Ohmaude

First, this is POW! Sweet Violets like those violet candies, but, then it fades to ick. The combination of clove and violets results in heavy-on-the-lye soap. The tonka makes a late appearance, but by then it's too late. I feel as if I have said a dirty word and my mouth is about to get scrubbed out. This makes me wish for a scent that is clove, tonka and another floral besides violets..hmm...off to search. Violets don't work for me, though I don't begrudge their existence. If you like full-on violet notes, this is your scent.

This is almost all dark patchouli, with the bitter-tang spice of ginger in the background. I concur with others who have suggested this is very similar to Snake Oil. They must share the same patchouli note. This is a bit darker with a touch of orange blossom sweetness and not as heady-sweet and smoky as Snake Oil as it lacks the vanilla note. So if the vanilla in Snake Oil has always been a deal breaker, Vixen may be the scent you have been looking for. I'm assuming I received an aged imp, thanks to a forum swap. It certainly smells aged, and I imagine that makes quite a difference. I've been wearing this for an hour now and it's growing on me. Not a new or suprising scent to me, since I wear Snake Oil quite often, but it is still sniff-my-wrist-contstantly-yummy and rich. I'm definitely keeping this imp, and if I use it all, it will go on my never-ending list of GC bottles.

Voluptuous magnolias strewn over orchid, star jasmine, black amber and smoky rose. I love rose and jasmine, but they can be dangerously amped notes that overwhelm. With this scent, they temper each other, and play fair with the orchid, magnolia and amber. This is incredibly well blended. What it becomes is a very feminine and sexy floral. Not a sunshine and brassy floral, Black Dahlia has a touch of sweetness and sophistication, and a touch shy. This is what black lace underthings should smell like. Lovely. eta: Alas, the Magnolia eventually shifted this to soap territory. I don't know what I did to Magnolia, but we do not. get. along. I was really digging this too. Sadness.

Bezoar slathered on my wrist is such a eerily familiar scent. If you went to a dimestore fortune-teller and she informed you that in a past life you were a spice merchant, and spent your time amongst wooden chests of spices, this is what that past life would smell like. The basalm is the dominant note, bringing to mind dark polished wood. The cardemom is full and lovely and I might as well be standing in an old spice shop in the market, with cardemom piled in front of me. It's cardemom by the pound all scrunched up into a little vial of oil. The hay absolute is dry and golden and almost boozy. It's like the golden flecks in a fine piece of polished wood. Ah! I see what you did there. This is quite unlike any other BPAL I've tried. I forgot how singular a note basalm can be. Dark wood and unisex. Yum! I will be dipping into my decant, and this is probably going on my (increasingly long) CD bottle wishlist.

I could have sworn this had violet in it when I first dabbed it on. Then, oh crap, Gardenia soap. Plant-sap and soap. There is something sooo familiar in this scent. Oh! it smells like a bar of french soap my mom used to keep in her drawer. So odd. Well maybe she will like the smell fo this.

I love all the notes in this blend individually, but together in Imp they don't quite work for me. The peach and patchouli end up creating a sort of over-ripe peach effect that fades to a peach schnapps scent that is interesting, but not really what I want to smell like. This would be great on the right person, though.

It's Blackberry season around here and I find myself reaching for The Oblation again and again. I got a decant of this last year, and it sat in my box unloved for awhile, because the Berry and Honey notes aren't supposed to work for me. The Oblation is the exception. It must be the lavender, one of my faves, that makes it all lovely. This is whole blackberry vines, blackberries and blackberry tea, with lavender. Perfect.

In the vial this smells of sage, cedar and a hint of vanilla, but once it touches my skin this is all leather, all the time. It smells so good, but is giving me some gender-identity issues. I kind of want to have sex with the man-version of me. Ahem. In conclusion, this is amaaaaaazing, and I think I'm going to sneak-attack my special man-friend with the imp and then have my way. This is, not, however, how I want to smell myself. Bow and the Crown is fuckin' sexy, damn. If you are a man or into masculine scents and reading this, take note. Ohmaude rating: Oh.man. (in the literal sense)

Inez is a very warm, sweet scent. I too find it very similar to Morocco. I am loving the cedar and myrrh in this. Inez is like spending a quiet evening with your head in your lover's lap, lying in front of a crackling fire of cedar logs, firelight dancing on the stucco walls. It's so soft, sweet, comforting and sexy at the same time. I can't wait to wear this more when the weather cools down. For the moment I can't stop sniffing myself, so yum. Ohmaude rating: Ohyummmm!

Have I not reviewed this yet? I prefer to wear this in the winter when the red musk stays close and the scent is sexy and comforting and wafts from under scarves and jackets. It can be a little too much in the summer when it amps like crazy. This is almost like a red musk single note, with just a hint of spicyness. Ohmaude rating: Ohyes!

Rosemary, citrus and rose. Mainly rosemary. This makes me think of a well-tended herb garden, with gravel paths and large rosemary shrubs and the smell of flowers. This is not particularly feminine, and it reminds me of Aveda shampoo, which must be the rosemary. I like it, it's subtle, different and unique. I could see wearing this in a situation where you don't want to seduce everyone in the room (always a risk with BPAL) but you want to smell lovely and fresh. Ohmaude rating: Oh!

I finally got a bottle of this after going through 3 imps. This is lemon-celery sugar candy and vanilla blossom with a very subtle vetiver base note (I agree with the reviewers who recognize this from the other voodoo oils.) It is sharp in the bottle, but softens on the wrist to become just a divine, happy scent. I love Aunt Caroline's and wear it often and can't stop smelling myself. It is extra-specially good for the summertime, when people are heat-grumpy. But I find myself wearing it all times of the year. Ohmaude rating: Ohyes!

I love the Honeysuckle and Jasmine in the Wanderlust scent New Orleans, so I had high hopes for an aquatic version. Today is super hot out, so I was thinking it was a Jasmine kind of day. I love Jasmine. This starts out as Honeysuckle and moss in the bottle (yum!), then it gets super musky with Jasmine (hmm), at which point it morphs into soap. I rarely get soap from BPAL. The soap fades a bit after few moments and I'm left with honeysuckle soap. Darn.

An irrelevant, disturbing, and surreal scent: red currant, green tea, red musk, Hawaiian ginger, benzoin, vanilla, coriander, squash blossom, and blueberry. Thanks to Marciabee for the bottle! YUM YUM YUM. Sweet and fruity blueberries and currants with spicy coriander and ginger, and yet it's not incredibly foody. This is lovely, light, and sparkle-happy-funtime-yay. My inner 8-year old wants to cover her my little ponies with this stuff. For a brief moment this is extra brand gum (fruit flavor)...but then it goes back to being amazing. It's a blueberry out for Japanese food with it's friends squash blossom and coriander, munching on ginger and drinking green tea.

When I opened the bottle and took a deep whiff, the smell of sweet coconut and pretty lilac actually made me exclaim "FUCK YEA!" On my skin it transforms and wafts about with musky lilac, boozy subtle coconut, and sweet astrigent hyssop melded with a soft hint of tobacco. This ends up being a predominantly lilac scent, but the other notes are present and accounted for. Like all BPAL, I'm excited for what a bit of aging will do. Though none of the notes are any kind of the same, this reminds me of Mme. Moriarty. I know it's weird, but there is something quality that evokes the same emotion. A sort of voluptuosness the two share. Full, sexy, very feminine and so lovely. Ashlultum is full of win.

Boomslang, you were my chocolate hope. I wanted you to be the heady, spicy chocolate I have sipped in a small cafe down a cobblestone street, in a mile-high mountain town in a small Central American country. I wanted you and Snake Oil to roll in rich and sexy goodness, the way chocolate can be. I wanted you to be different than the other BPAL chocolates, who left me feeling like a plastic toy ice-cream cone. I finally get my hands on an imp of you and alas, Boomslang. You smell like chocolate scented diet pills. You even damper the snake oil's goodness. You may say "chocolate" to my mind, but my heart knows better. To the swap pile with you.

Sandlewood incense and dark, pulpy, pulverized lotus flowers dripping with Myrhh. Despite the Amber and myrhh, it's vaguely aquatic, but river-aquatic, no ocean in this scent. I think of traveling in a canoe loaded down with incense, or walking into a damp headshop in a town along the Mississippi after the flood waters have receded. It gets more of the sandlewood-dominant as it dries down, but retains that pulpy fruit quality.

Coral Snake is the scent of a cabana boy painting coral nail polish on the toes of a woman of a certain age, who is drinking rum on the beach of hawaii and recalling with fondness how she put her ex-husband through the ringer during the divorce proceedings. The sun is high in the sky. It's hot and a wee bit sweaty and the floral lei on the woman is scenting the air. I think it's the brassiness of the Gardenia that does it. The Gardenia has kept me from wearing this as a regular scent. It goes OMG Perfume ya bitches! It tickles my nose, my eyes water. I amp Gardenia. It fades, but it's still there. So, I recommend this with reservations, if you don't amp gardenia, this is good stuff. If you do, proceed with caution.

I've had this in my "untested" imp pile for awhile. I don't know when I got it, but it was a frimp from a lab order. So now that I've admitted to being a sloppy bpal lover (no spreadsheet, nothing), tonight is a hot summer night, (for here) and I just spotted the Mantis imp in the box, and went hmm...I haven't tried that one. At first, Mantis is so very vividly green. Then with the sappy and leafy, it morhps into a screaming PERFUME moment, where the neroli and amber kick in at 11. In other words, it amps. The first thought that popped into my mind was "dryer sheet." Along with "get it off!" Luckily that lasts for only a few minutes, then it softens and sweetens; the amber gets powdery, the green goes soft lawn and the citrus stays strong. the patchouli is barely there, a touch of earth, that's all. This scent, even thought it calms down after the drydown, isn't subtle at all, it ain't shy. It's sharp. It's insect-like! This scent will mate with you, and bite your head off as a nuptual gift! Once again a scent that invokes it's name so literally. Mantis, indeed. I rank it's amp up there with Croquet in it's strong citrus overtones. I'm a huge fan of amber-citrus blends, but this is one I probably couldn't pull off all the time. The herbal aspect keeps it sharp. It's closer to being a traditional perfume than many of BPAL scents. It is unique and ideal on a hot, summer night while I sit on my back deck drinking basil and bourbon. This is what I love about BPAL: a scent for every occasion.

In the vial this is a non-descript floral. When applied it goes OMG insane gardenia of death, with the citrus and lemongrass egging it on into a very masculine, bitter floral. I tend to amp gardenia so I was worried about this. Angeronalia is reminiscinet of a more "traditional" colonge. I'm not really loving it. Now, an hour later, the bitter gardenia has faded quite a bit and what I am left with a softer, sweeter scent. Mellowed and grounded by the patchouli, the white florals are beginning to behave, the lemongrass has that "oh joy" kick to it and the citrus is making it sweet and happy. However, it has faded quite a bit, and as a result has very little throw: I have to really press my nose against my wrist to get a good sniff. I like all these notes, I'm a hugh fan of lemongrass and am really excited when Beth works with it, and I think the end result is very pretty...but I'm not sure I can live through the intial "Holy Crap Cologne" stage. Perhaps some aging in my BPAL perfume cellar is what is called for.

Darn't all to heck. I've been waiting to try Snow White for a long time, but over the past couple of years it seemed impossible to get my hands on a decant of it. Based on the descriptions, and it's popularity, I was hoping this would be the sweet, icy coconut floral of my dreams. Instead, from the moment it is on my skin I get spastic plastic almond syrup with a hint of coconut, and no florals. I waited out the scent for a couple of hours, hoping it would morph into something wonderful, but instead it hung out being plasticky, like if Tokyo Stomp was thrown out in the snow. This was very reminiscent of stomp. There is some vanilla mint note in both that just will not calm down and cooperate. Alas I seem to have that chemistry that just doesn't work with this scent. Which is strange, because I love coconut, vanilla and almond. I love Dana o' Shee, for example. I guess I will leave Snow White to those of you who are blessed to smell the goodness in the scent.

When it comes to roses, I am a true fan of '05 PQ, but was excited to finally get to try Rose Red. I think the best way to review this scent is to compare and contrast with PQ. I agree with what many others have said about Rose Red, its very red roses, but there is a green sap quality also. It is fresh, fresh rose, complete with stems and leaves. This is what I imagine you would smell like if you worked in a florist shop all day cutting strongly scented rose stems. While PQ is a regal woman sitting in her boudoir, Rose Rose is a sharp-tongued wild thing.

I got this as an frimp. Thanks lab! This is a vague, sweet floral in the imp. On my wrist there comes the berry, the plum, the opium (one of my favorite notes, yay!) a bit of the lilac, a touch of old roses, and...a hint, a smidgen, a drop of dried blood. Tangy, coppery blood. (Before you all start wondering why I know the smell of leftover blood, I used to work at the blood bank. ) Normally I would find this distrubing, but for some reason its just sweet and spicy. This is a warm floral, no bite. I probably never would have ordered this imp on my own, but I think I like it. I'm going to keep trying it. You know when you talk to some guy at a party, but you're not swooning because he's not your type? But you keep glancing back at him the rest of the night because there is something there? That's how I feel about Blood Countess. I am not proclaiming my love yet, but the imp is going in to regular rotation.

yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum... So I took a risk getting this, thinking there was a good chance I would be swapping it away, but that is not going to happen. Nu-uh, This bottle is mine! I am a not really a fan of the foody, but I am all about Beaver Moon. In the bottle: Cherries, a little off, cough syrup-y almost. On my skin: Sweet strawberries and cream. Soft and lovely. Not too sweet, not too cookie, just soft, slightly vanilla-tinted cream and luscious fresh berries. There is something else there...making it a smidgen ethreal milky floral. It just adds to the depth. This is amazing. I am afraid to leave my room, for fear my housemates will want to eat me. eta: I'm wearing this a day later and now I am getting way more of the wild cherry then I did before. It's tart and wonderful.

Finally got around to getting a decant of this. All Souls 2007. In the imp: I get generic incense and sweet currant cake, like you would get at the coffee shop. On my skin: This is all incense, the cake scent has left me. After an hour or so: The incense calms, but the cake smell never quite returns, but I can detect a trace of it, there is a little too much sharpness in the incense, a note that dominates the others for me. I think I am going to try this in my oil burner, where it my chemistry won't wonk it out. I prefer to smell a little less incense shop-y.