sunshinedaisybliss

So.. like Catseyes before me.. I'm celebrating the resurrection of the lovely Hod and also realised I haven't put a review in. So I just had a good slather!! Mmmm.. this really is a tough one to try and pinpoint what's in it. I do think carnations is right (so that's not floral, not sweet, but slightly peppery with a faintly nutty undertone), and my next guess is tonka - creaminess with a slight wood-y tone, maybe a dash of teak in there? Something very musky - like Hellion but WITHOUT the plum, there's a gold/brown velvet-y thing going on. I'm not sure if I'm detecting amber like others have mentioned (no soapy thing or powderiness which is usually a sure sign of amber on my skin), and I also can't pick any honey or milk or almond. I put this in the "rich and complex but subtle and sexy" category, which if it were part of my BPAL filing cabinet would also hold Hellion and Glowing Vulva. Not that Hod smells anything like either of those, but to me they all have that velvety creamy thing going on. Anyway - if you're on the fence about ordering Hod now that it's become available - at least grab a decant, it's definitely worth a try and who knows.. maybe you'll love it as much as I do

I smell like a pumpkin pie doo dah doo dah Pumpkin pie does smell like I ohhhh doo dah dayyyyy

Seconded! Fortunately I don't suffer from the dreaded vanilla-turning-into-plastic syndrome.. so Detestable Putrescence for me is a gorgeous soft and creamy sweet vanilla (despite its name suggesting otherwise) - just like melted vanilla icecream. I've seen both bottles and decants for sale here on the forum, and it's also still available to order from the Lab here

I put this on my wishlist because I'm determined to try BPALs that don't necessarily appeal to me.. in the interests of expanding my horizons and all that.. but really, this had a high scary quotient.. skin musk, pink musk, white amber, and ICK star jasmine - it all sound just a bit too girly la la for me. So.. consider my horizons officially expanded. This is absolutely gorgeous! Had I not read the notes, I would have said Vasilissa has orange blossom in it - I'm getting a lovely waxy almost orange from it, but I suspect that's the pink musk blending with the sandalwood. Jasmine in any form usually turns immediately into baby poo on my skin, but all it's doing here is adding a sweet top note - I do know it's there, and I would probably prefer it not to be, but it's not overpowering at all. It's very feminine and pretty, the creaminess is just gorgeous. It has a similar feel to The Girl, I think. If you're reading these reviews and still having trouble making up your mind about Vasilissa - I'd say definitely give it a try, you may be as pleasantly surprised as I am. Thanks to nrl1978 for the frimp of this!!

First up, I want to thank the lovely nrl1978.. I initially turned my nose up at Raven Moon (me + Lunacies = poor success rate) and then the reviews started coming in from Will Call and I thought hmmm.. maybe I need to get me some of that. So I put out an ISO, and she popped up and said she'd grab a bottle for me.. and now here I am.. smelling fabulous!! *ahem* So, back to the review. Well - what can I say that hasn't already been said.. this is a beautiful blend - like many others have said, I wish I had bought more than one bottle. No particular note stands out above the others - the smoky vanilla is dark and smooth (not at all sweet), the musk and patchouli are deep and velvety, and the benzoin is present but not to the point where it's pushing anything else out of the way. Although I can sense the nutmeg and chili they're not making this spicy as such - just adding a bit of oomph to it. Raven Moon actually reminds me a bit of Hellhound.. weird maybe, since there's really no common notes between the two, and it's not even that they smell alike - it's just that this has a similar feel in terms of being dark and slightly menacing - but where Hellhound has a tobacco & rum kick, this has a smooth velvety caress. I bet this is going to smell even better after some aging... but I'm not going to stash it away - it shall be worn, and often! And I shall now engage my ninja stalking skills so that I can lurk around the sales threads and find another bottle

What a strange one this is! At first I thought for sure it had patchouli in it - it goes on very strong when it first hits your skin. That went away, and I had baby shampoo on my arm for a while. Seriously.. what's that about?!? Then it went very cologne-y, and into some sort of soap/aftershave limbo for a while. Finally - 1 hour later - I have this faintly dirt-like smell left, still quite strong but completely different to how it started out. I'm pretty disappointed in this one, to be honest - I was hoping for a nice warm golden resinous glow kinda thing, but that never happened. I don't want to smell like this, and I wouldn't like a man to smell like it either - it just smells.. cheap (I hate having to say that, but it's my honest opinion). Yay for those of you whose skin played nice, but I'm beginning to think copal is not my friend. I'm so glad I got to try an imp of this, because I was actually going to buy a bottle unsniffed. But not now, this just ain't my thing.

The whole "snow" thing is a bit strange to me.. because I live in a part of Australia where it never snows, and at the time of year when it's snowing in the US it's usually around 100 degrees here! So I've generally avoided the whole snow thing in BPAL, with three exceptions... Snow, Glass, Apples - I know this is hard to find, but definitely worth hunting down - it combines the icy cool you'd expect from snow and glass with the crisp, sweet tartness of apples and is really lovely. Snow White - a favourite for so many people, but a new discovery for me. I've got the '05 version and I really LOVE IT - soft, sweet, cool, just gorgeous. Snowblind - chilly vanilla.. this *does* have mint, and quite a strong mint at that, but after it's warmed up a bit on your skin the vanilla balances out the mint quite nicely and sweetens it up. I don't mean to hijack the thread, but can any of you Snow White aficionados tell me whether all the Snow White releases are exactly the same from year to year? My chances of finding another bottle of the '05 version are slim, but I'm reluctant to buy the others in case they're different.

2005 Blend Considering it never snows in the part of Australia where I live, it's really not surprising that I haven't dabbled in many of the BPAL snow-related blends. That is.. until I discovered Snow White '05. I realise This is going to sound very weird, but have you ever come back from a day at the beach - basking in the hot sun, swimming in the cool ocean.. and smelt your skin afterwards? I don't know about you, but for me this is one of my most favourite ever smells - I love how my skin smells when it's been at the beach all day. No.. not all salty and suntan lotion-y, but musky and warm. Well, that's how Snow White '05 goes for me. This might actually be the best match for my skin chemistry that I've found so far in all my BPAL adventures. There's an almost smokey vanilla kinda thing going on, slightly cake-like but not at all foody or sweet, and a slight tinge of something that's a bit like honeydew melon. Just YUMMY. It actually reminds me of hot summer nights when you can smell sweet tropical flowers and the blossoms of fruit trees in the air. Did I mention this is going to sound weird? It's supposed to be a winter blend, right? Yeah.. well.. Anyways - this is a definite winner. It just works for me. I'm going to have to try this year's version and see how it compares. Edited to update - Ok, so I tried two newer versions - '07, and '09. Results - '07 was bearable, but very sharp and fake smelling.. I didn't really like it. But oh dear me, the '09 one was unbearable - it did this weird mint/rotting flowers thing on me, then dried down into a smell of burning plastic. In both cases, I could still smell 'my' Snow White in there, but it was all wrong. So my conclusion is that I can only handle SW when it's aged.. and this has been confirmed by getting a bottle of the '04 version, which is just as lovely as my '05. So.. there ya go! For me, it's gotta be vintage only

This is a very impressive blend.. diabolical voluptuousness indeed! It starts off quite heavy on the patchouli, juniper and oude, very earthy and feral smelling. Then the red musk and blood come out, and it sweetens up beautifully but the patchouli is still there keeping it dark and mysterious. After about 30 minutes on my skin, I get the rose (this would be a deep red velvety rose) and that's mixing with the blood & red musk to give it almost a fruity vibe - I'm guessing it's the violets messing around with things that's creating the sweetness. Then it changes again and goes back to being all dark and mysterious. This is a scent that throbs. Throbs? Yes, throbs. As in.. it's very alive, it keeps changing and getting more and more interesting as it wears. I agree with previous reviewers - this doesn't seem like a day scent, it needs to be worn at night with your sexy vamp gear or most seductive corsetry. I think this is exactly what Lucy may have smelled like and I'm quite sure this will have hypnotic properties if placed strategically on the neck

When this first went on, it was nasty NASTY get this offamenowaaaaaaggghhhhhhh! How nasty? Kinda like a mixture of peanut butter, poo, and rotting meat. Uh huh. Like ND¢ before me.. I too made such a face. That mostly went away, leaving behind a weird kind of boozy, honey-ish rose with a teensy touch of something slightly rancid lurking in there. Errr.. not for me. Interesting, though.

Hmmm.. I have weird skin.. on me, this is like Monsterbait Underbed had a secret tryst with Orange, made little babies and decided to call them PX117. Spicey orange yumminess!

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I'm seconding portalkat's excellent suggestions - the only problem with Midway (and/or Midway Resurrected) is that it can be hard to find. However, Detestable Putrescence is sooooo similar to Midway, and currently available! I think you should definitely give that a try for your vanilla fix

I finally got Scurvy!! I was worried this would smell like either fake lime-candy, sharp sour lime, alcoholic lime.. or a combination of the three. But nope - thankfully my skin is treating this with some respect and giving me a lovely soft and natural lime.. exactly like a fresh lime when you first cut through it. After it's been on my skin for a little while, the initial blast of lime softens up and goes a little creamy, slightly waxy and almost musky - perhaps it is sandalwood as others have mentioned.. it's hard to say, but there's definitely something more grounded that's lurking behind the lime. With summer coming up in this part of the world, I know I'm going to be wearing this a lot. I may need to hunt down a second bottle - I think I'll go through this fairly quickly.. it doesn't stay on my skin very long, as others have mentioned. Huge hugs go to parrot_suspect who used her stealth ninja skills to hunt down this bottle for me

This is a beautiful soft, sweet orange. I'm sure there's something else in there, but I'm not getting any sense of creaminess or musk. On my skin, it's not as rich/deep as the Gaiman orange, nor a creamy candy type like Albedo, it's just a lovely soft sweet orange. Oh, I said that already

As others have mentioned, this is very very Midway-esque to me.. DP has a more buttery vanilla about it, and as ifinena said it seems "thicker", but really they are so much alike! Putting aside the Midway doppelgänger phenomenon, this is an absolute must-have for any fans of soft creamy vanilla. When I first put it on, I thought I detected something brown in there, like crème brûlée (which I just saw Iceblink also mentioned) but the vanilla was definitely the predominant note. It goes a little plastic-ish around the edges at about the 10-minute mark, but thankfully that phase passed quickly. After 45 minutes on my skin, it's dried down to more of what I was expecting - melted vanilla icecream. This, to me, is just right - it's not too sweet, not too buttery, perfect-o. There's nothing putrid about this at all, it's delicious! ETA: when I was wearing this today, two people said they could smell popcorn

Awww.. you say the sweetest things sqwook is very wise, those are some good suggestions. I would definitely second her on the Eden, it does have a similar "feel" to Bastet.

Do you know how old your Bastet is? I've found that the almond really mellows out with age - when I compare a fresh imp of Bastet with my old bottle of it, there really is a big difference. I can loan you my super secret Almond Note Removing Machine™ but if you tell anyone how it works, I'll have to kill you. *runs away before you can slap me*

Wowsers - this is a skin stainer! The oil in my decant (a surprise frimp from Stargirl - thank you!) is very dark brown, and it's actually left my skin a little sticky. At first I get lovely warm spicey chocolate, like a rich liquer kinda smell. That initial warmth fades pretty quickly and it dries down to a powdery spicey chocolate. A very interesting blend indeed, very sumptuous and feastly (that is *so* a word!).

This was a surprise frimp from the very lovely BloodyDuchess - thank you! On my skin, this is a lovely bright and golden citrus with underlying tones of pine and herbs. It does have an invigorating quality about it. I shall enjoy wearing it, and hope that some of the qualities for which it was designed are enhanced in me

When this first hits my skin, it's pink bubblegum - just like everyone else here has said. But it's not *like* pink bubblegum, it's an absolute dead-on smells exactly like pink bubblegum. Remember when you were a kid and you'd put way too many pieces of gum in your mouth and end up with a huge big wad of sticky pink goo that made your jaw ache to chew but you did anyway because it was so yummy? That's the smell. After a few minutes, it does this weird thing on my skin and develops a menthol note that's not quite unpleasant but not real nice either. But that only lasts for a few moments and then goes away - very weird. The bubblegum doesn't come back quite the same after that though - it's still there, but it's mellowed a lot now. Then I realise I can smell cinnamon - not strong, and not as spicey as cinnamon usually is - this is peppery, but quite smooth. After about 15 minutes , it reminds me a bit of Midway.. but with bubblegum. And although the bubblegum was far stronger and "bubblegum-y" at the start, I like it now that it's smoothed out. It doesn't stay on my skin for very long though - within less than an hour it has faded to a point where I can barely tell where the oil was.

Ooh, me too! They look appropriately evil Thanks you guys for sharing!!

This is gorgeous, yes - it is like baby powder, but I *like* the smell of baby powder! There's more to this than just baby powder though, I know there's something else going on but I can't really describe it.. it's just clean, and nice. I will definitely be getting a couple of bottles of this, it's strangely comforting and just very pleasant without having any particular "smell" about it.

This is a really nice musk - not as deep and mysterious as Creature Feature - on me, this one's quite a sweet/clean kind of musk. It's quite pretty - I would agree with a previous reviewer who said it's "ethereal" - I have to lean in quite close to really get a good feel for this, and there's definitely something lying underneath but I don't think it's anything scary

Morbidly romantic, thick with murky melodrama, untouched by the centuries, and dust-rimed: Byzantine incense, benzoin, myrrh, bitter clove, spikenard, oud, and ancient balsam. Well.. unfortunately this is a floral version of baby shampoo on my skin. It's quite warm and slightly waxy, but.. shampoo. I was not expecting this, I'm looking for the incense and oud and benzoin and "darkness".. nope, can't find 'em. I won't be needing a bottle of this - it's nice, but not what I was hoping for.