Invidiana

I got the pumpkin from first sniff (I'm a notorious pumpkinphile) and it only kept getting better after that. As this dries down, it warms up with a soft radiance all its own from the perfect balance of fruit, sugar and spice. I love how the red ginger adds a particularly exotic hint of spice to it. The sugarcane gives it a distinct sweetness from that "raw sugar" type note that has more depth than white sugar, and the amber grounds and deepens it, also adding to the golden feel. It's a summery twist on the pumpkin spice theme and if you love pumpkin as much as I do, this is one you definitely need!

I'm a huge fan of coconut, so naturally I LOVE this! It's mostly coconut and white sugar on me with just a tad of edge from the black pepper and angelica. I don't get anything herbal from the angelica as I feared, nothing at all come to think of it, juts a tad of spice from the pepper. The coconut is a bit boozy like I like it; reminds me a bit of old-school suntan oil (the smell of which I adore) and also one of my favorite evils, Malibu Coconut rum. It pretty much stays the same from wet stage to drydown, which is fine by me because once I smelled the sweet and slightly boozy coconut in the bottle I was hoping it would remain that way. It's coconut-dominant with a kick and very sexy.

Lavender and vanilla musk? I don't think so. I'm getting something that definitely comes out as what I'm believing to be opium, black musk, black amber and dark tropical florals (definitely a dark orchid in there, possibly the same note in the Black Orchid proto). I am also familiar with the myth of the Nightmarchers and this really is evocative of phantoms roaming the tropical darkness. It's powerful blend that commands your attention and does have something of a trancelike effect, namely from the opium. Wet it's primarily dominated by the heavier elements but as it dries down the tropical florals emerge and give it a sensual and mysterious quality, and I also detect something that hits me like a cool island breeze--a sinister one, if you will. The floral and resinous/musky components do battle for a while, but it finally settles down and balances itself out into the perfect proportion of exotic dark florals and trance-inducing opium incense. It's ominous and unsettling and yet irresistable. I love it.

Whatever cedar there may be in this behaves remarkably (and unusually) well on my normally cedar-amping skin. It actually reminds me a LOT of Aatos Polemeio, but spicier and a bit juicier, and like in Aatos, what I’m guessing is wild plum manages to tame the cedar. There is actually little morphing from wet stage to drydown; the plum stays at the forefront the entire time, with a woody, spicy and resinous background emerging gradually and warming it up. The clove in this thankfully doesn't amp to ridiculous heights like clove is prone to doing on my kin.The cedar and resins are not in harsh contrast to the plum but rather blend beautifully with it and intensify its sensuality. A very “reddish-purple” scent, for any fellow synaesthesiacs. This is already beautiful and is only going to get deeper and richer with age.

I wish I got the warm golden apples and honey out of this, the comforting baked apple feel referred to at the beginning of this thread. I love honey and usually amp it but something went seriously wrong here. All I get is apple peels and cheap powdery floral soap, not the comforting snuggly blanket type of powdery but the type that reminds me of my grandmother's Coty powder which made me gag. I desperately tried sucking in huge whiffs of it for any chance I might detect the slightest trace of honey, but nothing doing. If anything, the cheap floral soap background only kept amping with time. I hope it goes to someone whose chemistry turns it into the honeyed wonderfulness I was hoping for.

This is primarily jasmine on me more than anything else, and a blast of really intense jasmine with a sharp cat pee undertone, overcoming the gardenia and any other notes. I love white florals, including gardenia which usually turns out creamy on me, but I amp the jasmine in this one to the point of it benig a single-note jasmine. My skin doesn't really have much respect for BPAL jasmine so I'm not exactly the person to give an unbiased review of this one.

This is a very grassy green floral with that dreaded Cat Pee Jasmine of Doom that ruins everything for me. Sometimes I also amp grass for some strange reason, like in Strawberry Moon 09, and here it is agin. I don't get to enjoy any of the bright spring day it should evoke because of my damned chemistry. In short my skin basically turns this into grass clippings sprayed with cat pee. Lovely image, I know.

This is like New Orleans sans the cat pee jasmine which ruined that one for me. It's a thick, humid dark green aquatic that's very evocative of the eerie marshes and bayous veiled in fog, and of course anything that reminds me of Anne Rice's New Orleans vampires is always welcome. It isn't a sharp grass type of green; no grass clippings, just murky waters and sinsiter vines without actual bog stench, and the heady aroma of exotic blooms that emerges more and more as it dries down further. The evergreen and cypress thankfully behave in the backgruond and don't amp horribly on me, and the spanish moss further adds to the dark green feel with an earthy tinge. If you like Roux-Ga-Roux and New Orleans (taken that BPAL jasmine behaves on your skin unlike mine), this one is in the same vein.

Agreed that the lavender seems to be the one from TKO; to me this is actually like an evil version of TKO, and I'm loving it. I'm relieved there's no cat pee jasmine in this one, I don't really get any strong jasmine note, probably because this is jasmine tea rather than straight-up jasmine, but mostly the lavender and sweet amber with a hazy wreath of nicotiana and osmanthus. There is just a hint of leather in the background, but not an in-your-face leather like that in De Sade. There really is something poisonous about this scent which makes it beautifully sinister.

Wow. This is actually what I was hoping for Gilman House Hotel to smell like, but I find that when I'm hoping for one thing to smell a certain way, somewhere down the road another scent comes along that smells exactly like what I was imagining. This is very true to the ancient wood and stone and ominous incense it is meant to evoke. I really feel it is more of a dark smoky wood than a stone note, but that may just be the way the resins react with that note on my skin. The dark resins call to mind unknown ancient rituals that might have been performed in places like Stonehenge. It's a haunting and even terrifying scent that is somehow completely wearable. I absolutely love it.

Thankfully the woods in this one don't amp to ridiculous heights but are well tempered by the other ingredients. This is another deliciously sinsiter scent; I mostly get black wine and pomegrante with an eerie backdrop of charred woods, very thick and dark and ominous. The earth note doesn't scream dirt, which I'm really glad about, and the mimosa isn't very prominent because I am really amping the wine and pomegrnate. This is just juicy and evil, in a similar vein with scents like Snake Charmer and Mircalla. I am loving this series so far.

Love warm comforting fall scents, and this is no exception. It's not a foody one but still has a certain sweetness, probably from the fig leaf, balanced wtih the bitterness of the black tea and mystery of patchouli and finished off with one of my favorite things to smell in the air once autumn rolls around, bonfire smoke. I'm the type who will linger outside in the cold just to keep inhaling that trademark autumnal smoky smell, and the fact that I can have it inside now is going to be awesome once the cooler months come.

I expected this to be a faint green tea-dominated scent, but no, it really surprised me. It's sweet booze-soaked cherry blossoms, maybe with a hint of green tea in the background but definitely not as the dominant note. It's a surprisingly "juicy" and "red" scent to my nose.

Medicine Show *cough* *gag* is without a doubt the ultimate apothecary scent, but definitely not up my alley. I can't stand herbals.

This is not foody, but sweet enough from the molasses, and just so comforting...though BPAL cedar usually amps to eleven on me in perfume oils at least this bath oil gives me a chance to enjoy it as a supporting note. It makes me think of a dry autumnal landscape and sweet, spiced fall desserts, with that mysterious undercurrent of patchouli. The scent really lingers on my skin long after the bath, too.

I passed this up when it was available because I know the warm, comforting scent Samhain turns into on my skin is not the same as the dominant woods in the bottle, but finally caved to an LJ sale and it turned out it was a worthwhile investment. Even though fabric obviously won't amp the sweet stuff like my skin does, the spiced candy dust completely makes up for it, giving this the perfect blend of a dark, sinister October night and the lighthearted fun and mischief on Halloween. One of my favorite labels too.

This is like bathing in Meliai to me. It's a sheer but still sensual honey scent with floral nuances in the background. What I love about all BPTP bath oils though is the fact that even with my papery skin half the moisturizing battle is done when I step out of the bath and I don't have to slather on moisturizer as maniacally as I used to because my skin will suck it up in 2.5 seconds. My skin feels very soft and one application of moisturizer afterward is plenty enough.

The lather of this stuff is awesome. It really is the "sheer silken lather" described on the label, very creamy and moisturizing. Like the bath oil, it reminds me highly of Meliai; a soft, sensual honey scent with a whisper of florals.

To my nose this seems to be a combination of buttermints and something fruity underneath; sounds bizarre but it's actually pretty pleasant. I'm wondering whether it will ever be released in a full-size bottle, because I'd definitely get one.

This is very minty, cool and metallic, very much like spare change that has been sitting in someone's purse with peppermint gum. There is a slight tang of metal along with the ozone and aquatics. It actually eminds me a lot of the smell of my aunt's purse from when I was a kid. Not for me, but for anyone who's a fan of metallics it's definitely worth a shot.

I'd marry this stuff if I could. Seriously. I'm a huge insomniac, and IT HELPS ME SLEEP! It's the perfect balance of fluffy candy and fabric softener, and to my nose that is a very good thing. I've always been fond of fabric softener scents especially when I want to relax. It's so calming and uplifting at the same time, it gives me the feeling of soaring on a bright clear day under a soft blue sky, soaring into dreamland, buoyed on magical clouds of fresh sweetness. I know I sound like I'm babbling nonsense but I tend to be really anxious and stressed much of the time and have trouble unwinding, and both this and Sakura act as aromatherapy for me in the literal sense of the word. Never mind that two spritzes on my bed last for days. Now excuse me while I go hypnotize Puddin into making an endless supply....

I took a chance on this with the hopes that it would take the same lucky turn Lord Ruthven did and end up being all sweet, almost berry-ish blood accord and a hint of leather, grasses and woods in the background. My cedar-amping skin begged to differ. On me it dries down into almost all cedar, really sharp and masculine cedar, exactly like those cedar chips you use around the trees and bushes on your lawn. The leather is not a soft leather either; it's a dusty, dry, De Sade-style leather that, like De Sade, is just way too overtly masculine for me. The blood accord shows up for a short time during the drydown until it's swallowed almost entirely by the cedar (this is sadly the extent to which my skin amps the stuff) and it's not the berry-like stuff in Lord Ruthven but a real true-to-life tangy metallic blood scent that isn't sweet at all and again really falls more into the more masculine category. Everything else struggles to show up when this hits my skin, but the final drydown is trumped by the cedar. I wanted to love this so badly because of the vampire theme, but unfortunately this vampire really bit a chunk out of me. I just have to deal with the fact that I don't have much luck with BPAL's cedar, period.

This is a lovely soft, soothing fragrance that makes me feel as if I'm falling asleep in a sun-warmed grove of cherry trees in bloom. Now I'm a highly stressed person--I joke that I'm not only a sufferer but a carrier of stress--and it really helps me unwind, especially at bedtime. It seems so uncharacteristic of me, with my horde of dark and/or foody scents, that I'd fall for a floral like this, but it's just so comforting that I have. It's not a screeching floral at all either, more of a cuddly floral with berrylike hints from the cherry blossom. My mother can't stand it, but the room it lives in isn't hers after all.

First of all, many thanks to Lilith Lemourne for the generous sniffie of this. Unfortunately my skin had something different to say. I'm jumping into the barrel with Devilot on this one with the plasticky drydown; it smelled so deceptively promising in the vial, thick and rich and sweet and buttery, and managed to stay that way a few moments when wet. And then the horror began: plastic and burnt butter. Not burnt sugar like the crust of a creme brulee, just straight-up burnt butter microwaved in a plastic bowl. I kid you not, that is exactly what my chemistry turned this beautiful blend into, and it only kept veering more and more into that territory the further it dried down with any remaining sweetness fading more and more until it was nothing but plastic and burnt butter. It really threw me because I usually tend to do very well with the Lab's cream notes.

First the good news: this didn't hate me as much as Milk Moon 07. Now the bad news: it still hated me. It smelled promising in the bottle, sweet and creamy, but a few seconds on my sin and it started to take on that telltale Milk Moon 07 smell of rancid fruit and spoiled milk. It really confuses me because most of the Lab's milk and cream notes do very well on my skin, but something in both Milk Moons just doesn't work.