bheansidhe

Oddly, on my skin this smells very similar to Queen of Sheba ("a bounty of golden honeyed almonds and a whisper of African and Middle Eastern spices") or Seraglio (Sweet almond and Mysor sandalwood enveloped by a heady veil of Bulgarian Rose, neroli, nutmeg, clove and orange peel). There's definitely a honey warmth, an almond note, and a faint, dusty spiciness, hand-in-hand with the lily floral. Sadly, instant headache.

Whoa! Everyone who was disappointed by Saw-Scaled Viper's red-hot, cinnamon-sharp cassia-fest (including moi, last year) - Either set a half-imp out to age, or get your hands on a sample that's one year plus. Just as aging benefits its parent, venerable Snake Oil, the mellowing effects of oxidation and time make a HUGE difference with this viper. It becomes .... "clouds of foody billowing yum." At least on me.

Well, I don't think there's any way I can improve on the reviews by galleywest and fairynymph. So I won't even try. :-) A rich, heavy, polished scent. The balsam green gradually hardens to a metal-tinged musk. I would love it on a guy, but it's too masculine for me.

Despite the listed notes, Men Ringing Bells is dominated by mellow ginger and a rounded citrus note - it smells like yuzu, but doesn't go overwhelmingly sharp on my skin as the yuzu in Aizen-Myoo did. Could this be the rice wine? There is also a juicy green middle tone, cushioned by moss, but not earthy or dusty. I was expecting this to be too cologne-y, too sharp, or too metallic. It is none of these - it is gorgeous. Soft, humid, golden, overlaid with a clear hum of ginger and spiced tea, without any shrillness or bite. This is what I *want* citrus blends to smell like on me, but they never do. Why didn't I order this? Must find.

Wet: Pineapple upside-down cake, soaked in spiced rum. Drydown: It goes through a pina colada stage, but overall this scent is much more cake-y than alcohol-y. In fact it smells like a kissin' cousin of Drink Me, with the same cinnamon-heavy, yeasty, sugary bread-pudding smell. Right down to the rum sauce. Did I mention the rum sauce? The... SPICED rum sauce? There isn't any fresh pineapple in this smell; it's caramelized, gooey baked pineapple in a strong cake base, with lots of cinnamon and allspice. Very strong. In fact, on far drydown I smelled like a Yankee Candle shop. Not quite my cup of spiced rum.

I love this one so much. Which is a complete shocker as every other BPAL blend with "jasmine" has ended up a shrieking floral horror on my skin. But the jasmine sambac of Kanishta has a round, voluptuous, almost nutty weight, anchored by the spicy Haitian patchouli. I'm not sure what opium is supposed to smell like, but I get the magnolia underneath, blooming like a luminous ghost over the heavy black floral. Kush is... a type of cannibas flower? No idea. Good old Wikipedia informs me that "jasminum sambac" is a related but different species than regular jasmine (jasminum officinale) or night-blooming jasmine (cestrum nocturnum). Jasmine Sambac is the national flower of Indonesia and the Phillipines. And - aha - it's also Hawai'ian "pikake" flower. I wonder if the jasmine sambac oil is not regularly available, hence the LE. When I wear this, the boy knows he's getting lucky. Or bitten. One or the other. VERY strong with lots of throw on me, so my bottle will last a very long time.

I ordered this one more out of curiosity, since I never wear violet or lily. I was immediately struck by a scent memory when I tried La Befana, and after some sniffing I figured it out: It smells like a St. Joseph's Day altar, loaded with desserts and flowers and food. (If you're not Italian or from New Orleans, here's a link: http://www.thankevann.com/stjoseph/photos.php) I smell the hundreds of Italian cookies baked for the altar: macaroons and biscotti di regina, little anise toasts, sugared St. Joseph's Day fig cookies, and salt-dough breads shaped like crosses and fish. I smell buttered pie crust and definite notes of sugar and caramel (similar to the "cakes" note in Haloa). And realizing what I smell, I feel the same rush of wonder - a scent captures this! - that I felt the first time I saw a live St. Joseph's altar. Fifteen minutes on my skin and I smell a whoosh of the dust that got released when they hauled the altar tables out of storage for the feast. The scent actually morphs into a floral dust note, and then the desserts creep back. And then I smell the violets. Oh, the violets. Every year there were hard sugar eggs on the altars, intricately iced in lurid pastel roses and violets; sort of an Easter interpretation of sugar skulls. I licked one once when no one was looking. It tasted like perfume and preservatives and those chalky candy cigarettes (do they still sell those?). I smell those eggs, perfectly captured as a "candy charcoal" note. How very interesting. It's nothing like the Lab's other smoke notes, nothing woodsy; it's very dry and chalky. But there's also a rich, living floral note; the sprays of cut flowers and the warring perfumes of the ladies in attendance. I would never wear this because my skin hates violets. However, it was a neat half-hour in Smell-o-vision, and a really amazingly innovative scent combination. Average throw and wearlength. It will really depend on how your skin morphs the individual notes. I never got any cypress.

The character of the Witch Queen ages rapidly through the book, appearing different in almost every encounter. Like her namesame, BPAL's Witch Queen is a rapid morpher, evolving in distinct stages on my skin. Wet: A cold, haughty floral. Like a bouquet of juicy flowers preserved in a snow globe; untouchable, but almost unbearably lush and voluptuous to see. And, yes, there is a purple tone to the smell, like dark plum velvet. Beautiful and womanly. The plum is juicy but not fruity. Drying: Plum goes away. At the moment, it smells a lot like a fresh gardenia straight from the bush. Dryer: Veers sharply back into plum territory, but a drier plum. Now it's sharper, and almost astringent, like plum wine overlaid with a haze of sweet smoke. Driest: Still sweet, but faded and almost dusty. More of a tuberose/ylang ylang blend. Unlike many florals it never goes soapy on my skin, but it never really *agrees* with my chemistry. Not me, but a really interesting progression, obviously worthy of the character. This might become someone's signature scent.

When I acquired this imp from the lab in April 06, I found it primarily vetiver and black musk, with a leather undertone. Heavy, masculine, and a touch bitter, it was not something I wanted to wear, so I put it in the swap pile and forgot it. I tested it today on a whim. I don't know if I had it in the Magic Aging Configuration under perfectly aligned stars or what, but - man! Let me say that again, with proper emphasis: MAYun! Aged Iago pours on black and smoky, very like lapsang souchong tea. The vetiver lost its pungency somewhere in the past year, and now behaves like a dried sweetgrass note. And the leather - This is the leather to end all leather. This is MAN leather. This is the hard slap of the riding crop, the black jacket on the Harley rider, the flat uncompromising thack of the paddle. Still slightly bitter, like the tang of leather soap, which makes it an even more evocative scent. Is it sweetly bitter? o yes; bitter, bitter, like the ash of burning sinners, smiling as they burn. Ahem. The black musk creeps out an hour or so into wearing, but it only serves as a round bottom note - [okay, no, I SWEAR that when I wrote that sentence it sounded a lot different in my head, but I guess I'll let it stand ]. In comparison to other leather BPALs: Quincy Morris and A Bachelor's Dog are both much softer. Doc Constantine is more multi-layered. Hellfire is much more like pipe smoke. Severin, Loviatar and Whip were much sweeter. DeSade had an acrid vanilla note that turned to bug spray on me, but might compare favorably if that's one that works for you. It's still not something I want to wear, but now I've got to try it on the man. Excuse me, the MAYun.

Ohhhh Myyyyyy Gawwwwwwwd, it is so good! It's foody in the way a spice cabinet is foody, not foody like a dessert tray. The cinnamon is really a soft, warm, powdered cinnamon, not the overly sharp cassia note that my skin hates (and ruined Monster Bait: Underbed). On me, the Pinched With Four Aces blend has a dry, caramelized warmth. In fact it's what I thought Ventriloquist's Dummy *would* smell like, but didn't. I'm heartbroken that I didn't buy a bottle when I had the chance. If there is ANY chance that the Dogs will dash back into the Salon for a reprise round, I'm stocking up on this one. It's the only one of the Dogs that really worked. One To Tie, Two To Win was lovely but just didn't reciprocate the affection on my skin.

Kumari Kandam is a real sleeper hit on my skin. Blends like these ensure that I will give every BPAL that passes through my hands a test swipe, even if the description lists Every Note That Ever Hated Me Ever. The dominant note in Kumari Kandam, for me, is the lab's "snow note." Paradoxically, to me the snow note always smells like warm, spicy pine resin (Black Forest, Snow Maiden, Knecht Ruprecht, Snow Moon, and Wolf Moon are "snow note" blends that come to mind, and they all smelled similar on me). So there's a spicy warmth to the scent. Beyond that, it completely eludes description. Is it aquatic? Not really. Nor is it particularly dolorous or floral. There's an echo of jasmine sambac (not the sharp floral jasmine, but its mellow woodsy cousin), which may be the 'hothouse blooms' in the description, and there's a thin rime of salt on the edge, which may be the "oceanic" component. It lingers like a waft of hidden incense. Warm, mysterious, and elusive. Really noticeable throw and a good four-five hours of wear. I might just have to get a bottle. (Note: I did try an imp of indeterminate age from a swap. A fresher sample may be colder or more aquatic; I'll amend this review if that proves to be the case.)

The "heady smack" of this perfume is a strong, almost bitter-honey note that smells exactly like the note that ruined Faiza the Black Mamba for me. Having smacked me upside the head for a few minutes, that unknown note settles back into its seat, grumbling, and lets Rose rise up and hang over my shoulder, slapping her leather gloves impatiently on her palm. I feel like the beleagured husband in the painting, waiting for the umbrella to descend. This eventually settles into what might be a classic, woodsy rose cologne - on someone else. On me it turns sharp and chemical, and the smoke note is the stinky whiff of cigar you can't air out of your clothes after visiting Uncle Vincienzo and his poker buddies. On my skin it lasted about three hours, and left a faint, very faint, whiff of powdered rose and soft leather. It has good throw in the first couple of hours. Um, not me. But maybe you - especially if you loved Faiza the Black Mamba or Whip (though it's a much softer rose than Whip). Re-reading my description, I'm amused that the scent captures the feel of the painting so accurately.

It's odd that other reviews talk about how light and green Mr Ibis is, because my impression was just the opposite. Soft, yes, but in the beginning (as in so many beginnings), quite dark. In the vial Mr Ibis is a murky, cthonic scent, a velvet-soft but lightless aquatic. On my skin the notes gradually brighten, like a lantern gradually becoming visible in the distance, and unroll into a smoky, chocolate-brown aquatic. I find this a very masculine oil, not in the manly-man sense, but like a heavy cloak that requires really broad shoulders to wear it comfortably. After an hour it fixes and dries; no longer an aquatic, but a painting of a deep river done on old parchment. I catch a hint of the dried-paper note from Miskatonic University, and the faintest overlay of a vanilla floral.

Well this is an odd thread of reviews to compare with my experience. I don't get any orange or citrus, and no cinnamon or spice. Instead, when I open the vial I get a faintly medicinal blast of mild camphor - something that smells, in fact, like an old-fashioned liquid vitamin tonic (I smelled a vintage vitamin tonic in an antiques store once.). Nothing here smells red or devilish, but there's something about it that says "Yep, I'm a Voodoo Blend." On my skin I continue to smell the camphor, as well as a light violet. An old-fashioned posey in an apothecary glass jar. Within five minutes it turns strongly soapy, and here I discern the lilac note that other posters mention. After fifteen minutes it becomes a cold soapy floral, and then segues without pause to a mild, spicy floral soap, very much like the perfumed sandalwood bars you buy in Chinese import shops. Huh. At no stage does it match my chemistry, so it's off to the swaps.

Heh! On my spreadsheet I have a category called "Snake Oil Scents," for anything that has a similar heavy, resinous, oiled sweetness, dominated by patchouli. To my nose, the family includes: Lust - Uncontrollable passion and insatiable sexual desire: red musk, patchouli, ylang ylang and myrrh. Sin - Thoroughly corrupted: amber, sandalwood, black patchouli and cinnamon. Anne Bonney - A blend of Indonesian red patchouli, red sandalwood, and frankincense. [Lacks Snake Oil's complexity, but the drydown may be similar on you.] Tombstone - A celebration of one of the first commercially produced perfumes of America's Old West. A rugged, warm blend of vanilla, balsam and sassafras layered over Virginia cedar. [Fresh, it smells a lot like Snake Oil, but the sassafras really alters it in the drydown, at least on me.] Morocco - The intoxicating perfume of exotic incenses wafting on warm desert breezes. Arabian spices wind through a blend of warm musk, carnation, red sandalwood and cassia. [This has the spicy complexity but is much lighter, and lacks the heavy resinous base.] Scherezade - Saffron and Middle Eastern spices swirled through sensual red musk. [On me this became faint and powdery, but it could definitely work for the right person - maybe layered with Anne Bonney?] LEs: Snake Charmer - Sensual, sibilant, sexual and hypnotic: Arabian musk and exotic spices slinking through Egyptian amber, enticing vanilla, and a serpentine blend of black plum, labdanum, ambrette, benzoin and black coconut. Theodosius the Ledgerdemain - Earl Grey tea leaves, a white fougere, jasmine leaf, pearlescent white musk, and vanilla bean. [At first whiff, this is Dorian on steroids, or his bastard love child by Snake Charmer. A masculine vanilla musk, where Mme Moriarty is a feminine one. ]

This one alters noticeably with age. I have two vials, one bought on eBay as a mixed lot and one received fresh from the lab last week. The older vial was darker and had a syrupy floral overlay. The new vial smelled much lighter and fresher, with a high cherry nose. However, the scents were similar enough that I'll wrap them into one review. I wasn't familiar with bamboo (is that the same as oude?) until I tried Holiday Moon. After that I was able to pinpoint the bamboo note in Dragon Moon and again in Neo-Tokyo. Bamboo seems to like my skin chemistry; green and juicy, almost like a fruit musk (if there was such a thing). In the vial: fruit notes dominate - possibly plum. I also smell ozone and bamboo. On my skin: a surface similarity to Holiday Moon, which must be the bamboo. Neo-Tokyo greens up and cools down on my skin. The fruit notes subside into a delicate wash of cherry blossom. The fresh imp is MUCH lighter and more cherry-scented than the heavily green-oude aged vial. On wearing: both aged and new samples mellow and sweeten. I get faint wafts of "crisp mountain air" and "ozone" off of the fresh sample, along with the cherry and bamboo. The older sample just smells like sweet, slightly fermented bamboo pulp. I don't detect a metallic note in either sample, on drydown or later. I'm lousy at picking out orchid, but I don't think I get orchid either. Verdict: light and sweet without being cloying - a delicate Hayao Miyzaki-style watercolor of urban Tokyo (minus the fish guts and diesel fumes). Fans of Peony Moon might also like this one, more for the "feel" of the blend than for an exact scent resemblance. On me it didn't develop the electricity or urban metallics in the description, but it was a nice scent despite that - very spring or summer.

Snickerdoodles! That's it. Some dry cinnamon cookie. Well, now I know what cassia is (http://www.theepicentre.com/Spices/cassia.html). In the vial this smells surprisingly dark and bitter - not bittersweet, but bitter like fresh-ground spices. Wet, the scent resolves into dry, unsweetened cocoa powder. Go smell a box of Ghiradelli unsweetened cocoa powder - that's the scent, laid over sweet cake batter. 15 minutes: as ususal on my skin, the cinnamon rises and warms like cookies rising in an oven. The warm cinnamon cookies are still dusted with the black cocoa - I don't smell coconut at all, and the vanilla I detect is the black, thick Madagascar liquor, not thin commercial vanilla extract. This scent is less sweet and less foody than I expected; more a soft, sophisticated spice, or like a tin of dry cinnamon cookies left out for company. 2 hours: dry, almost smoky cinnamon over sugar, with a sprinkle of cocoa. There's now the tiniest hint of coconut, possibly through the power of suggestion, because I keep reading "coconut" in the reviews. The bitterness has subsided, and left behind a smoky, almost woodsy cinnamon bark. Verdict: Strong throw and good staying power (at least 6 hours). This is the first foody scent I've tested that would be good for a man. On me, it dries down to a one-note wonder, like Gingerbread Poppet. It's not exciting enough for me to keep all 5 ml, and I dislike the initial bitterness. But I would love to try layering it, and I also suspect it would be fantastic aged. Allergy note: possibly because of the cinnamon/cassia, this oil raised a red patch on the skin inside my arm where I applied it. The red welt persisted for about an hour. It was not itchy or painful, but if you've had an allergic reaction to cinnamon oil in the past, please test this one carefully until you know how it affects you. I almost NEVER show contact allergies of any kind.

There are gender-neutral scents, and then there are scents that I can't wear because I keep looking around for the gorgeous man who's obviously standing right behind me.... very masculine scents. As with anyone, scents will smell different on different guys. Here's a list of ones I've tried that are too masculine for me to wear (M), and gender-neutral scents that smell good on men (N). Generally manly: Casanova (M) Golden Priapus (M) Jabberwocky (N) Saint-Germain (M) Vicomte de Valmont (M) The Lion (N) Al-Sharain (N) Musky / resinous / smoky / leather: Coyote (M) Sri Lanka (N) Magus (N) Perversion (M) Serpent's Kiss (M) Tombstone (M) Snake Oil (N) Perversion (M) Umbra (N) Depraved (N) Black Forest (M) Dee (M) Fenris Wolf (M) Traditional lime / bay rum types: R'lyeh (M) Jolly Roger (M) Port-au-Prince (M)

NOTE: Though this is a negative review, it's not the fault of poor Montresor, but the mix of Montresor and my chemistry. I uncap it. I recap it. I blink. I uncap it again. You know, I had an elderly neighbor whose house reeked of 1. cats, 2. unclean cat boxes, and a 3. gift shop's worth of fruit potpourri strewn around in an effort to hide 1. and 2...In the vial Montressor hit me with the same reek of fermented fruit-sugar over sulfur compounds. But hey, I've been surprised before, so I gave it the obligatory try. Because, really, it smells like a scent in a coccon; something turbulent and dark, but complicated - nascent - something that's going to brighten and unfurl on my skin. Wet: cherry cough syrup, followed by fermented grapes and cat pee. Drying: cat pee, something sharp, something fermenting, cat pee, and something medicinal. Did someone lock those incontinent cats into an abandoned wine bar? Dry: and how did they manage to pee into my armpit without me noticing? I decided nothing was worth waiting through the sour sweat stage, so I hit the bathroom. It wouldn't come off with thorough handwashing, exfoliating spongage, alcohol swabbage, and vehement cussage. Twelve hours later I could still detect it on my skin, though it had faded to slightly off grape koolaid by then. I've tried lots of scents that just didn't suit me, but were polite about it; Montressor went after me like a blind date grudge match. Since Hellcat, Blood Kiss, and Sugar Skull developed a similar sour reek on me, I'm going to be wary of any "wine" notes in the future. Or is it dark berries? I loved Bewitched, but the intial wash of wet pines, blackberry, and sweet mown grass sharpened up and turned chemical, ending as pleasant berries over musty cat pee. And for some reason Nosferatu became a lovely soft floral, utterly unlike its description and despite its wine notes. The solution, obviously, is to try more bpal.

Five dark, aggressive, furious musks with ambergris bouquet, Malaysian rainforest plant extracts, black amber and orange peel. I've only been a BPAL groupie for three weeks (and have acquired 50 imps - an aquisition rate of 2.38 imps PER DAY. Yes, I've stepped away from the eBay crack pipe for now). This is my first forum scent and my second posted review, FWIW. I ordered this before I'd figured out that ambergris is bad on my skin and musks are hit-or-miss. So I was thrilled to unwrap my little neatly decanted vial (thanks to roostergrrl/wolfgrrl), but I didn't have high hopes for this one smelling great on me. In vial: I smell complex, somehow bright musk with a clear green middle note. Not overwhelmingly heavy or feral. On wrist (dry skin, where scents will go powdery) and in crook of arm (moister skin, where scents stay truer): Not.. not a bad smell. More like a sophisticated commercial perfume than an enraged primate. Drydown: I dutifully sniff every few minutes for the next hour. I never detect the orange peel (and I wouldn't know the smell of a "Malaysian plant extract" if it bit me, though I suppose that's the green note I smell in the vial) or discern the amber. Instead, the musk continues to make me smell like that 80's perfume "Charlie" - that is, overwhelmingly perfumed. The only bright spot is that there's enough musk to smother the ambergris (which goes gaggingly powdery on me). Finally, it goes slightly soapy, though not in a bad way. I went to bed with it still on my arm and it's detectable eight hours later as a "sweet clean skin" scent. This is a great scent. It's just not MY great scent.

Aizen-Myoo, aka "Yuzu Out The Wazoo," knocked my nose out with its dominant note when I opened the vial. I used to love my yuzu incense from Wildberry, so I'm familiar with that scent, though not with kaki or mikan. This was yuzu to the point of bitter - yuzu pith? does yuzu have pith? - but backed by something sweet and fruity. On me: Bright, bitter cherry cough syrup. It absolutely refused to sweeten out or mellow, and developed an undertone reminiscent of sharp sweat. On the one hand, this is the first bPal scent that hasn't gone to powder within the hour on me. On the other hand... it hurt my nose. Sharp, complex, and bright, but too acrid and strong on my skin. This would be a GREAT room scent for me, though.

I don't understand how previous reviewers found this scent lemony or tea-like; the jasmine was overwhelming. It died down after a while, but not enough to make me want to wear this again. I'll make a break for Shanghai right after you.

I picked 13 as the first imp to try out of the six-pack of testers I got from eBay. Not only do I have high hopes for this imp, but it's my first BPAL scent *ever.* In the vial, it smells bizarre and fantastic. White chocolate and tea, with a very pushy bright yellow middle note, like a muddled citrusy-floral, and a bit of tang. I slather it on one wrist and rub briskly. Chocolate.. chocolate... fading. Getting powdery and sweet. Very sweet. Er... extremely sweet. Almost sickeningly so. Hello? It's trying to be a nice light floral-food scent. I can tell it's trying. But each second spent soaking into my skin rapidly devolves the scent into something more like decayed flowers with a candy coating that won't melt on your hands. Chocolate and tea notes are completely gone; there's nothing crisp left in the scent. It's mushy and puddled and overblown. I - I have no idea what I'm smelling now, other than "sickeningly sweet," with an emphasis on sickening; after an hour I'm almost queasy. Begone, foul stank! No luck in this one for me. May my next imp love my skin! Ironically, six hours later there's a whiff of chocolate back on my arm. Too little, too late.