Little Bird

Goat Yoga and Bread Lumps are both giving off tea-party-of-my-dreams vibes. I wore them together today and am in heaven. I was really worried about the white tea, which tends to have a sharp citrus note in perfume, but all of the buttery, milky tones and sweet, creamy marshmallow smell great with that sharper tea note. It winds up smelling like sugared lavender tea with honey and a little lemon, LOTS of milk, and creamy marshmallow perfume. Super cozy, like cuddling a mug of hot, sweet tea, but this is also very rich and gourmand, so definitely not a weak or clean tea scent. The lavender fades away mostly on my skin, but I catch whiffs of it every once in a while. I definitely want a second bottle of this scent. It reminds me of Alice, but more gourmand and without the spicy carnation, of course.

Mmm. This is so pretty. I don't get anything herbal or savory about it, thankfully. It reminds me of sweet Hawaiian rolls and honey butter. Fluffy, sweet bread and creamy honey. As it dries down, the honeyed part reminds me of wildflower honey, almost softly floral, but this isn't a floral scent by any means. Sweet, fluffy bread and wildflower honey butter. I probably will grab a backup bottle or two of this one. It's sort of what I wished Bread-and-Butterfly was. Magical bread!

Happily, this scent is exactly the same as when it was called 'Banshee Beat.' Patchouli can be such a different creature, depending on the variety. You have your woody, cedar-y patchoulis, the funky, sweaty patchoulis, rooty patchoulis reminiscent of black soil, medicinal patchoulis, and my favorite, which are warm and earthy, but have almost nutty and chocolatey gourmand tones to them. The patchouli in Banshee Beat / Revenant Rhythm is that warmly earthy, cuddly, gourmand variety. There's a bit of a mentholic, medicinal, green edge that I think might be the hemp and not the patchouli, but it works for me in this blend. And then there's a great vanilla that's both thickly sweet and airy, somehow at the same time. I think it's about 50% patchouli, 40% vanilla, 10% hemp on my skin for about six hours, and then I start wondering what smells like sweet, gooey marshmallows and realize that it's me. The vanilla is wonderful and really sticks around on my skin. I wish this were added to the general catalogue because it seems so well loved and sought after.

Penny Rolle is so creamy, warm, and pretty smelling on me. It reminds me of the rice milk in Boomslang at first. The shea gives it that rich creaminess, I think, and the caramelized amber, smooth sandalwood incense and pecan are so warm and cozy. I picked this up hoping for a gourmand patchouli, but I can't smell any patchouli or cardamom. That's okay, though, because I'm loving the strong shea note and delicately sweet pecan. Creamy, rich, sweet shea body butter on slightly salty skin with sweet amber and pecan, and a hint of exotic sandalwood incense in the background. It's a quiet, subtle, unusual, gourmand-ish blend, but I really enjoy it.

I thought that this would be like Snow, Glass, Apples, but I can't really pick out the apple in this blend and it's not as watery or clean smelling as SGA. It's cool, soft peppermint with a dusting of sugar. I agree that it could be in the family of Lick It blends. Mint candy. Dries down like powdery wintergreen gum on my skin over the hours.

White sandalwood tends to be too powdery and dry for me, and that's the impression that I'm getting from this blend. Dry, powdered clove that's a little too sharp and not quite sweet enough for me, with a hint of baby powder.

Juicy strawberry with a little sugar and soapy, sharp rose that I'm unfortunately not that into. Turns a little sour and lemony smelling on me in the drydown.

The clove in this is a little dry and powdery on me, with a sharply spicy tone, but still recognizeable as warm clove. I love clove, but I prefer a sweeter variety and this is coming off a little too sharp for my tastes. The cocoa is barely there, like a light dusting of cocoa powder underneath the clove. I think I wanted this to be more like the blend The Avenue, but The Avenue is more creamy, sweet and (of course) complex.

Love love love. This starts off with lots of orris, which I adore. Orris smells like silvery iris petals (the actual flower scent and not the sharp perfume version) and creamy, pale violet dusted in powdered sugar. It's a very natural and delicately sweet floral smell with no sharpness. Over hours of wear, the orris fades more and more to the background and the coconut becomes stronger, and it's a glorious, buttery coconut that doesn't remind me of suntan lotion, but is very soothing, creamy-buttery, and gourmand. Beautiful fragrance.

I was hoping for more milk, but this is mainly honey and orange, which reminds me of cough drops. Powdery in the drydown.

Lots of intriguing notes, but the only ones that stand out for me are the cherry, mango and red currant. The cherry is syrupy, the dried mango really does smell tart, dry, and tropical, and the red currant adds a sour edge. I was hoping for more amber and red musk, but this is all fruity on my skin.

Incredibly sharp, bright, and bitter. In the bottle, it reminds me of wasabi mixed with black dirt. On my skin, it smells sort of the way that dandelion *tastes* - full of bitter, bright tones and soft, black earth. It's interesting, but I regret ordering a full bottle, because I honestly can't see myself wearing this very much at all.

This has one of the nicest honey notes I've ever smelled in my life - floral, but thickly sweet and creamy, and the patchouli is like black, wet earth. It's a dark, wild honey that reminds me of blends like Possets' Sex Juice and Poesie Perfumes' Honey Honey and Wild. It's incredibly sensual and I love the earthiness mixed with the sweetness.

I love lemongrass and I love this. Lemongrass is sweet, creamy, cheerful lemon and it's good and strong in this blend, with the tonka adding a little creaminess. It reminds me of the scent of a LUSH shop and also kind of a lemony children's cereal smell, but not that sweet and more sophisticated and creamy. Lasts about 8 hours on me, which is great for a citrusy scent.

Peony often reminds me of a tart, juicy, rose-like scent, as it does here. The amber, I think, adds an undertone of sweet powder.

This one doesn't work on me, unfortunately. The grapefruit leans tart, bitter and sour with not enough sweetness on my skin.

I like this a lot more than I thought I would. Bpal's sandalwood is iffy on me because it tends to turn powdery, and this is a soft, warm, creamy-powdery woods note, but I do enjoy the spicy, sharp black pepper that comes off as dark and almost cologne-like to me. It sits very close to the skin and only lasts about 3 hours, but it's cozy and enjoyable.

I'm confused by the buttered popcorn and comparisons to Shill, because my two bottles are nothing like Shill. I wouldn't even guess that this is supposed to be popcorn if I was handed it without knowing the name. My two bottles are super caramel-y, like a super-sweet, salted caramel with lots of brown sugar tones. It's very cloying to me. I am sad, because I wanted just pure, buttery, salty popcorn. This is brown sugar overload, caramel and a hint of saltiness.

The El Segundo Blue butterfly is endangered, and only three colonies remain: one at Los Angeles International Airport, one at an oil refinery, and one on a tiny patch of SoCal beach. Sand and sea salt, murky beach water, a gust of peony, and a drop of petroleum. Bpal's aquatics tend to go soapy on me, and this one does too, but the sharp salt and dark, murky notes are keeping it interesting for me. I smell this and can't help but think of "Duma Key," which is my favorite Stephen King novel. It's like a haunted beach along the ocean, with a storm rolling in and the twang of sharp, salty ozone in the air. The peony, I think, adds a rich, round sweetness to the scent, sort of a juicy, heady floral in the storm. I'm actually shocked by how much I've been enjoying El Segundo Blue. I think this is my favorite bpal aquatic ever. It manages to feel beautiful, but dark and creepy, at the same time.

First on, this smells like green grass. It's like a freshly mown lawn that was full of grass and honeyed wildflowers, now all chopped up and sappy in the sunshine. As it dries down, I can smell the apple-y components, and it reminds me of the scent of a crabapple tree, which is more of a green, fresh, tart scent (but not sweet tarts candy - this all smells very natural and realistic to me). It's not going artificial or air-freshener apple on my skin at all, which is pretty amazing. It smells like my actual yard, full of grass, native wildflowers, and prairiefire crabapple trees. The green musk, I think, smells like a hint of pulpy, green bamboo in the drydown, and every once in a while I catch whiffs of tart pomegranate or a whisper of dark incense, but those things are barely there and ephemeral. This is truly beautiful on my skin and a green scent that I will actually wear. It reminds me of the green and grassy scents that LUSH often comes out with, that smell very true to nature. I love this and I'm glad I took a chance on a full bottle.

I love bpal's black currant, and this is tons of delicious, sweet-yet-sour black currant. It smells like dark, ripe, sweet berries, bursting with juiciness, and that musky, sour hint that currants have. It's about 90% currant on my skin and 10% a dry sandalwood and warm amber. I'm perfectly happy with it

I don't really tend towards ozones or aquatics (as they often turn to soap on my skin), but something about this one was calling to me. For the first half hour, it smells of cold water full of soap suds, the ozone gives it an electric sharpness, and there's a hint of earthiness (like black potting soil) and a warm, nutty amber. It's soapy, but it also really does smell like black clouds, cold rain, and a storm rolling in. It comes off as pleasantly clean, but with an edge of darkness and a sharp jolt of electricity. An angry, feisty sort of clean. After a half hour, this is less soapy and smells very much like the scent of cold raindrops falling on to a hot summer sidewalk. Clean, slightly green, a hint of citrusy ozone, and that earthy-industrial concrete smell. I really thought that this was going to be a bad blind buy for me, but I love it.

I love every note in this blend, but was worried about what the 'blue' in the blue cotton candy might be. Luckily, I smell nothing blue, lol. Game Over goes on as a sweet cherry, like cherry hard candy with a hint of creamy floral, and there's this fluffy, sweet, sugary vanilla something that must be the cotton candy. The clove comes out more and more as it dries down, and the cherry fades away to just a hint of freshness. I love the clove note in this so much. It's a perfect, spicy, sweet clove. The cotton candy is a vanillic, warm, dry, sugary note on my skin. I own a lot of vanilla-clove fragrances, and I'm happy to add this one to the collection. Clove cotton candy!

I like this even more in the perfume oil than in the atmosphere spray. The floral doesn't come off as sharp on my skin as it does in the atmo; it's like sweet, honeyed jasmine flowers with only a teensy bit of perfumey sharpness (that I actually enjoy, as it cuts through the sweetness of the beeswax). I don't get any smokiness or blood, but it's a decadent beeswax scent. It smells like pressing jasmine flowers into melty, golden, sweet beeswax, and it gives off this beautiful, softly glowing, candlelit feel. I find this scent to be very comforting and calming.

The reviews for this were scaring me, because I often find bpal's oud notes to be fecal and off-putting (which is weird, because I've never gotten that impression from any other companies' oud notes). I don't find this to be anywhere near as rough as some of bpal's other oud blends, though. I can see how this has a certain animalic dirtiness, but it's more of a dark brown, feral muskiness than.. poo. On me, at least. And I'm really enjoying the fossilized amber and white musk. On my skin, this reads like a deep, resinous, warm, only slightly powdery amber, with a feral, dark, animalic muskiness and an interesting, clean, glittery gleam from the white musk. It reminds me of an old fashioned chypre, the sort that is full of labdanum, oakmoss, spicy civet musk, and earthy woods. The oud has a hint of gray smokiness and pale, gray wood feel, and the white musk makes me think of shiny, mirrored glass. I actually enjoy this a lot. It reminds me of a heavy vintage chypre perfume with some oud and creamy white musk added in. I usually find white musk to be too sharply musky, but sometimes it's creamy and pleasantly clean with a hint of sweetness, and I'm getting that lovely white musk in Hot Ghosts. Cat Event Exorcist is a horror show on me, but this one actually smells great on my skin.