joiedecombat

Vice goes on me smelling strongly of cherry, with maybe just a bit of a tang of orange blossom blended into it and the chocolate solely as a smoothing background note. Unfortunately, it's a sharp, artificial sort of cherry that doesn't really appeal to me. Eventually, it dries down into a more natural scent, blending with the chocolate for a creamy chocolate-cherry scent, but it takes too long to get there for me to want to keep putting it on. For a chocolate-and-fruit fragrance I find I prefer 13.

Rose is not a scent that I personally like to wear much; I like to smell it, but as a perfume it just doesn't suit me, for reasons I have a hard time defining: too mature, too traditional, too important a scent for me to want to wear. For that reason, I mostly avoid BPAL's rose scents, not because I dislike them but because I know they aren't likely to be my style. Rose Cross, however, I had always wanted to try just because of the way it was described, and now that I have I'm not at all sorry that I did. Initially it's a strong and somewhat soapy rose, but as it dries the rose blends with the frankincense... and while it's still a mature, important scent, perhaps even moreso than the other rose blends I have tried, there's something about it that fulfills the lab's description of it. I can believe this as a holy oil, and while it's not something I'll wear often, I love it.

Goes on very similar to Embalming Fluid, smelling of sweet lemon and fresh green tea; reminds me of a lemon pop. As it dries, some of the citrus scent from the lemon verbena subsides, or the jasmine and neroli emerge, making it a slightly more floral fragrance than Embalming Fluid is. Slightly. It's a very nice fresh scent that avoids being astringent or cloying.

Predominantly peach, no surprise on my skin, which seems to amp peach notes. Fae is lighter than, and not as sticky-sweet as, Tamora. A nice, smooth fruit scent.

Vanilla! It's a sweet, soft, mellow vanilla which does give me an impression of antique linens, gone soft and off-white with time and use. ...Or possibly toasted marshmallow. Truthfully, I wouldn't mind a little less sweet vanilla in this and a little more of the linen, but it is a nice, full, creamy vanilla scent.

Dragon Moon is reminiscent of Holiday Moon, which is fine considering I adore Holiday Moon. However, Dragon Moon is sweeter, and where Holiday Moon on me is a smooth, pale green scent, Dragon Moon is more of a pale pink from the cherry blossom and just a wisp of dragon's blood. It's not quite as smooth as Holiday Moon, the bamboo not as prominent, and it threatens to get a bit powdery-perfumey... but I have to say I'm liking the throw from it in spite of that. Overall, a success.

Fine, velvety cocoa powder and very dry, powdery sandalwood. Unfortunately they don't seem to want to play together very well on my skin, and the sandalwood is really too dry and woody to maintain the "velvet" effect that the cocoa creates so well. Still, the throw from this is mostly cocoa without that too-dry woodiness, and the overall effect is interesting. I'll need to think on it.

I wonder if lemongrass accounts for some or all of the "grasses" mentioned in the lab description. Initially I get sandalwood and lemongrass... and then I mostly get lemongrass, or something like it. It's not entirely unlike Embalming Fluid, but it's drier and not as definitely citrusy. More of a light, dry herbal scent. I kind of like it, but I don't know that I'd want more of it. (The copious throw from Scherezade, which I tested at the same time, may also have tainted my perception of it some.) I will have to see how it grows on me.

Scherezade reminds me strongly of some high-quality incense I've had in the past, although I can't for the life of me recall what. It is woody/resiny - or maybe that's the red musk my uneducated nose is smelling - but the throw is surprisingly sweet (and plentiful - it throws all over the place) and not at all powdery-dry, but quite smooth. Despite putting me in mind of incense, it's a strangely clear scent. I'm not sold on a bigger bottle just yet, but I like this more than I'd expected.

For me, Eclipse smells like nothing so much as spiced, toasted almond. I get some cinnamon from it, but not red-hots candy cinnamon like in Inferno, and it doesn't prickle my skin like that one did either; there might also be a little whiff of clove or something akin to it. The spices are almost nose-prickling, a little too prominent for my personal tastes, but it's a nice scent.

I was really, really hoping that this would turn out to be close cousin to Holiday Moon, which though I have a 5ml bottle is not going to last forever. Unfortunately, it goes on with a sour edge to it. It gets a little sweeter with wear, becoming a bit reminiscent of green apple or even a bit of lime, but it doesn't recreate the pale smooth green of Holiday Moon as I was hoping. Still, if you like the sour-sweet of green apple or limeade, it could be a good thing to try out.

In the bottle: This is pretty subtle in the imp. I get a whiff of ginger over maybe some floral, but it's hard to form a solid impression. On my skin: Snf? Snf? What I can smell is nice, but it really just kind of vanished. Second try: Oooh. Now that I've gotten a good enough amount on, this is really nice... and teasingly familiar, like I've smelled these flowers someplace. My brain insists it's a place it's putting me in mind of, but damn if I can pin in down. Anyway...! Pele ends up being dewy white flowers and sweet ginger. It's actually putting me vaguely in mind of a lighter, paler alternative to Xiuhtecuhtli if that one's smokiness just isn't your thing. Xiuhtecuhtli is big, bold scarlet and orange and purple tropical flowers with smoke wafting over them; Pele's flowers are still big and lush, but dewy and white, and the ginger is a subtler and sweeter spiciness, becoming more prominent as it dries down. It's really nice.

Oh, I had hopes of Kathmandu, especially after how nice Magus turned out to be. But unfortunately, pretty much all I get is cedar, with maybe a bit of sandalwood - dry, powdery cedar, like sawdust or the wood shavings I've used for horse and dog bedding. I like cedar, but I don't want to smell like I've been sleeping in the doghouse no matter how many positive associations the scent has for me. Ah, well.

In the bottle: The lab says cherry blossom. I smell cherry. On my skin: Cherry... cough syrup. No, actually, that's anise leaping out, strongly reminiscent of licorice. I wasn't a big fan of this combination in Kabuki, and I'm not liking it much better now. Dried down: It pretty much just vanished, making it a definite pass.

In the bottle: It must be some combination of the vanilla and more masculine notes, but I swear in the imp this smells weirdly like honeydew. On my skin: Cedar leaps out first, but it's smoothed and sweetened a bit by vanilla underneath it, keeping it from instantly smelling like sawdust, and the sassafrass adds a higher note. As it dries down, the high note recedes. When I actually sniff my wrist I get cedar first, but vanilla dominates the throw with cedar and a whiff of sassafrass beneath. I am liking it more than I initially thought. The vanilla in Antique Lace is a little overly creamy-sweet; Tombstone is a bit more rugged, and it's nice in a unique way. Edit to add: Bizarrely, the place where I tested Tombstone on my wrist has acquired a yellowish tint. I wonder if it's something in the oil, or some sort of reaction with the metal of my wristwatch, but I can't recall this happening with any other BPAL oil. Buh.

Disclaimer: I'm not sure if it's the '05 or '06 version that I have. In the bottle: Ooh. Kind of a chocolate-orange scent coming from this one. Looking forward to testing it out. On my skin: Yep, chocolate orange. Dark chocolate; it's stronger on my skin than it was in the bottle. Very cool, though, and not too foody for wear, especially after it's dried down some. The other notes don't so much make themselves recognizably apparent as they simply add complexity to the chocolate-orange scent. Twelve hours later edit: Lots of staying power, too.

What Aizen-Myoo ended up reminding me of, more than anything, is grapefruit juice - ruby red grapefruit and tangerine juice, sweeter and milder than regular grapefruit. That's what the combination of citruses in this blend remind me of. The other notes only became apparent after a long period of drying-down, after the citrus edge had faded into something a little warmer and sweeter.

I tend to avoid rose scents, because while I do love the fragrance of roses, it's too mature a scent for me to want to wear as a perfume. Moon Rose, however, came as a frimp in an order from the lab, so I dutifully tested it out. It really is, as the description says, a translucent rose - it's hard to explain how a scent can be translucent, but it's clear and sweet and delicate rather than powdery the way rose scents often are - and it upstages Silentium Amoris as probably the nicest rose scent I've tried. Still too mature for me, though. Someone who's looking for a light, non-powdery rose scent will love Moon Rose, and for myself I'm hoping to find something else with that moonflower note to it.

As advertised, Baneberry smells of ripe black berries all but bursting with juice, with the added suggestion of the dusty/woody prickle of stems and leaves. And almost immediately after application, it vanishes on my skin. I can catch a whiff of berry sweetness, but that's it. Ah, well.

A feisty bouquet of golden, warm, gently honeyed lilies. Tiger Lily has confirmed what Seraphim and Queen of Hearts made me suspect: lilies go absolutely wonky on my skin. I did get a light golden glaze of honey sweetness from this fragrance, but mostly I got the lilies, which just like in those other two perfumes turned into a weird, unpleasant weedy beach scent on me. At least now I'm sure of the source of that effect, so I'll know to avoid it from now on.

The spices more than anything else leap out of Hell's Belle on my skin. In the initial wet stage I could smell the mandarin, but that faded as it dried, leaving mostly just the spices with no real trace of the florals or musk. Unfortunately, it's not really my style. I was hoping to smell the magnolia and oleander, and they never really came out at all.

For me, Dana O'Shee smells primarily of almond. In the bottle it's nothing but almond, like almond extract; on my skin, as it dries down, it gains some creamy fullness to the dominant almond note. I'd been wanting to try this oil ever since I tested Inferno and realized how much I liked its almond note, and Dana O'Shee does not disappoint... although in terms of milk scents, I think I prefer Sudha Segara over this one.

In the bottle, the scent is juicy apple with a bit of candy-sweetness. Freshly applied, however, the woody note jumps in and adds a bitterness to the fragrance; the candy sweetness vanishes and the scent is sharply that of apple peel. The bitterness recedes as it dries down, and the apple scent takes prominence again, but the scent still puts me more in mind of apple peel than anything else, in a very interesting way. It's refreshing, once the bitterness has died down a little.

Initially, I mostly get jasmine from Eos - not a good sign, since jasmine really doesn't like me much. But as it begins to dry down, miraculously, something sweet and soft and warm takes over, smoothing the jasmine out and keeping it from going acrid the way that it usually does on my skin. I can definitely smell the honeysuckle, which is a scent I'm fond of, and whatever that underlying note is I really do get an impression of the "softly glowing skin" from the lab description. After some time to dry down on me, it becomes something similar to Tamora, but without ever being nearly so crawl-up-my-nose sweet, just that softly glowing golden warmth. Florals are really hit and miss with me, but Eos definitely hits.

Budding Moon shines as Spring moves with its first breath, and this scent expresses that burst of life-affirming joy through an olfactory interpretation of Huang Quan’s flower-and-bird paintings. Plum blossom, peony, lotus root, Chinese musk and a hint of white ginger. Florals often really just don't work on me. Budding Moon is one of the few that does - it's very delicate, sweet, and clear. I can't pick out individual notes, but the combination is pure love, very much reminiscent of fragile new buds in shades of white and pale pink and purple, the first signs of spring emerging at the end of winter.