hazakaza

I tested this without having the notes in front of me. Wet and freshly applied, it smells like sandalwoody root beer, and after a few minutes, some dark muskiness comes out to play. Some of the notes are going the way that Snake Oil of this age tends to go on me, so I'm inclined to think it shares components with Snake oil. Still, can't shake the root beeriness. It's even got a bit of lightness in there--I don't want to say "bubbly" because it's not bubbly the way the champagne note is bubbly or even the way ozoney scents smell light and bubbly, but it's got some lightness, maybe florals or herbs, very gentle and nice. As it sits, the amber goes the deliciously powdery route that it tends to on me. Yum. It's got the same sort of sexy sensuality that Snake Oil does, but the powdery amber is also tempered with the flowers. Now that I'm looking at the notes, I'm surprised it lists dragon's blood resin--dragon's blood is a definite NO note for me, it goes sharp and gross. Maybe it has something to do with the age of the bottle, or maybe it's a batch variation, but I get 0 dragon's blood out of this. I'm also delighted that Felicity above me found root beer as well--I'm not crazy! As it dies down, the herby florals come to the front and put on a lovely show. It's possible that there's a hint of sweet and metallic dragon's blood way in the back on this blend, but I'm not concerned about it. This is a fabulous part of my collection. I won't have to cry so much when I run out of my old Snake Oil!

Coconut is hit and miss for me. For example, in Spooky, it goes powdery and gross and kind of sugary. In Ashlultum, its complex and rich and creamy. For me, this blend was complex and rich version of coconut. The only notes I can really distinguish from the blend are the ginger cream and the coconut. This blend starts off almost a bit too sweet, but everything is so beautifully in balance that it becomes gorgeous. The sandalwood is lovely base, but not too strong. Cinnamon, clove, and licorice also tend to amp on me, and in this blend they stay beautifully tame. This isn't really a spicy blend, actually--it's much more warm, golden, and sunny, with a faint sense of honey about it. Gorgeous. Definitely going for a bottle on this one. It's got medium throw and decent wearing time, and is gorgeously blended.

I have a 10mL of this, so it's been aged for quite a while. And yum! Violet and sandalwood. Great throw, no baby-powder amber, no sharp vetiver, no overly spicy or sickening sweet woods . . . just lightly sugared violet and warm, clean sandalwood. Gorgeous. So happy I got my hands on this!

As a newcomer to this scent, I must say I was astonished to smell caramel in the bottle but not actually get the death-caramel I know so well on my skin. It must be a different combination--probably brown sugar and honey?--that is producing the caramel note, because ANYTHING with caramel in it is death on me. That said, once it dries, I get a strong undercurrent of cleasing fir / pine. It's warm and foody with a cold green core. Very interesting. As it dries, the fir note gets stronger. As a lover of cake smash, I wonder if this could be reproduced by combining, in some proportions, Snake Oil, Dorian, and Doc Constantine?

On me, this was VERY reminiscent of Knave of Hearts. And unfortunately, it has the shrill sweet sugared almond note that goes screwy in Bite Me as well. It goes way, WAY too sweet. At the beginning it has a lovely cherry scent, freshened with apricot, and . . . BAM. Shrill almond. Sigh.

I've been looking for a light but rich floral scent for me. In the bottle: it's got a citrusy sharpness to its peachy fruit. Some florals are present, but not a ton. Wet: OOH. The florals blossom, and they're soaking in white peach grape juice! OM NOM NOM NOM. This is a big vase of gorgeous white and pink and orange flowers soaking in juice. It's very flowery and fruity but lacks the heady sweetness of Forbidden Fruit. Drying: Peach lingers and the flowers get smaller but are still very, very fragrant. Absolutely gorgeous. It's got a wonderful wood / leaf / amber backbone to it. It's very, very warm. Absolutely delightful. OH MY GOD. Why do I have to fall desperately in love with LE's? If you are coming here to post a review of how it goes gross on you, SELL ME YOUR BOTTLE. Seriously. PM me and sell it to be, because I want to wear this scent forever and I'm a die-hard slatherer, so I'll blow through this bottle faster than you can say "dang you smell good!"

Wow, THAT is what booze smells like in perfume form. Dang. I get a lot of juniper and tobacco. I don't get the sickly-sweetness that bay rum tends to go on me. This is ALL man. Yikes. No lime to speak of. It doesn't really change much, so there's not much to say. The booziness dries up and leaves bone-dry man-musk. I wish my boyfriend was at ALL willing to wear BPAL, because it would probably be DELICIOUS on him!

I've been testing scents without notes or fellow reviews to train my nose. In the imp, it doesn't give me much hope, it's got a nice creamy, warm note to it, but with green herby notes riding over it. Maybe ginger? It's got an underlying funkiness. Wet: Hope! Spicy, green, and fresh. Wonderful! Drying: Lemongrass? All I'm getting is lemongrass, or at least a grassy, herbal citrus—it's like a less caramelized Nanshee. At the end, it's low throw with white florals coming up behind, with some more ginger. Not particularly warlike, actually. I only put on a little dab but it' s pretty nice and strong as-is. I may need to get a full bottle of this; it depends on how much I reach for the imp. After looking at the notes, I'm surprised there's no ginger. Maybe I just got War and Great Sword Of mixed up in my head. It's very herbal up front once the rest dies down; I really do love the underlying notes, but they're a gentle base for the herbs and citrus.

I've been testing out new scents without the notes or fellow reviews to guide me, in an attempt to train my nose. The imp gives me hope! Mostly spice, but nice spice, cooking and baking spices, not insence or summoning spices (which turn to dust, literally, dust and must, on my skin) On: Buttery! Whoa. The goat with a thousand young smells buttery. There's some strong cinnamon in there, and other spices, but over all, very friendly spices. There are some herbs underneath as well; it's not totally food, more like the smell of someone who's been cooking all day. Very subtle, actually, under all that butter and cinnamon. Drying: The herbs are still present as the butter dies off and it turns very nice and spicy-herby without being so sinister-smelling as to put me off of it. (Scales of Deprivation should have been lovely on me, judging by the notes, but it smelled too CREEPY for me!) At the end of the day, cinnamon is front and center on me. Reading the notes, I guess the resins turned to butter on me? Very weird. I don't really consider cinnamon an aphrodisiac, but why not? Judging by the "evil gingersnaps," I'm glad the butter isn't just me exuding what I eat! Very nice. Not sure if I need a full bottle, but we'll see how much I reach for the imp.

I'm trying to train my nose, so I did this totally without the notes. Whoo! In the imp: has a funky note that makes me worry. But I test anyway! Starts off as kind of sour, overripe fruit, then dries up into a floral rich plum. Moonflower, lily? It's potent stuff, very sweet. Dries down to soft, warm florals. I feel like wearing too much of this would make me smell too traditionally perfumey. The sweetness dries up a lot. It's nice, but this imp is probably all I really need of the stuff. Weirdly, at the end, the citrus comes out to play! Typically citrus burns off quickly, but this just floats out at the end. Once I read the notes, I realized lotus is right there, front and center, and the amber probably was making it funky in the bottle and warming it up and keeping the flowers warm and not overwhelming. Nice, but not stunning--I don't see myself reaching for this imp.

In the imp: Junipery, tart. Very pleasant! More cranberry than pomegranate. Wet: Very tart. Yum. Drying: I'm not sure what "boozy" is supposed to smell like here, but I think I'm beginning to get it. It's there wet, but there's a whisper of it. It's a well blended martini! It also has a very tart note, and whisper of white floral, underneath--it threatens to go soapy, but stays clean and tart. Decent throw, too! I like this one, but I don't feel the need for more than just this imp.

In the imp: CLOVE. Wet: NO REALLY CLOVE. Drying: CLOVE CLOVE CLOVE. And some soapy undercurrents, turning a bit funky for a minute but rights itself on a sea of CLOVE. I feel like this one has a tiny bit of the aquatic note that goes funky on me; either that or sassafrass smells VERY different in this combination. Sadly, I get no butter, no bay, and no rum. If you like clove though . . . ! I just don't like how overwhelming it is here. Edit: I just realized what the spice blend reminds me of. It reminds me a bit of a ton of clove on top of the musty spice of Feeding the Dead, once the buttery cake dries up. Sadly, I had to sell that bottle and I think I'm going to get rid of this imp too. This spice blend just plain does NOT agree with me.

I tried this without the notes, so I'm kind of winging it here. In the imp--melon? Wet--still melon, some green notes creeping up the back. Drying--oh no, are those marine notes? WHY DO YOU ALWAYS TRICK ME, THINGS WITH MARINE NOTES. Thankfully, this doesn't do what most marine notes do (turn to awful metallic salt that gives me a horrible headache) and stays light. It does, however, turn very salty on me, which does not give me a headache, but isn't fun either. I'm surprised to see the bergamot in there, i didn't think that note would do well on me. But I do agree with others, this is kind of a synthetic perfumey air-freshener scent. Which is sad, because the melon is so lovely and gentle for the first minute or so.

I came by this secondhand, and it's really lovely. I didn't think I would be wild for it, but I really am! The only downside is that it disappears SO fast and requires SO much to be really fragrant. Wet, it's all cucumber and mint. It dries pretty much the same, with some sun-kissed grass coming out to counteract the really cool mintiness. Weirdly, I think this is a very wintery scent on me--the cool, dry mint and the wet, faint sweetness of the cucumber are really nice and wintery. I LOVE it now that the weather is getting really chilly. It simultaneously harmonizes with the cold weather and hearkens back to warm weather. Also, this scent is a little different in an alcohol-based solution in an atomizer. I put it into the atomizer and settled on 3 parts alcohol, 1 part scent--which is pretty strong, but I like it that way. I can spritz it all over my clothes and it hangs out a lot longer than straight oil on my skin. It also gets a little sweeter, grassier, and more green tea. I love green phoenix! Once this bottle runs out, I really hope I can find a GC like it.

Oh The Girl, you are so weird. In the bottle, The Girl doesn't smell like much. But on! It's . . . interesting. I get this dominating pine resin note. Most BPAL scents tend to go sweet on my skin (so foods love me) but this scent is bone-dry on me. There a faint herbal note in here for me as well. No flowers to speak of (jasmine in particular goes sickly sweet on me) and amber normally stays pleasantly sweet as well--but this is bone-dry amber. On me, this goes a lot like a chilly, sophisticated cologne. Normally I don't like masculine scents (bring on the sweet foodies!) but this one is a real winner on me. Bottle!

Bottle: Oh boy, I don't have high hopes for this one. Smells like old, old perfume that's gone off that I had as a kid. On, wet: Still old perfume that's gone off. I guess you could call this aquatic, but it goes very bitter and stale on me. Five minutes: Going a bit floral? Still very much dried flowers, maybe rose and gardenia. Dried, dusty flowers. Still has the astringency, though. Half hour: It feel cool on my test site (inner arm) and smells distinctly of men's cologne now. It doesn't seem to be losing any of that stale, dusty floral note, though. I think this is me learning that only really fresh, blooming, and green florals work on me, but when they work, man! They WORK. Hour: This is going to sound awful, but it's very good at cleaning my nose so I can distinguish the notes in foody scents that I'm testing. I wish I got any of the spice or rum. I'm going to let this decant settle down and test it again, but my skin went "grandma" with this scent and stuck there quite firmly, only moving from wet stale perfume to dry stale perfume to astringent stale perfume.

Cake Smash Bottle: OMG CREAM CHEESE ICING. I am so happy. Wet: Cream cheese and chocolate and spice. Yum. Fifteen minutes: Cream cheese, chocolate, and creamy spice. Maybe that's the dorian amber I'm getting, that creamy vanilla? Much more complex than just EAT YOUR ARM. Thirty minutes: Lots and lots of spice, could get soapy, but all is tempered by a creamy, sweet, musky amber-vanilla. A little bit of chocolate and a big fat melty base of butter. Decent throw, still! Not quite as foody as it is fresh, thank goodness. Fourty-five minutes: Is that the cream cheese coming back? Somewhere deep under the baked goodness, I think the butter is turning to cream cheese. Bits of butter / cream cheese sweetness keep wafting up to me. Cannot. Stop. Huffing. Arm. Hour: Still sweet creamy cream cheesey frosting goodness. I'm sure there's more serious perfume notes in there somewhere, but all I'm getting is the best birthday party ever with a decent throw. The amber / golden / white muskiness is definitely present at this point, but all the sugar is keeping it from being too dour. Now the question--2 bottles or 3?

in the bottle: butter, rum, spice. Wet, on my wrists: BUTTER. Wow. Buttery and wonderful. Clove, cinnamon, rum. YUM. 5 minutes: Still very buttery. A bit of the musty potpourri apple that soured on me in Creepy. The spice is bringing this out as well. Ohhh please don't go all potpourri on me? The throw is very low although I keep getting whiffs of butter, which make me want to bake. This may make me fat. 15 minutes: Oh no, soapy incense with a touch of potpourri apple. Ugh. At least the throw is low, so I don't really have to smell much of it. 30 minutes: There's some vanilla sneaking in here? Cinnamon and clove are both mustily present. Soap. Almost completely gone. I'm going to let this settle down, and if it changes up, I'll definitely edit with new notes, but at the moment it goes from delicious to gross VERY quickly and then disappears. Sigh. Maybe good for a room scent if I want to make everyone think I've been baking!

Creepy is really nice wet--apple & butterscotch. Pretty sweet. On, APPLE. WOW. GREEN AND RED APPLES. BAM. Unfortunately, after 15 minutes, it turns to cinnamon apple potpourri . . . a little musty, a lot of cinnamon, dry and kind of gross apple. As much as I love this scent in the bottle and wet, and as much as I wanted to love this scent . . . ugh. It just turns to musty potpourri on me. So sad!

I'm not normally one for roses, but BPAL has proved me very wrong in a number of scents I thought I would love / hate, so I swiped on a few stripes of this lovely pinkish oil from the frimp the Lab included in my very first order! First: ORANGE. Yum. I love the orange blossom. But there's some honey lurking in there--the same honey that made Hand of Glory totally unwearable for me. Ick. I hope I don't get the headache I got from that. After about five minutes, the orange blossom dissipates and a green, blooming rosebush comes out to play. The sandalwood is definitely in there, giving it a more sensual, deeper note, but the grassy rose scent is really very pleasant all on its own. Honey is way back behind the sandalwood, keeping it from being too dry. Sweet, but not overwhelming or nauseating. At fifteen minutes, the grassiness of the rose has died down into simple, blooming rose, mingling with equally-strong sandalwood. It smells like my favorite Indian grocery store back home--this is bringing up a lot of lovely memories. Where's my samosas when I need them? The honey is still lurking around back there but I don't think it's going to rear its ugly head--or, if it does rear its head, it probably won't do it in an ugly way. I keep thinking I smell a whiff of the honey sweetness, but when I go in to get closer to my wrist, it's all dry, perhaps even smoky rose incense and sandalwood fans. The smokiness just might be my scent memory talking instead of Jezebel herself, though. At a half hour, a sharper, greener, pointier rose is back! It seems to come and go, though--perhaps it's gotten into my sweater and I'm smelling the fresher oil that's seeped into there, because whenever I sniff my wrist itself it's all spicy sandalwood and dried rose--almost tea rose, I want to say? Verdict: The beginning is so lovely, but the lovely green-ness is nommed away by my skin, leaving super-dry sandalwood & dried roses. While I think I'll probably use this imp when the mood strikes me, I don't feel that the mood will strike me particularly often

One of my first purchases! Yay! In the bottle: Melon and mint. Yum! Freshly applied: melon, mint, and . . . soap? After 15 minutes: Ugh. All soap. Not even good soap, either. This smells like Dial on my skin, dial and like the back of Bath & Body Works, where all the smells get muddled and gross. I wish I was getting any of the lovely sugary scents everyone else seems to be getting! Off to the swaps, sadly. Edit: Almost a month later, I gave it another try . . . yep, still soap. Oh well.

I got this in my very first lab order (although it's not the first BPAL I've tried). Hurrah! In the bottle, it smells almost exclusively of bright, bitter grapefruit (very distinctly grapefruit, to my nose) with a faint whiff of floral running around at the end. Freshly applied to my arm, I still get a lot of grapefruit, but now it's opened up to include some softer florals and some deeper, sweet scents. Almost a little bit of vanilla in there? Not creamy vanilla, but clean, clear vanilla, maybe as part of the musk. Still just a touch bitter, but it's a really good bitter because it helps keep the florals in line. After about 15 minutes I've lost most of the grapefruit and I've got some gentle green grass and little flowers. The honeydew / fresh green honeysuckle / faint whiff of clean vanilla scent is definitely present; maybe it's even some strange shade of lavender / delphinium making some sweet magic with the dark musk? It's totally possible that my skin can take a dryer scent like this and turn it all sweet. I'm surprised that this has an okay throw on me; in my somewhat limited experience, citrus tends to disappear on me, and muskiness / spiciness hangs very close to my skin, but this application has a solid 5 inch throw. 30 minutes in, the grapefruit's sharp bitterness (and I think a touch of more grassy chamomile) is still hanging around and helping to keep the blooming floral / honeysuckle scent clean and crisp instead of cloying. The little flowers I had before had bloomed & gotten bigger--this must be the delphinium. I LOVE this stage. I always doubt florals and think "ugh, I'll smell like a grandma" but the bitterness slicing through it is really wonderful. Is that redcurrant I smell underneath? It really ties the bitterness of the grapefruit into the flowers in a lovely way, even if it's not the redcurrant. The citrusy part of the grapefruit is completely gone. 45 minutes in, my wrist (where I applied it) was resting on my computer, and my cat (who licks both myself, my boyfriend, our friends, and blankets / laundry with impunity, but typically not hard things like tables) has decided to lick exactly where my wrist was on the computer?! Obviously I stopped her, but wow. My cat loves the Cheshire Cat. She was licking my arm earlier but I kept her away from where I actually applied it. WEIRD. She has now settled down and is licking my Cheshire Cat fleece blanket. Oooookay kitty. An hour in, a lot of this has faded, but it's still pretty much in the realm of sweet yet green flowery scent tempered with bitterness. Yum. This is seriously a winner for me.

Oh my. This is the first BPAL scent I've had to put away for a week before I can even consider trying to wear it again. Bottle: Beeswax, sweetness, a little salt, a sharp, almost metallic note? Wet, on me: Roughly the same as in the bottle, slowly amping the beeswax Drying: HELLO I AM BEESWAX I AM SICKLY SWEET AND MAKE YOU NAUSEATED HURRAH. Had to scrub it off, I really couldn't stand it for more than 10 minutes, so maybe it turns lovely when it gets dry . . . I just don't know if I can handle GETTING there. I'm going to give it another try once it settles and once I think I can stomach another go at it. Edit: I had another go at it, and the honey just amps to infinity. It's sad, because this is a very interesting scent, tremendously evocative, but totally unwearable for me.