bella_delirante

This was a really strange one for me. Like many of the other reviews, when I first put it on it smelled medicinal. It reminded me (unpleasantly) of some smell from the dentist's office, like one of the pastes or goos they use for god knows what. After about 15 minutes I kept smelling something amazing. I was testing other oils along with this one, so kept sniffing my test spots & still couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Evenutally I figured out it must be Doll's Eye Honey. So I washed everything off & reapplied, and sure enough that's what it was. On second application my skin seemed to find it's sweet spot with it or something, because I didn't get that nasty dentist-goo smell. I got something very similar to Lush's Honey, I Washed the Kids soap! I don't know if it's just the honey being super amazing & my skin devouring the dentist-goo or what, but I love it & need eleventy bottles.

Oooo ... Yvaine sounds promising. I'll have to track down a decant of Josie as well, although the peach scares me. I love to eat peaches, but I don't like smelling like them for some reason. Yvaine I might go ahead and order unsniffed. Thanks for the suggestions!

Has anyone come across any BPAL that smells of magnolias? We have a lot of magnolia trees in my neighborhood and I LOVE the smell of them. They're sweet & floral but have this lemony sort of freshness that keeps the scent from being too cloying. I'd love to find a BPAL like that. The closest thing I've found is New Orleans, but it's really a jasmine scent. That's not to say I don't like it, but it isn't exactly what I'm looking for. I'm open to suggestions that have a similar feel, but may not necessarily have Magnolia listed as a note. If anyone has any thoughts I'd be most appreciative!

Seconding ChaoKitty's recommendations of Eat Me & Shub. However, Eat Me does have that buttery component that Gluttony has, which is what killed both of those scents for me. So, if you amp that butter note, be warned that it might take over Eat Me. I would also suggest trying Kill Devil. It's very different, it has a brown sugar/molasses sweetness to it that is very deep and rich, plus a kind of slight saltiness that makes me think of salted caramels. For a chocolate without the coffee I would also try How Doth the Little Crocodile. It's chocolate peppermint, mint-soaked vanilla, pistachio, oakmoss, and green cedar. I don't really get a lot of the oakmoss or cedar, but enough that it tempers the blend down from being SUPER foodie. You also might like High Strung Daisies (pink carnation, pink pepper, and sugar), it reminds me a bit of marshmallows. TKO is another to consider. It's vanilla & lavender, but the lavender disappears really quickly (on me anyway) & I'm left with an amazing rich vanilla. Whenever I wear it to work my co-workers all tell me I smell like vanilla cookies. If you can lay hands on it, your holy grail is probably Cake Smash. It's fantastic. Smells JUST like cake & on me at least, it stays true on the skin. Happy hunting!

In the bottle: Smells dark, syrupy, & almost medicinal. I can really detect the cassia. On skin (wet): CASSIA & cinnamon & frankincense. The cassia/cinnamon spiciness is most prominent and the frankincense is right beneath. Smells like the Greek Orthodox Church that holds a Greek Festival (the only time I've ever smelled the church). The lingering touch of incense, and the heavy wafting scent of spice & sweetness from the mouth-watering pastries they've been making for a week. On skin (dry): Mostly cinnamon now. It's very close to the skin. The frankincense is pretty much gone, which is a little sad to me. I think I'd like to cellar this one and let it age, to see if the frankincense will develop more. I hope so. As tawaen said, it's more of a fall scent to me, so hopefully it'll be perfect by then! Would also be really great on a man, especially if the frankincense develops more.

If I was going to wear it & pulling from my collection (depending on my mood for the actual day) I would choose from Titania, Kindly Moon, Pink Moon, The Gibbous Moon, The Witch's Garden, New Orleans, Opuhi, or Pontia. It certainly says floral to me, but mostly fresh and fun, not heavy or serious. I'd probably go with The Witch's Garden (today) because it's got a very "purple" floral on top to me (I think it's the sweetness of the carrot) but still has some garden-y backdrop with some lushness ... Like it just rained in a wild garden & it's dusk & everything is all purpley. Or Opuhi. It's tropical, sweet, girly & accessible while also being a totally unique scent. I get lots of compliments on it when I wear it.

I don't know if this will help anyone, but I was so excited about this I had to share it somewhere. So, before I discovered BPAL I used to wear perfume oils that I got from a place called Global Scent Company. They also make fabulous incense. They were vendors at the Carolina Renfest, I don't know if they still are. Anyway, I LOVED their 'Libra' oil, but had no idea what was in it so when I started wearing BPAL I was like, "one day I'm going to find something that smells similar." And that day was yesterday! After 4 years, I tried Destroying Angel & it was so familiar when I put it on. I kept huffing my arm trying to figure out where I knew that smell from & then it hit me, LIBRA!!!! Instant bottle order. I'm so happy!!

I'm not usually moved to write reviews ... but this time I am. I've been after some of this for a long time, like 4 years. Ever since I was enabled. This was in fact one of the scents used to enable me. And then my evil enabler co-worker informed me that I couldn't get any. And I was sad. So, now that I have a bottle of my very own, I was very excited when it arrived in the mail, fresh from a trade. I sniffed it. Cinnamon. Fakey, candy cinnamon. But that's just in the bottle and that doesn't mean it'll smell like that on my skin. It didn't on said evil enabler's skin. It was so good I didn't know a person could just walk around smelling like that. It has to be that way on my skin. It just has to. So I dabbed some on the back of my hand. Cinnamon Red Hots, as many people above have put it. Not spice of love. More Big Red cinnamon candy bleh! I really wanted to cry. I was so disappointed, so I took a walk, to clear my head & get away from my Red Hots hand. After about 10 minutes of walking I kept catching the faint scent of creamy, spicey chai. Like when it's on the stove, not when you're drinking it. I was wondering what was smelling so good when it dawned on me to sniff my hand again. It was me!!! I was emanating that amazing, a-person-has-no-business-walking-around-smelling-this-distractingly-good smell! Pure joy!!! Amazing. I will endeavor to find more, but enjoy every drop of this bottle.

Crimson Christmas is very fizzy to me. It almost smells like club soda on my skin, fizzy and very clean ... could be just me though.

I've been on pins and needles waiting for this one, so here we go! In the bottle: I get a hint of rose, but it doesn't hit me in the face like I expected. I smell the citrus in the background, with the opium poppy and something earthy, maybe patchouli? Its really refreshing, which unusual. Rose scents always strike me as very warm, not cooling. Wet application: There's the rose, it blooms quickly on my skin. It's not total rose though, it still maintains that fresh citrus smell and I'm starting to get another sweet floral, I guess either the lilac or the jasmine. Dry: The rose has settled in and the patchouli is really coming out. The opium has behaved and is melted into the background, which is good b/c normally anything opium gives me a horrible headache . I still smell a hint of the lemon too. This blend is really lovely. It's very complex, the longer I inhale when I sniff my wrist, the more it changes. It's a nice summer blend b/c even dry I still find it refreshing, and thank the gods that the opium didn't ruin it for me. I'm very happy with this one. 6 out of 7 stars.

I got this as a Frimp from the Lab, and I MUST have a bottle. This is wonderful. When I first put it on I got that menthol, eucalyptus smell that most people mention, but as soon as I put it on my skin does something wonderful to it and I smell like . . . christmas. There's the tree in the foreground but softening the pine is the slightly buttery-vanilla smell of cookies baking, and a little cinnamon from the candle that's scenting the house, warmth from the fire and a slight chill around the edges of the room from the frost outside. It's magic. It's funny that I get the warm and fuzzies from a scent with the poisonous moniker of Hemlock, but oh well. My skin tends to search out anything sweet and run with it, so if you have a skin chemistry like that you might want to try this one. As for me, I can't wait to have a bottle.

Thanks for all the responses so far, keep 'em coming! Good luck to you too DenMother! As notes go . . . I would definetly like some light citrus scents. I want to stay away from heavy florals as they give lots of people (and sometimes me) headaches. Even though I love cinnamon and ginger in my perfumes, I think I want to stay away from those as well b/c of allergies. I also love lavender. Anybody have a good suggestion for a Lavender blend? I would really love something that's warm but not too heavy or super-sweet. Meditation does sound promising, and Sudha Segara's been on my GC wishlist for awhile, so now I have a good excuse to place an order. I do have a bottle of Phantasm, but it smells like lemon pledge to me. Its the scent association more than the scent itself that I don't like, b/c I'd probably love it if I'd never had to dust with it. Even if you can't think of a scent that would have a general appeal, I'm curious as to what scents people feel are relaxing. Some of my relax scents are Dana O'Shea, Blood Rose, Boomslang, and Sri Lanka.

Hi! I'm about to start working as a massage therapist and I've been trying to think of scents that I could use as a room scent. I need something (or things, I like options) that isn't overpowering, has appeal to most people's noses AND is relaxing. Through pestering my friends, BPAL addict and non (ok, does THIS one smell relaxing?) I have discovered that the scents I find relaxing are not the ones that they do. HELP! I would also welcome recs about scents to use in massage lotions (although I'm probably going to use the Panaceas for that). It's fun to think about what scents would make a massage go from heavenly to heaven on earth. I've had a massage with Litha scented lotion and I felt like I was radiating golden light. Wonderful stuff.

In the bottle, I smell the Ginger and Cassia, STRONG. It kind of hits me in the stomach, but once I put the oil on that goes away. While its wet on my skin the ginger almost disappears and it's nothing but cassia. As it dries the cassia fades a little, the ginger comes back softly and the snake oil comes out. The spice and vanilla blend beautifully so I smell like a creamy chai latte (one of my favourite smells). I think this one has displaced Bengal as most delicious warm spicey scent.

Stupid skin chemistry! In the bottle I can smell the pepper and the sweetness of the honeysuckle with the ginger wafting through the background, tickling my nose. It makes a really unique combination. I've never smelled anything like it before. On my skin it just goes wrong. BAD WRONG. It starts out very peppery while it's wet, with an aftertaste of sweetness from the honeysuckle I suppose. After it's dry it smells like celery. Salty, peppery celery. What is wrong with me? I'll have to give this a third try in a week or so, just to make sure. As it stands now, it's off to swaps.