Savannah

In the bottle: Deep, dark, earthy, woodsy, a little bitter. Wet: For a minute it's just the same as it was in the bottle, and then: Drying: Still drying, nose glued to wrist: Oh, dude. Okay, wow. Let's see. My skin is doing its thing and amping the resins, so I'm getting a lot of the Tunisian black amber (which I love) and a good amount of myrrh and opoponax (which I LOVE). I'm also getting a beautiful patchouli note that doesn't itch my nose like almost every patchouli ever, with the exception of the patchouli in Luperci, so I'm thinking this is the same patchouli as in Luperci. Either that or something about the thick, deep sweetness of this (and Luperci) smooths out patchouli and makes it good for me. *long inhalation* I get dark spicy woods, which I guess are the terebinth and pimenta racemosa, though I've never smelled either. I love spicy wood scents. These are heavy and masculine, but that's just fine by me. I also get thick, dark musk, and very faintly above it all a high, clear, sharply fresh note-- the zdravetz? Dry: The amber amps to all tarnation on me, as usual, so I have the thick sweetness of that note dominating, with everything else slithering sinuously around and occasionally pushing to the fore before diving back into the pile of seething scent. (Snake imagery possibly inspired by the snake on the bottle label, but it's also just the impression I get. And I love snakes but never liked Snake Oil or Snake Charmer, so I'm thrilled to have a snaky scent that's working on me.) This is just blowing me away. I want to try it in a scent locket, too, to see what it's like dry without the amber ampage, but I'll wear this very happily. Ten out of ten.

Oh wow. This is quite lovely and complex. I was wondering how all those notes were going to smell together, but it seems like instead of all manifesting together, they all manifest in succession. First off I get the grapefruit, very citrussy sweet. Then it's joined by other fresh, sweet scents-- I think this is the white musk and aloe I'm getting here-- rounded out by something deeper; at this stage it reminds me a bit of what I hoped Berenice would be, without the yucky linen note. It's very freshly sweet, too; I bet the sugar cane is involved in this stage. A few hours later I'm getting what I eventually identified as a lovely round creamy vanilla, not at all cloying like many vanillas. It reminds me of the vanilla in Tombstone, sweet without being foody. I think I also detect some sandalwood here, and maybe some other woods or resins, but it's mostly just an enchanting vanilla. And I am not a vanilla girl. Hours later still (this one REALLY sticks around, a miracle on my scent-eating skin!) it smells much spicier and more resinous. I don't really pick out a ginger scent in particular; I'm guessing this is some of the mystery ingredients popping up (ho wood? seven herbs, woods and resins) with the vanilla, sandalwood and white musk swirling around in the background. There doesn't seem to be any grapefruit or any of the fresh tartness from the initial application left, which is par for the course for my skin chemistry-- anything remotely "fresh" or "green" gets burned off in the first five minutes, I'm amazed the grapefruit lasted as long as it did here-- but this is an absolutely delicious scent. I'm sniffing my wrists obsessively. I never really got any ginger from this, and I'm not sure I got anything I could identify as "rice wine", but this one was such a morpher, it's possible I just didn't happen to sniff my wrist while those were happening. This is an absolutely gorgeous blend, every bit as good as I hoped, and amazingly complex. I'm really glad I splurged and got two bottles.

At first I couldn't smell anything but iris. I don't like iris very much. It's sort of a nondescript cool powdery type thing on me. This was sharpened up a bit by the white musk, but not enough to make it interesting. Maybe half an hour later, the lemon and honeysuckle and another sweet floral that I'm guessing was the poppy suddenly emerged. I also get the vanilla-like note mentioned earlier, which does not work very well on me and makes my nose itch much as Antique Lace did. I never got any carnation, which disappointed me a lot since I love carnation. It was a pretty nice scent, but I wasn't bowled over.

I actually really like this one, which I didn't entirely expect. I was afraid of the lavender, verbena and almond, but it's just really pleasantly sweet and fresh and bright, with a touch of coolness from the mint, like a beautiful summer day with a touch of cool breeze. The bergamot is as bright and lovely as it was in Alice, and it blends with the verbena (which usually goes all furniture polish on me) and orange to sweeten and soften it till I just get something wonderfully fresh. I don't get any almond out of this, for which I am thankful.

This was always one of my "geez, I sure wish that hadn't been discontinued before I got into BPAL, it sounds perfect" scents, so I jumped at the chance for a resurrected bottle. I too get that weird barbecue/bacon type scent at first sniff out of the bottle, but I actually kind of like it, though it's not at all expected. Deeper inhalation gives me a deep, husky clove, beautifully blended with a warm (not hot) cinnamon. On, the predominant scent I get is still clove, which I adore (and associate with my time spent in Cambridge, when I was wearing cloves in my hair and ears as well as chewing them) but it's deliciously, flawlessly-- not sweetened, but sort of... comforted? by the cinnamon, which is such a homey, bakery type smell, though there's no hint of bakery sweetness about this blend-- and then on the other hand, given a wonderful kick by the white pepper. Perfection. I love it. More!

I feared this scent as well as desiring it (she said in Anne Rice tones) because the BPAL vanilla note too often goes to nasty playdough on my skin (Antique Lace and Snake Oil did NOT work), and honey in general is much too shrilly sweet for me to take. But I loved Pink Moon so much, and finally I just couldn't risk not getting it. And I'm so, so glad. This is marvelously, unapologetically sweet, and it works for me in every single stage. Sniffed out of the bottle: Strawberry schnapps! Sweet, sugared strawberry with an alcoholic tinge. Wet: Strawberry cotton candy. Unbelievably sugary. As it dries, I can smell the sweet pea and the pear come out. It's a very, very juicy scent, and that keeps it fresh while the floral and the pear note give it a lovely little bit of complexity-- I wouldn't say depth, as this is definitely a very silly and sweet scent. And I love it.

In imp: Chocolate. Chocolate with a little spice and a little bit of that lovely dried black tea smell. I fully expect the chocolate to fade once on; that's what happens to me with most chocolate scents, except Bliss, and I assume that's because it was nothing but chocolate. On: Ooh. Rush of spicy mandarin goodness. Very fresh and juicy and-- oh my, there's the red musk. Hello, red musk. There's this sort of swirl of scents at this point as the different notes come out-- I smell that fierce saffron note from Bastet, and ooh, here comes a nice tonka smoothing things out, and there's definitely a lovely tobacco note hovering about. Dry: The chocolate came back!! This is very exciting! I lost the tea, I believe, but I got the chocolate back. Wow, now this smells marvelously reminiscent of Green and Black's Mayan Gold chocolate-- rich, sweet, dark and citrusy. Much more sweet and comforting than I'd expected! I was expecting a kick-ass, take-names scent, but this is more of a "whee, screw you, I'm gorgeous and happy and I don't care what you think" scent. There's a definite juicy sweetness to it that I didn't expect. I LOVE it!

In the imp, this was pure maraschino cherry to my nose. It was so maraschino cherry that if it had been red instead of clear, I would have been convinced that the lovely person who sent me a free imp had actually, for her own mysterious reasons, sent me an imp of maraschino cherry juice. But I gamely put it on, as I will put on every BPAL blend that ever crosses my path, since I learned how they unfold. The sugarfruit rush faded as it dried and a new scent began to emerge-- a scent difficult to describe, yet oddly familiar. Still sweet. Incensey... spicy... rich... dark... musky... sexy... what was it I was smelling? Then I realized. I keep all my BPAL imps in a box. When I open the lid of the box, a scent wafts up from the box, that's like the wafty, sultry-sweet, delicious, melange-eriffic throw of all my different imps combined. This is that scent! I opened my imp box to check, and they're practically the same. How cool! Black Phoenix is the smell of... Black Phoenix! That's what I get from it, anyway. :-)

I knew from the reviews that I had to have this scent, and I finally got my hands on a sample. It's everything I'd hoped it would be. Bright and warm and strong without being blaring, hot or overpowering. I get bright but not too-sweet citrus, definite heliotrope, warm frankincense, delicious golden amber, and I think just possibly a touch of cinnamon. This smells just like Ra minus the green herbal note I disliked so much in Ra. It's PERFECT. I've already ordered my 10ml!

Xiuhtecuhtli = pure, sweet, soft white floral with a VERY gentle but pervasive and palpable orange sweetness to it, like orange sherbet. If citrus is strong Southern womanhood, and Moxie is Scarlett O'Hara, Xiuhtecuhtli is Melanie Wilkes. I get no incense, no smoke, no spice, and only the mildest, sweetest, smoothest possible resin. It's utterly different from what I expected, but oddly lovely. Possibly wonky menstrual hormones are screwing up my skin chemistry and blocking the incense notes; I'll try it again in a couple of weeks and see, but it's okay if it just stays like this. I shall dub it Sweetness & Light and wear it in according moods.

This was part of my very first BPAL order, and if I'd known then what I know now, I'd never have been brave enough to order a scent with this many notes-- and mostly unfamiliar ones, to boot. I just get overwhelmed and annoyed by that amount of complexity. I'm a simple gal. Sure enough, Kali didn't work for me. I got a sweet, honeyed, slightly spicy floral, with a faint trace of sweet wine and a couple of annoyingly elusive darker notes of tobacco and chocolate, which refused to stay around but also refused to go away permanently and let me evaluate the floral in peace. This blend is very sophisticated and complex, and a lot of the notes are really nice, but it just wouldn't settle down on me.

In the imp, I mostly smelled incense and cocoa, and was hoping for a less-bloody version of Centzon Totochtin. On my skin, it went freakystrong patchouli. The leather emerged in the background, and there was definite incense spice going on, but I pretty much lost the cocoa, so it smelled sort of like a leather jacket on which a dog had been sleeping in an apartment with incense burning nearby (patchouli always smells like dog to me). Not my thing-- too much patchouli.

Once again I am in awe that a perfume oil can capture an idea so perfectly. In the vial, this is chocolate, with something sweet and thick in the background. On me, the chocolate quickly fades to the background and a rich, alcoholic, sweet, and yes, bloody scent comes out. Whoa. That's sort of unnerving. This is the scent of human sacrifice-- the drugged chocolate taste lingering in the victim's mouth, her head heavy with its effects, surrounded by a blur of color and chanting, and then the scent of her own blood. I don't know if I could ever wear this, but I'm truly amazed by its artistry.

Add me to the "can't believe this smells so much like buttercups" faction. I smell jasmine and definite buttercup, with strong musk. This is heady-floral without being sweet. It captures the idea of Eos really well, in my opinion, but isn't something I want to smell like.

Oyyyyyyyy this is GOOD. The sweetness to it is the amber-- I don't know the difference between "black" amber and other kinds, but it smells to me just like the amber I love in Tarot: Strength. Perfectly sweet but not sharp, like living honey at the heart of a flower, only in Loviatar there's no flower. Instead there's myrrh, which is a deep, dark, slightly smoky resin scent, and it grounds the amber amazingly. And leather, which I never dreamed could smell this good. And... I guess musk? I've never been quite clear on what musk smells like. There's something in it that's pricking my nose, and I would have said it was the leather, but I think it's actually the musk. The leather's there, but it's not as strong as the musk. The leather's higher up in the scent, with more of an edge. The musk envelops the resins in this cloud of body, pure raw sex. It's sharp and troubling and complex, yet peaceful, narcotic, dark with comfort. A fetish in and of itself. Meow.