odalisque

Warm, sultry ginger and honey with something ever so slightly skin-musky. I don't get milk or cream, which is great because I don't like milk or cream notes. But it's so FAINT. I would love this if I could freakin' smell it half the time. This is the only BPAL blend I've had that issue with, but not only does my skin seem to eat it but it takes tons and tons to scent anything else: usually a hot bath will bring out the shyest notes, but it takes a whole imp to scent one bath to where I can faintly, barely smell it Oh Sudha Segara, why must you be so shy?

This is the first of the Lab's milk notes I've tried, and it was a really interesting experience even though I didn't end up liking it. It really did smell a lot like opening a can of goat's milk, a rich scent with a slightly sharp tang. It smells a little bit like old sweat to me, which goat's milk can do. I got no fig, or at least no sweet fig ... I suppose it's possible that the fig is a sharper, milkier green fig or maybe fig sap.

Berry Moon had me worried for a couple minutes there! It does have a strange sour scent in the bottle -- almost like fermenting fruit. Wet on my skin, it instantly blooms into sweet, lush, juicy blueberry jam. But it quickly dries down absolutely gorgeous. I think there's something about honey and musk combinations that tend to make them skin scents, and Berry Moon is no exception. Dry, it's a sultry sweet honey-musk combination with just a little orange blossom and the faintest, but faintest whiff of fruitiness. It's very similar to Lady Una (the same musk, I think) but where Una has a slight fresh green-ness from the green tea and blackberry leaf, Berry Moon has a pale summergold quality from the fig. If Lady Una is a spring morning with a crisp breeze, then Berry Moon is a summer evening. I'm going to keep this, and enjoy using it, but I probably won't need to hunt down a second bottle because Lady Una does a good job with my honey-musk needs. ETA: ohhhh, baby. In the 3 months since I wrote that last line I have hunted down two more bottles of Berry Moon. It just gets better. I wore it on a family vacation to Sequim, WA, picking blueberries at one of the berry farms there and it was uncanny how much the wet oil smells like squashed blueberries and sugary jam. And then it all dries down and just ghhuuuurrrrrr om nom nom. I was super sad to pack it away for the winter, but this is one to save for glorious summer evenings and sticky hot afternoons in sundresses.

Rosalind and Glasgow both smelled like very pretty, "meadow-fresh" style laundry softeners on me.

Goes on juicy berries and fruit (not so much wine, but fruit). The leather comes out as it dries. It's the same sort of leather as De Sade, but a lot less prominent and aggressive. When the leather's mostly faded and it's dried down completely, what's left is a pretty musk with the slightest bit of leather and violets. It's notable for being the first scent with violets where the violets didn't take over on me, filling the air and splitting my head with their high-pitched screaming. Might be a good choice if you're kind of scared of violets but want to try them out.

I like honey scents in warm weather. I mean, I like honey scents all the time, but honey-scented skin on a hot evening is pretty much how I would define "sultry". Or a warm evening in dim light and someone to get nuzzly with? Morocco all. the. way. I don't wear mint, I don't wear aquatics at all (they're massively failtastic on me), and I don't usually like citrus, berries or florals in starring roles, so my warm-weather scents are pretty much Eisheth Zenunim, Lady Una and Hetairae.

Aging Les Bijoux will bring out the musk. Lady Una has some pretty, musky honey, not white musk though, and some people (including me) like to age her to soothe down the screamy vanilla and green tea she has fresh.

My daughter is 5 and loves anything sweet or candylike -- Fruitcake made me gag, so of course she was all over it, and in short order it was all over her as she spilled it on herself, and then the whole house smelt of it for days ... augh ... She really likes La Belle Au Bois Dormant, too. I think mainly she enjoys scents she can identify: "flowers! candy! cake!". My son is 10 and amiable to having various oils swiped on him to try out. He usually wanders over to see what's up when I open a package and likes to give new things a sniff.

There was sandalwood in this? Well, that confirms it. On me, dragon's blood eats anything it's near. All I got was a sweet, rich, quite powerful lily-like floral. (Dragon's blood smells like lily to me/on me. Yeah, I know.) I should get Mr O to try this on and see what it's like on him. On me, something further from a lethal polished claw it would be difficult to imagine.

Ha ha! This scent was so much fun it brightened my whole day. I opened my imp of it for the first time at my inlaws' house and walked around making everyone smell it. It smells fizzy! How does something smell fizzy? Bwahhh. (Yes, I am easily amused. Why do you ask?) It smells very much like a citrusy seltzer water. Or a dry version of the long-discontinued Cherry 7-Up. Or the Champagne soap bar from Magic Hands Workshop. Very clean, a light sparkly crystal-clear scent, without being overly bright or fruity or sweet.

I was ready to come in here and see that this one had red musk in it (red musk, my own personal bogeyman, I "see" it lurking in every shadow). It doesn't, and as others have said it's a very complex scent, so I kind of have to guess what the very sweet, perfumy, overwhelming notes are in this that remind me of Vixen. I'm going to guess it's the champaca, lily, opium and/or jasmine, probably mostly jasmine, followed by vanilla. Sadly, this doesn't dry down complex; I'm beginning to think I amp jasmine, because all I smell is jasmine and vanilla -- no hay, no leather, no ginger, nothing else.

The Babylonian Goddess of Dreams, who bestows the power of Oneiromancy onto her priests. This blend opens up psychic sensitivity during sleep and aids in the understanding and correct interpretation of portents and symbols. In the imp: lemony florals, very heady and strong. On skin and dry: Yup. It's lemon. Not foody lemon or lemon peel, I think lemon verbena may be right on. It smells like really, really pretty cleaning spray.

How funny. My impression of Eisheth (and oh do I love her) is that she's sweet, but essentially fresh and light, one I'm more likely to reach for in warm weather than in the winter.

Gennivre is a must-try for anyone who loves honey. It's not that she dries down to honey so much, at least on me, but sugarcane is such a wonderful variant on honey and not in very many blends. At least to me, it has all the things I like about honey, but it's different.

Uh. I tried this on without refreshing my memory as to the notes, and up to right now I would have sworn it had red musk in it. The oil has that red-musk color, but more to the point, it turned maliciously bizarre on me in the way red musk always does, with a funny stale smell drying down to cloying, penetrating, strong department-store perfume. No ginger. No patchouli. No orange blossom. Those are accords in some of my favorite blends, too, so I know what they smell like. I've scrubbed twice and the scent is still clinging to me and wafting around me, giving me a headache. Not a winner, but I'm left wondering if my imp could have been mislabeled. It's just so weird.

In the vial and wet, this is uncanny rich syrupy cherry jam ... in a wood box. Yup. It goes through an unfortunate but brief cherry-cough-syrup stage, before settling into the wood notes, like unpacking a crate of fine wood furniture. Nice, but not for me.

BPAL berry scents always seem to dry down on me to one of three things: dryer sheets, fake scented candles or overpriced mall lotion. I thought Lady Macbeth was going to escape this fate because wet on my skin, the berries were pretty good, like sweet creamy berry cake filling. But nope -- now she's dried down to "berry" scented mall body-wash-and-lotion set. No wine. No thyme. No evilness. Sigh.

In the imp: strawberries and honey. Oh, no, is this going to be a berry fail? BPAL berries always seem to end up being either dryer sheets or fakey candle scents on my skin. But I can smell the musk too, yay! And ... something like almonds? On skin: Sweet and heady with no berries of doom. Whew. There's this really foody almond smell. What's it remind me of? Oh yeah, Eat Me! Only it doesn't make me want to spew! So that's good. I'm going to guess it's the vanilla bean and fae spices. Something the slightest bit like wine -- blackberries maybe? Although the listed notes don't include blackberries, only blackberry leaf. And there's something very fresh and almost camphoraceous, but not quite -- must be the green tea leaf. It dries to this incredibly smooth, plush musky-creamy smell, with the honey musk, vanilla and green tea very much in evidence. The leaf scents are very fresh, like a breath of breeze. I have a hard time, personally, with the green tea, but it's really appropriate in this blend. It's a little playful, a little different and wild, a little, dare I say it, fey. I really dig that honey musk, but not so much the fae spices, so I don't know if it's for me, but it's a really delightful representation of the theme. ETA 4/2010: Okay, so one year later I've spent a lot of quality time with a nicely aged bottle of Lady Una and I can tell you the aging makes all the difference in the world. The strange buttery note ("buttery cat pee" is it exactly) ages out, hooray! I've come to like the green tea a lot, and it takes the honey and vanilla and makes the blend a really cool fresh one. It is my staple for summer, by far the "coolest" scent I own (I am not into mint or citrus), sexy, light and gorgeous.

OK. I was really terrified of Thalassa's aquatic notes, because aquatics are Le Note Du Fail on me and always, but always, turn into Axe-esque men's cologne. Nevertheless, I read enough ravings about her that I gave her a try. In the imp, I smell a salty, sea-like scent, with benzoin, which is an odd combination but surprisingly pleasant and raises my hopes. On skin, and I'm simultaneously sniffing and holding my breathe with the suspense ... and Thalassa is not men's cologne! She is, instead, the prettiest "sea breeze" Glade air freshener ever. This is definitely the most feminine aquatic I've ever tried, but it's still an aquatic. The Glade air freshener notes do mellow as time goes by, and jasmine takes the center stage, and it's actually kind of nice, except that it's very much a perfumy-jasmine scent and I don't do perfumy-jasmine. So, yeah. Although Thalassa wasn't the miracle I was hoping for, speaking as someone who is mortal enemies with aquatics, she is different from most of them. If you like jasmine, she might be worth a try, even if watery and sea notes make you a bit nervous.

In the imp and wet on the skin, this smells like a "round" kind of floral with a hint of fruit. The orange blossom is there, and so is the rose, and something slightly sweeter that reminds me of honey. The lemon balm made an appearance (this may be what some people smells as soapy, since lemon balm smells like lemon soap). It changes a lot as it dries, and ends up actually being a kind of woody-herbal scent, similar in some ways, to my nose, to lavender. I think this is the orris root, in combination with the ambergris. It feels like a very appropriate scent for the theme, to me, old somehow but not musty, morphing from a sweet feminine floral to the kind of scent I can imagine a gentleman's frock coats being folded carefully into.

In the vial: Earthy and sweet. On skin: Wow, I think this is the patchouli-est BPAL I've tried yet. It's not dirty patchouli, though. It reminds me very much of The Caterpillar. It keeps getting sweeter. I forget what all is in this -- honey? maybe some musk? Something floral, but what the hell is it? Oh, ylang ylang. That totally explains it. I'm not picking up on the myrrh but that's not a big surprise since it also seems to blend seamlessly with ylang and patchouli for me in Hetairae, and this is like Hetairae with red musk. The big surprise for me is that Lust has red musk, The Note Of Doom, and I couldn't even detect it. That's a minor miracle. This is luscious, and those who like Hetairae or The Caterpillar should enjoy it big time. I liked learning definitively that patchouli is a BPAL note that really gets along with me and plays sweet and smooth.

In the imp: very perfumy musk, reminiscent of department store perfume. A resinous sweetness, with maybe the slightest medicinal edge? On skin: this is one of only three BPAL blends so far that were so repulsive I washed them off almost immediately. Snake Oil and I never got along, but it was never this bad. I can only speculate that the resins and hyssop are what pushed Snake Oil's "stale exotic cooking spices" over the edge into "rancid medicinal foulness laced with stale exotic cooking spices" on my skin. Out of curiosity, I swiped some on Mr O. It's a perfectly nice resinous musk blend on him. Damn and blast.

In the imp: Sugary lemon, and on second huff, tea. On skin: Tea with orange. Really, it's uncannily like a box of low-end orange-infused Pekoe tea. Oh, mint! Wow, strangely, I think this is one of the foodiest BPAL blends I've ever tried. Tummy growling now. (I don't even like the taste of mint tea, but the scent of it makes me hungry every time.) Now the honey comes out, and a richer tang, maybe the lemongrass; it still smells like mint and tea, but much less. Dry: where'd it go?! All that's left is the faintest breath of sugarcane and orange blossom. Gah. I like the dry scent -- the sugarcane is gorgeous and different, and appeals to my honey-loving sensibilities -- but there's so little of it, and I have to go through the mint-tea phase to get there, so I don't know if it's worth it. ETA: OK, spankings for me for reviewing too soon. A second application and Gennivre is winning my heart, all sugarcane and orange blossom with just enough tea to ground and the mint is behaving now. Yummmmm.

In the imp: Sweet pine, musk, and a richness that might be tobacco. On skin: WOO HOWDY CHRISTMAS TREE. Oh, and vanilla. It smooths out pretty fast, though, and the musk comes through. Then, whoosh, it sucks itself in close to the skin, with a sweet vanilla throw and patchouli emerging. while I take a half-hour walk to pick up O Kid from school, during which time Illustrated Woman does what she does and when I get back I pronounce her ... Dried down: Ultimately, nothing competes with that pine pitch. Behind it I smell something that might be vanilla cigars, and the honey; now I love honey, but squashed between pine pitch and vanilla cigars it takes on a funny almost-medicinal, off kind of tang. I know prevailing wisdom is that aging this one tames the pine pitch, but I'm not really sure, personally, that vanilla cigars is worth aging and taming for. I might keep the imp and see how it changes.

I don't think I recall anyone discussing "skin musk" here. It's in Les Bijoux and the idea's always intrigued me, but I didn't have any idea what exactly it smelled like until last night in bed when for some reason (maybe it was that I'd had dance class, I was sweaty and my own "musk" was boosting it, sorry if that's TMI) I could clearly smell the skin musk component. To me it smelled like kind of a lighter softer (but not white musk lighter) version of the musk in Morocco. I think that's "Arabian musk". Like, if Arabian musk is a soft brown velvet, then skin musk is a champagne-colored velvet. It has the same velvety rich sort of nose-feel. (White musk is like crackling-crisp white cotton to me.) I wonder if maybe "skin musk" has components in common with Arabian musk. I think beyond the categories of white, dark and civet and maybe a few others, descriptors like Arabian, Chinese, Egyptian and so on might reflect a culture's traditional treatment of musks in perfume. And things like skin musk, vanilla musk, honey musk also reflect a bouquet made with musk and other accords -- contemporary musk treatments -- so skin musk and Arabian musk might be different treatments of the same or a similar scent bouquet, maybe.