Christine Daae

On me, this is primarily a sweeter version of Snake Oil! I don't think I'd necessarily even say that it's 'softer', just sweeter. I get a tiny bit of almond, but mainly whatever makes Snake Oil so singular and distinct is what I get out of this one. I had wanted a white-cotton-dress version of Snake Oil (as mentioned in one of the earlier reviews!), but I don't get enough of anything other than Snake Oil to get that impression. I do think that my skin chemistry will amplify Snake Oil over anything else in a blend - I've had similar reactions with other "Snake Oil + other stuff" scents, so that is probably what's happening here. Lesson learned!

I bought this from the lovely SueDonym, and was just thrilled to find it! Thank you! In the bottle, this is all champagne: sparkly, bubbly, a little sweeter than I usually find with champagne notes, which could be because of the rose, which is otherwise undetectable. Wet, it’s still mostly champagne - fizzy and pale golden like stars. A sweet rose note begins to unfurl underneath as it dries down, and this is heavenly. Especially when this is balanced between the two namesake notes, with neither one becoming more dominant over the other, this is just absolutely beautiful. The rose is a pale yellow or ivory color to me (although it could be the rose note + the champagne note giving it that feel to me), but it’s more velvety than translucent. It wears quite close to the skin on me, but it reminds me of starry night skies and how drinking champagne tastes like drinking those stars - and a little bit of my wedding, where prosecco and roses featured heavily! Like starry-eyed romance in a bottle. I couldn’t be happier with this!

In the bottle: A very pretty minty vanilla - not too foody or sweet, mostly a soft peppermint, very cool and fresh, like Katillac says! You know what this reminds me of, even more than candy canes? Those peppermint meltaway pillow candies - the kind that are sort of airy and dissolve in your mouth. (Oh, like these!) It’s not as bracing or as sugary as I think of peppermint candy canes as being, this is much more pillowy-soft. (Although on the end of the sniff I do get a chilly, minty sensation in my nose!) This is my first Lick It because I didn’t think I liked minty perfumes until very recently. (I was wrong!) This is so pretty and soft and a little sparkly from the mint - very wintery and beautiful! Plus, I couldn’t be happier that proceeds went to such an honorable cause. p.s. This layers beautifully with Sparkle and Glitter (and indeed makes S&G a little more sparkly)!

This was one of my quickest orders yet - the name was tailor-made for me and it sounded absolutely beautiful! In the bottle: Mostly the white chocolate, with a cooling undertone. Wet: Still mostly white chocolate; the fir and snow notes are very, very soft here. It is not very chilly! Sort of like you’re walking outside, all bundled up in a fluffy scarf and coat, drinking a milky hot chocolate while looking at Christmas lights, or picking out a Christmas tree! (Lycanthrope’s review is VERY evocative!!) This doesn’t change much from the initial application - it’s a sweet white chocolate note (my husband definitively said “hey, you smell like chocolate!” when I sat down next to him!), much stronger than in Lady Amalthea (my best experience with the lab’s white chocolate note so far), with soft fir and snow notes. The fir note does get a touch stronger as the perfume wears on, but never strong enough to change this into something less predominantly white chocolate. I believe I saw someone wondering if this would be anything like The Waltz of the Snowflakes (one of my favorites!), and I don’t find them similar at all. Waltz is much more snowy, cold, and fir-forward, and this is much sweeter. I actually was hoping this would be a little bit more snowy and cold! I tend to steer away from perfume with notes that are too foodie or sweet, so this is a bit outside my wheelhouse, but it is still quite pretty. If you like the lab’s white chocolate note, this will be a lovely festive blend for you!

This was gifted to me by the lovely and generous PrinceofcatS, who hoped I would have better luck with this, since I do enjoy the BPAL fizzy/champagne notes! In the bottle: The rose here really reminds me of the rose in Katrina Van Tassel (which is my favorite BPAL rose note), only brighter and “cleaner” because it lacks the honey and cream. Whatever the misty note is, it’s very subtle in the bottle. Wet on my skin, the “misty” note comes out - it’s cool and a little sparkly and “clean” but not soapy to me. It almost has the cold quality that a pine or menthol note often has, without actually smelling like pine or menthol - just that 'cold' smell. I get the fizzy and sparkly qualities of the champagne note, but I don't smell champagne here at all - which is okay, because it's still very beautiful! This reminds me a lot of Moon Rose, or at least how I remember it (it’s been a while since I last smelled it!): a pale rose with a misty, cool quality to it. Which is not to say that there's any moonflower note here (there's not!), but it’s in the same family, I’d say. This fades into a lovely, sweet rose after the cool misty note dissipates. It's very beautiful and I think will immediately be going into my summertime rotation!

In the bottle: In the bottle this is primarily neroli, which smells less sweet to me than the lab’s orange blossom note. Wet: Neroli and soft, powdery snow. This is the “soft, powder snow” note that I find in Snow White rather than a piney or minty snow note as in some of the other snowy blends. (I love all of the Lab’s snow notes, honestly.) Contributing to the powdery feel is the orange blossom note, which often has a soft, powdered-sugar sweetness to it on me, and the sweet velvetiness of the gardenia note. This was my absolute favorite of my considerable Yule order. It’s strange, I remember feeling when I first tried this (in December) that it was a bit green and springy for a winter snow scent, and now that I’m trying it in the late springtime, it strikes me as quite snowy! I think it ended up perfect for the sweet spot of late February and early March. I never reviewed this back when I first got it, though I absolutely loved it, because I decided fairly quickly that I would put it away to wear on my honeymoon. Today is the first day that I’ve worn it since my honeymoon three months ago and it does bring back some not-so-distant memories already. <3 Instead of sitting at my desk at work, I’m waking up in a sunsoaked hotel room and getting ready for a day full of magic! I don’t want to break that association by wearing it to too many days at work (plus, I think this might end up being a white floral for winter wear for me), but it’s been a beautiful pick-me-up on a day I really needed one. <3 This is a soft, sweet, and magical winter-white floral. It very much evokes the first stunning rays of dawn after a nighttime winter snowstorm: golden-pink and white. I have since passed along my bottle of Snow at Dusk to a dear friend, but if that blend is the purple dusky twilight just before a nighttime snowstorm, this is the morning after that snowstorm.

In the imp: CUCUMBER! Very much a cucumber and fresh-cut grass scent, with a floral note that I can’t quite pinpoint. Wet: A pretty, floral-grassy cucumber scent. This smells SO MUCH like fresh-cut cucumber, with a hint of floral and some newly-mown grass in the background. It’s extremely “wet” and juicy smelling - you know, like cucumber is - and very green and fresh. I don’t know that I can pick out the particular floral note but there’s definitely something floral here along with the cucumber. I don’t get any melon, which is good for me as I don’t love cucumber and melon together (I was in middle school in the late 90s!). I want to say that the floral here is something in sweet-greenish sort of family, maybe lily of the valley? I swear I saw someone recommend this with regards to a honeysuckle note in the recommendations forum, which is why I picked this up to begin with. As it is, it's primarily concerned with being a cucumber scent, but the floral does blossom (ha!!!) a little as the scent dries down, and the juiciness of the cucumber does evaporate a little. This also lasts a surprisingly long time for such a cool, green, fresh scent. I imagine it will be gorgeous in hot, humid weather too.

2016 version. Note: I never tried the original version. In the bottle: Honestly, I mostly smell Snake Oil with a very sheer overlay of lighter flowers. (If I set the open bottle down away from me I get just the flowers, strangely.) Wet: Snake Oil! A lighter version, but still - the iconic Snake Oil scent with again a very sheer overlay of flowers. Up close, this is ALL Snake Oil on me: patchouli, vanilla, some kind of musk.. It’s only in the throw that I actually get any of the flowers - very polleny lilies and narcissus, very springy. Linden blossom is a little bit delicate compared to the other notes here so I don’t know that I get much of it. Oh wait, no, I do get the linden blossom a little: that very sheer, sweet, slightly honeyed note. I can’t particularly detect any of the fruity passion flower, though. The throw is quite pretty at this stage, and the thick sticky sweet patchouli-vanilla of Snake Oil stays close to the skin. This dries down to just Snake Oil on me, much to my dismay. A thick, patchouli-y vanilla, no flowers to be seen. (The vanilla is so nice but I have such a low tolerance for patchouli these days!) I do wonder if aging this will bring the flowers or the patchouli out more - I suppose sticking it in a “cellar” and aging it for a bit can’t hurt anything. Snake Oil is decidedly Too Much for me these days (due to both taste and skin chemistry changes) so I was hoping that all the pretty pretty flowers would make this a wearable version for me. The jury is still out on that; the sticky sweet resin of Snake Oil is the predominant scent on me at this point so it’s not all that different. It’s a shame, I love all these flowers so much and used to quite like Snake Oil!

Fall under the spell of our Green Fairy! An intoxicating blend containing wormwood essence, light mints, cardamom, anise, hyssop, and the barest hint of lemon. Imp: green + licorice-y anise Wet: so green! So licoricey! This is quite strong! A little sugary, the anise and mint blend together and are quite strong, a tiny bit of lemon. The lemon isn’t bothering me the way it usually does but it’s probably that I don’t particularly love the rest of what’s going on here (plus the lemon disappears pretty quickly)! It reminds me a lot of Throat Coat tea with lemon, to the point where I can almost taste that in the back of my throat. I like anise/licorice as a flavor but not so much as a scent, I guess! I think this is really evocative of absinthe, though I’ve never tried it myself, so mainly going by what it looks like and what it evokes: glowy and green and licoricey. It’s not really something I need to smell like, personally. This does last quite a long time and has a decent amount of throw, so if you're in the market for an absinthe scent I can imagine this would be perfect!

In the imp: Sweet appley grapefruit! Wet: Apple blossom + grapefruit! Sweet and sparkly! Oh wow, this is beautiful! I had this in my cart because I’ve fallen in love with grapefruit scents lately, and most of the notes appealed to me, but I took it out at the last minute because I was afraid of the ginger. (And also to cull down my order, which had gotten expensive!) I shouldn’t have been - I get very little ginger here, it’s possible that it’s just contributing to the brightness of the scent. I don’t really get any heat from it, anyway. This is mostly the other three notes, heavy on the grapefruit and apple blossom. Wow wow wow, this is REALLY pretty! The intense prettiness and effervescence of the apple blossom and grapefruit notes do fade a little bit within about a half an hour, but even after it’s faded, it’s still lovely, and this gentler, more floral-and-tea version of the blend lasts quite a while on me. I am SO GLAD I got this as a frimp! I know I would have tried it eventually but I am so pleased to have this for the summertime! This is going straight into the rotation with Sea of Glass and Muse and my other light, sparkly florals!

In the imp: Soapy! Which makes sense, I’ve avoided this until now because sweet pea can go soapy on me. My interest in a honeysuckle scent outweighed the worry though! Wet: Yes, that’s a bit soapy indeed! It’s not the “oh I can taste this in the back of my throat” soapy that I get from some other notes, though (peony, anything vaguely lemony). After that, though, it’s a beautiful clean, green floral. I get mostly lilies with a “clean” hint of sweet pea, and the heliotrope tempering the soapiness of sweet pea with its vanillic qualities. I don’t get much pear, unless the pear is lending the “green” note I’m getting here - in other words, it’s not a sweet or syrupy pear. It is a little green and "clean" smelling but mostly just pretty, and it's clean in a nice way that I think will wear well in hot weather! It’s not the honeysuckle scent of my dreams, but it’s quite pretty and I’m glad I gave it a chance.

My two absolute favorite gardenias are GC! Euphrosyne (Gardenia, tea rose, vanilla and jasmine) Beautiful sweetened white floral with a very prominent creamy gardenia scent! Eternal (Stephanotis, cyclamen, heliotrope, white rose and gardenia) Stunning, classic white floral with a beautiful gardenia note. Looking through the gardenia tag on the Lab's site, I also love Lullaby (Moonflower and iris root with French lavender, tuberose, white sandalwood, night-blooming gardenia, vanilla orchid, and moss) but find it more moonflower and lavender with undertones of night-blooming white flowers, and I adore The Snow at Dawn (Snow afire with the morning’s first rays of orange blossom, neroli, and rose gardenia) and think it's a gorgeous gardenia & orange blossom scent but I think the orange blossom stands out a bit more.

Just off the very tippytop of my head: Vasilissa Alice Mouse's Long & Sad Tale Jailbait Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo Lucy's Kiss (this gives me an "antique rose" feeling specifically!) Pink Snowballs Maiden (really pale pastel pink here)

In the vial: honey and floral sweetness! Wet: This reminds me SO MUCH of Lights of Men’s Lives! The white honey here and (what I think of as) the beeswax in Lights must have something in common. Honey can do really weird awful things on my skin but in this one it doesn’t, thankfully. The biggest difference from Lights is the acacia/mimosa blossom scent, which adds a beautiful, sweet, comforting floral tone to this along with the skin musk and the light honey/beeswax notes. I really love Lights, but I think I love this one better, honestly! This dries down to the most beautiful, subtle, lightly floral skin scent. It is perfect for layering with just about anything else (including alcohol-based perfumes, which is what I’m doing today!), and also really beautiful on its own. It has wonderful staying power and exactly the right amount of throw: enough that I catch wafts of it throughout the day, but not so much that it’s overpowering or announcing my presence before I enter a room. I wish there were more mimosa/acacia in the BPAL catalog, but I will cherish this blend.

I was gifted this imp by a friend who knew I liked BPAL’s champagne note! <3 In the vial: I can see where people get a soapy impression from the champagne note, it definitely has a clean edge, at least in the vial! Wet: Initial blast of champagne (a dry, sparkly, unsweet grapey note) and pear. Eventually the plumeria starts to come out as well - a soft, pretty, understated white floral note more along the lines of magnolia rather than a loud tuberose or a sugary sweet orange blossom. The champagne note keeps this dry and fizzy-bubbly rather than syrupy sweet. This is very linear from bottle to drydown - other than the plumeria note coming out more strongly as it dries down, the scent changes very little. It’s a sparkly bright floral, really beautiful - the plumeria note is prominent but not overly loud, and the pear isn’t too sweet, probably thanks to the dry sparkliness of the champagne note. This will be beautiful for summertime!

FleurWitch, hello and welcome! You've gotten a lot of really good recs for your tastes so far, I'd like to second Lyonesse, Mouse's Long and Sad Tale, Black Pearl (very coconutty!) and Death Cap (I find Death Cap more vanilla-y than coconutty but your mileage may vary wildly!). It seems like you enjoy soft gourmands that may or may not have floral aspects to them, so here's another couple of recommendations. Another couple you might like! Alice: Milk and honey with rose, carnation and bergamot. Blood Pearl: Lustrous, sanguine, soft and lavish: soft orris, blood musk, and coconut. Roses, Pearls, Diamonds: Red roses, dazzling crystalline musks, and pearlescent coconut-tinged orris. (Generally I find that you can count on anything with "pearl" in the name or description to have coconut in it, the lab seems to use that scent association a lot!) I haven't tried a lot of the blends based on the Orisha, but a lot of them contain coconut and other sweet notes that you might like! dsqrd44, hello!! I definitely second the recommendation of Titania! It's very beautiful, a sweet, very sparkly fruity-floral (emphasis on the fruit). Roses, Pearls, Diamonds is gorgeous, too! It looks like you like sweet, fruity floral perfumes so here's another handful of recommendations! Others you might like, all from the general catalog: Fae: A brilliant, ethereal scent: white musk, bergamot, heliotrope, peach and oakmoss. The Dormouse: A dizzying eddy of four teas brushed with light herbs and a breath of peony. Muse: A light, invigorating floral and citrus blend. Tuberose, lotus and jasmine with a hint of lime. Lolita: Glittering heliotrope, honeysuckle, orange blossom and lemon verbena. (There's no actual fruit listed here but it comes off very sweet and fruity on my skin!)

I got this as a frimp from the lovely Scylla! In the vial: frankincense & rose Wet: sharp frankincense (oh noooo) and I think the sage. Okay, so frankincense and I very rarely get along. For some reason it turns weird the instant it touches my skin - sharp, gritty-woody, vaguely soapy, and sour. This is a real shame for me, as someone who grew up very Catholic and associates the scent with Mass (I still find the ritual of Mass itself very calming though I don’t consider myself particularly Catholic anymore and don’t go often for that reason) and holiness, and has a real attraction to a lot of the Lab’s “holy” blends. But...this isn’t as bad as I was anticipating by a long shot. The frankincense is definitely there - it’s not that it’s being overpowered by anything. I can smell the rose and the frankincense most strongly, and the rose has that sort of sour-ish quality I associate with rose-resin blends, but that sourness starts to fade a little bit. If I get sandalwood at all, I get it as an undertone to the frankincense, which is most prominent on me, likewise the clary sage isn’t terribly strong. I don’t think I can wear this as a perfume but I might hang on to it just because it is actually fairly calming despite the fact that frankincense and I don’t get along. (I bet if I dabbed it on something other than me it would be even better!)

Upon the Sea of Glass, glowing with the perfection of spiritual union and the radiance of true wisdom, rests the throne of God. A scent of inimitable purity, crystalline grace, and limitless light. This scent and I have a long, long history. This was the first scent description that made me want to try BPAL to begin with, and an imp of it made it into my very first order back in 2005. (2005! I am so old.) In that first order, this was one of the standouts: I was in denial about being able to wear frankincense (I can’t) which figured into a lot of my first purchases (I went all-in on the Catholic holy blends, honestly!!), but this was just Perfect. There was no way I had the vocabulary to describe what I was smelling, but I just adored it. Along the way, I had a significant other who thought it smelled “like hairspray” on me, which put me off it. I didn’t want him to be reminded of Aquanet when he smelled me! That relationship is long-over, but that beloved imp got passed along (or maybe sold!) a long time ago, and I’d been on a non-official BPAL-buying hiatus since 2010. So when I made an order with a bunch of imps I needed to replace in March, I knew I wanted to try Sea of Glass again. In the imp: Citrusy, aquatic. I want to say grapefruit rather than lime or lemon. It has an aquatic/ozonic edge to it, like Zephyr, but it doesn’t smell like lemon to me. Wet: Much the same as in the imp: sparkling citrus and aquatics, though I’m getting a floral element now as well. Very sparkly-fresh, evoking sunlight dancing on calm ocean waters. The aquatic here is definitely of the oceanic variety, a little salty. Looking at others’ reviews, I’m seeing people pick out hyacinth in particular as the floral note they're noticing. I genuinely don’t know that I could pick a hyacinth note out of a perfume (and I literally stuck my face in some the last time I saw them!) but if that’s the floral in here, it’s exquisite. I wonder if there’s some kind of a white floral in here, too, I’m getting a little bit of an undertone that reminds me a lot of magnolia or even Tiare flower. Considering that this is such a clean, light scent, the throw is quite impressive! I feel like I’m walking around in a shimmering cloud of whitegold-blue-green sparkles. It’s actually quite difficult to describe this one with notes, which is a running theme with my favorite scents. It’s pale blues and aquamarines, and the sparkle of early-morning sunlight reflecting off the ocean. It’s light and ocean air, pure and clean and crystalline bright. 2005-me was correct about this one: it’s absolutely perfect. I am sad that I ever gave up on it for the sake of anyone else! I’m happily married now, and my now-husband says this smells “beautiful! Like roses!” on me, which is crazy (roses?!) but also sweet, as he associates most beautiful floral smells with me and therefore roses, as roses are the floral I wear the most often. ^^; I do think that a bottle of this will end up in my next order - not only is it a beautiful scent on its own, I think it will layer nicely with other things as well (maybe lending an aquatic-oceanic edge to some of my other favorite florals!). It’s just utterly beautiful and perfect - the sort of thing I wish I could say was my “signature scent”, honestly, as the sort of person who would like to personify sparkles on the ocean. ^^;

In the bottle: Lavender! Herbal and dry but not sharp. Wet: Soft, pillowy lavender. Not a bracing scent, but a little cool or chilly, certainly. This is sweet and floaty and ethereal; the lavender and moss keep the sweetness of the gardenia and tuberose and vanilla orchid down, but the sweeter florals keep this from being too sharp or dry. This is herbal-floral sweet and glowing blue-white, soft and sweet and just absolutely stunning. This evokes a girl in a white nightgown navigating the dark corridors of a moonlit Gothic mansion. It’s more the scent of that girl and the way the moonlight plays on her skin and how it makes her nightgown almost glow in the dark, rather than the mansion itself. This is the Gothic heroine in her iconic ethereal white nightgown: she almost looks a ghost herself, small and fragile but throwing off her own radiant light. This is the only one of the Crimson Peak blends I’ve tried, but if they are all this beautiful and evocative, no wonder they are so beloved! I am in love with this and I might even need to pick up a second bottle before this goes away; it's perfectly evocative of the Gothic heroine archetype (rather than any one Gothic heroine in particular).

In the vial: I can smell all three of the notes listed: lotus, juniper, mint. It’s quite sharp! Wet: I am primarily getting a sharpened lotus, I think - the lotus reminds me a little of Paris. The throw on this is really different from the scent it is close to my skin - it’s almost fruity! Up close I get more of the sharpness, in the sillage I get more of the fruity lotus. I think the juniper and mint are sort of melding into one scent that’s vaguely pine-minty. The mint is actually somewhat unpleasant on me in this context. (This is sort of what I always expected mint to smell like on me - kind of unpleasant and sharp - though I’ve been surprised by it in other blends where it’s soft and chilly and nice!) This was a frimp from the lab, so I’m not disappointed that this isn’t working on me; I almost always try any frimps I get just in case it’s something that I unexpectedly fall in love with. Unfortunately this isn’t one of them!

When BPAL released the Lupercalia scents this year, I was just about exactly a month away from my wedding. So when I saw this, a scent called The Bride with three notes I like, two of which I particularly adore, I knew I had to at least try it! I had already decided on a wedding day perfume, so I waited until I came back from my honeymoon to order this one - if I fell in love with it, I’d still always associate it with being a new bride! In the bottle: So when I said “three notes I like, two of which I particularly adore,” the two I particularly adore are the magnolia and vanilla - I like honey, but it takes a backseat to those two. In the bottle, this is ALL honey musk - I recognize the note from Lady Una. This is the second time I’ve tried this blend and the first time was All Honey Musk All The Time, which is pretty but not very “me” and not what I was hoping for with this blend, but it was fresh out of the mail and I knew I needed to let it settle a little before I drew any real conclusions! Wet: OH WAIT OMG IS THAT THE MAGNOLIA??? I get a little bit of greenish magnolia here! ...oh and immediately it disappears behind the honey musk. On my skin, this is a dead ringer for Lady Una, because that one was primarily honey musk on me as well. My skin has a tendency to pull any sweetness in a blend forward - if there are any vanillas or sugars in a blend they will be the most prominent note on my skin, and it tends to amp up any sweetness in other notes as well (florals, musks, resins, particularly sweet fruits). I am starting to think that perhaps honey is one of those things I can’t always wear because of this tendency (violet is another one that I’ve noticed recently just turns to candy on me). It’s not even that I don’t like the honey (honey musk) note, I do! It’s a pretty, sheer honey note - not too cloying or sticky-sickly sweet. It’s just that it’s incredibly loud on my skin and drowns out everything else, and I really, really wanted the magnolia in particular. I do, every so often, get a little bit of the magnolia in the throw, and I can see what this must smell like on someone with more agreeable skin chemistry: an incredibly pretty honeyed white floral! It's just severely overshadowed by the honey musk on my skin 90% of the time. All is not lost, though - not only have I found quite a few other white florals that I adore, I am wondering how this will layer with things that are less sweet but white-floral-heavy nonetheless. I might get something closer to what I was looking for if I layer this with one of those!

In the vial: A very sweet gardenia. Almost fruit-loopy!, like Lolita. Wet: Pretty much the same! A very sweet white floral. I don’t know that I get tea rose at all at this point, I just get the gardenia, jasmine, and vanilla. It has a little bit of the powdery-sweetness that I associate with orange blossom despite the fact that there’s no orange blossom here. Seriously, something here reminds me of (my scent memory of) the sugary coating on fruitloops (I haven’t actually stuck my head in a box of fruit loops in a while) - in a good way - and of Lolita, despite the fact that they have no notes in common. The super-sugary sweetness does burn off a little bit, leaving behind a creamy white floral sweetness instead of the lemon-sugar-glaze sweetness this starts off with. This scent does put me in mind of gardenia blooms, all creamy ivory-white petals unfolding into bright white blooms. A nearly edible scent. There are no sharp edges here, just softness and warmth and sweetness. I have recently started to rediscover my absolute love of white florals, and this is no exception - it's absolutely beautiful! Between this and Eternal, even if The Bride ends up not working out for me, I think I have my white floral bases covered! I am a little tiny bit sad that the rose never makes itself apparent on my skin, but I can always layer some of The Rose with this if I want more of that. If The Bride’s magnolia continues to hide behind the vanilla and honey musk, this might end up as the “sweetened white floral” blend I was hoping for!

In the vial: Generic purple jellybeans! Apparently that’s what violet smells like to me now. Wet: Floral generic purple jellybeans! I can detect that there are other floral notes in here now, but they’re not very strong compared to the violet. I’m starting to be sad that I don’t like violet that much, or maybe just that it doesn’t agree with me - it’s quite strong on my skin, and I always thought that I did like violet! But apparently it’s a bit too sweet and candylike on me. I’d love to actually smell of violets, but I don’t particularly want to smell like purple jellybeans. Anyway - delphinium looks to be an “early spring” floral, wisteria is a little lilac-y, chrysanthemums make me think of autumn-turning-to-winter (maybe because they’re the November birth flower?). I don’t really get the wetness of an early-spring floral, I do get a little bit of a sweetness that reminds me of lilac separate from the candy-sweetness of the violet, and the barest breath of a green note. This is a little powdery and too-sweet on me rather than chilly, icy, or regal. Which is a bummer! I bet on someone who can wear violet this is really pretty!

In the vial: Wet and sweet and green. Really pretty! Wet: Indefinably green, sweetly floral, and quite strong, at least at this stage - a lot of BPAL perfumes are close to the skin on me such that I kind of need to lean into my wrists to smell anything but I’m getting wafts of pretty green and floral even while I type! PrinceofcatS (who is the reason I bought this imp to try!) mentioned that there seems to be lily in here and I agree with her - that might be where people are getting the soapy/shampoo impression, though I don’t get that myself. I think I am getting carnation here, too (and even rose, perhaps?) - something in this reminds me of Alice, though it’s not milky or honeyed. As it dries down the misty impression begins to dissipate, like actual mist evaporating in the sunshine, leaving sunwarmed flowers and grasses. This is sweet, and floral, and misty-green; herbs and grasses and dewy florals. It’s very clean and soft, ethereal and fey (in the otherworldly sense, not the doomed-to-die sense). I got this both for the name and concept and because it was recommended to me; I love spring florals a lot, am descended from Irish folk, and (like I mentioned in my review of Muse yesterday), my husband and I are collectively known as “muse and her maestro,” so I have an affinity for the concept of artistic muses. This is indeed very springy and will be perfect for spring days (if we ever get any), but it’s not as sharp-green and clear as some springy florals can be; it’s not sharp or crisp, it’s soft and sweet and airy and dewy in the sunshine while still having a surprising amount of throw on me. Leanan Sidhe is definitely going into my spring imp rotation for days that I want to feel like an Irish faerie muse, otherworldly and all-consuming.

In the vial: Generic purple jellybeans! Wet: Oooh, tuberose! Lilac! Nope nope, that's all violet! yelly violet!!! I like all of these notes, though I do hope for more of the lilac and tuberose rather than the violet, which can smell fake-grape-candylike on me, which is where I think the "purple jellybean" smell is coming from (or sometimes even violet-candy-ish which makes more sense!). Up close it's all violet, a pretty violet that's not too too sweet, but I get wafts of the tuberose and lilac from further away. (I'm just now noticing that tuberose and lilac read fairly similarly on my skin, lilac being a little wetter/brighter and tuberose being a little fruitier!) Yeah, the fruity parts of the tuberose are teaming up with the violet to give me a very purple-jellybean scent. I don't dislike this, really, but I'm not in love with it either - I wanted more of a lilac/tuberose scent than a violet one. Every once in a while I get the lilac/tuberose parts of the blend more than the violet and I LOVE that scent, but the violet-heavy wafts are too candy-sweet on me for what I prefer.