Little Bird

Nothing about this really smells golden to me. I get tons of smoky, earthy, dark vetiver to start with and slowly, over time, a sweet and powdery rose note creeps in and takes over. It smells very dry, smoky, earthy, and powdery on my skin. Rose is a note that tends to be overpowering on me, so I'm left with rose and baby powder with a hint of smoky earth after about an hour. It fades quickly after that hour mark into a faintly sweet powder scent. My decant is off to the swap pile.

The Nutcracker smells better in the bottle than it does on my skin. It smells like Cathedral and the fig from Intrigue in the bottle (both blends that I adore), but the fig is barely noticeable at all once I actually apply the oil. I'm surprised that there isn't any cedar listed in the notes, because I get a strong cedar chip smell from this, with a bit of sweet resins. As the scent dries down, it starts to get really smoky in a way that I'm not enjoying (sort of smells like bad cigarette smoke and actually keeps making me cough when I smell this). I wound up scrubbing this blend off after about an hour, because it makes me feel like I'm having trouble breathing. I like a little edge of smoke in fragrances and I normally love incense smoke type scents, but the smokiness here is really bothering me :/.

I usually have decent luck with metallic blends, but Marley's Ghost morphs straight into lemon dish soap on my skin. It's slightly sweet and pleasantly clean, but I can't really see myself wearing this much at all. It lasts for about three hours on me and has decent throw.

Wormwood and bpal's chamomile note both tend to smell pretty bad on me (very bitter, herbal, slightly wooden, and medicinal), and that's mainly what I'm smelling in this blend. As it dries down, this has a weird spiciness (medicinal spiciness, not a foodie one to me) and the patchouli & myrrh add a sweeter, earthier edge, but not enough to calm down the bitterness. Something in here starts going smoky on me after a while and it's sort of like burning medicinal herbs, but very bitter and dry on my skin. Not good times.

Whoop is a bit of a disaster on me. I was intrigued by the mention of pie and pine cones, but this is mostly juniper and sharp cinnamon on my skin, with hints of too-sweet honey and perfumey cranberry. The overall feel is so much "cheap Christmas candle" on my skin. I'm really surprised that this doesn't have gin listed as a note, because I'm getting that sweet, slightly fizzy, boozy juniper scent as the strongest smell here. It has a boozy quality to it that makes me feel like I've had way too much to drink at a Christmas party and it has left me nauseous and ill... blech .

Changing the Shadows smells rather simple on me. First on, this is like orange blossom single note. It's creamy, perfumey, sharp floral with a little edge of sweet orange. It's reminding me of the perfumey orange blossom that I get from Hunger, minus Hunger's decadent vanilla. As it dries down, it's much the same, with the addition of a sharp lemon note from the red tea. I thought that I would love this, but it needs something that it doesn't have to make it wearable for me (I probably would have liked this if the vanilla were noticeable to sweeten up the blend and make it a bit smoother). As it is, Changing the Shadows is too sharp and perfumey for me. Perfumey floral and sharp citrus tea just gives me a headache. I was hoping for a sweeter, creamier sort of floral.

I'm not getting the Alice feel that others have from this (which makes me sad, because I love Alice, especially aged). The rose in Klara amps up on me instantly, so I get a strong, red, sweet rose. As it dries down, something in this is turning to pure baby powder smell on me . Sweet rose + baby powder.

This smells delicious . This is exactly what I like my house to smell like around Christmas - sweet evergreen, warm & sugary treats, and just a hint of spice and fruit. I definitely smell the pine, sugared chestnut, berries, and cinnamon-ish spice. I don't know if this really works on me as a perfume (the spice amps up on me over time and I feel like a Christmas candle), but I'm going to love using this to scent my house <3. I used a little drop in my oil warmer today and it's mostly pine and sugared chestnut with a hint of berry & spice. Lovely.

I usually like the snow note in a lot of blends, so I thought that this would be a cool single note type of thing. It doesn't really smell like the snow blends on me, though. I get a hint of mint for about 10 seconds and then this is a rather dry fragrance. It smells like soapy dryer sheets and a spritz of very powdery vanilla musk perfume. It's intensely dry smelling on me and just gets worse over time, almost like breathing in dust. Weird.

I agree with the reviews saying that this has similarities to Snowblind and Snow White. It's like Snowblind's buttery vanilla mint that dries down to Snow White's frosty, creamy vanilla, with just a hint of freshly cut Christmas tree and an extra drop of snow for good measure. It's complex for about 3 hours and then fades off to just a creamy, sweet, delicate vanilla. I think that this is a perfect yule blend <3 and it makes a great room scent and a great perfume. The Waltz of the Snowflakes is so pretty, both the scent and the label . I'll probably try to get another bottle or two of this one before the LEs disappear.

This smells like the spiced wine of Gluhwein with a little more of a candied, grape bubblegum smell to it in the bottle. On my skin, it has that boozy, red, maraschino cherry smell that I get from most of bpal's almond scents. As it dries down, this is more and more just a blah spice scent on my skin. I usually love the lab's wine notes and I've loved the marzipan scents that I've tried from other companies, but this smells like some sort of generic cinnamon potpourri for a holiday spice scent. It's sharp, smells cheap, and starts to give me a headache after a while. I had to scrub this one off

This smells like sweet lilac/wisteria on me with a pale, dreamy quality from the blue musk. I'm not getting the watery feel that I usually get from blue musk, and it's not perfumey, but it's almost a shimmery scent, if that makes sense. I can't pick out the frankincense or black currant exactly, but the scent feels like it has a hazy depth to it, like it's some sort of magical incense that's lulling me to sleep. The black currant just adds to the rich, blue, sweet feel of the wisteria. The Clock Strikes Midnight is so pretty, dreamy, blue, and sweet, but also rich and heavy... it smells like a fairy tale.

In the bottle and on my skin, the sweet beeswax note dominates this blend. It's a realistic honeyed wax smell that's warm and dark in feel. Beeswax can go cloying on me pretty easily, but the hints of dusty wood and something like dry incense here are keeping it in check. As this dries down, it gets an oddly cool feel, almost like a hint of sweet mint in root beer, but it's very pretty and makes me think of candles flickering away on the balcony of a seaside palace at night. I like this a lot, and might have to track down some more decants to fill my partial bottle. The throw and staying power are excellent on me as well. This is one of the few bpal blends that lasts over six hours on me and stays rather strong.

I wasn't expecting much from this one, because I hate tuberose (it goes to sharp, cheap, chemical smelling white floral on me), but it turns out that I don't really get any floral at all from this blend. A lot of bpal's snow type scents all smell very similar to me, to the point that I couldn't pick them out individually from a lineup, and Winter Day is like that. It's sweet, creamy, slushy snow note with an edge of something like clean, sharp, slightly soapy ozone. Pleasant, but a little too soapy for me, and it only lasts about an hour on my skin.

Mommy Fortuna is mostly sweet honey on me at first, with a clean, citrussy edge, and the combo sort of makes me smell like cough drops :/. As it dries down, I can smell something oddly rusty, sweet, and slightly spicy here, that might be bpal's gunpowder note going wonky on my skin. I don't know what the magic part is supposed to smell like, but it's not saving this blend for me, lol. I have trouble wearing honey, and this one isn't really working on me at all...

Ebenezer Scrooge somehow smells a lot like Depraved on me. I always think that black patchouli smells a bit like leather, and this is like a rich, warm, earthy, dark leather that has been very well worn. And I don't know where I'm getting a fruity sweetness from, but this is like Depraved with a muted apricot note and a smooth, masculine cologne edge as it dries down. I can pick out hints of the black pepper if I try, but overall this seems very well blended and works really well with my skin chemistry. I love the Scrooge. This is strong, masculine, sexy, and swoon-worthy. I don't know why it smells like a more manly version of Depraved on me, but it's gorgeous, and something I need a full bottle of asap.

I'm fond of earthy scents, and I really like this one and find it different from all of the bpal earth blends that I already own. This is darker, heavier, and more intense, I think. It smells like clawing your way up under an overturned tree and getting covered in all sorts of dirt, rocks, and roots, with a little hint of dying grass in there somewhere. There's also a hint of something dry in here that smells like dust-incense and stone (and reminds me of Villainess's Cobwebs perfume). It smells deliciously dark and creepy. I feel sort of intense and dangerous wearing this, which is awesome, lol. I wasn't expecting too much of this (was just expecting to like it and enjoy my decant), but this might actually be my favorite of this year's Yules, and I'll probably get a full bottle or two at some point.

Großvater Tanz reminds me of Huesos de Santo for the first fifteen minutes or so. It's like a yummy orange cake with frosted glaze, very creamy and sweet. As it dries down, it goes through a phase that I'm not crazy about. The cakiness smells very dry, the orangey smell fades away, and there's a sour note creeping in that reminds me of a tea or tobacco note, but one that I don't particularly care for. But then, letting it sit for another fifteen minutes produces a scent that I rather enjoy. It smells sort of like a peaches and cream dessert on me, but darker and with a warm feel from the clove as it reaches the one hour mark. It reminds me slightly of Thierry Mugler's Virgin no 1 (which is a scent that I worship and adore, but Großvater Tanz isn't *quite* that good and doesn't have as good of staying power... still, a similar scent in the longer drydown). So, I like this at first and then it has a half hour where it's not-so-good, and then I like it again as it starts to fade away. It has decent throw and staying power on me for about 3 hours. I might try to track down a couple more decants of this one, as the slight similarity to Virgin no 1 delights me.

I love bpal's fig note. It's like a sweet, dry, slightly wooden sort of fruitiness that's very sensual, in my opinion. In the bottle, A World of Fools is that lovely fig, but smells slightly creamier and a bit sweeter. Yummy. On my skin, this is much the same at first, and then goes spicy in the drydown. It's like the gorgeous fig that I love in Intrigue, but all wrapped up in a decadent sweet cream and dusted lightly with some holiday spices that warm the blend up. As it dries down, the spices amp up and get a bit sharper and cider-like (and my wrist is red and burning where I applied the oil, so I'll have to be careful in the future), but I still like this blend. I still much prefer Intrigue for a fig blend, but I'm glad to have a partial bottle of this one for when I want a sweeter, spice-heavy fig.

I always want to try any fragrance that mentions smelling like mud. Sadly, Christmas Eve on the Moor turns to soap on me (which is like the opposite of mud, really). It's like sharp, white, dry soap flakes and sour, bright green moss that reminds me of bpal's spanish moss note. As it dries down, there's something like a hint of lemony men's cologne in the mix. But mostly it's soap on my skin, and a bit too sharp for my tastes.

I don't get any cheesecake or peach from this, which makes me sad. Beaver Moon 2010 starts off smelling kinda like that creamy, pink bubblegum medicine that I was given when I was little. As it dries down, it's more of a strawberry hard candy smell, heavy on the cloying, artificial sweetness. I ordered two bottles, but this is too sickly sweet on me, and I was hoping for more of a cheesecake and peach scent...

I think that calivianya's review and comparison to Cathedral was perfect. The two blends are definitely very similar. Cathedral is a bit sweeter and smoother where Dreadful Death has a spiced woods quality and a touch more of a dry, dusty feel in the drydown for me. I prefer Cathedral's smoother, calming feel, but this is still a good resins & wood blend.

The Last Unicorn smells a lot like Bath & Body Works' Sea Island Cotton on me at first. It's like Sea Island Cotton (watery-clean with powdery floral and sweetness) with a touch of creamy, slightly earthy white chocolate. I like it for the first five minutes or so, and then something starts to smell off here. The scent takes on a perfumey-floral sharpness that starts to give me a headache and something turns strangely spicy-sour. It's like a good smell with a lingering, sour, rotten something lurking underneath. I wound up having to wash this one off after about a half hour. This has an odd combination of notes that isn't quite working on me. I'm hoping that this one gets better with some aging somehow...

The Butterfly is all baby powdery amber and a bright, sweet, lemony bergamot. I was curious about the "fuzzy brown tonka bean," but I can't pick out any tonka here. It's pretty enough, but too powdery on me, and simple and not all that unique. This one is also rather subtle and only lasted about an hour on my skin.

I ordered a bottle of this right off the bat, because I normally love clove, and black currant tends to do beautiful things on my skin (juicy, sweet, purply fruitiness <3). Unfortunately, this is all "dusty clove" on me. I actually opened my bottle and said "oh crap," because it's like Fledgling Raptor Moon is back to torment me. I wasn't sure what it was in Fledgling Raptor Moon that went so badly on me, but it must be this particular clove note. It's slightly spicy somewhere deep down, but mostly has this weird baby powder, dust, wood chips, and sickly chapstick smell on my skin . I can't pick out anything fruity or anything like black currant at all. Arachne of Lydia is like a Fledgling Raptor Moon clone on me, which isn't good in my case. I love the story of the little spider and had high hopes for this blend, but the oil isn't working for me...