edenssixthday

The Dole of the King's Daughter - For a split second, when I first put this on, I thought I smelled frankincense, then I realized that it must be the scent of the dragon's blood, rose, and earth mingled together. Once it's on my skin, the rose and lily are the strongest notes. For once the lily doesn't amp on me and overpower everything else. The notes blend together beautifully to create a deep and sensual scent, that is romantic, innocent, earthy, and incredibly sexy all at the same time. I love this. I really love it. And I can't believe that dirt note is behaving on me. I didn't try this scent until now because I thought it would be awful due to the lilies and dirt. This once again proves that with BPAL, you just never know.

Lotus Moon 2010 - With the potential exception of the pomegranate, there's nothing about this blend that should go wrong on my skin, but altogether, everything about it is wrong. The lotus comes across and screamingly high-pitched and the red sandalwood and amber grate against it instead of grounding it. The husky frankincense is almost night, but seems to be be fighting with the opium note and the ensuing smokiness is just weird. And then there's the rose otto, sweet little rose...she's gone a little soapy on me this time. What I thought was going to be true love has turned to a woody-resiny-soapy-floral. Blah.

Thirteen (13): February 2009 - On my skin, this is a total and complete wreck. It smells like someone had a rancid disaster in the kitchen. It's entirely allspice and thyme, each of which has it's wonderful place in the world of fragrance and food, but not together in this scent. It actually makes me think of the musty old corner of my great-grandmother's pantry where she'd kept her spices for years and years, and the subtle but pervasive odor of ancient mixed spices. Sense memory-wise, it's an awesome scent. For a personal perfume, it's awful on me.

Nightmarchers v5 - I get dark, heavy, tropical soap?

Zombie Apocalypse v4 - This is the scent of buttery and spicy cake with a filling of eggy custard. It's very foody and as with most foody blends, there's a hint of plastickness lurking around the edges. It's rich and almost savory in it's eggy nuttiness. It's a little too heavy on the butteriness, which also brings in the suggested of artifically-buttered popcorn. It's got so much potential but just isn't working right on me.

Kaidan - This is a really pretty scent. The rose and plum blossom remind me a bit of Snooty Rose, but adding the resins and a bit of smokiness to it makes it a completely different scent. It's soft and pretty and heavy in a dark, deep, but highly feminine way. I really love how these notes blend together. Great fragrance!

Morphô - When this is wet, it smells like it's going to end up smelling like every other commercial cheap mall store floral spray. It's heavy on the jasmine, which is actually nicely sweetened by the honey. Even though I just planted delphinium in my yard, I actually have no idea what they smell like (what? I look at how pretty they are, I haven't bothered to stick my nose in them yet!), so I don't know if I can smell that or not. There is something remotely grainy about this blend, and I wonder if that's the ambrette seed -- another note I'm not familiar with. The sad part of this is the white ginger, which utterly destroys the whole blend for me and is exactly what makes this smell like a cheap body spray to me. I'm not a fan of white ginger. Without it, I might like this more. I'm kind of impressed by the way the jasmine and honey blend together. I like it. Now I want a honey-drizzled jasmine fragrance.

The Nameless City Drive-In Theatre - This is a masculine, clean cologne scent. It's got a ton of metal in it, a bit of air and grass, a hint of leather, and a big dab of musk. It's definitely not my type of scent, but it fits the inspiration and I can definitely see this smelling awesome on just the right kind of guy.

Ching Shih v4 - I can't identify any specific notes, but the overall impression is that it's a musky, floral, herbal scent. I put it on before bed and found it very soothing and calming.

Ma'at v17 - This is definitely the scent of a warm, dry desert. There's something almost savory about the scent -- it's a dry scent, yet there's something thick and sweet running through it that I have smelled before, but I can't place it for the life of me. There is a bit of spice, but it's not the typical nutmeg, clove, cinnamon type spices. I have no idea what it is, but it gives this blend just the slightest hint of pizzaz. It's an interesting scent, but not for me.

Moon of the Terrible - Lavender is my age-old nemesis, so I don't have high hopes for this scent. So I'm pleasantly surprised when I apply it, and it's mostly lychee with lavender, and as much as I also don't go crazy over lychee, they really compliment each other awesomely! I actually think I LIKE this blend!!!(???!!!???!!!) I don't know how that happened. It's fruity and herbal and floral and... whoa. What's that? Cat pee? Did someone put blackberry or black currant in this? That's sure what it smells like to me. I'm so sad... I thought I finally found a fun lavender (and lychee!) blend, but there's definitely a dark berry note in this that stinks on me. Boohoo!

The Lights of Men's Lives - This is lovely. It's so pretty. It's predominantly a vanilla beeswax scent when I first apply it, but as it warms up on my skin, the honey note comes to life, and thankfully, it's the honey that smells good on me. For a few minutes, I'm a bit worried that this is the vanilla that turns to plastic upon drydown, but thankfully, it's not. It's a soft, sweet, and creamy vanilla. There's definitely a hint of smokiness about the scent, but it doesn't smell like a bonfire, it just gives the scent a little complexity and depth. It's really pretty and the type of scent that you could wear and people might actually think you naturally smell that way. I'm putting a 5ml of this on my wishlist.

Milk Chocolate Buttercream - In the decant vial this is subtle and smells like creamy brownies. Delicious! But the moment it touches my skin, my damned skin chem completely annihilates anything good about it and turns into something that smells like brownie batter made with rancid buttermilk. Blech. Yet another chocolate scent that's just rotten on my skin.

Cinnamon Sugar Cookies & Egg Nog - this should be renamed to Cinnamon Sugar Dust Bunnies & Burnt Plastic Nog.

Eustephanos - Blah. Once again, pomegranate (which I really do love in theory) has ruined an otherwise perfectly good scent. The rosewood is very faint, but the resins are definitely what ground this blend, and I can smell the faintest hint of rose over them. But then there's that blasted pomegranate swirling through the resins and messing everything up. Pomegranate is one of those notes that so close to smelling good on me, but some tiny aspect of it is just all wrong on me, and so it's a huge bummer when a scent smells like it would be really amazing if it either had no pom or if my skin chemistry was altered just the tiniest bit. Overall, it's a fairly dark and heavy resinous fruity-floral and I want to love it...but sadly, I just can't.

Psithyristês - This is a very pretty floral. The first note I notice is the tea rose backed up by the plumeria. I'm pretty surprised at how mild the lily of the valley is, but then as it begins to dry down, the lily of the valley definitely becomes more noticeable. I tend to love blends with both orris and ambergris in them, but I don't smell either note in this blend. I'm guessing there's just enough of each to ground the floral and keep it from floating away into the ether. As the oil dries, it becomes very much a lily of the valley and tea rose scent -- slightly high pitched from the lily and kind of dry from the tea rose. It seems fairly traditional and almost Victorian.

Tony - The smell of a busy laundromat is one of my favorite smells in the world -- all that detergent soap and dryer sheat and so much fresh cleanliness. And that is exactly what this reminds me of -- a busy laundromat. The soap smell is definitely the scent of strong, harsh detergent, and it's not something I'd wear as a personal fragrance, but the scent is dead-on, and I absolutely positively LOVE it. It would make an awesome laundry-room or linen spray.

Eat Me v6 - This is a kajillion bazillion times better than the GC Eat Me, which on me, is completely destroyed by the stinky black currant. This prototype version is awesome, though. The only real foody blends I tend to enjoy and can wear are those that are loaded with rich, white cake and this is definitely delicious white cake, but there's a thick layer of amaretto running through the cake, and it's so incredibly delicious. What a great combination! If this had been released as the GC, I'd undoubtedly wear it regularly and consider myself a "foody" scent lover.

Sky City (After) - This is the type of scent that smells god-awful to me when it's wet, but has the potential to really blossom on my skin. Sure enough, I love what this does on me! It's the scent of scorched cedar and blood, and there's something sweet and spicy that distinctly reminds me of clove gum. The longer it's on my skin, the more it smells like burnt wood and clove. Oh, it's delicious!

Sky City (Before) - This is a clean, green scent. I don't usually like green blends and I usually can't stand anything with dandelion in it, but this evokes an incredibly strong scent memory of a time in my life when I lived in New Orleans, and for some reason, it makes me think of the first boy I was ever desperately head-over-heels in love with when I was 12. When I smell it, I feel all the good things about being twelve years old and experiencing the first blush of love. If for no other reason, I love this blend for that.

Eden v7 - I strongly dislike the released version of Eden because fig is just a raunchy note on me. But this prototype is drop-dead gorgeous. It is almost entirely coconut and sandalwood and maybe the tiniest drizzle of honey. It's really, truly, incredibly gorgeous...quite possibly one of my favorite prototypes.

Eve v2 - This opens up as a bright, crisp, green apple and then it quickly becomes soapy-apple and rose, or maybe it's apple and soapy-rose. Either way, it's soapy and doesn't work on me.

IXHV37 - This is the heavy, buttery scent of baked goods -- croissant? Scone? Something delicious! There is the definite bitter fruit note of either black currant or blackberry. Sadly, the gourmand/foody part of this turns to dusty plastic on my skin, as almost all gourmand notes do, but once it dries, there is the distinct scent of soft florals. Several hours after applying, the plastickiness of the gourmand notes has burned off and what's left is a sweet, floral note that definitely smells like a type of rose and maybe a hint of a soft lily, like calla lily. It ends up very pretty on me.

IXHV4 - This is the scent of a cup of rich, dark-roasted coffee, sweetened with a teaspoon of sugar, and the slightest drizzle of cream to temper the heaviness of the roast. It is an awesome coffee scent and should be released. Now!

CD: Blue Pumpkin Floss v3 - This scent reminds me a lot of last year's BPTP Pumpkin Pie Bath Oil. It's very heavy on the pumpkin -- a sweet, foody pumpkin, not the typical buttery, squashy pumpkin -- and on the cinnamon. It seems more "regal" like Pumpkin Queen, as opposed to the more quotidian annual pumpkin patch blends. I can see how some pumpkin lovers would go nuts over this, but it's a bit too cinnamon-spicy for my taste, I'm afraid!