Little Bird

Caliph's Beloved is such a lovely fragrance. It reminds me a bit of Voodoo (my all-time favorite scent), but a warmer, spicier sort of version. It has the same cola smell on me, and perhaps a hint of something like a warm, red patchouli and red sandalwood. This reminds me of that holiday spice version of coca cola in the drydown, which was basically just cola and cinnamon. I *love* that smell. Cinnamon bothers me sometimes, but the cinnamon here isn't overly strong or sharp to me. It's just perfectly sweet and foodie. As for the effectiveness... my sexual excitement is pretty much always at a fevered pitch to begin with, so I'm not sure that I noticed any difference that was out of the norm. I do love this as a perfume though, and will probably go through my bottle and buy more. It's very sexy and pleasant to me. Perfect for heating things up during the winter

I almost didn't buy Chrysanthemum Moon. The description of the opium den terrified me. The whole opium/poppy thing is something that I've learned to fear... the smell of it gives me vicious migraines and actual nosebleeds. But I hate to miss out on a BPAL LE, so I decided to face death and buy a bottle at the last minute anyhow, lol. The beautiful description for the Mum Moon fits it so perfectly. Gold-dusted mums, sensual incense, and spicy ginger are all apparent to me... I could really visualize the story that was told along with the scent when I wore this. A strange side note: This has a subtle background note that smells like a man's lime-scented cologne. It's sexy and pleasant, just not something that I was expecting. In the bottle, this actually smells like some sort of lime cleanser on me too. But it's a light (barely there after a half hour or so), gentleman's cologne on my skin... Mainly this is like spicy, dried flowers and sultry incense. There's probably a bit of amber in here too, because it takes on a warm, dusty quality on my skin. There is that opium poppy note here as well, but it was light and faded quickly enough that even an opium-hater like me could wear this without getting ill. I really was fond of this one. It was a wonderfully comfortingly warm, spicy, dry incense on me in the drydown. I'm going to love Mum Moon this winter

In the bottle this smells like apple blossoms, sweet yellow apples, and honey. It's definitely heavy on the apple, but it reminds me more of the delicate, muted yellow apples than the sour green or crisp red ones. On me... wow. I never thought that apples could smell this beautiful. Les Bijoux smells like love to me. Like really making love with someone who means the world and more to you. Given the description, I was really expecting this to be a bold, sexual scent. An aggressive scent. But it's not at all. This is sweetly trusting, delicately feminine, captivatingly vulnerable. It so embodies the idea of love for me that, when I wore this, I thought about my boy and missed him so much that I started sobbing. This is a romantic scent. Romance at its best. Actually describing the fragrance? An old, cozy blanket thrown down in a field at the height of fall. A chilly breeze swirls around you as the scent of your lover’s skin and your girly perfume mingles in the most perfectly sensual blend. Hints of fading blooms and grasses waft about. You can still smell the sweet, faint scent of the apples and muted peaches that have fallen around you. It's sweet, it's a bit crisp, it's warmly sensual, and you are hopelessly smitten. This isn't a throw down the boy and jump on him perfume. This is slowly being seduced by the boy, getting kissed all over and having sweet nothings recited to you like it's just as special as the first time. I don't normally like fruity scents, but this is such a soft, gorgeous scent. Lots of throw and staying power, but not thick or overpowering. I don't pick out any rose, frankincense, or myrrh exactly, this is insanely well blended, but I imagine that they are the enchanting perfumey notes behind the sweet, goldeny fruits and sexy skin musk. I'm so glad that I splurged on a 10 ml of this one, it is going straight to the head of my top ten list. I'm going to slather on Les Bijoux for my next interlude with my love. This the most beautiful, romantic scent that I've ever had the pleasure of wearing. ETA: I still love my 10ml of this, but recent imps I've gotten of this scent do not smell the same at all. The scent seems to be heavy on the skin musk now, which is sharper and slightly powdery. The fruitiness doesn't have that delicate, honeyed apple quality anymore either, but turns a bit sour smelling. I'll cherish my original bottle of this scent, but I don't like the reformulation/whatever new notes bpal is using for it.

I thought that Neroli was the orange hard candy-ish scent that I get from a few blends... but apparently I was wrong. This single note doesn't smell like oranges to me at all, and it's incredibly subtle and fades quickly on my skin. Maybe I've never picked out the Neroli in blends before, because it's so light on me On me, this is a combination of a bitter citrus note and a perfumey white floral. This would give me a vicious headache if it weren't so subtle. As it is, this only lasted about 15 minutes on my skin. It was oddly bitter, dry citrus on me while it lasted... kind of reminding me more of grapefruit than orange.

I really enjoy the tomato leaf singlenote. If you've ever planted and lovingly tended to a tomato garden, it's a smell that you will recognize fondly. This is just like the way that tomato plants smell when they're out in the warm sun and growing well. Tomato Leaf has a pleasant warmth and spiciness to it, just like the distinctive smell of the plants. If you smell a tomato, you can pick up on the spicy hints and the almost citrussy sort of bite. They manage to be so uniquely green and crisp smelling, while at the same time so warm and spicy. This singlenote is just as captivating to me as the plants have been. It makes me think happily of the gardens that my father and I tended to every summer. The only blend that I've seen this in so far is The Jersey Devil (of which I ordered a 10 ml of unsniffed), and I'm hoping that I can pick out this note in that blend as well. It's wonderful

I suffer from anxiety as well (social anxiety, agoraphobia, and other 'fun' stuff)... My two soothing scents that I've been wearing a lot lately are Hand of Hermes and Sleepy Moon. I find them really calming and comforting. They don't end or cure my anxiety by any means, but they are somewhat helpful in beating down my jitters sometimes, or helping me to relax at the end of a rough day.

Hand of Hermes starts off smelling rather like LUSH's Dream Cream (pleasantly creamy, candy-sweet lavender with an herbal edge) and then becomes very cinnamony on me for a while. After an hour or so, it calms down to a fair mix of sweet lavender and cinnamon. And, just because I feel as though I should mention it, this is probably not a good blend to put on sensitive skins. I have very resilient skin and can wear the best of cinnamon blends without an allergic reaction, but this even made my skin a bit tingly and... burning. It only was bothersome for about 15 minutes, but it is something to take into consideration nontheless.

Like all of my temple blend reviews, this is going to be pretty much just a comment on the way that it smells to me. First on, this smells rather icy and earthy to me. Sort of like a chilly menthol/eucalyptus and some sort of aquatic note mixed with vetiver. It gives me the mental image of fallen leaves and mud around a pond, frozen under a sheet of ice. After about an hour, the ice has thawed and this is a warm, sweet incense and vetiver sort of smell on me. This smells thick and a bit suffocating on me after a while. It's like being in a room where there's just too much incense burning, and the smoke becomes a bit sharp to the nose.

Lucky #20 frightened me a bit in the tiny decant vial that I got it in. At first sniff it was like getting beaten over the head with an overpowering floral bouquet. Sticky sweet and FLORAL. A tiny dab on me and this instantly turned into heavy jasmine with a drydown of jasmine and herbal soap. Soapy jasmine. Thankfully this fades and isn't very overpowering or noticeable on me after about 15 minutes.

On me, this TAL Yemayá starts off smelling like watery aquatic notes mingling with mango and honeydew melon. Aquatics usually smell sharp and soapy on me (yay dryer sheets), but this is a lovely watery smell. Watery in the way that cucumbers smell. In the drydown, this starts to get a lot sweeter on me. It begins to remind me of watermelon jolly ranchers, with a twist of tart strawberry. Somehow it still has a sort of fresh feeling though, keeping it from being too artificially fruity or overwhelmingly sweet. I like this one.

Like other reviewers, this singlenote does the disappearing act on my skin. It only lasted for about a half hour on my skin (which is fine, because I don't really like orange scents). While it lasted, this reminded me of orange tang. You know, that tart and powdery juice mix that didn't taste very good. This doesn't strike me as a sweet smell so much as a sour or bitter orange peel sort of scent. A tad powdery, watery, and very subtle on me.

Rosewood is a note nemesis of mine. This has ruined a few blends for me, because it takes on a very sharp rose fragrance on my skin. In the vial it smells innocent enough, a nicely resinous and polished wood with rose sort of scent. On my skin, it becomes a sharp, stinging rose. I don't get any sort of woods note from it at all. The best way that I could describe the way that rosewood smells on me is that it smells like vomit . Sharp, acrid, and nauseatingly strong.

It's interesting how varied the reviews for this singlenote have been. I was kind of hoping that this would smell incensey on me, but it's more of a buttery floral (smooth, light, kinda creamy, and warm). It reminds me a bit of jasmine, but softer... In the drydown, this goes verrry powdery on me. If there were a jasmine scented baby powder, that's what frangipani smells like on me.

This is going to be pretty much just a scent review for Nine Muses... since I dislike the scent too much to actually ever wear this for the intended purpose. On me, this manages to remind me of floor cleanser and medicine at the same time. A mixture of sharp lemony citrus, menthol-y eucalyptus, and maybe some kind of mint... all wrapped with a heavy helping of soap. This is strong, sharp, and soapy. Tons of throw. It's unpleasantly bitter and distracting on me, and doesn't sweeten up or calm down even after a half hour of wear I ended up washing this one off. It would be more of a distraction for me than an inspiration.

This has been one of my most sought after BPAL fragrances ever since I found the site. Unfortunately, by then, this little gem had been discontinued for over a year. So when a friend gifted me with a wee drop of this, I practically did a cartwheel in my room. And it literally was just a wee drop in an imp vial, enough for one glorious use. I love buttery scents. Shill is one of my favorites, as is the buttery toast note in Drink Me. Hellfire is the most perfect of buttery, creamy scents. I wore the wee drop in my cleavage on a day that I spent with my boy. It wasn't terribly strong, but I kept catching sweet whiffs of it for about 8 hours. It smells like smooth butter, ultra creamy vanilla, and a tiny pinch of sweet spice on me. So comforting and delicious. After about the first four hours, it was more of a faint, buttery sweetness with a slightly powdery smell to it. I found it really comforting and very 'me'. The boy loved it as well, and kept nibbling on me. This old Hellfire is nothing like the new one (but I so wish that it was). If I knew someone that had more of this, I might beat them up and steal it

Temple: Greek is definitely an herbal blend to my nose. I'm picking up a strong sage note (and I have a negative association with sage, so I find that unpleasant) that strikes me as spicy and a bit dry. In the drydown... herbal lavender, sage, greenery, and a hint of something sweeter and slightly fruity. There might be a wine or honey note in here as well, sweetening things up. This isn't a bad blend. I don't really like to burn/wear anything with sage in it, so I probably wouldn't use this... but it's a pleasant enough herbal scent with hints of sweetness and spice.

I normally order all of the new BPAL fragrances as soon as they are released; but I've put off trying Dragon's Reverie for quite a while now. I actually laughed when I first read the description... my top five most hated notes from BPAL are poppy, ylang ylang, jasmine, dragon's blood, and amber. Dragon's Reverie is 4 for 5 on that Sniffing this in the imp vial... this has a perfumey, metallic sharpness to it that reminds me of cheap hairspray, and it is already giving me a headache. Wet on my skin... this isn't at all as sharp or overpowering as I thought that it would be. It's actually a very light, sweet floral on me. Very yellow and almost candy-ish. In the drydown (after fifteen minutes or so), this has taken on a musky floral fragrance with a heavy powder note in the background. BPAL's amber usually goes powdery on me, so I'm not surprised. This is a warm, biting, heavily perfumey floral, and it has quite a bit of throw on me now. This is very much not me, and it makes my head pound, but it's nowhere near as bad as I was expecting it to be. The notes meld together rather nicely, if you can wear this sort of perfumey floral scent.

I'm not sure what it is about the lab's amber notes, but they almost always turn to a powdery/dusty smell on me. Egyptian Amber is a smoky, warm, spicy amber with a drydown that goes to pure baby powder on me. It starts off more resinous on me, where Black Amber is dry and sort of a woodsy amber. It's very light on me (lighter than the Egyptian musk)... and, after about five minutes, starts to morph into a dusty note with hints of powder I've had good luck with amber in other perfumes, but the lab's ambers seem to hate my skin chemistry.

I almost wonder if my wee half-imp decant of this has gone bad or something. It has a strangely sour bitterness to it. Smoky almond, smoky cedar, perhaps some vetiver, and a generally unpleasant sour note. In the drydown it takes on a musty quality that makes me think of damp, moldy wood. This is strong and has a lot of throw... but I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing in this case. The smell is making me a bit nauseous. The sweet almond mixed with the heavy earthiness of the vetiver and the charred woods note is not working for me at all. I won't be scrambling to find more of this any time soon, lol.

Musks make me nervous... when they're good, they're amazing... when they're bad, they give me vicious migraines. I wasn't sure quite what to expect from Red Musk singlenote. This is really very lovely though. It's a warm, earthy sort of musk on me. It actually strikes me as very resinous, and more like incense than musk. In the drydown it has an earthiness that reminds me a bit of patchouli (I love patchouli); a sort of dry, warm, earthy patchouli. Spicy, exotic and rather sexy smelling. My boy is actually fond of this one. Most of the blends that list red musk haven't worked out so well on my skin, but I love this in singlenote form

I was so excited to try this new Harvest Moon. '05 is one of my very favorite BPAL blends; and the label art for '06 is my favorite label artwork ever. My expectations for this one are pretty high though I don't know what to expect from a lot of the listed notes. In the bottle, this smells like fall harvest festivals to me. Sweet, tart fruits, chilled air, dying fields and grasses, and some sort of spicy goodness. On me at first, the green tea leaf and bamboo add a very refreshing and clean element to this scent. They're mingling with tart fruits (I can definitely pick out the yummy black cherry) and an almost edible sort of woods note. It's a bit more green and fresh/clean smelling than I would have liked initially, but the 'fresh' element thankfully fades within 5 minutes on me. In the drydown, I am in love with this . I adore fall scents, and this is just such a perfect harvest time and crisp fall air fragrance. It really does have a dusty wheat and fields smell to it, with some sugary sweetness and a creamy note to it. This isn't as spicy as '05, but it does have a light spiciness underneath a creamy sweetness. The fruitiness has faded to the background and I catch hints of a berry or plum every once in a while. This is wonderfully sweet on me, without being really foodie or fake smelling. I keep smelling this one around me and it transports me to the forests where I grew up, around fall harvest when everything was fading away for winter. It's just beautiful and serene in that way that only fall can be. Harvest Moon '06 manages to smell both exotic and familiar at the same time. It's blends like these that make me love BPAL so much. I'm so glad that I grabbed two bottles of this one

I wish that tuberose were sweet, creamy, or candy-like on me as it is on other people. Tuberose on me doesn't even smell like rose, though, it actually smells more like opium poppy to me than anything else On me, tuberose is a glaringly sharp white floral. In blends, it reminds me of the sharp chemical twang that is in cheap hairspray... but, in singlenote form, this has a bit of a soapy edge to it. Any creaminess or sweetness is smothered by this strangely sharp and perfumey edge. I just can't wear this floral note at all

Everyone that I've ever tried to enable has absolutely adored Snow White. So that would be my one pick LE, if I had to pick one. For the General Catalogue... Antique Lace, Dorian, Snake Oil, and Alice always seem to be really popular. Velvet is another one that a lot of newbies seem attracted to. If I had to pick twelve for a newbie friend (female), I'd pick: *Aglaea *Alice *Antique Lace *Dorian *Dragon's Milk *Embalming Fluid *O *Phantom Queen *Sacred Whore of Babylon *Snake Oil *Velvet *Voodoo ...Which would be a safe pick for me because those are all pretty popular scents and there is a good variety among them. And I actually just sent my male cousin a couple imp packs, and included: *Bow & Crown of Conquest *Cathedral *Golden Priapus *Jabberwocky *Mad Hatter *Magus *Perversion *Satyr *Tweedledum *Villain *Whitechapel *Wilde For LEs I sent him Usher and Torture King...

STFU smells delightfully of chilly pine notes in the bottle, but morphs into something headache-inducing on my skin. On me this seems to have that ozone/aquatic note that smells sharply of dryer sheets and laundry detergent on me. Soapy. And there seems to be some sort of powdery floral note hiding in here as well. If I try to wear this, it gives me a soapy headache... in an oil burner, this is a nicely chilly, powdery pine and mountain air sort of scent. I've been using this in my handy oil burner when I do my therapy charts... just to have a sort of routine for completing them. Whenever someone upsets me, I have a chart that I work through to see if their negativity/issue with me is justified and how to work through it. The charts are very helpful and keep me from taking other people's problems as my personal faults; and I've been enjoying having an oil that sort of fits the routine

Veils & Mist has a really gorgeous fragrance to it. It smells like a bouquet of real lilies, but it's a spicier floral than most of the lily blends that I've smelled, not as soft and subdued as usual. It also has a misty, fresh, watery quality to it. I'm really enjoying it as a perfume, though it's not something that I would typically wear (I'm not a perfumey floral lover). Anyhow. I wore this the other night when I was really upset about something, but didn't want to talk about it. Whenever I'm upset and on the verge of crying, a few people in my family follow me around and keep asking me what's wrong... even if I say that I'm not talking about it. I pretty much just wanted everyone to ignore me. Strangely, Veils & Mist seemed to attract my family members, as everyone in my house complimented me on the 'new perfume.' But they didn't notice that I was upset, and didn't ask me any questions. Maybe Veils & Mist's charm is that it smells so nice that people notice it and not the person wearing it, lol.