pekeana

Mmmm, this one's gooood with my chemistry... O seems to be a natural extension of my own personal skin scent. It's slightly sweet, slightly amber, no musky sex in a bottle smell for me. It's also slightly floral, which confuzzles me a bit, but with Queen of Sheba on one arm and O on the other, I smell gooooooooood.

I looooooove Severin.

In the imp: Sweet, sweet peach with something deeper and far more intense beneath it. On me: Pure peach syrup -- for about five seconds. Then it goes sour, the patchouli and musk kick in, and I'm running to the sink, trying not to get sick. It lasted less than two minutes on me because I had to wash it off. *sigh*

I'm learning the hard way that most florals don't work on me at all. In the vial: If Cordelia was a color, it would be bright neon lime green. It bites your sinuses back when you take a sniff. On me: Nothing but floral baby powder for about fifteen minutes, then poof! Gone. My skin sucks up the floral and leaves nothing behind.

In the vial: cough syrup! In the very best way, this smells like Robitussin. On me: The cherries go so very sweet and overpower the woods for about 20 minutes. Then the mohogany comes out and tries to temper the cherry, but it's a losing battle. The cherry sticks to the back of my throat and I had to wash it off because my throat was tingling and starting to burn. This sounded like it would be perfect with my crazy chemistry, but it was a disaster waiting to happen. Pity, because I loved it when it wasn't trying to kill me.

In the vial: cranberry, cranberry, sweet & spicy. On me: sweet, sweet, sweet... then the lilies kick in and it all fades to nothing. I never got the musk, ginger, or spice. I'm so disappointed! I really wanted to love this one, as I adore cranberry. But, alas... *siiiiiigh*

... Her scent is a bounty of golden honeyed almonds and a whisper of African and Middle Eastern spices. In the bottle: orangey-almond, spice, sweet. On me: The orange-alond intensifies for the first ten minutes or so, then disappears behind an influx of honey and spice. I really, really, really like this.

So, I've worn this to bed two nights in a row, and I still can't decide if I love it or hate it. *shrugs* In the bottle: Snake Oil screams at me to notice it. I get lemon, anise, kind of a murky musk, and waaaaaaay back in the back, the tiniest hint of a sweet that might be vanilla, but it's way too faint for me to tell. On me: Hour one is horrifically intense. There is no sweet -- no vanilla. It's just spicy, musky, and lemony. It's so strong that it hurts way up in the top of my head. Hour two is still strong, but it's slowly mellowing and the anise and vanilla come out to play a bit. By hour nine or ten, it's mellowed down to a thick amber, vanilla, and anise scent on me. My youngest brother loves it, my mother can't stand it, and I'm left waffling between the two. One minute I adore it, and the next, I can barely stand it. I'm glad I got a 5ml of it, because I can just keep testing it till I figure out if I like it or loathe it.

My nose interprets Dragon's Blood resin as a sweet, sappy floral, for some reason. So in the bottle, Dragon's Milk, to my nose, is a sappy, sugary-sweet floral. On me, the resin takes on an acidic note for the first hour or so, reminiscent of the inside of an overripe melon. So it's milky, sweet, and bittersweet floral. Then the Dragon's Blood vanishes completely and all I'm left with is milky vanilla. It lasts about 4 hours on me, and it's pleasant enough, but I'm not sure I want to smell toothache-inducingly sweet. It just doesn't mesh with my personality.

In the vial: Wow, this one has bite. I get lemon and aloe, with a crispness that must be the tea. On me: In the first five minutes, this smells like expensive furniture polish, then settles down to a sweet lemony crispness that reminds me of Countrytime's Lemonade Iced Tea. But as it continues to settle, the musk and aloe come out more, overshadowing the sweet lemon. It's not something I'd like to smell like every day, but it certainly is invigorating!

In the bottle: Rose, neroli, patchouli. No musk, no teak, no vanilla... It doesn't smell sweet or lemony to me, either. It smells very dark, murky and sensual. On my arm: ROSE. Blinding rose. [My head starts to hurt at this point from the rose.] After 30 minutes: The rose is dying down a little bit, and I can smell the patchouli and teak coming through. After 45 minutes: I spoke too soon. The rose is getting stronger, if that's at all possible and is completely dominating the scent. I can smell the patchouli and teak in the background, screaming, "Smell us!" at the top of their proverbial lungs, but it's so much rose I can barely stand it. After 60 minutes: Well, here comes the vanilla screaming for its turn and I smell rather freakish at the moment -- kind of like my grandma used to a long time ago before she discovered that rose kills her sinuses deader than dead. After 75 minutes: There is nothing but rose now and my head hurts so badly that I'm going to go wash it off now. I can't stand it another moment. My skin likes rose so much that it just kills everything else in a rose blend. Ugh. I had Desire on one arm and Ravenous on the other -- Ravenous is pleasant and sweet now, and my right arm still reeks of rose even though I tried to wash it off. *sigh* I will try it again, though, to make sure this isn't just an odd day out.

In the bottle: I can smell the orange, and I can smell the patchouli both -- the orange is way too sweet and the patchouli is way too strong. On me: Patchouli and sugar. After 15 minutes: There's this almost-acidic-acrid smell like a plastic band-aid coming off of my arm that's completely removed from the patchouli and orange. I'm not sure I like it. After 30 minutes: I smell like a vanilla flower with patchouli. After 60 minutes: The acrid note is back, but with a twist of orange. After 75 minutes: It's very tame patchouli and vanilla flower. Heh. I'm beginning to think that my skin just doesn't like Beth's citrus oils -- but the end result is very sweet and comforting. I'll definitely be trying it again a couple of times before I make any keep it or swap it decisions.

I have crazy, finicky skin and sometimes, what ones last on me don't last well on other people. That being said all of the following had incredible staying power on me: Masabakes Bordello Zephyr Old Morocco Bloodlust Severin Shattered Ones that seem to have middling staying power include: Pele The Hesperides Roadhouse And ones that immediately vanish are: Baobhan Sith Magdalene Seraglio

In the imp: spiced orange juice and smoke. I haven't had any luck so far with BPAL's citrus scents, but I put this on anyway... On me: The orange vanishes, replaced by spicy incense notes and hyper-sweet plumeria. After about an hour or so, the orange is reincarnated as a sweet lemon -- almost like a lemon drop. I'll have to try this one again to make sure what I think I already know... but at this point, I do so love it. It's delicious without being foody. ETA: After three hours, the orange really does come back, but it's more like a dry orange peel than the actual orange segments. I'm not complaining -- this is delicious and it's making me crave orange juice.

In the bottle: Rose and orchid, with a baby powder undertone. On my arm: Orchid, then after about five minute, pure rose -- overpowering pure rose. After six minutes: Floral baby powder. Not unpleasant, but rather -- After six and a half minutes: Completely gone. I liked it when it wasn't baby powder or total rose, but with the staying power for my skin... I don't know what to think. Alas, poor Magdalene, I never got to know thee!

In the imp: Plum, chased with currants and wine. Wet: Big, ripe juicy plums, bursting with juice and begging you to lick it all up. Quite decadent and sexy as the amaretto starts to kick in. Dry-down: *slobber, drool* This is the most incredible scent with my chemistry -- a vanilla tone has crept into the mix and I smell like amaretto cream over stewed plums. End result: I wore this to work, and just before it faded away completely, my body chemistry kicked up a notch and a lemony scent came in behind the rest of it. When we lived in Hawaii, at school, we would buy these lollipops that would have these dessicated, salted plums inside the hard candy. I smelled just like the lemon lollipops I used to buy and hoarde. Sweet! I must have more.

*opens imp* *eyes bug out* *closes imp* This is the first BPAL scent that I absolutely cannot stand. In the imp, it smells like, yes, pig manure. Swap pile.

In the bottle: Floral (wha?), with a hint of darkness. No sign of cinnamon. On my skin: Patchouli. Nothing but patchouli. It took 4 washings to get it off because straight patchouli makes me sick to my stomach. By the time I got it off, I had a small discoloration from the cinnamon, but no itching or burning. My skin likes the patchouli so much that it absorbed everything else -- this is definitely not a good scent for me. I took the imp to work and let some patchouli devotees smell it, and one of them ended up taking it off my hands. I guess some good came from my misfortune, as she's now thinking about making a BPAL order.

I think I might have to see if Pain or something with similar ingredients might help -- my tension headache's receded, but now I'm being stared in the face with the beginnings of a migraine because of the cleaning solution they used in the (not-very-well-venilated) bathroom at work today. *whimper*

Hijack away -- I wouldn't mind finding out about migraine relief, too. Mine tend to last more than the standard couple of days and can get so miserable that I wish someone would just come along and lop off my head with a broadsword already, as it wouldn't hurt as much. Between my left eye twitching, a frozen railroad spike being jammed into the back of my brain, and my entire scalp hurting without even being touched... I just want some relief, and medications tend not to work. Or they'll take the slightest edge off of the ice pick feeling and that's it.

Ahkay -- after the latest round of tornadic thunderstorms this morning [may I just say how much I hate living in Tornado Alley?], I have a horrible tension headache. I was wondering if there were any BPAL oils that might assist in the relieving of a headache of this specific type? I have migraines and sinus headaches, too, but they seem to be centered in different areas of the brain than tension headaches, and tend to need a different relief.

In the bottle: Warm, spicy but not foody, slightly acrid like sun-baked sand. Wet: Very spicy, and the acrid note is melding with my skin. Dry: It's spicy and sexy, slightly masculine, but with a hint of vanilla beneath the hot spice. The acrid note it still there, but it's just fueling the rest of it, making it smell like I wallowed in spice and went to go sunbathe. This is the scent of an African market on the edge of the desert -- everything's sunburnt and hot, with all of the smells blending together and becoming the early evening. I love this one, and can't wait to get more!

In the bottle -- Zephyr is floral and musk, with a high astringent note that almost hits the cool stinging feel of denatured alcohol. On my skin -- wow, the musk is all there, with some floral slowly creeping up and making itself known. The almost-alcohol scent is there, stinging around the edges though. Dry -- there's a sweet vanilla and lemon scent trying to overpower the almost-alcohol smell, and the musk is taking a back seat to... Call me crazy, but I smell like a spiced orchid. I like this, but I'm not sure if it's going to work well for me. That almost-alcohol scent is really kind of turning me off. Obviously, my body chemistry is strange. ETA: Ouch. This oil lasted 30+ hours on my skin. It faded into nothing but musk, and I tried to wash it off with everything from fels-naptha soap to an alcohol-laden cotton ball. Nothing got it off, and I had to wait till it wore off in order to apply another oil. I lost count at 30 hours, but it was still going strong.

When my order came, Beth had put an extra imp of Severin in it -- and it leaked just a tiny bit in the box. When I realized what it was, I was sad about the precious leaking -- understandably. In the bottle: tea and a sweet, not quite dry leather. On my fingertips: Wet, warm leather with a touch of lemon. Dried: Tea leaves and leather. I like it, I love it, but not on me -- on a nice, manly guy who likes leather jackets and driving in a convertible with the top down. *shifty eyes* I'm sending this to a guy I know who will appreciate it. Utterly delicious!

In the imp: Shattered is a very conflicted, almost painfully manic smell to my brain. It smells like what I'd imagine my brain to be like on overload, only painfully cold like ice. On me: The mint is sharp and biting, but with a bubbly fizz to it that has to be the champagne notes poking through. It's cold, but starts to warm up as the lotus bubbles up beneath the rest of it. Completely dry: I smell like... well... you know that Bubble Yum strawberry-banana flavor they had in the late 80's? Like that. And the cold of the mint wore off very quickly, and the rest of it made my arm heat up. Very strange. I like it, I really do, but I don't think it's quite me -- or maybe the manic beginning hits too close to home to wear this as a perfume.