elka_knits

A surprising love. I have been wearing my florals lately to combat the Missouri rains that pass as winter blahs. Seriously, to digress, I expect glistening snow not muck Christmas week. In the bottle~ very floral, maybe even too floral. Orchid and roses with orchid being stronger than the rose Wet~ rose amps up A bit later~ lovely cream and musk very very faint floral that warms it all up and lightens up the scent. This is not the sour milky cream or vanilla sugar cream but a rich heady cream BPAL has turned me into a floral lover over the years. I don't know why I didn't trust that evolution enough to try this one before. My bottle is direct from lab to me many years ago. Curious to know what The Flame thinks of this one when he gets home tonight. Although.... I believe it will need to be reapplied. The staying power is not very long or perhaps that is because I am used to more in your face spicy scents. As The Flame likes to say about my favorite most worn stuff: dangerous This one is more discreet and ultra feminine

This is an initial impression review. Mainly because I have a wee bit of a headache and am blaming Mme Moriarty's patch for that This is a very round fragrance... sultry in the languid sense. I am not a big flower person so spent some time wondering if it was gardenias or magnolias that I was smelling. Either way that velvety plush petal white flower smell. Almost overwhelming when first on although it has toned down quite a bit {took @half hour} I am not getting any of the other notes. No amber or frankincense which I was looking forward to. There is a bit of a green feel to it as well and slightly defiled. Like bruised and faded petals once it toned down a bit. Yeah this is one of those unhelpful reviews. I was hoping for a floriental but am getting strong florals. Will be back in a couple of days when I get a chance to try it without a headache Okay I haven't tried it again but editing to add: The Flame really liked this one on me. He usually doesn't comment on what I wear out of the blue. When I picked him up from work yesterday I did get hints of amber and frankincense so it was becoming the floriental I thought it would be. Unfortunately I couldn't smell it at all after a couple of hours. Maybe an occasional hint of something floral . My skin eats it up. I pulled on the shirt I wore yesterday after my shower to get the kidlets off to school and I still smell it on my shirt so it isn't a weak scent. It just you know doesn't last *on me* Unfortunate It is a very wet and sultry scent. As I mentioned yesterday languid. I sensed hot humid dusk and a southern beauty lounging on a chaise fanning her self. Perhaps one of the most evocative of my bpals since the moment I put it on I was transported elsewhere. It was just PERFECT for the chilly fourth day raining dreariness of yesterday. I will treasure my imp as a total mood lifter but due to its rapid dissipation and quite frankly the heavy floral until just before it fades { I prefer the resins} it will not be a bottle buy for me. Unless the husband requests it which given the variety of perfume I have around I sincerely doubt. Only time will tell if he loved it that much.

I have decided my skin amps vanilla. At least I have to figure that is the bpal smell that hovers close to my wrists on half my scents. A lot of smells end up the same after a while so it has to be a note right? Which is fine by me cus I love it no matter what it is. Okay so my bottle is well aged. Not opened to air out age but stored in a nice dark cool cigar case in closet for 3 yrs. In the bottle a sharp almost painful lemon cleanser smell. Nothing about the bottle makes me want to put it on but I know I purchased it due to some resin note in description. Yep check notes listed and there is vanilla and myrrh and frankincense. I put it on and yuck lemon detergent. After a while I catch a powdery note which usually means amber. I like that amber powdery note so no complaints and HOPE for this smell. The lemon is throwing me for a loop and when I put it on it had that cologne consistency ~ clear and thin easily fading into skin. Since I usually wear resinous scents that become thick and vicious and have some yellow or red stain I am confused. Hey I don't know my notes! I decide that the grape and whatever else is in there is floating on top of my precious incense scents and roll my bottle to warm and distribute notes. Retry Lemony but no longer detergent. An incense vibe but not heavy in your face. I feel as if this is a light summertime incense used for a cleansing ritual instead of a head shop scent. Like a sage smudge stick~ clean a bit green and incense-y. Sorry to keep harping on the incense but it is what I look for ya know and most of my perfumes contain notes that make me think of that stuff. Maybe not incense but I used to burn amber resin and myrrh and frankincense stuff so yeah. But again there is whatever note my skin amps. Not reeks amps because it is a skin scent. Really close and subtle. Very much like a lot of creamy sweet scents such as Dragons Milk on me. I may get rid of this one or keep it for when the weather warms up since the lemon whiff on the well rolled application is cooling and clean.

I have been wearing this one for a few days now and loving it! Not much a review is it? It has a dry feel to it to me... and lasts a really long time. I put it on last night around 6 my time, for example and woke up today and am still smelling sandalwood today. Which is pretty much the final impression/overall impression for me. It does have a sweetness and incense feel to it. A bit spicy from the carnation. I always love those if you love this then try that scents and I guess I could say if you love Mama Ji {my all time favorite} then this is a less in your face skin scent. Mama is more exotic and in your face with the sexy sexy and morocco is more subtle. My bottle is pre whenever the label changes went through. I haven't purchased anything from lab or on second hand market since 2008[ maybe even 2007 but definitely since before my last two moves] so very aged although given the fact that it doesn't really morph on me and what I smell in bottle is what I get I am not sure if aging is necessary. Just beautiful

You might try and see if you can get into a decant circle. I tend to go for resins and other incense smells so have Jacobs ladder, Midnight Mass, Haloa and the Magi from'06 socked away. All of those mentioned amber, myrrh, frankincense and/or vanilla/tonka in the descriptions. I never went for any of the roses , lick its, or pine/juniper scents. I like to think of my smell as warm [creamy, spicy] and welcoming~ golden if you will~ instead of cool so anything that talks of winter chill or crisp air has been skipped. Unless it was a lunacy. I like the lunar oils in general and am willing to risk weird to me notes. Of all the smells the trading posts bread puddings are calling to me as are the lights from matchstick girl. I hope to get decants of the ones that sound interesting and get in an order before they go down in Feb. Historically lick its and snow white do seem popular but I have never tried either of them and I don't know any local BPALers despite living in a fairly large city.

in the bottle~creamy spicy goodness... gingerbread wet~~ argh Pledge 1 hr later~~ argh Fruit Loops 3 hrs later~~ gone

I have two PP from '05 and this one is almost done... maybe an imps worth left in bottle. I tend to think of it as a warm comforting smell and the first bpal that sold me on foodie scents. Creamy, a bit spicy like a pumpkin pie with a sharp undercurrent probably from the pomegranate. Like eating pumpkin pie and having apple cider mulling in background.... Not good at describing scents so thats all folks

I got a decant of this from the generous Gateau for which I am ever so grateful. In the bottle it was everything I could possibly hope for~ buttery spicy pumpkin ala my beloved pumpkin patches. I was woot woot woot I don't have to worry about the dreaded running out since I have an equally delicious pumpkin spice offering. The first half hour on my skin it was so delicious I was nom nom nomming my arm. Unfortunately it then turned to sour apple jolly rancher ice. I guess that apple smell that some stuff morphs into is the milk or cream turning sour I hear so much about but have never noted before. Admittedly my nose, or chemistry, has been wonky lately and I will definitely give it a few more goes before the 13th.... I mean patchouli is being amped to the point where my beloved SO smells rank... so something is off at the moment. I will amend this review if my skin stops acting weird and this scent becomes luscious goodness. Editing to add my husband says all he smells is cinnamon and nutmeg but then I read the ingredient description to him and he never tells me I smell bad. Even if I say something like don't you think it smells soapy he will say oh now that you mention it maybe a little but it smells good. He is a big BPAL fan even tho he won't wear scents Okay its getting close to the 13th so I am still testing this imp and not liking it muchly. Today I put it on my child since I accidentally sold off her gluttony imps along with a bunch of other D/C scents {no sense in being tempted by stuff ya can't get ya know} It faded so fast I was astounded. 30 mins max on her. I am very very sad. I really had high hopes for this one

Fire Eater was my first BPAL love. Here is where my perfume history comes in. During the 80's I wore carnation. Carnation day in and day out. I used a carnation glycerin soap {no longer findable but at the time all the scent your own places carried it} and the carnation used for the scent your owns. The carnation scented lotion, shampoo, body oil. Carnation carnation carnation. When I moved to a city without scent your own shops I started wearing bellogia which is a carnation scent from the 20's~~ classic goodness. So somewhere along the way I heard of BPAL and ordered the carnival scents. I hated them all. ALL of them. And I was used to wearing essential oils from the head shops and scent your own and hippie dippie co-ops {i grew up in a fairly large college town} but something about Fire Eater kinda did it for me. It smelled a bit like pencil shavings but mellowed to a spicy warm yum. Which I associated with carnations. Carnations are spicy warm yummy to me. A few years later my kid let upended my box of BPAL and the memory of spicy warm Fire Eater dragged me into the forum to find some and other carnation based scents. Bellogia had turned to pencil shavings on me so I knew that the note was carnation but somehow Beth's, upon aging, no longer did the lead hell and the fancy french perfume {perfume not eau du toilette or cologne but freaking assed perfume} was staying in the lead phrase. Just recently I was imputing my bottles and imps into the stash manager and knew I was missing some scents because there was no Fire Eater to be found in my cigar box or imp cases. Yesterday I found it and wore it... no lead, no woah baby this smells icky {the new wet phrase for me way back when} and I was seduced by the warm creamy spicy goodness. I STILL love this scent. If you like that creamy spiciness you get from Hod or other carnation based BPALs you should enjoy this one. The fire and brimstone has aged out very well.

This is my second imp to be tested today.... The first was Satyr which is a very heavy, almost oppressive, resin and I mention that because it might be influencing how I am reacting to this one. YES I showered between them This is slightly lemony on me which I didn't expect at all from my review skimming. Sweet and lemony.... like a lemonade with a few mint leaves thrown in. That just came to me cus my bodaciousness is smelling a wee bit like my Toilet Bowl Cleaner. However I used Method brand Mint and Eucalyptus scented Toilet Bowl Cleaner so it isn't antiseptic or in your face icky cleaner. Now this is the bit where the earlier scent is coming in: It is very light and delicate. I see it as a refreshing summertime scent. I have two imps of this from lab and am putting one up for swap right away. It isn't the sort of thing I wear although it is altogether lovely. I am keeping the other because it is so refreshing and I would like to see if I pull it out during the dog days of summer. UPDATE... in less than 2 hours it is GONE. Very light was right. I cannot imagine it sticking around at all come summer time when I get hot and glow-y. No sense in holding onto this imp despite its loveliness

My testing today consists of Satyr and Yggdrasil. This morning I did Satyr and although it is a heavy almost oppressive resin scent I LOVED it. The first half hour were difficult and I did think, at the hour mark, that a headache was lurking about waiting to pounce. I am thinking of wearing it to bed because I am just that much of a weirdo. The implacability of it makes me feel safe. NOTE: in the vial it emits this weird soapy vibe and for the first half hour I would catch hints of pee probably due to the civet. However, as I said above, half an hour and solid and comforting Shower Time Put on Yggdrasil and it is not at all what I expected. I read the reviews and it seems that people got pine sol from it. It is very light... maybe because it follows Satyr. I keep getting hints of lemon from my wrists. On my inner elbows and décolletage I am getting a bit of toilet bowl cleaner smell but I am not sure... it isn't in your face cleaner smelling but just that vibe. Mind you I use a nicely scented toilet bowl cleaner from Method that is supposed to be mint and eucalyptus. Either way I did not expect lemon. I usually avoid herbal green forest scents but I can imagine this in the summertime..... it is very light and refreshing. Will update before I go to bed

Testing my imp of this one again.... keeping in mind I am terrible at picking out notes etc and go by feel... At first it is too strong... terrible & feral with whiffs of pee peeping through but within half an hour it mellows on me. It is heavy and resinous. I love resins. We lived in India when I was a baby and for some reason incense and resin and sandalwood/cedar scents have always appealed to me but this is almost too heavy. The description of it being masculine holds true for me since there is no floral or cream softening it up. Still I have no problems wearing it. It has been 4 hours and I keep bringing my wrists up to sniff. My right and left wrist wear fragrances differently not only in throw but in morphing. I love this and am keeping it although I doubt I will buy a bottle. If it were summertime it would have to go but with the weather turning chillier I am sure my imp will be gone soon.

I am not sure this is kosher..... Well as I mentioned in my last post I really enjoyed inputting all of my smells into the My Stash Feature. It would be a huge bonus if they you know let us delete a scent once we added it. After all people wear the stuff and the bottles do get empty sooner or later. I actually have emptied bottles! Shocker I know especially when you factor in that I had around 200 distinct smells. I know there are some that didn't get added. Fire Eater for example... I did not see my bottle of it when I was listing them all but I know I have one. I decided that the idea of trying on all my smells and doing reviews and narrowing down scents was kinda insane. It would take me almost a year to work through what I have as it is. Plus I realized that some of my imps were for things that had been discontinued or that I had bottles of and there was no reason to try them, fall in love with them, then knock myself out trying to find a spare bottle. I put them up for auction on ebay. I hope I didn't break any rules. I started my auction at $1/bottle which I know is ridiculously low judging from the price cap guidelines but I figured that way somebody who is interested in trying a lot of different smells and has the time and energy to invest in finding discontinued stuff would have a chance to check them out. I obviously have so many that there is little impetus to stalk the boards for long gone scents. Ummm hello inez and hello mum moon. For you two I think I will haunt the boards. But why add to the list of stuff I have a hard time getting? I mean every fall I dab on my pumpkin patches from '05 and I love them in the autumn. So warm and soothing.... yummy. Oh! I never knew I did foodie smells before BPAL~ I always went for spicy oriental resins but now food has snuck in. Le Sigh. But once my PP are gone am I to kill myself looking for them? Maybe. and given my attachment to the handful of scents I do wear--Why add something that I never even wore before just because I foolishly tried the imp and decided it was lurv?

Can I possibly express how much I love this feature? It totally rocks. There are a few missing scents which I understand they, the mods, are aware of and one big misspelling. Chokmah is spelled without the ending H on the drop down menu. Anyway I got sucked into imputing all of my smells yesterday and I tried my imp of Beltane 2005. I was right. I don't like it. I did reapply it last night about 9 pm to let The Flame smell it fresh and, not only did he not like it after it had sat for 7 hrs on not exposed skin {my cleavage} due to faint soapiness factor but he HATED it fresh. For like the first hour. I woke up this morning and burrowed under the covers in some futile attempt to avoid getting up and Hello Soap! I have now officially created a box for Go Away smells. Sometime today I will take a shower and try something else. I mean the Beltane is not rank or anything.... it actually turns into some beautiful skin floral creaminess on wrists and inside elbows so I am not dying to get it off me. I just don't think it is worth keeping due to the funky herbal green scent and soap wafts I get for hours and hours and hours. Even now it seems to morph into something else... it just won't settle in and get all cozy! I love me the cozy skin scents but I totally get the quick change artistry of spring going on with this particular blend. yes I did an official review already

This turns soapy on me And is very herbalicious. I kept thinking of cutting bouquets to fit into a vase... that sharp green smell. Then soap. Then Herbal Essences {or what I imagine herbal essences to smell like} then sharp green then soap then... It has been over 7 hours and my wrists and inside elbows smell yummy... that creamy skin scent I get from all BPAL I wear but my cleavage is all soapy smelling still. 7 hours is way too long for the soap factor to be in effect. Of to the swap boards it goes

I am no good at describing notes and what not. This is my hands down favorite BPAL scent. I started wearing it when it came out and adopted it as my signature scent. Very close to the skin creamy incense. Unfortunately my skin eats it up~ or I wear it so much that I stop smelling it cus I slather this one. Everybody loves it on me. I love the cardamom

I keep a knitting blog but I don't feel up to mixing it with beauty stuff so I figured you know ~~ use the bpal blog for bpal and beauty stuff I am on my usual kick of wanting to warm up the house with smell... it is getting chillier out there and dreary so scent and self care is becoming more important. Way back when I discovered BPAL I remember reading a thread about how to store imps. I ordered some lab thingies that were just right for imps and filled up 3 of them. Somehow I can only find 2 and they are full of stuff I haven't even tried yet!!! I actually dug it out because somebody from the LHC mentioned a scent and I knew I had an imp of it. A salon scent and I had purchased the imp packs when the salons came out. My organizational skills kinda suck eggs since they were all willy nilly in these boxes so I started organizing. I put my salon and otherwise special art work imps in one pile and the ordinary lack of artwork imps in another pile. I created a third pile for imps I had gotten from other people... you know the taped up label with name written on them. I have 5 of those. THEN I decided I was going to expand my scent vocabulary. I wear the same smells all the time but I have so many sitting here that I never had tried at all and I might love them. Since the smallest pile was the lack of floppy tag ones I decided to look them up on the reviews pages to get a feel for what kind of scent they were... the notes according to lab and such so that I can do some sort of narrowing down of what I like and don't like experiment. That is if I like a scent that contains X, Y, and Z but I don't like scent that has A, Y, and Z then maybe I either love X or hate A sort of thing. Does that even make sense? 4 of these scents are discontinued!!!!!! I admit I haven't purchased anything from lab for a few years. Nothing this year for sure. What year did Inez come out? I will say 2008 then although I cannot believe I have been working through my 3 main scents for so long. Well okay I have more than 3 main scents but yeah I used to buy them in sets of 3 and just set them aside while cycling through some imps that I wanted to try because I thought I would love them or my usual love. I don't wear perfume much during the summer since I like heavy resinous scents. Mum Moon is my basic summer scent. Dragons Milk too. Winter it is some pumpkins left over from '05, Snake Oil, Mama Ji my one true love that doesn't last long enough darn it. So master plan: try these 5 scents and start narrowing down what I like. IN THE BOTTLE I likes Chokmah Laudanun: Nutmeg, sassafras, black poppy and myrrh Chokmah doesn't list ingredients but people say it smells like root bear and laudanum has sassafras. I would normally buy anything with amber or myrrh and those pumpkin pie spices such as nutmeg or coriander so there you go.... I can't believe I never tried laudanum before. I am looking forward to my shower tomorrow morning I don't like Ace of Pentacles: Black pine, patchouli, honeysuckle, oakmoss, almond and other soft earthen tones Yesod Beltane Here beltane and yesod do not list ingredients. Beltane is a green floral and yesod is an aquatic floral from the reviews. I tend to like almond and some patchoulis but I am not looking forward to trying these at all. Just saying.

I tried this one on last night. At first it was strongly lemon with something really lovely and incensey beneath it. Within half an hour the lemon was gone and I was left with a really sweet incense. This scent reminds me of a head shop in all of the good ways. Unlike a previous reviewer the sweetness makes it very feminine IMO. It is now morning and I still smell it on my wrists so there is a good lasting power. As with other BPAL fragrances I have tried there is no throw~ it stays close to the skin. I actually think incense might be the wrong phrase BTW. It is like standing over those oils at a head shop or the way the box smells when you first open it.... of course I go for resins such as amber and myrrah and francinscense! Exotic without being heavy or cloying. A total flashback to the 80's when I *did* work at a coop and all the gals wore essential oils and we did burn incense! I will wear this one very very often and I think it might become my fave scent. edited because I cannot spell <g>

Oh No! I purchased multiple bottles of this unsniffed and in the bottle~ yummmmm but on me.... My left wrist smells like Salmiakki which has to be one of the nastiest tastes ever. Actually it doesn't smell like Salmiakki it smells like how Salmiakki tastes. Meanwhile my left elbow is burning and smells kinda good~ lemony but good. Why in the world am I getting lemon? Nope the lemon faded and there is the Salmiakki again. Thankfully my right wrist and elbow just ate up the frangrance and nothing is discenable. I can only pray that this stuff will age into something reasonably wearable because I have 4 bottles of it.... Cursed skin chemistry turning goodness into Salmiakki that has fallen into a dusty pit of musty dusty grossness... It just keeps turning uglier and uglier as I type. Please fade *fast* I will edit this if it gets reasonable within the hour otherwise I'm taking a bath then cause I think I deserve a medal for wearing this that long It has been 3 days and I keep wearing this hoping it will work~ I get extremely ill for the first few hours and then it mellows into yumm. I hope aging will get rid of the ill part because the mellowed version is unbelievably beautiful

In the bottle:yuck Wet:soap Drying down:Lemon Dishsoap Dry:Lemon quickly morphs into licorice 30 mins later: Star Anise which is one of my favorite smells. I actually have a bag of star anise I sniff on a regular basis. Not sure I want to smell like star anise but it certainly is a nice smell. Maybe in the summer to spice up something a wee bit too creamy. Yes I will buy a bottle of this!

OK thats it. I was trying to figure out what it reminded me of. Not that I would know of course In the bottle I was woah ick yuck does anybody like this ick yuck. It took me a couple of days to try it on. Within 20 mins it is much mellower and I keep sniffing. Came to read reviews and realized FS hit it on the head. At this rate I expect it to be totally gone within the hour. For this lack of staying power all I can say is thank you thank you thank you. Tho it might be nice on some smouldering hot day to cool one down.... Maybe mixed with witch hazel as a rub to combat the heat or a fever. It does feel very cool. I guess I might get another imp of this come summer. Mine was an almost empty imp thrown in with a purchase.....

I got this yesterday and dabbed some on my wrists and collarbone. Very pretty scent that stays close to the skin~ no throw to speak of on me. A soft pretty incensey floral~ very creamy. The dabs on my collarbone and between the breasts actually smelled funky compared to the wrist ones and faded much more quickly. It has been 13 hours and I still smell it on my wrist. I had to add this one to my wishlist because my eldest daughter wants some of her own. Will edit when I try it for a few more days but didn't want to miss saying ohhhhhh yeahhhhh baybeeeeee I have now been wearing this scent for 5 years. Whenever I wear it I get compliments. I have hoarded several bottles since the reaction to it is so wunderbar but it is not the scent I reach for first or even think about. It really is more floral than I would normally pick. However when I do put it on I am confident in smelling great.