Electra

Just on -- hellooooo, evergreen! That is a SUMMER forest, thankyouverymuch. All the other BPAL pine blends that I've tried have smelled quite wintry, but this one is juicy and alive. Drydown -- hot damn, the pine is all gone and now that's campfire smoke! Awesome! I don't think I'd actually wear this as a perfume, but it has got to be the coolest blend I've ever tested. It is SO perfect for the painting. Brava.

Straight from the imp -- yep, I see the comparisons to Miskatonic. I'm surprised it's so sweet -- it smells like butterscotch coffee. On me -- the sweetness disappears, and now it's not foody or gourmand at all. Pinched With Four Aces has turned into Miskatonic's dark, dark (did I mention dark?), spicy, brooding cousin. This is an absolute winner on me.

I never really get any apple or lime. What I get is a minty aquatic that bears some kinship to Usher -- a scent that I really enjoy -- but unfortunately veers too far into the Doublemint gum category for me to really enjoy.

Oh god. This is simply foul on me. No, really. It's awful. Aquatics are usually my scent family. I love them, they love me back. Olokun was a smash hit for me. I love Thalassa. I love Storm Moon. Many of my favorite non-BPAL perfumes are aquatics. But...this one smells like BO on me. I think it's the grapefruit that I sniffed in the imp. Grapefruit turns musty on me. Whatever it is, it does NOT agree with my chemistry. Gah.

51 is probably the most commercial-smelling BPAL I've ever tried, and I've tried a lot of blends. This would be a good non-scary starter blend for someone with mainstream tastes who you're just introducing to BPAL. It's pretty much what everyone else has said it is -- vaguely fruity-floral without really being either fruity or floral. Light and glowing. The "color" of the scent is an ethereal light green. It's pretty boring on my skin, actually -- but not at all offensive, and I certainly wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to someone. One point in its favor is that the lasting power is *incredible.* I applied 51 to my right wrist at 7:30 this morning. 15 hours later and after a morning shower (during which I specifically scrubbed down my wrist) and post-shower application of Dublin, I can still smell 51 clear as day on my wrist, even though Dublin is long gone. Wow.

I smell like pencils. If there isn't cedar in this, I'll eat my hat. Unfortunately, cedar is one of the notes that I amp to screaming, deafening levels, so that's the only thing I smell.

Well, that sure didn't work out. Bottle -- whoa, that's definitely Thin Mints! Cool. It's like Spooky sans coconut -- which is promising, because the coconut is what ruined Spooky for me. Mouthwatering. On me, wet -- hmm, not nearly as nice as in the bottle. It's getting thinner and flatter. Drydown -- ...and my skin has turned Tokyo Stomp into Snow White. Don't ask me. I don't get it either. But it turned into Snow White. Now, I like Snow White. I have two bottles of it. But two bottles is more than enough, and I wanted vanilla mint. Snow White is not vanilla mint. (Thin Mints aren't vanilla mint either, but I liked the bottle scent and would have been down with it staying like that.) Drat. Maybe it'll be better in a scent locket. 5/6/07 -- updating my review because I'm wearing it in a locket today. The scent stays much more true in the locket than it does on my skin, but it's just too buttery for me. I can smell something that I really like a lot behind the butter, but the buttery top notes are too much for me to deal with.

Heh. Nope. I upend the bottle once against each wrist, then apply wrists to opposing inner elbows.

I can't wear BPAL jasmine and have never had a problem with Dove's Heart. FWIW.

Two links to get you started: Twilight Alchemy Lab recommendation thread here. Dove's Heart review thread here -- at least some of the reviews talk about using the oil for its intended purpose, rather than just the scent. I'm sorry you're having a hard time

I agree with Andra -- I'd stay far, far away from the foody scents. Also, nothing overly sweet. I get massages once a month, and if my therapist used a foody or sweet scent to scent the room or to massage me, I'd either have to ask them to use something else or start looking for a new therapist. Fruity also wouldn't work for me. Light green/herbal scents are nice. Maybe something like Dublin? I also agree that Shanghai is fresh, clean, and inoffensive. So is Sudha Segara. Safari (Panacea blend) is a gorgeous deep, round lavender. For people who like lavender, it would be great. If they didn't like lavender, they might find it a bit much. Quietude is a softer lavender blended with something citrusy (I think maybe lemon balm).

I'm so sad about this one. I was really excited about it, but it turned to dryer sheet on me. Aquatic dryer sheet, but dryer sheet nonetheless. I don't know what note my skin disliked. I usually do so well with Spanish moss blends. Boo .

I do that too, and that way I let CCNow figure out the shipping for me. I'm far too lazy to add everything up on my own .

My experience with London was the same as that of a lot of other reviewers. I love the concept, but the scent as it wore on my skin didn't match the concept. It's not a bad scent on me, per se, but unfortunately it's a very strong tea rose soliflore and I don't really care for tea rose. I didn't get any of the "blackened" or "emboldened" or "wickedness," just bright tea rose. (And then it turned into a dryer sheet, but roses tend to do that on me.)

I haven't tried it myself, but "fresh and woody with a hint of fruit" sounds an awful lot like the reviews of 51 that people have been writing.

A lot of people have noted a similarity between Eat Me and Snake Charmer, though you'd never guess it from looking at the description of Eat Me. I tried an imp of Eat Me based on those comparisons, and it actually did smell like a lighter daytime version of Snake Charmer on me.

Mr. Ibis is very a light scent, and a very clean one. It somehow gives the sense of being watery, but it's not an aquatic. I understand why people are saying "clean linen" -- if my linens had been washed in a laundry soap that smelled slightly powdery and slightly vanillic, this is what they would smell like. "Clean linens" are not the first thing that this scent brings to mind for me, though. In the wet stages, it really does give the unmistakable impression of living papyrus plants in water. Unbelievable. The drydown is a soft, slightly sweet, gorgeous skin scent. This was far and away the best of the four Carousel scents that I tried on me. It's a pretty neat scent, and I'm thinking it might be bottle-worthy for me. It's just such a subtle skin scent -- NO ONE would ever complain about you wearing this one in the office. They wouldn't even notice. Mr. Ibis melds with your skin and you forget that this low-key but beautiful scent isn't your natural scent. It's *that* subtle. Oh yeah. The more I sniff my wrist, the more I realize that I need a bottle.

On me, Mr. Nancy is Sugar Skull '04 plus lime. The drydown is spicier than SS, but it's close enough that IMO people who like Sugar Skull and want a replacement/something similar should try a decant of Mr. Nancy to see if it suits. ETA - and this has been mentioned in other threads, but Cloister Graveyard in the Snow is similar to Ice Queen (except for two things: 1) Ice Queen made me queasy and Cloister Graveyard does not, and 2) I seem to remember Ice Queen involving pine, though my memory may be faulty. Otherwise, I think they smell fairly similar.).

As with the Grr bomb, it was great fun to watch the TKO bomb run around the tub fizzing madly. The water turned a milky white. The bomb in the bag smelled just like the TKO oil. In the water, I got an odd floury undertone to the scent. Maybe my nose is weird. The bath was more lightly scented than I like (I wouldn't smell anything for a while, then every few minutes I'd get a whiff of TKO), but I do like the scent of my baths to be quite strong, so take that for what it's worth. TKO the bath didn't help me fall asleep, but then again, neither does TKO the oil . So I'm really just reviewing the fizzy itself -- nice moisturization (less than Fantasy Bath, more than Lush), really fun fizzing, lighter scent than I like.

Nostalgia encapsulated. A soft, wistful blend of dry flowers, aged linens, and the faint breath of long-faded perfumes. Wet -- a large, gooey marshmallow, rolled in powdered sugar. This is so not me. Why did I buy a bottle of this, again? Dry -- I never do get any florals. I think I get some linen -- the tooth-achingly sweet vanilla subsides and becomes smoother and more powdery. That must be the linen. This has pretty tremendous throw on me and lasts a very long time -- it's still going very strong almost ten hours after application. All-in-all, this is a very sweet, soft (as in squishy, not as in "you have to get close to smell it" -- because you don't, at least not on me) scent. It's not my usual type of scent at *all*. I'm not sure I can wear this scent if it's not cold out, and if I'm not just spending a lazy day curled up inside. But for a day like that, this is the perfect scent.

That's so funny, Danube actually makes me think of rain! It's VERY pretty, though. I haven't, but maybe I'll try to get my hands on a decant. Thanks!

Gah, screaming verbena. That is all I get, from start to finish . Stupid skin.

Given my obsession with mint, I'm surprised that it took me this long to try Juke Joint. Wet: mint! Fresh mint, like a mint plant. A bit nondescript at this stage. Drydown: OMG, bad. Bad bad. Heavy powdery deodorant smell. I have no idea why this turned on my skin the way it did. Bourbon usually works well on me. This is the nasty powder funk I usually get from amber. Oh well.

A generous swapper frimped me with this little gem. I somehow managed to overlook it, and it has been sitting neglected in my imp box. I am a moron. Shadow Witch Orchid is GORGEOUS. I can't believe I've been missing out on this. This is a dark, rich, elegant, old-fashioned, slightly powdery noir-ish floral in the vein of Black Dahlia and Fallen, though sweeter and lighter than those two. Black Dahlia and Fallen are two of my favorite BPALs, so it's a no-brainer that I'd like this one. Just lovely.

And bump . Any suggestions for "sunshine in a bottle" for someone (yours truly) who hates citrus and can't wear amber? It seems that most of the recs in this thread are either citrusy or ambery (and then there's Eos, which has jasmine, which I can't wear either. Sigh.). Incidentally, the "no citrus" prohibition also includes verbena. I amp it to crazy screaming levels . Mag Mell, for example, was all verbena all the time. Of the scents listed in this thread, I've tried the following: Tum Ahathoor Tiger Lily The Lion Litha Phantasm Lyonesse Tamora Eclipse Hymn to Proserpine Embalming Fluid Sundew Bengal Mouse's Long and Sad Tale None were keepers for me. I really liked Lyonesse in the wet stages, but the amber turned nasty on my skin. I've actually tried and liked Kumiho (I no longer wear it, but it was one of my first "Hey, I like this!" scents when I got into BPAL a few years ago), but it didn't evoke what I'm looking for. Hi, my name is Electra, and I'm being difficult .