Juniper

In the bottle, an overwhelming impression of wet, dark chocolate, with a hint of tobacco. At first application, it was, briefly, a very nice chocolate-covered cherry. Dry, it seems to go through stages of scent, all sweet. I think the champaca flower is what gives this the hint of floral, without really being floral at all. It's so hard to describe! I can't pick out the bergamot, but I think it's one of the things that holds this scent together, and melds the notes together. This is a sweet scent, but not at all cloying (and sweet scents tend to become nauseatingly sweet and cloying on me). The sharp tang of chocolate from the bottle mellows out into a really warm undertone on my skin, and the tobacco further enhances that impression of warmth. I LOVE how all the notes blend in this, once it's had time to warm up and settle in on me. Beautiful. I'm so glad I took a chance on it.

This is just about the most perfect description I've read of this scent, and I don't know that I can come up with anything new to say about it. I got an imp of this today, and have been sniffing at myself all afternoon. It's such a lovely, mellow scent. The patchouli is very subtle -- a grounding note to offset the sweetness of the fig, which really carries the whole thing, at least on me.

This is one that disappointed me when I first got it. I loved it in the bottle, but it turned soapy within seconds of application, to my horror. And it stayed soapy, and didn't morph away from soapiness. Ugh! I was so sad, but couldn't bear to part with it. I decided to hold onto it, and hoped that letting it age a bit would help. Boy, am I glad I did! I pulled it out again last month, and decided to give it another try. I'm so glad I rescued this scent from its exile in my BPAL treasure chest! I love the balance of spices and resins in this scent. It's dark, exotic, and mysterious, and just freaking gorgeous. The throw seems very balanced, and it's hard to distinguish one note amidst all the others. When I sniff it on my wrists and elbows, I'm picking up that smoky vanilla and myrrh coming out over the other notes. Aaaaahhh! The musk is definitely there, which can be a very good or very bad thing depending on how it interacts with one's chemistry. Fortunately, this works nicely on me, and gives that sultry undertone to the whole scent without turning it into a cesspool of horror.

This is, for me, one of the most perfect scents I've ever purchased from BPAL. I love it. It's like the Renaissance Festival in a bottle. It has just the right balance of smoke and sweetness (the frankincense really needs the smoke to balance and ground it, at least on my skin). The rose is almost imperceptible, just a hint, rounding out a rich, spicy, smoky, sexy scent. I am down to about the last ounce in the bottle I purchased last summer. I'd hoped and hoped there'd be another round of it this year, alas! It's forcing me to branch out and try the rest of my stockpile, which is a good thing, but man... I would love to see this scent in regular rotation. It's that good. I'm genuinely surprised to see so few reviews of it! I always get compliments when I wear this one.

I just got this with a Domo-kun t-shirt from ThinkGeek -- a total impulse purchase on both counts! This is such a strange scent, but so perfectly evocative, too. In the bottle, it was just chocolate. But as soon as I dabbed it on, I started picking up those incense-y notes and a salty tang of something. As it dried, there were moments it kind of reminded me of the way Guinness tastes -- like chocolate and dirt, and not in a bad way, if you know what I mean. When I leave my wrists at the keyboard, I smell something kind of masculine and cologne-y. But when I sniff too closely... it reminds me of driving past the Malt-O-Meal factory in Northfield. It's strange! I like it, but I'm weirded out by it, and I somehow like it WHILE being weirded out by it. What a bizarre scent. I've been running around making my coworkers smell the bottle, then my wrist, then the bottle, then my wrist, just to see if they're getting the same impressions.