Hanyaan

I was lucky enough to win a 5ml of this precious in the raffle, and I am BEYOND glad to have it. Oh my. In Bottle - Like others have mentioned, it's a kind of aquatic floral with citrus. Unlike others, though, i can't compare it to Blue Moon, which I've never sniffed. But this is yummy, make no mistake. Ooooh, is it yummy. Wet on skin - Rich sweet fruity citrusy floral goodness. I can't even describe it that well, but this is just gorgeous beyond belief. Drydown - Nose, meet the spot on my hand where I tested this. You're going to be staying there a LOOONG time, since I can't stop sniffing the Toxin goodness. The citrus and aquatic notes manage to turn into something both spicy and light. I didn't know that was possible, but it is. The florals are sweet but not cloying at all. Sweet spicy light goodness. It's like sniffing this color, except a bit greener. Sparkly and delicious. If/when this is released, I'm buying more like you wouldn't believe.

I always thought that honey was atrocious on me, after some bad experiences with Dana O'Shee and Sudha Segara which both smelled strongly of honey in the imp and turned to rancid horribleness on my skin. Apparently, it's the milk that does that, because O is the most glorious sweet honey-tastic vanilla YUM that I've ever tried. And man does it have staying power. I wore it a month ago when I wore my jacket with the cotton rib-knit high collar, and that jacket still smells like O's particular kind of intoxicating gloriousness. I want to drown in this one day, and it'd be the sexiest best-smelling death ever. It makes me want to eat myself because I'd hopefully taste as delicious as this smells. It makes me feel sexy and gorgeous, like some kind of goddess. I hope I never run out, and that my ordered bottle gets here before I manage to completely drain my imp.

Whitechapel is one of my absolute BPAL loves. Wet, it's sharply citrus. Couldn't be happier; I grew up around citrus constantly, and I adore the scent. It starts to get a dazzling edge as the citrus mellows out, and when it's fully dry, for almost the next ten hours I can smell that beautiful sparkling white musk. I love BPAL white musk, especially in Whitechapel. My skin normally eats perfume, BPAL included. Yet somehow Whitechapel sends tendrils of sparkling scent up to my nose for far longer than any scent I've ever tried in my life. It's lovely and has a slight edge to it. (It reminds me of one of my favorite character archetypes in fiction; the man or woman who's always a little too happy and a little too polite and has more tricks hidden up those sleeves than anybody else would ever guess.) It makes me feel special and vibrant and ready to take on the world with words alone. I could slather my entire body in this stuff. EDIT: I put Whitechapel on my wrists over 12 hours ago. I have taken two showers in the interim and it still is giving me sparkly citrus flowers and white musk. For comparison, I slather Oneiroi on every night in much greater quantities, and there's no trace of that scent left in the slightest even if I only slept for five hours. This stuff is amazing.

So many people seem to absolutely adore Jack that I was quite excited to get a frimp in my last order. And while there may be lots of Jack-loving people out there, I am equally assured I'll never be one of them. Something about the scent of actual raw pumpkin innards makes me extremely queasy; I've been known to throw up while hollowing out the jack o'lantern. Jack apparently replicates that scent perfectly. I admire the artistry, but I had to fight to get the imp closed before my pumpkin-induced nausea reached the vomiting level. Oh well. Now I know to stay far, far away from anything BPAL containing pumpkin.

I got this as a frimp a long time ago and for some reason never tested it, probably because it has patchouli. Imp - Sharp and sweet, with darker undertones. Wet - Creamy and bitter at once. Beautiful. Dry - For Christmas, my grandparents gave me some beautiful old Japanese silk brocade that my grandfather had brought back with him from serving in the Occupation forces. It'd been stored in a wooden chest for fifty years. I haven't yet made anything from it, but I keep burying my face in it because it has the wonderful old silk smell with a trace of smoke and wood and stuff. Put that in a perfume, and it's Tisiphone. Overall - Patchouli that works on me?! And not only that, but it smells like something whose scent I can't get enough of. I love this one. I might have to get a bottle.

Imp - ooooooooh, that smells good. I love all the notes in Hellcat, and they smell even better together!~ On skin, wet - Sweet and yummy. On skin, drying - AH! DEAR GOD IT BURNS!!!!!!!!!!!! Red welts where the imp wand went, that did't go away for about six hours. Hellcat is the first BPAL skin burning experience I've had. Guess it really does have a "wicked bite". I'm sad, though. Very sad. I loved the scent of this! Maybe I'll have to use it in a scent locket.

Wet, this is lavender and something herby and slightly sharp. Dry, I have no clue. I've never been awake long enough to know what it smells like dry. I tried all of the somnium blends at nighttime. This is the only one that constantly puts me to sleep easily, and not only that, but lets me wake up in the morning feeling refreshed. I'm on some medication I take at at bedtime that induces drowsiness (hence why I take it at night), but I always used to wake up feeling drugged and zombielike. Oneiroi gave me back a good night's sleep for the first time in almost five years. I have a 10ml of this, and the second it looks like I might run out in the next three months, I'm getting another. This might not be the best-smelling BPAL, but this is the one I would cry the most over if it were to be not available anymore.

As a lover of almost all things Arthurian, I just had to try Tintagel. And I'm very very glad I did. In the bottle, it smells like Christmas. There's sweet and spicy and a little bit of greenery. As it dries on me, the spices stay the most prominent, with the sweet wine note in the background. I really can't describe much of what I'm smelling other than that it smells incredible. It lasts for ages on me (a minor miracle), and is the most amazing scent I've yet tried for putting in my hair. A few streaks of this and I'm surrounded by yummy for at least a day. I ordered a 5ml, but I think I'm going to have to get a 10ml at the rate I'm going through it!

In the Bottle: I almost wept with joy at the scent of this. I knew from the notes I'd love it, but holy crap. This is amazing. I just spent three minutes sniffing the bottlecap. Wet: A bit of citrus, a bit of chocolate, a bit of spices. It's sweet and bitter and dusty and fresh all at once. Wow. Dry: I've never had a BPAL stay completely true to the bottle on me, but Great Sword of War does. The dry scent is, to my nose, exactly the wet scent just faded. Glorious indeed. Verdict: I want more of this. I need more of this. Thank the BPAL deities that this one is GC!

Preconceptions - I had been really wanting to try this considering my recent obsession with the manga series D.Gray-man (where akuma make a constant appearance). Needless to say I was quite happy to see a frimp of this in my latest order! In the imp: Something about this I do not like at all in the imp. I think that it's so close to the way real fresh orange blossoms but not. It's bitter but somewhat disconcerting. Wet: This is where I rejoice that my skin chemistry tends to absolutely suck out bitter notes. The resulting scent is far more sweet, dark raspberry and citrus. Drying: Ooh, I like this. It's like the olfactory equivalent of drinking an "italian soda" that's really just flavoring syrup with just enough water put in to keep it from being gag-tastic. Verdict: Definitely keeping this imp. I'll have to wear it a few times to make up my mind as to whether or not to get a bottle, but it's really nice and sweet.

Rose Red 05, in the bottle, is amazingly beautiful. It smells perfectly like its description and I fell in love with it. Alas, my skin chemistry and Rose Red do not like each other one bit. Five minutes on my skin and the result is not that beautiful rose scent from the bottle, but something overly intensely sweet and rather rancid that makes me sneeze, and smells worse from a distance than a direct sniff. Stupid chemistry.

Peacock Queen is a steaming spa bath covered in rose petals. It's laying on a chaise lougue on a warm spring day in the middle of a rose garden when every one of the bushes is at its most full bloom, and the wind blows wafts of scent all around you. It's the perfect velvety red rose that your date gives you before you head off to a fancy dress ball. It's elegant and haughty. It's drop-dead gorgeous and you'd better believe it knows it. This is in no means a subtle scent; it's a scent for a woman with confidence and power and the attitude of a queen. I love it.

A bombardment of edible carnival indulgences. Funnel cake, caramel apple, cotton candy, salt water taffy and sugar tart. In the bottle: Sweet, painfully so, so much that I can't pick out any notes. Like eating a packet of NutraSweet. Wet: There's the funnel cake, with a huge dose of caramel and a slight hint of salt. I want to eat my arm. Drying: It's doing something weird; not only is the oil drying, but so is the scent. Dry 20 min: Oh. My. Gods. I am in absolute love. Somehow it's developed that same dry musty scent that I can't get enough of from Miskatonic University, while still retaining that sweet cornucopia of yumminess. Why did I not order more than one bottle?! Then again, the decant I tried didn't do this; I may just have lucked out with this batch! Dry a few hours: Every time my nose comes within vincinity of my wrist, I think I smell something different but insanely delicious. Caramel, cake batter, something fruity...I smell like a diabetic nightmare, but considering how much of a sugar/candy fiend I am, this is a very good thing indeed. Verdict: Midway, how I love you! I'm kicking myself for only ordering a single bottle of this.

Does anybody know if there are any catalog scents at all similar to Miskatonic University?

I got an imp of this off LiveJournal, because I actually do like violets. I don't, however, particularly like smelling like essence of my great-grandmother. It's a bit freaky. She was a wonderful old lady who always smelled slightly like powder and violets and lots of soap, which is pretty much what I'm getting from Numb. I'm going to keep the imp for when I want to be reminded of her, but not something I'd ever wear normally.

Laudanum is amazing. I thought there was no way in heck that I could pull off one of the masculine blends, but apparently not; Laudanum has converted me to not needing to smell uber-feminine all the time. It smells nice (if a bit too much like men's cologne for my taste) in the bottle; I can definitely smell the sassafrass and the myrrh. Wet, there's a very strong rush of sassafrass; I smell like demented evil rootbeer. When it's dry, there's still the demented evil rootbeer, but it's yummy demented evil rootbeer, and more complex somehow. It smells like one of my favorite jackets would smell; like dark brown velvet, very Victorian, with a hint of something slightly dangerous. It even makes me feel fabulous. A definite keeper.

I very much wanted to like Marie. I love violets, love rose, love stories about the French Revolution. Thought this would be perfect, especially because it smelled so LOVELY in the imp. Alas, my skin chemistry and Marie do not get along at all. The violets amp up like nobody's business, and then it goes all strangely chemical on me. I couldn't stop sneezing after the drydown, either; something about the chemical violet smell really irritated my eyes and nose. What a shame.

In the imp: Roses, with a slight bite that may be the narcissus. Very crisp and proper. On me, wet: Slightly medicinal. Ew. But... On me, dry: The most expensive-smelling, extravagant, haughty rose I've ever smelled; sweet and bitter at once, and totally screaming "look at me!" Absolutely lovely. Verdict: I'm a rose addict, and this one really works on me. Plus it smells exactly like I imagined Howell Jenkins (my favorite character of all time) as smelling like, except it's on me and better. Big bottle time.

The scent of Irish coffee, dusty tomes and polished oakwood halls. I bought a bottle of this on eBay because I heard about BPAL too late to have ordered it. Oh wow, am I ever glad that I bought that bottle. While I can smell the coffee in the bottle, on me, it turns into rich chocolate and old books. I have no idea where the chocolate comes from, but I love it. (Incidentally, most of my friends have tried this, and none of them get chocolate; then again, we've also determined that my skin chemistry will turn anything to chocolate if possible.) Suffice to say that my idea of heaven would be full of chocolate and libraries, among other things, and that is what Miskatonic University smells like on me. It's my favorite BPAL scent so far.

A negatively charged scent. Ambergris, Spanish Moss, oakmoss and three electric mints. Cathode was my first freebie imp from the Lab, and I'm so glad I got a sample of this; I would never have tried it on my own. Wet and in the bottle, this has a strong and lovely mint smell, with a touch of earth. On me, it smells exactly like the old plantations along the Mississippi that I visited on vacation a year or so ago. Must be the Spanish Moss, although I can still smell the mint. I adore this scent, and it was also one of the first full-sized bottles I bought.

I got to try a friend's imp of Midnight the other day. It smells so nice on her and in the imp, but on me, it turned into straight, pure, Dove soap. Not the fragrance for me. ETA: I finally realized why I disliked the scent so much. Midnight wasn't quite as much the Dove soap (but that WAS there, everybody agreed on that), as it was that somehow, my skin chemistry plus Midnight made me smell like my great-grandmother's bathroom did before she died. Dove Soap and a hint of musty mildew. Too strong a sense memory, so much that I just wrote it off as Dove Soap initially.