Torrilin

I smell like butterscotch candy.

I don't *like* smelling like butterscotch candy.

*sigh*

Kalli

I like Snake Oil and I don't.

First off, it goes down in history as the second vanilla ever that doesn't sit on my skin and sulk. It makes a lovely powdery soft skin scent with a hint of something more from the musks. It is reminiscent of Lush's Butterball scent, which is the other vanilla that doesn't sulk on me. And yes, there are multiple musks in this. I can pick out black musk, which my skin loves and a lighter, powdery musk reminiscent of Fae's musk. It's a bit more intense tho, so I don't think they're the same. No detectable red musk tho.

The down side is the patchouli. The patchouli in Snake Oil smells like stale sweat on me, just greener. Patchouli doesn't always do this on me but it does here. *sigh*

The scent is very well constructed, just my skin chemistry murders it.

Kalli

My imp smells nothing like what the other reviews describe.

I sniff the imp, and I get a sharp white floral, maybe narcissus? If I apply it, I end up with a piercing headache, and a powdery white and green floral scent. It reminds me strongly of lilies and narcissus. No spice. No tea. Just a headache, like I made the mistake of sniffing a White Linen tester.

I suspect I got a mislabelled imp, but I'm not willing to risk ordering it again. This stuff is vicious.

Kalli

"Here, sniff." I say.

The creature sniffs my elbow and makes a face, "Smells like Old Spice. You're not supposed to smell like my dad."

I don't get the Old Spice vibe, but it's definitely not wonderful on me. Vanilla does it's usual sit on the skin and sulk thing, and the spices are off in a corner having a party with the musk and not speaking to the vanilla. Not a good scene.

Kalli

This starts out as pure, screaming honey on me. It eventually calms down and settles into something like a slightly spicier version of Perlier Honey lotion on me. However, I really only like Perlier Honey lotion layered with Magie Noir so I don't feel like I fell into a vat of sugar. And well... this is just too much honey.

And if I put too much on, my skin itches. And forget about putting it on after a bath... burning itching that needs to be doused with lotion and leaves red marks is not good. I didn't think my skin was all that sensitive but apparently I was wrong.

Kalli

There's nothing in the general catalogue that will duplicate Ralph. There are scents with a musk and orris base, but they tend to not have the kinds of florals Ralph does (in fact, a rough search shows it's unlikely that a BPAL with musk and orris would have florals at all). Further, I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the GC wih a loquat note.

As far as style goes, it looks like Ralph is a fruity floral. This is a pretty common kind of scent in the GC. Fae, Katherina, Juliet and Agalaea would be some of the obvious scents to try, since they've all got a musk base note like Ralph.

Kalli

I wouldn't think you had developed a true allergy to a spice or some spices, since you aren't experiencing skin rashes or welts, but you didn't mention whether you'd tried these on your skin yet. But I do agreee with HonorAlexandria, I think all the oils you mentioned all have spices in them that may be the common element. I remember when I first tried Silk Road, I described it as "Snake Oil Lite." Bengal raises welts on me, and I don't react to much. And I do find Morocco and Scherazade spicy too. I think that the descriptions of all these either list specific spices or the general term "spices" too. (I have suspected cardamom as an itchy-maker for me - Alone, Bengal, Al-Shairain all make me bumpy and red.)

 

Do things that trigger headaches in you come and go, or do they tend to always cause headaches once you've smelled them? Do your common allergens trigger headaches too?

 

Sounds really frustrating - I'm sorry you are having these troubles!

What I've done is carefully spread the imps out to air. Doing that has let me narrow things down a lot. Scherezade is very very strong, and had scented the outside of each imp. Morocco had *also* scented the outsides of the guilty imps, but I couldn't tell under the cloud of Scherezade. It seems like Silk Road may have gotten the outsides of some imps as well. So sniffing from the imp was giving me a headache, but the scent in the vial wasn't necessarily a problem.

I've tested things on skin, and Silk Road is a powdery white floral that is *very* headachy. It smells nothing like the usual review descriptions. No spice, no tea, no eastern bazaar. Honestly, it reminds me of White Linen or some other deathly white floral. It's not the right season, but it strongly reminds me of iris blossom and narcissus. Can't check very well tho since they're not blooming. There's also a green tone to the base, but I can't pin down what note is causing that.

Morocco has a sharp, painful headachy note over a soft vanilla scent. It smells like a less mellowed version of the Morocco I sniffed at Black Broom, so the headache is saddening but not the end of the world. I should probably do a comparison sniff of Morocco and Black Rose, because a good simple explanation is they've got a similar musk note. The musk in Black Rose is known bad.

Bengal is a dose issue. It's very easy for me to overapply and feel choked by the scent and a bit headachy. I've had the same problem with other scents, so I don't think I'm actually reacting to Bengal, just feeling overwhelmed by it and getting stressy as a result.

Scherezade is the same kind of problem, only moreso. The stuff is wonderful on skin... if I have an open air space with a strong breeze. The sillage is enough to fill the apartment if I apply a single carefully scraped imp wand dot to my skin. No headaches now that the vial is decontaminated, but the scent is just too overwhelming to actually wear.

Snake Oil is fine now that it's decontaminated. No headaches.

As far as the headaches go, there's the "allergy" kind, where I get stabbing pain from sniffing something and it happens every time. Generally that kind of headache gets worse the more I try to wear something, and happens whether it's on my skin, someone else's skin, from a live plant etc. The known bad list is made up of things that cause headaches, so neroli/orange blossom, night blooming jasmine, iris, narcissus/jonquil/daffodil, hyacinth, most lilies (calla lily and day lily seem to be safe, all others I've smelled are known bad), lilac, lily-of-the-valley/muguet, and freesia. I've got a list of other suspected problems, but I haven't been able to confirm them. I do get headaches (along with a massively bad runny nose) from dust mites and mold, but most people don't put those in perfumes .

Stress headaches (from dehydration or emotional stress) will have a different character to the pain, and don't happen from scent usually. If I get a stress headache when I first wear a scent, I may blame the perfume, but on repeated wearings the headache won't come back.

No hives, no choking feeling in my throat, no skin rashes, and no throbbing pulsing headaches like you'd get from a vasoconstrictor. So the problem scents aren't going to kill me, but I sure wish I had an idea of what's causing the problem.

Kalli

Well... I've found another winner. The creature loves Incantation, in a nuzzling nibbling grab me and... yeah. *That* kind of way.

I guess vetiver really does it for him

Kalli

Indian cuisine uses curry leaves, galangal, fresh tumeric, star anise, pepper, chiles peppers, long pepper, cumin, and a host of other spices. You're probably not going to find a BPAL that smells like a curry restaurant, but Loup Garou, Magus and Tzadikim Nistarim have galangal. Dracul has cumin. Most of the other spices involved aren't used in BPAL scents. One of the Orishas has chile pepper, but I can't remember which one, and chiles differ so much in how they smell once you get past the heat that it might not be the right scent.

I agree a curry scent would be lovely .

Kalli

Creature's response: "Did you put on perfume? I like it, but I'm not sure it's you. And it's trying to choke me."

This rather sums up my opinion as well. I applied a tiny dot to my ankles, and the cloud of scent overwhelmed both of us. The opening is a rich, fruity scent, like biting into a wine grape and sliding the skin off so you can enjoy the richly flavored area just under the skin. It then blends into a spicy scent with just enough bitterness to be interesting. The spice heavy stage lasts for hours, and eventually mellows so the throw is no longer overpowering.

Kalli

There are a fair number of honey scents, and that should give a beeswax impression if the honey isn't "loud" on you. Bengal is one. Hellcat, Dana O Shee, Sudha Segera and there's a bunch of others.

Kalli

Quietude is supposed to be a strong lavender. I haven't tried it since it's un-impable. Baku is the Lavender Hammer of Calm and is wonderful. A lot of the other Somnium blends are supposed to be very good if you like lavender, I just haven't gotten around to trying them all .

If you're ok with lavender and with ordering bottles unsniffed, by all means try Quietude. Safari is also heavily lavender.

Kalli

A friend of mine is a perfumer and has been working on distinguishing orange blossom and neroli. Here's her review of her last trial of the two in essential oil form.

I suspect the reason a lot of people react to orange blossom and neroli scents as if they contained citrus *peel* is because they do seem to contain some (tho by no means all) of the components that citrus peel does. I react rather badly to neroli and orange blossom (piercing headache, it's up there with iris for trying to kill me), and if I peel a lot of oranges and am not careful to keep them away from my face and wash my hands carefully afterwards, I end up with a headache. To me tho, orange blossom/neroli has a sharp, piercing element always, and never softens or sweetens or powders itself. I've not sniffed enough, but orange blossom is often described as being akin to jasmine because it's indolic, and neroli is oft described as akin to pettigrain because it's can be very "green" smelling.

(for obvious reasons, I can't help with good orange blossom and neroli blends... I keep 'em as far from me as possible)

Kalli

Swank is very much like the Body Shop's Satsuma products to me. Sweet, fruity TANGERINES. Makes me feel like a bubbly teenager . Since you find orange and citrus soothing, this might be a good one to try. Tea scents (especially green and white tea) often have a very citrussy vibe and may work well for you. Ginger has a citrussy zing too. So Sudha Segera, Kumiho and things along those lines may help.

If you are worried about your reaction to herbal blends, keep in mind the most usual "soothing" scents are things like lavender and chamomile. Very few blends have chamomile, and lavender tends to not be very prominent, unless you're looking at the Somnium blends.

Kalli

Hrm. Veil's got violet, orris, white sandalwood, lavender, gardenia, lilac and ylang-ylang. So you probably read complex florals as dryer sheets. This makes sense, most dryer sheets *are* complex florals.

Aureus - This one has no listed notes, but there's a lot of speculation it has amber in it.

Belladonna - no listed notes, haven't sniffed, no idea what might be going on here

BLISS - chocolate notes can go vilely wrong on some people, in a bunch of different ways.

Dragon's heart - easy guess is this has musk and you powder at least some musks

O - amber is probably the powder culprit here

The raven - If you dare to try this on again, I'm going to bet this did a powdery dryer sheet on you. Violet, orris, neroli, dark musk and sandalwood, so it's *very* similar to Veil.

Twilight - lavender, honeysuckle and jasmine. Nothing that ordinarily goes all to powder, so I suspect this also went dryer sheet.

So looking over the patterns, you're probably a pretty standard BPAL customer . At least some musks go all to powder. Amber usually goes to powder. You're not fond of complex florals (tho carnation and rose might suit your taste). You adore vanilla based scents, especially if they remind you of food. Honey is also your friend.

Kalli

I guess it depends on the person, though *shrug*

 

unfortunately. while i haven't tried a lot of bpal, my boy doesn't really have a single reaction to any of the oils other than "oh". i let him smell most and his reaction with the exception of march hare was "it stinks".

Mine dislikes most things too. Don't think of it as him saying *you* stink. Chances are, he likes how you usually smell, and is maybe afraid to say so. If you use scented bath products and he likes how those smell, it's not a bad idea to look for similar smelling BPAL. And you may accidentally strike on something that he adores on you.

The Lion is one of the very few scents that makes my creature happy. Embalming Fluid isn't icky to him, but it's not appealing either. Baku he isn't entirely thrilled by, but he doesn't seem to dislike it as much as Embalming Fluid. Haunted is very changeable on my skin, so sometimes he likes it and other times he hates it. Pretty much everything else he dislikes or hates.

So enjoy that he likes you as you are, and if you hit on something he likes, great. Otherwise... at least he's easy to please

Kalli

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! Seems like a general consensus that I should go try the somnus blends. Baku sounds the most interesting to me--anise and lavender? Is it like a pastille candy?

The aged stuff that I tried at Black Broom was a slightly spicier version of lavender. But lavender EO is a sharply herbal topnote, and a soft, spicy, slightly floral midnote. Telling the difference between aged Baku and pure lavender EO is quite difficult. The fresh from the Lab stuff I have now is still lovely, but the anise is much more prominent. Rather than adding richness to the scent, you end up with a prominent lavender topnote, a strong anise midnote, and then (finally) a brief base where the two notes come into balance. There is a strong licorice candy impression while the anise holds sway, which is rather offputting since I dislike licorice candy.

Keep in mind I'm a big lavender fan . I *like* that herbal blast from the topnote, and I adore its drydown. Anything that richens the drydown, or accentuates the elements I like is a big plus in my book, and anything that interferes makes me sad.

Kalli

I'm ruling out having suddenly developed a spice allergy . I can still eat normal foods, which include lots of cinnamon, clove, allspice etc. Further, I show no signs of reacting to March Hare. The oils I'd normally wear all are perfectly safe, and Incantation and Baku (which I just got) are not causing issues. Weirdly, I didn't have any allergy type problems while wearing Casanova today, and it *has* given me trouble before. (well, ok whatever is giving it the strong moss tone is irritating me because I don't like how moss gets warped on my skin, but that's not an allergy *g*)

Mystifying.

Kalli

Your math is right.

Basically, you're at the point where if money is *that* tight, there's no way to make things work for yourself. If spending $20 to get yourself the supplies so you can make good use of your perfume oils is too much, it's silly to spend money on more perfume oils.

Changing the subject a bit... I've already emailed the Lab about this, because I'm stumped. I got my most recent order and am having headachey reactions to a bunch of oils that *should* be problem free: Snake Oil, Silk Road, Bengal, Morocco, and Scherezade. No obvious notes in common with anything on my allergy list. No obvious commonalities with the prior oils that have given me trouble (Queen of Hearts, De Sade and Casanova). Heck, not even any obvious commonalities among the new oils. Anyone have ideas on what might be the problem? The only thing that I can come up with is I might be reacting to patchouli, but that seems somewhat unlikely as an ingredient in *all* of those oils.

Kalli

Caltha needs to try this. It starts off sharpish on me, like lavender. Then instead of mellowing into the soft spicy floral that lavender does, I get a lovely *soft* green scent. Smells like a garden full of sunlight and green plants. I didn't apply lots (lots is always risky on a first try for me), but it's soft and green and earthy without doing anything weird.

Kalli

The most common powder culprits seem to be amber, musk, rose and lily. From your list, it looks like you might be a violet and amber powderer tho. Which ones out of the ones you didn't like went dryer sheet and which ones went powdery?

(I'm probably utterly useless to you, since I'm happiest in spicy amber scents, but I ask good stupid questions )

Kalli

Of the GC lavender blends I've tried, Baku is the best. Fresh from the lab, the anise note is quite strong, but it does seem to tone down and blend in with age. If your friend truly loves lavender, go through all the lavender blends and look for the ones with the most reviews complaining about sharp, nasty and overwhelming lavender. The more bad reviews in this case, the better! The average reviewer seems to dislike lavender intensely, so if the reviews are positive, chances are the lavender is undetectable. It's too bad, since lavender is a lovely soft and spicy floral once it dries down.

Casanova is well... not lavendery on me at all. Neither is Saint-Germain, that's all about the moss. Gaueko is mostly about nag champa and wood. I have a sample of Death on a Pale Horse which smells promising, but I haven't tested it yet as I just got it yesterday. Most of the Somnium blends look like they're worth a try, but I haven't tried them all yet.

Kalli

So I stopped wearing BPAL for a long while because my skin simply ate up the oils and I had to douse myself with oil in the morning to get anything to last more than an hour. I thought of making my own alcohol based sprays (b/c "Regular" alcohol based body sprays last for hours on me) but I really couldn't afford to buy all of the supplies, in addition to the higher amount of oil required to make the sprays.

I'm not sure what you mean about the "higher amount of oil". Most people who are making sprays seem to make an eau de toilette strength, so around 1 part oil to 8 or more parts alcohol. IIRC eau de parfum is a bit more intense, with pure parfum being the most at about 1 part oil to 2 or 3 parts alcohol. So even if you were turning your BPALs into parfum strength alcohol based stuff, you'd end up with 2 or 3 times as much fragranced product for a given amount of oil. If you go as light as an eau de toilette, well... you'd have gobs of the stuff. A single imp turned into eau de toilette would give you 9 or more mL of fragrance .

Since the only supplies you need are unflavored ethanol (vodka and everclear work), and bottles to put stuff in, this should be a very budget option. I can get something like 1.5 L of vodka for $10. That's... enough for a *lot* of perfume. Another $10 should get you quite a few plain glass bottles.

Kalli

Black Rose and Blood Rose are obvious ones to try.

Do you know which note or notes strike you as green? For me lavender is often a green note, but it might not be for you. On me moss is overwhelmingly green. Some people find tea notes to be very green, but for me they're not really.

Kalli

What should I get for a friend? She’s sixteen, and like me she has Taurus in both her sun and moon and aqaruis on the rising. She’s this southern belle kind of vibe but she secretly loves goth as well. Has plenty of humor and she likes delicate complicated stuff. Like embroidery(not doing them), intricate jewelry, pernankan beaded slippers, Chinese ethinc stuffs. She’s fiercly loyal towards her friends and family and basically, pple she loves. She likes roses, butterfly, dragonfly, ivies and most importantly phoenix motifs. She’s like of like the Chinese phoenix actually, in fact it’s her emblem(sort of). she likes unique stuff that doesn’t scream look at me look at me, something different yet subtle. Loves the emotional side of history which she complains pple don’t care much about. Is in love with monarchy(the idea of something royal. Regan set apart from the time of birth) alos loves greek/eygptian mythology even though she is a devout charismatic Christian. She hasn’t tried any scents before so I don’t know wht to get her. something that would represents her and suit her personality.

She sounds like someone who would really enjoy an Exocolo and Wanderlust themed imp pack. Bastet, Nuit, and Clio really spring out at me. Anubis might fit her too. Other muses and the Graces might suit her too, or you could flesh out the pack with some of Cairo, Athens, Delphi and Shanghai. Something I've thought of doing is making a gift pack with postcards to represent each scent, with the description on the back. Then an imp of each scent and a BPAL postcard and a note reminding the recipient that if they love one of the scents you'd be happy to buy them a bottle to "finish" the gift.

Since you don't give us an idea of her scent tastes, it's hard to judge if the actual *scents* would suit her taste. But the descriptions should.

Kalli