jensdays

I’m not expecting much from this, I don’t especially like the way it smells in the bottle. Wet it’s kind of heavy and dirty smelling. I was hoping for tobacco, and vanilla, but I think the incense smoke and labdanum are the more prominent notes. I’ll have to see how this dries. Okay, it dried so much better than it went on. By an hour it’d become a gorgeous chewy tobacco, with hints of the other notes in the background. Not nearly as much vanilla as I’d expected, with the benzoin AND actual vanilla notes, but the tobacco is just delicious. It’s got a pretty light throw, and doesn’t seem to be one that will last a long time, but I’m definitely hanging on to it!

First impression, this is so pretty. Olive oil, amber and beeswax. Pretty heavy throw on application. Hour in, much less throw, not super strong on my skin either. It’s morphed into something less ambery, lots of very unique and pretty olive blossom, the sweet cookie-ish scent is more obvious, and hints of fruit way in the background. It's still really pretty and I look forward to seeing what it becomes with age.

Very violet, actually pretty similar to Bruised Violet. I’m not getting any of the fruit, so not really any sweetness either. The musk is an interesting addition, I’m not sure I’ve had indigo musk before. I like it, of course, I have yet to find a violet I don’t like, but it’s definitely not my favorite. The throw gets stronger as it warms up. I think it will layer really well with something sweet and creamy! I ended up putting a layer of Kiseru over this, and loved it!

Mmmmm. Love the lab’s uber creamy goat’s milk note. That is the main player on application, followed by something unique, that I can’t quite place. It’s a little sharp, I think it’s the scorched oak. No tobacco yet. Hour - the cream has settled into a supporting player, the tobacco has shown up, and the sharpness of the scorched oak has mellowed. Not much throw, but a really good scent nonetheless. 4 hours - it’s pretty light now, but still easily sniffable close to the skin. It ended up being a good mix of creamy milk, tobacco, and a light wood note. I really like this one!

Wet - it hit my skin with a blast of Snow White, but the leather quickly joined in. Right now, about 10 minutes, it’s a nice strong leather almost exactly balanced by the SW note. If this stays as good as it’s starting, I’ll be looking for back up bottles! Almost an hour in, and I can’t stop sniffing myself. It hasn’t really changed any since I started this review. It’s not as strong as it was, but I can still smell it just sitting here. I’m totally in love! Sadly it is pretty short lived, 3 hours in and it’s all but gone. I’ll definitely try it with vaseline, but it doesn’t matter, it’s amazing, and worth reapplying! So, after saying that, I went to bed with this on last night, and when I woke up this morning, it was still just barely there, nose-to skin! Just a faint, creamy skin scent, but still there!

On application I am decidedly unimpressed. Heavy incense and tea, but not in a way that I find appealing. I was hoping for more of a vanilla-tea scent. Decent throw. Hoping it does some major morphing as it dries. Nope. An hour in and it’s exactly the same. Incense heavy, and tea in the background. So sad. I had such hopes for this one. My husband doesn’t like it either. I had such high hopes for this one - I was really looking forward to the vanilla tea. Sigh.

Thank you!! I have like 50 GC in my want to try list, and I usually just blind buy bottles, but was thinking about trying imps instead this time.

Does the lab still offer a discount for 6 imps? I know it used to be 6 for $22, but I assume that prices have gone up for that, if it's still available, since they've gone up on everything else.

Oooh! A candy heart that I love! Wet it’s pure candied violet, nice and strong, good throw. The description is perfect - the violet is about halfway between Faith (sugared violets) and Bruised Violet Compound (heavy, dirty, freshly planted violets). No amber yet, but I wouldn’t mind if it stayed just like this. An hour in - it’s faded some, not too bad. No morphing, still no amber. Light throw. 3 hours - no morphing at all, the amber never showed up. It’s not very strong, but I am in love with it. There’s still a decent throw, I can smell it when the air moves around me, and I don’t have to be nose-to-skin to smell it. I might need a back up on this one!

This is definitely peach candy, not fresh peach. Kind of like the gummy rings. The cotton is there as kind of a clean linen scent. They’re well balanced, there isn’t a dominant note on application. It’s lighter than I was expecting. An hour in, the laundry note is taking over, the peachy scent has faded a good bit. More throw than I was expecting when it went on so light, and there’s more peach in the throw than up close, somehow. Hour later - this is rapidly turning into dryer sheet. I can’t decide if I should try aging this to see if the peach grows up, or just go ahead and destash.

Brand new, got it in the mail yesterday. In the bottle and on application it is absolutely gorgeous. Mostly vanilla, a completely non-foody vanilla. 1 ½ hours or so… Something has joined the vanilla, but I don’t specifically recognize it as either the tobacco or sandalwood. Maybe it’s the smoke part of the tobacco, I don’t think I’ve run across that before. It’s toned down the sweetness of the vanilla and given it a slight woodiness (ah, probably the sandalwood then!) It’s pretty light, but there’s a decent throw I can smell around me. 4+ hours, it’s still there, almost entirely vanilla. I don’t think it morphed at all once it was dry. But I can still smell it both on my skin and in the air around me, which is really rare. I can’t wait to see how this ages. I don't get anything lemon at all, and very little sandalwood. I'm hoping the sandalwood gets stronger as it ages - it usually does. And the comparison to the Antique Lace vanilla is spot on.

This is heavy red musk and a lot of leather. No honey, at least so far. A strong scent, that starts off with a ton of throw. The reviews all say it’s more honey than red, but even an hour or so in, the honey is just a faint sweetening, this is RED LEATHER and honey. I’m really surprised, I’ve avoided it all this time, but it’s actually good on me. It reminds me of a red version of Black Rider. Red musks usually take over, but this is more leather than musk. I'm sure the fact that it's a year old makes a big difference, but I'll have to keep my eyes open for a bottle!

This is interesting. When I first got this, it was all apple in the bottle. After sitting for a couple weeks, I swear I get a lot of water as the top note. Not an aquatic scent, but good clean spring water in the bottle, and as soon as it hit my skin. Within a few minutes of application that is gone, and it’s pretty evenly split between a sweet crisp apple, and black leather. This might be a lot better than I was expecting! 30 minutes in - I smell like a sexy apple. I’m not picking up any specific amber or honey, but there’s a richness to it in the background I think is coming directly from that honeyed amber note, with the leather and apple in the foreground. Who knew apples could be sexy? This started with a heavy, strong throw, but a few hours in, it’s gotten a lot lighter. The scent is fantastic though.

I got this despite the lavender listed because of all the reviews saying it’s pure plum. Sadly, that is not the case with me. It went on with a massive blast of lavender, strong enough that it was the only thing I could smell. It did, over the next hour, calm down, with a lot of sugar plum showing up, but it didn’t kill the lavender, just blended with it. If there was a version without the lavender, it would probably be in my top 3 favorites. Sigh.

First impression - it’s all tea, which is a little odd to smell on my skin. It’s not a tea scented perfume, it’s actual tea. After about 10 minutes, the honey joins in, and I think the marshmallows are sweetening it some too. A couple hours in, the tea is still the dominant scent, but the honey and cream are in there, and I can actually smell marshmallow, not just the usual sweetening I usually get from it. As it sits, the throw seems to actually be getting stronger. At 1-2 hours, there wasn’t much of a throw at all, but 3+ hours later, it’s a soft wafting scent I can smell as I’m sitting here, and it’s really pretty.

Just tested this one today, it's been sitting for a week after being shipped from the lab. In the bottle it was almost entirely pumpkin, as well as when it hit my skin. Within just a couple minutes though, the sandalwood is right there, making the pumpkin more subtle, a little drier, and taking over that burst of fresh pumpkin flesh. 15-20 minutes in, cinnamon shows up in a big way. I wasn’t expecting it, there’s nothing about pumpkin spice in the description. It’s the dominant note for a good hour, before it starts settling back down, but it’s still stronger than I’d like. The pumpkin is stronger than the sandalwood, which is nice, and it’s a good pumpkin, I just wish the cinnamon wasn’t there. *Decent staying power, lasted a few hours, not much throw. I'd give it a 3/5, mainly because of that cinnamon. *My skin eats everything, so 4 hours is a long time on me.

Review of an aged bottle - bought in 2012, reviewing today. I love all things vanilla, so back when I had just discovered BPAL, this was one of my first purchases. My original notes say I adored it, it was perfectly, exactly vanilla ice cream. (Also that it layered amazingly with Lemon Sticky Bat ) Knowing now, that almost all of the Lab vanillas need at least 6 months to a year to age, I came back to this for the first time in 3 or 4 years today (Stored in a dark, climate controlled box ever since I first bought it), and I expected it to be vanilla heaven. Sadly, it's not. It's plasticky, and totally fake smelling, like a cheap vanilla candle. There is a heavy butter note in there that I didn't get at all when it was fresh. This and Boomslang are the only oils I've found that aren't better with age, so I'm very surprised. (And Boomslang is because my chemistry just doesn't play nice with SO, sob.) I think I'm probably going to try to sell this bottle, and buy a new one, so I can have that perfect creamy sweet vanilla it used to be.

Immediate impression - lots of sweet, dry cocoa. Hints of hazelnut in the background. I’m hoping the coconut comes out more, but this is pretty good right now. Dry down - it’s like a fancy Almond (hazelnut!) Joy. Good chocolate, sweet, sticky coconut, and just a bit of nuttiness. A couple hours in, it’s a soft, powdery cocoa. Decent staying power, not much throw at any point. It’s light, and pretty, and I’m happy with it. Okay, 5 hours, and I can NOT stop sniffing my arm. I’m not even sure how to describe it, it’s not cocoa, coconut, or hazelnut, but it’s all of those things and more. It’s not foody, but it’s definitely gourmand. It smells rich, expensive, amazing. I’m literally smelling my arm every couple of minutes because it just smells so freaking good. I wish it had more throw, so I wouldn’t look like such a weirdo here, sticking my nose in the crook of my arm over and over.

I got a totally different reaction than the poster above me. In the bottle this was pure vanilla frosting. Wet it is a very sweet, complex vanilla, with an almost floral undertone to it. Nothing at all like cake, but very good. Dry, not at all like I’d expected, I never got cake, and while it was definitely a sweet vanilla, it wasn’t especially foody. It doesn’t smell anything like Zorya P, but reminds me of it - that soft vanilla and white flowers thing. Except this is a sweet vanilla, not like icing, but definitely sugared, and the white flowers are … damn, I need better words. Intense? Not strong, but like if ZP’s flowers would be the soft spoken girl at the dance, these flowers are the mysterious woman in the corner you can’t take your eyes off of. I may need another bottle of this one! I just can’t get over how good it is. Decent throw and has lasted most of the day.

Maybe I got an off bottle or something, but all I can smell is soap. My daughter agreed with me, and my husband said he can smell something sweet, but still soapy. I haven't tested it because I don't like smelling like soap. It's so weird.

In the bottle it’s all chocolatey. It hit my skin and I smelled cocoa, and something… not cinnamon, but something with an edge. I wasn’t impressed. A couple hours later, I thought it had all but disappeared when my kid got in the car and said “oooh you smell good. Like a pie or something” I still don’t understand where she gets pie, but it did morph like crazy. I don’t get chocolate or cinnamon, and I can’t seem to identify exactly what it is I’m smelling, but it’s good. Rich, warm, a tiny bit “perfumey”, but in kind of a sexy way. I was going to put the bottle on my sales list, but I think I need to try it at least one more time first.

Sweet beeswax, that’s all I’m getting right now. I’m hopeful more of the fruitiness of the strawberries will come out as it dries. As it stands right now I’m kind of regretting buying a bottle, I prefer the candle wax in Light of Men’s Lives to this wax. I have to give them credit though, it’s precisely beeswax, they have the scent perfect. Okay, as it’s drying, it’s getting much fruitier and yummy. I rescind my regret, I think I’m going to love this. It’s got decent throw as well, I can smell it just sitting here, without having to sniff my wrist.

In the imp, it’s sweet berries. On, the skyr shows up, making the berries all creamy and rich. It’s not very strong, but I didn’t moisturize before putting it on this time, which makes a difference. (note - I have a head cold, it may be stronger than I’m catching) Lasted for hours, all creamy berry. It didn’t change much, the scents just deepened. I look forward to trying it again when I’m not sick!

It’s the lab’s basic citrus blend. Very close to Gobo without the cream, actually. Nice, but nothing I’d go out of my way for. It did last a long while on my skin, had very little throw though, and I never got anything but citrus.

I was hoping for more of that snow note in GTSD and SW, but I’m getting soapy florals. Dark, heavy florals. Smells more commercially perfume than I like, and seems to be getting soapier as it dries. I ended up washing it off after roughly an hour.