misspaul

Fizzy raspberries. Not real raspberries. More raspberry syrup. I didn't really get booze from this. It's more like smelling raspberry sherbet and a glass of sprite. A nice fun scent for summer!

When this is wet, there is a glorious moment when you can pick out most of the notes in this. There's a bit of lime, mint, lavender, musk and patchouli that adds up to quite a lovely scent. But, on me, once this dried I was left with mostly patchouli. It was a beautiful, creamy, almost sweet patchouli though. I guess that was the effect of the other notes. I like it. But I'm not sure I need it.

Initially, this is "Good boy from a good family" soapy cologne. The decoy boy you introduced to your parents while your real boyfriend waited for you in the car outside. I tried this on my chest and on the boy's wrist. On him, it just smelt like really good soap. I think I need to try it on a warmer part of his skin, because on my chest I start to get more of the manly cologne thing going on and the scent gets a little more complex. I'm getting wafts of the basil and a "manly" vanilla while the overall effect continues to be very clean. It's really quite beautiful. It is still the scent of a very good boy. This would be a good everyday scent, especially for guys that work with members of the public. It's the kind of scent that makes you want to trust a guy and have a conversation - rather than rip his clothes off. Very nice. I will definitely try this one on the boy again.

I wrote this down before I looked at the notes: sweet and creamy coffee with a hint of florals and a bit of powder. A pleasant powder, not talc. I am assuming that what I registered as cream and florals was the vanilla orchid, and the powder was a combination of the amber and champaca. It appears that black amber on me doesn't behave the same way other ambers do. The coffee note stays with me the whole time but dials back considerably after it has dried down. Wet, all I could think about was coffee liqueur without the booze - sweet, syrupy, and with a layer of vanilla cream on top. Dry, the orchid, amber and champaca comes out a lot more and the coffee rounds it all out into a gourmand that I can actually wear. I love the Lab's coffee note. It works for me. All in all, I really like this. It's like drinking a cup of excellent coffee in the sunshine with a vase of sun warmed flowers on the table. Just what I need on a cold drizzly winter's morning!

Something about this reminds me a bit of Tiki Princess (one of my first BPAL loves). On me this is a creamy, soft pink rose that stays pretty close to the skin. Oooohhhh, I just realised what smell association this shares with Tiki Princess!! Malibu Rum!!! This smells like it could be a rose-scented tropical cocktail! I completely understand why an earlier reviewer said "Pineapples".

Hagrid might smell like Hoggle (Fermented pumpkin, brown leather, dust, tobacco leaf, and dark woods) I thought The Other Miss Spink would be perfect for Umbridge (a sticky sweet, cobwebby, and grotesque tuberose gardenia with a splash of tea and biscuits) And Famine (from the Neil Gaiman series) would work beautifully for Lucius Malfoy (Sleek black tea, tobacco leaf, frankincense, lilac, and white musk)

Those are good suggestions. I never actually realized how few coconut scents there really are in the GC. Is Lamia a very coconut scent?

I'm thinking of doing a coconut imp pack for my little sister (whom I sometimes call 'coconut princess'). Which 6 GC scents would best show the diversity of coconut? I want at least one everyday type scent and one that's a bit more evening wear. Ideas?

What about your bank? Your bank must have your address details, can't you ask them to print them out on their letterhead?

If you can afford it, get a bottle of Black Pearl. /enable Sorry to be such a downer, but there's been rumours of things close to being discontinued, and you don't want to find that out just when you decide you want more of it. I've been slowly working my way though imps to find out which ones I do need bottles of. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to afford it without sacrificing something else. And I really want to try other coconut blends so my heart is set on this imp pack. It looks like my choices are narrowing down a bit - Obatala, Goblin, Brown Jenkin and Black Pearl are all locks... that leaves 2 more slots from 5 possible options: blood pearl, Elegba, Shango, Roses pearls and diamonds, and Eden.... Are there any clear "must trys" in that lot? Hmmmm, maybe the rose one...

So - Coconut is my holy grail/never fail/can be relied on to get a man (and several women) to stick his nose in my cleavage, fabled note of deliciousness. For some reason, even the cheapest and shabbiest of vaguely coconut scented things smell wonderful on me (must be my polynesian blood lines), so you can imagine the awesomeness that is coconut BPAL. I plan to order a bottle of Tiki Princess this week and I thought I'd compliment that purchase with a 6-pack of coconut imps. I've found 9 impable scents with coconut mentioned in the ingredients and I need help to eliminate three of them. Coconut Death Match!! The contestants are: Brown Jenkin Blood Pearl Black Pearl Goblin Elegba Obatala Shango Roses, Pearls and diamonds Eden I have Black Pearl (love) already but my imp is running low and Obatala is definitely looking like a strong contender. Round one. Fight!

LOL - yes I've heard our boys are popular overseas. Hmmm... I'm no perfumer but for me the scents would have a heavy wood and green vibe. Sun warmed earth and stone, peppery herbs, sharp green flax, manuka honey, warm skin, berries... NZ doesn't really have much in the way of fragrant native flowers except for the Kowhai tree - which apparently smells like wild honeysuckle (never smelt real honeysuckle so I don't know). I love Kowhai trees - our birds regularly get drunk off the nectar and you find them passed out underneath them. I don't know what a Maori deity smells like either. But I know the three I'd love to have represented in a scent (actually if you have any recs for these three go ahead): My favourite - Mahuika (she's my avatar...love her ), Goddess of fire. Hell of a temper. Lives in the base of a volcano. Hine-nui-te-po (literally: Great woman of the night): originally Hine-ahu-one the Dawn Maiden, first daughter born of a mortal woman and a god. She flipped out when she found out her husband was actually also her father Tane (the God of the forest and fertilisation). She ran to the spirit world where she became the goddess of night and death, and the Guardian of the underworld (Yup, death is a woman - love it). and finally there's Maui: trickster demi-god and the one who tricks the secret of fire from Mahuika. He also trapped the sun with flax ropes and beat the crap out of it because he thought it moved too fast. He's sort of the lovable rogue of our stories. He eventually winds up crushed between Hine-nui-te-po's legs when he tried to make mankind immortal by crawling up into her womb and killing her. He failed and ironically became the first man to die. Whew...please excuse the long, slightly off topic post I love myths, legends, powerful women etc...

I'm looking for reccs for a few scents that embody the different aspects of Matariki. In New Zealand, the indigenous people celebrate New Year in mid-June when Matariki (the star cluster otherwise known as the Pleiades or the 7 sisters) reappears in the northern pre-dawn sky. For us, it also coincides with mid-winter and the winter solstice. The rise of Matariki traditionally means a lot of things - the end of harvest and a time of plenty, celebrating and feasting; grief for the dead - as the stars are said to house their souls; the stars were also used to indicate when the next crop planting should occur. Matariki has different legends depending on which tribe you're from. My favourite is that, when Ranginui, the sky father, and Papatūānuku, the earth mother were separated by their offspring, the god of the winds, Tāwhirimātea, became enraged, tearing out his eyes and hurling them into the heavens. Hence the name of the star cluster - Mata ariki: eyes of god. Any ideas anyone? I'm thinking of a scent that invokes an image of the lone look out, just before dawn, standing in the cold and peering intently at the sky waiting to see if Matariki will finally rise. A scent that embodies the blue stars that house the dead. The cold rage of Tawhirimatea. Feasting and Celebrations. The end of harvest. I'm completely open to suggestions here! It's a bit late for this year but at least I'll be prepared for next June!

You're more than welcome I love the tattoos too, I have been meaning to get one for a few years now but I haven't yet found an artist I vibe with. One of the cool things about them is that they tell entire family histories and - if they're done properly, each one is meant to be unique. I have fantasies that one day Elizabeth will add a Maori deity to her Excolo line! LOL - one can only wish right?

It's cold, earthy, and solitary - not depressing, I don't think. Not anticipatory or green, either, though. For the cold, quiet, stillness - that could work! You might consider Cloister Graveyard in the Snow for a related concept. hmmm. ..one of these two could potentially be a great scent to wear to a dawn ceremony... Especially "Cloister graveyard in the snow"

Not surprising - it died out as a celebration in the 1940's (colonisation strikes again) and only experienced a resurgence 10 years ago. It's quite big now, we have all sorts of music festivals, gatherings, feasts, tournaments etc. I'm open to hearing about past LEs but probably only as a curiosity and to take notes in case something comes back or has a GC equivalent. I only buy from the Lab directly (although I often find myself pining for Snow Glass Apples... it just sounds heavenly!!). Hey, what do you think of "Death of the grave digger"? Is it just a little too dark/depressing maybe?

At first I was thinking Desdemona because I liked the depth of it, and for the watery feeling some people get from the scent ... I thought that it was somehow significant that you like to be near the water but are afraid of it. But then I thought it wasn't a great choice, that was totally inappropriate, there should be something darker with more, I don't how to put it, roundness to it. Not like "voluptuousness" but like a roundess with gravity and strength, the deep and slow roundness of a wave, an oceanic kind of scent. I don't know how to explain it very well. Then I thought, goddamn, BLACK PEARL. That would be perfect for you. And maybe Anne Bonney for your drier, more sarcastic side. As for me, I'm a double major in ... haha, no. I dropped out of school when I was thirteen. I was a hustler for most of my teenage years. Now I'm just desperately unemployed. (Although good at getting money out of people, which is why I have a computer and money to burn on BPAL.) I want to become a filmmaker, I love the cinema, the cinema is the joy of my life. I like Werner Herzog, Andrej Tarkovsky, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Frederico Fellini in particular because their films have the most intensity and life, and to me they're the most joyful films because of that. I don't like French films except for Truffaut because they're all about mind and technique instead of the cinema, which should be like living and breathing, like it has a pulse, like blood. I also like films with BMWs in them, and other kinds of cars. Aside from my cinema and that I was a prostitute, I think the only important thing left to say about me is that I loved a man and I gave myself to him entirely. I think if you know these three things about me you can make a complete picture of myself. I don't have any hobbies, but I like smoking unfiltered Russian cigarettes and drinking. As for physical characteristics, I look like that. *points to my icon* Like I'm younger than I am, and kind of like a girl instead of like a man. I usually wear a leather jacket and my favorite thing to wear is my Iggy Pop shirt. People always think I seem like a foreigner no matter where I go, even though I still live in the city where I was born (a small industrial city on the East coast). Wow... what a very interesting existence. First scent that popped into my head was "Knucklebones" tobacco, rum, gin... a bit dark...and yet strangely sweet and hopeful. What d'ya think? Was I close?

ohhhhhhh.... I'm loving the sound of Niflheim!! I've never noticed that one before!

Unfortunately it's not an official holiday yet - although there has been a lot of support to replace Queen's Birthday weekend with Matariki. Fingers crossed! Thank you so much for your suggestions Tacey! From the reviews I've seen of Silence it looks absolutely dead on perfect for what I had in mind - awesome suggestion! I've thought about the Zorya's but I don't know if they have the cold but beautiful feeling I'd like. The problem with Black Tower is that it just sounds so... english...LOL. Think of something more like this: Only maybe a little less stylised and way colder!