ivyblossom

These long-dead scents are back for a limited time in a slightly tweaked form! `Crawling at your feet,' said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in some alarm), `you may observe a Bread-and-Butterfly. Its wings are thin slices of Bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar.' `And what does IT live on?' `Weak tea with cream in it.' Bread, lightly buttered, with weak tea, cream, and a lump of white sugar. The original Bread-and-Butterfly is one of my favourites, so I was very interested to see what the resurrected version would be like. I can definitely tell which ingredient is no longer available to the lab: it's the one the gave Bread-and-Butterfly it's (divisive?) licorice-y tea note. Without it, Bread-and-Butterfly Resurrected is much gentler and milkier. When I first sniffed it, I immediately though, "That's not it," but in retrospect I realize that's unfair of me. It can't be the original. What this is is a a re-envisioning of the concept, and it's a good one: it's white untoasted bread with butter (I sense butter CO2), a little bit of sugar, and cream. It's not the same Bread-and-Butterfly, but it's certainly a Bread-and-Butterfly.

I am a huge fan of the smell of a London Plane Tree just after a rain. It is the smell of Hampstead Heath (North London) for me, and also every university campus I've ever stepped foot on, since campuses often plant the hardy and pollution-resistant London Plane along their walkways and streets. London Plane Trees are true Londoners; they are a hybrid of the Oriental Plane (from whom it gets its characteristic scent) and the American Sycamore, two trees from different parts of the world who met in a garden in Vauxhall in the 17th century. I think they're beautiful and the smell of them after a rain is absolutely magical. Anyone else know this smell? Is there a BPAL that smells like it?

Seconding Lady Una. Absolutely magical.

Pie. Definitely pie. I don't know if I can confidently pick out the smell of blackcurrant, but it's definitely a dark berry pie filling, like blackberry and blueberry. And it's got a pie crust in there, rough puff, not anything fancier. No rose so far. As a foody fan, I'm absolutely on board with this. I ordered it because of how many people found it too foody. Too foody is just foody enough for me!

I just got this, and bizarrely, it smells exactly like Charlie as smelled by me in the very early 1980s. Charlie is not a chocolate scent at all. I'm not sure what happened here. Maybe it's because the bottles are still cold? I got El Dia De Los Reyes at the same time, and that one is obviously chocolate, but this one...nope. Charlie. Edited to add: Okay, it's less Charlie and more chocolate now. Hahahaha I don't know what that was about. Maybe my schnoz was off.

Bit surprised I haven't reviewed this one yet, since it's my #1 absolute favourite. The moment it I first put it on I fell in love with it and I've been in love with it ever since. It seems that either honey works on you (smells like actual honey) or it doesn't (goes powdery, or smells like a dirty diaper, or some other terrible thing). Honey works perfectly on me, exactly as intended, lucky for me. Door is honey, with some depth and darkness from what I presume is the cistus. It's sweet, quirky, and a bit sneaky. It's gorgeous, and I adore it. I can't imagine not being able to wear it. I will probably always have handfuls of back up bottles. The best!

I just got this, literally just plucked it out of the mailbox. I tend to categorize my perfume oils by what feeling or state of mind I feel they induce, and I got this one thinking maybe it would feel sneaky to me. You never know when you'll need to feel sneaky. Initially it smells like wood, maybe a hint of nutmeg along the top, and warm beeswax. Sort of like a cross between Cathedral and The Lights of Men's Lives. As it dries I smells like the wood is charring slightly so that it has a faint smoke smell along the with a dry wood and beeswax. The hint of nutmeg blends away so that you don't smell it on its own. I think it's just adding some character to the woodiness. I don't get cologne, cinnamon, or even anything especially masculine in this. Instead what I get is a room in a medieval convent full of burning candles and with beams on the ceiling. With some manuscripts lining the walls. Not exactly the metaphor Beth was going for, I realize. Edited to add: This might sound strange, but as I'm wearing this one more it's reading a bit like Door to me. Which I suppose makes some sense, since Thieves' Rosin is beeswax with resin, and Door is honey with cistus (also a resin). Of course Door has blue chamomile and nicotiana as well, which aren't here. They smell just a bit related; cousins, or second cousins, rather than siblings. Door is my very favourite BPAL of all time, so that's seriously a compliment.

I just got imps of the entire RPG series from the lab and the imp of Gnome is light colored and smells like ginger. I'm disappointed to see that it may no longer be representative of Gnome because so far this is easily my favorite of the RPG scents. Fabulous! Good to know, thanks!

The magnolia along the top lets this one casually present itself as an above-board kind of smell, feminine and delicate. The vanilla and honey ground it and give it some depth and sensuality. But what makes this the orgy is the tobacco. It's less smoky and more...well, dirty. Filthy, actually. Not in an unwashed way, but in a debauched way. It's stealth filth; I can wear it to work and call it a floral smell, but there's that underground twist to it, that subtle naughtiness, that people can feel is there but can't quite place. I'm glad it stocked up on bottles of this. I hope Beth brings it back one day. It's really amazing.

I ordered this one because of the disappointed reviews it got here. Bread-and-butter-fly is one of my favourites, so anything that gets compared to that is going to end up on my must-have list. True to form, I absolutely adore Miss Forcible. It's like an older lady's purse. An older lady who always smells like some ancient and mild musk that rubs off on everything eventually. An older lady who reads smutty novels and keeps them shoved in her purse, along with an open packet of butter cookies. These are priorities I can get behind. I aspire to be that older lady. And thus I embrace Miss Forcible with love and joy.

I definitely use BPAL to remind myself of the attitude I need for the day. You can certainly open up what you think it means to smell like rational thought; physical media isn't necessarily very rational, after all. I find The Antikythera Mechanism to be the most academic and challenging of the smells I've got so far, and I wear it when I need to be sharp and take no prisoners. To stay academic but more quirky and approachable, and a little softer while still controlled and intelligent, I go for White Rabbit. It's a very proper clean tablecloth and a recently-filled cup of tea. Miskatonic U goes mostly to oak on me, not so much booze, so I wear it when I need to get a lot of writing done.

(bold mine) Beth has explained the why of the batch variations back in the first pages of this thread, it's from 2004 (I can't believe it's 10 years ago ) but I presume the reasons are still the same? Here is a link (scroll down to see her replies, there's a few): http://www.bpal.org/topic/3142-different-smellscolors-same-perfume/page__st__25 Also from the lab's FAQ's: I totally understand the frustration though! Especially when it happens to scents you love. It's happened to me more than a few times and it's been disappointing. But when I first read up on the issue it made more a lot more understanding of what goes into the process and why these batch variations are sometimes inevitable. Yeah, I completely understand batch variation. That seems entirely reasonable when the essential oils shift slightly themselves or they switch suppliers. No one wants BPAL to be McDonalds! What's perplexing is when it's not minor, slight changes, but a new version that is entirely different from start to finish from the bottle you're replacing, but the lab tells you you're just wrong, this is how it's always been. That's a bit weird.

I keep wondering if it's safe to order a bottle again in the hopes of getting the oil I actually wanted. This dark one seems like an error no one will cop to, frankly. It doesn't match the description at all, while the older one did. It would be nice if someone would acknowledge an official change and alter the scent description to reflect it, or acknowledge the mistake and fix it. I don't even begrudge the money, frankly, I just want the bubbly ginger. This sounds like the issue I had with Dee last year. I have an ancient 4oz bottle and a 5ml from 2012 that smell amazing, and 2 bottles from 2013 that don't remotely smell the same. Did that ever resolve? Dee's unavailable right now, I wonder if it will be as it was when it comes back...

If anyone manages to get a bottle or imps delivered straight from the lab that are light in colour and smell like ginger again, please post and let us know! I'll sign up for multiple bottles of that one.

I keep wondering if it's safe to order a bottle again in the hopes of getting the oil I actually wanted. This dark one seems like an error no one will cop to, frankly. It doesn't match the description at all, while the older one did. It would be nice if someone would acknowledge an official change and alter the scent description to reflect it, or acknowledge the mistake and fix it. I don't even begrudge the money, frankly, I just want the bubbly ginger.

I thought I knew my #1 top favourite bpal (White Rabbit) on my growing list of top favourites (Bread-and-butter-fly, Glasgow, Halfling, Dorian, TKO) but then I got Door. I'm in love with Door. It's the first one that made me instantly want a second bottle just in case of...you know, anything. Any recommendations for variations on Door in the GC?

Thanks for that. I too received a frimp of Gnome and it looked and smelled just as you described. I was thinking of ordering one but now I think I'll skip that one. Huh, yeah, the lab told me all they checked their imps and Gnome is a dark oil. I didn't really know what to say to that, looking at the bottle I have next to the imp. I don't know how anyone can smell that oil and think it smells like fizzy ginger. Maybe they bottled up a bunch of the wrong oil? Far be it from me to tell them that they're wrong about their own product, but...yeah, that's not fizzy ginger! Thanks for the validation, I was starting to feel a bit crazy!

Yeeaahhhh this is confusing. I recently ordered a bottle of Gnome because I loved the imp I got of it a month or so prior. The imp is bubbly ginger and is light in colour. The bottle I got smells absolutely nothing like it. Nothing at all. Rather than fizzy ginger, it's a dark oil and sort of pine-y or eucalyptus-y. I wish I could pick out what it smells like, but nothing whatsoever like the imp. I assumed it was the wrong oil in a gnome bottle, but the lab tells me Gnome is a dark oil. I'd think my imp was the one that was wrong, but it's the one that actually smells like the description. I asked if it morphed a lot with aging, but no reply. I feel perhaps I've pissed them off by asking. :/

Well, this guy seems madly underrated. I wasn't really sure if I wanted a cinnamon smell or not, but I couldn't resist the concept of Dwarven Ale. I like Dwarves, I like ale, what could go wrong? I figured at worst it would be a novelty thing. So I was pretty surprised when it arrived this week and I fell so madly in love with it. I am a fan of the foodiest foody smells, and this is foodier than I expected (much to my delight). It's creamy and cinnamony, definitely pumpkin in a buttery way. I suspect some of the other notes will come out more once it's aged a tiny bit, the mushrooms in particular, but at the moment it smells like what's missing when you step outside on a crisp November evening, when the leaves are dry and rustling in the gutters, and someone in the neighbourhood has a fire going and their flue open. This is exactly what you'd want to smell like at that moment. Appley pumpkin, cinnamon, a creamy sweetness, all warm against a cold night just before the snow starts. I absolutely love this. This is all my feelings about the autumn (my favourite season) in a bottle. Of course summer is starting just now, so the first thing I did was put it away for October. But I keep sneaking it out to sniff it. It's beautiful. I love it.

I was incredibly excited about this one. I love idea of character sheet perfume oils. The idea of building a character out of smells is actual genius. And Halfling: who doesn't love Hobbits, for one? Of course it's got to be a foody scent, for a Hobbit. I love foody scents so much. Oatmeal cookies, cream of wheat, porridge...nothing in the reviews could go wrong with me. Win-win-win! But when I got it and put it on, it went immediately to plastic. I hadn't had that experience before, though I'd read about it often enough in reviews. I was deeply disappointed. If anything's going to not work with my skin chemistry, I'd rather it be something I'm not likely to wear, like patchouli or rose. Not oatmeal! For the love of god, NOT OATMEAL! HOWEVER, I've come to understand that that plastic smell isn't the oil, it's me. The day after I tried Halfling for the first time and had my heart broken by it, I put on my old stand-by, Bread-and-butter-fly, to reassure myself that foodiness was still possible in my life, and it also went plastic on me. EUREKA That's when I realized: it's all down to timing. My skin is just not cooperating just then. Estrogen nose-dive. So a waited a few days and tried Halfling again. Sure enough, perfect, smooth, creamy, sweet oatmeal. Tiniest hint of something like cinnamon, a little bit nutty, and a tiny dash of dried fruit (I think this comes out a bit more as the oil ages, I didn't get that at first). It could be the smell of a corner of Bilbo's pantry. The (first) breakfast corner. Sitting next to nice big yellow slab of butter on a plate. I love the idea of building a character with these scents, but I'm so fond of this one I don't want to add anything else to it. It's perfect as it is.I want to just sit in front of this bowl of porridge and listen to Bilbo's story about some trolls that wanted to cook him for their supper.

This is what Art Nouveau smells like. As a big fan of Art Nouveau, I am clinging to this one. It's a bit old timey, old fashioned, and very pretty. It's inoffensive (unlike some of my other favourites, which are on the confrontational side) but it's also a bit quirky, probably because of it's old fashioned feel. For me, the notes all blend together and become something all its own. It's not "old lady" to my nose; it's "clever young lady with a fabulous dress and spectacular shoes in 1910."

I was so excited for this one! I'm not a coffee drinker, but I work in a university library, and I really like the smell of coffee, so I felt like this one might be a winner for me. When the package arrived it was the first one I opened, and... God, it was so weird. It was the most aggressive oak in the universe. It basically punched my co-worker and I right out of my office. Eventually I hid the bottle away in my desk to try and keep the oak out of our faces. Intense. I was so disappointed. But I brought it home and stuck it away in a little-used drawer. I had this vague hope that maybe it just needed to sit for a while. It seemed awfully...raw. Possibly I was in some kind of denial. But the reviews here didn't sound anything like what I had in that bottle. Something was awry. About three or four weeks later, I saw it sitting there in my drawer, and I wondered if it had changed at all. So I cracked it open, ready to be smacked in the face with oak. But...no, sweet, creamy coffee! I was right, Miskatonic University needs a bit of time to itself at first. Now it's genuinely a cup of creamy coffee in an old library reading room. I get where the oak comes in, it's just that now it settled and plays nicely with its neighbours. It's the polished reading room table! It's so obvious now, and absolutely lovely. I wore it to work the next day and my co-worker didn't even recognize it as anything close to what I got in the mail that first day. So if you get this one and it's an oaky smack in the face, just let it sit for a little while. You will be rewarded! Misk U went from an absolute no when I got straight to one of my top three a few weeks later.

As a librarian who has absolutely nothing to do with books professionally (technology only), I thought it would be ironic to smell like the physical media that forms the basis of people's ideas about my profession and thus about me personally. And I do love books as a human being, so that's alright. I debated and debated about which book scent to go for, and this is the one that won out. No kidding, this smells exactly the way I remember my dad's 1960s softcover copy of The Fellowship of the Ring smelled the first time I cracked it open to read it in 1986. My dad's Lord of the RIngs books had been sitting around in his basement library for a number of years untouched, stacked in with other paperbacks (mostly cheap romance and mystery novels of my mother's) that have probably imparted a certain old paper smell to them all. They had those beautiful tan pages that you know probably started out white. Thick paper with a texture to it that comes either from the paper stock or just from years of sitting on a shelf. You open it up and start reading and fall face first into a story that pulls you entirely out of the world you live in. Middle Earth smells like old, tan paper covered in old ink. That's what this smells like to me. A 1960s fantasy/sci-fi softcover. That's my kind of physical media, I have to say. I love this one!

I ordered this one because I am a technology librarian, and the Antikythera Mechanism is the oldest known computer (3000 years old). Who doesn't want to smell like an ancient Greek computer? You can dig your nose into this one and find each of of the listed notes if you want to, but I think what's more interesting is to just take the whole thing in. When you do, this does genuinely smell like an old, expensive, precious wooden box with metal gears mounted inside. It smells like a tool of an intellectual, a centrepiece of the study of a learned, wealthy scholar. It's incredibly true to the concept. Once in a while I find myself looking at a bottle of something from BPAL and knowing that while I love the way it smells, it says something about me that just isn't true, so I don't feel comfortable wearing it. I suppose it's that "it's not me" kind of feeling, which is interesting in and of itself. The Antikythera Mechanism is so interesting that I feel as though it's challenging me to be interesting enough to wear it in good conscience. It makes me wonder if my wardrobe is good enough. Have I read enough books lately? Are my conversational skills up to snuff? Am I thinking about things carefully enough? It's sophisticated, intelligent, and creative. It's complex and no-nonsense. It's not whimsical or cute in the slightest. It's a force to be reckoned with. It's ancient knowledge, and knowing how to use it. I will strive to be worthy of this perfume oil.