Poenari

2014 Version I adore Sugar Skull. My first experience with it was the 2007 release, and I've made a point of getting a bottle each year. I usually just put the bottles away to age and use them up in chronological order, but since there have been so many reviews of this year's release being a bit more fruity, I thought I would try it out before putting it into my backup bottle drawer. In the bottle and on skin, it's still the same Sugar Skull that I love, although the brown sugar isn't quite as obvious initially. This could be due to the freshness, as I'm used to smelling and wearing aged Sugar Skull. Upon application, the candied fruit is distinctly present, but not in a way that makes it a specific definable fruit. Then the brown sugar appears and the fruit melds into the overall brown sugary sweetness. All in all, this is the same Sugar Skull that I love, and I'm going to go ahead and put it away to age with my others. The longevity and throw are as long and strong as ever. If you can wear sweet scents, then don't miss out on this because it's delicious when fresh, but even better when it is aged.

Snake Oil, Skadi, Gingerbread Poppet, Gingerbread Snakes, Heavenly Love/Earthly Love, El Amor y la Muerte and other incense-heavy scents are my go-to scents for cold weather. I tend to limit the gingerbreads after January though, since gingerbread is more of a December/January scent to me. We still have plenty of cold weather in February and March, so that's when I pump up the Snake Oil and Tombeur use, too.

I debated long and hard about buying this last year, but decided to pass on it. So when it showed up on the latest Etsy update, I threw caution to the wind and bought it! I always use my bath oils as a moisturizer after shower/bath, instead of in the bath. As with all the other bath oils, this spreads smoothly, soaks in quickly, and leaves my skin wonderfully soft and moisturized. My initial worry about buying this last year was based on concern about how strong the espresso note would be. While I love the smell of coffee and espresso, it tends to amp in a scorched coffee way on my skin. However, gingerbread and chocolate usually wear quite well on me. I tried this initially by using a very small amount (just a few drops) on my hands, rubbing in as if it were a hand lotion. Unfortunately, the espresso immediately stomps over everything and turns very bitter, as I had feared it might. It completely drowned out the gingerbread, although the chocolate holds it own against the espresso. This scent is extremely strong in the bottle and on skin. It took at least an hour for it to soften up and dry down to a "liveable" level for me as far as the espresso note. I doubt that I will be able to wear this in my usual manner, because of the bitterness. Perhaps after it ages. Edited to add: I layered this with a small amount of Gingerbread Poppet bath oil to see if that would help, and it seems to work! The espresso is still the dominant note, but adding Gingerbread Poppet sweetens the blend and tones it down to a wearable level for me. I will keep my bottle and see what happens after it has aged, too. In the meantime, I will wear it layered with Gingerbread Poppet.

I too liked Serpent's Kiss, and think Bloodlust (in Diabolus) might be similar enough to give you what you want, if you don't mind patchouli: A fiery Martial blend that embodies primal rage, lust for conquest, and all-encompassing desire. Dragon's blood essence, heavy red musk, Indonesian patchouli and swarthy vetiver with a drop of cinnamon.

The Lab has had a website for many years, but in a different format. By "new website" it means the newly redesigned website. It has many features that the old website lacked, including a directory of notes, imp-packs set up by notes, a review section, and other handy features to make it easier to shop and enable our addiction.

I was scrolling through the Atmo reviews and noticed that I had never reviewed Lucy in Darkness. This surprised me, because it has always been one of, if not THE, most favorite of all the atmo sprays I have tried. And now that my bottle is well-aged, it's even more amazing. This scent is the most decadent opium scent mingled with dark florals. I love blood notes and rarely like florals, so I think this must be a melding of blood and the garlic flowers. It certainly doesn't smell like garlic! This is also the strongest and longest lasting of all the atmo sprays I have tried (and I've got a lot of them.) As someone above said, 2 sprays of this lasts for hours and hours. It is the perfect boudoir scent. I have always loved Oriental scents, and this falls in that category of scent to me. When sprayed on a scarf around my neck, I don't need to wear any other perfume that day. It would make an amazing, decadent, exotic and heady perfume. It's been a long time since Puddin' released this and there are a lot of people who never got a chance to try it. It's not one you see mentioned much, or see it available on the secondary market. I'd love to see it re-released (along with Crypt Queen- a girl can dream, right?) If you love dark, feminine exotic scents and ever get a chance to try this, do it! I'm so glad I bought 2 bottles when this was live, as I never want to be out of it.

Testing a frimp of Orc received from the Lab. It smells like vetiver, and dries down to a soft, smoky but sweet vetiver single note on my skin. I think the musk is what sweetens it. Fortunately, the leather stays away and doesn't ruin this. I like vetiver, and I could see layering this with scents that could use a hint of sweet smoke.

Definitely what I was hoping for- pumpkin spice it is! I compared this side by side with Pumpkin Spice hair gloss, and I feel like the pumpkin in this one is slightly more like the fresh pumpkin flesh with a lot of spices added, where the hair gloss is sweeter, like pumpkin pie filling. This works better as a room spray because although it is recognizably spicy pumpkin, it is not that fake scent you can get from commercial sprays. Nor is it cloyingly sweet. It's beautiful pumpkin spice and I will use it a lot during October and November, which are when I crave my pumpkin scents.

Got this one on a swap with a lovely forumite, and I am so happy! My all time favorite pumpkin scent is Pumpkin IV 2009, which is a very dark, very spicy pumpkin with tons of throw. On my skin, Pumpkin Lace is in the same family as that scent, but for day wear! I even sniffed them side by side to be certain. The pumpkin and spices are sweeter and lighter, and I don't get a strong boozy note that would keep it from being work safe, but it does blend in well with the pumpkin and spices. I love this and I also think it will age very well.

When I was new to BPAL, I was already older than many here, and had been wearing perfumes for decades so I had a pretty good sense of what would work for me starting out. I had worn oils back in my long-ago college days, but had "graduated" to department store perfumes. Even with that, I had some hits and some misses starting out. I found that one of the things that helped me the most was to quit wearing my alcohol based perfumes entirely and retrain my nose. It only took about a month (I never go a day without wearing perfume) and the BPAL world really opened up to where I could really begin differentiating notes on my skin. I'm still nowhere as good at identifying individual notes as many on the forums, but I successfully blind buy my bottles from the Lab because I've leaned what will work on me. Now if I try a commercial fragrance, I mostly smell alcohol. Remember too, that the goal of mass-marketed scents is for it to smell the same on everyone, so that it is recognizable and they can sell more. BPAL smells different on everyone, and even changes as you wear it, depending on your own body chemistry. Then there is the aging factor, as the scents age like wine and that's why you see some people prefer fresh over aged or vice versa. Enjoy this journey, be patient, and keep trying!

I am pretty firmly in the "no florals" camp, especially white florals, rose and jasmine. I tend to wear darker scents, lots of patchouli notes, or resins. But I am in with the OLLA June 23, 1868. On my skin, it turns into a warm, deep purple lilac but not sweet or high pitched. It's grounded by the tonka, tobacco, and vanilla. I happen to love lilacs on the bush but not all those fake smelling lilac scents, and it's not even listed in the notes, so maybe my nose just turns the blend of all the other floral notes into something recognizable to me, but whatever, I love it and get compliments on it. It's a very feminine but not girly floral, as befits the character of Eve. edited to add jasmine (very much a death-note, stinky on me and kills everything)

I love my Tricksy bath oil and perfume, so having the chance to pull off the trifecta of getting Tricksy hair gloss is a home run! I also agree with Akurarei, this is definitely that Tricksy scent that I love, but more toned down than the bath oil. This is more similar to the Tricksy perfume, where the honey is more prevalent than it was in the bath oil. I love my patchouli scents, and as a hair gloss addict, I'm so excited to add this to my collection.

Purchased off the Lab's Etsy site. I missed out on this originally- if I recall there were a lot of back orders with this one, and I think I decided to skip her. In the bottle and on my skin, this is not as spicy as most of the pumpkins I've tried from the lab, and it also doesn't have as much throw. That's probably because I tend to go for the highly spicy ones. The orange is there, but fortunately not enough to turn me off, as I don't really care much for citrus scents. This a lovely scent, and very similar on my skin to Pumpkin Princess, switching out orange for the mango in the Princess. I will wear this in late summer, when I am beginning to crave Halloween but it is still not time to break out my heavy-duty fall scents. That's also when I wear Pumpkin Princess, and I think this tandem would be a great mother/daughter set!

I just received my package of awesome from the mailman (yay for retirement and being at home when the mail arrives!) and unwrapped this as quickly as I could. I love my hair glosses, and have amassed quite a large collection because my hair has an addiction, and this one was an insta-buy. I am not disappointed at all! I sprayed a couple of sprays into the palms of my hands, and yes, it's a spray mist, not the squirt of the early bottles. The black clove and grave soil are instantly present, with the tobacco flower more faint. I'm very happy that the clove is more present than in my Frankincense & Clove hair gloss (the frankincense stomps out the clove in that one, but it's still beautiful and I love it) and I feel like the grave soil is very much like my Graveyard Dirt 2008. I detect the dirt note in my beloved Premature Burial. Oh, this makes me very happy indeed! Applied to my long hair (a floof through it with my hands) and it blends into a beautiful earthy scent. Very autumnal, and exactly what I was hoping for. I am going to love to wear this one, and also can't wait to play around with layering it with the other Halloween glosses I just received (Pumpkin Spice Everything and Autumn Leaves & Haitian Patchouli.) Puddin', thank you for giving the dirt-lovers a hair gloss! Does that make me a dirty girl? Edited after giving this another full test: Damn, I can't afford to keep backup bottles of every gloss on hand, even with my hair! But... WANT! Don't be afraid of the grave soil note in your hair! On hair, the clove and tobacco flower keep it in check, and this is a gorgeous spicy sweet earthy scent. Also, I did give this bottle a shake to be sure it was fully blended before applying. Sometimes the hair glosses need a shake, as Puddin' has also agreed with previously.

I'm so grateful to OctoberGwen for being my NYCC fairy and picking this up for me! This is a very well-blended scent, and although the red apple is present, it's not overwhelming nor is it one of those artificial apple scents you get in some shampoos. The honey and opoponax darken and sweeten it, but I also wouldn't call this foody or a fruity scent. This hair gloss isn't as strongly scented as some of the glosses I have, so it would be perfect for work or for those who like their glosses a bit more toned down. I am loving this as an autumnal scent- it's exactly what I was hoping for to complement my perfumes such as Lamb's Wool, Fearful Pleasure, and Autumn Cider.

This is another win. Same great hair gloss properties, and the scent is lovely. The peach isn't very strong, and the incense is a very mild version of a hint of frankincense. This is not only work safe, but it also layers well with other fruity scents, not just peach. I've worn it a lot this summer. Very happy that I acquired this back when it showed up on the Post's Etsy page!

^^ what OG and d_d said. This is A-MAY-ZING! Long lasting scent, but since I'm a slatherer that's a good thing. So glad I bit the bullet and bought two bottles of this. Very sorry for those who missed it. It smells exactly like Eat Me perfume. This is very sweet vanilla cake, with a fruitiness from the currants. This is very long-lasting and has some powerful throw in my hair. And when I finally shampoo, the shower is filled with the smell of Eat Me as it rinses from my hair.

I love this. It's exactly like Eat Me perfume, so if you want your home and linens to smell like the most delicious vanilla cake with a hint of fruit, you will get exactly that. Smells so nommy.

I have no idea why I passed this up when it was new and live, because I bought Lucy in Darkness atmo spray at the time, and especially since I love all things Dracula. I even named my cat Lucy (I already had a cat named Mina). Anyway, I was excited to snag a bottle of this off the recent Etsy update, and needless to say, I am not disappointed. This is pretty much as described. The honey is a darker honey, not as light as the honey in Butterfly Nectar, but just as beautiful. The orange blossom lends a softly sweet floral, not really citrus, but definitely neroli. Again, when compared to Butterfly Nectar bath oil, there are similarities in that they are both pretty honeyed floral scents, but this one is, like Lucy, sweet with a sexiness coming through, and a hint in the honey of the darkness to come. Oh, and since I use my bath oils as moisturizers, this one is also perfectly textured to smooth on and soak into my skin without leaving me greasy. And it layers perfectly with Jezebel perfume, if you want another comparison.

I am sooo happy that this works for me! Unfortunately, I had very bad luck with the Luna Sanguinem perfume on my skin , but this has fewer notes, and maybe that helped. This is a lovely soft rose, and that alone is saying a lot, because I usually don't wear or care for rose notes. But the rose is very pretty, not soapy, and softened with the vanilla and the other notes. The frankincense is just present enough to ground the rose, but is not smoky like it can often become. This makes a lovely hand-scent/moisturizer. I've been keeping a bottle in my desk for that purpose, and it's very work-safe, pretty, and feminine, but not too out of my comfort zone. Still "feels" like my BPTP/Lab scents, but more accessible to others, if that makes sense.

Oh, dear, this is not working out at all. So far, I get an initial burst of red musk (YAY) but then it turns into canned ham smell on my skin. I've tried this several times now, and every single time, nothing but canned ham. WTF! Edited to add: I feel like I needed to revisit this, because there are so many "win" notes here for me that there must have been something wrong with my initial test. I love carnation, I love smoke, so smoky carnation should be awesome. I love red musk, vanilla, tobacco, Peru balsam, and myrrh. But unfortunately I was correct. This turns into a smoky mess in a bad way. When I mentioned "canned ham" it is based on a long-distant childhood memory (do they even make canned ham nowadays? Who knows, who cares?) I wonder if the pimento is melding with the smoky carnation and turning this scent into such a hot mess on my skin. I'm sorry to leave a negative review, and hopefully YMMV. I also rarely have good luck with Lunacy blends, so take that into account as well.

My bottle smells like a powdery musk, and so far I get no leather, roses, or opium. It's a very nice scent for my bed linens and I do like it, but it's very gentle and soft. I think I will let this one age a bit and see if the opium comes forward more, since my perfumes with opium notes tend to age into stronger opium. I am happy to have this and will revisit my review in a month or two and see if it has changed;

Skoocoom House spray is just perfect! I've been reading The Wolves in Midwinter by Anne Rice. The main characters in this series are werewolves, not Sasquatch, and the book's setting is northern California. The book's description of the old mansion setting, it's grounds surrounded by forest and the coastline, are exactly what Skoocoom House evokes when sprayed. So happy my pick-up fairy was able to get the bottle for me.. The moss is most present, with a hint of fir, and a gentle sweetness, probably from the flowers (I have no idea what each of them smells like.) This is very refreshing and tragically romantic at the same time.

This is definitely nothing like Smut or Goblin. It is a completely different scent of its own. Basically a sugary musk, more than a hint of brown sugar in there. Some of the same sugar in Silkybat, but not a hint of red musk or patchouli. It would be nice but I already have so many other hair glosses that are even better that my decant will suffice. edited 4/10 for updated info: Well this isinteresting. I applied Smutty Goblin this morning ti my dry, day-after-shampooed hair and IT SMELLED LIKE SMUT! Seriously, I could smell the boozey sugary Smut-musk in my hair all day long. Maybe this one needs some aging to become a fabulous Smutty Goblin. Much better than my initial impression.

I've been wanting to try this one, and received a decant of this in a swap. Instant love! The clove is present enough to lend a spiciness to the frankincense. I sprayed some into my hair before bed last night, and got wafts of a comforting incense in my dreams. I can still smell it the next afternoon. Same wonderful gloss product, and another scent that I will definitely be adding to my growing hoard of hair gloss bottles. Will layer beautifully with so many scents I own: El Amor y La Muerte, Mort de Cesar, Midnight Mass, and the others already mentioned above.