because vetiver usually is very dominant on me in any scent it is in. This really does remind me of an opium-addled caterpillar, one of those slightly menacing ones with orange and black furry spikes I don't really like this on me though, so off to swaps it goes to find a better home.

I've been n a quest for a perfect violet scent and I think I may have found a candidate. This scent is on the surface incredibly simple --- just rose and violet named as notes --- and at the same time very complex. As some have described, on me both the rose and the violet are apparent all the time but they come across as a single note, not as two notes fighting it out for supremacy. At first I thought, "nice but faint." but about an hour later I noticed big wafts of heady rose-violet swirling around me --- and it lasts too. I do get the Marie Antionette vibe. Having both rose and violet seems like dangerous excess, like someone who would eat cake instead of bread! In the name of that excess, I want a big bottle.

This really does smell like the clothes my Mum dries on the line outside in the summer. Nothing fabric softenery about it, it is fresh cotton and warm sun. I smell in it a floral, neither too crisp nor too sweet as well as some kind of trat fruit like pear and even a hint of grape like white wine or champagne as well as an aquqtic scent like Penthus. I have no idea if those notes are actually there --- it is just what I smell. It stays stronger and lasts longer than I would have expected for something basically so light. Yum, another winner.

I ordered this before I had tried any BPAL and when it arrived it worried me because in the intervening time I discovered that spice is not my friend and musk bores me. I was pleasantly surprised. Hell's Belle goes on dusty and sweet and it retains that split personality throughout. A thick, dark, musky scent dominates, very interesting and complex. It reminded me of the aged dregs of some sweet liqueur. In the background there is a thin scent of pretty flowers. This is very much a scent of innocence corrupted, or perhaps debauchery that wears innocence as a thin mask, fooling only those who wish to be fooled. The spice only peeks through late in the dry down and it is so faint it is inoffensive to me. My one quibble is that the scent didn't last all that long, despite being so powerful. Of course, it is the hottest day of the year and I think of this as a winter scent anyway.

This is so pretty. It starts as a light, sweet floral scent, not cloying and not sharp but perfectly balanced. About an hour later, the scent suddenly deepends and becomes warmer and more complex. The progression seems to be from jasmine to buttercup to honeysuckle, and I think there may besome honey here too. It lasts and has a pretty good throw for a soft floral scent.

Oh, oh, oh, oh................O. This is just wonderful. I thought it might be. I knew amber was my friend and from BPAL I've learned that honey and vanilla are my friends too. It smells like sex and love and warm sweet skin. It is so beautiful and so not like anything you could buy in a store. It lasted and lasted too --- I applied it over unscented moisturizer. At first the amber dominates. It is sweet and a little smokey too. Possibly this is the acrid scent some get but I really like it on me. After a few hours the honey comes to the fore and it is almost floral in the way good honey can be. The vanilla just sits in the background the whole time, tying everything together. My only question now is 5ml or 10. Thank you Beth!

This was a kind frimp from the lab. Glad I got to try it. Sigh, spice. It just does not work on me. Wet this smelled like flowers and flour and it quickly morphed in the way spice usually does on me into a doughy bakery smell. Maybe a doughnut shop without the grease. Nothing like a souk, and I've been in a souk (and would love to smell like one. Oh you guys are lucky!). It was backed by a light, crisp white floral scent that was very nice. It's like New Orleans but with crisp flowers instead of sweet flowers. Individual spice notes, like cinnamon or ginger, seem to work on me but whatever this collectivity is doesn't .

This starts out as rose and lily, equally mixed, for me. The lily prevents the rose from being too cloying and the rose softens the lily. Slowly as it dries down a soft incense scent starts to rise as the florals back off. This doesn't last very well on me but it is lovely and I keep reapplying it.

I do not get much in the way of Caribbean blossoms from this. It goes on bay rum and tobacco. It smells good but I'd rather smell it on a man than on me. In the category of "boozy guy scents" I liked Juke Joint much more. Late in the dry down it turns into whatI think is white musk --- this must be the powdery smell others have described. Even this stage is not horrible, but I'm not a huge fan of musk scents so, not for me.

It has that very very dead smell in the vial, just like Rage did for me, so I know there's dragon's blood in here. I don't get any cinnamon at all but there are some flowers here, possibly rose. Most of the time it is just nice dragon's blood juicyness with a hint of flowers in the background but every now and then BAM! suddenly there is a smell exactly like a used ash tray.??!! Stale ciigarette smoke and ashes, unmistakeable. Then the ash smell fades back to sweet juicyness until it decides to pop out again. This is odd.

Yup, cinnamon and peanuts, chopped, salted, roasted peanuts. It is quite pleasant smelling if you don't think of it is a perfume, which it isn't in any case. As it fades, it gets more flowery. Really very nice. And from it I have learned that I do not have the bad cinnamon reaction so many here have so, yay. I'll have to test its voodoo properties another time.

This is lovely, wet, green florals but not rich southern blooms like orchids and gardenias. These flowers are like meadow flowers after a cool spring rain. I wish I were better with notes because they shift and change in subtle yet distinct ways through the life of this long-lived scent. I do think I get a tiny bit of white rose towards the end as the scent grows a little sweeter. I think this is a scent that a lot of commercial perfume houses have tried to mimic with chemicals, without success. Yay to Beth for giving us the real thing, once again.

Still on the quest for the perfect violet: This one is a real shape shifter. In the vial this is violet mixed with something fresh and green smelling. On my skin, that scent stays true as it begins to dry down. The green must be the gardenia, which I am not familiar with, but it almost smells like vetiver and reminds me in that way of Saturnalia, though in Le Serpent the violet stays dominant. After an hour or so the green floral changes to an almost white musk scent, again with the violet on top. A few hours later, the musk suddenly vanishes and I am left with a violet and vanilla scent, very much like the dry down of Sybaris. This is a lovely and interesting scent. Not sure whether it or Sybaris is my favourite so far.

She is the Goddess of the Sky, one of the Ennead, daughter of the air [shu] and water [Tefnut], lover of Geb and Hadit, the Eternal Mother, and the Receiver, Reviver and Protector of the Dead, whose loving, divine embrace shields our souls from annihilation. She is love, rapture, splendor, continuous and eternal birth and rebirth, infinite space, and the “the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night”. Nuit is Earth’s guardian, and shields her lover and her mortal children from the primeval chaos that threatens Existence. Her perfume is starry and crystalline, a jewel-clad and glittering paean to night: dazzling white musks, white rose and night-blooming jasmine with the soft moss of moonlit meadows, a waft of Egyptian incense, and a gentle breath of moonflower. This is a very elegant, sophisticated, white flower scent that has a real 1940s feel to me. I can imagine it on an heiress clad entirely in Dior's New Look and staying in a suite at the Plaza. The flowers in it are very nicely backed with the incense and musk (so white musk I can wear, that is good to know). It also reminds me of Midnight, though it is a little more "forward" and the rose gives Nuit more sweetness than Midnight has. It is the same white rose I liked in Penthus.

In the vial: this is the cake batter smell I don't really like that comes from spice notes. Oh dear, I don't have a good feeling about this. Wet: it starts out as cake batter lifted with a little carnation. Now the spice of carnation I *do* like. The carnation soon fades though and then it is just cake. Meh. After about an hour: A very dry and pleasant sandalwood comes through balancing the cake smell but all in all this just isn't me. Memo to self: NO MORE SPICE!

In the vial, fruit shading off into something smelling very, very dead. This has me worried. Not to fear though, because once I put it on my skin the dead smell vanishes and the scent explodes into a juicy sweetness of fruits and flowers. It shifts rapidly at first between different fruity and floral notes with elements of smokiness dropping by from time to time until it resolves into fruit underpinned by something dark, hot, and sweet. The amber and the dragon's blood do a tango wearing baskets of ripe fruit on their heads. That is what this scent is, its a passionate tango between two people who are furious with each other but who can't let go. Slowly the fruit subsides and I'm left with dark, ambery, yumminess. I think this is a little too sweet for me but it has made me resolved to try everything with amber out there because it is just s good.