Bagfish

This one suprised me as I'm not a fan of BPAL frankincense, it normally goes sour on me. So I was testing a load of oils all at once and suddenly I got a waft of something lovely, which was Gemini In the decant and on my skin at first, a very strong lavender, like in Somnus. So I dismissed it and got on with testing others, but about 20 minutes down the line this lovely sweet almost fruity intense scent appeared and I had to stop and take notice. Gemini is beautiful, swet and rich and heady. I am so suprised by this one as I really didn't think it would work, but it is beautifully fragrant on me and I am really enjoying wearing it. The orchid comes out, and I recognise a slight similarity to the vanilla orchid in Regan, maybe its the sweet vanillic benzoin mixing with the orchid scent. The frankincense tempers the sweetness and heightens the throw and fragrance without ever making a direct appearence. The lavender just :poof: disappears which is very odd. And this scent has two different smells, up close it is quite sharp and fruity, and further away, the benzoin definitely makes an appearence. Yep, this is a good'un and a keeper I think.

Shoggoth is a gorgeous shertbet-like, almost fizzy lemon/lemongrass scent when first applied. It is a refreshing citrus and is totally not something I would ever have tried except a friend gave me an imp that she didn't like. Her loss is definitely my gain As Shoggoth dries down it becomes more floral, there is almost a peony sort of side to the fragrance. It also becomes more rounded, probably the amber and coconut. The scent has a good throw and I can still smell it in my cleavage 15 hours after initial application. All in all it is a total suprise that I love this scent, as the notes are really not me on paper. It even garnered unasked for compliments from Mr Bagfish too, which is very unusual. I REALLY need a big bottle of this for the summer, it is totally gorgeous!

Very rosey indeed, but not so much like Rose Red as I had hoped for. The opium poppy and the jasmine make Rose Moon very heady and quite sharp and almost, but not quite, headache inducing. I'm really on the fence about Rose Moon. I will test again, but I have to say it is so heady with the additional florals that I'm not sure I will be able to deal with it.

A sniffie from Meg - many thanks! MB: Bloody Mary is incredibly strong and sweet and RED in the vial. Freshly applied to my skin, there is an instantaneous smell of maraschino cherries, but that disappears very quickly to be replaced by a sweet but sharp scent, like cough sweets. Unfortunately there is no creaminess to balance the sharpness of the scent, and it doesn't sit nicely on my skin as it is just TOO sweet/sharp and red.

In the vial Poisson is very springlike indeed I can smell the daffodils, and there is also a smell similar to the vase of hyacinths and tulips that is sitting on my table as I type. Like a spring garden or a bouquet of early spring flowers. On my skin Poisson is VERY strong to start with, but fades really quickly. After a couple of hours all that is left is a faint hint of daffodil.

Minotaur bears similarities to Saturn and Schwarzer Mond on my skin. It is a very brown scent, someone above called it "swarthy" and I think that is a great description. On wet, the scent is almost mouth-puckeringly dry, but the drydown gets better and better. I've been wearing it now for about five hours and it is now sweet and brown, resinous and lovely. I think this will work well on Mr Bagfish too! I only got a decant of this and I don't think I'll need more, but I will enjoy wearing Minotaur whilst I have it.

In the imp: slightly sour milk note and bright fruits. Wet: extremely milky with really strong fruity notes over the top. Very overpowering, and very similar to Eden (which I am assuming is the fig note) Dry after a number of hours: still very similar to Eden, but slightly nuttier, and the milk note is very milky. Verdict: not for me. I don't like milk so was very wary about trying this scent, and unfortunately, the smell of milk was really present, and the fruits couldn't hide it

Fourthing Dana O Shee and seconding Asp Viper which smells like delicious almond cake. I also get an almondy/marzipan feel from Chimera. I don't do well with most of the lab's almond blends though, a lot of them turn bitter and acrid, so the three above are my three BPAL almond favourites.

I don't do well with BPAL almond, however this is the exception. After a slightly bitter almond smell to start with, Asp Viper dries down to delicious sweet almond cake with Snake Oil slinking around in the background. Absolutely beautiful, warm, enveloping and like a big warm cakey hug.

Roses and frankincense in the imp. The roses are lovely on my skin until the frankincense hits them over the head and crushes them into the ground. @~#*% frankincense

I get the same initial "peanut-butterness" from the red musk in this that I got from Smut. The benzoin, spices and caramel fail to appear and the musky smell just gets stronger and stronger and more and more powdery as the day goes on. Off to swaps

Ostara is very sharp and green on initial application, and on my skin dries down to almost a pure daffodil/jonquil note. No sweet or cake notes. I was hoping for a springtime Litha, but unfortunately this doesn't work on my skin

In the imp, this was almost civit like, but on the skin it almost immediately becomes firey pepper and honeysuckle. It dries down to a really dry powdery scent, which is very likely to be the dragon's blood. This doesn't work on my skin unfortunately as I was looking forward to the honeysuckle, but it doesn't last.

Florence was a frimp from the lab (thanks labbies), and is something I would never have chosen for myself as I don't like iris or berries in other scents. So its a good thing that I was frimped this as it is a gorgeous scent and smells nothing like I expected the sum of the parts to smell like. The berries don't stand out, just give it a bright sweetness, the iris mellows the berries and the amber grounds it all with a dusty, mellow sweetness. The dry down is sweet, soft and subtle and lasts all day. I love this, it is a serious candidate for a bottle at some point, the my first Frimp-to-Bottle in two years of BPAL!

Oh wow, Pink Moon is gorgeous. I just got a decant as I never dreamt this would suit me so well. On first, Pink Moon is creamy but bitter, but within a few minutes carnations pops it's head up and says hello along with the sugar. This is a nose pressed-to-the-wrist scent, and as it develops it turns into creamy spicy carnation candy-floss sugared loveliness. I never thought that this would be a favourite as I'm not a big florals person, but this is a pink delight. Gutted not to have a bottle

A lovely fruity wet scent, Macu Piccu is very fresh and invigorating. I think people who like Mag Mell/Shanghai/Cheshie Cat will probably like this one as it has a similar feel to it, although the amber gives it a very pleasant grounding. Very nice

Lovely herbal lemon verbena and a bit of lavender in the vial and on my skin at first, but as usual frankincense comes out to play in its ususal bullying fashion and goes all acrid and bitter on my skin. I wish I could wear frankincense, but I have yet to find a BPAL with it in that works

51 starts out bright and gleaming and exciting in the imp and freshly applied. The freesia is very noticable at first, if only it stayed that way. Unfortunately 51 dries down in a musty/ozony/aquatic sort of way and sweetens up too much and just smells a bit fake on my skin which is a real shame as this was lovely in the imp. I'm glad I tried it though!

A brown earthy and mossy smell. It starts off very similar to Luperci but morphs down to a much "browner" scent, sort of musty and fusty and ancient, I'm thinking of old, slightly spooky woodlands where the loamy mulch is kicked up when you walk through them or even old tomes in an esoteric library of leatherbound books. This scent is very evocative, but isn't really how I want to smell!

This is a gorgeous spicy lavender cologne and I can REALLY smell the spicy carnation. I think this is the first fougere to have worked on my skin and I think it is the lovely carnation tempering the normally cool fougere with some spice and warmth. Oh yes, I think this is a winner!

A nocturnal bounty of fae dew-kissed petals and pale fruits: white grape, white peach, iced pear, musk rose, sweet pea, moonflower and snapdragon. Sweet and sickly and VERY strong. It smells like strawberry sweets/candy on me rather than pear, peach and grape and is giving me a headache and overpowering me I very rarely do well with fruity florals and this is no exception

Okay, so when did Mr Nancy become Curry Plant? I put some of this on this afternoon, walk into where my husband is sitting and he says "what now, curry perfume?" And its true, on me Mr Nancy is all cumin and curry plant all of the time, it is quite overpowering, I smell like garam masala being dry roasted Nice in food, but rather odd as a perfume.

Abso-bloody-lutely gorgeous. This is the stand out of the CD/Lupercalia decant set I just received, I was sniffing imps and got a few specks of this on my fingers from opening the imp, and *pow* this gorgeous sweet, heady herbal scent is wafting about me. There is something of the rounded honeyed-herbalness of Luperci to Vipralabda (although they don't smell similar, they have a similar form) that just amazes my nose and makes me go weak at the knees. I don't get the pissed off heroine about this at all, it is a lovely, herbally beautiful calming scent and is totally bottle-worthy.

Frumious Bandersnatch was very dryly spicy on me when first applied which really threw me. As it dries down, the hot dry scent mellows out as the plum appears. Unfortunately, the plum is more of the "home fragrance" or candle scent type rather than juicy real live plum otherwise I think this would have been a winner as Mums and Carnations play well together on my skin. May give this another go as I have been getting interesting wafts whilst wearing it, it just smells overly "candle" when huffed.

This starts off wet as very very sweet apricot, the fruit is very similar to the apricot in Grand Guignol. As the scent dries, it becomes less sweet and the spiciness of the cloves start to appear. There is a definite patisserie feel to March Hare and my mind keeps visualising one of those pastry tarts you get in France or Spain with the upturned backs of apricots glistening under a sugar glaze. When you bite into the tart it is not sickly sweet, but a balanced with flavours of unsugared pasty, spices and the ripeness of the fruit coming over the top. I can almost smell the scent of the type of cafe in France where you would eat one of these tarts - a slight coffee and smokiness. Now my imagination is playing tricks on me March Hare is a very interesting, evocative scent, I'm just not sure I will wear it very often.