eatingthesea

i generally do not like using the whoopie!yayyy!luvvvv!wooooowie! icons here but this blend is worth it. oooohhhh yes. what really got me about kabuki is its simplicity (only three ingredients) and the unlikelihood of those ingredients being in the same place at the same time. but it works so well. in fact, i wish more bpal oils had star anise. anyway, the cherry is not too sweet, tempered by the anise. the red musk lends this cherry-based scent a more "grown-up" attitude so it doesn't go the way of jailbait (i.e., being underage, hehe). i feel it's even a bit too heady and sensual to wear to the office, for example, so i would reserve this one for evening, er...affairs. there is something very dramatic about kabuki that, well, makes this yet another bpal oil whose definition and intent is spot-on. i would eat myself while wearing kabuki! 5 ml, please.

oh how i love how i smell when doused in envy. the way i see envy translated through this scent is its symbolic pure greenness. it is not a malignant, vengeful envy...i see it more as the kind of envy that consumes one to the point of obsession, if anything. i think i remember reading reviews saying this one ends up going house cleaner on some people, but i'm glad it doesn't do that to me. i can see where the lime might go funky on some skins, but luckily for me, i believe the lavender and herbs balances it out. i'm not usually a big fan of lavender but i appreciate its balancing properties. i wear this one when i need a pick-me-up or during one of la's many mucky, hot summer days...

this has quickly become one of my top favorites, one reason being its complexity and mysteriousness. any scent that evokes certain memories or feelings of wistfulness for no apparent reason or obvious connection is good. i like to have that kind of psychological involvement with my scents, beyond the happiness of my olfactive gear! thusly, i cannot pinpoint what it is about penny dreadful that agrees with me, but it just does. it is creamy-earth strewn with fading flowers. that is my best attempt at pinpointing it. there is something ginger-y about it which gives it a kick, which i can appreciate. i will say that zombi has influenced my love and desire for all scents earth-based and so whenever i find a bpal description flingin' dirt or grave loam or whatnot at me, i get happy. and i'm a literature sl*t, so this scent just fits. this scent, for me, is akin to one of those relationships that you enter with ease and peacefulness because it's just meant to be, and both of you know it without saying a thing. mmmm

a frimp! someday, i'll understand what this "oleander" is all about :/ alas, this scent is all mandarin and spice on me. no musk. not that this is a bad thing necessarily. my skin isn't usually in agreement with citrus-laden scents, but somehow it is accepting of mandarin here. i was hoping to extract more of the magnolia with hell's belle but perhaps that's what black dahlia is for. this one is definitely spicy-sweet on me and the description of "sweet, smoky and sensually wicked" certainly applies. i'd like to layer her with a clove-infused scent. ha! just as i was writing this, my co-worker said, "someone smells good around here...kinda powdery-sweet!" it was moi. sad i thought i could avoid the dreaded baby powder effect with hell's belle. oh well. she shall remain imp-bound for me.

i admit it, i tried this scent because of its name alone! so purty. and, of course, as one would hope, the scent ends up being just as beautiful as its name implies. i'm not normally a fan of foodsy, hyper-sweet scents but this one is okay for times and situations calling for amping tha romance i get a deep cocoa-rose from this one, with a verrry faint breath of greenery; hardly there at all. i wonder if the bpal oil "velvet" is similar to this one...? love-lies-bleeding has multiple personalities, however, as when i put this on last night, all i got was a big fist full of candy! it's probably much too sweet for me to wear everyday, but like i said, there is a time and a place...

how similar is embalming fluid to envy? envy is one of my favorites ever, and it seems like it may be sisterly to embalming fluid. they both seem light and green and spring-y. i love nearly all the funereal oils, anyway, so i'm sure i'll love it...

this scent intrigued me into purchase mode due to its mixture of grass and moss, and it seemed somewhat similar to the sin & salvation scent envy (divine!). i get moss and grass eventually; the tea hits me immediately (as usual). sadly, no ginger or fig, but that was to be expected. fruit does not compute somehow the tea combined with something here reminds me of tea rose, but not sure what. either way, a lovely, greenish scent that does indeed feel "inventive" and even a bit profound. may need to be upped to 5ml.

this IS my bpal scent (well, thus far, i still have so many to sniff). words cannot pinpoint the strangely sensual feeling i have when zombi has infiltrated my senses, but it is sensuality. this is the scent that made me fall for all scents moss-ified, and made me yearn for other dried, dead rose scents. my astrological makeup is painted by fire and air and horns, so i think these heavily earthy scents pull me back down and soothe me. and on my manly man, this scent...oh dear i can see this one going in several different directions for different people...dirt, rose, dark greens...but this one hits me and the lover just right.

my first review! i'm going for the underdog here, as it seems the cherry in the red queen is often lambasted for its aggressiveness. i, for one, adore cherry scents, as long as they're balanced out with unexpected elements, i.e. the star anise in kabuki (one of my all-time favorites) and here, by woods. and that is what i get on drydown: absolute woodsy woods. the sweet cherry stayed with me for all of 15 minutes, and then i was choppin' down trees. and i liked it! i was hoping for more currant, but my skin is special ed at picking out any fruits ever, so...i don't think the red queen is calling for upping the ml's, but i sure will reach for this imp whenever i have done something immature and want to feel like a real woman again

in that batch, the others were cathedral, thanatos and grandmother of ghosts...except for the latter, scents that are for more...confident days, i'd presume i think love-lies-bleeding does the job. i'm about to purchase another load of imps, and i'm focusing on lighter, sweeter scents, i.e. tiger lily, arachne, the unicorn, coyote. i'm also very interested in nocnitsa, as i'm crazy for mosses and earth. i just find that the incensy, fire-laden scents don't do much for upturning my frown.

that is me in a nutshell today. i'm a fairly slow-moving bpal user and am only slowly beginning to show signs of addiction. i just received my third ever shipment of imps and i've been concealing some shakes and uncontrollable giddiness. so clearly, my imps are the only way i can avoid said gloominess. so which one of these imps should i test first (they're all new to me) to keep the frownies away today? of the 12 i got, i'm most inclined to try one of these: salome, crossroads, anne bonny, the apothecary, kyoto, the red queen, love lies bleeding. i think djinn and the high priest not to be described are for days when i actually want to wallow. hell's belle and urd were my frimps, so i have no idea. which first?!

Having received my most recent order of Imps, I received a generous side dish of Frimps, and one of them is called "Val Sans Retour." I'm tired and all, but I don't think I'm so lazy-eyed that I missed it when I did a search on the site for the scent; can't find it in any category. What is this? Help??