lysistrata

Right after my exciting Bordello=Closet discovery, I tried on Tushnamatay. It smelled fabulous, and familiar. TOO familiar. Vanilla...sandalwood...something saffrony... OH MY GOD...IT'S UNDERPANTS! TUSHNAMATAY IS UNDERPANTS! Again, no wafty butter, but close enough for me! I can use up my imp now. What are the odds of finding two MB-equivalents in a row?! Or maybe I just have Monsters on the brain...

I just tried Bordello for the first time and I am in swoony love because it is JUST LIKE the dry stage of my beloved Monster Bait: Closet! The sweet boozy berries! That lovely throw! Yesssss! OK, so there's not all that much wafting buttery cake, but that never really lasted on me past the wet stage. But just toss on a dab of Beaver Moon or Midway and Bob's your uncle! Wait, Bob's YOUR uncle? Oh my gosh, he's my uncle too! We must be related! Seriously, folks, I am six kinds of giddy to find something so close to one of my favorite LEs. I had hoarded two imps of Closet and was broken-hearted to think that one day I'd run out, but now I can have my berryliciousness always! Fresh! Forever! Hooray!

I haven't ever had allergies before this summer, when I came to stay in the Southern English countryside for four months. The fields of canola oil and a vast expanse of foreign blooming greenery are doing a number on my upper repiratory tract. This is also the summer I chose to get into BPAL. So far, I've been really lucky in that few of BPAL's scents have caused allergic reactions, and none of them on my skin. I can generally tell an allergic reaction by a feeling of dryness in the back of my throat, itchy runny nose, and watery or swollen-feeling eyes. Snake Oil and O (both tried before my trip to England) caused this reaction in me, as did (more recently) Enraged Bunny Musk and (today, much to my great chagrin and broken heart) Dorian. I LOVE the smells of all four of these, but I hate that feeling in my throat and nose, which I've gotten from a lot of commercial perfumes before this, and which has been my reason for avoiding perfume in the past. Anyone have any ideas about commonalities in these scents that may have caused this reaction, so I know what to avoid in the future? It could be musk, but Antique Lace and Morocco don't do this to me.

This is an incredibly strong and potent scent. It's sweet vanilla with tangy sharpness. The instant I smelled it I agreed that it truly is the scent of sex, defiled vanilla. But the throw is so powerful that it's a little too much to take for a mild-scent wearer like myself. There is absolutely nothing subtle about this scent. Like Snake Oil, it made my husband cough and my throat close up, but there's so much to like about it. I've kept it around for a while hoping that I might layer it with something, or find some use for it. But it's just too damn strong.

This smells exactly like a Glade floral air freshener I used all the time in college. It was mainly rose and spice, very strong and heavy. Unfortunately, when I sniff Othello this Glade spray scent is all I can smell. Evocative, certainly. But I can't wear it.

On me, this smells exactly like one of those strawberry-vanilla-scented cardboard trees you hang in your car. Artificial, very strong, and very sweet.

As a huge fan of Bliss and Velvet, I was so desperately hoping for a really excellent chocolate scent in Tezcatlipoca. Alas, all I got was moldy spice. It smelled seriously rancid on me. I think patchouli is another enemy of my skin chemistry, as it has turned me off of every BPAL I've tried with it.

This is milk chocolate. In the imp, on me, wet, and dry. But not just any milk chocolate. It's really good MOLTEN milk chocolate. It wafts. Oh, it wafts. Simply, absolutely incredible. A warning: it will make you hungry for chocolate. When I layer Bliss with Velvet, I am in happy chocolate-perfume heaven. Yum!

Lemony at first, amping to X-Treme Lemon; almost Lemon Pledgy, much stronger than Embalming Fluid. There's a sugariness to it, and a slight undercurrent of pizza; I could swear I smell oregano in this. As with all lemon scents, it fades fast on me, and the jasmine makes it sort of soapy. Oh well.

I was hoping for lemon on this, and I did get a little lemony musk at first. But as usual, my skin ate that lemon right up, and I ended up smelling a little lemony-fresh and faintly incensy, like a shop in Chinatown that had left the door open to let some fresh air in.

This was a frimp from the Lab, and it wasn't to my taste at all. The ylang ylang and patchouli clinched it for me. Much, much too incensy-strong.

I didn't smell berries with this one, alas, just roses and grass. I had a grass perfume from the Gap once that smelled very much like this. The grass kind of overwhelmed the mixture on me. Just made it a little too sourly green for me to really enjoy. Glasgow ended up being what I hoped this would be.

This was a frimp from the Lab, and not a bad one, either. It reminded me a lot of the smell of my grandmother's house on the beach. I think it's the carnation. Light, sweet, and rich, with a slight seaside flavor. Gets sweeter as it dries. A little too sweet for me, but really light and appealing.

A very subtle green floral. The ivy keeps it from getting too sweet. Unlike many of the scents in my first BPAL order (I'm looking at you, O and Snake Oil!) this was not an allergy trigger. Not really me, though. Too grassy/planty.

Sweet flowers. Very mild. Girly. This was in my first batch of imps ever from the lab, and the above is the only written impression I have of Dormouse. It was pleasant enough, but nothing about it stuck with me.