noumenon

You could have an exceptionally sensitive nose, of course - do you have this reaction to other scented products? Or foods that you buy all the time that taste different from batch to another? I suspect that bottles are made to order, so tend to be exceptionally fresh, whereas imps are made with runoff from bottle orders, so they can sit at the Lab for a while before they are sent out. Since you never know how long an imp sat, it's impossible to match it up to a bottle of the same vintage - especially for a sensitive nose that's picking up such differences in the first place. My nose is average at best, so while I can tell differences between my bottles of Red Lantern - which I picked up used from forum members - and the Lab version I got last year, I can't tell any difference between my four bottles of Banded Sea Snake, all of which came from the Lab at different times in the past two years. So I'm probably experiencing everything very different from you anyway...

Look, you've already read through 9 pages of posts saying it smells like butterscotch; why are you still reading? I have one thing to add that only half the people above me have pointed out already: it's so much like the background notes of Red Lantern, without the opium and asian spices. It's so awesome. It's like Red Lantern deconstructed!!! Love it!

I love the idea of Bewitched - all those berries! I adore berries! And I can't think of a nicer scent to wear! But Bewitched goes through a difficult soap phase just as it starts to dry down and warm up. I think it's the sage, which I've always been wary of in perfume. Now the sage has mellowed after about 30 minutes. The berries re-emerge, but they are weak and watery compared to when I first put them on. It does waft prettily up to my nose, however. I think I was hoping for something hearty and overpowering so I could just hide myself behind a cloud of berries. But this is actually a light, gentle scent instead. I have to check my disappointment and realize it still smells like heavenly berries and doesn't vanish on my skin like Vinland used to do!!!

I am guilty of taking the general catalog for granted while I chase rare LEs and marvel at the new moons. I was just frimped Carnal by the Trading Post and now suddenly I wonder how many other better-than-LEs there are lurking in the catalog that I've been missing all these years!!! Carnal is foody heaven! That mandarin is sweet and desserty, the fig is spicy and warm. Together they are really amazing. It's summer here, and hot, and I love smelling this in this weather, because the sweetness really cancels out the putrid air on the streets and makes me feel less wilted. In Autumn, I bet this will really come into its element. But I refuse to wait that long to start bathing in this. I need a bottle of it, now!!!

i think at some point in the past it must have meant "I will call on you" or something like it, back when people talked fancy. Dates of future Will Calls are posted in the About The Lab link on the web site. A very comprehensive announcement is made every month, about 10 days before the events, in the BPAL Announcement thread here on the forum. Here was last month's. You can subscribe to the BPAL Announcement forum, and then you get a note in your email inbox every time someone posts something there. It's a great way to get caught up on everything the Lab is doing. Hershey, Pa's Shelldoo is an authorized re-seller who has every bottle the Lab sells in stock, including all the current LEs. It's a hell of a sight walking into her awesome, goth-decor nail salon and seeing so much BPAL in one place. It's a warm, friendly welcoming place where new people will definitely have a good time. If you can come, you should! The Saturday Will Call in August will probably be a fun one, because so many more people can come on weekends. Also, the bottles are on sale every day in Hershey, so ifyou can get there even when there isn't a will call, you can buy BPAL there. The Lab, though, only opens once per month to the public, and is closed the rest of the time. Threads to check out (there are archive versions, but these are the current ones you can post in): BPAL Will Call Thread (West Coast) Edition East Coast Will Call Also, everyone should read SueDonym's amazing post in What Should I expect at Will Call? In the Faq Forum.

I just tried this on again after a few months of being captivated by newer scents. Leo had me drooling at Will Call back when it was new and it's got me purring now. The amber is candy like, very much like the kind I think they use in L'Estate, and the gentle saffron gives it a maturity that makes me feel like I'm wearing something a little more sophisticated than toffee. I can't specifically pick up the nuttiness that comes from the walnut bark, but the frankinsence does give it a delectable orangey undertone, just like in Sol Invictus. I still love this one!

I hated this one so much when I first got it I didn't even dare review it. But it's been 8 months now, and the scent has changed a lot. Now it smells like a botanical greenhouse - hot and sweet with huge white flowers. When it's wet, something barnlike overwhelms me at first (I think it might be the blue musk, which I've decided disagrees with me strongly), but it fades in minutes and then the floral scent remains. It's a lot like Kindly Moon on drydown, which I always liked in the summmertime.

This is a whole lotta honey! The other notes definitely don't jump out at me individually, though I get a few whiffs of nutmeg and clove early on. They just add a deep seasoning to the honey in the foreground. I've had it on for six hours now and it's still going strong, and wafting according to people nearby!

I missed Underpants, and I've had a horrible time trying to get my hands on some to try, so here I am, two years into my obsession with BPAL (two and a half years since they released it) and I finally have my very own bottle to slather. First impressions: OH! I SEE. Deliciousness. Tawny, warm and sweet. I feel sexy and innocent at the same time. My mom adores it, but she can't remember its real name (or thinks the real name is unsayable because she's like that) so she tells me, "I can still smell that Smartypants on you. It's great!" I've heard that saffron is a popular ingredient in mainstream perfumes, too, so maybe that's why this is such a grown-up scent even though it's got such a childlike genesis. It's worth the trouble! Though it's not great for this hot weather - it kind of cooked off my skin after two hours because it was 95 degrees and I wasn't driving with the AC on. It's still going to be one of my top ten scents, as cliche as that makes me.

My bottle has aged a little bit, so I tried it again last night. The citrus is still cheery and powerful - the throw is amazing. I just put a little on my left wrist to try and scented my whole room as I went to sleep! During the wet stage it has a worrying dustiness that I wouldn't have liked if it had stayed around, but once it warms up, the dustiness is gone and it's happy citrus and juiciness, very much like 51, though no melon note like that one has. Great summer scent with no drawbacks once that dusty note fades on warmup!

After the longest dry spell of my life, I finally have a new crush. He is having some serious trouble though - he got as far as asking me over email which movie I think will do better at the box office (Iron Man or Made of Honor) but never quite managed to ask me out. So I've been thinking of scents I can wear next time I see him, and Defututa just leapt out at me. It's really new (just came out at Valentine's Day), but has anyone tried it when in proximity to a boy? In case you need a reminder: DEFUTUTA Good Gods, what a night that was, The bed was so soft, and how we clung, Burning together, lying this way and that, Our uncontrollable passions Flowing through our mouths. If I could only die that way, I'd say goodbye to the business of living. Olive blossom, honey, smoky vanilla, cinnamon, jasmine, sandalwood, and champaca flower. I just schmeared some on myself and...kept schmearing it all over me until I only had half an imp left. So, um, if someone was trying to seduce ME this is definitely what I'd recommend...but boys...?

This has such a rich, warm scent! There's a deep, almost chocolatey sweetness in the background that makes the very prominent jasmine take on a different character than it usually has - its deeper and doesn't tickle my nose like usual. The jasmine burned off within an hour and now it's all honey and fig and apricot. I love this!

You gotta wear Tiresias, or it'll wear you. When I wore Tiresias out to the movies today, its scent coiled around me like a serpent - tendrils of caramel delivering deep, dark spices to everyone within five feet of me. My brother sniffed me and said, "I really want some chai tea now." It's the olfactory equivalent of a low cut top, a skirt that rides up on its own accord, and four-inch, patent-leather heels. It's hot. And on a sticky southern day in August, it's too hot to handle. It's also completely addictive. I'm going to have to hide the bottle from myself to keep from wearing it to work tomorrow.

This is so freaking amazing! I know a lot of people don't like it, and when I first put it on, the pine was so strong I almost washed it off. But the strong pine ebbs into the sweet, softer pine of Dublin, and then the berries come out. I adore this. It's so funny: it was a frimp that came from the Trading Post with my ebay auction purchase for Ecstacy True Love, but I like the Yew Trees frimp better than the bottle it came with. Makes me miss Dublin a lot less. I'm serious - this fills the hole Dublin's DC left in my heart (er, nose...)

I confess when I got my bottle from the Lab (and when I sniffed a bottle at Will Call in June) the scent in the bottle reeked of rotten vegetables. I banished it to the back of my bpal box without trying it. But Cupide430 had bravely put it on her arm at Will Call and let me huff two hours later and it smelled delicate, sweet and floral. But I kinda suspected, given the fumes coming from the bottle, that maybe Cupide430 just smells that way naturally. Now, less than a month later, Allison Gross has already grown up a little. The rotten vegetable smell is gone when I twist off the cap - now it's a more respectable "green" smell, like the herbs and grass notes others have mentioned above. But on...it's divine. I am not kidding. It's a completely different scent now. The sunflower is the scent I recognize the most, but I think the other flowers are blending together into a sweet, soft floral bouquet. It smells a lot like the fragrance in Pantene Shampoo, actually.

Going on 24 hours now and I can still smell 13. Which freaks me out because I tested it on the back of my hand and I've washed my hands countless times since then (and taken a shower). I think I'm going to smell like it for the rest of my life! At least it smells good. After the WOAH CHOCOLATE wet phase, it turns into a more complex scent, with clove, ginger, something orange-peel-like and the chocolate all working together. It reminds me a lot of Mexican Drinking Chocolate. Just like my nose can easily separate the cocoa note from the Snake Oil in Boomslang, 13 also gives me the feeling of wearing a completely self-contained perfume layered with a chocolate note. I think people who like Boomslang would like this a lot, too, because they're so similar. The chocolate note is different from the one in Boomslang, and the underlying perfume is different from Snake Oil, but they are definitely related conceptually.

From the decant I received, it's a perfect clone of Shub. Maybe my decanter ran out of the real stuff and substituted Shub thinking no one would no the difference, or maybe she didn't want me to start craving a scent that doesn't exist anymore. Or maybe Hod just smells exactly like Shub. Whatever the reason, I'm so thrilled there's a delicious, sweet, gingery, strong, playful scent just like Hod.

I adore Roadhouse! It's almost single-note Dandelion on me, with a faint, hay-like trace of hops in the background. The Dandelions are bright and cheerful. The whole scent is floral sweetness. It's very girly and very pretty!! I'm a little scared from reading reviews that maybe other people can smell tobacco and booze on me and I smell like went out drinking before coming in to work, but other than that vague fear, it's one of my Top 10 scents.

SueDonym, I never saw this AMAZING post of yours before, but now that I'm about to go to my first Will Call on the East Coast, you taught me so much! I've always looked out for your Will Call reviews - you're so thorough and thoughtful about trying to give all of us far-flungs a sense of what it's like to be there. The funny thing is, I remember when you hadn't been to one before and you were asking questions about what it would be like. You're so awesome to help other people catch up to where you are now.

You're not going to believe this, but there are chill waters in here! There was a note in Numb and Bed of Nails that veered way off into harsh metallic on me, but in Selkie, it holds steady, an intriguing scent that reminds me most of fog wafting over the salty sea. In the bottle, Selkie is juicy and sweet, like Xanthe with its bubblegum guava note, but wet on the skin, there's a very cheerful fresh-mowed grass scent tinged with something a little like lemon. The the sea aster and primrose don't make it floral at all on me - they just lighten it up and cut the saltiness. More than anything, I wish it kept smelling like it does when it's wet. It's not to be believed. After the wet phase it becomes a close skin scent without much sweetness. I really love it.

Ditto fountaingirl's review right above mine. The Unheavenly City is the first scent that ever truly morphed on me - and each phase left me very, very happy. The weather here was mild today, so the bottle had been warming in my mailbox all afternoon before I snatched it up. I think the warmth of the oil just made that first lush burst of gardenia and magnolia even more sultry. Many of Beth's perfumes have those flowers in them, but they often get buried in other things, or cancel themselves out into just a generic floral scent. Here, I think Unheavenly City does for gardenias what Rose Red does for roses. I can all but feel their blooms ticking my nose as I sniff the air around me! I know there's supposed to be rose in here somewhere, which doesn't work well on me no matter how hard I try to like it, but I don't pick it up at all. The red musk is such an odd combination with gardenia. It's giving the scent its spicyness, and giving the perfume more depth. Most floral perfumes, while pretty, vanish quickly and stay fairly one-dimensional, but the musk here anchors the whole scent to my skin. I pick it up almost immediately out of the bottle, but then it really comes into its own about an hour after I put it on. I got the soapy phase for a few minutes but the gardenias and musk were still shining through. And then when the rest of it burns off and the perfume is no longer throwing itself around the room, the flowers vanish and the musk softens and the remaining scent is pure vanilla sugar. It's worth the wait!

I love the message behind the Pruno and Privilege update, but I also understand where people are coming from who think it's cruel to stomp on someone when they're down, no matter who they are. Paris - for all her privilege, beauty and relatively middling wealth - has had been treated horribly by the public. First, a con artist stole all the data from her ubiquitous cell phone, posted it on the internet, and then crowed about how he pulled it off. Then her ex-boyfriend sold one of their sex tapes. Then salvagers bought the contents of her storage locker and posted everything they found - from her Social Security card to deeply personal medical records - online. People won't let her get away with being famous-just-for-being-famous. Whether she likes it or not people are determined to make her entertain them - however cruelly - in exhange for her fame. But then there's Paris herself. When the sex tape came out, she tried to smother it by telling Page Six that Rick Solomon had raped her. And her drunk driving charge and suspended license arrest afterwards is truly the height of arrogance - from the way she tarted up her courtroom outfits for the benefit of the cameras outside to the fact that she more than almost anyone on the planet can arrange alternate means of transportation. She just chose to drive like it's the role of everyone else on the street to jump out of her way. And she never seems to let anyone forget that she is a bigot.

Sweet mother of god! It's Mme Moriarty without the harsh, itchy patchouli note. And it's got that coconut note marinating in red oils that reminds me so much of Red Lantern. It's what I wish Moriarty smelled like whenever I wear it, which is often, because even with the patch it smells awesome. And it's what I wish Red Lantern was like if only I could just dial down that wonderful opium a teeensy bit. WHY wasn't I around when Carnaval Noir was out? Life is so unfair.

I'm going to trust Shelldoo and assume that's hyssop I'm smelling. It's bright and clear and sweet, and I can definitely pick up the pomegranate as well. Very summery, a little "perfumey" but mostly the iris, hyssop and pomegranate are in charge. Now that I've had it on for over an hour, the other scents have burned off and I can smell the ghost of patchouli right at skin level. Of all the Salon scents I've tried, I like Madonna the most. The others have often seemed dull or muted (that Cala Lily from Bat-Woman and Monna Vanna, for instance), but this one is much more cheerful and sauncy.

Last night I finally did something I never even allowed myself to fantasize about before, lest I go mad from frustration and avarice. I grabbed a bottle of Blue Moon, wrenched off the cap, and schmeared it all over myself. I feel reckless, like someone who lives beyond her means and is about to face a reckoning. What kind of fool slathers Blue Moon? You might as well use crushed Beluga caviar as a facial moisturizer. But while the bottle is still new, and before it vanishes forever from the web site, I feel like a spoiled princess who doesn't know the value of a dollar and never heard the words "You can't have anymore." Who cares about the scarcity of silk or palace intrigue or how I'm going to persuade my father to let me marry that dashing prince I danced with at the ball when every cue from my nose suggests I'm floating on my back in cool, blue water. There are flowers in the distance, gathered at the edges of the natural pool I'm floating in. They've got white blossoms and tangy nectar, like the ones I also smelled when I was under the spells of White Moon and Kindly Moon last year. Overhead, cypress and juniper branches are shading the pool and dipping their branches like fingers into the water. And I think I must have eaten cucumbers at tea time - warm ones that had been ripening in the sun up until the moment Cook sliced them and served then in finger sandwiches with a steaming pot of green tea. And as I float on my back in the cool, blue water, shaded by trees bowing their branches to me from the edge of the pool, my nose tickled by the white blossoms, I suddenly think of all the poor girls around the world who are only pretending to be me, and will soon snap back to attention in their classrooms or look up from the dishes in the sink when their mothers call, and disappear. While I keep floating in my cool, blue water, the taste of cucumbers forever on my tongue.