wheresyourshoe

I just got this in the mail as a surprise mystery imp and I am having trouble not burying myself in my own wrists. This sure as heck isn't for those ebullient and sunny days, but for October and November, and for those moments when the sun feels a bit offensive to your inner state, the darkness and soft smokiness, the roots and dry dirt and moist ragged stone and musty leaves just sort of swallow me whole. I can't recognize the scents of vetiver or dragon's blood, but I can tell you that this is a heavy and deep scent on me, and I am getting absolutely no citrusy undertones, or anything but person-hiding-from-world-in-cave. I want to hibernate in this scent.

Huh. First on, this smells exactly like a greenhouse, not even a garden shop because I'm not really getting the potting soil or dusty lawn decorations. Instead, the gladiola is really really happy to be blooming, and the green is just everywhere, dewy and fresh, sun-drenched... and making my nose itch. I would have thought that I'd love to smell like a greenhouse, but I was really very wrong. I think I like the smell of perfume flowers better than real flowers, with the exception of jasmine. BPAL's jasmine is just horrible on me. After about half an hour, the flowers do start drying out, or perhaps the sun is setting and I am distracted by the array of colors, because there is definitely something creamy golden orange here- I can't imagine what. The tonka and labdanum start lurking in the background. About time, guys. There is thankfully still none of the smoke anybody is describing. I'm getting fonder of the fragrance though, and I love the storytelling element of its evolution. The story is going a little faster for me than for most, because my skin chemistry is generally on overdrive. My nose is still twitching gently, though, so while this is a stunning scent, and one which I would and probably will totally wear at one if not both outdoor weddings this summer, for everyday use it is for just about anybody else at all. When it comes to BPAL, I'm just not a flowery scent kind of girl. If there are any wedding planners out there, they should totally wear this all the time, though. It is intensely romantic- the way it starts out so exuberantly fresh, and then evolves, retaining its original beauty even as that beauty transitions into another phase of life, and then ultimately, inevitably, into death.

So beautiful in the bottle, all spicy honeyed patchouli, but sadly on me, it went pure patchouli for about five minutes before transmuting to burned patchouli, and then on to leather. Every hour, the leather gets dirtier and more worn. I do not want to smell like a belt.

Finally, a dupe for my lovely and lost Miskatonic Yule oil, The Smiling Servitors Holiday Hits. It was my favorite BPAL ever, and as luck would have it, the only one I've ever lost. On the review page, people kept comparing it to Shoggoth, and I'm so glad. I can hardly remember my Smiling Servitors now, but this scent went for me very much like the other reviewers here noted: at first, it was straight-up lime and lemongrass with just a hint of very, very green coconut meat. Then the coconut meat ripens and becomes more creamy, communes with the amber, and the lemongrass and lime fades to the background (citrus does this on me). What's left is an exotic blend that clings close to my skin consisting of things I can't identify, so I assume that they are muguet and hinoki. The florals in this blend made a short appearance in the middle of its life-span but they are truly well-blended and I couldn't parse out a single note. I can't imagine what season this is suited to, but it is just so me that it doesn't matter. Perhaps somewhere deep inside my inner self lies an incandescent monster sipping a margarita at a picnic at all times.

2012 version: Very odd- it smells so familiar, especially in the bottle. Rather like evergreen car freshener, with a bit of basil and nutmeg thrown in. Wet, it blooms gradually, becoming more and more complex, the citrus appearing, but sharper than lemon or lime juice, more like the smell of their peels. Finally, roasted chestnut comes through as it dries, while the herbal citrus fragrance remains. I was underwhelmed by this oil at first, but I've become completely addicted to it, and no longer wear anything else. There's got to be more notes in this I can smell because none of those fragrances are generally my thing. I just wish it lasted longer. I think it would be perfect for autumn. It's funny, somebody said that this would make a great summer scent, but on me, it's so sharp it belongs in the colder months. This smells to me like looking at the Christmas window displays in New York City when I was a kid. I can almost hear the slush under my feet.

Soft, pure, and innocent. A lovely perfume redolent of youth- not actual youth, which is messy and transitional by nature, but an old woman's idea of youth. It is nostalgic and allegorical, a fairy-tale fragrance. In fact, it could belong to any of the gentle, sweet-natured heroines of Russian folk tales. There is a slight Russian feel to it, although I can't discern any of the fragrance's individual notes, except perhaps skin musk, powdery warmth, and something that might be Myrrh. I wish my lingerie smelled like this. I'm not sure I want to smell like it myself. I might get whisked away by a Russian prince and married before I knew what was happening and live happily every after in a Russian castle and grow very, very bored.

I have no way to test out the limited editions except by ordering an imp of the whole collection, so I ordered a bottle of Klara unsniffed just because it sounded so lovely in the description, and I was always curious about Alice but never got around to trying it. I am very, very happy with my decision. Wet: Carnation and yang-yang. Yuck. Luckily I have some experience with BPALs now so I do not panic and wash it off. After ten minutes: This is the point that the oils usually settle down on me and become wonderful works of art instead of weird and sharp and head-shoppy. The gentle honey powder starts to emerge at this point, and the yang-yang and carnation start to get to know one another and even to get along. There is something here besides the four of them but I don't know what it is, since it's definitely not rose. Twenty: It might be the iris settling down, this mysterious yummy note that is now dominant with the honey powder. I am liking this perfume a lot at this point, and it stays like this for a few hours. Finally, all that is left is this pure unpowdery honey which translates to my nose as sheer, unadultrated happiness. The first night I caught myself feeling unreasonably blissful and realized it was the scent of honey drifting up to my nose, I decided that this was going to be my go-to perfume for the rest of the winter. Who couldn't do with a little unreasonable bliss? Now I apply this once or twice a day. I don't know if it is "me" but it is certainly good for me. On me, this is never sickly-sweet or little-girlish. Which is good, because I have tried a few BPALs that are too sweet for me, and they don't go well.

This is a cute oil. The champagne note is true, but odd as a fragrance, I find. I had this strawberry champagne lip balm for a while and I loved it to death. I hoped this would smell like that, but no, it's a little more complex. The strawberry is like fruit punch spilled on a cement floor. Otherwise, it's good for a certain bubbly mood but it's sweet without being sweet. I mean it lacks a charm and endearing quality I ask from my sweet fragrances. It's too romantically dissipated for me in the end, I think. I find myself too unsophisticated for BPAL, often. I love Magdalene, which by the way becomes amazingly sexy when layered with Highwayman. Go figure.

This is the first BPAL perfume oil that has been very standardly perfumey on me. I had my mom put it on first, and it smelled nice on her, if underwhelming, but on me it was just awful. I was so shocked, because I love New Orleans the city so much and the way the jasmine is so soft and lush, and in this perfume it is harsh and unnatural! This is depressing for me. I had high hopes for the oil, maybe that was the problem.

This is absolutely wonderful on me. It smells just like it does in the imp, like a dusty wooden tea shop. There's definitely some cinnamon bark and it's a little peppery, but it's a dry scent. The tragedy of this oil on me is that it fades away in an hour or two. I love the way BPAL perfumes last and change for over seven hours. It's often the end notes I use to judge a fragrance in the end, and this doesn't have any. I think I'll pass the imp to a friend for whom it's even more perfect and hope it lasts longer on her.

Amber, saffron and bergamot with mandarin, nutmeg, Bulgar rose, musk and sandalwood. In the bottle: overpoweringly musky incense. This makes me nervous that it's going to be too dark for me. Wet: I put it on before I go to the movies. It is sweet and the incense is lovely, not spicy as I'd expected but powdery. My great-grandmother was very well-travelled. If somebody had forgotten to unpack one of her trunks after a trip to Baghdad I bet it'd smell like this when I found it. 5 minutes on: My roommate is as excited about this as I am. She says it smells powdery, too, which I'm learning here is generally a bad thing, but this does not smell like old people. Now, 4 hours later, it smells the same. When I think of a spice market I imagine more savory fragrances. This had a distant sweetness. It could give me a headache, but it's heady and beautiful. Kabuki turned into a scent like this the morning after I'd applied it, and it really sealed the deal for that one. I'm still not sure about the powdery edge here. This might be nicer layered with Kabuki. At the moment it's beginning to give me a headache. Conclusion: I'll have to wait a while before my next order anyway, might as well make up my mind about Baghdad in the time being. I keep wanting to call it Morocco because it smells just like the scarf my friend brought me back from a market there for my birthday. I didn't want to wear it for so long because it'd stop smelling like travel luggage. (How does a scarf spend all those hours in an 19 year old boy's suitcase and come out smelling like this?) ADDED Aug. 21: Very interesting oil. In the bottle it smells to me like a cloud of bergamot with a bit of powder around the edges softening it. It isn't that different on the skin. It has a lot of throw, which would usually bother me except that everybody everywhere I go says what is that smell? It's really nice! Even my dad noticed I smelled like baby powder and said it was nice, and my dad is not the kind of man who notices these things except when I make him. Many many oils become powdery on me after a while, and I refuse to acknowledge this in spite of all evidence because I like the fragrances so much that go with the powder even if nobody else can get them. Oh well, powdery seems to smell good on me and since I'm twenty-three it'll be a while yet before I can smell like an old lady, although I am kind of looking forward to that. I like the bergamot note a lot. It's sharp and musky but softened a lot by the powder. It still manages to smell a bit mysterious and exotic like an old traveling trunk though. I can see how people would prefer this on linens and stuff, but I like it quite a bit on my skin. I wish it had just a bit of floral. I think i'd like to try layering it with Morocco, and see how that goes. Ahh I think it's the amber that goes to powder. It's still a bit sweet and golden and I do agree that it comes out mostly when dry and changes the scent a lot. I love all it's stages. It's just a lovely oil, which is why I bought a whole bottle of it.

So far my BPAL explorations have shown that I like white vanilla florals and spicey smokey complex things. I was skeptical about White Rabbit because I'd already tried and hated Dorian, which was way too sweet and boring on me. But white rabbit was another story. I took one whiff of the imp, and I was like ohhh no: This right here is a big bottle scent for me. It was everything I'd hoped. It is fresh and springy and happy, and it lasts plenty long and changes over time, but not so much that it loses its integrity. There was a little lemon on me, which I guess is the clean linen. I know I haven't gotten the review format quite right, but I'm new, so please forgive me.