Little Bird

Hm. Phantom Queen was more sweet and purple on me. Crazy how people's skin chemistry can be so different. That's why it's always so hard for me to buy perfume for other people. I buy things that I'm sure the person will love, and it smells like something entirely different on them. Eden was very leafy green to me. Val Sans Retour is wonderfully green, but hard to find. I agree that The Dormouse is a lovely green/herbal scent. Envy... Roadhouse (dandelions)... Envy is an awesome green/mint/lavendar scent, so it sounds like one that your mother might really like. Good luck

In the bottle this smells like real fresh strawberries. Tangy and with a bit of greenery thrown in. On me, it smells like strawberry candy Strawberry Moon starts out smelling like Pink Moon's twin on me. Heavy pink candy. In the drydown it gets much lighter and creamier though. Musky strawberries and a creamy vanilla note. It's cavity inducing sweetness. I like this a lot more than Pink Moon. It's not something that I'll wear often (as I don't really like fruit scents), but it's a lovely pink sugar type of scent.

A song of love and madness: two roses, tolu balsam and ambergris with vanilla, labdanum, tobacco leaf, carnation and tonka. I didn't buy this on the site when it first came out, figuring that a rose and carnation scent just wouldn't be 'me'. Then I recently bought a bottle off of ebay just because I liked the label art. It was a pleasant surprise to find out that I actually like the way this smells too, lol. It is mostly rose. Very perfumey and strong at first, but sweet and soft in the drydown. It's gorgeous after settling on my skin for a few minutes. The vanilla really comes in around the rose and the fragrance is so sweet and creamy. After about an hour, the vanilla and rose start to smell a bit spicier, so perhaps that is the carnation making its presence known. Spicy vanilla rose Very nice. I'll probably decant away half of the bottle and keep the other half for my own use. I don't wear florals a lot, but I can see myself reaching for this one when I'm in that floral mood .

Tushnamatay is a very faint woodsy blend on me. I definitely smell the sandalwood, and it goes slightly powdery in the drydown, and something that reminds me lightly of cedar chips. It's a bit incensy and sweet as well. And this one has a sweet, clean fragrance lingering in the background that reminds me a bit of Dirty. This is sandalwood with tiny hints of cedar, sweet incense, and Dirty. I like it. It's very subtle and calming, with very little throw. I may never get a full bottle of this one, because there are sandalwood blends that I like more (erm, Magus), but this one is very light and lovely. 2018 frimp: Soft, baby powdery sandalwood with a darker, toastier, dry, brown wood underneath the white sandalwood. A little like cedar, and a little like warm, fuzzy, brown musk. Drydown is much the same, but with a hint of brown suede leather. All very soft and warm and powdery, and very light. Clings close to the skin. Almost a clean, lotion-y quality.

I love this when I first put it on. It smells like sweet tobacco, golden amber, and gorgeous smoky church incense on me. Sweet and golden and mouthwateringly good. Then, in the drydown... it smells rancid and burning. More like campfire smoke and rotting milk. I'm getting some of the sickening sweetness of 'honey butter'. The chill of leather in the background is also very off-putting to me. Thankfully, this fades quickly after the rancid stage. My skin just eats up the fragrance. I love the way this starts out, but the drydown is horrible on me. This will be going to my swap pile.

When first applied, this was so strong and sharp that I almost washed it off immediately. It was all sharp, bitter grapefruit and a strange body odor smell that was just... awful. It made my head ache. Giving this some time to dry, the grapefruit settles down quite a lot. After a good 15 minutes, the scent is still strong but not overwhelming, and the grapefruit smell (thankfully) is gone. Now it's all soft/pretty cherry blossom over a hint of herbal black tea. A very girlie fragrance that makes me visualize light pinks and milky white colours. Sweet and almost a bit powdery. It isn't a sexy scent on me so much as an ultra-pretty "I am a girl" scent. It's shy rather than seductive. If that makes any sense... I like this a lot in the drydown, though I'm not sure if I'll want a bottle of it. I'll keep my imp around for the days that I'm feeling very feminine and proper.

I've been wanting to try The Hesperides for months now, I *love* the scent of caramel apples. So much thanks to rellyjean for swapping me an imp . Unfortunately, The Hesperides isn't so good on me in reality. I'm not sure what aspects of this turn so awful on my skin, perhaps some of the woods notes (though I usually like woods). This smells just like sharp, high pitched apple cider (spice and fakey apple) and potpourri... with a strong background note of something that smells like a used ash tray. Dirty ash tray and potpourri blech.

Nifleheim starts out smelling very aquatic, with a cool menthol bite. The menthol fades away quickly and I think that I can pick out some leather. It's very cool, dark, and smoky. After about 15 minutes, I'm smelling white florals. That generic white floral smell that I get out of all of the white floral blends in Marshall Fields, where I cannot pick out any one flower. Very bitter and perfumey. The flowers are even overpowering the strong aquatic scent. Niflheim is exactly the sort of fragrance that gives me a headache. I washed it off before it had even been on a full half hour.

Aglaea is another scent that is very happy and pretty and entirely 'not me'. First on, it smells like sweet spiced peaches. Like peaches that belong in a pie. It's all very country-kitchen on me. After a few minutes, the peach begins to smell a bit more fizzy and sparkling. Watered down peach rather than thick spicy peach. In the drydown the amber comes out more and the musk comes out a bit. It's a very golden and sunny scent. It's staying nice and light, not an overpowering fragrance. Fizzy peach and powdery amber. It's nice. I just never feel like myself when I smell like fruit. Yes, I'm odd.

Iago smells very cold and masculine on me. Leather blends tend to disagree with me if the leather is the main note that I can smell. First on, Iago is all leather, reminding me a bit of De Sade. After a few minutes, an earthier and slightly spicy smell starts coming in around the leather. Then, within 15 minutes, it is all swallowed by a sharp musky smell. I had to wash it off. On the boy, it starts out all leather and turns into baby powder. Iago is banished to my swap pile...

Every scent that I try with dragon's blood in it (with the exception of Dragon's Milk) conjures up the same mental picture when I wear it. A picture of rotting wildflowers in a dirty vase. Dragon's blood usually turns into an awful rotten floral smell. In Dragon's Eye, that rotten smell is backed up by more perfumey florals. Department store florals with a decomposing edge... After wearing this for about 15 minutes I started to feel irritated and was getting a headache, so I just washed it off. It started to get a bit of a salty aquatic note, but the rotting flowers were too much for me.

Carnivale is an interesting fragrance. My boyfriend smelled it when I first trried it on and said that it smelled like carnations. That surprised me, because I didn't think that Carnivale smelled like carnations. I was smelling sharp musky berries. It quickly dries down and smells like juicy fruit gum to me. Very powdery and a weakly synthetic fruity scent. After about a half hour, I think the carnation comes out more. Carnivale starts to smell amazing and spicy. It reminds me a lot of LUSH's Skinny Dip scent in this stage. At one point I actually thought that I smelled Skinny Dip and was looking for it, before I realized that it was Carnivale. An hour later it is all juicy fruit gum again. Powdery and unpleasant. I wish that it would stay in that spicy stage a bit longer...

Reading the description, this just sounds like too much floral for me. On my skin, as usual, the jasmine is overpowering. It smells like a very hyper and searingly bright floral. I wish that I could smell lemons and currant, but they never come out to play on me. After about a half hour of smelling like very strong jasmine, the blend starts to go soapy. I ended up washing it off. Jasmine soap is not my thing.

I expected this to be a light floral blend. It's more of a heavy fruit blend, though. It smells like cherry candy more than cherry blossom. The anise adds a medicinal black licorice smell under the cherry. I don't smell any sandalwood, but the anise gets stronger in the drydown. Overall it reminds me of cherry cough drops. Not awful, but not something that I want to smell like either.

I wore Gomorrah today entirely on accident. I only meant to sniff the imp, but somehow managed to spill half the imp down my left arm. I thought that this would be extremely overpowering, given the large amount on my skin, but it's still very subtle and light. The first thing that I noticed was FIG. Dark, almost bitter fig. There's no sweetness here at all. Fig has an almost woody smell on my skin. In the drydown I thought that it smelled a lot like unsweetened black tea. A very bitter (in a good way) blend. Light throw, but serious. Looking at the description now... I'm not sure what dates smell like, but I definitely never smelled any currant in this blend. I like this a lot, but I'm not sure that I'll wear it much. I prefer a sweeter fig than the fig that is in Gomorrah.

Rage? This scent doesn't seem angry at all. Unless you consider florals and fruit to be angry... Rage does not work at all on me. To start with it is all musky jasmine and rotten/sour dragon's blood. It's a sickening smell. Very strong and threatening to give me a headache. After about an hour, the currant and mandarin come out and I wish that the florals would disappear entirely, because I think that the currant and mandarin would be lovely on their own. Sweet orange and a sort of dark cherry scent are mingling together. Only to be swallowed up by the florals again after a while . Then, after the floral smells murdered the fruit, the whole blend took on a soapy smell. I had to just throw in the towel and wash it off at that point. I would never associate this smell with rage. The florals make my head pound though... it's definitely not a scent that works well with my skin chemistry.

Based on a Romany incense blend reputed to induce sexual dreams: Somalian rose, Moroccan rose and Bulgar rose with a sultry dribble of cinnamon. Harlot is hands down the worst BPAL blend that I have ever tried (on me). It's so strong and sharp. I thought that the combination of rose and cinnamon would be gorgeous, but I don't smell any cinnamon at all. This is bitter soapy roses and rotting roses on me. It's kind of burning my skin and making it red (and that has never happened to me before). It burns my nose when I smell it. Everything that could be bad about a perfume seems to be here in Harlot. It's so overwhelming and nauseating. I had to wash it off (several attempts to make it go away) and it will be going straight to my swap pile.

Lampades is a lighter, more subtle sort of fruity scent on me at first. The cranberry here doesn't smell like cranberry on me so much as a misty berry sort of smell (maybe a bit blueberry or blackberry-ish). It smells similar to berry flavored Kool-Aid; as it has a sweet, watery quality. The musk and lilies are always lingering lightly in the background as well, adding a perfumey, feminine edge to the whole thing. And the florals and musk here really do have a darker, smokier edge to them... nothing like the white, soapy lilies that I usually encounter. In the drydown, the ginger and spices begin to come out under the berries and musky floral. There's an earthiness here that makes me think of black patchouli, and a slightly dusty, sweeter spice. Lampades reminds me of Florence... it's like Florence's darker, not-so-sweet cousin. Very pretty and alluring.

I love patchouli and I like sandalwood, but roses sometimes do bad things with my skin chemistry. Not so with Rakshasa. The rose doesn't go soapy or powdery, it is a lovely sweet rose. Delicate and has an almost candy-like smell to it. The rose is the main thing that I smell for the first half hour. Sweet rose with spicy patchouli and incensy sandalwood behind it. Then the rose starts to fade away and the patchouli and sandalwood come to the foreground. I love it. It's sweet and spicy and sensual. This might be a 5 ml purchase for me.

On me, Nocturne was nothing but violets. Cold, somber violets. They turn very powdery in the drydown, but I didn't really notice after a few minutes because this is so light. I couldn't smell anything at all after 15 minutes. 2016 Frimp review: Sweet violet pastilles candy, powdery and sweet, with a drydown of violet pastilles, lilac sugar crystals, and a sharp, clean, gauzy white floral feel from the tuberose. This scent is lasting a lot longer on me now, with pretty heavy throw. I also find it to be more warm and candy-floral now.

On me, Magus is like a softer, dryer, simple version of Cathedral. It starts off smelling strongly of spicy cedar and smooth frankincense. It's very dry, sweet, and woodsy. More of the sandalwood comes out after a few minutes and it takes on a dry, powdery sort of smell. An hour later I thought that I smelled something like pencil shavings (but somehow better), then realized that it was Magus. This is definitely a very woodsy blend on me, perhaps even too woodsy for me to wear on a regular basis. I'll keep my imp and think about getting a bottle. ETA: I am loving Magus's soft woodsiness lately. It is overwhelmingly WOODS on me on its own, but I love it layered with other blends. I keep layering it with other things and it's just wonderful for adding a touch of woods to other scents. Midnight Mass + Magus + Obatala is one of my favorite blends lately

I adore patchouli and hate orange blossom. I was hoping that the patchouli would take over or that the two would balance each other out. Oddly, this blend is all orange blossom and vanilla on me. Ravenous smells like a bad creamsicle on my skin. The orange blossom takes on a burnt candy orange smell. Patchouli is nowhere in sight. It stayed the same for about an hour before I just washed it off. I don't know why orange blossom always smells burnt on me.

Le Serpent Qui Danse is pretty much exactly as advertised. The vanilla and violet make a delicate, sweet, girly, candied violet scent, and the gardenia adds a hint of a creamy, tropical edge. It's a sweet, simple, cool sort of floral (violets usually smell cool to me).

The Lady of Shalott is a very fleeting fragrance on me. It only lasts about 15 minutes on my skin. It's so sad, it's gorgeous when it first starts out. I get gardenia, which smells green and a tad fruity on my skin. Then I get the most wonderful aquatic scent. It's dark blue and slightly salty water. Deep, flowing, and a bit chilly. Then the entire blend goes soapy and fades away into oblivion

This starts off with a blast of tart, sweet, slightly powdery cherry (makes me think of black cherry kool-aid powder) and a whiff of black licorice. I wish that the licorice were stronger. It dries down to faint, tart cherry powder that only lasts about an hour total on me.