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BPAL Madness!

fiddledragon

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Everything posted by fiddledragon

  1. fiddledragon

    Zombi

    This is one of those roses that goes kind of musty and unpleasant on me, which is only amplified by the soil notes, which I normally quite like. Alas, not destined for greatness on my skin.
  2. fiddledragon

    Haunted

    When I ordered this, I thought I loved both amber and musk, but I'm discovering that I need something sweet to temper either of these. Combined, the musk is kind of sexy but not really doing it for me, and the amber comes off kind of sharp. If I end up with another imp of it, I may try layering with one of the honey blends that I've fallen in love with.
  3. fiddledragon

    Danse Macabre

    This is almost entirely woody cypress on me with just a hint of the other notes adding complexity. My skin tends to amp woods out of all proportion. I quite like cypress, but it's not something I'm likely to wear all that often. It might be a lovely room scent, especially in winter.
  4. fiddledragon

    Lampades

    This goes entirely to a confusing, sexual musk on my skin. It's that murky sort of musk that doesn't go actively unpleasant like red musk does, but instead goes in expecting to be sexy, and then encounters a skin chemistry that vastly prefers frankincense when wanting to be sensual, and so gets confused and wanders off again. I adore ginger, lilies generally work well, and I was intrigued by the cranberry, but none of them show up at all.
  5. fiddledragon

    Magus

    This was my introduction to the fact that I cannot wear cedar. On me, it goes entirely to #2 Pencils, compromising eventually in the drydown to smelling like #2 pencils which had been used recently to stab galangal root with. (Boyfriend's comment: "Well, I suppose students of the arcane might use a lot of pencils in their research..."
  6. fiddledragon

    Cathode

    MINT! Mintmintmint. Mint on me unfortunately turns entirely to sweet candy-cane regardless of whether there's anything else sweet in the blend. The moss and other notes make no headway on my skin under the vast cloud of MINT.
  7. fiddledragon

    Aureus

    At first this is CEDAR. Cedar go WHOMP! I smell like a #2 pencil. As it dries, it turns into a beautifully melded cedar-sandalwood-frankincense, but there are other blends that do that on me which don't make me suffer through Essence of #2 Pencil. I just can't wear cedar in any quantity.
  8. fiddledragon

    Tushnamatay

    I go through periods of loving this scent and mildly disliking it. There's definitely sandalwood and vanilla, and maybe some sweet amber or frankincense. It's a very sweet, comforting, fuzzy kind of scent. Sometimes it's exactly the warm soft vanillaresin that I need, but other times it goes just over the edge into cloying-land. I can't actually tell if it's my skin's shifting chemistry or changes in scent preference that are doing it. It's more of a relaxing blend than a meditative one to me -- I need something with more backbone to do any kind of serious inner work with.
  9. fiddledragon

    Ozymandias

    On me this smells, appropriately enough, almost undetectable. There's the barest whiff of cologne and incense, that disappears quickly once dry. Maybe it gets stronger as it ages? Normally incense-y blends are fairly strong on me.
  10. fiddledragon

    Rakshasa

    On me, this is at first PATCHOULI, which I like, but not to this extreme. Eventually it dries to a really lovely sandalwood-rose blend. Interestingly, I like this because it doesn't smell perfectly blended together...the sandalwood is there with the patchouli as a woody grounded spicy base, and the roses are soaring up over them, clear and fresh. Alas, given the nose-whomping beginning and the tendancy of rose to go off on me some weeks, this isn't destined to become a favorite.
  11. fiddledragon

    Arcana

    This is a really lovely herbal blend, but not the sort of thing I'm likely to wear, just as a personal taste. On me, the verbina is dominant and ends up being a bit too citrus-herbal-fresh for me. The rosemary and lavender take second place, and it ends up smelling like one of those little scented beanie-critters for putting in the microwave for sore muscles.
  12. fiddledragon

    Anne Bonny

    Patchouli and sandalwood are two of those notes that I quite like, but have to be careful of. The patchouli here turns extremely strong, and the sandalwood is harsh and dry. Phooey. And the frankincense just never gets the chance to sweeten it out. Maybe aged a while it would mellow, but these are notes that I need something serious to tame on my skin.
  13. fiddledragon

    Morgause

    As other people have observed, the night-blooming flowers obviously include night-blooming jasmine. I adore jasmine, but unfortunately my skin adores it a little too much. I really just need one bpal blend with jasmine in it -- if there's more the barest hint, and doesn't have anything else really strong in it, I might as well be putting pure jasmine oil on. So this is a wonderful cloudy jasmine scent, with a hint of berry once it dries down for a while. But my skin doesn't really let the other notes come out to play at all.
  14. fiddledragon

    Ultraviolet

    At first, this was candycanes of spiky doom on me. Very wake-up, but still too sweet -- peppermint goes sweet on me regardless of what the description claims. Then the violets came out. Unfortunately, violets almost universally do this truly distressing thing on me where they end up smelling like blood. I can definitely see how this would turn metallic on some people, but on me it just ends up being minty-fresh blood.
  15. fiddledragon

    The Hesperides

    I tried this quite a while ago from someone else's box and it was pure oakbark. I Smelled Like a Tree. Now, to me, this is a wonderful excellent thing to smell like so I set about procuring an imp of my own. Unfortunately, the newly swapped imp was strongly what must have been apple. But on me apple does this weird unripe-fruit thing that's not at all pleasant. If I come across another one, I might keep it and try to age out the apples and get my oakbark back again, but I swapped the one I had.
  16. fiddledragon

    Bon Vivant

    This is straight-up sweet strawberry candy, with that same bubbly effervescent note in Swank. It's strawberry candy made with real strawberries -- I don't get any sort of artificial note -- but it's not something I'd wear unless I were feeling really impressively girly. It'd be adorable on a little kid, and you might be able to do some disturbingly beautiful things by layering this with, say, Satyr or Sheol.
  17. fiddledragon

    Dee

    Just...wow. The quite-aged imp I tried through the GC Circle Swap absolutely blew me away. The leather is warm and spicy, and combines beautifully with the warm tonka and incense. It smells like the hot spicy aridness of the laurel woods in Merin, CA, where I hiked this August. Fresh Dee is more obviously leather, and feels more masculine, but it's still beautiful. It's almost what I expected Coyote to smell like, only it doesn't evoke the idea of Coyote at all. This is very much a professor/magician/alchemist sort of scent. Like a hug from a favorite eccentric great-uncle sitting in a beat-up leather armchair. So much love.
  18. fiddledragon

    Bliss

    This is sweet, sweet dusty milk chocolate. It's a lot like sticking your nose into a box of cake mix or hot chocolate powder. Dry, it eventually turns into something that I can only call chocolate incense, as it's smoky and dry, yet still way too sweet for me to wear in most moods. But it is in fact true milk chocolate perfume. Now if only Beth would come up with a bitter chocolate version....
  19. fiddledragon

    Yggdrasil

    I keep wanting to like these foresty kinds of scents, but they keep just not working. Yggdrasil works on me wet -- it's a nice light woodsy, green kind of smell with herbals that don't go medicinal and wood that isn't too dry. It has a touch of wintergreen, though not nearly so much as Hamadryad. But dry it goes...sharp and artificial and just odd. I wish I knew what it was that did that, as it's in Hamadryad and several other forest/herb ones as well. This would be a good pick for someone trying to find a foresty one that wasn't all dirt/vetiver and doesn't have a siginifcant evergreen note.
  20. fiddledragon

    Brimstone

    I don't get the association with ashes and smoke at all -- but then, nothing with a "smoke/ashes" note comes out smoky on me, so maybe my skin just eats those notes, whatever they are. On me, this is an intensely earthy pine/vetiver blend. I'm actually not sure what else is in there, though it's quite complex. It's not a fresh green pine needle sort of pine -- it's more of a resinous dried pine sap. It's one of the few evergreen scents that doesn't take over with its sledgehammer of pine-fresh doom on me. It's definitely not something I'd wear every day, but it's a beautiful and unusual scent. I've had this for a while, and only now thought to wonder how it layers with Hellfire. Just to be able to say you were wearing Hellfire and Brimstone. But I went and swapped my Hellfire. Alas.
  21. fiddledragon

    Fae

    An excellent sum-up of this scent was my boyfriend's reaction to it the first time I tested it: Me: *sticks wrist out* Him: *sniffs* Mm! What's that one? Me: Fae. Him: Yes, it is. It's a wonderful fresh bright peach...the white musk on me makes it feel kind of ethereal and misty, and takes away from some of the juicy fresh fruit scent (which is a marvelous scent, but not so much in perfume for me). I don't get much oakmoss, but it's probably there grounding the scent somewhere, and the bergamont adds a nice crisp sharpness.
  22. fiddledragon

    Oils to relax, calm, soothe, restore your sanity...

    I'll add to the recommendation of finding something you personally feel soothing or that you can connect with a good memory. Thaleia does it for me :-) I feel obliged also to make the standard disclaimer that if you have something as severe as panic attacks on a regular basis, you're almost certainly going to need something more serious than aromatherapy to deal with them completely, though anything you can find to help is good. Make sure you have a good support network, therapist, spiritual teacher, whatever, to combine with the lovely soothing smells.
  23. fiddledragon

    Rain Scents

    I prefer Oberon for a nice cool-humid rainy scent. It makes the damp feel enveloping and comforting, rather than unpleasant.
  24. fiddledragon

    Anahata

    In the bottle, I get lavender pears. (ooo...I bet that would be really tasty!) On me wet, it's sharply lavender and herbs. It becomes very faint on me as it dries...hopefully this one will come back in the final drydown; it's one of the chakras I was most interested in working with. Wow...it's still faintly sweet herbal lavender, but sitting and smelling this is helping with some of the disassociation feeling I've been dealing with recently. I'm not sure how I want to use this, but it's definitely a working oil. It's not embodying compassion for me so far -- I think I'll stick with my usual Rose Cross or Kali for compassion-based meditations. Other people get jasmine from this? Weeeeird...my skin usually amps jasmine beyond all reason and I'm not getting it at all here.
  25. fiddledragon

    Manipura

    I'm getting quite a bit of vetiver in this; at first it's like a higher, more resiny Muladhara. I think there might be ginger or pepper in it. It's warmer on the drydown...possibly a touch of vanilla or tonka? And there's some kind of very soft resin. Also as someone else mentioned, a rubbery note that on me isn't unpleasant, but is a bit weird. It's medicinal and almost metallic, but warm and spicy. It's definitely got a kick to it. I'm more comfortable with fire as an external thing than as internal, so this might be very good for me to work with. It's not wearable as perfume for me.
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