Meg

In the bottle: Herbs! It smells very sweet and somewhat medicinal, there's linden in there, and a powerful herb I can't quite put my finger on. There's also a very aquatic tone in it - not like the sea, but like a gentle brook. Wet: The same mixture of herbs and aquatic notes immediately become slightly powdery and very subtle. Drydown: Now you can smell the nectar of the linden blooms, like honey, mixed with the herbs that fade to the background. The flowers come out finally, very light and sweet, but the background of herbs is still there. Funnily, the sweet flowers come to you in wafts when you're not expecting it, while you smell the herbs and linden more if you smell the spot with the perfume. After a while, the sweetness mellows into a soft herby, slightly tangy scent, very much like hay and delicate white flowers. Overall: The smell of dewy meadows on a bright spring morning - of course the Unicorn is here. As said in other posts, it's doesn't remind us of Caroll's unicorn as much as unicorns from "The Last Unicorn" and especially from "Legend" - it's very feminine and delicate, strongly linked to nature. It morphs quite a bit, going from very herby to very sweet and finally settling into a mellow softness. It smells clean and fresh as well as mysterious - just like a white unicorn. I really like it, a real BPAL success!

In the bottle: a powerful, mysterious scent of what I believe is myrrh. It makes me think of deep, dark blue, for some reason. Wet: jasmine starts to seep through the myrrh, making the scent sharper and sweeter at the same time. Drydown: It's only after a while that I start smelling the roses through the jasmine and myrrh, practically as an undertone. Actually I think the three blend together to make a unique, rather spicy scent. It makes me feel queenly, a bit haughty. It really suits the wicked stepmother mood, for some reason it makes me think of jealousy. But it also makes me think of hypnotic seduction with its heavy florals. Overall: I have trouble describing this with words... someone who sniffed it on me said it smelled like an Indian perfume, probably because it's quite a common combination of scents over there. It's a heady perfume, insistent, which will come back and haunt you long after you've put it on. It smells like a velvety, deep blue mystery, and it's very sensual, too. I definitely like it, but it's weird, probably not for all noses.

Dried roses, rose leaf, Spanish moss, oakmoss and deep brown earth. This is the first BPAL scent that really grabbed my attention. Something that smells like death? An absolute must-try! In bottle: red roses, dirt and moss mixed together, smelling fresh, as if it had just rained on an upturned grave. Wet: Lots of roses, they overpower any other scent at first. Drydown: Zombi dries down to a rather powdery scent, clearly smelling of dry roses now. The earth and moss are subdued, they waft in and out of focus from the background, reminding us that this isn't a happy rose - it's a mourning rose from a cemetary. It also reminds you of dust - as if a bouquet of red roses had been left in a musty attic to dry out. Overall: I adore it. I wasn't sure if I'd like roses on me, but this one really works. For those who are looking for a melancholy perfume, it's perfect. It creeps into your nose in wafts from time to time and creates a great atmosphere: the roses are sobered by musty undertones, making it a quietly, sad perfume. I probably don't make the earth/moss scents come out as strongly as other people, considering that some people say that it makes them "smell like the dead" - I didn't have that impression at all, I just felt that I smelled of earthy dry rose. This has immense staying power, too.

In bottle: It smells very powerful, dark and stormy, brooding with a strong smell of resin, probably the labdanum and cypress. It reminds me of a very dark forest by a black stormy ocean. Wet: It's still very dark, but turns into wine and spices, it smells herby, the scent of cypress and resin still dominate. It's very complex and changes pretty fast. Finally a berry sweetness slowly seeps through the cypress scent as it dries. Drydown: the dark and deep florals come through the cypress, making it a dark-sweet blend. Clearly feminine, in a sultry, heady way. There's both the smell of tropical, mysterious flowers and the scent of something more tangy, probably still the cypress or myrrh. Sometimes the florals win out, sometimes it's the herbs. All this on a background note of berries. Overall: Medea is one of my favourite mythological characters, and the perfume lives up to all my (high) expectations. It's complex; dark and sharp at moments, sweet and sensual at others, constantly morphing. It's very much how I saw the character of Medea. It's womanly, mysterious and hypnotic. Yum!

In the bottle: Sorry to say I nearly retched on first smelling this. It smells powerfully of nuts - more like walnut than hazlenut - with some underlying sweetness. It's really overpowering in the bottle, pretty bittersweet. Someone mentioned burned sugar, and I quite agree that there's a burned element in it. Wet: very much like in the bottle, overpowering nuttiness - I honestly considered getting rid of it before it dried because it smelled much too strong. Drydown: with a bit of patience, the overpowering nut scent fades to give way to sweeter scents. It smells like a kind of caramel/hazelnut coffee. It's a very warm, sweet and buttery scent, you do smell the vanilla sometimes but it's rather light. It's rather well balanced, in that it smells both sweet and bitter. Overall: I wouldn't wear it - mostly because I really hate it before drydown, and after drydown it's too "edible". It smells like sweets, or coffee, or other kinds of foods, and I'm sure that's fine if you enjoy smelling like that. Me, it just makes me feel a bit sick. I wouldn't even use it to scent the house, it's too overpowering (and several of my family members went "gack! too sweet!" when I made then sniff it).