LadyMedb

I really thought I'd love this, because I love florals and resins together, and while benzoin and opopponax are always a welcome base in my book, the orchid plus the currant just make this a bit too sweet for me. This is not to say I don't smell the moss and the ambergris, too, but those dark warm notes kind of make the whole thing seem like a mish-mosh of good things on my skin, rather than a coherent whole. I guess it's hard to characterize why this isn't a keeper for me. There's too much of something in this blend, or not enough of something else, or maybe just too many very strong nice things, like I said before. I don't know. It's pretty enough, overall, though, and I'm sure someone else who isn't quite as set in their ways about dark florals (I have so many, anyway) as I am would really love it.

It's perfect - the darkest patchouli plus deep nag champa and the slight girly sweetness of grape. I can't quite smell the cereus, but it must be balancing out all those black and purple scents so that they're not too overpowering, because they're not - this is still quite a feminine blend. As it wears, the woody champa comes out more, which I like even better. I don't know what to say about Urd except that this is sexy perfection - the representative scent I think of when I think of BPAL's dark, beautiful reputation. Yes, it's kind of a hippie scent - that's the point! It's stunning no matter what you call it. I've received dozens of compliments on it, enabled a dear friend with it (she wears it almost daily) and it'll be in my top 5 forever.

I had a bottle of this for a while because I really enjoyed how fresh and different it was. However, I recently received an imp of it again and reminded myself of why I swapped it - there's just something candy-like, or candle-like about it...that pear note is just a bit too sweet, and it overpowers the general refreshing nature of the scent. I still maintain it's an excellent choice for when you want to cool off on a humid summer day, though.

Sin's yummy. My favorite cinnamon blend for itself is Priala, but you have to like that dark incensy thing that goes with it. My favorite blend with cinnamon in it, though? El Dia de los Reyes......just throw away your usual feelings about foodies and breathe in the rich, cinnamon-y chocolate! I'd recommend Harlot for any true cinnamon lover, too - it was too much like roses and red-hots for me, but that's because I wanted less cinnamon in it, not MOAR like it has!!

You might try Pannychis. It's not creamy in the sense of "cream", but the jasmine is smooth and milky. Ooh, I'm in love with Flowering Chrysanthemums too, and my bottle is so lowwwwwwww.....

This is a beautifully balanced rose/jasmine/musk do-up, and I just love it. It's not too sweet, and not too sharp. It goes a teeny-tiny bit soapy, but not in a dry way...instead, kind of in a clean way that makes up for the almost-sour skin scent of it (which I like, too). Again, it's really wonderfully balanced, which means a lot to me, because I love all the notes in it, but usually when I see them all together they turn to disaster, not joy like this! Nuit is a floral embrace, ethereal but warm and real. What a lovely blend! ETA - this is perfect on hot summer days. It's light in feel but still kind of mysterious and dark in character.

This is a lot like Snow-Flakes with chrysanthemums - minty, understated, refreshing, and sweet. It seems like a wonderful cool-down scent for the summer, and I really love how my nose can pick up all the notes in it from the mums to the amber to the snow. It's not 100% my thing, and unfortunately it dries down a little too powdery-sweet on my skin, but I can see that this is a stunningly well-blended scent, and I'm going to pass my imp on to someone who will hopefully love it the way it's meant to be loved.

Zorya is lovely night-blooming flowers which start out strong and humid like Midnight, then settle down as the jasmine comes out. It's all beautifully balanced and contained by the musk, which keeps it close to the skin. I don't find this soapy, like most blends of its kind, and I don't find it at all loud. It's a beautiful, understated, joyous white blend, and I love it.

She's Polyhymnia's less stuck-up sister (in scent form, at least), and the symbol of why I got out of academia and back into music, so I'm sort of supposed to like her, but it helps that this blend is absolutely GORGEOUS. Euterpe is a beautiful, light lemony floral with just enough of that opium poppy to anchor it and make it sensuous. Love the carnation (there but not too sneezy) and the iris (which gives it body). The lemon note is very subtle and blends seamlessly with the honeysuckle, so it's not screaming washing-up liquid or fruity floral at me....just a lovely, light spring breeze with a song on it. It does take a whole bunch of it to show up on my skin, but that's OK. Love it! The boy loves it on me, too.

Black Rose is darker and more rosy; Spellbound is more, as said above, like red musk. I find Black Rose more sensuous, though...it throws well as your skin warms and stays itself, which I think is very sexy. Black Rose is all-time favorite of mine, although I like them both!

This is just stunning - spicy cinnamon without being foody, anchored by dirty smoke and deep resins. The myrrh and the smoke smell a bit like the bottom of the censer as nice loose incense is finishing up being burned, and the cinnamon is closer to the skin than I'm used to it being. This is not to say that this is a weak scent - it's quite strong, and has some throw, especially after it's been on for a few minutes. It goes a tiny bit powdery after many hours, but only the tiniest bit, and kind of in a nice way after the onslaught of the original blend. Priala is simple, elegant, assertive, and perfect for me. It quickly rose into my top 10 of all time, and I've smelled a lot of BPAL. As a side note, the artwork is particularly beautiful on this bottle, as many above have noted.

It smelled kind of like cherry danishes on me. Sorta dark spicy danishes, and not unpleasant, but not my thing. I think this would work wonderfully on someone on whom the frankincense comes out more.

You see, I love incense, and I love rose (I have bottles of Black Rose, the Blasphemare Reliquary, The Last Rose of Summer, The Peacock Queen, etc etc etc), so I had really high hopes for this one. However, the rose used is similar to the one in Two, Five and Seven, which a lot of people love, but I find to be scratch-and-sniff stickery and fruity. I'm glad it's getting all these good reviews from people who like that rose - it's a deserving blend of inky incenses and florals. However, all I smell is that particular rose when it gets on my skin, so I have to pass.

This is a cool herbal, almost minty, dark dusty musk. I think it evokes our Reptile Overlords quite well . However, it's just not quite my thing, although I think it would be a lovely cooling skin scent in the summer for someone who likes dark herbal scents.

I was hoping this would be just like my beloved, stupidly-sold bottle of Singing Moon - and it is! It's maybe a teensy bit darker and more woody than that gem, but it's mostly honeyed grains. The boy picks out a cinnamon-y note. It's golden and grain-y and sweet, and just perfect as a perfumed interpretation of sun-warmed crushed corn, wheat and barley. Yum. Need a bottle. Edit: Have a bottle now, loving it even more; it's like liquid late-summer sunlight. This is my favorite so far this year from the Lab - evocative and unusual. I wish it lasted a bit longer, but hey, I have a bottle. You should too.

A pretty, slightly (but not offensively) powdery, lilac-vanilla-tonka confection. It's delicate and ultra-feminine, and the ho wood gives it a little bit of complexity. I really enjoyed wearing it, but it's not quite me, particularly since the drydown went a tiny bit more baby-powdery than I can stand. I'm an especially bad stickler for that, though, and it's lovely in every other way (I almost kept it anyway because it was so pleasant!). I'm sure many others will adore this.

This is a gorgeous leather scent, bitter and sweet. I don't really smell olive oil but something more like grapefruit juice or orange rind. It works perfectly on both my guy and me, and it's really entrancing. I recommend this to anyone who wants to smell leathery but not dirty or inaccessible, and also to anyone who likes uncomplicated, short note lists.

My bad for not reading far enough up-thread.

I don't think she said he was the Second Coming or anything. (I think he's a tiny bit of a douche, actually. shh ) My boyfriend loves him, though - thinks his reviews are interesting and funny even if he doesn't agree with them. If nothing else Turin has smelled a lot of perfumes - his and his wife's writings are probably a really good place to start if you want to learn something about them, even if he thinks Angel smells good. Pretty much! I was really gratified to read the information that was presented in this thread, though - while I have no problem with lovely synthetic molecules, which often smell better and are certainly safer than MANY natural substances (!), natural oils have that whole magickal utility thing going (yes, I'm one of those - don't cringe), and that's a good thing.

We probably should have directed Jayne to emailing Beth in the first place so it wouldn't have turned into all of this. I don't think she was trolling, just compulsively looking for answers in the wrong place because she's unfamiliar with us. I think what Jayne needs is a good enabling.

You know, I sort of wanted to know, too - that email response was really informative. It's good to know she's not using synthetics - not from a perfumery perspective, because there are some gorgeous molecules out there, but from a more spiritual and dare I say magickal one. (Yes, I'm one of those - please don't run away) And the whole thing in the big Beth post about actually using rose otto when she lists rose otto is really cool - I'd hoped, but never actually expected, that the more expensive components Beth lists actually would be available in a blend for such a relatively small price. The whole single-cost thing fascinates me, too - I wonder how they even it out so they still make money and we keep coming back for more. Honestly, I'm glad for this thread's content, if not for its vibe - I learned a lot!

Honestly, I don't think the natural oil thing (just the pre-fabrication blend) was brought up in Beth's post, although it was wonderful and comprehensive. Given that we shouldn't expect her to pop back in here again to answer, on the other hand, do you think we can talk about the natural versus synthetic thing? Since she was talking about extraction, I'm sure there are many natural oils in it, but I'll bet there are a few single-source synthetics as well...just my guess, though. Does anyone know for sure? I really don't think jayne's questions were meant to be deliberately dense so much as obsessively truth-seeking, although perhaps I wouldn't have attempted the same with Luca Turin quotes.

I really like the rose-wisteria-lavender blend, offset by the musk. It's a very delicate scent, sweet and soft. However, the reason this particular combination works so well is no mystery - it's kind of a time-honored floral perfume recipe, and on dry-down, it unfortunately smells like any (nice!) generic floral perfume. That's not to say that it's not lovely, even bewitching in the imp. It's just that I feel like I've smelled it before, even though it's a nice example of its genre.

You know, quoting Luca Turin and friends doesn't make you as snarky as the man himself. What 6 blends did you order, Jayne?

Slightly off-topic, but of all the pumpkins in the world, Samhain's my favorite - I liked 2006 the best of the ones I tried, but '09 is OK, too! I just didn't see it mentioned anywhere in here, and that's sad.