filigree_shadow

LOL, I have no idea how to describe this scent. Seriously, I don't think I've smelled anything like it before. I think it smells like gin and lime, but not like a gimlet because of the tobacco. The tobacco rounds it out and sweetens it up and takes the edge off the booze notes. I'm handing this one over to my husband so he can see how he likes it. It's an unusual and interesting scent, and it definitely has a certain allure.

Wow, this is very pretty. It's not terribly strong, so I had to put on another swipe with the imp wand in order to do a proper test. The lilac and hyssop together are apparently a very pretty floral combination; although the lilac is dominant, it does seem like that's not the only floral note in this. The coconut must be that dry husky kind, and it's adding to the musk, tonka, and tobacco brilliantly. On my skin, this smells like a dry lilac musk. It has a warm, glowing feel to it. I think this is an unusual scent -- not the typical floral scent at all -- and I really like it a lot. It smells elegant and sexy in an understated way. Quite beautiful. Possibly my favorite BPAL lilac scent!

Gamaliel reminded me of Eden from the GC a little bit. Nahemoth reminded me of Hellion too (like ivyandpeony said), but also Red Phoenix. It's not a GC, but I think Red Phoenix is easier to find than Hellion.

The blackberry leaf is by far the strongest note for me at first, followed by a little bit of vanilla bean. But the blackberry in it smells a whole lot like MB Closet without the booze. (For some reason blackberry notes are always unbelievably strong on my skin.) Except it's muskier and drier. Personally, I like this one better than Closet. It's much more wearable for me. I like the brightness of it with the dry leafy notes, slight spices, and smooth honey. It's a good combination. This is definitely an interesting scent, but I'd have to try it a few more times to find out whether it feels like it's at home on me. I know I like it, I'm just not sure it fits me. For the record, my husband says he likes this one a lot.

This smells like everything I expected it would... except: there's a sweetness to it that I wasn't expecting. I thought it would be all awesome and musky and spicy -- and it is! -- but it's also sweet. I can smell the red musk in it, but it's more subdued than it usually is. I don't think I can pick out the cinnamon, but I can tell there's pepper and tobacco in it. The "desert sand" and tobacco give the scent a dryness that I like a lot. On me, it went through a strange phase after about 30 minutes while the dragon's blood resin tried to decide what the hell it was going to do ("Gee, do I turn into ultra-sweet powder this time, or will I let the other notes drown me out? Hmmm, let's give that powder thing a whirl!"), but then it settled back into a dark, warm, slightly spicy musk. I would definitely consider getting a bottle of this if my skin chemistry would behave in a predictable fashion, but that headachy-sweet powder problem is a little too risky for me.

I think this is my absolute favorite leather scent ever. It smells so REAL. And sexy. On me, leather is definitely the dominant note, and I don't think I can smell flowers or berries at all at first. Maybe wood. Yes, I think wood. About an hour into it, the leather backs off a bit and I can smell some of the berry and a teeny tiny breath of florals. It just smells... gah, it's just really damn good. Holy crap. This one's on my bottle list for sure. It's been a while since I tried an honest-to-goodness glue-nose-to-wrist perfume. I smell FABULOUS.

I thought maybe there was a dribble of vetiver in here because I'm getting that lovely dark smoky feel from it that I get from vetiver. (Vetiver actually smells really good on me.) It's pretty evocative of an old dusty book, in the best way possible. It lightens up on drydown and acquires a very pleasant smooth sweetness that I enjoy a lot. Just a slight incense haze behind the dominant notes. I like the dry stage better than the wet stage, but the wet stage is pretty good too. This one is more my husband's kind of scent than mine, and he definitely likes it.

I'm not having great luck with this scent. At the very beginning I thought I was going to like it because it smelled floral but not heady or green, which are the types of florals I don't like. But then the ginger and pink pepper came into play and they made it smell a little strange. I was iffy about that stage. Then they sort of swirled into the background and the florals came out again. But they smelled odd. I'm not even sure what I'm smelling here, but I don't think it's something I like. Geranium? I don't know. It's not gardenia or rose, that's for sure. From reading other reviews, I can say that on my skin this doesn't smell anything like what other people are describing. Sometimes my skin makes a mess of anything with ginger in it, and I think that's what's going on here.

I knew I was going to like this as soon as I opened the imp. It smells wonderful to me. I can't really tell there's any rum in it, but I can smell the spices. The pineapple is pretty understated, the coconut smells like a dry husky coconut rather than suntan lotion, and the vanilla is smooth and beautiful. I think the spices from the spiced rum are really what makes the scent work for me. My only complaint is that it really isn't very strong on me at all. I had to put on oil twice because the first time I couldn't really smell it very well. But it seems to be lasting pretty long, so that's good. It smells tropical but not overly tropical, just pretty and sweet and fun. I like it a lot.

Ooo, nice! Very nice! I have trouble with some fruity blends smelling kind of acidic on my skin, rather than sweet and juicy, but this one doesn't do that. The pineapple and orange is a great, refreshing combination, and I think the passion fruit is what's making it smell kind of juicy. The rum isn't overbearing at all -- it combines very well with the other notes. Very summery and fun! I like it a lot more than I thought I would. It makes me feel happy.

This one's really boozey on me. Some lime at first, and then a little bit of almond and some black cherry, but mostly booze. It goes through a fizzy almond stage, which is kind of weird, but it ends up smelling... spicy? Like pepper or something. Wonder where I'm getting that from. It ends up smelling like liquor-soaked cloves. LOL, I have no idea why. I think my skin is pretty much freaking out on this one.

Sassafras, vanilla extract, oak leaf, CO2 butter extract, and onycha. Ooooo. Nice. I thought the sassafras might be too strong in this for me, and it is pretty strong at first. But then it gets a distinctly foody quality to it that makes the whole scent smell creamy and smooth. With that great sweet sassafras. This one's an unexpected winner for me. I'm still not totally convinced that sassafras suits me as a perfume scent, but I do know that I really love smelling this. So bollocks to what suits me! I'm gonna wear it anyway.

At first the violets in this are fairly strong, but as it dries it gets quite mossy and earthy with the patchouli root. But the violets and red currant keep it sweet. It never descends strictly into mossy/rooty territory. It retains a bright twinkle, but it seems like moss is the most dominant note. Not that that's bad! It's great in this. The moss and patchouli root combination smells fairly masculine to me, and although I like this scent quite a lot, it seems like it might be more at home on my husband. He's trying it on right now to see if he likes it.

The green tea in this is great, but I'm not overly fond of the lemon verbena. I've tried this one a couple of times because I honestly do love tea scents, especially in the summertime, and both times I've gotten an odd sharp powder scent from Shanghai. I don't know why. But it sort of tickles my nose and makes me feel like I have to sneeze. I wouldn't have thought any of those notes would do that, but *shrug*. After about an hour or so it's fine -- pretty, sweet green tea. I enjoy it at that stage. But I've been wearing BPAL for long enough now that I know that if I don't like the wet stage I never pick it up to wear it. Ah well. There are plenty of other tea scents in the BPAL catalog for me!

Straight up leather. It smells sleek to me, not really like a comfy leather jacket or a leather chair. It smells like shiny leather. Leather notes are usually exceptionally strong on me, and this one definitely is. Personally, I'd kind of like it if my husband had a bottle of this to layer with some of his other scents because I happen to really like leather notes on men. However, I'm quite sure that he could not be bothered to do something as intricate and involved as putting on two different BPAL oils at the same time. So I'll just continue to enjoy it when he wears Geek and Quincey Morris. Also, I happened to be reading through reviews and saw KyrieArashi's review that mentioned layering it with Lilith. Sounded intriguing, so I tried that. Hey, she wasn't kidding! Very nice. I didn't really like Wanda, but I like De Sade + Lilith. Hmmm. Perhaps I should have some of this for myself for layering...

It's aquatic, but it's also sorta salty. There are some light florals in there too. It's fairly sweet and light for an aquatic scent -- it's not like OMG I'M DROWNING IN THE OCEAN. It has a nice, fresh, kinda feminine twist to it. When it's dry it gets sweeter and less salty and I like it more.

Well, I had thought this might be a good one because I'm starting to like rose scents. I smelled a little bit of rose at first, and I thought it had some promise, but then this weird band-aid scent took over. That's freaky. Usually narcissus is kind to me. Perhaps my skin is picky about what narcissus goes with. It does seem to be telling me pretty clearly that rose is not the thing narcissus goes with. It's too bad, really, because I can tell that I like the rose in this. When it's fully dry it's mostly a pretty rose, but that wet band-aid stage is not something I'd want to go through more than once.

On me this mostly smells like cucumber, mint, and green tea at first. I thought I was going to like it a lot, because it's a great, clean, almost watery green scent. But then, unfortunately, the grass and sage come out. I don't really do very well with either of those notes. The cucumber is sticking around, but it's not quite strong enough for my liking anymore. It does smell distinctly GREEN, and I like that. But I'm not a grassy-scent sort of person. I will say that of the grassy-green scents I've tried, I think I like this one the best. I like that faintly wet cucumbery scent.

This one smells like dragon's blood and metal to me. The metallic tang is a bit hazy and not pointy at all -- I guess that's from the incense. It's sweet and it smells red to me, and that's probably why it makes me think of dragon's blood. It doesn't smell cold at all like many of the Yule blends do, nor does it smell stark. It's a warm scent with that metallic bite. This one is probably my favorite of the metallic scents I've tried so far.

Green and boggy, but smooth like aloe. This one and Whippoorwill remind me of each other, but while Whippoorwill stays green and boggy all through the drydown, this one sweetens up a lot. It doesn't have a swampiness to it when it's dry. It smells slightly floral but also like a dark aquatic.

At first this reminds me of Dorian, in that sweet way. It has a bit more of a citrus kick to it than Dorian does. But the drydown is heavy on the musk and light on the sweet. It does smell clean and fresh, and it's pretty light. I seem to recall this scent being more masculine a couple of years ago, but as it has aged it sweetened up. It smells more feminine now. I really like this scent, but it's a little too soft on me.

I didn't think this one would work for me, but I got a decant of it because it sounded like something that might smell good on my husband. On me, it's mostly a tea scent, but it's very green and it has a metallic character. It's a very deep almost (but not quite) aquatic green scent. It's bold, too. No soft squishy roundness in this one. I have no idea what green sandalwood should smell like because I can't remember ever encountering it before. I'm not sure what it smells like after sniffing this, either. Maybe without the moss I'd be able to pick it out more clearly. It's a surprisingly refreshing scent, and it's one of those scents I would like to smell on someone else but it doesn't suit me personally. It's a little too green and bold for me. I hope my husband likes it, though.

I'm not sure how I missed this one when it was up -- I usually adore BPAL's Asian fruity-florals. Maybe it was the yuzu in this that made it iffy enough that I didn't get it. I'm not sure. It definitely has that bright lovely plum blossom that I love so much, and the other florals are very nice with it. It's not as sweet as Fire Pig, and there's something in it that's a bit sharp and slightly powdery on me. I'm betting it's the yuzu. But the yuzu in this isn't nearly as loud and obnoxious as it usually is on me. Personally I like scents like Fire Pig and Budding Moon better than this one because I tend to like fruity-florals that lean heavily to the sweet side. But I know that for lots of people they're too sweet, and those people should try this one!

I took a gamble trying this one because although I like blue musk and moonflower, lemon verbena is usually a deal-breaker. It's trying pretty darn hard to ruin this scent for me. I think it's actually in cahoots with the lychee. It seems like there's some prettiness underneath those two (rose?), but I can't really get to it. Mostly what I smell is a lemony scent that's sharper and tarter than verbena usually is. So I guess this one isn't going to work for me.

Out of the list of floral notes in Swan Maiden, the gardenia one is the only one I usually avoid. This is startling because the list of floral notes I avoid is kind of long. A floral perfume with only one no-no flower in it? Almost unheard of, for me. And this? Aaaaah. Lovely. Exactly the sort of floral I like. It smells white, clean, and soft. Not heady, not humid, not green... just gorgeous. I can smell the gardenia in it, but to be honest it sorta seems like the orchid is stronger. It gets even more lush and wonderful as it dries. The florals I like that are a bit similar to this one (in feel, rather than strictly in scent) are Dreamland, The Ghost, Sepulcher, and White Moon. Those were all stand-outs for me, and this one goes on that list too.