khazakant

I'm not sure why I bought this because BPAL's ozone accord doesn't tend to agree with me. I think I mostly wanted the tobacco absolute, which is up there with hay absolute in stuff so beautiful you could just bottle it and be done with it. It's a very astringent scent, strict and bracing, with the feeling of heavy rain if not the smell. Honestly to me it smells more like a minty ink stick than anything else (where is the mint coming from?!). I was hoping it would morph into something I liked a little better on drydown, but not really. If you want a minty herbal you could do worse, though.

I was most looking forward to this one, the Vulvas are always fun. So, I open the bottle and smear some on and get hit with the strawberries first. Gigantic, teenage-girl confection of a fruity floral. I figured if I waited a minute it would settle down, and it did, with the amber coming out and granting more moderation and maturity to the fragrance. It's got very good sillage, in general, BPAL has gotten better about making fragrances with good throw in recent years. As it dries down, the "blush marshmallow" really comes out and the fruitiness takes a backseat, although it doesn't go away entirely, just falls back into the kind of smooth, creamy, well-rounded thing you'd expect from one of BPAL's Vulvas.

I open the bottle and it's this thin, mean, astringent scent. (Cat's whiskers?) Hmm, I think, let's see where they're going with this. I put it on and it stays mean, very big on the violet. Eventually everything else comes out a little more and it develops into this dark, dingy, almost intimidating scent - definitely smells like what you'd feel if you took a wrong turn somewhere in Edo and saw a bunch of shopkeeping cats. Unfortunately, everything coalesces into kind of a bug spray note for me. This is the first Shunga I've smelt that wasn't a big hit for me, I think I'm just amping the violet which is a note I do not like and it's doing weird things to the drier aspects of the rest of the components. I'll keep it around and see how it ages, but this is probably getting sold.

When first applied, this does, in fact, smell exactly like brandy-soaked pears. You can practically taste the alcohol (and the pears). I've been looking for a pear scent I liked and this is a buoyant, true to life gourmand I'm enjoying immensely. The plum incense (I love plum incense in real life and this is honestly a pretty true to life depiction of how it smells) is subtle at first, then way more prominent upon drydown, but adds some depth and support to the scent. I think this is going to age well and the pear and incense components won't fight as much.

Try Amsterdam - it smells like wet, fresh flowers.

This is a really interesting scent and hard to pin down. It's almost floral, but it's resinous. It's almost feminine, but it's androgynous. It's almost clean, but it's earthy and herbal. The lab's hemlock note is strong (I always really liked that note, it reminds me a bit of burying my nose into the pet rat I had as a teenager, a furry little smell). I bought this mostly for the concept, but I'm very happy I have a bottle, it's a winner.

I'm dying for a replacement for Hemlock Honey. (The Wild Honeysuckle is almost close, but it's not anywhere near as intense or boozy and I miss that summer-heat kind of feel.) Suggestions?

The honeysuckle that grows wild (or feral?) in my area is thick and boozy and intense and smells almost exactly like the much-missed (by me, anyway) Hemlock Honey (quite often I had someone tell me I smelled like honeysuckle when I wore it). I've been hoping for a honeysuckle soliflore since the Apiary got discontinued. This is pretty close, to the extent that it smells like a weak, watery version of the real thing. Might resemble some other species of honeysuckle more closely, but compared to what I'm used to, it doesn't have the sweetness or the heat. It's a well-done scent, but for me, a little disappointing.

I'll give it a try. In no particular order: Aphrogene Vechernyaya Dorian Hemlock Honey Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills (Also sort of want to give honorary mention to Possets Tidal Wave, since I wear that so constantly.)

I like Hymn to Pan for such business. Very crisp, clear-thinking, almost severe. For some reason it reminds me of the color ice blue.

Try Aphrogenes, if you can find a bottle. (It's a Luper from the Ode to Aprodite collection. I think it means 'foam born.') Orris root, iris, white honey, white sandalwood, coconut, and cherry blossom. It doesn't smell exactly like the ocean - at best it's quite a bit like sunscreen and there's something a bit salty about it in the background - but it smells like how the scent of the ocean feels, if that makes any sense. It's uncanny.

For Molly Weasley, maybe Calaveras - I remember that being a buttery, bright, foody scent, but also a little preternatural and with a hint of pepper and smoke. Good for a kitchen-witch. I was thinking about Artemiy Burakh earlier (from the game Pathologic) since the game was so kind as to have a character comment on what he smells like (burning leaves and autumn earth, it stuck in my mind). Now I'm curious about his counterpart, Daniel Dankovsky. Hard to describe Dankovsky since he's so complicated, and the game is so complicated, but - he's an elegant, youthful, beautiful medical researcher from the capital (the game kinda sorta takes place in an alternate reality version of pre-revolutionary Russia, but also kinda sorta doesn't, basically, he's urbane and a little Westernized) who founded an experimental thanatological laboratory researching a way to end death. VERY intense (to an extent that's slightly terrifying). He thinks of himself as clever, cold, logical, and a man of principle, and he's wrong on every count. He's overly emotional, easily hurt, and easily led by anger and viciousness, but also easily led by dreams and love. (He's a little childlike, in a way.) Not saying he's not tough as nails and a dangerous man, because he is by necessity - the game takes place in a plague-ravaged settlement on the steppe - and I always got the feeling that by Day 11 he gets a cold, sick pleasure out of killing, but all the same, beneath the self-righteous cutthroat amorality he's a dreamer who's in a lot of pain.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions so far. Is there anything in the GC I should try, or wait and see what's there when the Halloweenies go up?

I was playing a game recently and one of the characters is mentioned to smell like autumn earth and the smoke that comes from burning leaves. It stuck in my mind a little and now I would like a fragrance that's something like this. I guess it would be smoke, earth, and leaves all at once. Is there a single scent like this, or evocative of this, or maybe suggestions for layering? Thanks for the help.

All of BPAL's roses hate me. AAAALL of them. Rose otto, rose attar, white rose ... If they even get near me they instantly turn whatever fragrance they're in into a combination citronella candle/Philly cheesesteak. It breaks my little heart because I love roses, I grow them. I haven't found a solution myself other than just wearing rose fragrances from other companies (small consolation) so I'm just posting to give solidarity.