cinnamonster

This one basically smells like barbecue. I know it will vary from nose to nose, obviously, but if you don't like smoke notes and will not like smoke notes, don't try this one. It is NOT subtle. And it has vetiver like WOAH. It's a red musk. I think she usually means red musk by words like "infernal", and black musk is usually keywords like "swarthy". This one is masculine but very well-rounded and bordering on unisex. Lots of ladies love to wear it. It's not dark and cologne-like, it's light and sophisticated with a hint of earthy vanilla. There is no cream or hint of creaminess in Famine, so it's pretty dissimilar from White Rabbit. If you've tried Eros (I guess not, since you don't like honey) it's the same tea note. Light, crisp, fragrant, clear, smooth. Like sniffing a canister of darjeeling leaves. (Famine is a little masculine but less masculine, by my standards, than Crowley. It's bright and a bit prim with a hint of smokiness.) From what I recall of the reviews, Jasmine Cottage seems to appeal to a lot of jasmine haters. I think it must be a different jasmine note than is normally used. It's fresh and dewy. It's definitely noticeable in the blend, but it is a cottage garden blend, so it's not mega strong. This blend has a lot of greenery. For me, I really didn't smell honey at all. Honey is just a coloring note in this, I think. The flowers, amber, leather, and wood are much stronger. So it doesn't have the sweet stickiness of many honey blends. If you don't like aquatics, you'll want to avoid Shadwell. It was VERY aquatic for me (and I didn't like it). Also, the condensed milk and tea combination recalls White Rabbit. This one is VERY musky with a whole lot of hot spice. It's worth trying an aged imp if you want to experience the muskiness at its best. Fresh red musk can be a little plastic, and IMO red ginger is best after being aged. If you've tried Krampus, imagine that but made even more powerful. War means business. I thought it was a bit masculine, but again, red musk is a fairly bright and clean musk. It's not animalistic (and not manly in a 70s way), but it does have a bit of a wild power. It feels very flush to me. You know when you're so mad seeing red? Imagine that turned into a scent. Don't be! It does have a faintly dusty edge but this is actually very effervescent and almost fruity. It's very golden and shimmering. I haven't tried this one but I wouldn't expect it to be aquatic. It sound like a dry, light blend, with a hint of vanilla and musk. In white rabbit, I wonder if you're smelling the linen note. It has a crisp, clean quality like aquatics, so perhaps they smell very similar on your skin. (For me, personally, white rabbit isn't aquatic, but the linen note is very strong.) The lab's paper note is a bit like the linen, so it might be a little iffy for you. Thanks for the great reply (and your superior editing skills!) The same ick note from White Rabbit is in Dormouse so I think it is the tea! I like Antique Lace which has linen so I am inclined not to think it is that. The aquatics I think possibly comes form the papyrus, it's mentioned a bit in reviews. I still would like to smell it!

It's such a good book, have you read it before? Secret History scents would be interesting. I must get my book back and have a think about the characters smells!

AWESOME. Vetiver doesn't do this to me but I love your analogy. The Secret History is a an amazing book that I make everyone I know read. My Bunny is caramel. Shadwell's raincoat was all coconut to me. I'm glad you started this thread as I am not a fan of aquatics either. We can start the "Anti-Aquatics Appreciation Society" Hmm, now coconut raincoat I can do! I'm really thinking Shadwell is going to work. I seem to be on a lucky streak picking stuff at the moment, so I may go for it, straight into 5ml territory! Aziriphale is very tempting too. I've read The Secret History SOOOOOO many times. I always try and get other people to read it and they never do! I'm always amazed by how much I forget, and I always enjoy rereading it, in fact I have read that book more times than anything else! "Mad Sweeney: If you're not a fan of booze, you will not like this scent at all. I have an imp of it and would wear it on certain occasions... but not often, because I smell like I've had a questionable meeting with someone in the back of an Irish pub." :lol:

Thanks so much for all the effort you all put into this for me. I think I am going to chance Famine, as I like lilac, and Shadwell. I think! I'll let you know how I go. sqwook, I think you and I have similar chemistry issues

Okay, highlights on dodgy bits! Gunpowder, charred wood, smoke, and rusty nails. Infernal musk, red patchouli, lilac cologne, mahogany, lemon rind, oakmoss, leather, and vanilla husk- is the musk black musk?? because that is HORRID on me. Sleek black tea, tobacco leaf, frankincense, lilac, and white musk - worry the tea will be white rabbit tea. Camellia, jasmine, heather, orange blossom, osmanthus, wisteria, thyme, angelica, freesia, granny's nightcap, and English wildflowers. Middle Eastern flowers, amber, honey(sweat worry!), blood red-berries, whip leather, and polished paddle wood. Roll-ups, mildewed raincoat, sweet tea, and condensed milk. Red ginger, black spices, patchouli, honeysuckle, and three blood-soaked red musks. Like this in theory but scared of dust:Ethereal musk, blonde woods, and dusty Bible accord. Like the sound of this also but the aquatics thing...Papyrus, vanilla flower, Egyptian musk, African musk, aloe ferox, white sandalwood. I guess I don't really want to smell of dark patchouli, black musk,mildew,or anything super masculine in a seventies way, and I don't much like fruits (esp pear, apple), honey can turn to sweat, I really hate aquatics, some note in white rabbit I smell in most aquatics also, and I really really don't like DRagons Blood...ick, or rum, or whiskey, and vetiver. This how I feel about vetiver, or more, how much vetiver loves me and won't leave me alone "I AM VETIVER, JOLLY GOOD TO MEET YOU, FANTASTIC DRESS" he shouts in a public school accent as he looms over you enthusiastically pumping your hand up and down and does't let go as he chuckles and guffaws at the thrill of meeting you, puffing his chest out as you cringe and try to make your excuses to leave, but he slaps you on the back with good cheer and offers you a drink as he steers you towards the bar. Man I'm hard to please huh. ETA: Thanks everyone for suggestions. Oh and if Vetiver smelt like a book character, it would be Bunny from The Secret History by Donna Tartt, it just came to me, I knew I was thinking of someone!

Ugh, this is curry. Not like the caramel note-goes-to-curry of some blends, just straight up curry. I can't bear to try it on. I can't see this working on anyone the way I can smell it. This imp was not fresh from the lab. If anyone thinks it ages into curry and is okay fresh, let me know and I'll give it a another go with a new imp! ETA: I passed the local Chinese takeaway one day and my instant thought was "ooh, smells like All Night Long"! So it's Chinese curry it smells like.

Try to track down a "aged" decant of Banana Peel in a Graveyard. I tried my aged decant the other day and it smelled just like Polo (on me). My husband also wears Polo so I compared it to his bottle and was really surprised. My exes father wears (lots of) Polo and it smells just like... Saint-Germain "A man who knows everything and who never dies." Said to have lived for centuries, the Comte de Saint-Germain is truly a man of legend and mystery. He was an aristocrat, master alchemist, adventurer, magician, artist, and seer with a lust for exquisite jewels, and was reputed to have attained knowledge of the Elixer of Life. His knowledge was so vast and all-encompassing that his claim to have lived hundreds of years - he allegedly knew Jesus and was present at the Council of Nicea - was widely accepted as true. He is a Hermetic Magician's hero for the ages, and his scent is an elegant, timeless, truly refined cologne, bold yet classic: gilded amber, hypnotic lavender, brash carnation and deep mosses.

That's really interesting about Frankincense! I've never heard that but have noticed a great improvement in my mood since wearing my oil with frankincense in this past week. I also have fibro and have a good few suggestions for help with sleep but they are not bpal, if you're interested.

CCVII I have to say I am so glad I waited to review this as at first sniff it was strongly frankincense and opium, no Dorian, and I applied a tiny dab and felt the same, the opium came out a little more and it reminded me of a darker (electricity-free) cousin to Stormclouds on the Midway with a hint of sugar. Either a few days have changed it or it's my nose working better as it's different now. Wet on my skin I'm getting a strong opium/incense/frankincense smell (no Dorian), but after a few minutes I keep noticing a very sweet smell. I'm being surrounded by a sweet almost soporific cloud. It's lovely and it takes me a minute to work out what I'm smelling - the chaos. So I sniff my arms, and they're all opium and frankincense, but when I move my nose further away, it gets sweeter and sweeter and I wrack my brains for what it smells like, and I think it is violet. Oh it is just lovely. For a while it's like a very sweet Stormclouds with Faith, but she fades a lot and then it makes me think of Fairy Market only a dark nighttime version. I have no idea where Dorian went in this mix (I think he got stand-ins and butt doubles), but I love this and am thankful my secondhand bottle is overfilled as I may cry when it runs out. You could wear this for a date as it's quite sexy but it's starting to make me very sleepy. I don't know if I should have ordered my own now, or whether this is my perfect scent... There's no way on earth I could have concocted this if you asked what I would like to smell in my chaos but it is just so amazing. I took a chance on it hearing it contained resins. Having read the reviews of the others I think I got the right one for me.

I received this as an empty bottle in a swap with just enough inside to test it. It's smells like the colour burgundy, a fruity plumminess that doesn't turn into artifical grape, but stays true. It smells like when I stew plums with sugar and add a pinch of cinnamon. I get no booziness at all thankfully. Just a spicy plum with an undercurrent of incense. This is actually what snake charmer res smelt like on me after the first couple of hours, as it takes that long for the snake oil smell to burn off a little and the plum come out. I'd like to own more of this!

I'm not really sure what I was expecting from this but I didn't like it at all. There was a hint of mint but mainly just an overpowering scent of hot blood when on. I had to wash it off. It smelt a bit like something you might wear for a walk in the woods if you wanted animals to maul you to death. Unlike some scents I don't like just because they're not my thing or they give me a headache, this just really really repelled me.

I love violets, and was hoping not to get the possible burning rubber scent described by Faith's first owner, or the initial smell I get from Sybaris in the first half an hour. What do I get I hear you ask?? VINEGAR!? Vinegar masking a hint of violet. After an hour the vinegar has gone leaving me with what I can only describe as a violet version of turkish delight, and it's yummy. The same as with Hope, you can almost feel the powdered sugar on the end of your nose. Hope has greater staying power by a couple of hours. I got about three hours from this but did wash my hands once where I'd put it. ETA: The second time I tried it on my arms and liberally splashed it on, there was no vinegar, just strong sweet violet. Win!

I'll start by saying I don't normally like rose scents for the simple reason that I amp up the rose to the exclusion of everything else, and it seems such a disappointment to smell like pot pourris refresher oil instead of what you expected! So I was very interested to try something that was just rose and see what happened. Well I don't just get rose here. I do get rose, a gorgeous rosewater type rose, not the terrifyingly strong rose I normally get, and SUGAR!! Powdered sugar, there's a real powderiness (NOT I should say, a baby powderiness), almost like you could brush a smudge off the end of your nose after getting too close the turkish delight when you thought no one was looking.. I really like it.

I was expecting somethng very unusual from this given the description, mushroom gases, but what I actually get on my skin is a green grassy aquatic, and we hateses the aquatics don'ts we... Still there is something I like about this and I...wow...BAM, there are the violets. It's like they just drove up in a bright red pick-up, music blaring, and screeched to a halt, right in the middle of your immaculate but water-logged lawn, threw out a few beer bottles, and then screeched off again. It's that fast! They're gone, leaving deep tyre tracks behind. But now your lawn smells a bit muddier and your neighbour Mr.Cucumber comes out to tut-tut and help pick up the bottles. I think maybe they ran over and killed the aquatic-headache of hell note. Good job guys I don't think I'd buy a bottle of this or even get through more than my half decant, but there might be a day when I try this again. ETA: Later when you look out of your bathroom window you can see your neighbour Mr.Cucumber, only he's wearing ladies clothes, swaying softly and dancing by himself in his kitchen singing...you can call me Lady Cataloupe..

I'm surprised this has been mentioned as a winter scent, as it has a summery feel to me. Wet: there's a heavy incense smell, combine with coconut and mango Dry: The incense remains but the fruit amps right up, fresh mango, a really juicy one, and coconut milk poured right out of the shell. Dry after an hour: eek! There's a really bad hint of something that might be turning into honey sweat smell (very scared of this since the sweaty hand of glory fiasco!), but it fades back into mango and cashew nuts. The incense wafts away into the background and is almost gone. The throw isn't great on me for some reason, but I keep sniffing my inner elbow. This is a foody/fruity scent for those people who don't necessarily like the buttery/cakey/chocolatey/cherry/rum type scents normally classed as "foodie" (the ones I don't like) Yum! The smell of the first hot evenings of summer.

Wow. That was my first thought. Then mmmmm Nag Champa, oooh, fizzly sugar cane, sooo good. Four hours later, the incense has died down and snake oil is coming out more but in a shy and still very sweet and slightly vanilla way. If you like Tushnamatay I think you would like this.

It's been hot here today, so the perfect day to try this and review. I'm not much of a mint-as-perfume person (I spend a lot of time putting stuff like Vicks and Karvol on my kids so it doesn't have a sexy vibe to me!). Wet: This is a cool "green" smelling mint, not menthol-y, or icy white but green, and very lovely. Dry: The green tea hovers behind the mint, thinking of Snake Oil. It's there, but barely. I imagine putting this on on a hot evening and being refreshed by it, and as the mint dies slightly, and the snake oil comes out a little more to spice things up. I think holiday, evening, bare sunkissed shoulders, a hot date It's also very calming, I can see myself getting a bottle for the summer.

I thought this might be one of those blends that amazes you, but when I smelt the imp I recoiled. It's a strong biting scent, I don't really get any orange, but it's sharp and smoky at the same time. I put a bit on my knee (where I could lean in and smell it but far enough away if it was horrendous not to be choking on it - I was glad too), and couldn't really smell past a sort of barbecued rodent smell. I didn't go back for another sniff. I didn't get the feel of the rat I think of from the story, more the unfriendly sewer rate another reviewer mentioned - their vision was almost spot on with mine.

On me this is truly awful. This is several moustache wearing men in leather peaked caps and rubber underpants dancing around throwing Avon Black Suede talc at eachother until said pants catch fire. I have only had two strong images of scents so far, Illustrated Woman was the other.

Skin musk, smoky vanilla, pine pitch, patchouli, Indian resins, golden honey, and tobacco. I don't know how I missed reviewing this, this was I think the fifth Bpal I tried. I had no idea of the notes at the time. I still think this is genius, one of the best scents there is. What do I think of? A beautifully made up nude woman lay on a well-waxed pine table after really good sex, eating the finest vanilla ice cream whilst a cigarette smoulders in an ashtray. Pine to me always said disinfectant, but this is more real and not at all sharp or burning. I now have a bottle and and it is obvious that this may sweeten with age- my first try was an aged decant, and my bottle is fresh. I prefer the older one. I should wear this more.

It's becoming apparent that I cannot wear it, and should avoid anything with the word caramel in it. It's not so much caramel, as curry, fainter than others, like you ate a ton of maple syrup and a large curry, and then the smell of your sweat the day after. I'm not having much luck with these Carnaval women...

I had great hopes for this but it seems quite weak, it's close to the skin, and smells to me like a weak Black Pearl, which I think I probably prefer. I don't think I've ever had such a bland reaction before. Whatever it should be doing, it's not doing it on me. oh...hang on, there's a sniff of sandalwood coming out now. It's dilute black pearl with faint dry sandalwood. I will note on me Black Pearl has little white musk at first, getting stronger later, but this is sooo similar I would buy the GC instead. I'm editing this now because I have tried it again, both alone and in comparison with Black Pearl. I like it more now, it's softer and more sophisticated than Black Pearl yet still something similar there (unless my skin is warping everything and my nose is broken!). I think I'd go against my normal dab, and spread this on thick. It also had a positive reaction from someone who only really enthuses about one perfume (Angel by T Mugler), so it must have something good! I do prefer this to Black Pearl now, just wish it had more strength!

I'll begin by saying it's possible that I have really weird body chemistry. I've seen the reviews comparing this to Khajuraho and Red Lantern, well on me it is nothing like either. Further still, neither Khajuraho or Red Lantern is anything like the other on me. I don't like the initial smell wet, but am unsure what it is like. This quickly fades into a scent I like, a strong vanilla-ey tobacco smell with sweet, soft opium incense. I may be the only person in the world to say this, but on me, and I have my right hand as Kubla Khan, and the left as Black Lace, they are very very similar. The difference being that Black Lace has a gentle waft of men's cologne drifting over it and Kubla Khan has a couple of extra grains of sugar. Please, someone else try them together!

This seems to be a blend that smells incredibly different on everyone. Wet: super strong tuberose Dry: super strong tuberose, perhaps a hint of sweetness behind it but mainly tuberose. I can almost get one reviewers idea of blackcurrant in this, it's almost there, but somehow not. Someone else compared this to a sibling of Red Lantern, but not for me, Red Lantern is honeyed fenugreek! So, I get no incense, no honey, no anything really except slightly sweet Tuberose. This is a bit like Agent Provocateurs Tuberose massage oil really. I like it though, just maybe not doing enough fancy-stuff to wear often.

From this I get the exact smell of Waitrose Luxury Jaffa Orange Curd (made with free range egg and butter), slathered thickly on buttered wholemeal toast with a hint of tobacco. Not what I was expecting. This was the end scraping of a leaked imp that I suspect is fairly old, so I would be interested to try again and re-review if I bought a fresh one form the lab, see if age plays a part. Wanted cocoa!!