Voleuse

This is such a cool scent at first, sugary snow with a hint of lime. After a little while, the pear ascends over the lime and the tea makes an outstanding appearance. This is so lovely! Like an lighter, playful Dorian, I think. The mint mellows the sourness of the lime, so it ends up being a sweet, fruit-infused tea. Lovely!

Pretty! This is a delicate rose at first, but the lilac makes itself quickly apparently. Weirdly--but nicely--the other blends don't really appear for me. I don't catch a whiff of the other florals, and the frankincense is a mere hint in the background, a rounding note that grows over time, but not in a pronounced way. Overall, this is a very light and feminine scent, flowery and faintly sophisticated.

Wow! This smells like...super-sour candy dissolved in Sprite. I can even <em>smell</em> the carbonation, which is neat-o. There's a bit of a chemical-ness to the blend, which makes sense if we're talking about soda pop. In the end, it's limeade and an odd, candy dust note underneath it. Excellently evocative.

Ooooh. This is cherry and vanilla, dark and creamy and sweet. It's beautifully balanced--I expected the cherry to take over, but instead this is a wonderful swirl of all the notes. The Egyptian musk lends a great halo to the blend, making it sensual instead of foody. This is amazing.

I KNEW my streak of luck with amber could only last so long. This turns all soap on me. Now and then there's a hint of sweet smoke, but it always gives way to the round soapiness that amber often becomes on me. After a long while, this morphs into heavy, resiny florals, but the powdery soap is a grounding note beneath it.

Super-sweet! This is almost candy-sweet on first sniff, bright and juicy and shiny. After a couple of minutes, it wavers into a lovely halo of pinkish fruits, tinged with musk. The peach and the strawberry sharpen each other, but one never fully dominates the other. It ends up being very light and airy, but never loses the original sweetness.

Oooh, this is a nice, soft, warm leather blend. Not shiny De Sade leather or rugged, western leather, but rather a stiff suede. (It's like a fresher Saloon #10.) There's a hint of musk underlying it, and something vaguely dirt-like as well. The machine oil? This is sexy. Definitely something anyone who likes leather would want to try.

On first application, this is a pretty and feminine floral. Roses and vanilla are evident right away, but after a while this morphs into a lovely tea scent. The bouquet of florals is in the background, though violet is the predominant floral.

This is intensely fruit on first application, a gorgeous blend of quince and citrus. As it settles, the quince seems to win out, mellowing the tartness of the citrus, while preserving the overall sweetness. It's velvety fruit, sophisticated in its softness. The vanilla and honey are stronger over time, but they support the quince, rather than overwhelm it. This is beautiful and golden, with a hint of smokiness.

This is lilac and woods on me, with the lilac swallowing up the sweetness of the vanilla. It's smoky, almost hazy, so at first it seems like a warm, dark scent. Over time, though, the smokiness lets up, and it becomes a brighter floral, like...sitting inside on a warm day with the window open, and the lilacs are so close to the window they're almost swaying inside. Lilac usually strikes me as powdery, but this is more like...lilac tea, almost. Not powdery, but intensely liquid lilac.

I expected this to be white chocolate with a hint of strawberry, but it's actually the other way around: a juicy, bright strawberry just barely coated with white chocolate. The pepper keeps it from being completely candy-sweet, but otherwise this is a surprisingly fresh strawberry. Over time, the chocolate and strawberry even out, and the pepper becomes more distinct. This ends up being rather like those Godiva chocolate-dipped strawberries, with the throw more chocolate than strawberry.

To be honest, I was more intrigued by the concept of this blend than the actual scent. However, I do like the almost-incense of this, a blend that does bring stone walls and thick tapestries to mind. The floral note is muted underneath the ambergris and benzoin (I think that's the resiny almost-incense I'm smelling), and the musk isn't super-musky. I don't get any orange water, as others have mentioned, but this also gets only vaguely soapy on me, rather than full-out baby powder. I really like this. It's very evocative, even if the blend itself isn't quite my thing.

This smells DELICIOUS, and it has decent throw. At first it was all pastry, but the apricot jam is vivid and juicy beneath the bakery aroma. I'm not sure what spijs smells like, but there is only a hint of almond here. (Or a certain kind of almond--my chemistry tends to morph most BPAL almond blends into plastic.) Over time, the cloud of delicious pastry fades into the background, and the throw isn't so prominent, but the apricot intensity stays the same, with the faintest hint of cherry behind it. Yum!

This smells like cotton and mint, aquatic-like and comforting. I don't get leather as other people have, but it is kind of like the bottom of a well-used purse, the faint halo of coins and chewing gum, which smells inexplicably clean anyway. It's subtle on me, with little-to-medium throw, but I think it has staying power.

On first application, this is rather generic floral to my nose. Pretty and not overpowering, but not remarkable. Over time, the florals take a rounded, wind-blown quality--flowers surrounded by the outdoors, in the cool morning of what will be a close, humid, long day. I don't get roses, but I like the atmosphere of the scent overall.

This is a complicated mint at first, cool mint and fruits and something a little boozy. Over time, the fruit aspect of the blend gets stronger, and I'm better able to smell the tea and smoke, lightly. In the end, it's fruit and smoke, pleasant, but a bit weird for me.

At first this is incense and a hint of...aquatics? My nose is playing tricks on me, because after a while, the aquatic feel of the blend separates into leather and greenery. This is a nice blend, masculine but not aggressively so. It feels...contemplative. This is an extremely faint scent on me, however, with barely any throw.

Cedar, black currant, and saffron. This is aggressively cedar, sweet and woody and spicy at once. I don't really get the currant or the saffron, but the blend is certainly sweeter than simple cedar. This is great and gorgeous, rather autumnal, but quite warm. I would absolutely love to smell this on a guy, but it could work on either sex quite well, I think.

This is all orange blossom on first application, fresh and clean and only faintly sweet. Over time, it softens, becomes more powdery, more...not perfumey, but I can't think of a better word for it. Like a sweet floral perfume on clean skin, applied hours ago and fading to a lovely halo. It's cool and white, and quite feminine. The ylang ylang starts to peek out, adding a roundness to the blend that I like. Sensually soft.

Whip leather, coal dust, gaufrette, and black licorice. Mmmm, leather. With a hint of candy-sweetness, which is fascinating. I don't get coal, but this is a shiny black leather, definitely. The sweetness isn't prominent, but it keeps this from being all De Sade leather. I don't get licorice at all, which honestly, I prefer. Overall, this is a faint scent on me, but I like it.

I am testing this separately from its counterpart, and I don't know how I feel about it. While there's definitely a nice, gentlemanly cologne beneath this (juniper and mint, yum), it's overlaid with a sour note, as well as that hint of blood. Over time, the tobacco lends a smokiness that makes this all blend together, and the musk is nice, as well, but that sourness is...discomforting. Not overwhelming, but always there.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this blend, but on application, it is freshly-cut grass, starting to dry under the hot sun. This is super-crushed greens, very grassy, to my nose, but it's been a while since I've been close enough to an honest-to-goodness cornfield.

BPAL's pumpkin note is always so rich and buttery, so it was a pleasant surprise when the musk and clove tempered that richness so well. I expected this scent to go WHOA PUMPKIN or WHOA MUSK, but instead it's a nice, subtle balance of both. After a long while, it's a bit more smoky than pumpkiny, but otherwise it stays true to my first impression. This is great! Pumpkiny, but not super-foody.

This is a soft, fuzzy sweetness on first application, all powdery marshmallow. Over time, it grows into something warmer, almost musky but not quite, but it never loses its marshmallowness. I get a bit of a different sweetness as well--the tea, I think--but overall this is well-balanced, almost delicate in its subtlety.

On first application, this is incense and...a floral I can't identify. Is it the myrtle? The orange blossom? It's not sweet, but very green and alive. Over time, this becomes that green floral and a hint of coconut, but very little else. It's not sweet at all, and unfortunately not what I was hoping for, given the notes. Oh, chemistry, how you have failed me!