Ohmaude

I love the fragrance of Jasmine flowers, such a green sweetness on a summer breeze. However, Jasmine perfume tends to morph into something too strong, acidric and brassy when I wear it. Though I love the idea of Jasmine, I've avoided such notes in bpal for the most part because of it's pee-like morph. So much heartbreak I have had over the years trying to wear bpal Jasmine. So I wasn't too optimistic when I got a frimp with my last order. Defututa is delightful. It is the scent of jasmine flowers, not Jasmine perfume. This is the Jasmine perfume I've always wanted. Something about the honey, vanilla and sandalwood makes this a warm, mood-boosting, almost giddy scent that seems to be bottled directly from that wafting breeze. It's sexy the way bare skin and laughter is sexy. It is grounded with such a green earthy sweetness thanks to the olive blossom, even the champaca stays in line. This is a perfect summer scent. I love this! So getting a bottle with my next order.

Aughh I wrote a review and then it disappeared from the world. I don't have the heart to try to repeat it here, so I will say this: Great Grey Witch good. Perfect herbal-infused amber for summertime. Me like orris, chamomile and a lemony sugar that is just barely there. This is sweeter, warmer version of Murder of Crows. This makes me happy. I will be wearing this ALL summer. If you like this, try Aelopile or Murder of Crows.

A bright burst of florals that I associate with a clean house, this fades to a clean citrus soap smell. The lemongrass and rose geranium really stand out. As these two notes fade, the ginger, frankincense and blood orange come through, the scent loses it's soapy edge and mellows into a golden sweetness. Overall a delightful scent.

So you and your special man friend decide you are going to make caramel for a holiday party. You're both in the kitchen, stirring pots, measuring sugar, reading recipes and dancing along to Christmas music. You decide to sample the caramel, and dip a spoon into the pot. Upon bringing it to your lips a big dollop of caramel drips down your chin and lands in your cleavage. "Oh darn." you say. Special man friend looks up from the recipe book he's been reading, sees the caramel drippings and comes over to help you "clean-up." Next thing you know, the two of you are going at it on the kitchen floor and there is caramel everywhere. Now Winter Nights Enlarge, indeed.

In the winter I go cross-country skiing in the forested mountains outside of town. The absolute quiet, the scent of cold pine and fir, the clear air, the sparkle of ice. Ded Moroz is so evocative of this experience. This is a whiff of very rare amber perfume in the middle of a snow-covered forest. This is one of the few blends where the rose does not overpower the other notes, in fact every note is lovingly balanced. I often can't do overly pine scents, but this is more the suggestion of forest. The rosewood is just perfect. The scent hangs close to the skin, and the throw is light, which I'm so very happy about. This would be brassy and overly-perfume counter if it had more throw. Instead it just hovers. Absolutely gorgeous.

Love and Pain starts out as a herbal Lavender in the bottle. On the skin it quickly goes from this to a tarry, black acrid scent. Almost like lavender, black licorice and burnt tobacco. This stage is unpleasant. I'm guessing Black Musk may be the culprit. In the end, after an hour it gets sweeter and lighter, pipe tobacco musk with a hint of lavender. Very Masculine and what have you. I'm still deciding whether to let it stick around.

I LOVE this. Why hadn't I tried this earlier? I'm an absolute sucker for citrus-amber blends, and I love verbena. This is that, with a background incense-infused cedar that shows up with time. The verbena loses it's lemon edge and what is left is the quietest golden amber wood incense blend. This is what I wanted Jacob's Ladder to be. Wherein Jacob's Ladder went drugstore men's cologne, this is more unisex or even feminine. There is the slightest hint of copper, like the rest of the steamworks line. It's actually more evocative of the idea of warm copper, over there being a particular metallic note. True artistry. This is perfect for those days when you want a subtle, beautiful scent that stays close to the skin. That being said, it's so light on me that I did have to apply more oil than usual. But overall, a winner. I see a bottle in my future. If you enjoy this, try the salon scent Three Gorgons or the impossible to find Murder of Crows.

I've been having the hardest time trying to figure out how to review this scent. The only thing I can say about this is it is sweet, powdery and a touch sinister. The ylang ylang and jasmine play nice, and are tempred by the birch. The amber, as always, is glorious. Everyone should try this at least once.

This is red musk with clove, peru basalm and orchid. This isn't very sweet on me, and the clove is by far the most dominant note. The overall effect is Smut with a dark herbal sap base. Like if you got smut by tapping a giant old tree. It's dark and strong and almost masculine. Lovely, and I'm a fan of all the notes, but a little goes a long way and the decant will probably be enough for me for years. This will definitley be my go-to clove scent.

So, so beautiful, and throw like whoa. This is a more effervescent Samhain. The scents are almost so similar, but falling Leaf Moon has less spice and apple/pumpking and a more prominent wood and raking fallen leaves vibe, which yeah makes sense. It lives up to it's name. I love, love, love this and I can't wait to see how it ages.

I have an unlabeled decant that I thought was actually Creepy, but now I'm realizing is Punkie Night. This is an apple orchard, and the most pure apple scent I've encountered. I feel like I'm standing in an orchard picking apples. I wish this would get resurrected for Halloween so I can own more.

First off, let me tell you that my initial experience with Illustrated Woman was a well-aged sniffy. I wore it a couple of times until the oil was gone, and loved the well-blended, heady, smoky, musky vanilla and forest scent. I put a bottle on my "must have" list. I finally got around to getting a bottle fresh from the lab, and the fresh scent is much more pine and men's cologne. It is acrid enough that it burns my nose, though I detect my beloved aged scent beneath it, which comes through more with longer wear. However, in it's current state it is too much burning pine musk for my taste. The throw is still incredibly strong, this is something I would wear to a crowded bar or when I'm hanging out by myself. I feel really fortunate that I got to experience the aged version of this first, as I will be stashing this bottle away and trying it again in a month or so and keep aging it until it gets heavenly. If I had just tried a lab fresh bottle I would probably be passing it on. My most beloved BPAL scents all have benefited from aging, and I have no doubt that this one will be included in that elite group.

In the bottle I get a Juicy Fruit gum vibe, which made me nervous. But once I put this on my skin it was fantastic, and so evocative of a time and place. It made me think of sitting on the end of a pier in the sound, eating a creamsicle on abright, early summer sunny day. The pear and tonka gives it that sweet watery sense, the sandlewood is the dock warmed my the sun, and the amber is the sunshine and the salt spray. This is aquatic, but the first aquatic since Siren that I haven't run away screaming from. Bright, sweet, airy, light and lovely, it is an aquatic that works for all. The drydown just makes it more light and effervescent, oh and for me it lasts lasts. I shall be slathering myself with this stuff on the regular.

This isn't dark at all for me. Something about the different notes just don't work, and I amp the orchid and opium as a very sharp, acidic, soapy floral. Usually I like opium and benzoin...I wish I experienced the dark spicy sweet floral others do. Bah.

In short; summery fruit salad and grape soda in a rose garden. This is bright, sweet floral perfume. For me the notes that dominate are the grape, peach and rose. The Rose note is really dry, almost like rose incense. The fruit is really effervescent. The grape note reminds me a lot of Bess. This is a very traditional perfume scent, minus the headache-inducing aspect. I agree with others that this is an excellent "height of summer" scent. Sweet, and I'll keep my imp, but I don't see a bottle in my future.

Oh WOW. I love, love, love the Halloweenie labels this year.

I haven't tried this since I received the imp from the lab. At the time the honey was too overpowering, but now it's a light honey, frankincense, lemon balm and rootbeer scent. Yum.

My experience is sometimes, you just don't get a CNS. I don't think this is the lab's fault...Since the click'n'ship is sent by the post office. It's most likely USPS dropping the ball. Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken. Also, you may want to check your junk/spam mail folder, if you have one, and see if your email client is sending the CNS there instead of your inbox.

Powdery, delicate...steam engine? This is very soft, delicate frankincense, beeswax candles and a touch of herbal lemon. Resinous and gorgeous. Yet still, there is a hint of the mechanical..and it's lovely. Normally I don't really like metal-notes. Honey and beeswax can also be tricky notes on me, but here the beeswax plays nice. There isn't much change from wet to dry down, minus the resinous notes coming out more with longer wear. A really fantastic scent for when you want to wear something warm and soft.

I love the name for this one. It's absolutely wonderfully blended, not a dominant note in the bunch, though it is reminiscent of Baobahn Sith, so there is the grapfruit, ginger, and tea components...but so much more deeper and complex. This is the scent for summer. Fresh, sweet and calm. I really, really hope this is re-realeased someday. Every time I use it, I see the decant volume drop. If you can get your hands on some of this, it's your lucky day!

Free-association time! In the vial and wet: Leather miniskirt, strawberry chapstick, cherry cough syrup. Dry down: Heavy on the Red musk, head-shop Amber and Strawberry chapstick. This smells sweet, but seedy. Like a waitress with a heart of gold at a dive bar with red vinyl booths and a slight sinister feel. The innocent ingenue in a Lynch movie.

Light, airy, powdery, sexy rootbeer, with a touch of lemon. Not foody at all. I never thought rootbeer could be sexy, but this is exactly that. It's like a bottle of rootbeer sashayed up to me and winked.

Have you ever stood inside a Strangler Fig? In the rainforest, the plant eventually chokes out the tall tree that it has wrapped itself around like a lattice. The tree itself dies, and disappears rather quickly thanks to decomposition and the work of industrious termites and other insects. What is left is this hollow tower of fig, with hundreds of large vines entwined over each other, leaving the space where the tree once stood, stretching up into the canopy above. You can climb inside and see the round circle of light above. I swear to god this smells like that damp, tropical wood. Not much fig, but green, sappy wood.

The Rapaccini's Garden scents are all so unique. They're worth a sniff just for the experience! Wet: Adding to the chorus of cucumber. Wet, fresh cucumber. Dry: The more lemony note of cucumber disappears and SQ becomes a sort of sweet grass clippings scent. Like grass that has been added to a compost pile, with a sort of buttery-plant smell, just a touch of mulch. I love, love this when it's fresh, but the dry down is almost too grassy for me. It's a great addition for a summer scent collection, and I've worn it a few times on bright, hot sunny early summer days. I'll be loving my imp, but probably won't seek out a bottle.

Original version. This is ambery-plum, vanilla sex. Snake Oil + sunshine + orgasm. A friend gifted me a half bottle last year and I've been carefully measuring out every drop, It's that good.