kirsten

I haven't been into BPAL long enough to know if there was any overlap between the use of the new and old style labels, but one of the blends I have, Severin, was disconned in '09 and has the new-style label, so I'd guess your Eat Me has to be at least two years old. ETA: Your bottle can't be more than 6 years old, though, because the lab was still using Cobalt bottles then.

Is there anything LE or GC that smells like Neil Gaiman's Orange? I am so in love that it hurts.

London is definitely my favorite tea rose out of the ones you've listed.

The Little Wooden Doll: rose- infused amber and soft golden sandalwood. I don't smell any roses or amber, though. Just straight-up rosewood. Also, this isn't rosewood, but The Red Queen (Deep mahogany and rich, velvety woods lacquered with sweet, black-red cherries and currant) is very nice, too. I love the mahogany note!

Alice lasts super long on me, so I can't guarantee this will do you, but you could give Hod Res a try. I find it sweeter than Alice, and it has no bergamot, but the carnation is very pretty.

One of the very few BPALs that has legitimately given me a headache.

This is much fruitier than expected! Reminds me quite a lot of 2010 Lamb's Wool (which I love), actually, but heavier on the spices without being candle-y. Some reviews mention a cherry note... I'm thinking it's probably a combination of cinnamon + orange zest---it's definitely not an almond note, or I would be running for the hills!

Nice enough, but too sweet, and I was really hoping that the bergamot would be prominent.

This smelled fruity and nice at first, but as soon as the lotus root came in, it just smelled like dirty dishwater. So disappointing.

Admittedly, this smelled incredibly off-putting to me in the vial. It reminded me a bit of Jack, if Jack were smothered in marshmallow fluff---that same kind of buttery pumpkin. But I'm a trooper and I put it on anyway. It's nowhere near as bad as Jack (can you say out with a migraine for five hours? ) but it smells pretty gross on my skin. Dries down to a weird, soapy floral with the occasional waft of marshmallow.

Okay, I know that I'm horrible at picking out individual notes, but uh, I don't smell any of the listed notes. I did a side-by-side comparison and this seriously smells almost exactly like Pomegranate II on my skin---pretty much all pink grapefruit with a touch of candied pomegranate. Unlike Pom II, though, Venus seems to have a bubblegum note for the first couple of minutes. Pom II is one of my top ten, so Venus certainly isn't bad, but I will likely end up swapping this away for something different. ETA: Ugh, but unlike Pom II, Venus dries down to wax.

I'm going as an apple (yes, seriously) and I think I may wear either Lamb's Wool or Candy Corn Coated Candy Apple. I haven't decided whether to be a red apple or a green one yet.

This smelled, oddly enough, like pine pitch in the vial, which I suspect has something to do with how my nose is interpreting the patchouli. If this had smelled on my skin like it had in the imp, I would have been sold---highly unusual, considering my typical reaction to patchouli! Unfortunately, my wrist sucked it all up and left me with only the faintest trace of that smell.

I'm an apple fiend, so I took the plunge and bought a whole bottle, despite already having signed up for a decant of it in someone's circle. I just wanted it that badly! Surprisingly, the apple is not that pronounced on my skin, but I do like the hint of it there. This is a softer, warmer scent than I expected (the apple and ginger had me thinking crisp), but it's very lovely and the amber is perfectly balanced with everything else. I amp amber like woah, so there aren't very many amber blends that I particularly enjoy. This definitely has a clean, comforting sort of feel to it. It's pretty heavily floral at the moment, but I'm hoping that with some aging, the ginger and the tea and the apple will come out a little more. Aside from a light undertone of carnation, I think what I'm smelling mostly is champaca flower, which is very nice. I didn't know what to expect from that one, but I like it!

This perfume smells just like my favorite sweet-mint gum. I was a little worried about the honey being overpowering, but it's soft and sweet instead of heavy and cloying like the honey in O. It's not really herbal enough to be a Rappacini's Apiary blend, but it's that same sort of muted honey smell. The apple blossom is just a brief fruity burst before it's overtaken by the mint, but this blend is great at any stage. An unexpected love!

The cucumber in Teatime in Roswell smells pretty similar to the honeydew in Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat. I got nothing else from TIR but cucumber, though, so YMMV.

This smells so WEIRD to me. Not bad, just strange. I was expecting a golden scent (probably because I had no idea what balsam was supposed to smell like) and got a pale green one instead. I think I'm digging it, though. At the very least, I can't stop smelling my wrist. The balsam is just so different from anything I've ever smelled! ETA Now that it's dried down a bit, it smells like spicy black tea, almost. This scent is bizarrely awesome.

Apparently I did not read the reviews of this oil very thoroughly. I saw "lime and coconut" and I was officially On a Mission to hunt down the Star. If only I had known that it had an almond note (my nemesis), I could have saved myself the trouble and the $30.

Chocolate notes hate my skin, but The Spanish Dance was almost wearable on me. It was a tart, bittersweet chocolate with just a little sweetness from the orange blossom and a bit of juiciness from the pomegranate. I think it would be a big hit for anyone who can wear chocolate! FWIW, Spooky smells like chocolate peppermint to me, despite having no chocolate note. It might be the butter rum my nose is getting confused.

I don't suppose you're a big pine fan? Because I loooove The Illustrated Woman. It's not super-masculine pine like in Black Forest---it's a sweeter pine-pitch kind of smell. The sap is the standout note for me, but the vanilla is quite lovely and non-foody. There's some honey in it, too, but it doesn't go powdery on me the way honey tends to. There's just a teeny bit in there to sweeten it.

Fruity scents are my favorite! I think that Persephone (rose and pomegranate) is a nice, mildly seductive scent. The pomegranate makes the roses smell unbelievably juicy and just a little tart. I'm not a huge fan of rose, but this one is like Holy Grail to me. Just for general awesome fruit scents, I would recommend the following: Bon Vivant (strawberry champagne) Strawberry Moon (a more realistic/non-candied strawberry) Screeching Parrot (tropical fruit with a touch of booze) Whitechapel (tons and tons of lime)

I can't fathom why, considering they don't have even a single note in common, but The Arabian Dance smells so much like the Antikythera Mechanism to me.

Have there ever been any blends with a fresh, possibly squashy kind of pumpkin note, instead of a spicy pie note?

Penitence is frankincense and myrrh. If you can handle violet, Faustus is pretty heavy on the frankincense, too.

At long last, I have finally found the pine scent I've been looking for! The sap is sweet and resinous and complemented incredibly well by the honey, tobacco, and vanilla. Even the patchouli behaves! I definitely need a bottle of this.