forspecial_plate

St Germain seems very dry to me, if I'm using the word correctly. In fact it makes me thirsty. As far as notes, I think I'm getting mostly the mosses and amber. It has a savory herbal feel to me which maybe is the lavender, or just the whole thing together. It smells sun baked...that's the term that kept coming to mind. Am I the only one who is reminded strongly of Scarecrow? That one also made me want a glass of ice water, in the same way. Oh yeah and I almost forgot....when I first put it on, I smelled black musk in there for some reason...but that didn't last. Bottom line, just not something I feel like coming back to.

I have 2 imps of Dragon's Milk that are completely different. One is decanted and bright red in color, and smells very subtle, faint, in fact when I wear it it's 'barely there'. The other is a frimp fresh from the lab, sent very recently, pale orange in color, and much more potent in scent. Seems like the opposite of the aging effect...the newer one is much more powerful. *shrugs*

This starts out rather cloying on me, and too.....I know this is lame, but 'perfumey' is the most fitting word I can come up with. I think it's the combination of everything that's just too much for me. To its credit, it is very well blended as I can't pick out individual notes. And the violet isn't out of control as I feared it would be. Later, after an hour or two, it has mostly vanished (I know my skin is dry today), leaving behind......cake? What the hell? I think it's the amber and/or musk but it's undeniably smelling sugary and foody on me now. Not a lot of throw, it's a very close-to-the-skin vanilla cake-y smell. How strange. I might try this again just to see what other tricks it plays on me. But eventually I'll be swapping it most likely.

Myrrh sort of confuses me. I worked in a health food store where we had actual myrrh in a big jar, in the bulk herbs section. I like how that smells. Then we had myrrh essential oil, and I like that smell too, but it smelled sort of different. Then there is myrrh in Bpal which I have yet to really recognize on its own. I would love to get a hold of a Bpal myrrh single note just to educate my nose. : D ETA: I did a search on the Bpal site for myrrh, and out of the 35 results, I've only tried 5 of them. So I do need to try more different blends.....(not to mention there are probably a few with notes not listed that contain myrrh).

...and I read your review and added it to my wish list! : D

Kumiho starts out with a sparkly ginger and citrus scent, sweet and fresh smelling. Reminds me very much of the ginger in Sudha Segara, which is kind of sparkly and bubbly to my nose. The citrus vanishes within about 15 minutes, and then the whole thing starts to turn too sweet. Once again, I'm not sure I'm 'getting' the tea note, unless that's what the citrus was. I'm not giving up on Beth's ginger, I have high hopes for Two Monsters, Count Dracula, and Dr Seward. Kumiho just doesn't work for me, though. I think it would smell great on a lady and this will go into the 'for mom' pile.

I love citrus, and this starts out mostly citrus for me. At first it's all sweet orange and bergamot. If I concentrate I get a little bit of mint in there. It stays very citrus for a good while, like at least an hour. Then as it dries I start to pick up on the herbal aspect....verbena, thyme, maybe the lavender a little bit. Average throw and lasting power. Never did I smell any almond which is strange....maybe it just blended with or was overpowered by the citrus. I do like this, but not sure I like it enough to keep, with so many other Bpal oils that I like more. If I'm ever in the mood for a bright fresh citrus I'll turn to Calliope.

I bet Aureus ages really well too....I really need to pick up a 5ml of that! : )

Wow...on my second try I pretty much found a new favorite with The Scales of Deprivation. It seems to hit all my buttons in the right ways. All the notes contribute to the scent as a whole, and are beautifully balanced and blended in harmony. It's exactly the right combination of sweet and dry, resins and herbs...I just love it. It's complex but also sort of subdued, and makes me feel very sexy. The first thing I notice is the sweetness of the resins, which aren't TOO sweet, a problem I've had with resin scents lately. But not here. The herbs, lavender, and lemon peel float in the background, keeping it from becoming too sticky, adding a refreshing element. As it dries, it gains a savory quality, due to the sage I think. And the sandalwood is there all along. Sometimes sandalwood is too strong on me but here it is perfect. The first time I wore this the sandalwood was a little iffy...but the second time it worked really well for me. I hope it behaves! Definitely going on my 5ml bottle list.

Hmm...I don't see that anyone has mentioned The Scales of Deprivation yet. I just tried it a second time and I'm liking it a lot. "Thin, dark, and shadowed. A scent that offers no sustenance, comfort or satiety: lemon peel, white sage, frankincense, lavender fougere, sandalwood, vetiver and labdanum." If I remember correctly the first time I tried it, the sandalwood came out and took over on dry-down. Sandalwood is funny on me so it kind of turned me off. Right now I'm getting lots of resin from it, though. It's sexy and complex because I can pretty much pick out all or most of the notes. This is a good one! I just hope the sandalwood behaves this time....

Sweet and smokey, just as I had anticipated. Somehow I thought I would like it more though. It's not a bad smell. I smell lavender and the blackened sandalwood, mostly. I guess I'm picking up the nag champa too, because it smells pretty sweet to me. Something about the combination is just not doing it for me. Maybe I just don't like incense blends as much as I thought! I won't give up though.

At first Midnight Mass is pretty strong frankincense and myrrh. As it dries, I get flashes of 'lit' incense. Out of nowhere it smells like burning, lit incense, and then it goes back to basic frankincense and myrrh, and back and forth. It's the strangest thing. Also I think I smell just a little bit of cedar in it, but that comes and goes too. Still it's just a little bit more sweet than what I wanted. If it comes up in the Yule scents this year, I will probably pick some up. Otherwise I doubt I will seek an older bottle of it, unless the mood really strikes me.

Hmmm....this sounded like a fun scent. However, when I put it on I could barely smell anything at all. Warming up on my skin, it did put out a little bit of nice, fresh sweetness... but it's barely there at all. I have to put my nose right up to my wrist to smell it. Wonder what gives. It's possible my skin is just really dry today, so I may try this one more time, another day...or might just swap it! ETA: After a couple hours, the throw has increased, so it's detectable now...unless my nose just opened up or something. It's still so subtle as to be not worth it for me to hold onto though, I think.

I too am on a quest for the perfect incense/resin blend. So far I've found I like the drier ones better, like Aureus, and Djinn if you want to count that as smelling like incense (more people think of it as just straight up smoke and fire, based on reviews....). I do like Midnight Mass and Pit and the Pendulum, although both were a lot sweeter than what I was hoping for. Midnight Mass has the interesting feature of suddenly smelling 'lit' as it dries. This comes and goes. It's so weird. It's like....sweet and resinous, then boom, it's lit and burning incense, then back to sweet resins. Pretty neat, actually. I hope it's brought back in Yule scents this year. I had high hopes for Gaueko but it just didn't toot my horn unfortunately. Add me to the list of Caterpillar=jasmine with little or no incense, at least not until it dries a lot.

Dang...on me this is all floral (jasmine?). Where is all the good stuff everyone else is getting? I'd be happy for some earth and incense. Moss? Nope. Nothing and I mean nothing but sweet, deep flowers. Reminds me of jasmine with a hint of rose or some other flower. Don't get me wrong it smells good, just not my thing usually. This is better off with someone else.

whoa. Where's all the cedar coming from? Or is that just patchouli, tricking my nostrils? Mostly cedar, at first, with a little sweet resin in the background. There's also a lot of green in here, as it warms and dries....green, earthy, moist...kind of 'dank', but totally not in a bad way. It's a cool, dim forest with leaves underfoot turning to mulch....and sweet wood smoke in the air, from a distance. Sort of like what I really wanted from Black Forest, actually, without the dreaded juniper. The cedar and smoke are reminding me of Aureus. Hey...now I'm getting coconut too! I wonder if the copal is adding a sweet coconut feel to this. I really like this, it's kind of hard to pin down as far as describing it. I can definitely say it's turning sweeter as it dries. edit: I'm kind of dissatisfied with this review. I will think about it some more and maybe revise it...it's a nice scent and really reminds me of Aureus.

First Brimstone blasted me with eucalyptus. Then that disappeared...*poof*...and it became Djinn's twin. This makes me nervous. Djinn is my first bpal true love, and still my favorite of all bpal's oils. 'What if I like this more than Djinn?'. Worry. I mean, they are almost identical on me. However....I start to detect little differences. Where Djinn is fiery red/orange, Brimstone is more grey/green. And Brimstone is stronger. Actually it's getting stronger as it warms up...not fading yet (I've only had it on a half hour or so). As it dries, the eucalyptus is coming back. And I agree with the person who said there's a coldness here. Overall, I would say this just barely crosses the line and becomes too harsh for me. It has a very sinus-clearing quality. Somehow, even though Brimstone and Djinn are so alike, Djinn is more my speed.

Nefertiti is rich and sweet, but smooth and deep, too. At first I thought maybe there was some jasmine in here but maybe not (I guess that's iris). I think what I'm mostly getting is olibanum and myrrh, because it does smell sweet and resin-y. Which is a good thing. I was a little wary because sometimes sandalwood goes nuts on my skin. It can become overpowering and takes on a weird almost buttery feeling. But so far the sandalwood is behaving. This is a sexy scent!

Right away this reminded me of Goneril....sweet floral with a dry woodsy note mixed in. It contains some notes that I reallywant to like: ginger and fig, tonka....but what I'm getting is overwhelming, high pitched floral. I can sense the other notes but as a whole it kind of screeches on me. I didn't let it dry down....even if it turns into something nicer later, I don't think I could get past the initial wet stage. It's not rose rubbing me the wrong way, but it could be the cyclamen. Or maybe the mixture of the two.

Jezirat Al Tennyn is very unusual. Out of the bottle, and wet on my skin, it's sharp, earthy, and sort of....'zingy', maybe. I see (or smell) where people are getting a eucalyptus feel, but to me it's not quite the same. It has that quality though. Also, it's more like electricity than fire, to my nose. I finally decided that it reminded me of Demeter's Thunderstorm. This doesn't last very long, though...as it dries, a spicy sweetness emerges that reminds me a lot of Dragon's Blood. It pretty much overpowers the sharpness within 10 or 15 minute, and becomes a warm spicy floral with a humid feel to it. Every now and then I get more flashes of the weird (but exciting) sharp note, whatever it is. I do like this, perhaps not enough to buy a larger bottle. I know I'll try it at least once more just to see if anything different happens.

Black musk turns a little bit powdery on me. And something in Black Phoenix is very powdery (the notes aren't listed so I don't know what it is). But powdery doesn't bother me so much. I still like Mad Hatter even though the black musk is a little powdery on me. It could be musk, but keep in mind all the different musks there are in Beth's blends will behave differently on anyone's skin. I have found that the white musk in F5 works really well on me. So I guess it's just a matter of experimenting and finding out what works for you!

Add me to the list of fans....this really is yummy. I love the subtlety...everything is blended so well, the notes sort of swirl around and make themselves known seperately, while still being balanced and blended in a beautiful way, if that makes any sense at all. I can pick out the mint and lime peel, and later on the musk also. White musk must be close to my own natural smell because hours later, I can tell there's still some scent there, but it's very close to my own skin's scent. Moderate throw and lasting power, it lasts a good 3 or 4 hours....I love how the mint is detectable in the throw, but it doesn't scream 'MINT!!'. I would love to get a hold of some tea single notes because I can never pick out tea notes in bpal scents. I do think I'm picking up on the seaspray though, there is a sort of bracing salty quality that I love in F5. Just a great scent and something that is so subtle, I feel comfortable wearing just a little bit to work (usually I don't wear bpal at work). I think my mom would like this too, if I can bear to part with an imp of it for her!! : D ETA...Big thanks to Beth, for making this available to us! edited again, to add...I wore this to work and it lasted a full eight hours on me...very subtle but still definitely there when I clocked out....great lasting power! Or maybe my skin was just exceptionally moisturized that day. : D

I've been wanting to try these: CARNAL Bold, bright mandarin paired with the sweet, sensual earthiness of fig. HUNGER Evokes sheer, unadulterated carnal lust. An undeniably warm and sensual scent. Black narcissus, orange blossoms, and vanilla. ....both sound delicious, and such names! : )

I too am in search of the perfect church-incense scent. My ex bf turned me on to Demeter Holy Smoke, and I'd like to find a similar bpal. On to the review... The first thing I notice about the Pit and the Pendulum is that it's much sweeter than I was expecting, having read the reviews. This is sweet enough to remind me of a dessert food or maple syrup. I think that's frankincense. Then as it settles in, I'm starting to get cedar (which I love). Up close I can smell the cedar, and the dry dustiness mentioned in other reviews. It is like a sweeter Aureus. Have I mentioned that I love it? : ) It lasts a long time, and the sweetness does almost become cloying. It's not every day that I'm in the mood to wear this. I can't imagine Al Azif being much sweeter but apparently it is. I'm still not sure I'll be seeking out a 5ml of this one, but I might. [edit: I just want to say, 8 months later, that I did get a whole bottle of this, and it's a really great woody blend. It's not as sweet as I seemed to think it was here. It's a great part of my collection....woody and smokey, sort of sweet but not cloying at all.]

This is mostly coconut and mint at first. On my skin some of the other notes (maybe the vanilla? the cocoa?) work with the coconut to bring out an unfortunate melting plastic smell. And the coconut is so strong on me that it ends up smelling like mint-tinged suntan oil. If I don't smell it up close, there is a very pleasant waft of sweet minty coconut. But if I bring my wrist up close to my nose.....melting plastic. : ( As it dries it does mellow out and I start to smell the other notes in the background, like the cocoa and vanilla. Not sure I really ever smelled the rum. I'll try it once more but I'm pretty sure it's just not for me. That's okay though, because I got to smell it and now there is one less LE bottle for me to seek out. : ) Hopefully my pending bottle of Creepy works out a lot better!