Little Bird

I love the original Lick It so much. It smells like real, crisp, sweet candy canes and a hint of vanilla on me. Perfectly cooling and sweet. I hated Lick It Again, it was sharper and almost menthol-like on my skin. Not as sweet as the original. I was hoping that Lick It One More Time would be more like the original... First sniff in the vial, this is bracing, loud, peppermint breath mints. Intense. I hoped that it would calm down on my skin. On me... peppermint breath mints. It's much sharper on me than the original. Lick It One More Time reminds me more of peppermint mouthwash and peppermint breath mints than it does candy canes it's more medicinal than sweet. In the drydown it gets a strange extra something that actually reminds me of chewing tobacco. Blech. After a half hour this is peppermint listerine and dirty ash tray on my skin. I'm going to continue hoarding my few bottles of the original Lick It, but my decant of this year's version is going straight to my swap pile. Lick It One More Time is my least favorite version so far...

In the vial, this smells like loads of cinnamon sugar over something tasty. One sniff it's like really sweet coffee and the next it's hot chocolate. On my skin... I don't even like cinnamon under normal circumstances (it's sharp and gives me a headache) but the brown sugar seems to really mellow out and sweeten up the cinnamon. It's so good. I was a bit worried about the coffee note in this because my boy really hates the smell, but I can't pick out any coffee from this once it touches my skin. El Dia de Reyes, on me, is hot chocolate completely smothered in buttery cinnamon sugar. And it's quite wonderful - a warm, cheery blend that I can actually see myself wearing this winter

In the vial I smell caramel and something like candied violets, almost fruity in their sweetness. There's also a hint of something ashen or smoky, but not quite. It really does smell like charcoal, and I'm surprised that I like it. I normally hate smoky blends, but something about this really appeals to me. Perhaps it reminds me something of the way fireworks smell. It smells the same on my skin at first, but the caramel definitely dominates, and that's fine because I looove bpal's caramel note. Over time it softens and this is such a strange scent. It sinks into my skin and becomes a very subtle fragrance. It smells sort of like I threw a caramel chew onto a few smoldering pieces of charcoal and then decorated it with a few violets and gumdrops. After a half hour, the fruity aspects have overtaken any floral notes and the caramel just adds a deeper sweetness to the blend. The smoky, reminiscent-of-fireworks scent amps up on my skin after a while. La Befana is interesting. It actually ends up reminding me of a 4th of July picnic. Fireworks, warmth, and the fruity sweetness that keeps making me think of popsicles. I like this, though I'm not sure I'd ever actually reach for it and wear it again.

I'm a sucker for anything with BPAL's awesome red sandalwood note listed, but the combination of the hazelnut, honey, and amber makes this go all wrong on me. I have a hard time wearing nutty blends because they turn sickly sweet (and they're usually blended with other sweet notes as in Gluttony and Hellcat, making them even more overwhelming to my nose). They tend to remind me of candle fragrances and don't feel right as a personal scent. Wezwanie / Hold has that same issue on me. A bit buttery and much too sweet. In this blend, I amp up the honey and the sweet, buttery, nutty notes. The honey has a slightly off, metallic tang to it. It dries down to a light scent, but I really don't like the nuttiness and powdery honey.

Fixed Water: the essence of passion. Dark musk, wormwood, basil, dragon's blood resin, galangal, and opoponax. The lab's dark/black musk note tends to smell like generic, musky men's cologne on my skin, so I wasn't expecting to love this. I'm surprised at how wonderful this smells on my boy though. I gave up on trying to wear this pretty quickly, washed it off, and slathered it on the boy instead. The dark musk in this smells slightly watery, in an empty, cool sort of way. It's sharp and too masculine on me, but sexy and pleasant on my mister. The dragon's blood also turns sickly sweet (like rotting flowers) on me, but is more subtle on my boy's skin. Those two notes are pretty strong at first, and the musk is like a strong base note. In the drydown, some herbal and resinous tones join the masculine musk and sweet dragon's blood. It's rather complex and the sort of cologne that my boy doesn't mind wearing. The notes smell less cheap and sickly sweet on him than they do on me. The combination of dark musk and dragon's blood make this a no-go for me to wear personally, but that's okay because my boy has stolen my decant anyhow, lol. It's like a sweetly resinous, musky, dark men's cologne with hints of an uplifting herbal tone and some sweetness rounding out the edges. On him, at least.

Windward Passage is one of the soapiest bpal scents I've ever tried. I do get a salty tang that I enjoy upon first application, but then this turns to soap and dryer sheets. I might smell a hint of something citrusy after letting it settle for a while, but the overall result on me is that I smell like citrus scented dryer sheets and some sort of strong, generic soap. I have a hard time wearing clean scents, and I can't pull this one off.

I'm updating my review for this because, while I really liked my decant, I've found that I'm head over heels in love with the bottle that I just purchased off of ebay. Maybe this just needed some time to age and settle to be even better than it was initially. This is my favorite of this year's Trick or Treat blends. Sugar-Slathered Candied Apple is exactly what I had hoped Creepy would be. It's caramel apple dusted with sugar crystals (but not overwhelmingly sweet at all). It has none of Creepy's boozy, bitter, butterscotch-y weirdness. Sugar-Slathered Candied Apple starts off with a great apple note – sweet and juicy. It's a bit of a sharp apple on my skin at first, but not in a bad way, just in a crisp sort of way. I'm a fan of apple scents as long as they're not perfumey and fakely sweet, so I like this. It smells crisp, cool, and airy. In the drydown, the apple starts rolling around in some sugar and I get a bit of a caramel scent with a pure white sugar smell. My boy actually sniffed this on me and said, "What is that? That smells amazing. It smells really fresh." This surprised me, because my boy hates caramel smells (says they're buttery and gross) and he tends to dislike fragrances that are really sweet. When I told him the name, his eyes widened and he said, "Wow. That sounds like something I would hate. The apple in that is really good." And the apple *is* really good and completely mellows out the sweeter aspects of this. I'm so glad I finally got a full bottle of this after going through my un-aged decant (thank you, ebay, lol).

Of this inquisition round, Egg'd Mailbox and TP'd Trees really smell nothing like what I was expecting. I thought that, from the description, this would have to be a pine and woods fragrance. This doesn't really smell of pine or woods on my skin though. On me, this smells like powdery-sweet toilet paper that was rained on. A mixture of soapy aquatic/ozone and powder on me with a hint of something like spring fresh dryer sheets. It's more laundry than forest on my skin. I have a hard time pulling off aquatic/ozone scents and don't really aspire to smell like wet toilet paper, so this one is headed for my swap pile, lol.

I love the bottle art and story behind this scent, but all of the white florals swirl into something awful on my skin. Iris is often a floral kiss of death for me, smelling insanely sharp and perfumey. Calla lily just goes to soap on my skin. Most white florals give me migraines. This morphs into a scary, perfumey floral with hints of soapy dryer sheets, but it isn't quite as loud and aggressively musky as I thought it would be. Orchid makes it a bit juicier and sweeter while the sandalwood kind of smooths it out, I think. It's too perfumey and goes a bit soapy on me, but I do like some of its other qualities. I'm trying not to hate on it entirely, because I think this would probably be lovely on someone else, with someone else's nose, lol.

I love the Fruit of Paradise label. It makes me wish that pomegranate weren't so evil on my skin...

I love the beeswax note, but I can only pick out the pumpkin and beer in Pumpkin Smash, and I'm not overly fond of it. The pumpkin is spicy and a bit buttery. The beer makes the whole blend a bit sour and off to my nose and there's a sharp twang of something like woodsmoke. The overall impression on my skin is a gritty, dirty pumpkin. I wish this were more beeswax and candles on my skin than booze and pumpkin.

Vampire Tears starts off with a strong citrus jab on my skin. BPAL's grapefruit notes tend to go bitter on my skin, and this definitely has a bitter, sharp sort of citrus to it. I normally hate jasmine, but the jasmine here isn't too bad and seems to calm down the sharp grapefruit (I suppose it's the lesser of two evils, lol). I have a hard time pulling off citrus and florals, so this probably wasn't ever going to work on me. The mid stage isn't so bad with a sweet, soft floral tone and sharp grapefruit cutting through it, but it's still not me. In the drydown this goes a bit soapy, and then it's definitely not for me.

I was surprised that people were describing this as a patchouli single note, because I'm honestly not sure I would even recognize that it has patchouli in it. I *love* patchouli and I love this blend, but the patchouli in this is wonderful and doesn't overwhelm the other notes at all. On me, Goblin has a smooth, sweet, resinous quality to it that is similar to Midnight Mass on my skin at first, and then the coconut takes over the drydown. The coconut in here reminds me of the fragrance I get from LUSH's Trichomania shampoo. It's a gorgeous, sweet, almost buttery, creamed coconut smell that really amps up on my skin. For a bit I can pick out patchouli that reminds me of the black patchouli that is in Depraved (heaven), but then the earthy qualities take a turn and remind me of something like cedar chips. Goblin is like an awesome coconut blend on me with a changing cast of characters rotating in the background. It starts off as coconut and sweet resins then morphs into something like coconut and black patchouli and then settles into coconut and cedar chips. I'm not sure if all of those woody notes are actually the patchouli drying down or what, but Goblin never smells like just patchouli or a strong patchouli on my skin. I'm glad this isn't really a dry sort of blend on me either, the coconut is creamy and sweet and the earthy/woody notes are spicy and lively. Gorgeous. I love this and it works out so well on my skin. I'm definitely upgrading my imp to a full bottle.

Red musk, ambergris, coconut palm, red sandalwood, balsam, date, warm leather, tobacco, ebony, lingum vitae wood, pandanus grass, an' a touch o' lime. In the bottle and at first on my skin, Pirate Moon reminds me of a swampy scent. It smells of mud and sweet grass and almost a sweet floral tone. The grass note in this is lovely, but not a green grass smell at all, sort of a pale, sweet, meadow grass. It starts off lovely, but quickly goes sharp and chemical. Within five minutes this has turned into a perfumey musk and meadow grass on me, and the grassy note that I like gets eaten alive by the musk shortly after that. Pirate Moon is very sharp and musky on my skin. I normally like ambergris, but the lab's ambergris here seems to turn into a sharp, chemical, department store perfoom smell on me. It's a sharp, unbearable sort of musk within 10 minutes after application. It actually has a cheap hairspray sort of smell on me. I'll definitely be swapping away my decant of this.

I cannot wear Snake Oil (smells like oily hair and baby powder on me), but I loved a few of the Snake Pit blends, so I decided to give this a try. I also have trouble wearing aquatics, but I loved Banded Sea Snake. The Phoenix has potential. I love this in the bottle where it's salty, sweet sea air with a hint of lime and an exotic twist, but it's not very good on my skin. I dislike BPAL's gunpowder note and that combined with the blood gives this a metallic, dry, gritty sort of smell that I'm not fond of. Over time a bit of the salty sweetness that I loved comes back out, but it's not enough to save this blend for me. The gunpowder shoots down The Phoenix

Plunder definitely has the cinnamon. It's a bold sort of cinnamon too, like red hots candies and big red gum. My skin has a history of amping up cinnamon like mad and I don't really like heavy cinnamon notes. This doesn't ever change much on me either, except that I *think* I might be getting a sharp bite of pepper after a while. Plunder pretty much stays the same from the vial to my skin and over several hours. It makes me smell like hot cinnamon candy, which isn't for me. ETA: For anyone sensitive to spice notes, this definitely makes my skin red and tingly.

In the vial when I first sniffed this, I recoiled and thought, "Ugh. Way too sweet." It's like syrup and sugar and honey and more sugar. There's also a high, sharp something in the background. On my skin, this is much, much better. It's also a hard scent to describe. I'm pretty sure that I smell lime in this for the first half hour or so, and the overall scent reminds me of some sort of tropical bar with dim, intimate lighting. I get a zesty, sweet lime-esque note mixed in with dark sugars, syrups, and booze. There's also a sense of polished, dark wood. This isn't overly sweet at all on my skin, especially after giving it a few minutes to dry (though it has a definite SUGAR hit to it). Something about this makes me want to go dancing. In a dark club. On a beach. It makes me sad to be in Canada on the edge of winter. This is dark sugars, a bit boozy, a bit tropical in feel, and with enough other notes cutting the sweetness to make it delicious and very wearable for me. All in all, this is a fantastic sort of party scent to me. It just smells fun. Kill-Devil is the sort of scent that I could wear and feel like someone else (like an energetic, exotic party girl). My boy, however, hates this blend, lol. He gave it a 2 out of 10 and couldn't describe what he found off putting about it. I might get a bottle of this and wear it on nights out when we're not together though.

In the bottle and on my skin, this is a soapy laundry type of scent. It's like pulling cold, wet clothes out of the washing machine after washing them with a perfumey, sweet, floral scented laundry detergent. High-pitched, sharp soapiness and sweet, fakey floral. It's more perfumey, heavy, and unpleasant than blends like Dirty, but still a floral laundry soap scent. In the drydown, this just keeps getting soapier & sharper, and starts to give me a headache. I can't pick out rose or lily exactly, but it definitely has a cheap floral perfume quality to it. Blech. This one is awful on me.

In the imp vial this smells like smoky vetiver and something ashy with a bit of a sharp, menthol laden pine. On me, the combination of notes seems so sharp and smoky that they make my eyes water a bit at first. This has the same pine smell to me as Jersey Devil, but it smells like the forest is on fire. Rather than having Jersey Devil's sweet, almost juicy smoothness, this is smoky and sharp. This does get a bit sweeter on me in the drydown with the clove and cumin, but the sweet spice ends up reminding me of beef jerky, oddly. On me, Troll is like a pine forest in the midst of burning down. It's a smoky, sharp, rather fascinating pine blend. I sniff this and can practically see limbs of pine trees sticky with sap and smoldering flames. This is one of those scents that I appreciate and am glad to have tried, but I could never actually pull off wearing it. Still, I like it.

In the vial this smells like ultra perfumey, bold florals with a hint of greenery and a good dose of soapy aquatic backing it up. On my skin this is sharp, perfumey white florals and a sweet, soapy smell. This reminds me a bit of Dirty, if Dirty were attacked by white floral notes. In the drydown on me, this is even soapier than Dirty. I wanted this to be a green, damp sort of scent but what I get is like a sweet, floral laundry soap. The sharpness fades in the drydown, but this just keeps getting soapier. Ile de la Tortue is intensely soapy on my skin, so much so that I feel like I can taste soap in the back of my throat when I sniff this. I have a hard time pulling off clean type blends, and I don't think I could slather this on without getting a migraine.

This is the first full bottle of BPAL that I've bought unsniffed this year. I've been sticking to decants to save money. Midnight Kiss sounded so good that I got a full bottle right off the bat though. And, of course, this doesn't work for me at all. I love cocoa absolute, love red musk, love nepalese amber, love red sandalwood, love patchouli. This should be perfect on me, but it's not at all what I was hoping for. The wine dominates and it's bad. Wine smells like a cross between thick, rotten fruit and some sort of medicinal cough syrup on me. I get the wine note and something dark and almost ashy underneath it (nicotiana?). The wine and whatever ashy note aren't sweet at all, and smell really off and unpleasant to me. My boy gave Midnight Kiss a 5 out of 10 and it's definitely not appealing to me at all. It's not as sweet, warm, or complex as I was hoping for. It gets more gritty and smokier in the drydown, and I don't handle smoky scents well at all. I won't be keeping my bottle.

Beaver Moon 07 smells most similar to Hollywood Babylon & Monster Bait Bloody Mary for me, only not as complex as Hollywood Babylon or as oddly perfumey as Bloody Mary. This blend reminds me of strawberry scented dolls and strawberry hard candies, sort of plasticy and artificial. I was hopeful for the vanilla cream, but all I seem to get out of this is that 'hint of strawberry.' The older version of Beaver Moon went off on my skin and this new version, while smelling nothing like the old, goes off and plasticy as well. I like strawberry when it smells like true strawberries, but this is too much candied strawberry for my tastes.

This had the potential to go either way on me. I have a hard time wearing boozy scents just because I hate the smell of alchohol; it's sharp and chemical and not what I want in a personal scent. Still, I love The Hamptons and Jazz Funeral, so there are exceptions. Unfortunately, Spiked Punch falls more into the not-working-for-me camp. This is not a lightly spiked fruit punch on me, but it smells rather loaded with alcohol. I have a hard time with the sharpness of most boozy notes, and this is knock-me-over alcoholic (hello nailpolish remover). Thankfully, that sharpness does calm down after 10 minutes or so on my skin. I'm not sure what sort of fruit notes are actually in this, but it gives off the impression of a very tart, sour, juicy, red fruit punch. It smells thick and bold, not at all watered down. Sour fruit punch with a splash of nailpolish remover. On my skin this is too much of a tart, thick sort of scent. ETA: With some aging, this still smells just as bad on me, but now with an added soapy floral note in the drydown. Egg'd Mailbox, TP'd Trees, and now Spiked Punch all had an unexpected, soapy floral note, smelling awful on my skin. Strange.

Huh. I see a lot of those search results are my ramblings, lol. I love blueberry and am always hoping for a blueberry blend from BPAL. The strongest blueberry impression that I've gotten was actually from Depraved, which was my first BPAL true love. Something about the apricot in that blend really smells of blueberry to me. My review: "Depraved was a freebie imp from someone in my very first BPAL swap package... and it was one of the first scents that I fell madly in love with. I tried it on without ever reading the description of patchouli and apricot... and I happily thought that Depraved was a blend of blueberries and leather. It sounds odd, but that's what this smells like on me. Wild maine blueberries ready for pie and a strip of leather. It's amazingly fruity, but the patchouli gives it a darker smokier quality. This is the scent that began my love for patchouli, if patchouli works well with your body chemistry then I highly recommend trying this one." So perhaps that one would be worth a try.

The fantastic cuervosueno swapped me a decant of this'n. In the vial this actually smells like a sweet floral and powdery vanilla to me. Not what I was expecting of an egg scent, and not really custardy to me at all... On me, this is a very perfumey, spicy, warm, bright floral. It doesn't smell at all like BPAL's carnation note tends to smell on me. This is more perfumey than it is the smell of a true carnation or real flower. I also get a hint of something like the men's shaving cream smell that I got from Numb. Not good. Egg'd Mailbox doesn't smell foodie or eggy to me at all. I definitely don't get the custard impression that I was hoping for and it's *nothing* like BPAL's Egg Nog blend that I love. It doesn't even have a good carnation smell to me This is just a slightly soapy, intensely perfumey floral fragrance. The sharpness to it makes my eyes water. Egg'd Mailbox reminds me more of Mama Ji than anything else, if Mama Ji were more perfumey and had a strong undertone of men's shaving cream