FathomBelow

I agree with previous reviewers - this smells florally (but not like lilies - at least, not like Imperious Tiger-Lily) and green wet, and dry a warm, sweet scent grows up behind the floral/greens, almost like vanilla. For someone who doesn't like lilies or too-green scents, Black Lily is one of the better ones. For me, it's nice to sniff once or twice, but not to smell all day while wearing it, so it'll probably be given away.

Dove's Heart smells exactly like Somnus on me, for some reason. Like mild, pretty lavender soap with a touch of sweeter florals behind it. The lavender definitely dominates though. A lot of scents seem to just turn into lavender on my skin, darn it.

On me, Baku smells like lavender and anise. Very strong and soothing for bedtime - more so than Somnus, IMO. Don't know about the voodoo properties, I've never really had a problem with nightmares (knock on wood!).

Aperotos Eros is one of the few BPAL I dislike. In the imp it's inoffensive enough, just rose and something like very thick jasmine. But on wet, it's rose and jasmine with a distinct mold note. As it dries, this mold note only gets stronger and I had to wash it off; there is something in this oil that I cannot stand! Definitely not for me.

In the bottle and wet, this is very strong patchouli with almost nothing else. Then dry, the patchouli mellows and reveals the other components, very well mixed, that reminds me of chocolate, flowers, and dust (pleasantly so) all at once. It stays like this pretty much until it fades. It is indeed very dry. I like this scent quite a bit, as I like patchouli now a good deal more than I did before I started BPAL, but it doesn't really fit me.

Thorns is so incredibly, unpleasantly overpowering in the imp that I couldn't bring myself to try it. Even if I love the drydown, I dislike the wet stage so much that I would never wear this anyway. Too bad, as I love the name. Off to my giveaway pile! ETA: I just reread the description and realized that the idea behind this scent is not pleasant, so it's not surprising that Thorns so unwearable. So it is accurate, but stomach-churning.

Free imp from the Lab - In the bottle, I got lavender, which I suppose is chromatically appropriate. Once this hit my skin it was pure mint from the eucalyptus. Strong, strong, mint. Like chewing gum but without the sweetness, sadly, as this could use some sweetness. On drydown, the mint mellows and something powdery comes out - maybe the flowers? - combined with a grassy note. The effect, is indeed, metallic. Interesting to catch a whiff of, but not pleasant to be inhaled with each breath. Overall opinion: This, too, will be passed on. At least now I know to stay away from mint/eucalyptus and metal!

A freebie from the lab - In the bottle: Nutty and not sweet at all, unusually. Wet on skin: Really strong, sharp, green ferns with a bit of something in the background that makes this smell like the soap in some fancy hotels. As it dries: The sharp ferns fade a little, thankfully, as too much green makes my stomach turn. The ferns are still too prominent for my taste, however. After it dries: The rose and lavender enter as background notes to the fern; both are very faint although the lavender is stronger than the rose (lavender does tend to amp on my skin). The rose, indeed, is so faint I might be imagining it. Final opinion: Eh, I don't get along with scents this sharp. The end stage is not intolerable as most scents this green are for me. I'd never wear it, so it's going to my giveaway pile.

Another free imp from the Lab! On me, the alcohol notes quickly dominate the sweet fruitiness that I presume must be from the apricot, but doesn't smell a whole lot like apricot to me. The alcohol doesn't smell like brandy either - more like vodka? Apricot vodka? This didn't really work out on me. I was hoping for a lot more apricot and a lot less booze. And anyway as I only like apricot, not love it, this is destined for my giveaway pile.

This was a free imp from the Lab. It started out as obscenely strong cherry cough syrup with a hideously thick sweetness behind it that might have been the chocolate. These two disappeared and gave way to the orange blossom after drydown, which, while tolerable, I'm not particularly fond of. All in all, this turned out pretty bad on my skin. But I'm glad I got to try it out, as now I know I can't stand perfumes with cherry in them!

This is one of my favorites of all the stuff I got at Sakura-Con!! In the bottle, Wensleydale smells like delicate flowers. Like what white flowers should smell like. Wet on my skin, it's pretty much the same. During dry down, the cotton note (which smells to me a bit like ozone) comes out just enough to smell but not strong enough to drown out the flowers. This smells like heavenly dryer sheets! After it dries, the cotton note fades away again and I am left with faint, sweet flowers. I love Wensleydale! I can see where the comparisons with Dirty are coming from, but Wensleydale is a milder, softer, sweeter version of Dirty without the unpleasant astringency Dirty has on my skin. This is a gentle, simple, innocent, baby-clean kind of scent that is a great daytime scent. Like Dirty, it also works for those who don't like to smell perfume-y, and it should be more popular than it is!

In the bottle: sweet, warm fruits. I'll admit I bought this just for the scent in the bottle, having never tried it on. Wet on skin: amber with light fruity overtones, more or less how I imagined it to be. Dry: Wow. This becomes much heavier and darker and has a definite incense feel to it, not what I was expecting at all. Overall: I love the beginning stage but I'm not sure how I like the incense at the end, like in Two Loves. It's tolerable and might even be nice to smell on someone else but I'm super sensitive about incense on myself, especially this kind. I think I'll see how it ages.

Although I've heard amazing things about Snake Oil and I love Womb Furie, I only just bought a bottle of Snake Oil at Sakura-Con and I'm so glad I did! In the bottle, Snake Oil smelled surprisingly woody. But that disappeared completely on my skin. Wet, it was a sharp, smoky sweetness. Once it dries, it mellows into vanilla-sweetness tempered by incense. The scent doesn't change much after that, simply fading away over time. Now that I've tried Snake Oil, I'm sure that the powdery sweetness that Womb Furie eventually becomes on me must be from the honey, because that never happens with pure Snake Oil. Overall, Snake Oil is a very compelling scent. Catching a whiff of it just makes me want to lean in and breathe some more. It is definitely an evening scent, not a daytime scent. I may have to wait until I reach a more worldly stage of my life to pull this off, but I can see what all the fuss is about!

On me this is caramel and burnt sugar - thankfully no burning car tires, though! It smells very foody and also a bit like the smell of a Yankee Candle Co. store that wafts over you as you pass it in the mall. There is absolutely no evidence of lilac musk, wood violet, lime rind, myrtle, or blackberry leaf - the scent I'm getting is either from the benzoin, the tonka, or both. I like this quite a lot and I'll keep the imp.

Even though there's a whole slew of ingredients in this one according to the description, I can only smell melon. It was sweet melon in the imp, nutty melon during dry down, and pure melon after that. I like it quite a bit and I think it'll make a nice spring/summer scent.

In the imp: The most accurate description I can think of is a mixture of mint and black pepper. Very airy. Wet on skin: Still mint and black pepper, but now with an unidentifiable sweetness in the background, maybe from the "translucent blooms" or davana (which I've never smelled before). Ether smells cold and astringent - perfect for white cloudy gases floating through laboratory tubes and vessels. Dry: The white resins...or something...dominates this scent, making it heavier and sharper but no less cold or airy. It's quite strong now, almost overbearing - my nose is tingling and there's a twinge in my stomach whenever I sniff it. And it's lost practically all its sweetness. It smells really familiar, and maybe due to whatever it's reminding me of, it has a bit of a sinister, looming feel to it. Final opinion: One of the most unusual, yet most appropriately named, perfumes from BPAL that I've tried so far, which maybe accounts for this very mixed review. It's completely unisex, but might suit the right kind of guy more than a girl. Something in me recoils when smelling Ether, but all the same I think I'd be intrigued by it used sparingly on someone else - in my mind it goes with a scientist or mechanic, logically enough. All in all, I don't think I'll wear it much, but I'll keep it around.

On my skin this is pear and melon, with about the right amount of sweetness. Titania smells a lot like that Pear Glace body lotion they used to sell at Victoria's Secret. It's almost like a candle scent, so would probably be good as a room scent. This is pleasant and quite conventional, a girl-next-door kind of scent.

In imp and wet on skin: nice, pure, dry rose, like in London. Drying: Still rose, but with a faint something light and green (but not sharp at all) behind it, from the white tea and carnation, that puts me in mind of The Dormouse. Dry: The light, green component turns spicy - to be specific, it turns to cinnamon. It's not the dusty-sweet powdered cinnamon you get in jars in spice racks, and not like cinnamon sticks; it's closer to very, very old and faded cinnamon-flavored chewing gum. Very odd. Over time the cinnamon gets stronger and blends into the rose until I can't tell where one stops and the other begins. It might be like Harlot, but I've never tried Harlot myself. I find the rose too light to stand up to the cinnamon/spices, but it's still a tolerably nice scent. Maiden is a variation on rose that I'm happy to have tried, but which I don't know if I'll wear that often.

This is very strong lavender on me. Pure lavender. Was my imp mislabeled, I wonder? Because this could be a twin of Somnus. Overall, this was a big disappointment. I don't have anything against lavender, but I was hoping for honeysuckle and jasmine. If this really is New Orleans, I guess the lavender could be from the "spice" in the description, dominating the scent.

In the imp and wet on skin: an odd, nutty-sweet scent. Definitely has more character than, say, Bathsheba, but I'm not sure how I feel about the nuttiness... When dry: Happily, the nuttiness goes away. This is a wonderful scent and I am loving it more and more. It's sweet, creamy, and warm, not sharp from the pepper like I was a bit afraid it would be. For those looking for a more specific description, this smells smells like the best girlie shampoo in the world, combined with a teeny bit of banana. But that doesn't do it justice. If this were a color, it would be a slightly dusty but still vibrant coral pink. I've been writing this review so far with my nose pressed right up to my wrist, but Hermia smells even better wafting around. It has an unusually strong throw, quite rare for me with BPAL scents. Wafting around, a delicious floral comes to the front, which I can only assume is honeysuckle. All in all, I cannot praise Hermia enough!! Out of the thirty-something GC BPAL scents I've tried so far, Hermia is one of the two scents that made it to my bottle list.

YES, my spring imps have arrived - a very sweet gift from my brother! In the bottle: Faint sweet, slightly candyish smell, with something airy. Maybe plum and carnation? Wet on skin: Almost all plum. The fruits from Black Phoenix tend to go a bit too sweet on me (e.g. High John the Conqueror), and this is no exception. As it dries: The plum mellows out and the candyish quality goes away. After it dries: My first whiff of this dry reminded me instinctively of Christmas wreaths and craft stores, but on subsequent, more intellectually analyzed sniffs this doesn’t smell anything like either Christmas wreaths or craft stores at all! But it does remind me of pine – maybe my nose is reading the airy sweetness as pine? Overall it’s slightly sweet but not too much, and not in a way that reminds me of plums, oddly enough – it’s not a fruity sweetness. It’s a dry, dusty sweetness (not in an unpleasant way, of course). I have no experience with Arabian musk but I guess it could be what is modifying the sweetness. Final opinion: I'm not blown away as I was hoping to be from reading the other reviews. But still, it’s a nice scent that I'm pleased with and I'll keep the imp.

This smells like chocolate. To be precise, those old scratch-and-sniff chocolate-scented stickers. It's nice for the memories it brings back, but otherwise, I'm not a big fan of chocolate in perfume. At least now I know what BPAL dirt/earth scents are supposed to smell like!

This was a generous freebie from the lab, thank you! Come to Me is extremely hard to describe. It's fresh and soft; it has a similar feel to Dirty, even though it technically smells quite different: sweeter and less sharp. I quite liked it, but my brother said it smells like our grandma's bathroom, i.e. like cleaning fluid, which it kind of does, until dry down, at least. After dry down, it took on that herbal/floral smell that all Voodoo scents seem to eventually morph into. Nice, but the "grandma's bathroom" comparison kind of ruined it for me.

In the bottle, this smelled exactly like Lights of Men's Lives, and that's pretty much how it smelled on my skin too, but fortunately less powdery. Since Lights of Men's Lives doesn't have honey in the description, I can only conclude that my nose is not sophisticated enough to differentiate between honey and beeswax. Bottom line: this was pure honey/beeswax, and the Snake Oil never made an appearance, although I must admit I've never smelled pure Snake Oil. Fortunately I quite like honey and beeswax and this certainly eliminates my need to buy a bottle of Lights of Men's Lives. Overall a lovely scent, and even if it's not the spectacular one I was hoping for, I will enjoy wearing it very much.

In imp: sweet unidentifiable scent. Wet on skin: Woody and dry, but again, sweet. Actually smells a lot like the cedarwood in Ochosi, with a light fruit layered on top. At this point the fruit smells more like jackfruit than pineapple to me. Dry on skin: The fruit and wood scent become much more cohesive. Right after dry down, this goes through a slightly sharp fruity stage and I can see here where the pineapple references are coming from. After a few minutes, though, it becomes a faint woody-sweet scent (but not like sandalwood at all, in case you're wondering). If you smeared a hunk of pineapple across a new cedar plank, left lying in very hot sun for a couple days, and sniffed it, this is what you'd smell. Overall impression: Considering this is a freebie, I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected. It's very pleasant but not fantastic; I think it would be better as a room scent than a perfume, especially come summer.