Mousesong

I've actually eyed Crowley multiple times, but I get the vibe that it's the "other stuff" to B+C's carnation, if that makes sense--all the things lurking behind the clovey flower smell in B+C for me. I'm going to try it eventually anyway cos it sounds sexy as hell (and Crowley!) I should probably look into Morocco now that you've said that, because I kill vanilla a lot of times (which is actually quite sad to me). Dorian, on me, for example? No vanilla at all, almost. In Dorian. It's all lemon tea and sweet with a tiny bit of warm vanilla in the background. Vanilla on my skin so far has tended to become a bit of a supporting role, just rounding the edges of whatever else is in the blend. Judith and Holofernes sounds gorgeous, I may have to go look into that--thank you for the rec; I never even bother to read retail only stuff For some reason even though I read all the WQI descs I never noticed Ysabel's good stuffs--I may have to see if I can track down a decant somewhere. O noes! Thank you for all of the ideas. Between your post and Sqwook's I feel well prepared to burn more holes in my Paypal account next month

Omg that was so sweet of you you didn't have to do that! Glancing at those comparisons it seems a lot of people are getting a lot of vanilla out of bow and crown *worries over bottle in the mail now* which I noticed in the reviews that I read, as well. I really get barely any vanilla at all--sometimes straight up none. Nooo what if my bottle is all vanilla? I especially don't get Dee or Dorian at all. Well, okay, maybe Dee a little. I've had Morocco rec'd a few times, though, and didn't notice it come up in the B+C thread, so maybe I should look into that.

I've become totally infatuated with Bow and Crown of Conquest. On me it's strongly carnation, with a touch of cedar, touch of sage, touch of vanilla. It's really quite indescribable, which doesn't help my quest I'm wanting to try more like B+C, but I fear going on just the notes I'm heading into heavier, more masculine territory than B+C is on me. I recently bought Bathsheba off a forumite and while it's lovely, the carnation is more floral and less spice--something (maybe the lavender?) in B+C is really amping the spicy bit of the carnation. Also Bathsheba's plum (although delicious) really washed the spice into the background. Anyone have any ideas? Even something that doesn't have carnation in it, but might approach that. Cinnamon makes my skin hurt unless it's just a little bit and, in any case, the spice I get from B+C's carnation is more of a clove or something. Maybe some clove scents would be worth looking into? Or I could, you know. Just wait for my bottle to show

My nose is broken! All I smell from this is sharp sharp alcohol. I admit that I am extremely sensitive to alcoholic smells, which is why I don't wear non-oil perfume in the first place, but even after this dries away, the smell of isopropyl is hanging in the air. I got a touch of resins when I sprayed it, before I read the notes, but it was buried in this acrid cloud of... bleh! I tried it on my couch first and I think I am going to back home and try it in the air, to see if the sharp reeking part of the smell dissipates. The resiny smell that I COULD detect was exceptionally nice... I'd really like to see more of it peeking through!

I have to dig out my notes since my imp is gone, but my review is pretty much in line with the one right above. I think Dana O'Shee smells great--it's sweet and warm and soft--but it is kind of generic. Not the "wow!" you normally get from a good BPAL. It definitely puts one in mind of oatmeal sugar scented body wash, and stayed remarkably consistent on me from imp to total drydown. I sent it off because it wasn't very me, and because frankly BPAL has started to create in me a love of above all unconventional scents. That said, I can see why the people who love it do, and I think it'd be an excellent "enabling blend" for people that are hesitant over the more non-traditional oils BPAL has to offer. Lovely, but simple.

Noooo! I love both the notes and the name! Why did this happen to me? This doesn't smell of rose or bark or luscious forests or anything similar on me. In the imp it's lovely and I couldn't wait to try it on, but as soon as I did-- WHOOMPH --you know that feeling, when a smell is so dead up familiar, so strongly tied to certain memories, so perfect, that you get that weird emotional transportation feeling, like you're standing somewhere else, watching yourself? Whoso List did that to me, but not in a good way, because this was straight up emergency room. It smelled like that pink baby powder scented sanitizer used in emergency rooms, and I swear to god, I don't know if it was the actual scent or the projection (I'm going with the scent), I could smell stale vomit just down a hallway. I could vividly smell linoleum and people (musk, thanks?) and just... god. Now, amber occasionally goes powder on me. And lots of smells go sour/vomit on me (yeah, it's unfortunate). But nothing has ever done something like this on me. To be entirely honest, I actually continued sniffing it for several minutes because I was so shocked at how uncanny the resemblance was. There I was, sitting in a mauve chair, listening to a baby crying and a lady moaning in pain, waiting to hear news about my mom and whether she'd had a stroke. Not. Pleasant. I hate my skin. Whatever that is lurking in the opened imp, it smells beautiful. I wish I could capture it but it escapes me--appropriately, given the name. Noli me tangere indeed.

Removed my old review. Sunbird is distinctly less spicy and hot aged and distinctly more Dragon's Blood-y. It's got a sort of cloying note under it. I am less in love with it aged than I was with it fresh, but I still quite like it and wear it often as the weather cools down. It's pretty strong though!

I'm having Monster's same issue. I wish I could tell you something about Envy, but unfortunately after a LOVELY initial burst of lime, all I get is lavender, straight up. I amp lavender like CRAZY unless it's tempered out with another note I amp (cedar is a favourite). Since I swallow citrus, this was gone--gone--gone. I do occasionally get a drift of mint, which is quite nice. Makes me wish I could smell a stronger-mint-less-lavender blend.

I got an imp of this recently and I *think* I tried it once before and never reviewed it. It's enormously fake-citrus to my nose, and it's not that it's an unpleasant smell, just not one that I want to wear. It smells sort of juvenile and lacks complexity on me. It reminded me very strongly of something when I first tried it, and a friend recently nailed it: "It smells like the bathrooms in TPAC.*" So, Nashvillians, there you go. If you ever wondered what Aelopile smells like, go stick your head in the TPAC bathrooms. Sadface D: *Tennessee Performing Arts Center

House of Night is unexpectedly JUICY on me. It smells thick and wet, and reminds me vaguely of grapes. Looking at the notes, this created a head-scratching reaction on my part, but I don't mind--it's gorgeous either way. I'm not going to be any good for an in-depth review on this one. Suffice to say that it's an appropriately deep purple smell on me (why? grapes? really?) and it's going to be a nasty time while I try to decide whether I need a bottle of this more or Ouija or Bow and Crown. I think... I think House of Night might win. The others are lovely, but this one is very different from my beloved Dee and Dorian--much darker and smokier. Mmm. EDIT: The more I wear this the more I think the "grapes" are maybe blackberries.

I just got a sniffy of Arkham yesterday and I have to add another vote in favour of it! Yum.

Ouija Right out of the imp, as soon as I put it on Oujia is a straight-up dupe of those Certs mints with the little blue crystals in them--you know the kind I mean? The wall of Certs is a bit offputting, but I'm glad I waited, because Ouija has firmly become one of my favourites. This is surprising, since I got it on a whim, and for the name. (Also: spearmint, mint? Really? Where does that come from?) I have found that I play very well with masculine notes. Wood, leather, tobacco, smoke--even the hated vetiver--absolutely love my skin and always snuggle down warmly. This was initially frightening to me, but I've embraced it. However, blends like Dee, which are extremely masculine, fun though they are, can be a little intimidating to wear all the time, and sometimes I feel like people comment on my perfume simply because they can tell I'm actually wearing men's cologne. Sometimes I want to feel girly but still enjoy my lovely lovely wood notes. And--ta-da!--Ouija finally made it work. Rosewood and teak are strong players here after the initial Certs smell. Rosewood in particular is surfacing in the best sort of way (it's one of my all time favourite notes), and the lilac and tea rose are lending the smell just enough gentleness for it to parse as "feminine" to me, or at least on my skin. The tea rose is dropping a bit of citrus, but my skin devours citrus (sadly, as I love it), so it's only occasional drifts of it, mostly buried beneath the soft mint and rosewood. On the total drydown, the blend is balanced, beautiful--sweet but not cloying; wispy but not wimpy. It's a mauvey-purple smell with a thread of blue (since I smell in colours, apparently) and the mint becomes so subtle as to simply make a scent that should be warm by dint of so many wood notes, become cold. Sometimes when I lean towards my wrists for a sniff, I actually get that tight-under-the-skin feeling you get just before goosebumps when you step into a cold room, or out into the chill to get the mail. It's incredibly just how well this blend evokes, on my skin, spirits and seances. I've never tried on another BPAL that was truer to its name. Wow. I smell incredible. I smell better when the mints die down, but even until then I smell great. Only once before has an imp elicited an immediate "bottle. Now." reaction. Now I can happily say it's happened twice.

This is terribly sour and sharp on me. Wine? All I get is vinegar. Vinegar single note D: Whoops hit submit button. To continue: Made the mistake of putting this on the sleeve of my favourite hoodie and now I have to deal with it, bleh. I'm trying really hard to pick up the different notes, but seriously this is straight up fruity vinegar on me. It's less obnoxious dry, but still vinegary D: Noooo

Oh. My. Goodness. This scent is a bit dizzying, constantly darting between being hot and spicy and cold and clean. I'm guessing this is the carnation and the musk/lavender playing havoc together. What I can assure anyone reading this, though, is that for me at least Bow and Crown is one of the most intoxicating BPAL scents I've tried. And although I admit that my experience is limited, I think that this will remain a truth. It's misleadingly quiet at first--I have consistently overapplied and had to go and scrub some off or risk incurring a headache--but it amps surprisingly and suddenly. My friend noticed it too--at first there was nothing, and then, suddenly, a blossom of scent, topped with carnation and coming up cool and fresh underneath. I usually get a lot of cedar from any cedar blend, which is fine with me since I love it and it plays nicely with my skin, but it's remarkably subtle in Bow and Crown. After it's completely dried down, most of what I'm getting is cedar and carnation, although it's lent a warmth and depth that I am attributing to the vanilla or possibly the leather. I confess that I'm slightly disappointed that I can't actually pick out the vanilla, since it's one of my favourite smells. The "cool" feeling remains just under the surface. This is remarkably complex. The throw is not to be underestimated. Play gently, if this is unfamiliar territory--I feel like I'm choking people around me if I'm not careful with this imp. Within a half hour of putting this on I had four compliments. While this is good, it also tells me that it's super strong. I'm trying to find how much I need to tone it down. If I had to choose overall adjectives, I think I'd have to go with sexy, but dignified--not raunchy. I felt comfortable wearing it to work. While I agree that this scent skews masculine, I don't think it's something that a confident woman couldn't wear. I plan on wearing it whenever possible, although, to be fair, I also wear Dee religiously and it's extremely male. On a side note, I have noticed that although I never smell a BPAL and immediately say, "oh, that's leather," pretty much everything with leather listed as a note has been an immediate favourite with me. I should go check into De Sade!

I am necro-ing this thread! There is something in No. 93 Engine that smelled, when I first got my first imp, like hot machinery. I actually had a coworker stop and ask me what that delicious hot metal smell was, it was so uncanny. Then, tragically, No. 93 turned into spicy flat coke, and an aged bottle sent to me by a generous forumite turned out the same. I still love to layer it for the spice, but the loss of that hot machinery note sometimes nearly makes me weepy. It smelled like a freshly bathed male rat smells, as odd as that sounds. Any ratty owners here--you know that hot gun barrel smell on the back of your boys' necks, that machinery smell that wafts up from them when they're curled up on your shoulder? That smell, right there. It smelled like that. Dead-up metal, but warm and alive. I don't recognize most of the notes listed for No. 93, so I'm wondering if benzoin or even maybe hyssop (I doubt it, cos I tried it at a health food store?) registers as metallic for anyone. I almost got a whiff of it in Galvanic Goggles, but it was very, very short-lived and I think it may have been wishful thinking Machinery single note Do want.

I employ what I have begun referring to as the suicide method: upending the rolled bottle onto my thumb, putting it back, then cutting my thumb across my wrists, cutting it across the top of my throat, and then rubbing it onto my sternum (a la stabbing self in the heart). I didn't realize how menacing this series of movements looks until recently

When I first wore Antikythera Mechanism, no less than three people informed me that I smelled like a specific pagan bookstore in town--"not the one in Nashville, the one here!"--and they had, at the time, a huge display of Asian incense by the door which is pretty much the smell I associate with the place. Don't know how much that helps, but it may be worth a shot.

While the first few minutes on my skin with this oil are just straight-up apple, it mellows, soon, into something a little more grown-up than you'd expect from the initial burst of fruit. It's very smooth smelling--not tart at all--and mature. I can't really separate out the individual notes once it's settled down, except for the apple, and even that is so mellow and well-blended that it's hard to say that it's definitely an apple smell. I gave this imp away to a friend (she hated every other BPAL imp I put in front of her, but this one caught her attention) and I'm starting to regret it... I've always thought of apple as an indisputably cool smell, but Poisoned Apple (on me at least) is definitely warm. That's good: I love warm smells way more than cool ones. The throw seems to be minimal, but the staying power is fairly impressive for a fruit smell, which I've always found to be fleeting. Didn't require much in the way of re-application. On another note, I have always said that fruit constantly turns to onions on my skin (sad but true!), but so far the BPAL fruit smells have been remarkably true--even coconut, which always turns godawful garlicky on me. Maybe I've outgrown it, or maybe it's just BPAL magic at work. In any case, nothing is even faintly onion-y about Poisoned Apple on me, which is kind of a miracle.

I don't get leather in Hellfire at all. What I DO get is the rich smoky hot metal note that I smelled so fleeting in No. 93 before it went haywire on me. Which makes me so happy I could cry. I am guessing this is the resins--it's a shared note with No. 93 if I recall rightly. Out of the imp Hellfire is hot and wet and smoky, like damp ashes, but it settles down and mellows out pretty fast. Sadly, there's very little throw, but it appears to be amping as I warm back up from my shower. The end result is the sweetest, warmest, bluest tobacco smoke, absolutely gorgeous and not at all the angry, sinister smell that I initially got--although there is a lingering suggestion of something not-entirely-wholesome. THIS is the steampunk smell I wanted when I ordered from the Steamworks line, and that I got from my fluke imp of No. 93 before the disappointment came crashing down. Let's hope this one doesn't break its promises Smoke, smoke, smoke. I'd say that this warranted a bottle, but Othello and Loup Garou both came with this order and all three of them have me dying. It's going to be a hard call. ETA: Throw is just right! You can smell it but you don't have a forcefield. Also today I scrubbed my forearms with alcohol and soap to get rid of Hellfire so that I could wear Othello, but Othello has worn off and there's a lovely dusty curl of tobacco smoke rising up off my wrists STILL. Awesome.

I don't know where to start with Othello. On the one hand it is nothing at ALL like I was imagining (which was dark and sultry and gender-neutral), but on the other hand I love it so much I can see it possibly dethroning my Dorian (which was my first 5ml bottle, and came with this order). It's impossible to overstate how pretty this is, but I can also see where it may go raw dryer sheet on some people. It DOES go through a stage on me that is, as mentioned a few times in this thread, just like freshly-laundered bedclothes. Somehow though it's way beyond that. It's sort of pale and golden and clear, and even the powdery drydown on the musk after a couple of hours is clean and sharp. It's definitely rose, but it's more of a tea rose (as magikalbrownies pointed out) than a heavy dark red rose, which is what I was expecting. I love roses in real life but this is the first time I've smelled it not smell like old ladies. I may have to explore BPAL's rose some more. Even though this isn't at all the kind of smell I gravitate to, I can see myself wearing this every single day. It makes me want to dress up. And maybe this is over-the-top dramatic, but honestly: this is how I imagine God should smell. You know. God in the sense of some huge ineffable presence. Yes, I smell like God. I could get used to that...

A friend sent me a sniffy of this (in the form of a Q-tip in a plastic bag) when she was passing along a bit of Dorian, and I have to say I will never be able to review what it smells like on my skin, because it is WHOOMPH bubblegum straight up and I couldn't bear to put it on. I forced myself to do some more in-depth sniffing, and I could just baaarely make out a note of what seemed like fruit to me (not QUITE the apple the sender suggested, nor the cherry I keep seeing pop up... I have no idea what it was), but no spice, and not even the faintest whiff of womanly perfume. Just bubblegum all up and down. Which would be great, if I wanted to smell like bubblegum, but I don't. If YOU do though, this is spot on for you.

I wish I could tell you what ephemera smelled like on me, but no sooner were the words "OMG THIS IS AMAZI--" out of my mouth then I managed to spill the entire imp on the carpet. So: on the carpet, ephemera is lovely, light, and paaaale pale white with pearlescent touches of pink and blue, if that makes sense. I am not good with notes, more general impressions. This is what feathers SHOULD smell like, instead of smelling, to be honest, rather bad. I couldn't say what the staying power was like on a person, but my room smelled pretty strongly of it for quite some time. I have a cat with rotting teeth and even when she was grooming herself by my head I could smell ephemera: that's a powerful statement of strength in a smell.

After the Great Number Ninety-Three Engine Debacle of 08 (when I discovered that my imp was a fluke and that the real thing was way different and oh god I need to go edit my review to say this), I was so put off BPAL I wasn't trying anything. A friend of mine sent along an imp of Dorian and I ordered my bottle today. Rather than attempt to straight-up try to describe it I'll just say that I spent the past weekend with my not-a-boyfriend and he spent most of his time with his face buried in my neck snorfing my Dorian and telling me I smelled delicious and I have to agree. It's a little cloying initially, but it's worth waiting a couple of minutes for. That said, the staying power seems minimal on me, unfortunately.

This... smells amazing. Like a headshop, but softer? Like a headshop in a fog. I don't know. But I do know it smells like someone I know in one of the stages, and evokes his skin-smell in all the others, and I have extremely bad associations with that person, so I am not in a position to review it properly. So basically: warm, rosey (the colour, not the flower), slightly powdery... masculine as hell in the bottle but mellowing down to unisex or even feminine by the time it's dry. The best imp in my lot of four I got from a swap today. And I don't know if I'll be able to wear it. SIGH. Such is life.

Got this in a swap! I don't get even the slightest tinge of coffee in any of the stages. In the imp, wet, and mostly-dry-but-not-sunk-in-yet, this smells like a department store perfume, although I can't put my finger on what. It went through a stage of being sickeningly sweet on me, but it's settled down and I quite like it. The department store feel has vanished, as has the oft-mentioned Jasmine Assault, and Mata Hari is soft, sensual, and warm. One of the only florals I ever smelled that didn't immediately think of an old lady. The throw is almost nil to me, but I'll have to update later when I'm not wearing four perfumes and let you know if it changes when there's not so much to drown it out (oh god, Dee, just shut up for one second, will you?). It is a bit soapy, but in an expensive, bondgirl-probably-bathes-in-this way. Not soapy in the way you'd think. I think I'll wear this to work tomorrow and see how it sits on me, and update this. I initially was not fond of this at all, but it's growing on me. Once I get past the stage where something is cloyingly sweet and pink-smelling, it's pretty gorgeous. I'm not big on florals but I'm tentatively glad I tried this! Mmm. If this ends up having decent throw I may have to add this to my bottle list. EDIT: Spoke too soon. Tried it at work and no, just reek of roses for some reason. I amp vanilla, so that's weird for me. A co-worker bluntly said: "it stinks!" None for me.