Bagfish

On me, Black Pearl is a sweet bakery sort of scent. I get some coconut and an amber-ish sort of smell (even though amber is not listed). I can't smell the hazlenut, but the scent definitely dries down to an iris-powdery smell, but its still sweet enough to be pleasant. One odd thing is that where I got Black Pearl on my sleeve, it smells incredibly like Death Cap, and is very different to the smell on my wrist. Don't know what is causing this and I really don't know whether the two oils share any ingredients. Mr Bagfish excelled himself with this one and on sniffing said "it smells like a beach with coconut suntan lotion". I'm impressed!

This is hyper-figgy Eden without the coconut. Its loud and shouty with a massive throw. Its a sweet fruity almost sharp scent, with a bit of green too. I can appreciate the artistry of this oil, but don't appreciate the headache it caused This one is off to swaps.

Lemon amber musk with definite leather undertones peeking through. The leather becomes much more pronounced after 3 hours of wear. I like the lemon-amber-musk smell, but the leather is becoming too defined. This started well, but doesn't suit as well as I'd hoped on drydown, my skin obviously doesn't like leather as I often have this problem with leather blends. Ho hum, I think this will be going for swaps.

A verbena shout to start with and a drydown to a mellow verbena-amber accord. I can smell the ginger if I push my nose up close to my wrist and huff. It stays close to my skin, there's no wafting with Mag Mell. Very pretty, it reminds me slightly of Antonino from CD which I think is the sharpness of verbena tempered with smoother, creamier undertones. I like this a lot, certainly enough to keep the imp. It will be a good summer scent

2006 version To begin, a beautiful floral, touched with sweetness although I can't smell the chocolate note. As DDLM dries down, the floral still wafts above, it is a VERY distinctive floral which reminds me of a note from New West perfume that I used to wear. This must be the cereus/desert florals. Close up, upon huffing my wrist, the smoke and incense are really obvious. This is a winner for me, and I love the way the scent splits into wafty florals and close-up smoke. Definitely the best of the Halloweenies I've tried so far.

Wow, I am impressed, this seriously is the first lunacy to work on me, AND its a floral! On first application there is a very floral waft, and it really reminds me of grown-up expensive perfume from a department store, but it morphs and morphs down into a creamy, spicy beautiful smell. It definitely has a similarity in feel and tone (but not smell if that makes sense) to Mme Moriarty, it dries to a similar creamy, musky warmth. I don't smell any ginger, neither fresh nor dried nor crystallised. On me, 'Mum Moon is a beautifully smooth rounded creamy gorgeousness which wafts in an incredible way, more creamy from my wrists, more floral from my cleavage! Bravo Beth, this is genius!

Gutted, I so thought that this had me written all over it. Schwarzer Mond on me is lumpen and heavy patchouli, a darker version of Saturn. The Coke accord that people have mentioned is very much there on first slather, but then the oil just sits on my wrist doing nothing much for about 3 hours and then it disappears. This has happened twice. I gave SM a second chance two days later and still it just sits like a lump of resin on my arm, absoultely no throw, no amber, no musk, just heavy, heavy patchouli, frankincense and myrrh. *sniff* Bottle sold on already.....

On opening, the bottle wafts a scary Jack-like scent towards me Jack and I have history, and its not pretty. Trying PQ on, the intense butteryness fades to a sharper pumpkin smell, tempered with orange/mandarin fruityness. There is also a sort of apply smell, a bit like Harvest Moon '06. And this fruityness is what I get most of the time from PQ. The amber and cardamom is only smellable if I huff my wrist and then smush my nose up close. The rest of the time the smell is too sharp and fruity for me. This is such a shame, as underneath the amber/cardamom is beautiful, and a scent of this on its own without the pumpkin/fruits over the top would be amazing. Bottle traded already!

Very sharp, bright and ozoney on me. I was expecting amber to show through at some point and moderate the ozone, but House of Mirrors stayed clean, sharp, high and too "harsh chemical" for me to enjoy. I have yet to have any luck with ozone scents - they all give me headaches; I wore this for an hour before succumbing and washing it off - during this time the scent didn't morph much at all. Note to self - ozone just doesn't work on your skin

A frimp from GypsyRoseRed: thanks Dublin is so light on me, I can hardly smell it even with my nose pushed against my arm. It has a definite herbal green spring sort of smell with a little evergreen or yewberry smell to it, and the rose hovering in the background. I can certainly see why lots of people rave about it. It is really pretty but not in a girly way, but is also very sweet and quite inoffensive. Unfortunately it only last on me for about 20 minutes and just sort of sighs out of existance, and has no throw at all. I shall pass this on to someone who may be able to wear it better than me!

I approached Grog with some trepidation as I have had previous fallings out with Jack and Gluttony, and I knew that Grog had a similar feel to it. Wet and in the imp: very very intense caramel/toffee/butterscotch scent with a hint of alcohol in the background. This certainly doesn't smell like Bacardi! When first on the skin it is almost too much to take. It smells like a rum baba - a rum soaked sponge pudding, very sweet and cakey and alcoholic. The drydown is weird. When smelled really close up (like nose smooshed against skin distance), Grog is almost horrible, burnt and nasty, but smelled from a bit more of a distance the burnt smell doesn't appear at all. This has an amazingly long throw. I have been getting cakey wafts all afternoon which has been Grog on my arm. The alcohol tinge disappears within an hour or so. The extreme drydown on me is very similar to the drydown of Midway, which is a big bonus as I like smelling like vanilla ice-cream. I shall keep the imp, but I don't think its bottleworthy as I don't think I'll want to smell like a rum flavoured pudding very often.

I have to totally agree with eleventhousand here, The Candy Butcher is totally Snow White with chocolate. This is a bad thing for me as Snow White turned into a horrible sweet plastic smell. The Candy Butcher does start off with chocolate, but then quickly develops that same Snow White plastic smell. Stupid skin chemistry Bliss is still the only chocolate BPAL that really works on me...

Definitely Earl Grey - I think the citrus note in this must be the bergamot from the Earl Grey. This is the most tealike tea scent I have ever smelled, it really does smell like freshly brewed black tea. Unfortunately I prefer to drink my Earl Grey rather than wear it, and although it smells pleasant on me, it smells awful on Mr Bagfish, so this one is going into the swap pile.

Carnaval Diabolique starts off as a very zingy lemony scent on me, which is pleasant enough. It then morphs into plastic coconut awfulness in the same way that Perversion and Obatala did. Oh well, I'm glad I got a decant rather than a bottle as I thought I would really like this one.....

Sweet cherry candy, ripe red and black fruits. I get no cardamom or patchouli from this unfortunately. TPC reminds me somewhat of Kyoto, but without the anise - its got the same light cherry fragrance, but is a little more zingy, which is possibly the verbena showing itsself. The Phantom Calliope doesn't do much for me, I'm not generally a fruity scent lover, so I think this one is a swap pile definite.

Melisande wet was similar to the wet stage of both Khajuraho and The Perfumed Garden, lovely zingy sweet floral. It dries down to a mellow, musky vanilla-jasmine, which for a jasmine enemy such as myself is actually amazingly pleasant. No violets appear in the drydown of Melisande I don't think this is "me" but it is pretty and has surprised me with being a jasmine I don't hate! I wish this had been fantastic as I love the picture of Melisande most out of all the CD artwork, however I won't be getting a bottle and will probably pass on the imp.

Gennivre is strong, spicy tea. On first application it reminds me slightly of a tea that I drink that has chillis in, but dries down to be slightly more subtle than that. There is an element of Shanghai to this oil, but it is less sweet and simple and has more of a savoury herbal quality than Shanghai which is suprising given that it contains honey and orange blossom. I can't actually smell the mint or honey either. All in all, this sits rather oddly on my skin, and I think for a tea scent I will stick to Shanghai as Gennivre is too hard to wear.

Something about this mixture of pine and almonds turns my stomach and makes my throat catch. The almonds aren't almondy in a mazipan sense, they are sweet and milky, but the pine just doesn't go with almond. The sassafrass is desperately trying to push through, but just fails to make it, and there is no tobacco or patchouli to be smelled. Organ Grinder is a thin, sharp but milky scent on me. I have to say that having let it develop for a couple of hours, and not getting any improvement I will be going to wash it off now as it is awful on my skin.... I just can't wear the lab's almond scents and this seems to be no exception. Edited to add: I didn't get round to washing this one off, and at the extreme end of the drydown it turned into straight up coconut milk like that you get from a tin. Very odd and certainly not worth sitting through the scent's rather bizarre evolution on my skin

On wet, Antonino is shoutingly loud verbena-lemon zing. I do not like these brash first few minutes, but after 10 minutes or so the shouty-loudness of the verbena segues into mellow musky plum, grounded by the vetiver. It stops smelling like a super-sour lemon fizzy candy and starts smelling OMG deliciously semi-sweet and musky and mysterious. I can smell the fig and the coconut very faintly in the background, which may very well be what makes this scent so fantastic. Antonino delivers far more than he first promised and dries down to sweet musky gorgeousness! This is a total grower on my skin, and I reckon that this will be bottleworthy. Absolutely lovely, and totally unexpectedly good on me. This is a serious contender for second best CD after Mme Moriarty.

Leather and smoke are the overwhelming themes of Doc Constantine when I wear it. But the musk and amber does something to the leather that makes it far more wearable than most of the other leather BPALs I have tried. This scent conjures up the outdoors, walking in a coniferous forest on an early Autumn afternoon where the sun has warmed the trees until the resin starts to smell good. As you walk, you scuff up the fallen needles, waking a piney, woody, humic scent. There is a hint of smoke from burning brash in the air, and your SO is walking next to you wearing a battered old leather waistcoat. Have just swiped this on Mr Bagfish whilst he puts up some shelves, I'm hoping it smells even better on him than it does on me....

Midnight on the Midway dries down to a fuzzy vanilla floral on my wrist. It is a soft and gentle sugary sweet scent, with a hint of floral soap about it. Unfortunately I get none of the nag champa that other reviewers have written about which is a shame. I can definitely smell a similarity to the original Midway, but unfortunately for me, the night blooming flowers don't improve on the yummy vanilla. I'm still new to appreciating florals and although there doesn't appear to be any overt jasmine in this, for me, the florals detract from the pleasant vanilla scent. Not bottleworthy, but may keep the imp.

Pulcinella and Teresina is a bit of a "grower". The oil itself is dark and sticky in texture, after an hour my skin still feels tacky where I applied it. On wet, the labdanum shouts its bitter scent above everything else in the blend and I thought it wasn't for me, but this has dried down to a hot woody, almost church incense scent with a breath of rose hanging in the background. I like it, but its probably a bit too heavy for me to wear often. I will definitely keep the decant, but probably won't go for a bottle, although this may very well be one of those that I keep reaching for and end up getting a bottle. This reminds me quite a lot of Norma Kamali's "Incense" perfume

O.M.G Mme Moriarty is stunning. I have just received my CD decant set from GypsyRoseRed, and this was the first to be opened and slathered on. The scent is fantastic. I too think it is in the Snake Charmer/Oil school of scent with a little of Smut's musk which is a relief as Smut didn't work on me. But for me the most amazing thing about Mme Moriarty is the scent similarity on me to Hermes Hermenesscences Ambre Narguile which is one of my favourite non-BPAL scents (but is just too expensive to buy). MM is a slithery, sweet, spicy, wafty delight. I can pick out the Patchouli Leaf at close quarters, but if I don't have my arm to my nose, the whole lot melds into a sensual, sweet, pudding-y waft. I just want to BATHE in this, I am so in love with it. This will be my first lab two bottle order for definite. Now I just have to hurry through the rest of the CD decants to decide if any of them also deserve a bottle. *Dies of nosegasm*

Starts out as a spicy incense smell which is promising, but morphs into a berry fruit drink smell and the incense is lost unless I huff hard on my wrist. Its nice enough, but I don't want to smell like a wild berry fruit drink!

Wet, Harvest Moon '06 smells just like a freshly cut open red apple. As it dries down, the fresh apple smell morphs into an oil that is a dead-ringer for Samhain '05. Very odd, I wasn't expcting this, there is a sort of pine-y resinous spicy smell. After a couple of hours smelling like Samhain it goes from resinous and fruity to dry and dusty and slightly smoky. I imagine this is the chysanthumums coming out. I have never worn an oil that morphs this much, its almost confusing I'm not sure if I like this, but it deserves another try-out before being swapped.