Little Bird

I love this in the bottle and on my skin at first. It smells like a bowl of rich vanilla cream and sweet little oranges, with a few rose petals laying about for decoration. Delicious and charming. Unfortunately, on my skin in the drydown, the honey amps up like mad and the blend becomes cloying, warm, and slightly off. It's like the orange sours and the vanilla cream impression morphs more to the baby powder side of things, so I'm left with cloying honey, sour orange, and baby powder with a hint of perfumey rose. Boo

This is a very interesting scent, and not at all what I expected it to be. I didn't smell any jasmine at all, which was odd because it usually dominates on my skin. I was grateful for the lack of jasmine though When I first apply this it smells like pure pepper. Very hot and spicy and strong. Then for about 5 hours it smells like an odd (but pleasant) blend of canned sweet apricot juice and pepper. In the final drydown before it disappears, it is a lovely vanilla and spicy ginger scent. It's unlike anything that I've ever smelled before. I'm not sure that I love it enough to buy a bottle, but I may go through a few imps of Siren.

This is another masculine blend that doesn't strike me as smelling masculine. It's too floral, powdery, and sweet for me to consider it manly. In the imp, this is zesty, sweet limes and a background of smooth, cool lilac. I like the smell of lilacs, and this is a true lilac scent, but I don't like it paired with the citrus. On my skin, this is candied limes and powdery lilac. It smells like a fresh, floral, girly scent. It also sometimes smells like cleanser to me. I'm not too fond of Whitechapel. It stays strong and lasts all day (and all night), but it starts to give me a headache and bother me after a short while.

Wow. This is strong. This is quite possible the strongest and most overpowering BPAL scent that I've come across yet. I love the pink border around the label and the pink writing (I'm easily amused, lol). I'm still not sure if I really like the scent, but I doubt that I'll ever love it. For the first fifteen minutes on my skin, this is just way too much for me. Like drowning in phlox and getting pelted in the face with strawberry bubble gum. Then it begins to soften a bit and becomes bearable. Less screaming and in my face. Delicate pink flowers and strawberry cotton candy. The boy said that this was a bit too 'heavy' and sickeningly sweet for him. ...and I usually wear really intense foody scents... soo... he's used to serious sugar shock, and pink moon was still too much... lol.

This smells very manly to me. Like a cologne for a muscular hunter type. I get leather holding strong in the background of this, and the leather remains a dominant character all through the hours that I wore this. At first Tintagel smelled like leather and limes. Something citrusy and zesty, I was surprised to learn that there isn't any citrus in this. Then it is leather and spice. I can smell the dragon's blood coming out, the fragrance feels very spicy and warm in this stage. Around hour 3, leather and woods. Dark impenetrable woods. My leather clad hunter, creeping through the forest. I desperately want to slather this on my boyfriend. In the drydown before it disappears, this turns into something very sweet on me. Almost like jasmine. Which is odd. Maybe it is the juniper and bayberry? Overall, this is a very foresty feeling scent to me. Like the way the sexy hunter in romance novels should smell like.

This reminds me of walking into a craft store for some reason. Anyone ever been to a Hobby Lobby? That smell of a million different things blended together into one strange scent. Potpourri, oils, fake flowers, a million different things for a million different craft projects. The overall smell of this is VERY nice. It is sweet, but not in a foodie way. Light and summery. It smells like fruit, like florals, like aquatics, like herbs... while not really smelling like any of those things at all. Very well blended. I cannot pick out any one note. I expected this scent to be more green, but that's not a feel that I'm getting from it at all. The Apothecary confuses me by smelling like nothing and everything at the same time. I like it a lot, but probably won't buy a full bottle as it isn't striking me as something that I need to smell like. Plus, it is rather light and fading fast. I don't really like to have to reapply my fragrance throughout the day.

The rose here is a heavy, classic, perfumey sort that makes my throat feel a bit tight (like I want to cough) when I smell this. That said, this is still pretty, even if it is a bit overpowering on me. On me it goes from being a soapy rose to a very sweet rose. It switches between those two elements every few minutes. Soap-rose, sugar-rose, soap-rose, sugar-rose... The sugar-rose stage is very nice on me and doesn't bother me so much. Like a lovely blooming flower dusted in powdered sugar.

Green tea is the only thing that I will drink (besides water)... Shanghai prompted me to go and pour myself a glass. It smells very true to the description and very lovely. Like green tea with a fresh lemon squeezed over it. I can detect a very very faint hint of honeysuckle in the background after several minutes. I wish so much that this fragrance weren't so light. About 10 minutes after applying it, I can only smell it if I put my nose directly on my wrist and concentrate very hard, lol. ETA: Both Embalming Fluid and Shanghai smell different to me circa 2016. This is really sharp and soapy (like generic white bar soap suds) and sour lemons. Lasts longer, but is unpleasant...

When I first applied Empyreal Mist, I felt certain that I was going to fall in love with it. It smelled like waking up in the country... on a crisp morning where there is fog and dew everywhere. So clean and crisp and wet. Then it got even better. For the first half hour after application this smelled *exactly* like fresh cut rose stems. Just the stems, wet and sweet. Sadly, that stage went away quickly and all I could smell after that was perfumey roses . So far I've really only loved the roses in Whip, usually roses are just too throat clogging and overpowering for me. I was surprised that this lasted so long too, as most reviewers said that it was very light on them. This lasted for about 8 hours on me and stayed pretty strong. Damn roses, my skin loves them and my nose hates them. I am almost tempted to get a bottle of Empyreal Mist just because it starts out so wonderful... the first half hour is a dewy green dream. ::sigh::

To date, I've gotten three different 'versions' of this scent. My favorite smells like it has lots of creamy, cool coconut in it with a silky, boozy side and smooth leather. Sweet, silky, boozy, and with an edge of darkness. It's coconut without smelling like beaches and suntan lotion. Sexy, watery and cool. My least favorite version of this is very smoky tobacco and sour, SOUR booze with sharp leather. It's pretty much unwearable for me and reminds me of getting thrown up on in a smoky bar. Not sexy, not good. And in the middle, I have a bottle that's like a mix of those two. I don't get the coconut from it, but it has a sweet, silky booze note with smoky leather and a touch of sour. I'm swapping the two latter bottles and keeping my 10ml of the coconutty version. This isn't one that I'd repurchase, just based on the huge batch variations, though I do really like it when it's smooth and not sour...

The Hanging Gardens was just way too... busy... for me. There were too many notes all screaming for attention at once. It gave me a headache. The pear comes out on top of the blend, still getting engulfed by a plethora of other scents, but I can definitely pick out the pear. 3 hours of this and I'm too sick to keep wearing it. It's so strong. The shifting notes aren't my favorites either. This is everything that I hate about florals and everything that I hate about fruit - in one bottle. I've noticed that most all of my favorite scents only have 3-4 different notes. I just can't seem to handle it when there are so many different scents all vying for attention. Instant headache in the hanging gardens.

I wonder if this blend has violets in it. My skin always warps violet into a very strange soapy smell... and "Come To Me" is that strange smell exactly. Like green herbs and soap, as most everyone has already said, lol. This blend never really made me feel sexy and never inspired anyone around me to give me a compliment on my fragrance. I just smell like soap. And just smelling like soap makes me feel very unsexy actually...

I tried this on without reading what notes were in it, wanting to see if I could guess. I definitely smelled cinnamon and something wonderfully familiar (yay, the frankincense that usually smells so good on my skin). The closest that I could come to describing it besides "cinnamon and something awesome" was that this is like someone took the pure essence of 'pretty', crushed it up, and put it in a bottle. It's amazing. It's gorgeous. I sniffed my wrist and felt so sexy and powerful (megalomania indeed). This is so spicy, warm, and decadent. Luckily for me, this blend stayed strong all day and the violet never came up (violet tends to hate me and smell soapy). It stayed a wonderful cinnamon and frankincense goodness. Faustus just made its way up to a full bottle purchase in my next order.

This isn't the dark, sensual plum that I love in a lot of bpal's limited edition blends (Hellion, Tarantula Fascinator, Black Moths, Lady Lucille Sharpe, First Cry of the Warbler, etc). This is a bright, sweet, breezy, candied fragrance. Almost more of a candied blueberry or blue raspberry than plum to my nose. Juicy, syrupy, heavily sugared fruit candy. Kind of reminds me of gummi bears, but way sweeter than gummi bears. Cloying, simple, and starts to give me a headache after a while.

I really thought that I would love this (maybe just because of the name and wild west images that it conjured up?). Unfortunately, this blend didn't work well with my skin chemistry. At first it smelled most strongly of vanilla. The same smoky vanilla that I got in snake oil (gah I hate snake oil ). Then the vanilla was slowly gobbled up by cedar and sassafras. I'm not sure if it was the cedar or sassafras that started to make me ill, I'm not sure exactly what sassafras smells like and I'm usually okay with cedar... but this started to smell very dirty on me. Like sweat and soil and wood chips. I wouldn't necessarily say this is masculine (moreso a unisex blend) but it still didn't work out on me, sadly.

When I first applied this, it smelled very woodsy with a bit of syrup. Like syrup spilled over an oakwood table. Then, in the drydown, I agree with imfighting's description of this as a "flower milkshake". It is a light sweet floral that smells like it has been mixed with a creamy vanilla. It's very light and clean smelling to me. The florals aren't bothering me so much because they're not at all like the florals that I've tried in the past. These seem like half withered, frozen blooms. I rather like this. I'm definitely keeping my imp of this, and may have to buy a full size (it's so light that I'm having to reapply frequently, so I don't expect my imp to last that long, lol). ETA: In going through my imp of Eternal and trying to decide whether or not I wanted a 5 ml, I really grew to hate this. Or maybe it's not hatred. Something about Eternal unsettles me, in that 'I've seen a ghost' sort of way. It has a chilling and evil feeling to it that I just can't seem to ignore. It reminds me of a woman sobbing over a casket in a funeral. I'm associating it with something cold, dreary, and depressing...

This is such an odd scent. When I first applied Delphi, it smelled like honey and spicy Italian food. Now, I love smelling like food - if that food is of the dessert variety. Delphi is foodie, but not in a dessert way. In the drydown it reminded me of some spicy honey glaze that my mother uses when she grills chicken sometimes. ...Not something I particularly want to smell like... This is definitely unique for a fragrance.

This scent isn't really amazing me. I had to apply quite a bit of it, as it is a very light scent. It smells of light flowers, green grasses, and dew. But it also has an odd smell of rotting vegetation on me. Like I'm standing next to a compost bin. I do like that it manages to smell like wet flowers, but the underlying rotting note is majorly turning me off. A half hour later, the rotten note is gone and I have a light watery floral blend. It's good, but it doesn't feel at all like me. I feel like an imposter in someone else's perfume, lol. This only lasted about 3 hours on me. It did develop into a green floral and the lovely wet smell stayed with it strongly. It's just... not me... so I'll probably swap away my imp.

This smells very sweet and juicy in the vial, good enough to eat. For about the first hour that I'm wearing this, it smells like a fruity bubblegum. Like Juicy Fruit, perhaps, but with more of a berry/plum twist to it. Then I forgot that I was wearing the fragrance and absentmindedly sniffed my wrist, "Mmm... Midwinter's Eve." Then I caught myself and remembered that no, I was not wearing Midwinter's Eve. But Jester definitely turns into that familiar candied sugarplum sweetness on me. But where Midwinter's Eve has a wet frosty quality to it, Jester has more of a powdery dry candy scent. Still, they both smell sugar plummy on me. I like Midwinter's Eve more than Jester, but I do really like both of them. I was thankful that Jester never smelled of strawberry on me

"All Night Long" smelled exactly like red hots cinnamon candies on me... which, I think, smells rather like Big Red gum.

This... doesn't smell too great. When I first apply it, it smells like a light herbal note mixed with vix vaporub. Then I get a strong burst of lavendar for a while. Then it smells like a hint of lavendar and some light bathroom cleanser. None of the Somnium scents are keepers for me.

The scent of warm, glowing jack o’lanterns on a warm autumn night: true Halloween pumpkin, spiced with nutmeg, glowing peach and murky clove. I used to love Jack, back when I was first getting into BPAL... but then I really slathered it on one day, and it made me ill. I think that I like it more as a room scent. On me... it's like spice cake, cream cheese frosting, and way too much butter. Normally I love buttery scents (I adore Shill, for example), but this is a sickeningly sweet/spicy butter. I like this as a tiny dab on my wrist, and it's awesome as a room scent in the oil burner... but it makes me sick if I apply very much at all. It feels more like a good candle scent than a good perfume.

For the first 15-20 minutes on my skin, Blood Countess is close to unbearable. It is the scent of thick, perfumey roses and makes me feel like I'm starting to get a headache. I like sweet, dewy, more true smelling roses or candied roses, but this is a musky, artificial rose. Around the half hour mark, it has faded off considerably. I can smell the berries if I hold my wrist up to my nose, but they are cloaked in a bitter, sharp, perfumey floral veil. After about an hour and a half, it's all gone. I can't smell any hint of fragrance at all on my wrists.

I HATE mint, so I was so sure that Envy would make me sick. But the mint is so well blended and light that I don't even notice it. This smells so green and herbal and wonderful. It reminds me of dandelions. When you're pulling weeds in the yard and you get dandelion sap on your hands... that's what Envy smells like. This is my next 5 ml purchase, definitely.

This scent is subtle and clings close to my skin, which surprises me since red musk, patchouli, and myrrh are usually strong and intense on me. Ylang ylang usually smells yellow-y, sweet, and a bit metallic on my skin, but it's reminding me of honeysuckle here (warm, yellow-y, sweet floral with a perfumey edge). The patchouli is just a dry, earthy hint to the blend, and the red musk and myrrh combine to fashion a heated, resinous, musky base for the floral-y ylang ylang. As it dries down, Lust is a little too perfumey & sharp for me. Still, I like the sweetness and edge of resins, earth & warmth that it has. I probably would love this a lot if it didn't have the ylang ylang and it was lighter on the musk.