benthic

Eergh--this smells exactly like cheap cinnamon herbal tea stored in a musty wooden box. It's very evocative of that. I mean, I know I have smelled this somewhere before, and that's all I'm coming up with. It's definitely spicy herbal tea and dusty wood. Not my thing, not to mention the fact that I too developed a red rash where I'd swiped it. This isn't for me.

I was frimped this in a swap, and it was a blend that I never would have tried on my own; cologne blends are usually not my thing. But oh wow. This blend really is amazing. It's definitely masculine-leaning, very metallic and clean. It smells like a clean-cut, powerful man straight out of the shower. Perhaps even the Old Spice Guy. This is the cologne your man's cologne could smell like, ladies. It's not too masculine for me to want to wear, though. I usually pass on cologne blends for that very reason; I like masculine stuff, but not in this vein (and they all tend to smell the same on me as well). This is the best from BPAL I've smelled, though. It's so clean and sharp with just a hint of sweet citrus that makes it not 100% male, feminine enough for me to feel comfortable wearing on my more masculine-feeling days. I kind of want to go shower and then slather it all over myself. I think maybe I will.

This blend is chock full o' death notes for me, so I had no plans on trying it, but it's gotten such good reviews, and then I was lucky enough to get frimped a bit of it! Finally I am testing the Swarm. On me, it's . . . coconut! And faint black licorice. I do really, really poorly with spicy blends, but to my amazement this isn't one at all. It's a creamy blend, which was not what I was expecting. The clove begins to peek out a bit more after a couple of minutes--which is right around the time this blend begins to irritate my skin. Whup. Well, I didn't want to fall in love with it anyway, and honestly, it's nice, but it's also slightly sour and cloying on me (the cream, I think), so I probably would not seek out more anyway. I have coconut blends I enjoy more!

I have a few decants and one bottle! #126: Very frankincense, and cedar maybe? I'm getting wood out of this, but the frank is very strong, just how I like it. Cedar or redwood, I'd say, and as it settles on my skin, there's something sweet behind it; I can't identify it yet, but it's really nice and subtle, perfect for tempering the other notes. I love this one! The sweet note emerges more as time goes on, but I still can't pinpoint what it is, it's so quiet. Sugar? #71: Whoa sweet! I know this note, but I can't ID it. Man, I suck at this. Very little frankincense and some sort of sweet juicy fruit/floral. Definitely floral, as it settles. Finally the frank is beginning to come out, too. And there is some kind of fruit note in it as well, which starts out strong and begins to fade but is still present throughout. It's so familiar that it's driving me crazy that I can't think of it, ha ha. Overall I'm not wild about this one, because I'm not a big fruity fan. Yeah, I'm not liking this as it dries. #147: This is really nice, but I'm having an even harder time pinning it down than the other two. The frankincense is strong, and whatever else is in it is subtle. I'm really just getting frank, and whatever's underneath it is--nice, vaguely warm? Warm and dry and sweetish? But I have noooo clue what it is. It might be a super faint floral. Lilac? This is my favorite so far, even though it eludes me so! Yes, it's a powdery, light floral. I'm very fond of this. #130: CITRUS! Finally something that's easy to recognize. This is straight-up citrus and frank. Grapefruit, I'd say, and probably pink grapefruit, since white goes weird on my skin. The initial blast of grapefruit fades fast and goes to bubblegum on my skin. I don't think this is an actual bubblegum note, just the way grapefruit + frank works out. It's what my nose approximates it as. This one is fun! #113: My own bottle. And honestly, I can't identify a thing in it. It's the most bizarre thing. I don't really get any frank at all. It's a strange combination of sweet and medicinal, like a soft vanilla candy with an edge of herbal. Possibly a sharpish musk in the background. This blend is very light and strange. I like it quite a bit, actually, even though I seriously just can't describe it, and it's a close-to-the-skin blend, and it's very lacking in the frankincense department. It's sweet and creamy but then there's that hint of like, salve, some natural remedy going on. I could not tell you what any of these notes are.

I wanted so badly for this to be awesome, because I loooove coconut. Sadly, something in it goes plastic on me. I don't know which note is doing that, but it ruins what is otherwise a lovely cold-tropical blend. It just has a fake and strange smell, and I am so disappointed!

I love almond notes a ton, so I had high hopes for this, and it's delicious in the imp and on my skin for like, two minutes. Then it settles into this weird plastic/fake smell, sadly. I don't know what note is doing that, because the only other blend I've had that problem with is Tiki Princess, and I don't see anything they have in common. It may be coincidence. I can't tell what's going weird on me, but I think it's the peach. So sad!

The tester I have is labeled "Iron Phoenix v.1," but since that blend doesn't exist and the impression I'm getting is much more like these reviews than the reviews for Iron Phoenix v.2, I'm assuming this is what I have! On me this smells like chrome, sweet fruit (nectarine is probably right on the money), and rose. It's the rose note that doesn't work on me, the one from Two, Five, Seven, the sweet one--or else that's the nectarine making things too sweet. The floral may not even be rose; it might be the nectarine tricking my nose, since it's so overwhelming. But to my nose it does smell like the 2 5 7 note. Sniffing my hand where I swiped it, I don't like this at all. The weird thing, though, is that I keep getting whiffs of it as I type from a couple feet away, and I like it a lot from a distance. At a distance it's a much more subtle floral (and smells more like daffodil to me than rose, oddly). Up close on my hand it's strong strong fruit, the kind I can't wear, but from far away it's actually rather nice. All in all, I wouldn't want to wear it because then I'd be surrounded by it, and it's enough to make me feel sick, but if I were around someone else who had it on, I'd think they smelled awesome.

In the bottle and wet on my skin, this is cocoa, which struck fear into my heart because I hate the cocoa note. However, within seconds it morphs into a gorgeous dry fruity blend. The cocoa fades until it's no longer identifiable as "cocoa" and exists only to make the blend feel sandy and arid, in a really awesome way. On top of that is a beautiful coconut/fruit/floral/musk. I generally dislike fruit blends, but this one is the right combination of tropical and citrus without being too sweet (which is what usually kills me on fruity stuff). The fruit smell is very fresh and realistic, not at all cloying or fake. The reviewer who described it as eating fruit on a dry sandy beach was right on the money, with some sexiness thrown in there too. Amazing, and I'm so glad I managed to pick up plenty of this blend.

On me this starts out as a super generic "perfume" smell, something light and feminine and slightly chemical. I was thinking I disliked it, but then it settles down into something very nice; I'm getting mostly creamy vanilla and a light floral, not too much sandalwood, though that may be because I was just testing my Vanilla CT bottle which is pretty much this same blend with very heavy sandalwood. This seems very light in comparison! It's nice, and the throw is better than I expected for a blend this subtle and weak, but it's nothing I feel the desperate need for more of, thankfully. It's lovely but a bit generic still, even as it sinks into my skin and settles.

Starts off as pure lime sugar and fades really fast to musk, with a slight lime sweet tinge. It's a nice musk on me (I love musk), but it's also very faint, not really worth the price of admission.

The strangest thing is happening to me with this blend: I can't smell it, but I can taste it. I've got some on my wrist, and when I huff it, I get no scent at all, but I get a blast of scent/flavor in the back of my throat. No matter how hard I sniff, I can't catch any of this in my nose. This hasn't ever happened to me with a blend before, and it's really disconcerting. (I'm also testing other blends, so I know it's not just my nose being off today. This is the only one that's giving me this trouble.) The smell/taste I get from this in my throat is--shampoo. It smells like shampoo on me. I think that's the acai berry amping up, or possibly the huckleberry; it's some sweet berry shampoo smell/taste. Not unpleasant (I really love the smell of washed hair), but not something I want to wear, especially since I can't exactly smell it in the first place. It's also beginning to irritate my skin slightly, which . . . doesn't ever happen to me. I have no idea what note in this could be causing that, because every single note in this is one I love, except for the huckleberry, which I've never tried--and that probably answers that. Clearly this blend is just not meant for me in any way at all, which is sad, because it was the one I was looking forward to most in this set. It just goes to show you that the sure bets are never sure bets. ETA that I see that someone on page 1 mentioned a shampoo called Strawberry Rain. Yes. That is it exactly. I used that shampoo too, and that is why this tastes like shampoo to me, because it's that shampoo.

Oddly, what this blend reminds me of most is Metal Phoenix, even though they have no notes in common. It has that light, sweet, ozone-citrus feel to it, but it's less metallic and more soft and sugary. It does also remind me of Staged Moon Landing without the chalky sandalwood (which I didn't like about that blend; something in it went strange on me even though I love sandalwood). There's a definite verbena/lemonness to this blend, too. Soft sweet sugary floral marshmallow lemons. It's gorgeous, and I can't stop huffing it, but it's similar enough to other blends I own that I'm not sure I'll go for more. I can't decide if it's worth having a blend that's so similar to another fave of mine. Honestly, I think I like this one better, but it's also a lot fainter. Edited for bizarre typos, ahhh I need sleep.

After figuring out the conceit of this blend after asking some LJers about their impressions, I was expecting citronella/lemongrass, and that's what I get from it! I actually do not get heavy lavender; it may be that I'm amping everything else too much to pick up on it (I amp lemongrass a LOT). It's a very herbal citrusy sharp blend. It's the kind of blend that doesn't really smell like perfume, per se; I'm reminded very much of a lighter, prettier version of the all-natural organic insect repellent a friend of mine introduced me to one summer. In the bottle it's so unbearably strong that I was sure I'd hate it. On my skin it lightens up a lot into lemongrass and citronella, still astringent but much more like an actual perfume than a bug spray--though the bug spray feel of it is there. I'm surprised that I don't really dislike it. I think, though, that my fondness for it stems less from it smelling good to me and more from it being super evocative and nostalgic for me. It feels like hot summer nights around a bonfire or on a porch, drinking lemonade with friends. It made me sort of happy to wear, even though it's not exactly the most . . . "this smells good" kind of blend. In that way, it reminds me of Planting Moon (not in scent at all, but in the feel of "this is not my type of perfume oil but it smells so much like my childhood summers that I absolutely need an imp to hang on to"). Overall, it's a citronella/lemongrass blend with a strong herbal component which my untrained nose is poor at picking out, but I've seen reviewers on LJ consistently mention pennyroyal, lavender, and rose geranium, all of which are known as natural mosquito repellents. So that makes sense! As it dries it turns into more straight-up lemongrass. The big surprise of this blend was that it faded quickly on me. Considering how overwhelmingly strong it is in the bottle and how strong it starts off on the skin (and its resemblance to bug spray), I expected this to linger forever, but it's gone in an hour or two. I'd be curious to see how well it actually works at keeping the skeeters away.

Is this civet? I've never tried civet before; if that's what the strong musk in this is, I really like it. Someone upthread mentioned "masculine Snake Oil," and that's exactly what I get out of this too. My favorite blend is Asp Viper, and Satyr reminds me very much of that blend, only without vanilla and more musky, less foody. The first time I tested this blend, I couldn't keep my nose off my wrist; actually wearing it, it was just as nice, not at all overpowering (sometimes I'll like a blend in a skin test but then dislike actually being surrounded by it). Someone else mentioned it being "borderline too much," and I agree, but it happens to fall just on the side of not being too much, and it settles down some with wear too. It's a spicy blend I can actually wear; those are rare, as I tend to amp spices a whole lot. It reminds me of warm spicy baked goods and hot musk. Very sexual, not too masculine for a woman to wear (although it is a somewhat masculine blend, yes). Yet it's not "foody" to me at all; I guess the musk tempers that effect, which is good, because I am not a foody fan. This lasts very nicely on me, too. Decent throw and good longevity without ever being overpowering or in your face, as is fitting for a sexy musk blend. This is a keeper and possible bottle for sure.

Opening the bottle and sniffing it, my immediate reaction was . . . Starburst! It smells like Starburst candies. On my skin, it doesn't morph much, but it starts out with a slightly fake/candy fruit smell before it soon calms down into a much more realistic, rich fruit smell. It starts off Starburst and then turns into the actual fruit. I'm really bad at picking out specific fruit notes, sadly. There is some green note in the back that comes more to the forefront as the blend dries, something that tempers the extreme sweetness it starts off with. Someone mentioned an alcohol note, and I wouldn't have thought "booze" smelling this one, but now that I see it mentioned, I can detect it. There is something more adult and sharp that emerges from this blend after it's on for a while. I was worried my skin would eat it up, but it didn't, this actually has decent throw and longevity on me. In fact, it starts off strong enough to be slightly offputting until it settles. This is very nice (better than I thought it'd be after sniffing the bottle), but I'm not sure it's for me.

I can't believe I have never reviewed my favorite blend ever. Two notes first: I've only tried this aged (I have two and a half bottles which are all two years old, though I do have one brand new too), and I've never tried plain Snake Oil. One thing about this blend though is that I can tell immediately what Snake Oil smells like when I use it, because that's what it dries down into. Wet on my skin it's thick, rich almond with that spicy background which must be the SO. The almond fades eventually, after maybe an hour, and I'm left with the rest of the blend. Not having tried SO, it's hard to imagine the difference between them, but Asp Viper fades into a sweet spicy sexy almondy vanilla, very warm and comforting and inviting. I dislike foody blends and I amp spices a lot, but this works on me like gangbusters; it's soft enough and non-foody enough that my skin turns it into what spicy/foody blends probably smell like on people whose chemistry can handle them. That's why I love it so much, because it's so hard to find an exotic spice blend that I don't amp to Hell and back. People have said this is a softer SO, which scares me off of trying SO, because on me Asp Viper is plenty strong enough and it lasts forever. I can still smell it eight hours later, though it's mostly a spicy dark vanilla by then. It has great throw and staying power without being overwhelming. My perfect BPAL blend, because I can wear it in any season and mood and know I'm going to smell good all day.

I'd forgotten about the wine grape note, and when I opened the bottle to sniff this, I honestly wondered if I had the wrong blend in the bottle, because it smells exactly like fizzy lemony soda. Now that I look at the notes list again, I recognize it as the same champagne note from Champagne and Roses. I can smell the bubbly fizz even though this note is supposed to be just the fruit itself, not champagne. It's a note I like but tend to amp a lot (I couldn't wear C&R for that reason), so let's see what this is like on. On me, it's pure champagne for a minute, and then it starts to settle. The vanilla is the first note to peek through, so as this dries on my skin, it smells like vanilla champagne, which is odd and not at all what I expected but also not--bad? It's nice, just weird. I start to get a bit of coriander next, a note I'm fond of, so that's nice. There's just a hint of spice from the cumin as well. Still no resins, which is odd, but I can smell how this feels bright and golden, even though I don't get any specific note I'd call "gold." I'm waiting for the champagne to fade and the rest to come through a bit more, but it's not, not yet, and it's been on a while now. It's still vanilla champagne with a tiny bit of coriander and cumin. I love frankincense and myrrh and I'm sad to not get any out of this. What I get is nice, and it's possible it will eventually settle down some more, but I think I amp white wine/white grape too much to really get all the subtlety of this blend. I kind of can't make up my mind about it; it's one of those blends where it's nice but I'm not sure I want to smell like carbonation, and I get a lot of carbonation. This needs retesting before I decide, definitely. The vanilla and spice tempers it more than C&R was, but it's still similar.

I got this as a carded frimp from someone! (The card spells it Kaiden, but the imp itself has it right.) I get honey out of this, oddly. I am not sure if my nose is just interpreting another note as honey or what. I amp honey a lot, and this smells how most honey blends smell on me, with some rose, and a bit of fruit that I'm guessing is plum. It's really, really lovely. It does smell pretty typical of a lot of other BPAL stuff on me--the honey issue again, and if it's not honey, there's something else in this that my skin makes honey-ish--but it's also just very nice. I don't get amber (which I also amp), and the incense is just a slight smokiness. Overall it's a sweet rosy honey floral with a touch of plum smoke. I don't think I'll be picking up a bottle, but I will be using this imp! (As much as it pains me to have taken it off the cool card.)

So--the very first BPAL aquatic I tried was Visiting the Temple of Auspicious Fortune etc., which is temple incense, rain, and dust, iirc. The smell of that blend was so bad to me as to make me feel sick, both in the bottle and on my skin, and for months afterward I thought I hated aquatic blends. Eventually I figured out that I'm a big aquatics fan; it's only that specific aquatic which is just terrible on me, and I hadn't run into it in any blend since. This is that aquatic, though. Snowball Fracas is the same blend without the incense, at least on me. I get that same weird "rain" note along with the dirty dust note. I've come to find that dirt as a note is absolutely disgusting on me (this isn't limited to BPAL's dirt, either; Possets's Sex Juice almost made me actually sick), so it might be that that aspect of these blends is what's ruining the aquatic for me. But the rain note from Temple is definitely similar if not identical to the snow note of Fracas. They are both surprisingly true to life, but on me they come out chemical and sharp, and agh, no. I much prefer the aquatic notes of the saltwater/ocean blends to these.

Wet on my skin it's mint, which quickly dries to pure anise, and then after a few minutes settles down into absinthe and powdery/sugary violets. It reminds me quite a bit of L'Heure Verte only with violets instead of rose (I get no rose in this) and with a bit less anise. I didn't like it at all until the drydown, and now . . . it's nice, but it's a little too powdery and anise-y for me to wear, I think. I'm amping the anise more than I expected, and the violet is definitely there, but I prefer a fresh, cooler, less sugared violet like the one in Asphodel. I don't think this is a keeper, but it's not a bad blend, and I'd love to smell it on someone else.

. . . Tea! That was a surprise to me, because I amp honey, like a lot. It's very rare for a honey blend to not just turn into honey on me. But I can't even really smell honey in this one. It's tea, and this kick of wasabi spice, subtle but present. Hmm. I'm very undecided about this one. I don't dislike it--it's quite pleasant--but it's not really me. It's sharper and less sweet than I expected, not in a bad way, but in a way I probably wouldn't wear personally. But I do like that tea note. A surprisingly complicated blend for something so simple!

I didn't really expect or want to like Cake Smash, and initially I didn't. Wet on my skin it's pure Snake Oil. I guess to say I don't like that is misleading, because I love Snake Oil, but I have an awful lot of Asp Viper and I love Asp Viper and I don't need more Snake Oil, so this was swap material for the first few minutes. Then it dries and settles a bit, and now it's Snake Oil with cake and frosting. And . . . it's amazing, ahhh. The two aspects of this (I'm not getting the Dorian or Doc) balance each other perfectly so that it's not overwhelmingly cakey on me but also isn't all Snake Oil. It's the perfect blend of both, like cake and spice and vanilla and cream cheese. Wow. I didn't want to want a bottle of this, but oh, I do. If I can find one, it's definitely a bottle purchase, because it smells so delicious. Two notes which are normally overwhelming on me (but both of which I like) in perfect harmony. I am very glad that this isn't just Snake Oil on me like Womb Furie was, although that might change as it ages.

This is the '05 version, and it's nothing like what I expected. I avoided this blend for a long time (despite wanting to try it due to personal associations) because I was worried about the smoke and the booze notes, but this is nothing like that, perhaps because it's been aged so long. It's a warm, sweet, delicately cinnamon musk with a hint of night air. FANTASTIC. I get no booze or smoke at all, just delicious musk with some spice and the faintest hint of leaves and sugar. I have very bad skin chemistry for cinnamon, so when I find a cinnamony blend I can actually wear (and this is only the second I've found), I hang on to it. The cinnamon here is so sweet and faint but definitely a presence, just adding a touch of spice and complexity to the oil. The leafy autumn-ness is barely there but definitely noticeable and tempers the unexpected sweetness of the blend. This is a keeper for sure, and I might have to find more, as aged as possible, because the subtlety of it is part of the charm. Like some other blends, this actually gets stronger on me the longer it's on, which is odd but not a bad thing at all.

I managed to find a decant of this at a very fair price, so I grabbed it because I've been dying to try it, despite chocolate blends being very it or miss on me. Thankfully for my wallet, Candy Butcher is a miss, but it's not because of the chocolate. Wet on my skin I actually was enjoying it, but as it dries, it smooths into this . . . creamy cocoa-y scent. That doesn't sound bad, and I suspect to/on a lot of people it would be REALLY good, but on me I get this weird chapstick-esque note that makes me feel a little sick. It's like chocolate cream lip balm. This same thing happens to me with Bordello, but they don't have any notes in common that I see, so I'm not sure what the deal is; either way, I'm not liking it, sadly. (Or happily!) Like myoubi, though, I keep sniffing myself anyway, even though I'm not really registering it as "this smells good." I just keep huffing it, maybe trying to figure it out. So obviously it doesn't make me sick enough to be a scrubber. I can't imagine being surrounded by this blend, though, so either way I will never wear it, and I'll have to swap it off to someone who will love it.

Wet on my skin, it's Twizzlers. If there were such thing as a Twizzlers SN, this would be it. Surprisingly, I like it a lot. I'm usually not a fan of smelling like recognizable candy (BPAL's chocolate blends often smell like Tootsie Rolls on me, and while I don't dislike that, I feel really weird about it), but I would wear this, because it's a lovely candied cherry licorice. As it dries, there's the cinnamon. Cinnamon is a bad note on me in general, whether it's the "red hots" candy type or the cinnamon stick type. This is probably the best cinnamon I've tried, but the cherry all but vanishes, and . . . red hots! Another recognizable candy scent, but one which I'm not as fond of. And it's quite strong. I wish I could get that first minute of this blend back. That cherry was amazing, but it's all gone now. I have this issue with all spices, so it's no surprise. Onto the swap pile, I think. On a strange note, on part of my arm I have this accidentally layered with Glitter (I'm testing several at once to see what to keep). The cinnamon note with the white wine note is frankly fantastic. I'm going to have to see if a blend like that exists anywhere.