clephan

Truly the scent of autumn itself -- damp woods, fir needle, and black patchouli with the gentlest touches of warm pumpkin, clove, nutmeg, allspice, sweet red apple and mullein. I'm not sure if this is a particularly helpful review as this was a limited edition scent and no longer available, but I guess it might be useful if any turns up on Ebay or as a swap somewhere... The first scent of this is heavily fruity: it smells like black cherries. When I put it on, this note lingers, but is deepened with a scent like tobacco flowers and cloves. It mellows into a rich musky scent with a little crushed greenery. Conventially speaking, I'd say it's definitely an evening perfume: I guess most people would find it too heavy for during the day. Not that I pay any attention to such things Overall, it's one of my favourites so far, totally different to anything I've smelt anywhere else, and for me now inexorably tied to memories of autumn.

Nine-tailed fox demon of Korean lore who transforms into the visage of an irresistible beauty in order to seduce men and lead them to their doom. A sharp, biting blend of crisp white tea and ginger. On opening the vial, this smells extremely light and gentle: gingery and floral but lightly spicy rather than the darker spices that a lot of scents have. On first wearing, it wraps the wearer in a sweet cloud of exotic florals. It's the sort of perfume you could wear to a formal work function or an elegant lunch. It's sophisticated and anything but overpowering. Over time, this one doesn't last as long as a lot of the others, and fades to a pleasantly soft powder scent.

Does anyone on here know? well, ok, yes Beth will of course, but I was wondering if one of you guys who have been BPAL customers for a long time know rather than pestering her with my ponderments at this extremely busy time... Is it because the ingredients were only available for a short while, because the manufacture process is too fiddly to do regularly to keep these lovelies in stock, or just to give a frisson to us when we see the site has been newly updated? I ask because I can't think of a single LE scent that people haven't expressed a desire to see again. Therefore, it would seem to make business sense for them to re-appear, so it must be a different reason that means they're only available for a short time... oh, and I'm a continually curious person! Thank you

Following on from the 'where do you store 'em' thread, can I ask those of you who have been at this for a bit longer how long their BPAL perfumes have lasted? I try not to keep store-bought perfume for over 12 months as I've found they tend to change scent. As these are oil-based rather than alcohol-based, I'm guessing that their shelf life is less. I know that this will vary according to how often I open the bottles, and where they are stored (currently in the USPS box, but closed so they're in the dark!) but any personal thoughts would be good to hear Ta. Steph.

Description (from Diabolus) Our olfactory tribute to the film genre: a dark, moody, brooding scent that embodies moral ambiguity, alienation, and soul-wrenching cynicism. A complex, seamy blend of Lily of the Valley, opoponax, myrrh, black rose and plum with a slithering twist of clove, deep plum and star jasmine. Initial Scent This smells dark and thick in the vial: the lily of the valley is a most unexpected note. I was sure that there was patchouli in there, but I'm not that familiar with myrrh so that could be what I was smelling. On wearing This is the longest-lasting of all the perfumes I've tried. Just a small amount is still very distinctly smellable by the end of a day at work. It's a captivating and mysterious scent, and extremely elegant. It want to be associated with a long flowing black evening gown and a glass of something strong.

A curious word, meaning both a phantom or apparition and the image of an ideal. A complex, unearthly scent: Himalayan cedarwood, Italian bergamot, verbena and sage. On opening the bottle, this smells stronly of verbena: this grows prolifically in my back garden, so the scent immediately made me think of over-hot summer days outside gardening, verbena being crushed underfoot. On first wearing the scent, the strong fresh lemon scent is there, and this is an immensely uplifting and energising scent. It's certainly a good morning perfume. As it dries, it starts to smell like herbs growing next to fast flowing water. It makes me think of space, solitude and quiet. The sage is noticeable as time goes on, but this one doesn't so much deepen as gently sustain the same scent over a long period of time. I haven't tried it is a room scent, but I think it would make an excellent one for dispelling sleepiness and encouraging alertness. There are also special reasons why this scent is so special to me.

Terrible of me, really. I've had the Arkham blends for a year now, and there are still several that I've sniffed in the bottle and though - 'ooh, nice, I'll try that one day'... and one day hasn't arrived. Still, I'm determined to address that! Azazoth has been following me around all day. Every time I answered the phone or pushed my hair back from my face, there he was, singing and screeching. Vetiver is definitely the most prominent note on me, and has been going strong for well over 8 hours now. I've been having a phase of wearing the floral and fruity scents recently, and this is a very nice contrast to that. Unlike several other reviewers, it doesn't smell too blokey on me to be comfortable. I'm wondering if the fact that it's been in storage for a long time has aged the cedar - I'm certainly not perceiving any of the sharpness that reviewers mentioned when it was new. Instead, it's a warm wood note, very much in the background and muted. Tangerine never comes out on me in the slightest, but the black amber is just now starting to come out as the top note fades a little. All my scents are keepers but this one may be moving a little closer to the front of the box

Mm, well this is all rather flash! It's certainly good to be back on the forum, and things seem to be speedier... or maybe I'm just still getting used to the Powerbook over the poor old Tecra Tortoise. Anyway, I should be at work by now, so I'm off

Here you go.

anyone? Give us a chance, your post's only been up there a day While I'd normally say that two weeks probably means your email might have gone astray, there have been a few festivities over the last two weeks. In this instance I'd give it until the end of the week, just to make sure it's well out of any holiday backlog. As for your icon - not sure. Was it one from the forum gallery or one hosted elsewhere?

A very short note - I never do reviews! This will probably only resonate with the Brit contingent, I'm not sure if you guys get these over the water but... Cherry Tunes!!!

Me too

Tunes. You know, the throat sweets that you suck when you've got a cold. This is the lemon and honey syrup centre that floods out when you get bored of sucking and crack it open with your teeth.

There was a big problem with getting hold of cobalt blue bottles a while back, and the Lab switched to using amber ones just to make sure that orders were filled. It could be an availability problem again, perhaps.

On the BPAL website's contact page... I don't really feel this is an area we'd want a forum section on - wholesale negotiations are probably best kept private between the Lab and the (potential) vendor.

AFAIK her last day is tomorrow so she's still on the case at the moment.

Hmm. I'm probably completely wrong here! (but then, I still say 'samhain' as 'samhain'!) R'lyeh - 'ruh-lie-eh' (with a bit of a gap between the ruh and the lie) Nyarlathotep - 'nuh-yar-le-toe-tepp' (only kind of slur the nuh and the yar together) It probably doesn't help that most CoC games I've played have never once used the *names* of any of the beasties we meet... or where they live!

That's because it's an up and coming scent: it's a new one that the Lab hasn't released for sale yet, so it isn't on the website. This forum has a really powerful search facility. If you type in 'kweku anansi' then it takes you to two results, the second one down is the three page review thread in the 'up and coming' section. Please note also that this thread is for questions *about the forum*, not general ones. I've asked for this to be moved to the BPAL chatter thread.

My boyfriend's first comment when I walked into the room wearing this was 'Samhain'! I think the only real similarity is the pine note - there's a certain earthiness that's present in them both. This makes a wonderful head-clearing scent. I was awake much too early today, and I have lots of routine, dull stuff to do, and this oil has done a fantastic job of brightening me up. I've been wearing it for about an hour, and the sharp pine scent has mellowed into a more gentle, sleepy musk-pine. I'm not getting any juniper at all, but I think that's because the sharp pine notes drowned it out when I first put it on. Quite lovely.

Decadence, on me you're apricot and almonds. Apricot first of all, loudly so and reminding me of the way I fell in love with Depraved.... but then it mellows to a strongly almond and Amaretto note. I'm thinking of cyanide! Maybe I'm just in a morbid frame of mind. It will make an amazing scent for Halloween, mysterious and darkly sleepy.

I have bottle number X. (Or is that letter X, number ten? I can never remember how you reference Roman numerals. ) Anyway. The scent. In the bottle, this smells citrussy sweet, with an underscore of ... mm, something reminds me of Gluttony, is it hazlenut? For some reason I'm thinking of Christmas. On, wow and kaboom, coconut. For those of you who have tried Spooky, it's the nutty part of that without any of the rum or mint. Ah. That's why I was thinking of Christmas then! However, instead of the festive air of Spooky, this makes me think of summertime. It's coconut and lime. It's actually the photograph from an old cookery book I have, one by Delia Smith of all people, of coconut ice cream with lime zest sprinkled over, and thick sweet lime sauce poured over the top. The picture is lit in glorious liquid golden sunlight, and looks sublimely tropical. That's what my lovely Chaos Theory smells like to me.

In the Imp: Very light and clean smelling. Reminded me a little of kumiho. Applying: Lemon! Where did all this lemon come from all of a sudden? I'm one of those people on whom June Gloom is little other than lemon verbena for the first hour or so, and this seemed to be starting to do something similar. Wearing: OK, the lemon is calming down a lot now, and it's moving more towards a soft green scent. I was hoping to be able to pick out more of the notes from the description but they're so well blended they all go into one. Lasting: This has faded to almost nothing after about an hour. I think I'm going to need to apply this in quantitiy if it's going to have any throw or lasting power. (I used about 6 wand-swipes, my normal amount)

To me, this was Samhain with a berry base rather than an apple base... I picked up the same smokey-incensey-spicey notes, but a 'red' colour rather than the green-gold that I get from Samhain. I loved wearing it - it's warm and soothing, and feels comforting. The oddest reaction I got while wearing it was from my Dad - he took one sniff, pulled a face and said 'I didn't think you smoked!' He gave up cigarettes many, meany years ago, but there was something within this scent that made him think I'd been smoking and crave a smoke himself. I hadn't been anywhere near cigarettes, I hasten to add

I think it's an older scent that was being re-forumlated, and Beth was intending to add it back into the collection in June but it hasn't actually made it yet. Perhaps the ones in the order received thread are prototypes for people to try out?

But this is an FAQ thread! The point is to provide quick answers to questions people may have: of course there's going to be an element of reiterating information available elsewhere. Not sure how this is actually helpful to anyone reading this as an FAQ post... but then, carrying on a row about it isn't either so I'm going to bow out here.