Viridian

This is gorgeoussssss! It's almost powdery on me, but in a good way. There's almost a cotton-y note to it. It's soft and comforting with a hint of coolness. I don't really get vanilla at all; there's something reminiscent of Haunted in that it's the same kind of soft skin scent, so maybe amber in there somewhere? In any event it's totally bottle-worthy. I want to put it on every night before I sleep and every day that I'm having a remotely bad day. I just want to cuddle up to this scent like a blankie. Not sure I get "Black Opal" out of it at all in the sense of stone, but it's definitely soft and luminescent.

On me this is thick caramelized sugar, syrupy. On the drydown I get fresh out of the dryer laundry. Could be a nice comfort scent if I keep enjoying the amazingly sweet phase. The drydown could put me to sleep, it's so soft and fluffy. I picture myself wearing this a lot through the winter. Another unexpected favorite 'Weenie - these sugary food scents have only just started to work for me, but now when they do, they're amazing!

In the bottle this is the leafiness of October with something sweet overlaying it. Maybe a little caramel-apple? Wet, on skin: yep, caramel apple, with a little of that cold air feeling behind it. Dry, on skin: still that caramel apple scent without actually having any of apple's characteristic sharpness - it's a faintly green scent that the sugar is making me read as fruit, I think, and dry it's got a little more smoke. I'm not getting any musk at all early on, but the green notes are hanging around. I think of the two I'll keep this one rather than October, as I seem to amp those green leafy notes a lot and don't need two leaf-dominant scents.

In the bottle I get leaves and a hint of smoke, and something aquatic that I worry might turn unpleasant on me, because sometimes aquatics don't play nice on my skin. On skin it's leafy for a few seconds and then the aquatic takes over bigtime. It's very cool and fresh, not smoky or woody at all. I'm a little worried during this phase that it's going to go soapy or dryer-sheety, but that calms down quickly. I'm getting a few whiffs of something bitter that I'm not sure I like, but that settles down pretty quickly as well. My overall impression is of cool air with something a little bit green. It's kind of cologne-y at points. Not sure it's for me as a perfume, but it's very pleasant and evocative of cool autumn nights. I wish I got a little more of the smoke, because the smell of wood fires in cool air = autumn to me.

Finally got to test a lab fresh imp of this! Wet, on skin, it's something that I might've pegged as vetiver, though since no one else seems to mention that I bet it's patchouli. I can't really identify patchouli that well, except that sometimes it doesn't work and it's kind of dusty/leafy in a less sharp way than vetiver. Anyway, that's the first thing I pick out because I feel like it's going to be problematic on my skin in such quantity. As it settles I definitely get vanilla, and kind of a musky feel from it. I don't get "spicy" at all, just an earthy vanilla. I actually think I like it better than the blend I bought specifically for a sweeter Snake Oil - I think it was Womb Furie - because the latter goes extremely powdery on me and this is only trying to go kind of powdery. I think the spicy half doesn't play well with my skin or my nose - I can see how this would be gorgeous on another person but I'm not at all sure about it on me. I'm going to let it sit in my imp box for six months or so and see if it mellows into something I like better. EDIT: I let my imp age for a year, since everyone says Snake Oil is better once the spices mellow. While I agree that I like it a little better this way, it's still patchouli and musk and a little powdery. I don't think I'll ever love this one, but I kind of like how it smells in extremely small amounts.

Wet, this is all spices. Maybe some pumpkin - this is the first of the lab's pumpkins I've tried, since my skin chemistry changed and I can deal with sweet foody scents, so I don't really know if I'm smelling specifically pumpkin or just the spices and the general sweet feel of pumpkin pie. I definitely get the coffee note once it's had a moment or two to settle onto my skin, and as it wears it becomes a strong, sweet, almost maple-syrupy pumpkin with the spices mellowing a bit but still present. It's a really strong, solid scent on me that doesn't morph a whole lot. It's very comforting and yummy. It also makes me crave an actual pumpkin spice latte like whoa. I'm glad I tried this one, as it smelled exactly as I'd hoped and expected.

On me, this smells like my box of imps smells - it's familiarly bpal-esque. Must be the Dorian and Snake Oil giving me that sense, plus the different kinds of notes all blending together. It's not actually overwhelmingly foody on me at all. It starts off sweet fruity red wine with some vague sweet notes in the background. After an hour or so I get more cakeyness and some Snake Oil. I don't get booze at all from the wine, just grape. It's like I layered a bunch of fruity sweet things over Snake Oil. I can see how people get red velvet cake out of it, but it's defintely less cakey than, say, Sprinklecake. Not sure how much I love it, yet. Worth another wearing after it's had a while to settle, because I want less of the grape and more of the stuff underneath.

This is sooooo good. It's got a little bit of a fruity note to it in the bottle and wet on skin, and if I really sniff I can pick up on it a little once it dries, but mostly it's very, very cakey. Exactly what I wanted! Buttery vanilla cake with a little bit of a candy note. It gets more fruity after a few hours, almost strawberry or cherryish, but it's still reminiscent of cake. I never used to be a foodie-scent lover, btw, but the lab's foodies have won me over.

I received frimps of this in two separate orders right around the time I was having a lot of difficulty with the program I'm in. I'm a music student, and I've got a lot of frustrating issues that go along with that that I'm trying to push through, so I thought it was a good time to test it out. I've been doing so off and on for a few months now, and I've been trying to use it like a milder version of the TAL of the same name. I'm not a huge fan of the scent; it's cinnamony and mildly sweet. It's okay; I actually like to wear it to sleep and it's inoffensive when I need to wear it out. It's nothing I'd wear JUST for the scent, but I think it might layer nicely with some of the autumn scents. As far as efficacy goes - I think it does help my mindset in an aromatherapy sort of way. It makes me feel a little stronger when I run up against those frustrating points and calms me enough to see a way around.

I am absolutely picking up some of the Pickman scents in my second Weenie order. In my first one I went with only Pumpkin Latte + Halloween Vegas and Sprinklecake, because I was afraid the forum ones would go more quickly. I still want Boo, of the traditional Weenies, but the rest of mine may need to come from the Pickmans. Wiley Grasser sounds so interestingly odd!

I wear something that's going to make me feel like I own the world, especially if I know I'm going to be standing far from my auditioners - as in onstage - and not interacting closely enough for them to smell me. If it's a vocal audition I'm going to wear something comforting and grounding that is barely-there, because it needs to not interfere with my breathing, either. I've found most BPAL scents aren't really strong enough to be offensive if you use them in small enough amounts - they don't have the insane throw of alcohol-based perfumes, because they're an oil and by nature sit closer to the skin, so I tend to go with what makes me feel either super-confident or super-calm.

In the bottle it's a lovely soft floral. I can't pick out any notes, just a sense of sweet florals. The minute it hits my skin, the rose note dominates, and it's not until maybe an hour in that I can really pick out anything else. I amp the lab's rose like crazy, but I like rose, so I thought this one would be an easy winner. Instead I find I'm disappointed that the rose overpowers so strongly that I'm missing out on the rest of the notes. By the time I can smell anything else, the vanilla musk peeks out and makes it like a less candy-sweet Katrina Van Tassel. I may give it some time to settle, though I've never known rose to get LESS rose-y, maybe some of the other notes will deepen and ground it.

This is a beautiful, rich, spicy amber that would be amazing on someone else. It starts off really strong and perfumey on me, though. Wet, I get a lot of cinnamon from it, and the perfumey aspect is strongest. As it dries and sits, it gets sweeter and more of what I think of as a "golden" amber scent, but is still a stronger perfume smell than I like - maybe that's the musk note people are describing above? Or maybe it's just the kind of amber. There's something that I really like about it, but it feels like just too much scent on me - maybe I'll try it in winter if I don't swap my imp away by then. This one has a lot of throw when I wear it.

This is SO much nicer than the previous Berry Moon on me! I get a lot of the cherry, a syrupy cherry reminiscent of the cherry I like in Bloody Mary. Maybe that's strawberry, too, since Bloody Mary is supposed to be "red berries"? Whatever it is, it smells red to me, while the prior Berry Moon smelled of too much powdery musk. I do get a honeyed musk scent out of this at the very end of it, but it's nice. Exactly what I was hoping for out of this scent.

This was sharp and bitter on my skin. Apple can go unpleasantly sharp; I'm used to that - it needs something sweet to warm it up on me. I had hoped this would be hazelnutty with some apple, like Bilquis's almonds and apples, but instead I think I'm pulling the pomegranate note, which I'm starting to think doesn't work on me (SADNESS! I love pomegranates!) and the apple, and no nuts at all. Or maybe their dryness is contributing to how sharp this stays on me. Aging didn't tone it down any - I held onto my bottle a while to see if it would, but it hasn't. Still looking for the autumnal scent I can wear!

How have I never reviewed this? It's certainly in my top five. On me this is all syrupy cherry preserves/pie filling and powdered sugar, which is amazingly true powdered sugar and not the "sugar" note I usually think of when I see the word sugar in perfumes. It stays remarkably true from beginning to end, and lasts fairly long for a fruity scent. I get three or four hours out of it easily, though it becomes more sugary and less cherry near the end. I love this and wish I could find another fruity BPAL close to this, because I hoard mine and only wear it when nothing else will do. This is the scent that made me aware I could wear sweet scents.

I bought this purely because it's popular and I was worried when CD came down it might suddenly sell out as everyone rushed to buy it, and then I'd never try it. I was iffy about a lot of the notes - red musk is nothing special on me and can turn into a weird foody note, and I haven't found success with a pomegranate blend yet. But the reviews were so overwhelmingly positive! I had to give it a go. In the bottle, this smells complex and interesting; I get fruit and a little bit of a woodsy/leafy smell, and a soft vanilla musk. So far, so good. On my skin I get a lot of the wood/leaf note initially -- I guess that's the patchouli leaf -- and during that stage I'm not sure of it, but there's a lot of sweetness to offset it. During this stage I really can't tell if I like it, but want to smell more of the underlying fruits and vanilla that keep peeking out. There's something reminiscent of Snake Oil in here for a while. After about an hour the vanilla creeps out and I get wafts of the fruits every so often. The musk stays nicely soft and background, and doesn't ever go powdery or weirdly foody! Hooray! This ends up a very soft scent on me overall -- I put a lot of it on the last time I wore it, to better tell what I thought of it and to judge what I was smelling, and it was not an overpowering amount of throw at all. I'll be interested to see how this ages!

This summer I've liked: - Leanan Sidhe, Selkie, Blue Moon (either of the two newest batches) - florals with a hint of green wetness to them. - Boomslang, Mme Moriarty, Green Tree Viper - Snake-oil-types that seem like they ought to be overpowering in the heat, but are sometimes just right and surround me in a cloud of soft sweetness. Haunted falls into this category, too, because I tried it for the first time this summer and it turns into a yummy vanilla amber that lasts all day in the heat. - Blue Fire - for when I need to smell like a fizzy alcoholic drink. I almost got rid of this one last year but the dusty note I didn't like in it has faded, and the fruity fizziness has gotten stronger.

I've never tried original Snake Oil (blasphemy!), but I do have two of the Snake Pit blends and this year's Womb Furie to compare note-wise. I can definitely pick out the spiciness that I register as being the Snake Oil, but on me this doesn't smell much of honey until very late in the drydown. It goes through a powdery stage that I'm not sure about -- I'm in the camp that turns things powdery but doesn't mind, but my husband said it smelled just like baby powder on me. I've had it on for about three hours as of writing this and I can clearly smell the honey and pretty much only the honey, and I like it. I'm waffling a lot on whether or not I like it well enough to keep it, though. It's pretty and sweet and yummy, but there are Snake Oil blends I like better and honey blends I like better -- but they're not as simple, either, and some days I want simple honey and Snake Oil. I need to re-try O and see how that one was on me before I make a firm decision, I think.

Haunted is very simple and sweet on me - the lab's dark musk turns soft and can go a little powdery, and this does have a powdery stage that I don't love. But the drydown is sweet, sweet vanilla amber. I think this would be a lovely layering scent to anchor some of the ones that don't stick around/need some extra sweetness. It's not as complex as I generally like my scents, but I think it might be a nice bedtime scent even. It's so very soft. My imp is fairly old, so it may have softened over time. I don't get a huge amount of throw from this, but I get sweet ambery wafts of scent every now and then. I like this particular amber a lot! Sometimes amber is a death note because I amp it so much it's overwhelming, but this is a quiet skin scent on me. ETA: after four days of daily wear, I think it's safe to say this is bottle-worthy. I can see myself layering it under a lot, too.

Imp: sweet (but not too foody) vanilla, and a little smoky with something that reminds me of cigars, almost, but isn't tobacco. Must be the cedar or the sassafras? On skin: oh, there's the cedar! It's very very woody, almost sharply so. I can pick out an herbal sharpness, too. There's kind of a dry feel to the scent that makes me think it'd be nice on a man, but I don't think I like it on me. Dry: after a few minutes the sharpness calms down. It's still a little bit of a dusty scent, but now the vanilla is stronger and almost... flat/stale smelling rather than warm and complex. I think it's the cedar doing that, because dry dusty smells don't work that well on me and tend to mute down every other note in a blend under their dustiness. Every now and then I get a whiff of something minty. I can see this being nice on others, but something about it isn't quite right on me. ETA: on the final drydown this is exactly like Love's Philosophy on me, once the cedar is gone. If only it hadn't gone through that weird dusty stage!

I bought the 2011 version on a whim because the older ones were so loved, and I've been on a kick to try out some of the more popular scents. This is not remotely a blend I'd pick out on my own! In bottle: whoa. This is strong, sharp, almost medicinal. Spicy. Not entirely unpleasant, but seems like it might be a very masculine blend. On skin: still sharp and herbal. I can smell the musk and... is that myrrh? It is myrrh! I love myrrh! I see this has both myrrh and opoponax, like my beloved Darkness. Mmmmm. There's definitely a floral of some kind in here, and I think it's the myrrh, but I see from looking that it could also be the zdravetz, which is a geranium. As it dries down I'm getting a spicy musk with a hint of dark, dark floral. Not getting a lot of the patchouli or the amber, both of which can amp unpleasantly on me. I am getting a good bit of the musk, which could make or break this blend for me. There's something that reminds me of Scorpio 2007, which went to a very un-complex powdery musk on my skin. This is more what I expected Scorpio to be, honestly - it's very dark and complex. It's staying really spicy, and fairly consistent even 1.5 hours later. I get more of the musk out of it at the end, but it's not going powdery at all, yay! I like it better and better as it dries down, but it's so the opposite of what I usually go for. I think I might like it best on my husband, though I kind of think if you're someone who can wear, say, YSL Opium perfume or the original Dior Poison, you can wear this. It's definitely not the same kind of commercial OMG PERFUME assault on the senses as those two, but it's the same sort of dark dark DARK spicy scent.

I am stalking this thread for recs, because Darkness was my first BPAL love and myrrh turns into something delicious on my skin. Am now kicking myself for not ordering Priala and hoping I can find a bottle when I have money to spare again. Hopefully the CD scents won't be down too long. Am going to poke through my imps and see if I've got any unsniffed of the ones mentioned thus far.

In imp: sweet and fruity. I can't pick out a single fruit - it's many fruits, and seems complex despite being a fruit scent which usually end up smelling like single notes of whatever the dominant fruit is to my nose. On wrist: the fruit resolves into a very fresh apple scent with some sweetness and greenery underneath it to keep it from dominating. Apple is a problematic note on me: sometimes I love it (Bilquis!), other times I want to love it but it turns too sharp on me (Poisoned Apple ) This is sweet with the sugar cane and coconut, and has other fruits to take the edge off the sharpness. My nose is a little stuffy today so I'm not getting much of the chili pepper or, thankfully, banana, but this one was surprisingly good. Dry: I get a little of a dusty quality underneath the sweet - not dusty like dirt notes, but a sense of dryness under all that fruit. It's faint - must be the chili pepper peeking out. I'm definitely going to try this one again when I know I can smell properly, because it was a lot nicer than I expected and I want to know what the true throw/lasting power is. If it sticks around it could be nice! ETA: on second wearing I got a lot more banana (ew) and the apple went sharp. Ah well.

Darkness is the first thing that comes to mind when I think incensey floral. It's my favorite, a smoky dark floral.