filigree_shadow

Here's what I got imps of: BLACK LILY -- This is beautiful, one of my favorite BPAL florals. I already have a bottle, but I need the imp for my "entire GC" imp collection. DEVIL'S CLAW -- I have no idea what to expect from this, smoky brown-black sounds good... not sure about the yellow-bright. LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING -- Really, really looking forward to this. Beth does "velvety" really well. SLOBBERING PINE -- I don't usually like pine scents, but this one sounds different. Also I like the word slobbering. THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS -- I haven't had much luck with the Funereal Oils, but I'm interested in this because of the cemetery grass and lilies. LILIUM INTER SPINAS -- I usually like fig, but green fig might be a little too strong for me. Not sure about this one. THE TEMPTATION -- Not sure about this one either -- might be too floral for me. MANIA -- I can't imagine what this might smell like. I think I might like it, though. A lot. HORREUR SYMPATHIQUE -- I expect I'm going to love this one. Here's what I got bottles of: BLACK ICE -- Sleet, vetiver, cold wind, and smoke? Yes please! THE DARKLING THRUSH -- Everything in this sounds good to me except maybe the violet. We'll see. HALÔA -- Frankincense sometimes makes the whole blend too sweet for me, but everything else in it sounds good, so I took a chance. KNECHT RUPRECHT -- This might be a little too woodsy for me but I like the poem so I'll give it a shot. KRAMPUS -- This one sounds the BEST. I always like red musk and leather. SNOW-FLAKES -- Not entirely sure what this is going to smell like, but I just have this good feeling about it. I love snow flakes. SOL INVICTUS -- This is the one that most worries me from my order. I think I haven't worn Et Lux Fuit even one time after testing it, and this one could be similar. I like amber, saffron, and heliotrope, but everything else in it could be iffy. THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT -- This one sounds pretty good. It might be a little too spicy for me, but I have to try anything with myrrh and dark musk. These are the ones I hope to find decants of: HERR DROSSELMEYER 2006 -- My husband has 4 bottles of last year's version, so we probably don't need any more. I wouldn't mind getting an imp to compare though. JACOB'S LADDER 2006 -- I've had a bottle of last year's version for almost 8 months and I've worn it exactly twice. I like it, but I never seem to reach for it. I'd like a new decant of it to see if it smells any different aged though. JÓLASVEINAR -- The dealbreaker in this one was the dirt and moss. They go bad on me more often than not, and dirt always overpowers every other note. I'd try a decant or sniffie, but I don't expect this to work. LICK IT AGAIN -- Didn't really like Lick It because I don't care for peppermint scents. I'd try it to make sure, but I have big doubts. MIDNIGHT MASS 2006 -- I had a bottle of last year's version, swapped it, had second thoughts and got another bottle, then swapped that one too. I think it's just too sweet an incense scent for me. I like darker incense like Al Azif better. THE SNOW MAIDEN -- This just sounded a little too young and innocent for me personally. I'd like to try it, but from the description I don't think I'll like it. STARDUST 2006 -- Still have a bottle of last year's version, and I never wear it. YULE -- Holly berry, mistletoe, thyme, verbena, evergreen, frankincense, and juniper are ALL usually no-nos for me. I highly doubt I would like this. And I'm going to have to make another order and get a bottle of 13 because I completely forgot to order it. I have sent a crapload of money to the Lab in the past three months. Seriously. Way too much. I've been saying for the past month or so that I need to do some serious reducing of my collection, but I barely did any. Now it has become a dire need. I have no more room for more BPAL bottles, yet more will be on their way soon.

Hooo boy, what a perfect scent for when the weather is turning cold! On me it smells mainly like patchouli and pine pitch, with some vanilla. There really is a smokiness to it, too. It doesn't smell like firewood burning (the vanilla and slightly fruity sweetness keeps it from smelling like that), but for some reason that's the image I get in my head when I sniff it. A big autumn bonfire with lots of dry wood and leaves on it. Definitely the right scent for a cool, crisp fall day. Wasn't sure if I would like the pine pitch (Jersey Devil wasn't a fave for me), but I like it a lot with patchouli. It gives the whole scent a great earthy quality. Fantastic!

*sniff* Aaaaaaah! What a scent!! I love that leather combined with the sweet pear. It smells wonderful. When I first read the description of this scent on the BPAL website, I could not imagine what it would smell like. I thought I could make a good guess with leather, tobacco, musk, cedar, and even vanilla... but the pear threw me off entirely. But wow, this is something else. It kinda smells like your all-around rugged cowboy... but a clean one, who maybe bakes cookies when he's not out cowboying. There's an unexpected little "oooo, what is that?!" element to this scent. I love a manly man who's just a little bit sensitive, and that's exactly what this smells like. Beautiful. I mean, I really love this. My husband loves to wear Geek and Dead Man's Hand, and this is going to be another swoonworthy scent on him.

OK, I think I'm finally ready to review this scent. I've had the bottle for about a month now, and I've been wearing Mme. Moriarty exclusively for the past three days. (I even had a dream about it two nights ago!) I've been having a hard time figuring out what I'd say in a review of this scent. When I wore it on my wrists and put my nose to my wrist, I really didn't think it smelled much like the Snake Charmer or Snake Oil scent I was expecting. There's a leafiness to it that makes it a little drier. (At times I thought the leafiness made it smell a bit musty, too.) Plus I could smell the pomegranate when I got close to my wrists, and that's not one of my favorite notes because it tends to smell artificial on me. Also it's not as strong as Snake Charmer is; it's more subtle. The first couple of times I tried it, I only put it on my wrists. I wasn't all that thrilled with it, to tell you the truth. I thought it was nice, but it wasn't the OMG scent I was expecting. But then one day I decided to WEAR it, rather than just test it, and I gave myself a good-going over with it (neck, cleavage, arms, wrists). That's when I realized the OMG aspect of it. One small test didn't do it for me, I had to practically envelop myself in the scent. See, up close it's not what I was wanting. But the scent this oil throws is amazing. When I put it on my throat, the scent that wafts up to my nose is an enchanting blend of red musk and vanilla -- two of my favorite notes. There's a tiny bit of plum in there too, giving it an extra juiciness. I can definitely see the similarity to Snake Charmer, but I think this is a little darker. A little more mysterious. And wow, does it ever last. For hours! And that's why I've been wearing it nonstop for three days.

Beautiful!!!!

One time I tried to enable a friend this way (by buying her 3 imp packs), and I basically picked all my favorites. Now I can see that was kind of silly because everyone likes different ones, and it would probably be better to choose a wide variety. 1. Snake Oil 2. Dorian 3. Bathsheba 4. Two Monsters 5. Bordello 6. Dragon's Reverie 7. Scherezade 8. Jazz Funeral 9. Loviatar 10. Endymion 11. R'Lyeh 12. Tamora But I'd mention that the Lab has hundreds of different ones, so this is a really small sample. Even if the person didn't love any of these (which I'd find hard to believe), I think she'd at least be intrigued by the quality and want to try more.

A couple of days ago I was reading dawndie's blog, totally engrossed in her Sixth Sense Part 1 story. I don't usually talk about things like that because for one I'm afraid people will think I'm nutters, and for two it seems very private. But I feel encouraged by what she wrote, so... here goes. About a year ago, my husband and I were getting ready for work one morning after it had been raining all night. He was in the shower, I was in the bedroom. Midway through his shower, he thought I was in the bathroom because he heard the sink faucet turn on. When he got out and didn't see me standing there, he yelled at me for leaving the sink on. Problem is, I didn't turn it on. And it's not like I could have left it on and forgotten -- we have double sinks in the master bath, and it was his sink that was on. I never use his sink. We have the kind of knobs that you have to turn clockwise to turn on the water, and it was full-blast. We had no idea how it happened and discussed having a plumber come out to look at it. When my husband was leaving, he set the alarm as usual, then went in the garage and got halfway to his car door when he realized he forgot his lunch. When he came back in the door a few seconds later, the alarm went off. The whole shebang with sirens and bells, not just that buzzing noise that it does when you open the door and you have 30 seconds to turn it off. It doesn't do that. That's not supposed to be possible. You're always supposed to get 30 seconds of leeway whenever you open a door. When I heard the alarm sound I came flying downstairs to find out what was going on. He was standing there looking at the alarm panel. He turned and looked at me with this confused look on his face and said "What the hell is going on around here today?" He told me what had happened, and I couldn't figure it out either. I started to walk back upstairs, and when I got to the bottom of the stairs I heard water running. I yelled out, "Oh great, now the faucet has started up again." I started up the stairs, and quickly realized I wasn't hearing the faucet. I came back down slowly as my husband was coming around the corner. I said, "The faucet's not on. What's that noise then?" We stood there for a couple of seconds, and then I said, "Oh, wait. It's the sump pump. We had all that rain last night." He brightened and started to say something, probably to agree with me, when his face suddenly changed. He said, "I haven't heard the sump pump at all this morning." (Our sump pump makes this really loud THUNK noise when it switches off -- you can hear it all the way upstairs in the bedroom.) He ran down to the basement to see what was going on, and that's when he discovered that the sump pump was broken. Water was already coming out of the pit into the basement. We looked at each other strangely, and he said, "If we had both gone to work this morning, we would have come home to a flooded basement." We looked around at all our boxes of stuff that we store down there, and we both felt a bit of a panic. Anyway, he wound up calling the plumber, and I agreed to work from home until the plumber arrived. Right after he left the house (he tried opening the door again, no sirens this time), our dog Prudence started going nuts in her crate in the family room. Barking, whining, scratching at the door. She never does that. She was specifically trained to be quiet in her crate. Even after I said, "No" and "Quiet," she kept barking. By then I was pretty freaked out by all this weirdness, so I let her out of the crate. She ran straight into the kitchen and started barking at the stove. I've never seen her behave like that. She wasn't growling, just barking. I thought maybe someone had left food on the counter and she wanted it, but there was nothing there. Everything in the kitchen looked exactly the same as it does every day. She trotted off, and then turned around and came back and barked some more at the same spot. I opened the fridge to get a drink, and after I shut the door I turned around and looked at the kitchen counter again. I noticed that one of the demitasse cups had been knocked over, and the water that was in it had dumped out on the counter. I am 100% positive it wasn't like that before I opened the fridge. I checked the counter when Prudence was barking! Those cups don't just tip over, they're short and squat. And Prudence hadn't been charging into the cupboard or anything -- there was no huge bump that could have knocked it over. Then... nothing. The rest of the day, no weirdness. And nothing that strange has ever happened in our house since. I didn't feel anything spine-tingly the whole time. I didn't feel like I was being watched, I didn't feel like I was in danger -- nothing like that. I wasn't afraid. The bizarreness of it freaked me out, sure, but it didn't make me feel like the house was creepy. Actually I felt safe. Kind of protected. I don't know who or what was here that day, but ever since then I have always knocked on the basement door before I go down there. It seems polite. Just in case.

The only other weird things that have happened in this house are very small, like lights turning on and off when there's no one near the switch. It has gotten to the point where when a light turns off I yell out "Hey! I need that light on! Don't turn that off!" My husband always says the light bulb is just burning out or something. (Funny that three different light bulbs in different rooms should behave the same way, but people ascribe different reasons to things they don't understand.) I always did think that someone or something was definitely trying to tell us about the problem in the basement. The weird stuff that happened was either water-related or it was related to leaving the house. If it was just the alarm going off strangely I would have just thought it was coincidence, an electrical problem in the alarm or something. But the faucet, the alarm, the running water noise, Prudence going nuts, AND the demitasse cup all within the span of an hour? Yeah, that's a little tough to explain. Some day when I have more time I'll write about stuff that has happened to my sisters and my mom. Now that's some freaky stuff.

I've had this bottle for nearly a month, and I've just now gotten around to trying it. I almost didn't get a bottle because I was afraid it would smell like Embalming Fluid, and that wasn't one of my favorites. I'm pleasantly surprised. The only part of this that reminds me of Embalming Fluid is the crispness. It smells mostly like limes at first, but then it drifts into aloe and tea, with a little bit of musk underneath. It smells clean and soft, but not like dryer sheets. I bet it would be awesome to make some bath products out of this, or a linen spray. If only I could figure out how to do those things. The next time I see my youngest sister I'll see what she thinks of this. She told me that the only perfume she's interested in is something that smells clean and fresh, but not like flowers. I was going to bring her Dirty and Lightning, and I think I'll bring this one too. I bet she'd like this. When my husband sniffed it, he said, "Mmm. I like it. It reminds me a little bit of R'Lyeh." YAY for hubbies who can identify BPAL oils by name AND scent!!!

When I first sniffed this, I immediately thought I had made a big mistake by getting only 1 bottle. It was a bright, fruity scent from the pear, and crisp from the cucumber. Only a little bit of floral. Now that it's drying it's becoming more floral -- but it still has the bright and crisp quality. This smells blue to me, and very few perfume oils smell blue. I'm not usually a fan of florals, but with the pear and cucumber I like this more than most. Very well done!

Oooo, yeah, I can definitely smell a similarity to Snake Charmer at first, but this is darker and smokier. The patchouli is great in this. OMG, the opoponax and myrrh... OK, Schwarzer Mond just shot up to one of my top 5 LEs. My hubby is going to love this too. I think the amber is making it just a little bit perfumey/powdery/sweet on me, but definitely not overly so, and I even like that quality in this one. For a dark-and-smoky-loving gal like me, this is heaven. Dammit! Only got 2 bottles. Crap.

Oooo, I can't wait for part 2!

YAY! School started today! I went to my statistics class tonight, and I think it'll be interesting. We have to do a statistics project for the class, and I'm thinking about doing something related to BPAL (of course). The only question is.... what? I thought maybe I could figure out from the descriptions which notes were most popular and least popular in the Lab's blends (which ones occur most and least frequently), and then do a small survey and find out which notes are most and least popular among people who buy BPAL. Obviously I can't list ALL the notes, that would be immense. So that would give me a chance to use the "random sampling" method to pick maybe 10 or 20 notes. And then ask people something like "do not like/neutral/like" to see if that tells me anything about whether the notes that are most popular in BPAL blends are also most popular among BPAL consumers. And vice versa. I'm kind of afraid to do it, though, in case the whole thing backfires. What if it turns out that there are notes that are consistently disliked in like 85% of the blends or something? I can't see that being something the Lab would want advertised, even if it's just among the 30 people in my class. Does anyone have a better idea for a project I could do? Or any thoughts about whether this would be an interesting project? Now that I've thought of it, I do kinda want to know how it would turn out...

Here's something that bugs me about the BPAL community. Whenever anyone (usually a newbie) comments or complains about long ship times from the Lab, at least four people jump down the person's throat saying things like "When I started buying BPAL we had to wait three months to get our orders. This is nothing. You should shut up and stop complaining." Or they say "It only seems long right now to people who started buying BPAL when the Lab's shipping times were shorter." Here's the thing: The Lab's shipping time two years ago has absoultely no bearing whatsoever on whether or not a newbie is feeling excited and impatient and wants her BPAL as soon as possible. It seems like people say things like that because they think they're defending the Lab, but it comes across to a newbie as "You're not allowed to have an opinion about ship times until you've been around for as long as I have." Or worse, "Your opinion matters less than mine does because you haven't been around for as long as I have." That's a personal insult, which is a lot different from the newbie's original comment about a business practice. I wish people would stop saying things like that.

Straight off I thought it smelled like honey and apples. As it dries it becomes a lot more floral than foody, and I can't smell as much honey. It's one of the good florals, though -- not heady or cloying. Just light and pretty. I like this one.

In the imp, it smells like candy. On, it smells sweet and chalky, like Pez. I honestly can't smell anything but sweetness. As it's drying it becomes more floral, but it also turns powdery. When it's dry, I can detect a little bit of the grave loam, which makes the scent slightly pungent. It's very, very light -- I can barely smell anything at all 5 minutes after I put it on. I just sniffed all the way up my arm, and I can't even tell exactly where I applied it, that's how faint it is. I guess this doesn't work on me.

In the imp, it smells like dragon's blood and apples. On, it smells like dragon's blood with a tiny little sliver of crisp apple and a big bunch of hyacinth. As it's drying, the apple gets stronger, but the floral note definitely sticks around. When I got this imp, I took one look at it and thought, "Uh-oh." Dragon's blood is one of my favorite notes, and usually, the redder the oil, the better. Ladon is a very pale peach color in the imp, so I assumed that the dragon's blood wouldn't be very strong in it. Turns out I was wrong. The dragon's blood is very noticeable in this blend. It seems to be mostly dragon's blood and hyacinth to me, with the apple just giving it a sweet crispness. Wish I hadn't been so wary of the apple note in this (I didn't particularly like The Hesperides)... I could probably use a 5ml of it.

There's a sharpness to this one, like an edge. It's not at all soft and round. It smells a bit peppery to me, and I'm not sure which note is giving it that quality. I would never in a million years be able to pick out any of the notes just from smelling it. But since I know what's in it, I can tell there's a little bit of lavender (thankfully not amped crazily like lavender usually does on me), and I think that's the whiskey I smell. It smells crisp without smelling clean. Spicy without smelling hot. Sweet without smelling foody or floral. A little bit smoky without smelling like incense. This is another one of those blends that makes me think, "This could only be BPAL." It's complex, interesting, and unusual. I would never have to worry that I smell like anyone else when I wear this. Also, my husband sniffed it, said he liked it a lot, proclaimed that it smells better on him than on me, and confiscated my imp.

Hmmm. Lemony ginger, kind of herby. This is a little too herby and tangy for me. I have to be careful with a citrus and ginger combination because it tends to smell sour on me. The sage is just making it smell... well, dirty. 'Fraid this one's not gonna work for me.

When I first put this on, I thought it smelled like lemon custard. I was beginning to regret my 10ml purchase of Manhattan. But when it's drying, the grapefruit starts to come out, and I like grapefruit better than lemon. I love the scent that's underneath the grapefruit -- it smells like an amber and wood combination. The tea and orchid seem to give it a slightly feminine quality. I can't really smell any leather in it, though. Manhattan smells sleek to me. Posh. Glad I have that 10ml.

This smells like flowers. I don't really smell much of a salty sea in there. Or wine. Why am I getting flowers out of this? It smells like a very round, bright green scent. And it's bolder than most of the Illyria scents have been. This is much more green than I was expecting.

Hmmm... at first this smells slushy. Like the Lab's snowy blends. But instead of being paired with pine or birch or those foresty notes like the snow ones usually seem to be, this one has some humid floral notes with it. (I'm not 100% sure, but I think there may be some violet in there.) There's just a little bit of incense under there -- not a lot, just enough to make it seem kinda floaty. As it dries it loses some of that slushy quality but still smells cool and crisp. Kind of like a melancholy winter's day. I really like the incense with it, though. That's a nice touch!

Woah, this is good stuff. Lots of vanilla at first, but not overly sweet vanilla, it's smooth vanilla. It smells warm and golden. Then the floral notes come out but they don't overpower that smoothness. This is very pretty. Feminine and light, soft and warm. I like it! I think it has just the right amount of throw, too. You don't have to put your nose right next to it to smell it, but it's not going to knock anyone over from 5 feet away, either.

This smells very similar to Dorian to me. At first it had a bit of a citrus scent as well... I think that's because white musk tends to smell a bit lemony on me. But that went away after about 10 minutes, and what's left is... um, Dorian. Almost. Dorian has this very "white tea" sort of feel to it. Theodosius is more masculine, a little gruffer. I think it has a leafy undertone, something just a little bit wood-like. This was supposed to be a birthday present for my husband, but, um.... well, no. See, the thing is, Dorian is one of my all-time favorites. I love the scent of it, and I get a ridiculous number of compliments whenever I wear it. And I'm selfish. That's really the bottom line. I love Theodosius and it smells fabulous on me, so I'm keeping it. ETA: Also, I should have mentioned this: Theo's throw is not as strong as Dorian. It's softer, and quite faint after a couple of hours.

In the bottle: Smells a little bit herby. On: Ginger, a deep musk, some dried flowers. As it's drying, it becomes more musky. It's kind of a gently spicy opium musk. I love this type of spice. The spice notes like cinnamon and cassia are too strong on my skin -- this one is just right. It smells warm but not hot. Hazy and dreamy. It gets a little bit sweeter as it dries, but not overly sweet and not powdery either. It's sexy without being aggressive. Kinda smoldering. Definitely a fall scent, and definitely one I'll wear. I like this a lot. ETA: Here's a photo of the beautiful label.