minnalavender

Ahhhhhhhh. Lavender. I once worked for Avalon Organics here in NorCal. They grew and harvested their own Lavandula officinalis and used it in various forms in almost all of their products. This is that same variety of herbal, sweet lavender that I dab on my temples and wrists whenever I get a migraine. It's both analgesic and helps prevent nausea, perfect for when travel goes bad. I'll also use Safari when I get a headache or in conjunction with my Somnus when I want a great night's sleep. Beautiful. Lavender is so underrated as a perfume scent, I think in part because most "lavender" perfumes are synthetic and smell nothing like the essential oil or the plant. This is perfume-quality pure lavender oil, not overpowering or medicinal but instead soft and clean.

Oh damn this stuff is good. I just decanted some of my precious Smut last week, and when I opened the imp of Spellbound I smiled with delight! Red musk! That's the predominant note I smell in Smut, and this blend smells almost exactly like it. It's even the same dark, viscous brown oil as Smut. I don't smell roses in the vial - just musk and amber. Deee-lish. On my skin the rose amps up, as rose does with me. However, the musk and amber are so predominant rose doesn't steal the show, she just flirts and makes herself noticed, esp. in the crooks of my elbows. (My skin is weird. Scents are completely different depending upon where I apply them!) This is gorgeous and sexy. The throw is great and it lasts and lasts. Head shop? LOL! Head shops wish they smelled like Spellbound!! And I'd love to be an old lady who smells this hot. I love roses and I loves teh Smut so I'm buying a 5ml of Spellbound with my next order.

I wanted a rose blend to wear with my new Lush Ring of Roses, so I took all of my GC imps out and sniffed each one. I wanted a strong, assertive rose, not too sweet, with lots of depth to it. The only one that jumped out of the bottle and declared "ROSE" to me was London. On my skin it still retains the full bloom of of a dried rose bouquet, but there's some subtle, deeper floral note underneath that's entirely complimentary. Is that the wickedness? No wonder I love it. Every one of Beth's rose scents is different, and all are amazing! London goes on faint but has good throw, and when layered with other, not as subtle, rose stuff, hangs around for a while. Several of the LE rose blends will always be my favorites, Rose Red and Parlement of Foules being the top two, but I should have purchased a 10 ml of London while they were still available. Maybe I'll just get two 5ml instead.

Got Blood Pearl as a frimp from the labbies. Thank the blessed Goddess! This immediately jumped up into my top 10. Maybe because I'm a fourth gen Californian and spent much of my misspent youth slathered in suntan lotion and little else, anything that can combine the sweet scent of coconut with exotic spices and muskiness and oh! all kinds of notes I'll never have a nose sophisticated enough to identify but my body knows are sexy is gonna make me feel really effing good. This is so sensual and sophisticated and sweet and strange - a bunch of paradoxes that come together beautifully. I love it. It just WORKS on me. Beth is a genius. Srsly.

I am sooo in love with this scent. I recently found a rare bottle of Queen of Diamonds on eBay. HGM is exactly what I wanted it to smell like, but it didn't. At all. That disappointment was tempered by already having HGM. Everyone has already wonderfully detailed descriptions of all aspects of the scent - all I can add is that it makes me feel happy when I wear it. It's just absolutely beautiful.

The black fruit and vanilla oaken notes of fine Medoc and De Grâve, but not a hint of the elusive Amontillado. My skin must amp anything incense-y like whoa because I'm not getting anything resembling bubblegum or cough syrup from my Montresor. In the imp it's a deeply sweet berry cordial, like the kind inside dark chocolate liqueor candies. On my skin it darkens further and combines a sharp, slightly boozy berry with spicy vanilla incense. It's luscious, warm and smoky, like a fire on a cold autumn morning. I'll be wearing a lot of this during the fall and winter months, if I'm lucky enough to find more of it. I received this as a decanted frimp (!) when I first started collecting bpal and didn't know it was an LE! Sure wish I could remember who sent it so I could thank them properly.

I received this as a frimp in a recent LJ order and had heard nothing about it before I opened the vial. In the bottle: almonds, with clove underneath? Candy, little-girl sweet and not what I had expected at all! On my skin: Mmmmmmm. The almond morphs into a spicy, powdery rose overlaid with clove and cinnamon - almost like carnations. I love how this smells! There's nothing little-girlish about this oil on my skin. Score! I haven't had a bad bpal rose experience yet. It stays very close to my skin, which is also good for its purpose - you'd have to really snuggle me to catch a hint of it. I think I'll layer this with Love In The Asylum, to help the throw. They share some similar notes.

I really love Ex Lux Fuit. In the bottle I can't separate any notes at all - it's a sophisticated, feminine blend. On wet, it stays pretty true to the impression it created in the bottle, but the throw is much stronger on my skin. Some spicy carnation begins to emerge, balancing the strong floral notes that are incredibly sweet and happy. It's a PERFECT summer scent, or one to wear in the winter when you want to remember what a golden summer afternoon felt like. This one is such a morpher on me during drydown! It smells different in every single location I dabbed it, and the individual notes emerge in each area. The backs of my hands are all powdery musk; my inner wrists have the spicy floral notes, and the crooks of my elbows are lemons and honey. Talk about getting your money's worth! One of the most mature & sunniest of the florals I've tried so far. Just beautiful.

I received CLXXXV today. Wow. I freaking adore this. I'm betting that not many other people would, either. This is right up in your face, you wanna do this b*&$%? lavender and what I think is eucalyptus. As lavender is my favorite scent (besides rose) in all the world, I fell in love. In the bottle it's a brisk slap in the kisser. LAVENDER. Then the euc. underneath. I fell in love. lol On my skin, the lavender quiets down, the eucalyptus mellows, and then a lovely citrus note enters the equation - lemon or even lemon verbena? It reminds me so much of one of the lovely aromatherapy blends, or the Somnus - two of my favorites. The throw is strong, at least in the initial stages. The drydown is totally gender-neutral. A man would smell fantastic wearing this, too! It's so fresh and floral-sweet, yet bracing, and with a sweet spice or musk at the end. It's so unique. I will wear this when I want to feel energized and alert and comfortable with my freakiness. Thank you!!

Before I was sucked into the vortex of addiction introduced to bpal, I didn't like rose scents at all. Ew. I can't stand chemically, drug & dept. store perfume, and all the rose scents I'd smelled didn't smell like real roses at all. Beth changed all that. I adore all bpal rose notes - all of them. They're all fresh and lovely. Lotus... well, my mileage varies, so I'm happy to say that the lotus in this blend mixes beautifully with the rose. In the bottle, it's almost all bubblegum lotus - the rose barely peeps through. Wet on my skin, the rose just opens and blossoms. Ahhhh. Midpoint, the lotus mellows and adds just a touch of incense to the blend. Drydown is powdery soft, an echo of the midpoint. Not a lot of morphing - with my skin chemistry it's a sweet, youthful, very feminine rose.

I'm really fortunate in that I haven't yet met a Moon I didn't like! Dragon Moon is no exception. In the bottle, I can smell the Dragon's Blood; the cherry fruit, not blossom; the same kind of aquatic note in House of Mirrors that made me migrainey; and a very green note that smells like a broken flower stem. (I can't pick out individual notes very well - sorry!) On my skin, the DB takes a back seat to the sandalwood and aquatic note, which, surprisingly enough, doesn't go weird on me - the cherry morphs back into blossom instead of fruit and mixes with the herbal note to keep it more spicy than sweet. (THAT is a cool trick - reversing nature!) After it's dry, it's sweet, spicy and girly, not at all dragony. I love it. It seems the perfect spring fragrance at this point. The drydown is just lovely - sandalwood incense and soft, spicy blossoms floating on still water. I'm really glad I have a full bottle.

Temple of Dreams is a haunting, beautiful fragrance - a spiritual fragrance, if that's possible. Wet, it's almost pure lavender, and it has very little throw; I have to slather. But once it hits my skin it undergoes a metamorphasis, shifting by degrees from sharp lavender and spices to the softest, loveliest spicy incensey floral whisper. It changes more on my skin than any other BPAL I've tried. It's like sucking on a jawbreaker and tasting each layer as it gets smaller. Dry, it's what I imagine temple incense smelled like in some ancient Meditteranean country. I can hardly tear my nose away from my wrist at this stage. lol! I wear this as perfume. It doesn't make me sleepy, but still makes me feel dreamy. 10 ml for SURE.

Somnus is one of my favorite BPAL scents yet. I adore lavender, floral and herbal. Somnus, wet, is a sharp lavender softened by jasmine and what I perceive to be a rose scent; rose geranium? It's immediately soothing. On my skin, the lavender recedes and the softer florals immediately take over. The throw is above average, and I have to slather and reapply most scents. I dab a small amount on my inner wrists, then gently rub together, then on the back of each opposite hand. Because I sleep on my side with my hands curled under my chin, this brings the scent in with each breath. It was difficult to describe the drydown scent because it is so effective inducing restful sleep that I never lasted that long at night! I finally applied it during the day when I was laid up with a migraine. Drydown is all softness and delicate jasminey overtones. My husband has slept better since I began to use Somnus, too! I only wish I could wear it as a perfume... it's that lovely and soothing an aroma to me. Unfortunately, it's like liquid Xanax and I don't want to try operating a motor vehicle under its influence.