Electra

Whoa. The wet scent on this one is phenomenal -- it is bracing, strong, REAL kick-you-in-the-teeth ozone. It smells like you're standing outside on a storm-swept night. It's fantastic. I'm kicking myself for not ordering a bottle. (By the way, I really like ozone in my BPAL.) Drydown isn't quite as awesome, but it's still very nice. It mellows out a bit, sweetens up a bit, but still retains that very realistic rain-swept scent. This is so good.

Kali is so sweet that it makes my teeth hurt. It's the red wine (which always goes sweet on me) combined with the honey. Killer. It's not an unpleasant scent, it's just -- too much. Overpowering. Way too sweet for me. I don't smell any of the flowers, or the chocolate or tobacco or balsam -- just wine and honey. If I liked sweet scents, this would be a home run -- it's interesting and unusual, not at all gourmand. Unfortunately it's just too much for me. When it dries down, it gets less sweet and more complex. I like it better at this stage, but it's still too sweet for me, and not worth sitting through the dizzying wet stage.

Obatala smells like a day at the beach -- sunscreen and heavy cream. I'd definitely also second the recommendation for Black Pearl.

Angel: Xiuhtecuhtli Elizabeth Arden Green Tea: Shanghai Origins Ginger Essence: Sudha Segara

I'll second the glowing rec for Olokun -- if I'd seen this thread, I definitely would have put in a vote for it! It's my favorite BPAL aquatic by far. Absolutely gorgeous. It was my everyday scent this summer and is one of my top 5 BPALs.

Ooh, I like this. It's very woodsy without smelling like a tree. Am I actually wearing cedar without smelling like pencils? It's a miracle! It smells like incredibly high-quality incense that involves resins and cedar chips. Very eastern, very mysterious. I agree with the reviewer above me that the patchouli is very much in the background - I don't smell it at all. It strikes me that this would be an amazing meditation or yoga scent. I don't know if I'd wear it as a daily perfume, but I do like it quite a lot.

Anything with dragon's blood in it tends to turn into a single-note dragon's blood on me. No exception here. This is a very sweet, syrupy, straight-forward dragon's blood. I haven't tried it ritually yet, so I can't speak to its effectiveness. I'll update if I have anything to add .

LIA smells very similar to Lick It '05 to me. Initially they smell almost identical. The real difference that I notice is on drydown - the candied vanilla musk scent that I get from Lick It '05 is much richer (LIA smells thinner and less rounded) and lasts like crazy (whereas LIA disappears after a few hours). Then again, my bottle of Lick It '05 is (obviously) aged for a year plus, and I don't remember what it smelled like when it was brand new. Aging has made so many of my BPALs so much better that I have no reason to believe that it won't improve LIA. And that's not to say that I don't like it now -- I think it's a really nice blend, and smells very much like the original Lick It. I just wish it lasted longer and was a little deeper, which a bit more age might solve.

Since I just recommended this in another thread, I figured I should probably review it . Hetairae, on me, is floral-infused honey. The honey note is not as sticky-sweet and potentially cloying as it is in O; instead, it melds very nicely with the other notes. I don't smell any patchouli (which I'd be fine with, as I like it) or clove (ditto). I probably do smell some fig, though I'm not familiar with what fig smells like so I can't swear to that. I definitely smell honey and ylang. It's really a lovely scent, and very unique. It may actually be a contender for my big bottle list -- will have to play with my imp a bit more to see if I think I'd actually wear it enough to justify a 5 mL. Will certainly be hanging onto the imp, though!

Review is for Luperci 2006. This almost smells like a ritual oil to me. It certainly smells like it *could* be a ritual oil, at any rate. It doesn't smell so much like that that it can't also be worn as a daily scent, if that makes any sense -- but what it does NOT smell like is perfume. It doesn't smell like perfume at all. When I wear Luperci, I smell as though this earthy, powdery, somewhat sweet scent is my natural scent. It's very outdoorsy, very natural, and it DOES smell ancient, in a way -- as though it would not be at all out of place on someone wearing a toga. On to the actual scent itself. When I first apply, I get a very strong honeyed beeswax note. That recedes somewhat. The eventual "final" scent that I get on drydown is a slightly powdery patchouli that does not smell anything like the standard "hippie patchouli" -- instead it calls to mind dirt and pine needles and forests without actually smelling like any of the above. There's a slightly sweet overtone to the scent as well. This one is better from a bit of a distance. When I put my nose right to my wrist I smell mostly powderiness, but the scent on the throw/waft is truly gorgeous. Luperci is pretty spectacular.

Yet another vote for Hetairae -- I thought that it was very nice, and I'm not really a big one for honey scents generally.

I'll agree that the scent is gorgeous -- it's a powdery light floral. If jasmine of doom is in here, I can't smell it, which makes me happy -- I didn't wear this as perfume, but jasmine gives me a headache generally, which would throw a wrench into working with the oil. And I do think that this is one of the TALs that you could wear on your person with good results. It seems like a sensible application to me, at any rate. I dressed a candle with my decanted imp of Veils and Mist tonight and had an extremely powerful meditation, which is not the norm for me. It became clear to me during the course of it that I'm at a point in my life when this is something that I need and would benefit from very much. I'm sorry to be so cryptic. It's just pretty personal. I'd been planning out a TAL order, but it never occurred to me to consider this oil before I felt a need to use it tonight. Now I know that I need to order a bottle.

The Hermit is one of my favorite cards, along with the Hierophant, so those two were the imps that I ordered back when the Tarot oils were impable. I wore the oil today (after a very quick mindfulness meditation this morning) because I desperately need some Hermit energy in my life. I'd completely forgotten what it smelled like and hadn't read reviews of it in ages, so it was a surprise. It smells like fruity bubble gum on me. I'd have expected something...I don't know, woodsy, perhaps? Possibly mossy, or a bit of smoke...but fruity? Hmm. I don't know anything about the scents/herbs/plants/what-have-you that are traditionally associated with this card, so I'll need to do some research into that. I'll also need to meditate on the card and the scent in order to see if I can reconcile the two, because at the moment I'm finding them a bit discordant. It's a pleasant scent, though, and I have noticed that I'm feeling a bit more aloof and watchful today. It's a good start, at the very least. I'm going to keep working with this oil and see where it takes me.

Old thread, but I agree re: the comparison of Shalimar and Haunted - I've not tried the regular Shalimar, but Haunted is a ringer for Shalimar Eau Legere on me.

Carnal, absolutely - except for the name. It's a light sparkly fizzy candy-like orange on me that I think would be great for little girls. Maybe decant it into a roller bottle and don't tell them what it's called .

I find Eternal very sad. Also very pretty. Night's Pavilion is sad in a "my heart has turned to ice" tragic sort of way.

First impression, sniffing the imp - WOW! That's definitely a hippie drinking grape Kool-Aid! On my skin for a while it settled down into hippie shop, but now the grape is seriously overpowering the patchouli. If they made Smuckers-scented incense, that would be what I smell like right now. This has throw like crazy.

Regan still hates me, apparently. I tried Regan about two years ago, and I got vanilla with an undernote of funk. At the time, I thought that the note that disagreed with me was the stephanotis. I got a frimp of Regan in my most recent lab order, and I decided to try it again. I also got a frimp of Eternal, which also contains stephanotis. Eternal is fine on me. So maybe it's the orchid, and not the stephanotis after all? At any rate, this is still not fantastic on me. It's not funky like it was the first time, but it's just kind of "eh." Very candy-like and one-dimensional. It's not offensive, but I have so many other wonderful and complex BPALs that smell great on me that I would never reach for this.

This is a very heady, old-fashioned, achingly sad white floral. Very strong on the gardenia, but not cloyingly so. I like it very much, actually. I didn't expect to when I sniffed it from the imp - I thought that it would be overwhelming, but it's not. It's very pretty. I'd put it in the same family as Black Dahlia and Fallen on me, only lighter and cleaner (those two are dark florals - this is a light airy one, but all have a similar old-fashioned "big floral" feel to them).

Bold, bright mandarin paired with the sweet, sensual earthiness of fig. I hate this somewhat less than I hate most fruity scents. :grin: Actually, I find it really inoffensive. It's very light on me, and "sparkly," as someone else mentioned - almost like orange-flavored syrup in a fizzy champagne cocktail. The orange note smells more like neroli on me than the in-your-face orange Kool-Aid mandarin of Pumpkin Queen. It gets more and more floral as it wears. Not me, but (except for the name!) I think it would be a nice scent for a young girl - it's a very light, innocent, playful scent.

Wow, Shub doesn't work on me even a little bit. It takes on this odd dusty-metallic tone on drydown that's really offputting and unsettling. (And oddly enough, under that, something that smells very much like Catholic church incense. Go figure!) I can tell from sniffing the imp why everyone likes it so much - it just doesn't agree with my skin chemistry.

Nuts. I opened the bottle and went "Oh, that smells FANTASTIC!" It was a gorgeous, well-balanced, woodsy-spicy scent. I couldn't wait to get it on my skin. Well, I got it on my skin, and within 30 minutes it turned into Snow Moon. Strong screaming pine and nothing else. I smell like a Christmas tree. Damnit. It's not an unpleasant scent by any means, it just isn't something I would choose to smell like - and I wanted the glorious bottle-scent to be replicated on my skin. Phooey. Editing - you know, the more I keep sniffing it, the more I think it may be workable. It's softer than Snow Moon somehow. I'm not sure if it's a person-scent for me, but I think it would be an absolutely gorgeous room scent. I'll update my review if I try it in the burner . Editing again. Wore this the other day to my massage - I was in a piney mood, I guess. And what do you know, it smelled completely different on me. Hormones are funny like that . Smelled sweeter, and a lot more like the bottle-scent -- and actually, a few hours in on drydown I got something similar to the aquatic-fruity background of the last Wolf Moon. Go figure. Anyway, it smelled REALLY good. So maybe this is a scent that only really works on me at certain times of the month, but it was pretty nice the second time around.

I opened the bottle, sniffed, and said "That DOES smell like Snow White!" I agree with the statements that it's Snow White's fraternal twin. At first on my skin I was thinking that it was Snow White's summer sister - Snow White plus minty-cucumber. Then it dries down to more or less straight Snow White, with that mint/cucumber note charging back strongly and then fading away again every once in a while. It may be slightly less strong on me than Snow White, but it should definitely be an acceptable substitute for people who are mourning the loss of SW (if it wears on them the way it does on me). I seem to always wind up editing my reviews . On second wearing, Snow-Flakes has developed the dreaded strong plastic note on me. Bah. Oh well. I have two bottles of Snow White '05 anyway, and I have to admit that I was wondering how much wear I'd actually get out of this one because it's *so* similar.

I haven't smelled any BPAL that smelled a *thing* like Flowerbomb, honestly. The closest thing I've smelled to Flowerbomb that's price-accessible is B&BW Sensual Amber, which is very, very strongly reminiscent of it. I agree that Xiuhtecuhtli smells a lot like Angel, but Angel and Flowerbomb don't smell alike at all to my nose. If they smell alike to you, though, that would be a good choice .

The most authentic ocean-water scent I've tried from BPAL has been Storm Moon - difficult to find nowadays since it was limited edition, and definitely an Atlantic Ocean scent, but wonderful. No damp grass or flowers on me, though. Caliban might be another to try, though I haven't tested it myself.