Little Bird

I've been wanting to try Lex Talionis for a while now. Sadly, it was discontinued about 2 days before I had planned to place an order for a bottle of it. Anyhow, a lovely swapper sent me an imp of it... so I can finally try it. Perhaps I'm weird, but I LOVE black pepper and patchouli. If I could get a blend of nothing but black pepper and patchouli then I would be a very happy girl. When I first apply this, it is black pepper in all its glory. So spicy and pulsing and yummy. Then after about five minutes, it softens and starts going sweet. Which is not what I wanted to happen. I've spent the last two hours sniffing my wrist and hoping (PRAYING) that the pepper would come back. Or patchouli. Patchouli? Where are you? This is violets, myrrh, and cedar. It is a soft and somewhat sweet smell. Not at all what I had hoped... so maybe it is good that I didn't buy a full size bottle when I had the chance. It starts out so strongly and wonderful though.

I don't really like floral blends... I know this, yet I still had to try Twilight. I figured that this would be a really strong scent, with the jasmine dominating. My skin usually amps up the jasmine. I was surprised that the lavendar is what stands out the strongest on me. The lavendar is cooling, like crisp night air. Then there is lovely honeysuckle twisting about through the lavendar. I never even smell that jasmine (which was a relief). Overall this a lovely and not too overpowering floral. I've been looking for a soft honeysuckle scent, and this is that.

To me, Satyr smells like a deep red musk, sour resins, and cinnamon. A very dark and wild sort of musk that I find really sexy and aggressive smelling. My older bottles had less of that cinnamon note in it than my more recent bottles/imps, but I still like this scent. It's one of my favorites from bpal, though I can see it being a bit too much for a lot of people. It's definitely on the heavier, headshoppy side of things, which I normally dislike, but something about Satyr just smells really sexy to me. On a random note, it's similar in feel to Sin.

This is one of those scents that I really like, but would probably never wear. It's a very sweet/smoky incense. It has a sort of sooty/dirty quality to it. At first it smells like a nice floral incense, then dries down to something sweeter and more powdery. It lasts about five hours on my skin... I can barely smell it now, just a trace of something smoky, like the remnants of a burned out campfire. It just doesn't feel like me. I'd pass over this one when picking out a scent to wear each day... nothing is really outstanding or grabbing my attention. I'll probably end up decanting this one out to a few curious friends.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this, as I don't have a lot of experience with aquatics or ozones. Best way I can describe this: smells like a dryer sheet that has been soaked in murky salt water, with a squeeze of something citrus over it. It is a surprisingly lovely clean fragrance. I do think that this would be more at home on a guy... and I'll probably decant most of it for a few male friends of mine who have expressed an interest in smelling like the Great Cthulhu. ETA: After about a half hour, this smells like a salty lime margarita on my boy, lol. He actually thought that I sprayed him with my lime margarita body spray from Skindazzles... and that was the citrus that I smelled when I tried it on myself, a sort of salty lime.

The second that I read the description for Whippoorwill, I had to have it. I was so excited to get it, as it sounds like the perfect spicy green scent. Then I started reading the reviews and got scared. Many people describe it as perfumey (which I can't stand), powdery (which I hate), and soapy (which I'm not at all fond of). However, after wearing this all day, I am happy to report that this was not perfumey, powdery, or soapy on me. This is very well blended. Whenever I smell it, I think of wet moss and long green grasses in a marsh. Yet there is something oddly edible about this. It reminds me of nights from my childhood where my father and I would stand outside on the porch after a rain and listen to the whippoorwills singing. Wet, earthy, cool, green, and slightly haunting. It's wonderful. This is going to be my favorite scent this summer.

There isn't too much to say here that hasn't already been said. Add me to the list of Shub Niggurath fans. I've never smelled Gingerbread Poppet (though I've always wanted to try it, just can't ever manage to get an imp or bottle of it, lol) but Shub Niggurath is exactly what I had hoped it would smell like. When I first put it on, it smells like gingerbread cookies... then it dries down into something wetter, spicier, and more mouth watering. It is foodie, but not just foodie or overwhelmingly so. Shub Niggurath has that same wet spicy/almost citrus note that I loved so much in Cerberus. Mmm... I'm so glad that I got a bottle of this.

Wearing Nocnitsa was like dousing myself in PineSol cleanser. Smelled very very strongly of pine and a strange minty-menthol note. I normally am very fond of pine scents, but this was just too strong and sharp. I had to scrub it off after about two hours because it just kept getting more and more obtrusive and bitter.

I loved Wilde desperately when I first got into bpal (smelled like sexy lemon italian ice, lol). Then it went through a phase where it smelled incredibly dish soapy on me (but also, I was on meds at the time that seemed to mess up my skin chemistry). Now I'm trying it again after several years more of experience and while my skin chemistry seems to be normal, lol. In the imp, this smells lemony, sweet, smooth and cool. I think I'm picking up the lavender and bergamot. On my skin, this smells sweet, cool, and refreshing, like a sweet lemon ice on a hot day. The creamy, vanilla-y tonka makes the whole blend smoother and sweeter, and the lavender smells cool and gorgeous. Bergamot, lavender, and tonka, in that order. I don't smell any patchouli, moss, jasmine, or thyme exactly, but I suspect that the thyme is adding a bit of complexity and zing to the blend, and it and the lavender are keeping the blend from turning sickly sweet. Yup. I love this. It smells great on me. The lavender really smells masculine enough for my husband to pull this off, even though it is a bit too sweet on him. This and Vicomte de Valmont are two of my favorite masculine blends to give away to the menfolk in my life.

Okay... this did something very odd on my skin. Dragon's Blood and Musk are usually very sharp, bitter, and overpowering on me. I thought that this would be horrible and give me a headache... but I still tried it on, just because I have the need to try everything at least twice. For about one minute (if that) this was very spicy. Musk and cloves and peppers. Then it faded away in an instant and smelled like fruity bubblegum . Not at all what I was expecting. For about a half away, it continued to remind me of Juicy Fruit, then it dried down into a very faint light floral. Reminding me of tiny yellow flowers blowing in a breeze. Then it was all gone within an hour. Very unusual for a musky scent...

I was hesitant to try this as it has a lot of things in it that don't usually work well on my skin chemistry or that tend to give me headaches (roses, jasmine, and musk). At first, this smelled like a crazed blend of roses, screechingly bright and gave me that nosebleed feeling. Then the jasmine came in and actually seemed to calm the roses down. It became a nice floral blend, soft and very feminine. I hate florals like this, but even I had to admire how pretty it was. Then... after a half hour... musk. Nothing but musk. I'm used to that happening though... my skin will amp up the musk in almost anything. This is a very strong fragrance, a tiny dab on my wrist and I can still smell it clearly around me even three hours later. Which is bad, because the musk is giving me a bit of a headache...

Mmm... patchouli . I love how well BPAL's patchouli scents usually work on my skin. Urd is just gorgeous. There is a sort of grape-like sweetness to this, but not at all a candied plastic grape, just a sort of subtle fruity tang. The nag champa is sweet and incensey. The patchouli offers up that spicy dark quality that I love. It's so lovely... a wonderful sweet patchouli fragrance. Even my sister (who hates patchouli) thought that this was a wonderful scent. I may have to get a 10 ml of this one.

I've gotten imps of this where the plum is dominant and some where the carnation is dominant. I don't love the carnation note in this. It smells like spicy, dry potpourri to me. The plum is nice, when I get a batch that is heavy on the plum. But the Arabian musk tends to ruin this one for me, in any case. If I get an imp with strong musk, it has a sharp, powdery quality that winds up giving me a headache. Like most of bpal's scents, though, this scent varies a lot and I'm never sure which version I'll get...

Danube is an amazing watery fragrance. It brings to mind an image of slowly flowing dark blue water. A bit scary and daunting. The floral scent is rather unique, I don't remember coming across anything quite like it in a perfume. They add a familiar sweetness and sense of mystery to the fragrance. After wearing this for about 15 minutes, I got that familiar nagging feeling that I'd smelled this scent somewhere before. Then it hit me: this smells like my first deodorant. I think it was Teen Spirit's "Caribbean Cool" scent. I remember being around twelve years old and wishing that I had that deodorant in a perfume... now I do... but it's not that appealing anymore, lol. I like Danube, but it will probably never be a full bottle purchase on my list. It's just not me anymore...

Santo Domingo didn't really work out well on me... while wet it had a lovely pepper & tobacco smell on my skin. I love spicy scents. But when it dried, I didn't get any rum or tobacco at all, just tons of perfumey "blossoms". Sadly, Santo Domingo is just a boring perfumey floral on my skin... the kind of scent that gives me a headache. This will be going into my swap pile.

Rosalind reminds me of a mountain in spring time. Ice is beginning to melt and cold streams are flowing, flowers and tender green grasses are sprouting up through the melting snow. It is very interesting. It manages to be chilly, green, floral, wet, and slightly fruity all at the same time. When I breath in, it gives me that tingly cool feeling that one gets when they are smelling mints... but it isn't minty. I think that this would be a wonderfully refreshing summer scent.

I was very interested to see how Phantasm would compare to Shanghai (since Shanghai is green tea, lemon verbena, and honeysuckle - the two sounded very similar). On me, Shanghai smells like green tea with a hint of lemon (it's one of my favorite BPAL oils <3)... Phantasm smells like lemon candies with a hint of green tea. After about an hour, all I can smell are tart lemon candies. I don't think that I'll repurchase this one... it's just too lemony for me. Shanghai remains my favorite green tea scent.

I love patchouli (and it usually works *very* well on my skin), so I was very excited to try this out. When first applied, this is a dream. Peppery patchouli and kind of reminding me of the scent I get from Lush's Tramp showergel. Then it dries a bit and loses everything that I hoped it would be. It's smells like a very sweet baby powder in the drydown. Like baby powder mixed with sugar. I dislike it intensely... luckily, the staying power is poor. It only lasted about a half hour on my skin before I couldn't smell anything at all.

So many people love this... I feel like a freak for how bad it turns on my skin . I haven't done well with any blends that had dragon's blood as a main note... but I tried this on anyhow. For some reason, this is that awful smell that I hated in other blends - like cherry cough syrup, red wine gone bad, and a bouquet of rotting flowers. Three things that smell pretty bad. At least trying this has given me the confirmation that I needed - no more perfume with dragon's blood in them.

When this was still wet, it reminded me of the seasons... near the end of summer as you're starting to head into fall... it's like green grasses mixed in with a few that have already started to wither and die. It made me think of a field behind my house in Missouri when I was growing up... you can smell the grasses, a bit of dying plant life, and earth. I liked this. Then... it starts to smell like a man's cologne. I don't know what it is, but it very much reminds me of the married man that often gets drunk and hits on me at parties that my family goes to. He's a friend of the family. He's a serious pervert. This is his cologne. For that reason, I cannot seem to like this. The boy wanted so much to wear this and I just couldn't let him because of what I associate the smell with... very creepy... would be a great masculine scent if I weren't already turned off from it.

Cathedral is one of those unique scents that, when I'm wearing it, prompts me to smell my wrist so many times that I give myself a headache . It's worth it though, this is such a lovely scent on me. Frankincense... ::purrs:: This blend really seems to love my skin. It reminded me of Kostnice when I first applied it, then it dried down into something sharper and darker than Kostnice is on me. A cedary smell comes into play and there's a strong peppery undertone. I love this stage the best, something about spicy pepper just makes me really happy. After about an hour, I'm getting warm smoky incense and a bit of cedar. I like this stage less, but it is still lovely. I may buy a full bottle of this... we'll see...

I admit that I bought an imp of "Greed" just because people were telling me that it smells like Lush's "Tramp". Greed smells nothing like Tramp to me. That's okay though, because Greed is wonderful in its own right. Tramp always smells very green and herbal to me... Greed smells golden and spicy and sweet. No real outstanding similarity between the two to me at all. Moving on. When I first applied Greed, it smelled like patchouli drinking some Cherry CocaCola. A sweet cherry and cola sweetness with some woodsy notes and patchouli lurking in the background. Then it began to smell more spicy and warm like amber does on my skin. In the drydown this is so warm and woodsy. It reminds me very much of something... maybe an old summer house that my family used to visit when I was younger. The handmade log cabin house always smelled like this sort of woods, and the forest behind the house added all of those unique tree smells. The blend of woods and spice and warmth that I've been trying to find my entire life, lol. Mmm... I agree with a previous reviewer, Greed is good.

I don't know if there is much to say about this fragrance that hasn't already been said. It definitely smells like leather. On me it also seems to have a sweet incensy quality in the drydown as well. A sweet smokiness. And this is definitely a strong scent. I put a tiny dab on my wrist and I can smell it quite clearly as I am typing right now. This is much too masculine for my tastes. It's a good leather scent, but it's too sharp for me to want to smell it on the boy either... I just love scents that are sweeter. I might use this to layer with some other scents though. *edit to fix typos

Jabberwocky went through a lot of changes over the three hours that it lasted on my wrist... At first, the eucalyptus was STRONG and bothersome. I have a hard time wearing eucalyptus because it smells very medicinal on me. In this stage it is very sharp and bitter... sinus clearing and screechingly loud. After about a half hour, the eucalyptus is patted down by a lovely scent of pine (reminding me of the pine in Dublin). Then... chlorine... it reminded me of the pool that I went to when I was younger. In the summer the doors would be open and the scent of pine would drift in... but there's this watery chlorine smell backing it up. It's odd, my skin chemistry seemed to warp the eucalyptus into a chlorine scent. In the final stage before the Jabberwocky disappeared, it smelled like chlorine and orange hard candies. This is definitely an interesting scent... but I don't think that I love it enough to ever get around to buying a full size bottle. Though I do like the watery chlorine and pine smell that reminds me of happy summer days spent swimming.

Ooh... this is lovely... I may have finally found a true foresty scent that works on my skin chemistry. Yay! When wet, I thought that this would disappoint me. It had a fruity quality that I didn't quite like. But the fruitiness disappeared within a minute and I was left with the scent of a dew drenched pine forest. Strange, I thought, this smells very familiar... and it took me a few minutes to place the smell. This smells exactly like a car freshener that my mother had when I was little. You know those fresheners that hang from the car mirror, the green one that is shaped like a pine tree? Well, that is Dublin. I never thought that I would love that scent so much on *me*... but I do, I truly do. Dublin is a definite full size bottle purchase.