Twiggy

Just got this from a lovely Forumite - and it immediately shot up into my Top 10 scents. Now granted, it's hot as balls out and it changes between when i'm outside and in an air-conditioned house; but i love the way it smells either way! In the bottle, i smell chocolate, patch and red musk mostly. Wet: same as above, with a bit of the black musk peeking through along with a hint of mint Dry: Mm, i'm really digging that mint - it's so very faint, similar to Pink Snowballs (that's obviously the only similarity) and it's lovely mixed with the musks and chocolate and patch. Who would have thought such a strange combo of notes would be so amazing? Note: in the heat, i amp the red musk a bit more than when my skin is cooled down, and the whole scent gets a bit sweeter, the mint not as noticible. But still, the patch balances it out VERY nicely. I absolutely love this scent. I was standing outside a little while ago talking to a friend who generally seems oblivious to such things as sent, and he said "Heeeey - what are you wearing? That's REALLY nice...not overpowering, just...NICE." Bonus: it smells just as awesome on The ManBeast.

Oh boy - i'm in so much trouble. I am going to be spending the rest of my life hunting down bottles of this stuff. This scent is so well-blended to my nose; some of the notes i'd never think would work together are just divine in Ashlultum. Wet, i can smell the lilac and vanilla and musk straight away. For the first 10 minutes or so, the lilac is the strongest but blends into the creamy musk, with hints of coconut appearing. Dry, the tobacco, not in your face or strong but unmistakably there, ties it all together and gives it some backbone and gives it a little mystery. Lilacs always have a rather soporific effect on me, and although the strength of the lilac backs down a bit in drydown, it is still present enough to make me feel as though i've just had a tranquilizer or an amazing orgasm . Ahem. Yes, i am in Love. Damn it.

Ungh! I'm in heaven - I recently acquired this in a swap with a very lovely forumite. Many many moons ago when I first found the Lab, I was frimped Snake Oil along with my Bastet bottle (the one that broke my bottle virginity). This - to my nose - is a perfect marriage between the two. The amber comes on strong in the beginning, soon to be followed by the SO spicy vanilla loveliness. The SO keeps the amber in check, achieving a perfect balance. Not too sweet, but a lovely amber-infused Snake Oil. Oddly, the mandarin is only apparent when applied to the crook of my elbow. And it is quite nice, sort of a sneaky little undertone to the whole experience. My fiancee cannot keep his nose away from my neck, by the way. His eyes literally roll back in his head. At one point he forgot what he was saying and grabbed my wrist like some kind of crazed vampire. Which is pretty much how I feel about it. I must find more - because I just want to bathe in this stuff. Gimme. ETA: aaand, I spoke too soon re: the mandarin! Today, unlike yesterday, it is poking it's wee head out a bit more on my wrists now, and I love it! It gives the scent a very subtle but lovely soft citrus cast. This scent seems to continually evolve. Gorgeous.

I bought this out of purely sentimental reasons - it was discontinued but I had to have it this year so purchased it from a forumite. The poem is something I read every couple of days lately, because my son's birthday is coming in a week - then a month later will be the second anniversary of his death. He was, by the way, a big fan of how mom smelled thanks to BPAL...it was kind of a thing we did together - he loved sniffing the little bottles and vials with me. So, this was purchased mainly to put on his little shrine I keep and I really didn't care how it smelled. So when I received the bottle today, I was very pleased and even a little teary to discover how beautiful this scent is - and how perfectly it embodies the poem by Ms. Millay. In bottle, it is very strong, the violet and lavender with a bit of sweet musk leap out. Wet, it is nearly overwhelmingly violet-lavender-beeswax. Dry...oh, lovely. Soft, lightly sugared violets and beeswax with just a hint of something that calls to mind the "aged", old-fashioned feel of the Lace scents. It definitely has a rather vintage feel. Ever so slightly powdery in a good way, just lovely. I think my son would love it, too. I'm happy to give it a place of honour by his ashes.

I've had such amazing luck with my chemistry working for ALL the Laces, but i was a little scared on this one because "fruit" scents can be hit or miss with me, and this was the first Lab patchouli blend i'd ever tried (despite the good things i've heard about them, i was still harbouring the Patchouli Fear ). I shouldn't have worried, because it is AMAZING. Right out of the bottle, i smell the red musk and red-smelling fruits, which i can't really distinguish but Incendiare mentioned raspberries, and that seems to hit me right. I also smell the linen, cottony note and vanilla, as with all the blends. There is a bit of an earthy note, which i assume is the patchouli, and i LIKE it! Go figure. Wet: No change from bottle. Really beautiful, really red but that wonderful Lace element grounding it. Dry: This has a lot of throw on me, and being a slatherer, that might have something to do with it. It does soften a bit from the way it smelled in the bottle, but on me it definitely is not a morpher at all. It smells the same, just...softer. More integrated, i guess. There is a little bit of smokiness underneath it all, and the "redness" has backed off a little, but it is just as lovely as i had hoped! Truly a favourite, as with all the Lace blends.

I purchased this from the very sweet ScaryDoll. Mmm, Zarita. Why oh WHY do i always seem to fall in love with the difficult-to-find ones? Perhaps it's the challenge. In the bottle, i mostly get the orange blossom and vanilla. Smells promising...it is definitely a strong scent. We'll see if my skin eats it up. Wet: Now i get a bit of the Iris, which is pretty - but slightly soapy but i'm hoping it will go away as it dries, like it usually does. Also a bit more creaminess. No carnation yet. Crossing fingers. Dry: Ah...this one is complex and morph-y on me. I definitely smell carnations and cream now, with the orange blossom adding a bit of a juicy-sweet element. The spiciness of the carnations is very nice, and this has dried down to a spicy, creamy, gently floral-vanilla. Hard to tell about the throw because the iris makes me feel a bit sneezy from the iris (which i blame in large part to the season - pretty much EVERY smell makes me sneezy now). But when i move, i get really cool little wafts of cream, then orange, then vanilla-floral, almost as if the scent is ambivalent as to how it wants to smell. This lasts a while on me, and the longer i have it on the lovelier it seems. I put it on last night and can still smell it this morning. Granted, i'm a slatherer, but that's because i'm a greedy little beast and also because during this time of the month my skin seems to eat scent. Love this. Le sigh.

On me, this smells disgusting. A rancid buttery, stale-coffee, dusty mess from wet to drydown. But on the BF...whoa. So i'll review how it smells on him, 'cause it's oh-so-lovely. Wet, it's caramelly and chocolatey with a hint of coffee and the barest hint of dustiness, the way it smells in the bottle. But seconds within applying, the super-rich sweetness backs down and this great smell of old books emerges, with a whiff of yummy sweet coffee. It's very soft, and very nice. Drydown: As the drydown-morphage happens almost instantaneously, see above. This stage lasts forever. Like, hours. Very nice indeed. It reminds me of this bookshop i go to with old dusty hardbacks and that SMELL, i walk in there just to inhale the smell of old books and coffee brewing someplace in the back and unseen to customers. Been doing that since i was a geeky little Twiglet and this is pure nostalgia. So yeah. This is a keeper, on the Man.

Yup. Got this for the Man and it's super-sexy. He wore it out the other night and one of my happily married girlfriends grabbed him, yanked him towards her, shoved her face in his neck and said "Oh my GOD you smell gooooood! That is SEXY". Heh. On him, it's a strange but very compelling mix of resins, clove cigarettes, vanilla and patchouli (the latter which i usually hate, but something about the BPAL patchouli makes me reconsider every time i smell it and realize what it actually is...it's not slathered-on mess on a stinky-stoner-at-a-festival-four-days-into-showerless-extravaganza, the environment in which i learned to loath the smell - but rather a good musky grounding note). It seems to be consistent throughout the wet-to-drydown phase, it lasts and lasts and it's very strong, so a little goes a long way. But every time he puts it on he shoves his wrist under my nose and exclaims "Oooo, man don't i smell GREAT?". Yes, babe. Yes, you do.

My experience with this scent is a little strange and involved: I have been away for quite some time from BPAL. The main reason for that is my son, may the Powers that Be watch over him, was very ill for a couple of years and my attention was totally focused on him. He was, by the way, a huge fan of my BPAL scents. "Wow Mom, you smell GOOD!" was something i often heard from him. We were both always the ones to notice the smell of things first, to smell things others couldn't. But when he got sick, i obviously stopped BPALing - and then two years ago this June, he passed away. During that time, i've slowly come out from behind a totally unapproachable wall of grief to start tentatively, slowly finding myself again. One of the big things my son and i shared was a love of scent. When he was just a baby, i used to smear my vanilla oil on his favourite stuffed doggy before bedtime so he could sleep. The smell reminded him of me. Even as he got a bit older, we followed that ritual nearly every night. So, over the past few months i started noticing the smell of things again, which had disappeared for me. I immediately remembered BPAL, and decided to take a peek, smiling a bit as i remembered how J. and i shared such a love for it. People always told us that we have a very sweet, flowery natural smell, and i was remembering the way he smelled, wishing i still had something that his fragrance had lingered on. But after a year and a half there was really not much left of him. So, browsing the site i stumbled across "Grief". Immediately i ordered an imp of it, sort of afraid of the associations, but reading the reviews it seemed that it was not a "depressing" scent at all...so i ordered it. The moment i opened it, i was hit by a wave of crazy emotion. That smell...the lilies, in particular...smelled just like my son. For a moment i thought i was going crazy but there it was. His smell. I put it on, teary-eyed and laughing at the same time. As it dried, the lilies blended in a bit more with the rest of the elements, but was still in the forefront for me. It is...amazing. I am having a hard time giving a "scientific" review of the scent, it's far too emotionally charged for me. But i had to write something about the scent that brought me back to BPAL - something that was a real joy for me when my son was alive and something that i'm allowing myself to enjoy again now. Scent is such an evocative, important element in my life (again, finally) that i am happy to have rediscovered it. It's been gone for so long. Thank you, Beth.

Wow. This rose, as said many times already, is the most amazing fresh-cut, petal-to-stem, beautiful red rose. Very strong, a little goes a long, long way and lasts forever. I accidentally spilled a wee drop on my bed linens and my room smelled beautiful for days. DAYS! I love it.

I've given this a good try, but this scent just doesn't like me. I've read other peoples' reviews comparing this to Pink Snowballs - but while that was fabulous on me, Snow.White smells - from bottle to drydown - like burnt plastic, pineapple and freezer-burn. I know this will be lovely on the right person; it has amazing throw and lasts forever...that person just regrettably isn't me.

In the bottle, it's a very sweet, almost cold-creamy, snowy.rose (if that makes any sense). Wet: Same as above. Very pretty, and I hope it doesn't morph too much because YUM. Drydown: So far so good, and it stays true to the bottle for a couple hours before the rose fades a little and it gets sweeter (I seem to amp anything sweet). I have layered this with Rose Red...just the teeniest bit because that baby is STRONG... when I feel like bringing the rose out more and it's lovely. This is so feminine and beautiful - glad I got a backup bottle!

Soooo...first review here since back in oh, maybe 2005? Not that i have been BPAL-less since then, just not active in the forums. More of a lurker, i suppose, when opportunity allowed. I've been busy. Er. Anyway. Pink moon. I love pink anything and the Lunacies are always divine so i had to make it one of the first purchases of Spring at BPAL. Bottle: Very strong phlox (i believe), carnation and creamy white chocolate with an undercurrent of strawberry. Wet: See above...it's very strong on me and doesn't morph at all for the first ten minutes or so. Drydown: The florals recede a bit, and the white chocolate creaminess with a strong freshly sliced strawberry notes come through. As i sniff my wrists over the next couple hours (which i do incessantly - i LOVE this stuff), the sugary florals drift in and out and i'm still getting mostly phlox and carnation. At about half an hour into it, the vanilla really comes on strong, swirling around a strong strawberry base. This one floats back and forth between super-creamy and fruity and softly floral. I really love it. Damn it.