PirateMaggie

When will I finally realize that white musk is not my friend? I loved the concept of a hungry ghost perfume, but upon application the white musk starts jumping up and down, beating its chest and pummeling the other notes into submission. No mango, no sandalwood, just unclean-smelling musk with a slight hint of citrus.

Yes, that's just like apricot tarts baking, or fresh apricot preserves: warm, sweet, golden, slightly spicy. It doesn't have the depth of other BPAL blends; it isn't sexy or mysterious or complex, but as a yummy comfort scent it really works. I have a 5ml and am planning on spiking my body lotion and hair with it.

I was afraid to try this, as my skin really amps musk. The rest of the ingredients work well on me, so I gave it a shot. It was far better than I'd hoped for. Wet, the sandalwood, amber, and musk are fiery-bright while the vetiver gives it an underlying darkness. The blend is beautiful, glowing, and arrogant, on the verge of streaking downward like a comet. As it dries, the vetiver gets stronger and colder and the woods (patchouli maybe, or cedar?) come out, grounding the blend. The musk turns sharper and very feral while the amber and sandalwood retain their sense of heat. The Morningstar has gone to earth to lick his wounds. Wafts of violet give this a wistful edge and the florals keep any sourness from the patchouli and vetiver at bay. Fallen is refined, fiercely passionate under an aloof exterior, somewhat melancholy, and very dangerous--exactly how a fallen angel should smell. Another big bottle purchase.

Wet, this is deliciously sweet cinnamon and honeysuckle, with the resins lingering in the background preventing the blend from becoming cloying. Unfotunately, when it dries, it starts to smell musty-sweet as the myrrh and copal overpower the cinnamon. I'm a bit disappointed--I was looking forward to smelling like Red Hots!

Another gift from the Lab. It smells like a chocolate-covered praline. I adore pralines and chocolate, so a whiff of Gluttony makes me instantly giddily happy. No morphing, though it fades nicely as it dries: it's almost overwhelmingly sweet when wet; it gets a lot less ticky when it dries, though it's still quite sweet and chocolatey. This is not a cheap confection--this is the finest, most indulgent dessert, bottled. I'll definitely be reaching for this when the dreaded PMS Sweets Craving strikes.

In the imp: Strong vanilla and musk. Wet: Spicy vanilla booze and musk, like a vanilla-spiked Hell's Belle on a drinking binge. Very heady. I can see why this is the number one house favourite. Dry: This is still powerful stuff. Very, very strong throw. The boozy scent fades on dry-down, the spice mingles more with vanilla, and the musk stays in the foreground without my skin turning it into "ew, I forgot deodorant." This is sexy, exotic, and gorgeous. I'm going to try aging my imp to see if it gets even better (which is hard to imagine). It's a little too rich and sweet for my tastes in everyday wear perfume, but as a special-occasion oil it definitely won't go to waste.

Named after the primordial ocean of milk where Lord Vishnu reclines upon the thousand-headed Naga. Sweet milk and warm, healing ginger with a touch of golden honey and our blend of Ambrosia. A very clean, light milky ginger. I'm getting only the slightest hint of the honey note, which is fine--I love this. It's clean, gentle, and very comforting. It's not sweet or sharp: I'm reminded of ginger tea with milk and just a touch of honey. This is the soft, calming meditation blend I'd hoped Tushmanatay would be. It fades fast and has very little throw but it's so lovely. The solution is to buy a 10ml bottle, so I can reapply often.

Wet and dry, this is pure, sweet, lily and crocus and crisp, cold, fast-running water. A very light, clean, luminous scent , and breathtakingly beautiful. I'd bathe in this if I could. 10ml. Definitely.

A frimp from the Lab, and a scent I've been meaning to try (as you might have guessed from the name). As usual with BPAL, the way Anne Bonny smells in the imp is nothing like it smells on. In the imp, it's unadulterated patchouli without any hint of sandalwood or frankincense. Wet, the patchouli is still overwhelming, but it mellows as it dries. The patchouli softens to a clean, almost soil-like smell while the sandalwood comes out to smell golden and the frankincense gives a cerebral hint to an otherwise earthy blend. This smell reminds me not so much of the high seas as it does the desert, or the inside of a pirate's chest: dry, woody, and hinting of far-off exoticism. Another winner from the Lab.

A gift from the Lab. This is fantastic in the bottle. One me, it smelled tough and clean and tomboyish-but-pretty until my skin started its usual "amping musk in unpleasant ways" thing. The citrus and resins work so well together. I'd love to smell this on a guy...but as others have said, this wouldn't work on just any guy. This is a badass scent, and it takes some attitude and guts to pull off.

Yes! Another musk blend that my skin doesn't turn into BO! Look out, Hell's Belle, you have competition. The vanilla and vetiver are most noticeable (my skin loves both vanilla and vetiver, and they compliment each other well: the vanilla keeps the vetiver from getting too bitter while the vetiver keeps the vanilla from being too sweet) with the clove lending a warm spiciness and the cherry giving it a tart, lush undertone. The musk is barely-there, which is refreshing given that my skin chemistry usually amps it like mad. The wine and poppy linger in the background, giving the blend a whisper-soft headiness. There is something in there that gives it a slight bloody metallic tang. Throw is fairly light--this is very much a scent that lingers near the skin and would entice others to come closer. It's quite sexy in a very subtle way. Unfortunately it fades very quickly to just a hint of musk, clove, and poppy, but it's so lovely that it's now one to my favourite femme fatale blends. Yet another future big bottle. My wallet weeps; my nose rejoices.

In the imp: Mmm. Marzipan. Wet: Mmm. Marzipan. Dry: Mmm. Marzipan with something slightly fruity underneath. It reminds me of one of those traditional Danish wedding cakes that are a marzipan ring filled with candy, fruit, and smaller almond cakes. If you don't like sweet, foody scents, you'll want to avoid this, but if you like marzipan (and I do!) you won't want to miss this.

Even guys (and girls) who claim to dislike perfume give me compliments when I wear Hunger or Hell's Belle. My not-so-secret weapons, depending on my mood, are hades, Helle's Belle, Hunger, and Marquise de Merteuil. They all act like sugar does to bees.

I find that Sea of Glass, Tamora, and The Unicorn do the trick for me. If your muse really seems to need a wake-up call, some of the Voodoo oild wouls probably work--Van Van, Has No Hanna, or Blockbuster should do the trick.

Give Hunger a try: vanilla, black narcissus, and orange. The orange and vanilla make it smell edible, while the black narcissus gives it a dark edge and keeps the vanilla and orange from becoming cloyingly sweet.

I wanted to love this. Lilith is one of my favourite mythological figures. Wet, this scent was incredible: red wine (not at all alocholic so much as the very essence of bitter grape) and myrrh with the slightest hint of musk and rich red rose. It reminds me of drinking tej, which is Ethiopian honey wine, in a rose garden by an East African bazaar. Delicious. Unfortunately, after about twenty minutes the myrrh and wine had completely disappeared. So had the musk, oddly--my skin usually amps musk so that it overpowers everything else. All that remained was a slight hint of sour, powdery rose. This is disappointing. I'm going to experiment with this again at another point in my cycle in hopes that the way it smelled wet will be the way it smells dry when my body chemistry isn't being PMS-y and perverse.

I've been putting off reviewing this one because words just don't do it justice. On first sniff, I recognize the black narcissus. My skin loves it in Hunger and loves it just as much in Hades. Like Hunger, this blend is drop-dead sexy, but not in the lush, sultry, slinky way that Hunger is. The black narcissus is backed by a lot of notes that my fairly uneducated nose can't really differentiate, but work to make this appealing in the "one you can't have" sense. This blend really doesn't morph much when it dries, though the narcissus and other notes meld more and it warms a bit and develops a slightly more woodsy hint which is the cypress making its appearance. It smells a little harsh, very chill, beautiful but aloof, slightly yearning, and extremely fierce. You do not want to piss off this Lord of the Dead, though you'll certainly want to make sure you're wearing nice underwear when you meet him. Though it has noticeable floral tones, there is something distinctly masculine about this blend. It would work well on either sex. This blend is nothing if not intimidation in a bottle. Not thuggish, uncouth intimidation, by any means. This is silky-smooth, leather-clad (which is an odd association since there is no leather smell in the blend), devastatingly well put together and proper, and Very Far Above You intimidation, made all the scarier because it heavily implies that it will certainly back these impressions, and is achingly beautiful besides. I'm eagerly awaiting a big bottle of this. My imp is going fast.

BPAL rose hates me too--it turns straight into cheap bathroom deodorizer. The Unicorn (Mad Tea Party series) is a very light, pale white floral with an herbal tinge. Very refreshing and ethereal. Pannychis (Excolo series) is another white floral, spicier and heavier than the Unicorn, but it lightens a lot on dry-down. It also doesn't beat one over the head with its presence.

I'd go with Hades (you just don't want to mess with the Lord of the Underworld, or the hard, fierce, takes-no-bullshit scent named in his honour) or Yggdrasil.

I was in the mood for an amber scent today. I'd been wearing Tamora all week and needed a change. I tried Spellbound which was a stunning failure. Then I found my imp of Marquise de Merteuil (a gift from the Lab) and decided to give her a try. From the description, I expected a vanilla-free version of my much-loved Tamora. I was wrong. The amber-peach blend is every bit as beautiful, but there the similarity ends. Tamora is sweet and warm and glows golden while La Marquise is an ice queen through and through. She glows, but it's a pale, cold shine, like moonlight on icicles--I had no idea that summery peach and sunny amber could smell so aloof and chilly. That must be the influence of the jonquil and vetivert. She very much reminds me of a feminine Hades (a rather unisex blend). Feminine, mind you, not girlie--there is absolutely nothing soft, unsure, or yielding about this scent. It sneers "You know you want me, but you'll never have me. If you're very lucky, I might decide it's amusing to watch you try to win me over, though of course you'll fail." She's a cruel flirt who leaves a trail of broken hearts in her wake and a calculating, fiercely independent mistress strategist, and she's always the consummate sophisticate. Femmes fatale of all types would do well to get themselves a 10ml bottle or several. In the imp, this smelled rather mainstream-perfumey for BPAL, similar to Rapture. Wet, it was a bit cloying with really strong throw, so much so that I nearly washed it off. After about twenty minutes, though, it backed off and became coy. La Marquise might have a pronounced mean streak, but she also has a gentler side that she'll show you if she has time to get to know you. The florals come out and the amber and vetivert warm up enough to smell woodsy and resiny while the peach, though far more tart than in other BPAL peach blends, give the scent a lift. Big bottle. Definitely.

This didn't work on me at all. In the bottle, it was a nice warm smell, amber with a hint of blooming roses and musk. Once it hit my skin, it turned into unwashed armpits (my skin's unfortunate tendency to amp musk), The Overpowering Amber Baby Powder of Doom, and chemical bathroom deodoriser (the rose). I gave it 30 minutes, but it got worse and not better and was making me sick to my stomach, so i scoured it off with soap and rubbing alcohol.

Sea of Glass (from the "Sin & Salvation series) is a crisp, clean aquatic with citrus and white floral undertones and a deifinite oceanic salt tang. It's clarity distilled into liquid form.

This scent doesn't morph on me at all. It starts as a clean aquatic. It ends as a clean aquatic. It has a sharp salt tang like the wind off the ocean (but not a driving wind--more like a refreshing breeze on a hot day), some sweet/tart citrus, and something sharp which must be the ozone (which I'd feared would smell like the air on a smog-alert day but instead smells like the air during a thunderstorm--prickly, but clean). I keep some of this on hand for when I need mental clarity. I also find it soothing--I prefer to live near the ocean, and find walking along large bodies of water, gazing into large bodies of water, and traveling across large bodies of water calming. One whiff of this, and I'm centred and rational and ready to take on the world.

Short review: A lovely, clean, crisp floral with undertones of cardamom, sandalwood, and frankincense. Longer review: Wet: Jasmine and ylang-ylang with a darker, resin-and-wood undertone which is barely noticeable. Hmm. Not sure about this; my skin likes to amp ylang-ylang and jasmine. Still, it was a gift from the Lab, so I'll give it a try. Drydown: The sandalwood and frankincense step in to keep the florals in check. The cardamom gives it a slightly spicy, earthy (but not at all dirty) hint. Every now and then, I get a slightly tart-fruity waft which must be the black currant and something that smells like fresh-from-the-comb honey (which is probably the ylang-ylang mellowing out). This scent manages to evoke dancing on dewy grass in the moonlight, yet also gives off a certain sense of sophistication, even haughtiness--it would work equally well on a night-time hike, a chic garden party, at work, or when one must appear perfectly pulled-together. It's slightly reminiscent of Sea of Glass in its crispness and clarity (though the similarity ends there, as Pannychis doesn't have the salt, ozone, or citrus tang of Sea of Glass) and slightly reminiscent of my beloved Unicorn in its sense of lucidity and feyness. Yes, that's it: Pannychis is a more worldly, grown-up Unicorn, or perhaps the maiden used to lure the Unicorn. Pannychis is a beautiful blend--once it dries, no note is jarring or overpowers the others. They mingle in a very harmonious manner; I'm reminded of the sound of chimes or sleigh bells, though this is more of a spring scent than a winter one. Throw is medium without being overpowering, and the sandalwood and frankincense help it last. Final verdict: 5ml, come next paycheck. This might replace Paris as my favourite clean, complex, almost-aquatic floral.

Pure internal harmony and spiritual bliss: the perfected meditation blend. This was so lovely in the imp: sandalwood with something sweet and vaguely floral in the background. I like sandalwood and sandalwood usually likes me, so I was surprised and a little dismayed when when the sweet floral whatever-it-is amped way, way up once it hit my skin, running roughshod over the sandalwood and turning sticky and cloying and saccharine-like. I had to wash it off and apply Hades, figuring that the bitter, regal Lord of the Underworld would be the perfect antitdote (and it was!). I do really like Tushnamatay in the vial, though. I've smeared it on my lightbulbs for a room scent, and it does smell pure and light and sweet (but without the nauseating overpowering quality it had on my skin).