girasol

A deceptively sweet scent; just like the Critters themselves, the perfume is fluffy, poofy, soft, snuggly, and googly! Five vanillas with Moroccan jasmine, white gardenia, and pink grapefruit. This is a soft and snuggly scent! The jasmine overpowers a little at first, but once the jasmine calms down it's a well-blended mishmash of soft sweetness, with the tang of the grapefruit giving it just a tiny zing and preventing it being too cloying. Love.

I do like this, but I think I will need to take more care to be sparing with it. It's very, very, tooth-achingly sweet. I put too much on and I smell a bit like a fifteen year old girl who likes her perfume so much she marinated herself in it. Fruit is definitely dominant, but the combination of orchid and sandalwood gives it a little something extra.

This might be my favourite of the black valentines, though it's a close call. A very fruity, feminine scent - it doesn't morph a lot on me, and has good staying power, which a lot of the lighter scents don't on my skin. I get mainly the floral and fruity notes, with the sweet pea out in front the whole time. I never really notice the cognac or honey popping out to say hi, but it could just be my skin chemistry.

This is mostly the frankincense on me (at least I think that's what it is that's coming through so strongly). Instead of smelling all warm and golden, on me it's actually kind of cool and herbal, and slightly... I want to say smoky, but that's not really it. Kind of like menthol, actually. It's pleasant and quite unique, but without the aid of the description I wouldn't have pegged it as a summery scent at all.

Imp: Sweetly floral and slightly fruity. Wet: Florals front and centre, spicy musk lurking in the background. Dry: The musk (which is a lovely rich spicy musk, mmm) is the stronger note now, but the florals and the fruitiness are blending very nicely with it. Verdict: Oh dear, I like it. I like it a lot. Another one for the will-buy-a-bottle-sometime list. It's such a long list.

A really nice scent, but gone so quickly My skin eats teh BPALs. Coconut out in front - as others have said, not suntan lotion coconut, but fresh coconut meat, gentle and rich. The iris floats around in the background as a soft floral note, and the white musk occasionally lends a vaguely soapy, fresh linen feel to the mix. The hazelnut is not obvious, but does give it a nice rich undertone. I have to say, I don't get anything menacing from this at all. It's a soft, dreamy tropical scent that makes me think of napping in a hammock on a warm-but-not-too-hot, perfect summer's day, with sweet scents drifting by on gentle warm breezes. I only wish it lasted longer!

To me this is mainly a delicious sugary musk. The rose is there, but while others have said it's an in-your-face true rose, I found exactly the opposite. For me it was kind of a tricksy rose, one moment barely detectable, at other times bursting out from behind the warm, musky spice with an exuberant "Fooled you! Here I am!" Sometimes this, sometimes that, but always very feminine. This is one of my new favourites.

Dirt notes seem to really amp on my skin, that's all I got for the first minute or two. But after that, it dried down into a nice cosy scent... it felt kinda like getting a cuddle from a cigar smoker in a tweed blazer. Comforting and vaguely spicy... unfortunately it didn't take long to disappear.

My experiences with the room sprays has been amazing so far - they smell exactly as they are described. This is definitely the case with Down the Rabbit Hole - it's all earth, squished flowers and dusty vegetation. It's not something I'd use every day, but it's very, very evocative.

In the bottle: LIME! Hi there, I'm lime! Nice to meet you! What, those other notes back there? Don't worry about them, they're nobody. I'm lime! Wet: As this hits my skin, the lime is still strong, but something else comes through (the tobacco possibly?) and turns this erky for a minute or two. But it's okay, because it's only a brief interlude. Dry: The lime is much softer but still gives a nice tang, the rum and tobacco are not singing out loud as individual notes but just being warm and cuddly in the background, and there's sugar cookie crumbs sprinkled over the lot. Blending very nicely. Verdict: Very happy with this scent - it's always nice to get a payoff like this when you order a bottle unsniffed. This is a softly sweet scent, but the warmth and richness of the tobacco and rum notes and the zestiness of the lime make it nicely complex.

In the imp: Strong maraschino cherries. A bit cough syrup-y Wet: Cherries still upfront but less medicinal, joined by sweet almond. Dry: The cherries have settled down and are just adding a gentle fruitiness. Sweet and creamy undertones. Verdict: This is a bit too much at first, but once it dries down it's a sweet, soft, pretty scent. This is a bottle possibility.

The awesomely awesome tartchef witched a partial bottle of this to me. I tried a light dab at the time and liked it, but I only just took the time to try it properly the other night. It is all kinds of wonderful! Possibly the sexiest BPAL blend I have yet tried, because it somehow manages to be both subtle and sexual at the same time. Sounds like an impossibility, right? But its like this scent whispers obscene suggestions to you under its breath, then when you turn to look at it and ask "Excuse me, what did you just say?", it just blinks all innocently at you and you assume you misheard. It smells like warm, naked skin.

A deep velvety Cabernet Sauvignon with hints of plum, black cherry, rose petals, coffee bean, and smoky oak. Barrel and bottle aged, with a smooth and spicy hit mid-palate. Hints of Dagon's tarry black incense and clotted blood complete this well-rounded, robust indulgence. Whoa booze! In the decant and freshly applied to skin, this is oaky red wine and whiskey. But not a freshly poured glass, oh no. More like when you've gone out the night before, drunk far too much on an empty stomach, retched your entrails up for a couple of hours before falling asleep on the bathroom floor, woken up feeling like hell with the sunlight streaming in and reflecting off the white tiles, your head pounding and sweating the several gallons of booze you misguidedly consumed the prior evening out of your pores. That's what it smells like - the festering aftermath of an evening of drunken debauchery. Once it settles down though, it's more woody and spicy, with just a touch of wine in the background. Like a cool timber-panelled old pub full of lovable drunks, with decades of spilled-booze-smell gently seeping out of the carpet. I really like this scent, it's definitely different and I think it will be a really nice warming, winter scent.

This is so light and lovely, without being overtly feminine. Just a wonderful, fresh/fruity springtime scent - refreshing and joyful. So glad I have a bottle on the way - now I just need to decide whether 1 bottle's enough or if I should throw in another order in the next couple of days...

This is a lovely, light, almost ethereal scent - it certainly conveys the idea of a tree spirit. It's very feminine, and although the notes are light, it actually seems to have quite good throw. It's all light florals in the bottle and wet, but dry I get some soft warm honey that stays close to the skin, and a lightly powdery character from the sandalwood. Very pretty.

Frimp! Thanks labbies! Jack is warm, spicy and delicious - a perfect scent for the colder months. Even my dog seemed to like it - she went nuts smelling my wrist when I first put it on, and normally the dogs aren't the slightest bit interested in my BPAL.

I actually bought an imp of Black Cat in my very first order, but I ended up swapping it out because it was kind of powdery and florally-blah and just didn't excite me. But somebody (can't remember who, shame on me) frimped me some recently, and I decided to wear it today because I was feeling a little down and figured some happy-making mojo would be no bad thing. Well, since then - someone told me I smell great, I got some really nice compliments on a work project I just completed, and a lovely BPALer left me some sweet feedback on my feedback page. The joy has been brought, y'all. The notes may not thrill me, but this stuff works!

In the bottle: Cake! Om nom nom freshly baked cake. It's similar to Cake Smash, but without the slightly sour tang of cream cheese. Wet: Still cakey, sweet and delicious and lavish. Dry: The cakeiness fades off a bit and it's more like just a feminine sweet vanilla perfume. It's lasting well, after 4 hours I'm still enveloped in a cloud of yum. Verdict: This scent is fun, very Alice. Glad I got a bottle unsniffed!

Jack and Chimera are good GC foodys if you're okay with sweet cinnamon spice. Also, Hermia might be worth a try - it's really a floral, but I find the way the notes combine make it smell almost cakey.

In the imp: Zesty citrus. Wet: The grapefruit is strong! A bit too strong while it's wet - and I'm also getting a harshness. I think maybe the combination of citrus notes and tea notes is responsible for this, because I found the same thing with Enbalming Fluid. Dry: This is now almost sugary, still with some tangy grapefruit. Verdict: It's nice enough, but I didn't like it as much as I thought I would.

In the imp: Gentle sweetness, the peach note is out in front. Wet: Peachy florals, with something almost creamy in the background. Dry: I'm finding it difficult to pick out notes now, but it's all floral. Verdict: It's pretty, but nothing about it stands out. The imp is enough.

In the imp: soft soapiness, and gently floral Wet: Soapy soapy soapy, sudsy fun Dry: Yep, still soapy. In a nice way. Verdict: I'm thinking it's the orchid and juniper that's giving Oberon this soapy freshness? This scent could be quite comforting I think. You know the feeling when you were a little kid and you'd get out of a bubble bath with suds still clinging to you, and your mum would dry you off and put you in a fresh pair of pajamas and tuck you into bed and read you a bedtime story, and you'd drop off to sleep with a smile on your face? This scent is that, bottled.

I love The Wind in the Willows, enough to buy a couple of bottles unsniffed. This is the one I was the most excited about, description sounded lovely, reviews were good. It arrived, and it smelled nice in the bottle too! Then it went on my skin. From then on, it was Toilet Duck Not kidding, it was nasty goddamn pine-fresh toilet cleaner. Nothing else. No dust, no orchards. So sad. So very, very sad.

I think maybe I amp BPAL's sugarcane note - I get a strong burnt-sugar smell from this, and I noticed the same thing with Kill-Devil. I found it difficult to pick out individual notes - I just got the dry sugary character with warm fruity undertones, and a slight whiff of caramel. I quite like this scent - it's an unusual jumble of fruity sweetness.

In the bottle: Milky, slightly floral sweetness. Wet on skin: The beeswax is really coming through, with the blackberries in the background. Dry: Milky and slightly musky - there's even something that smells slightly like a honey note. I also got some really nice light florals while it was drying. Verdict: This was my first BPAL lunacy oil, and I really like it. Definitely a keeper.