GypsyRoseRed

At last, the light at the end of our three-month tunnel of misfortune. To commemorate this momentous occasion, we present a big ol' bottle of sunny, happy, bounciness -- a golden blend with a celebratory feel, promoting joy, peace, and a sense of comfort and well-being: golden amber, heliotrope, vanilla musk, carnation, daisy and sunflower bouquet, neroli, lemon peel, ylang ylang and honeycomb. This is liquid, late afternoon sunshine, and lovelier than I could have imagined prior to sniffing it. This is a warm, rounded, slightly creamy golden scent that's so smoothly blended I can't really distinguish any of the notes. There's citrus in there, but without any of the sharpness or fake-citrus that you might expect - no orange oil or dusty lemon Pledge here. Also, the ylang ylang and neroli don't hijack the loveliness and jump out at me, thank god. There's also something here that reminds me of an Avon solid perfume pin I had when I was a little girl, in the shape of a daisy.. That olfactory memory is one of my strongest and most precious and maybe that added to the gentle warmth and delicate sweetness that makes it very special to me. It's somehow distinctive and very pretty while remaining subtle and comforting. This is such a beautiful blend, it really is.

Cherry blossom, green tea, and sake. I predict that this will be a popular product! All three notes blend together to create a scent that manages to be fresh, crisp and natural - no dryer sheets here! The green tea and sake stop it from being 'just' a floral, while the cherry blossom provides balance and adds the right amount of sweetness. The overall effect is simple, clean and long-lasting. Pretty *and* practical.

Vanilla orchid, vanilla absolute, and black tea leaf. When I read the description of this one, I thought for sure it was going to be a multiple bottle purchase. The scent sounds gorgeous, and I'm sure it is, but it's so light that I feel like I really have to work to smell pretty much anything at all. I'll use the single bottle I have and get more Castitas instead.

An olfactory guide, created to assist you in locating nearby hippies: patchouli, hemp, smoky vanilla bean, and cannabis accord. (No, there is no actual weed in this perfume, silly.) I really couldn't imagine that I would like this, because who wants to smell like weed? Except this smells REALLY GOOD. It's herbal with just the right amount of patchouli so it's not heavy or incense-y. After a half hour of wear time, it smelled sweet and slightly smokey with only a light whiff of Mary Jane.

Water lily, peony, seaweed absolute, lotus, Spanish moss, violet leaf, and marine accord. I initially passed on this one because I'm not a fan of 'marine accord' generally. The Black Swan reminded me that with BPAL, you can't always make a judgement on a scent just because of the list of notes - you have to try it first! This didn't smell like I thought it would at all; I was expecting something much milder and insipid. The notes that stand out for me are the peony, Spanish moss and violet leaf, and the overall scent is a *dark* marine scent.. it's what I thought Black Moon would smell like, and didn't. I imagine it as a dark, rich green. Though I don't like aquatics, this almost won me over because it's sophisticated and smelled more botanical than I expected. If you're open to those types of scent, definitely try a dab of The Black Swan.

The Miskatonic Valley's premiere sex shop. Black and red musks with honey, leather, and sugared black rose. The Eldritch Dark has a base that's very reminiscent of Snake Oil, with soft leather and a touch of rose. Sexy as HELL.

VICTORIANA.GOTH English rose, lilac, frankincense, violet leaf, French lavender, and wisteria encased in amber and splashed lightly with a ghastly garden herb tincture. This is surprisingly pretty for a blend made from three of my dealbreaker notes. Rose usually turns dusty and decidedly old-ladyish on me, but this time it stays fresh and slightly sweet. Maybe that's because of the lilac and amber notes? No, what makes this a no-go for me is the lavender which is very nice here (even though I cannot stand lavender) but it adds a dryness that I always, always amp. I am *this* close to being able to wear this, because the lilac and amber balance out the dryness but I can still pick out the dreaded lavender. Bah. Floral fans really ought to try this one!

GEEK.GOTH Highly caffeinated, profoundly sugared lemon-lime soda. Geek smells very much like Sprite, and is very effervescent. On my skin, it is light and refreshing, and all I get is a subtler version of the lemon and lime. Nice, but so not my thing.

The hundred-headed dragon that guards the garden of the Hesperides: dragon’s blood resin, golden apple, apple blossom, white musk and hyacinth. Usually Dragon's Blood is a little much on me, but Ladon is almost all apple and apple blossom to me. There's a strong resemblance to The Hesperides, but this is softer, prettier and I can definitely pick out the white musk (it doesn't have the wood note that Hesperides has, and maybe that's what stops it from having that biting, slightly sour edge I get in the drydown with TH)... I don't get the hyacinth at all, but I'm not the best with individual notes. In any case, this is the perfect apple scent I've been looking for!

White magnolias, vanilla orchid, and a cascade of champagne. This is a surprise hit for me! I usually don't like champagne scents, but I mostly get vanilla orchid from Gertrude Dix, with a light effervescence that must be the champagne note - it usually turns to a bitter, dusty smell on my skin, but sprayed around my bedroom it is *perfect*. The overall effect is a light, creamy floral that has a clean feel to it. It's unlike any of the other atmosphere sprays, and I'm go glad I got it!

Autumn — overlooked my Knitting Dyes — said He — have I Could disparage a Flamingo Show Me them — said I Cochineal — I chose — for deeming It resemble Thee And the little Border — Dusker For resembling Me For my knitter posse! A warm scent, as delicate as lace and as soft as cashmere, and as cozy as wool, punctuated with red currant for the blazing red of cochineal and surrounded a border of soft grey ambergris and a swirl of autumn leaves. Interesting as hell, and beautiful when it dries down. When I first applied this, I mostly got the leaves. Like a pile of damp leaves, which isn't bad because I totally associate that smell with fall. But then as it dries, the fuzzy grey ambergris comes out to play and suddenly the scent becomes slightly resiny, soft, and cozy. Really gorgeous, and a surprise morpher.

Dry leaves, osmanthus, sandalwood, and rose absolute. I wondered how Autumn would compare to any of the other autumnal scents such as October and The Death of Autumn. It's slightly creamy and smooth with a suggestion of the crispness of fallen leaves and though I can't detect rose exactly, there's something ever so slightly perfumey in there that peeps through every now and again. Definitely different to the other fall scents, and while I can't exactly make up my mind whether I'd wear Autumn, it's definitely got possibilities. I'll probably retest it again in a few days, when I'm not so bowled over by some of the other Salons.

WEEPING BRANCHES MOON The moon glimmers like bright snow, and plum blossoms appear like reflected stars Ah! The golden mirror of the moon passes overhead as fragrance from the jade chamber fills the garden Graceful, arching branches, heavy with plum and apricot blossoms, sweet ichigo, and a bouquet of peony, anemone, honeysuckle, spider lily, and hydrangea against a backdrop of luminescent, gently glowing lunar oils. This is by no means a thorough review, since my skin testing was limited to a tiny dab on the outer edge of my wrist, but hey, I'll give it a shot. Weeping Branches Moon seemed to be perfectly balanced to me - slightly fruity as well as a delicate 'pink' floral, so it's neither omgfloral nor juicy and fruity (like, say, Budding Moon was). Overall it was really pretty, feminine, and elegant, in the way that Beth's Asian-inspired Lunacy blends always are.

The NIGHTMARE TERROR of TEENAGE love gone GRISLY! She's HELL-BENT on romance, THRILL-CRAZED, and HUNGRY! There's NO ESCAPE from her clutches! A deranged darling, sweet and sociopathic! Clotted vanilla cream, pink pepper, grapefruit, blood lily, red ginger, English pear, and lemon-squeezed candyfloss! Wet, in the bottle, this scent bears a lot of resemblance other classic BPAL foody blends with just a little added sweetness. It's pretty, but it's not what I expected given the listed notes, and while it's a good scent and definitely wearable, I can't say it's really exceptional or even makes my top five of the Lab's 'foody' type of scents. It's generally slightly sweet, though well balanced with a hint of the candyfloss and pear. It's got a short wearlength on me, and a couple of hours in, I can barely pick up a whiff of it on my wrist. ETA: Although the ingredients are different, there's something here reminiscent of Treat 2 about 30 minutes in. Hm. I think it's the combination of pear and grapefruit giving off a vaguely dusty feel thanks to my weirdo body chemistry. Blarg.

It's very light in the bottle, and definitely has skin musk front and center, but after wearing it for about ten minutes what emerged was a slightly floral musk with an elegant vanilla, with a very subtle breath of sandalwood. Totally in love with it.

A handsome, dark-skinned man weaves and dances his way through the crowd. Veves have been burned into the face of his old acoustic guitar, which he strums casually as he strolls though the crowd. A winged Capuchin monkey is balanced on his shoulder, holding out a rusty metal cup. The guitar player's melancholy chords begin to mingle strangely with a cacophonous jangling sound. The discordant symphony grows and swells as he moves toward a cloaked and hooded figure; this spectre's skeletal hands operate a dilapidated barrel organ that stands at a crossroads in the midway. As they come together, the music hits a nightmarish crescendo; your heart heaves with longings unfulfilled, your vision swims, and your head is filled with whispered incantations and gallows secrets. In that instant, you suddenly understand the profundity of deals made in Heaven and Hell, and the price of desire. Almond milk, sarsaparilla, tobacco smoke, black patchouli and white pine bark. I really wanted to try this because of the almond milk, but didn't expect to like it because patchouli and I don't usually get along. The first sniff was unlike anything I've ever tried before, and it only got better on application. The strongest note for me is sarsparilla, which is very pleasant, distinctive and sweet without being foody.. Something in the background smooths it out which smells like vanilla, but I'm guessing that'd be the almond milk. The description is right on this money with this - it's a subtle, persuasive scent. It may not be overpowering, but it's very memorable and lingered for a while. I could still detect traces of it three and a half hours later.

LOOKING GLASS, LOOKING GLASS BATH OIL She was a beautiful woman, but proud and haughty, and she could not bear that any one else should surpass her in beauty. She had a wonderful looking-glass, and when she stood in front of it and looked at herself in it, and said— “Looking-glass, Looking-glass, on the wall, Who in this land is the fairest of all?” The looking-glass answered— “Thou, O Queen, art the fairest of all!” Then she was satisfied, for she knew that the looking-glass spoke the truth. An incomparably exquisite bath experience: velvety red roses, luxurious sandalwood, opulent mandarin, blood-red daemonorops-infused vegetal musk, dark candied berries, crimson spot rockrose, and jacaranda with tuberose, caraway, champa attar, and benzoin resinoid. Shea oil, apricot oil, apricot kernel oil, sunflower oil, fractionated coconut oil, rosehip seed, evening primrose oil, vitamin E, Rosa damascena, Vanilla planifolia, Styrax benzoin, Michelia champaca, Cistus ladaniferus, natural vanilla infusion, and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfume. This bath oil was created for Yule 2010, but never went live because we were unable to bring it into full production due to the extremely high cost of the components. The sale of this product is extremely limited; once it's gone, it's gone. When it comes to rose scents, Looking Glass, Looking Glass is the fairest of them all, without a doubt. I have an odd relationship with rose scents, in that I love the smell of roses but generally, most rose scents don't live up to expectations and tend to smell dreadful on me, even when they don't smell fake, dusty or dry in the bottle. This is a rose scent created with different types of rose and softened by vanilla musk and given depth with resin. It is so perfectly blended that I don't notice the tuberose, mandarin or dark berries mentioned in the description as separate notes. Also because the rose notes pretty much command the spotlight. It isn't any ordinary rose - I imagine this as a sprawling rose garden, the bushes filled with huge, heavy blooms, the air redolent with their perfume. My husband generally isn't a fan of some of the scents I prefer, but he was on the computer on the other side of our condo while I bathed in this, and when I was drying off, he came into the bathroom and said, "Whatever perfume you're wearing, it smells amazing." Maybe because this is a bath oil instead of perfume oil, but the scent stays true in the bathwater and on my skin, which has never happened to me with any scent that contained rose before. Maybe it's because there's so much of it in this! My 7 year old says she thinks it smells like a fairytale princess, but I'd say it's more like a Queen. Thank you so much to Lab and Trading Post, for creating this and allowing us to have some of it. I'll treasure what I have, for sure.

NYMPHES DE PAVE In passing up Broadway, any evening, between the hours of 7 and 11 o'clock, one is surprised to see so many well-dressed and comely females whose ages range from fifteen to twenty-five years, unattended by companions of the other sex. These young ladies are Nymphes de Pave or as they familiarly termed "Cruisers" have furnished rooms in which they receive visitors of the other sex, and ply their vocation in the streets for a livelihood. White fig, rose otto, honey, and bourbon vanilla. This is such a pretty scent in the bottle, and although I can definitely smell the roses first, the honey is definitely there too, stopping this from being solely floral. On my skin, it's just a light, sweet rose that blooms for about an hour before disappearing entirely. It's heady, lovely, and different to the other BPAL rose scents I appreciate. Honey lovers might favor this one, I think.

Hazelnut, vanilla bean, red sandalwood, amber, myrrh, and honey. Mmm... Something here was also used in Storyville. Not sure what it is, but I suspect the hazelnut and sandalwood. Initially, I was afraid of the foodiness, but one the drydown, the notes blend into something smooth, mellow and yummy with amber and faint wafts of vague nuttiness. It fades fast on me and wears close to the skin, but it smells good nonetheless.

Paperwhite narcissus, petitgrain, rosemary, cyclamen, and ozone accord. This is one of those quintessential clean scents, and while I'm not a lover of those I can still appreciate this and what makes it work. To my nose, most clean perfumes are usually either white florals (which are great on other people, but not me) or dryer sheets/potpourri. This is neither. It's slightly floral, slightly herbal but thirty minutes into the drydown it smells like a bar of expensive French soap I once had, and it's refreshingly clean without falling into any particular category. It's like a good old fashioned dose of soap and water. I don't think I'll wear this often at all, but I'll be keeping a little bit of it for when the mood hits me.

In alchemy, the archetype of fire represents activity and transformation. Our blend of ylang ylang, patchouli, sandalwood, myrrh, palmarosa, and King mandarin personifies this classical element, and expresses itself through the stimulation of your sexual energy. This massage oil inspires passion, relaxes inhibitions, and instills you with a sense of power and magnetism. Almond oil, refined rice bran oil, fractionated coconut, rosehip seed oil, evening primrose, vitamin E, Cananga odorata, Pogostemon patchouli, Santalum spicatum, Commiphora myrrha, Cymbopogon martini, Citrus deliciosa/reticulate, Citrus sinensis, Myristica fragrans, and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab oil blends. I just got my bottle today, and it's to die for. Before I get into the oil itself, the packaging is worth mentioning. The dark amber/brown plastic bottle is sturdy, the black flip lid doesn't let out a flood of oil (just the right amount), and the label is slick looking and pretty. Now, the oil itself has a great texture. Not too greasy and slippery - I rubbed it on my arms, and my skin is soft, scented and shimmery - but not greasy! The scent itself is wonderful. Mostly I can pick out the ylang ylang and King Mandarin, but the citrus seems 'darker' and more fiery than bright and juicy, so I know that's the patchouli at work. It sure smells sexy, and I'd use this as an everyday moisturizing oil for sure since I have dry skin. Maybe BPTP could bring out a scent to match?

Lightning splits the sky, illuminating the skeletal skyline of the carnival rides: sugared incense and night-blooming flowers. Initially, I detected a similarity to Carnivale Noir's Midway, but this is equally beautiful in it's own way. As far as I can tell Midnight on The Midway has a similar base, that smooth, sweet scent of yummy sugar-dusted treats, but with the addition of a light and creamy floral that could be honeysuckle of jasmine.. but it's not overpowering in the way I'd expect from a jasmine note. Initially, this sounded like an unusual combination, but it's perfect, and where Midway used to disappear on me after about fifteen mnutes, Midnight lasted for close to an hour on the edge of my wrist. I'm looking forward to making this a bottle purchase!

MRS LEWIS Mrs. Lewis of 45 E. Houston street keeps a private house of assignation. It is conducted very quiet and orderly. White sandalwood and tea roses. You'd think it'd be all tea roses, since rose is such a bossy note in my humble opinion.. But you'd be wrong. This one is pretty much even balanced, with the wood evening out the floral so it's not OMGINYOURFACEROSE. Sadly, as it fades, it starts taking on a sweet, powdery quality that doesn't work for me.

I'm lucky enough to have Antique Lace imps from 2005, a bottle from 2007, and now this new batch to test side by side. While the newer version reads as slightly more vanilla in the initial sniff, that's probably because my comparisons are significantly aged, and I do remember getting brand new bottles that smelled just like this. With the older versions on one wrist and the new on the other, 30 minutes in, they're identical.

Sniffing this in the bottle, it's a jumble of sweet foodiness - cotton candy, cream, something slightly fruity and perhaps a touch of something chocolatey. But on my wrist, it morphs into a dark cotton candy with wafts of incense. I'm sure this is going to be a big hit in the Carnival if/when it's released!