oakmoss

Will either of these retail establishments do any mail order? Shelldoo? *ready to bribe BIG time*

I tried real absinthe for the first time recently, and revisited my bottle of BPAL Absinthe with that in mind. In the bottle, it definitely smells like genuine absinthe, but on my skin it blooms with more of a soft floral essence, though the herbal/anise/wormwood is still there too -- a very fae kind of scent, appropriately for the Green Faery. I liked it before, enough to buy a bottle, and I like it even more now that I have the taste memory of the drink itself too.

Every BPAL pumpkin scent has been way too buttery or heavy on me, heavy in the sense of a sort of murky sludginess that is (obviously) hard to describe. But hope springs eternal, and I'm also a sucker for anything that says "there aren't many of these, so get them now!" Hence, I got some Pumpkin soap, and I'm delighted I did. This is the most pumpkin-pie-like of the pumpkins I've tried, but it's like a store-bought pumpkin pie -- you know, those ones that aren't slathered with spices like the pie you make for yourself, but that have just a touch of spice so it doesn't offend the pie wimps. In a perfumed soap, that's just about perfect. Just a hint of spiciness in a creamy rich lather of warm pumpkin goodness. Like all the Silk Road soaps, it does melt away all too quickly, for me anyway, no matter how careful I try to be with drainage and such. But I don't care. If a bar of soap lasts only two weeks or so, that's still well worth the cost. Every BPAL soap I've tried so far has been wonderful.

I have a severe case of vetiverphobia, so I was rather daunted when I sniffed this in the bottle, but tried it on anyway. Perfumes that morph tend to morph on me very quickly, for better or worse. This one went through the vetiveresque phase into a sort of spiked sarsparilla, like someone threw a handful of cloves into the root beer brew and mulled it for a while. I'm not getting any smoke or a particularly woodsy feeling about it. It's warm and, I would say, masculine. More masculine than I like to wear, anyway, alas.

First of all, the coffin is great! Heavy and creepy and wonderful. It will make a lovely addition to my Halloween decor. Crypt Queen herself smelled very fruity-bubblegum in the bottle, but I was so happy about the coffin that I didn't care. On my skin, the bubblegum disappears in a flash, replaced by pomegranate incense with a whisper of rose. The dusty quality others have mentioned is amazing -- it really does smell crypt-y, with a faint sharpness of damp stone. Something you might want to wear when you go visit Spike.

I hadn't worn this in a while, but I'm making an effort to use my LE blends more, after the disaster of having Strawberry Moon turn bad on me. Better to run out because of happy usage than hang on to something that is slowly losing its goodness! So I slathered on the Snow White on the way to bed last night and spent an hour or so drowsily reading and sniffing my wrists (that sounds kinkier than it was...). The gentle creamy floral sweetness was just as I remembered, a scent that somehow reminds me of those little silver fairy bells, the really GOOD ones, not the cheap knock-offs, that emit a crystalline flurry of chiming when you roll the ball around in your palm. Snow White has that same fairy quality, something sparkly and not easily defined or grasped or held. And then... on about the 50th sniff... SNOW! Just for a second, a flash of scent memory that melted away as quickly as a snowflake on my skin, but I could see so clearly the image of flowers under snow, caught in ice, captured forever in this gorgeous perfume.

In general, I would say not to worry about it too much. BPAL perfumes, being oils, use the different notes in different ways than conventional perfumes. My suggestion would be not necessarily to shy away from the notes listed in Chanel No. 5, but rather, to have your first BPAL choices be fairly simple, with maybe no more than three or four listed notes, so you can educate your nose to the various scents. And if you do get a Chanel vibe, you can always swap it!

I put a little of this on last night for Lammas Eve, having not worn it in a long time. I had remembered the woodsmoke and the woodsy feeling, but had forgotten the fruity rich goodness that runs underneath it. Now I remember why I bought two bottles. It's coming out of the special occasions box and going into regular usage, for sure!

I'll be the troublemaker and recommend something Completely Different instead: Velvet.

Okay, everything everyone said above. And also: Yum. Yumyumyumyumyumyumyumyumyum. Yum. I bought this for a male friend, but a bottle is coming to meeeeeee sooooooooon. Deliciously spicy hot goodness. You want some of this.

Penitence is a must. If you can find any, Midnight Mass is gorgeous, too.

Nuit might be a good choice, as she is a star goddess, or Urania, muse of astrology. There are the three star scents in Excolo: Zorya, Utrennyaya, and Vechernyaya (Midnight Star, Morning Star and Evening Star). And Yvaine, in the new Stardust series, is described as "The high, crystalline scent of a star-filled night with blue lavender and lush magnolia."

I'm watching a great PBS series called "Regency House Party" and also working on a Jane Austen-related art project that's due soon, so I'm looking for aromatic inspiration, of course! What blends would you think evoke this time period, and why? (Tarotgirl, you know I want your input for sure! )

How about Golden Priapus? After all, as Atia says, "A large penis is always welcome."

Try the homeopathic remedy Coffea Cruda, which you can get at many drugstores and natural food stores. It is for wakefulness with mental hyperactivity and it works like a dream (a nice, peaceful dream) with no grogginess afterwards at all.

Oh, how delightful! I wish my friends were costume-party type people! I may have to insist on it for my next major birthday. I know that Atia likes food and spices, so a foody-spicy blend does make sense... but.... I'm actually inclined to think that she would go for a strong but feminine rosy floral blend, like Peacock Queen ("This is a blood red, voluptuous rose, velvet-petaled, at the height of bloom. Haughty and imperious, vain, yet incomparably lovely to the eye, but thick with thorns of jealousy, pride and hatred"). I mean... come ON. If you have any of these LE blends, they also seem Atia-esque to me: Bearded Lady ("A seductive and flowing exaltation of femininity: Turkish rose, stargazer lily, violet, honeysuckle, amber, star jasmine and vanilla"), Agony of Longing, Gypsy Queen, and Svadhinaopatika.

As I posted a while back on this post, Obatala is sweet juicy coconut. My favorite now, though, is Brown Jenkins, which is a drier, spicy coconut. I'll bet they would be yummy layered, now that I think about it...

I'm so delighted to have some of this precious stuff, which I've been wanting to try forever. The sweetness that I got on first whiff from the bottle doesn't stay on my skin, but rather, it morphs into a more "perfumey" kind of classic scent. I can understand the hair spray comparison, but in a good way, if that makes any sense at all, which I doubt. The only problem, at least on this first try, is that it's making me sneeze! Big time allergy attack, which could be a coincidence, though I haven't had one for a long time. I'll have to try again and see. Did anyone else have that reaction? I've never gotten sneezy with a BPAL blend, that I can recall, so I wonder what's in it that set me off.

As many have mentioned, this has a clean-linen scent, with an undertone of soapiness. It's the kind of scent that wouldn't bother me if someone else smelled like it, and I don't think it would bother anyone else if I smelled like it, because it mostly just smells like someone who has freshly showered or shampooed, rather than a perfume scent. That said, while it's not unpleasant, it really isn't anything I would choose to wear as perfume, so I'll happily pass on my imp. So far, the only Carousel blend that has worked for me is Mama-Ji, but man oh man, she is the perfume of my dreams, so I'm not complaining!

This blend surprised me, because I was expecting something more forest-y, and instead it rather reminded me of stone at first, like moss growing on damp stones. I was reminded of Black Opal (but was too lazy to go get it to compare). On drydown, a delicate spiciness emerged, wending its way through the moss and undergrowth, like a strain of faery music barely heard on a midsummer night..... I think this would smell great on a man, but it's very suitable for women who don't like "masculine" blends too (like me). I wore it to bed and had strange and vivid dreams.

How about a Faery set, with Titania, Robin Goodfellow, Fae, Dana O'Shee, Oberon, Leanan Sidhe, and Queen Mab? You could add some glittery fairy dust and art by Brian Froud or another fairy artist.

The first thing that comes to mind for me is the TAL blend Lionheart, which feels very expansive to me. In the BPAL blends, my suggestion is Obatala, which not only has that bright expansive energy, it also smells divine, yummy coconutty goodness.

All the notes in this blend are ones I love, so it's not surprising that I love them together. In the bottle, it reminded me of when I wear Hope and Faith together -- perfect rose, perfect violet. But on my skin, and especially after half an hour or so, the pear adds a sweet fruitiness to the florals, not really edible-foody-pear, but rather, just breathing in the perfume of a freshly cut pear. I love most of Beth's rose blends, but this one has zoomed to the top of the list, no question. I've pretty much gotten over my desire to hunt down rare LE blends, because I know there are always more treasures to come.... but this one.... agony of longing inDEED. I will want MORE.

I've been searching for the perfect lemon for summer, so was happy to receive a frimp of Venice in my Blue Moon order. I had it once but frimped it away myself without much interest. In the vial, it's strongly lemony, just what I wanted. On my skin, it starts to morph into a lemony-floral immediately, as my skin does it's usual uber-amp of jasmine, dragging the rose along kicking and screaming (to continue the jasmine/rose crime scene depicted above ). Lemon is corrupted by jasmine's evil influence, and the whole thing turns to dry laundry detergent faster than you can say "Tide gets your whites whiter." I'm going to try this in a scent locket to see if it's any better, but my quest for the Holy Lemon Grail still continues.

Try Marquise de Merteuil, and don't be afraid of the vetiver listed in the notes -- I can't stand vetiver and I don't notice it at all in this blend. Aglaea and Al-Shairan might suit you as well.