Viridian

This one is wonderfully balanced on me. I already knew I could wear violet, tea, lavender, and myrrh well. Musks can be nice or horrible, and I wasn't sure about leather but wanted to try something from the lab that had it in there, so this blend's notes called out to me immediately. At first there was something a little sharp and unpleasant to it, but ten minutes in and it faded to something soft and not overly sweet, but still a little floral and very soothing. I keep sniffing my wrist repeatedly and can't pick out one note. Occasionally I'll get a hint of the violet on its own, and a little of the musk, but on the whole I can't pinpoint any one note strongly at all.

SO glad I ordered this one!! The last 13 I tried was all chocolate-fruity on me, and I thought maybe I wouldn't order another until I saw the notes in this one. Chocolate and incense?? I am SO there. I love it a lot. It turns to a soft, sweet (but not TOO) incense-y cocoa with a drop of vanilla. It's SO good. At first I thought it was going to amp resins because it had a brief syrupy moment while wet, but it mellowed quickly into something really gorgeous and subtle.

This one is very sweet on me -- I amp amber to the high heavens, but it's not syrupy or overly powdery, which is good. It reminds me really strongly of Gap's White Amber, which is one of my winter comfort scents. In the bottle I get hints of the florals that I wish I could pick out once it's on the skin! I get a bit of ylang-ylang and not much else besides the amber. I might scent-locket this one if I want it a little less sweet.

Oh, I really want to like this one! Anything that says "Blue" in the name calls to me to wear it. Unfortunately, I'm just not sure... In the Bottle: It's blueberry Sprite. Fizzy and sweet, but not too. I don't get any sort of candy note or anything too cloying - just blueberries, something lemon-limey, and fizz. It smells light and refreshing! on skin, wet/early drydown: It stays pretty true to the bottle for about an hour, all fizzy and fruity, and I loved it. It wasn't too strong, but had a medium throw - I could smell it without putting my nose to my wrist, which isn't always the case with a lot of oil-based scents on me. I was starting to be pleasantly surprised by the wear time on this one, a few hours later, when... late drydown: ... it turns into dirt. Maybe that's the gin? I'm not really familiar with what gin smells like, but there's something sharp and musty at the same time, and while the scent remained sweet underneath it, the prevailing mustiness almost stung my nose. I wanted to scrub off that scent and leave the blueberry note behind. Unfortunately I can still smell it slightly the next morning, which doesn't bode well. I'm going to try it again, because every so often my skin will amp a weird note once and then never again, and I'm hoping maybe the scent will mellow out a bit if I let it sit for a few weeks. Still, I'm going to be awfully disappointed if I can't wear this one, because I love how it smells for the first few hours! ETA: I'm glad I kept this one -- I don't know if aging did it or my nose started accepting it better, but I don't get the dusty note to it at all now. For two summers in a row this has been a go-to fizzy scent.

Oh, my. I was terrified of how this sounded, because I was afraid it was going to be just too heavy on me. But I am a Scorpio, and a fairly typical one, at that, so I felt the need to try it, at least. It. is. gorgeous. Lab musks are often incredibly soft on me, nothing like the drugstore musk perfumes I used to wear in high school (Skin Musk, anyone?), which were just too... too. Still I tend to shy away from them in spite of having found that they soften beautifully when they hit my skin. Scorpio, on me, turns into, bizarrely, a slightly more intense version of Death on a Pale Horse. Where Death on a Pale Horse is pale and cool almost whisper-light, Scorpio is a touch warmer and more assertive, but there's something watery about it without screaming aquatic. I like it very, very much. As others mentioned, it's got a myrrh-y note to it, which surprised me, though as Darkness was my first and favorite scent, I was pleased to have it show up in Scorpio. This one is truly wonderful. I have to be careful with resins, but this one had me sniffing my wrist happily all day. A clear winner, for me. Edited review: at some point this started going very un-complex and almost powdery on me. I don't know what happened, but it makes me sad. It was so nice those first few times!

In the bottle: Very rosy floral. For a moment I was reminded of (this is weird!) Bilquis minus the almond and apple. It's the same sort of rose that comes out once the foody parts of Bilquis fade, for me. On: Gorgeous smoky rose. I don't know what's giving it that smoky note, but it's very nice. It's also turning quite light almost immediately, so I hope it doesn't wear off, but I've got allergies this week so I can't trust my nose to tell what's lasting. I showered it off after about two and a half hours, but in that time it hadn't faded beyond the initial drydown. It's stayed a nice rose. I think I expected it to be a little more complex and not so purely floral (though I'm not sure why, all the notes listed are floral) but I like it at least as well as I liked London, and I kept my imp of London for the longest time thinking I might order it eventually. Lady Luck Blues has the slightest bit more complexity without going overboard. For some reason, I wasn't expecting this one to be a rose scent, and now I hope it doesn't smell too similar to Rose Moon when that arrives, because my skin tends to simplify rose-dominant scents down to pure rose, and while that can be nice (see: London), I don't need two.

In bottle: Chocolate, with an undertone of... other stuff. But mostly chocolate. Cocoa more than milk chocolate - it's sweet, but a little darker than candy. On skin, wet: Just like a chocolate orange. Disclaimer: I don't like to eat chocolate oranges, but I do think they smell good. On skin, dry: Still chocolate orange, but some of the other scents are coming out. I smell a little bit of floral and a little bit of spice. As it fades a little the orange note lessens and I get more a sweet/fresh floral undertone beneath the chocolate. After a few hours the chocolate mellows out entirely and I just get a floralish scent with hints of chocolate. And before it fiinally fades away, I'm left with just a sweet and faintly candyish scent. This one, overall... If I didn't own the bottle I probably wouldn't buy it from just sniffing an imp. But it does smell good, and I kept sniffing my wrist all evening. I just expected 13 to smell a little more mysterious, more complex, somehow. However, I've got the beginnings of allergies and it's a bad time of the month for me to be testing out perfumes as everything's been smelling "off" this week, so I'll definitely hang onto it and give it another test before I make up my mind to trade it or not.

In bottle: strangeness. Bottled strangeness. I cannot tell you what it smells like, because my nose is overwhelmed by all the stuff in here, but that's typical of BPAL, really. It's almondy, but... ah, hell, I don't know. It just smells odd. On skin, wet: almonds. Bitter almonds, really, it's barely a sweet scent at all. And apples, and something a little sharp. Very strange. Not unpleasant, I don't think? But I'm not sure anything I'd wear as perfume. Still, BPAL has a habit of changing one's notions about perfume. We'll see. Dry, on skin: some of the flowers are starting to come through. That's the sharpness. Almost something medicinal. Whoa. The throw on this one is weird. I can smell the floral when my wrists are nowhere near my nose, but can only pick up the almonds now if I sniff my wrists. 15 minutes in it calms down into something wearable. I think maybe it just has to go through an early phase of all the notes fighting for dominance until it well and truly dries and blends with skin. Huh. I really don't know what to make of this one. It turns nice, more a floral with a nutty undertone than nuts with a floral undertone, on me. I don't know if that's because my skin likes florals or what. The almond is still strong, though, just not overpowering like it was. It's a strange scent. I do like how it turns out, though. Note: this one lasted all day on me. Literally all day. I put it on at noon, and it was still on my wrists when I fell asleep at like, 2 am.

Being rather new to BPAL, this one's my first Lunacy, and I'm very pleased. In bottle: strongly carnation, a sort of peppery floral with a touch of something sweet. On skin, wet: still really strongly carnation, but it starts to smell like... conversation hearts? That's what I'm reminded of, anyway. Maybe it's that sort of spicy note, because conversation hearts always smell almost minty, to me. On skin, dry: this smells really good after it dries. Florals and vanilla and still that tiny touch of something spicy. It reminds me of nothing so much as a sweeter version of Pink Pepper, by The Body Shop, though smelling them both individually they're really not that alike. Pink Moon is a lot sweeter, but they've both got that peppery note that I don't have much else to compare to. This one's definitely not too sugary: I couldn't wear something like, say, Pink Sugar, in traditional perfumes, but I can wear this easily. It seems like my first Lunacy blend was a winner!