lucycat

In the imp: Booze-soaked fruit. This does smell like Christmas pudding ingredients, though not the ones listed in the notes. Wet: Still a bright, boozy fruit smell. There is a slight richness/fattiness underlying it from the suet accord, but that element is not strong at all. Dry: Apples! Tart, spiced apples. Not at all what I expected, but very enjoyable. After a few hours, I can see that this is plums, not apples. It’s clearly a plum dessert, though to me it seems more plum crumble with custard than plum pudding.

Only in the imp do I smell the beer, and only briefly. This is mostly smooth pastry, with lavender appearing after a moment. Wet: Pastry with a burst of bright lavender. On my arm, Mari Lwyd is primarily lavender, smoothed out by the pastry note, which keeps it from being harsh. It’s not a very sweet blend, which is appropriate because Welsh cakes aren’t very sweet. On my hand, the currant in the Welsh cakes really blooms, and mixes with the lavender. It’s reminiscent of Eat Me here, though less rich. I had to try this, because I grew up eating Welsh cakes and wanted to see what a perfume recreating them would be like. The currant becomes stronger and stronger as this dries down. I should have guessed that would happen; currant does the same thing on my skin in Eat Me and Knave of Hearts.

Yuletide is straightforward. It’s just what it says: holly leaves and red, spicy holly berries. There is a faint suggestion of actual spice, such as cinnamon, but no more than a suggestion. This is very evocative. It does smell exactly like a holly wreath, and makes me think of Christmas, though I first tested it on a gray mid-January day. I agree that this is candle-like, though it’s a very high-end luxury candle. This fades down to almost nothing on the back of my hand, though it lasts longer on my arm.

In the imp: Minty soap. Wet: The same. As this dries, I feel the coolness of the mint on my skin where I applied the oil. Winter-Time is a very subtle scent. It doesn’t smell like perfume; it doesn’t even really smell like soap or scented body wash. It smells like clean skin, just after I’ve stepped out of the shower when I’ve used a mint soap or shower gel: that very faint lingering scent. After about two hours, on the back of my hand I smell the “white creaminess” that lady_pandora described above. It’s soft white musk with a tinge of vanilla. Very pretty and ethereal.

In the imp: Rich, sweet chocolate. I haven’t compared this to Bliss side-by-side, but even without doing so, I can tell there’s more than one note here, without actually being able to pick out the amber at this point. Wet: Almost as soon as this touches my skin, I can distinguish the amber. As Gelt dries, the combination of chocolate and amber somehow reads as beeswax to my nose. I don’t mind that at all, since I like beeswax and The Lights of Men’s Lives is one of my favorite BPAL blends. Funnily enough, I couldn’t pick out the beeswax in Chanukkiyah, where it actually is present. Gelt settles down to a soft skin scent. It feels very similar to Velvet, with amber in place of sandalwood.

In the imp this is fantastic. It’s rich, warm, and glowing, bright fig and pomegranate with the smooth olive oil underneath. There’s a hint of pastry note from the doughnuts, but just a hint. After a little while, the pastry/doughnut note does what I was afraid it was going to do. Baked goods notes often don’t work on me; they have ruined other scents in the past (see Cockaigne.) Here, it’s like a great big jelly doughnut stomps on the other, more delicate notes, turning them to Yankee Candle. Sigh. There are so many notes that I like in Chanukkiyah—the beeswax, amber and fruits—that I really wanted this to work. And then, after an hour or so, when the oil has really warmed on my skin, I get the most fantastic, sweet throw. It’s the good part of jelly doughnuts, the aroma of the lightly sweet, sugared outside wafting in the air. The final drydown is all fig. If only I didn't have to go through the big bad baked goods phase to get to the throw in the drydown.

In the imp: Just what it says: Sin plus gingerbread. I do smell more sandalwood than in Sin. Unlike last year’s Gingerbread Snake, which to my nose is a completely different animal from Snake Oil, in Gingerbread Sin I can smell both components. This is still not a foody blend, though; the sandalwood and patchouli prevent that. It’s predominately sandalwood and cinnamon with gingerbread spices for about the first hour; then the patchouli becomes stronger, though it never overpowers the other notes. One big plus is that the cinnamon in Gingerbread Sin, unlike that in original Sin, doesn’t irritate my skin when fresh. This is warm, resinous, and delicious. I have ordered a bottle.

I think Vasilissa, which on me is a soft skin musk scent, would be another good one to try.

This was a frimp from the Lab. In the imp: Orange hard candy. It’s much too sweet to be the actual fruit, but light, so it’s not overpowering. Wet: There’s a very brief hint of floral, but I couldn’t identify which flowers. Dry: A few minutes after application, I smelled a spicy note. The skin on my arms where I had applied the oil was red, though I didn’t feel a burning sensation. Fresh cinnamon in blends often does that to me, so I’ll echo others’ reviews in saying there’s cinnamon in this blend. The redness cleared after a short time. Red Devil dries down to a resinous, sweet orange and cinnamon candy. I’m going to see if some aging smooths out the cinnamon, because I like this final stage.

This was a frimp from the Lab. In the imp: Cypress and juniper. Wet: Now I smell the rose. For the first few minutes it’s on, Rome has a wonderfully clean, fresh smell. Then, unfortunately, the cypress and juniper turn to Pine-sol. Not exactly the pines of Rome. The throw is almost entirely rose. After about an hour I get an almost candylike smell that I realized is the chamomile, mingling with that rose note. I really like the idea of this blend, but I don’t think this combination of notes works fantastically well on my skin.

In the imp: Amber and almond are the prominent notes, with saffron and sweet, bubblegummy lotus around the edges. Wet: Sweet almond and amber. As I expected, the almond dissipates as Bastet dries. It becomes a dry, soft blend of amber and saffron. For a short while it develops a hard edge, but that fades. Phew. There’s more musk in the final drydown. I waited almost a year to try Bastet, and it was worth it. I could sit here with my nose stuck in the crook of my arm all day. Though they have very few notes in common, Bastet reminds me of Morocco, one of my favorites. Bastet is less sweet than Morocco, but they both suggest dry desert spices to me.

This was a frimp from the Lab. In the imp: Strong rose. I can’t distinguish between the two kinds of roses listed in the notes, but it’s definitely rose. On second sniff, there’s just a hint of musk, or possibly bergamot. Wet: Still strong rose. I hate to say this, but Rapture is very strong old-lady perfume on me. Dry: The jasmine (a note I don’t love) and the neroli come forward, making the blend sour. Interestingly, on the back of my hand, I get a sweetness I think must be the mandarin and musk, not rose or other floral at all, but the whole blend is very faint. On my arms, this remains strong and sour. I didn’t really expect that a blend with so many strong florals would work well for me, though I always like to skin test everything.

This was a frimp from the Lab. In the imp: A whiff of chocolate over the herbal base of Horn of Plenty (without the cherry) and some of the other Conjure Bag scents. The chocolate disappears when I apply this, and I get a very green herbal: Fresh-cut herbs. As this dries down, I get some of the powder scent that other reviews have mentioned. Finally, after a few hours, the chocolate reappears, though it’s dry, so it seems more accurate to call it cocoa rather than chocolate. Whatever effects Queen is supposed to have were almost certainly negated by the fact that I tested it on a day I spent at home with a cold: Not much scope for power or passion! It’s worth a test on another day, though.

I have had an imp of Perversion for about 18 months without writing a review of it. Here goes: In the imp: Sweet rum. SWEET. Wet: Still the same sweet rum. I like sweet scents, but this is almost sickeningly sweet. After this has been on my skin for a few minutes, I smell a slight creaminess, probably the tonka, under the sweetness of the rum. Oddly enough, as this dries down, it smells better when I smell it through my sleeve (I applied the oil to the inside of my elbows as well as the back of my hand) rather than right against my skin. That layer of fabric tempers the sweetness. After a while, I smell a little bit of leather. The tonka emerges more and more, and some of the sweetness dissipates, so I’m left with leather-tinged vanilla rum. I like this phase, but I don’t think I want to go through the sickly-sweet rum phase to get to it.

This was a frimp from the Lab. In the imp: Mandarin and spices. It smells like a delicious spicy cookie or dessert: not at all what I expected, given the name. Wet: Still that spiced orange cookie smell. It’s not a juicy mandarin smell: almost like dried orange peel? In fact, the combination of these notes makes me think of some idealized, old-fashioned pantry: the saffron, tea, cocoa, and those unnamed herbs combine into a dry, sweet blend. Dry: it still smells very edible, though the tobacco and tonka have come out. Also the red musk. To my surprise, the red musk doesn’t intensify as I wear this, which red musk usually does on me. While The Great Sword of War remains a spicy orange cookie scent close to the skin, the throw is like old-fashioned, dry floral soap. It’s not bad, just not what I go for in a perfume. I like this blend and it suits this time of year. I just don’t know how often I would wear it.

This was a frimp from the Lab. In the imp: Leather and hemp. Wet: The leather is strong (much more so than the white leather in Paladin) and it’s balanced by the sharpness from the rosin. Dry: At first this is almost too sharp. It’s definitely masculine. Then it settles down to a rich-smelling leather. When I put my nose right to the back of my hand, I get the sweetness of the hemp.

This was a frimp from the Lab. In the imp: Leather with frankincense around the edges. Wet: Still leather and frankincense. There’s a slight metallic note, a gleam, as it were, from the armor. Dry: I have tried few if any BPAL leather blends before this. I don’t know why, because Paladin is dreamy. It’s soft leather balanced by resiny frankincense. The musk becomes more apparent after a couple of hours. The vanilla appears in the final drydown, by which point Paladin has become soft leather and vanilla. Yum. Paladin is wonderful. Thank you, Lab!

This was a frimp from the Lab. In the imp: Wow. On first sniff this is just what the description suggests: a Victorian parlor. I love historic houses; I volunteer as a tour guide in one in my town, and I visit others whenever I can. The combination of woods, as of carved furniture and paneling, flowers and dried flowers is perfectly evocative of the parlor of a 19th-century house. On second sniff, I get an almost camphor-like note. Wet: Wintergreen? I can’t explain it, but that’s what I smell. Dry: As this dries, I can separate out the flowers. I primarily smell the roses, and then the lilacs, which float above the various woods in the base. Ouija fades away in just a few hours. I would never have picked Ouija on my own, but the flowers are soft and unobtrusive and tempered by the wood notes. I don’t know that I’ll wear it very often, but this one is worth keeping just to sniff from time to time. Thank you, Lab!

Jack isn’t quite what I expected. I only smell the pumpkin in the imp, so it’s really a spiced peach. It makes me think of an autumnal version of Tamora, one of my favorites. I’m also surprised that the clove is so well-behaved here; usually it dominates blends on my skin. Jack is sweet and soft, and like Tamora, it fades pretty quickly, so it needs to be reapplied.

In the bottle: The familiar BPAL leaf note, and something simultaneously musky, aquatic, and slightly salty that must be the ambergris. I’ve never knowingly smelled it before, but I don’t know what else it would be. Wet: same as above, brightened by the red currant. When this first dries, and shortly afterwards, there’s a note I can only describe as celery, odd as that sounds. I think it’s from the combination of the leaf note and the saltiness of the ambergris. Autumn Overlooked My Knitting is one of those blends that smells better to me in the throw than when I put my nose right against my skin. That may be because of the currants; Eat Me, which also contains them, does the same thing on me.

In the bottle: Fougere. Wet: Lemony tea. It’s very like Dorian (which I love,) without the vanilla. I know bourbon vanilla is a note in Venustas, but I don’t smell it at this stage. Dry: I do get a bit of the Lemon Pledge vibe that others have mentioned, but it’s subtle, and I almost always enjoy citrus notes, so that doesn’t bother me. That aspect fades after about half an hour. Venustas fades fairly quickly: after three or four hours, it’s faint, and it has completely vanished by the end of the day. Feminine and sophisticated.

In the bottle: Sweet vanilla. This is the sweetest BPAL vanilla I have smelled; it’s clearly the melted ice cream note. Wet: The same sweet vanilla for a few moments. Then light, subtle spices. Dry: The candle wax and smoke appears on top of the vanilla and spices. This is like a sweeter version of The Lights of Men’s Lives, with the addition of vanilla and spices. Like The Lights of Men’s Lives, (Not So) Penitent (Mini) Magdalene is a very subtle skin scent. There’s virtually no throw. I really like it, and am glad I bought a bottle unsniffed.

For at least the first half hour, this smelled so much like Pumpkin I, which I tested yesterday, that I wondered if my decant had been mislabeled. In particular, I don’t smell the cedar at all, which is strange, because I usually amp cedar. Then, however, the fig made itself known, and Pumpkin III smells like gently spiced pumpkin and fig.

I had expected, from the notes, that this would smell like pumpkin chai; instead, I get pumpkin gingerbread: the sweet, creamy pumpkin mingles with the dry note of allspice and the ginger note. I too was reminded of Gingerbread Snake. This one made me hungry!

In the imp: Dry leaves sweetened by mapley sap. A sweet dustiness. Cut stems or greenery with a short blast of bitterness. As this dries, and I’m moving around, I get a brief burst of fruit, which then subsides. I agree with Bluestblood’s suggestion of blackcurrant or pomegranate, or maybe blackberry. Once dry, for about an hour, Magnificent Autumn smells almost exactly like the Arpege my mother wore when I was growing up. Then a sweet, incensy note emerges. The fruit comes out more on the final drydown. This is very pretty in all its stages, and very soft, as others have noted.