undream

the first descriptive word to come to mind when i put this on is "reedy," in the sense that it is, at first, very green and somewhat aquatic. a very herbal feel with a slightly clean, soapy note (lily, i suspect). after some while, it softens up, sweetens, becomes a more feminine scent with a slightly powdery note which i am now assuming is rose (i could not identify it last night when i tried this, and i love rose!). all of this remains layered over the initial green scent, rounding out to a beautiful end result. i don't get a distant, cold feeling from this at all; it's just a beautiful, feminine perfume, and one which lasts! i can still smell it on my skin this afternoon. love.

i love rose & i love lily, and this is a beautiful blend of both. strong, lush and heady. i'm only about 20 minutes in, but i suspect this one will be a keeper. love.

first impression; a very masculine, cologne-y scent(!). the boy, however, disagreed, and after a little while i concede it is definitely more of a unisex scent. after the initial "men's cologne," it settles into an incredibly nice blend of something green & spicy. i can't pick out individual notes, having not re-read the description before trying, but it smelled to me like cedar & cinnamon. i don't get any citrus (&i'm kind of happy about that), but someone else nailed the rum and moss; that sounds about right to me! overall, a very peculiar, surprising, yummy scent. i have it in my maybe pile for now, but i think it might be a keeper.

ohmygosh, definitely honey(!). wet & first on, it's a beautiful blend of honey and hemlock (which my nose can only recognize as a cedary scent?). on drydown and for the rest of the day, it is strictly honey. it's very warm and sweet and pleasant, but honey can be a little overwhelming of a scent on/to me and my tummy, so i'm afraid i'm going to have to find another good home for this one!

On me, Spellbound is all powdery rose, & little else. Not unpleasant, but not amazing (and being a rose hoarder, I've several other powdery rose scents in my collection!). Off to swaps with this one.

wet, my first sniff from the imp gave me a weird sour note, but subsequent sniffs, fortunately, were gradually much nicer! "like walking through a garden at night" is right; this is a beautiful floral, unique & unlike any other florals i currently own. i can't pick out any one floral note & likely would not even know there are florals in here but for the throw(!), which carries a lovely, soft bouquet. i am also/mostly getting something cedary as well as something aquatic up close to the skin; a light rainfall in the forest. (a cool spring/night time rain was my very first impression of this oil, in fact; an immediate keeper for me.) that cedar, as well as something darker & sharper that i can't identify, almost give this oil a masculine feel for me, but it is gentled by the floral throw and that sweet soft rain. just gorgeous.

loving shadowy, ghostly elements the way i do, i've been keen on trying this one for a long long time (thank you, CaudaPavonis!), &it is everything i had hoped for. dusty florals & grassy herbs; light, sweet & woodsy; beautiful. i'm so crushed it was discontinued . . .

i love this; it's so sweet & dusty with something very clean and earthy anchoring everything down. i don't get any rose at all (boo! i love rose), but i definitely recognize the lily after re-reading the description. however it seems to me overall simply a very sweet, beautiful floral. pure. feminine. love it!

it's been some time since i've been testing/wearing/reviewing my beloved bpal oils&imps, and i feel my nose has fallen a bit out of practice as a result, but i will try my best on this, my first back in the foray! aziraphale is. simply. amazing. it smelled a little masculine to me in the imp, but not so masculine as to scare me away (&believe me, i am as feminine as they come). very natural, of the natural world; evening sunlit forests, dust motes, growing things. once on, it sweetens up, becomes more bookish, but there is also a strange dirt(y) note i can't ever identify but always kind of love? else, this is a sweet cedary perfume, a gorgeous ancient&golden dusty scent that i am. so. keeping. ungh. love. love love love. so glad i swapped for this! (thank you angelicreprieve!)

wine in the imp! all spicy, fruity yumminess on the skin. i wasn't sure what notes were in this when i tried it, but because of the fruitiness and spiciness, i thought for sure there would be carnation, orchid, plum, along those lines. alas! at least i got the wine correct. still, this particular oil, on me, does smell very fruity a'la plums and spicy a'la carnation, and there's an overlying smokey scent? something sharp and acrid, but pleasant, an overall very wintery feeling. sadly, i get no leather on this first try (i love leather!), but i'll definitely be hunting around for it next time. love.

at first whiff, this very much smells like a woman wearing a lovely, subtle perfume & sitting in the midst of a bustling, aromatic italian restaurant. this is the scent you'd be picking up if you were to be sitting next to her. on the skin, the throw gives off something very sweet, like a candy? or some kind of ripened, pulpy fruit that would practically melt in your mouth but that no one has yet had the fortune to try. (i am going to guess that this is the raspberry leaf.) however, up close to the skin, this smells, on me, exactly like pencil eraser; not necessarily an unpleasant scent, but not a thing i'm wanting in my perfume! alecto is so unique & interesting that i almost want to keep it, but sadly, i am not entirely keen on smelling like pencil eraser. off to swaps!

Frankincense, hyssop, hibiscus, river reeds, orris root, palm frond, and olibanum. One of the early reviewers said that this one has an almost perfumey quality to it in the bottle, and i had that thought as well(!). it's just a very pleasant, fresh and perfumey scent. once i put it on it warmed into something more woodsy, becoming a soft incense. though something in this smells almost dirty up close to the skin, the throw is gorgeous, almost indescribable, and the scent as a whole is very light; i found myself having to hunt it down more than actually catching whiffs of it. i'm not sure if i'll be keeping this one, but it is overall a very beautiful perfume.

beautiful. sweet & plummy with a luscious little dusty/spicy kick, and very very head-shoppy(!). definite keeper.

beautiful lily and rose; clean & fresh, a floral so gorgeous that it nearly makes my heart clench. there is definitely something aquatic here as well which i get up close to the skin, some note that smells like several of my favourite bpal aquatic perfumes, a cool spring rainwater scent that oh, i just love love love. the vanilla musk only makes an appearance as a light, sweet powder wafting in on the throw, and that is really the only thing keeping me from wanting a big bottle. i have so many oils with that same kind of powdery feel already . . . ! really, though, aside from the powder, this one just transcends. achingly beautiful.

ohmygoodness. this oil was such a sweet little surprise. i initially thought there was a wine note in this, or a peach champagne, something fruity, but i learned upon reading a few of the reviews that what i was probably smelling was the fruity sweetness of lotus(!); now i know what lotus smells like! the rose joins this sweet, fruity party once it hits the skin, and ohmygoodgod. it is just. beautiful. someone else labeled this an effervescent rose, and really, i think i can stop there, because that pretty solidly nails it. just gorgeous.

pride is really, on me, just a gorgeous rose. i want to say it's a little humid but still a young, fresh rose with a strong, beautiful throw. and being the rose-obsessed creature that i am, i absolutely love it.

on the skin, this is all orchid & currant (which, to those with no idea what that might smell like, to me is a very grape scent married to the spicy yumminess of christmas). it's beautiful, a dark purple scent, though i'm unsure if it's a keeper for me just yet; i do, after all, have a few other bpal oils with the same berry&spice holiday feel that medea is giving me(!) - phantom queen, for instance - but i do love the character of medea, and really, one can never have enough of a beautiful scent(!). we'll see . . . ETA; trying this one again a couple of weeks later, &i'm not getting any of that wild grape note this time(!). medea retains the lovely spiciness of orchid, but rather than any fruitiness, i'm picking up a definite humid floral in the throw, and i cannot believe i missed it the first time around. (chemistry does wonky things!) it is lovely, truly, but i think i will be passing this one on.

sometimes an oil will come along that i find myself somewhat at a loss as to how to describe/review it; this is, i think, mostly because my nose, while trained well in the yummies of bpal(!), is still very unfamilar with a lot of notes found in some bpal scents. to a woman is one such oil. wet in the vial, it is so sharp and green, very biting, and this really put me off, but i pushed ahead anyway and kept faith! and i am so. glad. that i did. once this oil made friends with my particular chemistry, to a woman is just beautiful. resiny but soft, somewhat exotic, warm and comforting. patchouli doesn't always work on me, either, striking me a little hard in the sinuses sometimes, but it is so well blended here and really manages to keep its thorny personality in check for me. the throw is absolutely gorgeous, beautiful rose being the dominant scent for me, different from the experience up close to the skin where i get something very woodsy and also very humid (but certainly no less gorgeous) . . . one long sighing breath; this one is a definite keeper.

spicy & lovely; oh, i just adore this. alice is mostly sweetened carnation on me (creating the kind of creamy spiciness one always finds in such yummies as carrot cake), and there is a light, milky sense to it, as opposed to the actual scent of milk, that comes to me before i even have the chance to re-read the description. all in all, alice is sweet, spicy and warm, feminine, innocent and light, absolutely beautiful. love. love love love.

The Dark Side of Earth: deep, brooding forest scents, including juniper and patchouli. The scent of upturned cemetery loam mingling with floral offerings to the dead. cold & dirty(!). i really like this. at first, that cold, piney, menthol scent (i'm thinking it's the juniper) really put me off - i loathe such notes - but it eventually settled down and took a backseat to all the loamy goodness. i love loamy scents, and there was even a short stage where this oil strongly reminded me of villainess' grundy soap, which i absolutely love love love. i don't get any one particular flower, either, but there i definitely notice a floral in the air after a while, and it softens up the harsher edges a bit. faint flowers and wet soil; night time in the moongarden. just beautiful.

for me, this was initially mostly rose and amber and musk, but rather than being an overly sweet powder scent, as bpal's rose&amber blends are wont to do on me, the musk in this just unfurled across my skin, lifting the overall scent from potential dud to something a little more like heaven. still, i was somewhat disappointed going in, because i wasn't getting any of the exotic middle eastern spiciness that so many other reviewers have experienced, and that (along with the rose) is what i anticipated most with this one! but oh. after about 15-20 minutes, the most amazing blend of sandalwood and rose and spices enveloped me. the spice is subtle but it's there, and after a little while the amber retreated a fair bit also, which is good(!) since, as i said, it is mostly a powder on me, anyway. if i have any complaints, it's that i'd like to get a little more rose & spice (&kick that middle eastern feel that i love into high gear!), but as it is this is an overall beautiful oil that i feel is definitely very me. i don't know if it's reached bottle status for me yet? but i am definitely keeping&using up this little imp. ETA; after a little more time, i'm thinking there's just a little too much amber & not enough rose and spice in this one. it's a beautiful oil, and there are elements that are making me want to keep the imp, at least, but that powdery thing just keeps coming back! and while i don't exactly mind it, i have SO many other bpal rose blends with that same amber/powder note, so. i'm going to have to think on this one for a while . . .

an innocent, golden scent; a beautiful rose & a dusting of baby powder sifting over its petals in the golden rays of a late afternoon sun. no hay for me. i love rose and so i have dozens of other bpal rose scents, and a small handful of them also do the powdery thing on me (though this one is slightly warmer & dustier than they). unfortunately, this one just isn't unique enough to warrant keeping, so it's off to a better home . . .

i tried hellcat before re-acquainting myself with its description, and going in "blind," as it were, this was both a very cherry and a very smoky scent on me. after reading up on the notes, i was clearly getting all almond and rum. and it's delicious; very sweet and impish and warm (a very red scent). ultimately, i think this one is just too foody for me &will be moving on to a better home, but i confess, i'm going to enjoy this one while i have it!

i tried this oil on two consecutive days, the first without reading the description and the second after. on the first it seemed a round fruity scent in the vial and pretty much just a really nice floral perfume on the skin. after reading the description (&getting excited about it all over again!), i was able to pick out the wine & chocolate notes in the vial, but it pretty much stays just a really nice floral perfume on the skin, with the exception of being able to smell a little honey sweetening it all up the second time around. all in all, i really like this one. not so much that it's a keeper, necessarily, but enough so that i'm undecided about it. it contains some beautiful notes that i without fail always want to try (the wine, chocolate & tobacco, in particular), and although my experience was nothing like Hallows_Eve's or jj_j's (envy!), it was lovely enough that it's stayed with me thus far(!). i'll give it a little time to see where this relationship goes.

alice's adventures in wonderland is one of my favourite books, ever, and so of course it is a goal of mine to try each and every one of the mad tea party scents; so much gratitude to obsidienne for giving me the chance to try this one! that said, while i am so glad i was able to test this one out, i never really got any rose out of it? (&rose notes are always an incentive for me to try a scent!) as well it is ultimately a bit too foody for me; i'm not exactly sure what foody thing/combination it is i am smelling, but it does not play well on my skin. off with his head! to a better home(!).