septima_pica

For big fat dark-red roses, you might want to try Spellbound (roses+amber) and Lilith (roses+dark wine). And, as mentioned above, Whip (roses+leather).

Oh, I love tonka! So much better than vanilla. Dee is near the top of my list. Try Sybaris, too, if you can wear violet (I can't). And looking at your list of desired bottles, you might want to throw Against Idleness and Mischief in there as well.

lookingglass -- Oud seems to be in only 3 BPAL scents: Danse Macabre, Snooty Rose, and Aelopile. And if "dark, dank, and dirty" is what you want, I'd have to suggest you try the first (although to be honest I haven't tried either of the other two). PuppetMistress -- both Bewitched and Lady Una sound like they're pretty close to that, have you tried either of those?

shipwreckgirl: Nemesis has a cypress note just like Nephilim -- actually it's quite a similar scent, with several substitutions (ginger for tamarind; rose for lavender; red patchouli for black) but a similar overall balance, and I think the cypress is stronger and the scent overall sweeter. It's not quite cypress and honey, but it's got a good whack of that glorious BPAL fig note, plus tonka (which is like vanilla but better).

I was a little less than impressed when I first got this -- nice scent, but no throw and no longevity, just a mild pleasant dry-potting-soil smell. That was in June. I grabbed it this morning to see how it was doing, and the changes are pretty remarkable. It's still got the dry loamy smell, coming out clearly on the colder parts of my skin, but on the warmer spots it's really quite spicy. No florals that I can smell, just the unmistakable sweetness of vegetative decay, an unnameable spice -- something reminiscent of cassia, maybe, or allspice? -- and mushroomy, rich, dry brown soil. And best of all, it lasts. I've been wearing this for four hours and there has been essentially no change since the initial drydown. This is a winner for sure. Not quite Badger, but definitely the closest thing in the GC.

Oh, definitely Death of the Gravedigger. It's pretty much exactly what you're looking for, plus a shot of myrrh to sweeten it. And Black Forest isn't snowy, it's all dark and resinous, but it's also pretty awesome. I also suspect that Gacela of the Dark Death, from the Yules, might be pretty close to what you're looking for.

How about Anubis?

Hmm. I first tried this when it was fresh from the lab a couple of months ago, and I was not happy -- it was far too sharp. However, I gave it a couple of months to calm down -- looks like that was a good decision. I grabbed it just now because of a certain thematic appropriateness, and also because I had not yet applied perfume today. This goes on very woody and musky, a tiny bit resinous-sweet. It smells like incense in an old wooden box, like an imports store, warm, hollow and dry. As it dries down, it becomes a great deal more unified. It smells like great ancient wooden pillars now, in a room full of incense smoke -- a temple smell. An hour or so later, it finally comes into its identity as an "Ars Amatoria" scent. Brown, rich, and musky, almost a velvety texture (like the dust in Velvet Bandito), while also intensely incensey, it smells like a skin scent with sweet incense over it. In some indefinable way, it smells like old things, and strength. What a change! From sharp fir and powdery black musk to this. I think I'm going to love this even more in a year or so; it may go on the bottle list.

Man, this is like the six-year-old's version of No. 93 Engine. Pale, beeswax-and-herbs, powdery though not baby-powdery, fresh and sweet and innocent. Smells like a kid with recently-shampooed hair. Honey (like the honey in Itaso Kansei) and German chamomile are by far the dominant notes, along with pollen, and there's a slight hint of something herbal that must be the hyssop because it's reminding me of I Died for Beauty. No sign of tonka whatsoever, as far as I can tell. It's sweet but not super-sweet like the strong honey scents, really quite charming, but I'm totally never going to wear it.

I have Blade of Grass too, and he tried it, but it smelled potently of celery! It was really weird, since it doesn't do that on me at all. Hemlock, though, I don't know if he tried that. And -- oh man, I don't even want to get into the WKAP stuff. I actually really want to try the first three you mention there, too, but...yeah. Not getting into those until I can test the decants, since I don't live in CA anymore and so can't do the will call sniffy thing.

Well, he tried Thorns already at Will Call and found it overly brown and dry. I have Yorick and Ulalume, although I think the former was mostly dirt and the latter mostly lilies on him. October...well, it disappeared really fast, for one thing. But mostly it just didn't have that chlorophyll smell at all -- it had leaves, but they were dead. And then it lasted something like 10 minutes. However, all the others are going on the list for sure! Odin, The Witch's Garden, The Norns' Farmhouse, Two Monsters. Time to stalk the swaps thread...

Gwydion: Cedar is no good, unfortunately, or he'd be able to wear some of mine! Actually, it's probably the worst of the conifers; it amps like crazy and totally swamps out any greenness. He's pretty much given up on all the Coniferae at this point, which is what's making this so difficult. Apple: I have October 2007, but I actually don't find it to be green or bitter at all -- it's more sap-sweet and full of dry leaves. Interesting that your experience is so dissimilar to this. And Robin Goodfellow, although nice, has far more musk than he's looking for. Probably the closest so far have been Van Van (fresh) and Baneberry. (And I did look through that thread -- that's where I got the recs for Arkham and Ochosi.) Thanks, both!

Hmm, no-one mentioned Nosferatu yet, did they? Very very dry red wine, loads of herbs, and dirt. Very different from all the other wine scents in the catalogue, in that it's not at all foody, instead cold and herbal. On the other hand, Athens is the exact opposite. It's quite boozy, very strong, full of sweetness from honey and myrrh. Lilith is another in this vein, but with black musk and red roses rather than golden honey -- similar fruity red wine note, but much darker and slinkier. Both worth trying, though.

OK, bumping this thread... Kalirren is looking for a green scent of a very particular sort. Specifically, he wants the scent of a whole deciduous tree, from top to bottom. Fresh green leaves, bitter wood, optional moss, dirt, and faint flowers. However, he does NOT want any conifers, which rules out a really large chunk of the recs in this thread. Also, excessive vetiver tends to take over on him. The real trick appears to be in finding something that has both these characteristics (no pine, not too much vetiver) and also does not disappear within ten minutes. He has tried pretty much all the Rappaccini's Garden scents (someof these were good, but all had something unpalatable about them), The Hesperides, a number of the Voodoo scents (closest here was Van Van, which was lovely fresh but did not age well), and probably a handful of others. The current list of likely candidates includes the following: Arkham Envy Ochosi Rapunzel Yggdrasil Any other suggestions?

This seriously smells like crashing through a florist's stand in a subway station -- carnations, roses, and I'd swear there are daylilies or chrysanthemums in here somewhere. The thing is, the leaves are there as well as the flowers (possibly from the tea?), and nothing is too white or heady or sweet, the way flowers so often are -- instead, it's all spicy and green and yellow. Maybe I'll hang on to this. I'm not sure I'll ever wear it, but it's drying down to a really nice pure carnation, and I can see possibly layering it with Blade of Grass or Yorick or something like that.

Awesome! This is the fire-and-ash scent I've been waiting for. I've tried pretty much every one, looking for the smokey scent with just enough other things going on to really bring it out. This is even better than St. John's Eve, the previous winner (which I never bought). There's the familiar wood-fire scent as featured in so many other BPAL blends, precisely like the smell of the ash plume that rises from the campfire after you dump water on it. But in this one, there's also a whole masala's worth of weird spices dancing around in the smoke (black pepper in perfumes always strikes me as a weird note) and a bunch of nice sweet resins to keep it all together. I'm not sure what the overall impression really says, but I sure like it. Not as headshoppy as the notes would suggest, somehow coherent and distinct at the same time. It's somewhere between Brimstone and Sri Lanka in BPAL-space. Lasts a good long time -- 6-8 hours on my dry skin. This goes on my "next round of GC bottles" list for sure.

I was a little afraid of the florals here, but this contains the smell of the bitter sap of oleander as well as the vaguely vanilla+lily-like odor of the flowers, which keeps it from being overpoweringly sweet. However, within the first fifteen minutes, the ylang ylang amps up to pretty much take over the whole scent -- this usually happens to me. The patchouli I was waiting for never showed up. This reminds me very much of I Died for Beauty. I'm going to put it away and hope the patchouli ages into more prominence -- this scent would be just lovely if it were only a little more grounded. Damn that ylang ylang.

Musky, funky fruit punch. I tried this before I realized that it had amber in it. Not for me, I'm afraid.

I really like Shoggoth -- it's got the green coconut smell, rather than the ripe coconut that you see in most of the BPAL coconut blends. And Kalirren likes Eden, which I know has been mentioned here several times. I've also got an imp of Goblin stashed away -- it was nice, but the patchouli needed some aging. I'm going to bust it out again in a year or so and see whether that's mellowed. If so, I think it's going to be a winner too.

Casanova, maybe? "...leather, anise, lavender, bergamot and amber with tonka, lemon peel and lusty patchouli." Or The Caterpillar, "Heavy incense notes ... carnation, jasmine, bergamot, and neroli over a lush bed of dark mosses, iris blossom, deep patchouli and indolent vetiver".

Molls, I've never smelled the VS scent you describe, but that sounds rather like Suspiro: "Ylang ylang with white plum, white orchid, jasmine, calla lily and lily of the valley." The pile of rich white tropical florals plus plum is exactly what I get out of it.

Bought a bottle of this one based on testing at Will Call this weekend, and I'm wearing it now. Daaaaamn, this is good. It settles into its long-term scent pretty fast, within the first couple of minutes, and seems stable. The impression I get is one of deep, sweet dust -- within a thick layer of fluffy desert dust, there's a subdued and actually totally familiar spicy tumbleweed smell (I never knew what that was before!), a touch of the super-dry cedar from Tombstone, and a subdued sweetness that I'd swear was myrrh if I didn't have a note list. If it's actually tobacco, though, it's not any kind I know; then again, I'm no tobacco expert. The throw is respectable, and the longevity -- well, I can't post on that yet, because I've only had it on for 1.5 hours. I'll update later. I seriously love this stuff though. (Family: Tombstone, Western Diamondback, Bezoar)

I like Bess -- it smells like Huntington Gardens, with the combination of rose, orange blossom, and rosemary. Of course, lots of people seem to have trouble with the grape note.

This is pretty enough, but unfortunately the violet and lily-of-the-valley really dominate. I was hoping for more of the cypress note, something like in Rome or Nemesis, but instead I get a strong sweet floral, an old-fashioned sort of perfume, although a lovely one. Not, unfortunately, quite my style.

Malediction is pretty damn evil. Fresh, it's kinda rank and acrid, but I have an imp that's been sitting around for two or three years and now it's deep, smooth, tar-black evil. Sinister, polished, and somehow really not sexy at all.