LiberAmoris

Rose Cross is definitely an ecclesiastical rose incense, very lovely. Beth's a master with the roses and I find Rose Cross to be in the same vein as Blood Rose, The Empress, and Spellbound, all of which I love. A warming, beautiful, and penitent blend.

Wow. House of Night is one of Beth's blends where when it comes to reviewing, I literally don't know where to start. I have no idea what the components could be in this---it's so well blended that it flows together seamlessly. All I can say is that when I first put this on my skin, it felt like the temperature around me dropped, and the smell of the forest at night (as mentioned above) was all around me. Like a cool undercurrent of fresh air filled with the smell of the ground and evergreens. Once it's on for a while, I definitely see the comparions to Samhain. The drydown is very similar on me. I am tucking this imp away to use on fall nights when the temperature starts to drop. Really an amazing blend.

Intrigue smells like grated zest from the root of some dark tree. There's a sense of humidity and smoke that wafts through Intrigue as well. It reminds me of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It's not my favorite fig blend (that would be Nemesis), but it's an amazing achievement.

Centzon Totochtin smells like a chocolate rum ball washed down with a glass of wine. Even though just sniffing the imp makes my mouth water, on my skin wine/blood notes have a habit of turning. For some reason they always go vetivery. Centzon Totochtin smells like Intrigue meets Grog meets Dragon's Blood. I really want to love it, but it doesn't love me.

A raven-haired Fairy Queen of Ireland. One of her eternal duties dictates that she must hold a midnight court every season and hear the pleas of married Irishwomen. The court serves only to determine whether or not husbands are adequately serving their wife’s sexual needs. A judicious yet powerfully sensual blend, a mingling of justice and sexuality: sage, sweet pea, bold pale musk and warm tonka. Aeval is very pretty, but I think I have learned that I am not a fan of sweetpea. On my skin it's all sagey sweetpea with a bit of a grapey note. The tonka and musk seem to be enveloped and subdued. I think it's just a bit too flower-ful and sweet for me. Will be passing it on to a friend who loves the florals. I have a feeling this will be amazing on her.

Grog smells incredible in the imp (must go out and buy ingredients for Slippery Nipples immediately!) but on my skin it did the same thing that Hellcat did, which was go powdery and take on a strange tangy sweetness. Roadhouse, Gluttony, and O also seem to go through this particular transformation on me, so I wonder if they share a note. However, I layered some Grog with a bit of Anne Bonny....and hello! Anne seemed happy to have some company of the variety. They got on smashingly. I think I'll use up the rest of my imp in pirate-themed layering or as a room scent.

Wow, I had the same experience as some of the reviewers above---Chaste Moon changes dramatically from the bottle to the skin. In the bottle, it seemed like a nearly one-dimensional astringent butter note. On my skin: kapow! Chaste Moon is like an olfactory Big Bang. Notes coming out from nowhere: milk, white cherry/almond, a tinge of coconut, something indeed pineapple-y, those waxy white flowers from Snow White, butter, and the barest brush of cinnamon. As it wore on, I also got the same tea/linen note that I get from White Rabbit and Dorian. Chaste Moon brings to mind a vanilla coconut cake laid out for tea, decorated with sugared white flowers. It’s delightful.

When I was 8 or 9, my aunt and uncle went to Hawaii and brought me back a plastic lei, a grass skirt and a neon green and yellow-trimmed bikini top--- all happily reeking of pikaki. Pele is like a grown-up version of my little hula costume, an incredibly faint tropical scent that sticks close to the skin and seems really intimately luxurious. I’ve had this imp for a while and use it when I need a shot of something summery and beautiful. Not something I absolutely need a bottle of but very, very nice.

High John the Conqueror is one of those imps I keep in reserve. I like knowing it's there, even though I don't need a bottle of it. For me this was less grapey and more melony, with a lush and sweet herbal greenness. I’ve tried this on a few separate occasions in order to give it a good empirical testing. My extremely unscientific results: Um, it seems to work. On Day 1 of wearing it my boss gave me two extra paid days off, for no apparent reason. I was out of days for the year because of an unexpected health problem, and although he is normally a by-the-book kind of guy, he told me that he would be giving me some extra comp time. I am going to chalk this partly up to High John and partly up to the fact that he’s a really compassionate person. On Day 2 of testing, I was able to look a work nemesis straight in the face and tell them that they needed to stop badgering and harassing me. This is something I think I would be able to do without High John, but it really gave me a boost of confidence that helped carry me through an awkward moment. And yesterday I wore it and was able to finally put some chronic low-grade pain behind me. Somehow High John just carried me over the way a Tylenol might---but High John smells so much better!

Eternal is an unchecked gardenia on my skin that brims with nameless white flowers and the human scent of loss. Somehow this reminds me of a film shot in black and white---there is something stark about it, but perhaps it is just the ringing refrain of and death shall have no dominion. A wonderful adaptation of the Dylan Thomas poem, but gardenia does not love my skin. If you like gardenia, this would be a winner. I can definitely identify the gardenia note here as quite multi-tonal and true-to-life. ETA: Formatting. Don't drink and review. Sheesh.

Another case of where the lab knows best. This was never on my list of things to order, but I kept getting lovely freebie imps of Dragon's Milk with my orders (thanks, generous Lab Rats!) and of course, it just wore me down. Well, that and the fact that I consistently get more compliments on Dragon's Milk than almost any other BPAL I wear. What can I say, the mens love it. I wore it out to a bar last weekend and my boyfriend's (engaged) best friend from college kept commenting on how spicy and creamy I smelled. He even joked that he was going to steal my scarf in order to take the scent home with him. When I can invoke a nearly chivalric response with a blend, I got to give props where they are due: Dragon's Milk clearly has some kind of hypnotic power and I am all kinds of for it.

The Queen of Diamonds, in my house, did not get a lot of wear in the wintertime, maybe because I was so overwhelmed with all the amazing Yule blends that Beth released. But now that the thaw seems to have finally taken hold, and spring is definitely here, I find myself really loving this blend. And it seems perfect for this weather---on me it’s a cascade of light flowers with very subtle white grapefruit and a dusky underpinning of some kind of wood---white sandalwood or the barest hint of cedar. All of the supporting notes---the lemon bark, orchid, rose, and mandarin---are detectable but expertly blended. The Queen of Diamonds is very classy, regal, and upstanding. She’s perfect to wear to work or anyplace I want to give off a pulled-together, professional vibe. As close to a ‘classic’ perfume as I have experienced yet with Beth’s blends. And I love to wear the Queen with her mate the King---they layer so well together!

I'm learning that if Beth makes a resiny, incensey, ambery blend with patchouli in it, I am a sucker for it. Aureus falls into the same mental category for me as Sin, Cathedral, The Coiled Serpent, and Anne Bonny. I just love these blends as for some reason patchouli really relaxes me. Aureus is like wearing an aura---a deep golden glow. It's very warm and enveloping. There's a note in there that I'm not crazy about in the beginning, but within minutes it's burned off like the sun burning through clouds. Then it's just all kinds of patchouli goodness.

Wow, Crossroads for me is exactly how Penance pegged it: Bayou + Zombi=Crossroads. This is the new math! Crossroads is mossy and a little bit gritty but full of all those hothouse blooms and a slight murky aquatic. It definitely reminds me of a humid summer night in New Orleans, when the flowers pump out scent like the little industries they are and the smell of the river and the gulf is in the air. Even though this is not a Voodoo blend, there's something Voodoo-esque about it to me. Every time I wear this I'll think of one of my favorite cities in the world.

Reading the reviews above, I think the word ‘vintage’ pretty much sums up my experience with Belle Époque. The lily of the valley in the blend is predominant for me and it reminds me of my grandmother’s dressing table, which was always packed with vintage bottles of perfume. Even the scent itself seems honeyed and sepia-toned like an old photograph. The red sandalwood is gorgeous. It’s a lovely blend but it’s just a little bit too sweet for me to wear every day.

The Unicorn on me is like sparkling white grape juice and freesia. I’m sure that if I’d ever smelled a linden blossom I would recognize it in this blend, but for me the nearest corollary was freesia. As others have said, this is an innocent blend. It is very pure and light. It definitely captures the essence of a unicorn quite nicely, and I think it would be really nice in the summer. But in general I prefer my blends a little bit darker or more incense-y. I’m saving my imp for a day when I feel like revealing a little more vulnerability than I’m normally willing to cop to.

I’ve had an imp of Bathsheba kicking around for a while---after trying it immediately when it first came in and not being overly impressed, it hadn’t received another wearing. My loss. I tried it again this morning while desperately looking for the right scent to capture the fact that we’ve now had three straight days of springtime weather. I dabbed a little Bathsheba on and ran out the door. This time, Bathsheba blew me away. It’s one of those so simple it’s brilliant blends, with the three notes working together effortlessly to give a sexy, second skin kind of glow. My skin almost hums with this stuff on. I love the plum in this and the Arabian musk is divine. It’s almost too sexy for a work day---I feel a little bit conspicuous in the office with such a tumult around me in the air. But I adore it. Big bottle for sure.

Dracul is the first BPAL blend I've tried in which I can smell ALL of the notes listed, bar none. I detect the musk, tobacco, fir, balsam, cumin, clove, mint and orange blossom, every single one! On me the overall effect is of a smoky, woodsy orange pekoe with an initial overlay of mint. Or like one of those holiday oranges studded with cloves…hanging in the forest. This is a lovely, dark and haunting blend. Like a forest in a Grimm fairy tale, beautiful but dangerous.

Oooooh…Saint-Germain smells like boys who read lots of books!! *remembers mother once told her she was book- and boy-crazy* Makes me want to go get my boyfriend and my library card…! This is good stuff. It seems like the counterpart to The Caterpillar, which I also really like. The amber, carnation, and lavender are most prominent on me, although taken altogether, they make a delicious combination that I doubt I could dissect without the list of notes. It’s got a bit of a bay rum vibe to it (perhaps there’s a hint of lime in there as well?) but of course, it’s BPAL, so it’s much more evocative than that. I also think this would be tremendous on anyone: man, woman, or child! It strikes me as traditionally ‘masculine’ in perfumery terms but is very, very lovely by any standards.

Reading the reviews for Arachne, I think people have done a great job of trying to describe what I find to be difficult-to-encapsulate blend. On me it’s a watery, fruity floral with a definite lotus/bubble gum note. I was surprised at the sweetness of the blend from the description---somehow in my imagination it was drier and darker. In one sense I felt it really lived up to its name: it’s sweet but there is a definite undertone of something astringent and herbal, which reminds me of the contrast between Arachne’s skill and her conceit. There’s tension in the blend that captures the story nicely. I’m not the biggest lotus fan, so Arachne is going to be given away to a friend who LOVES the lotus!

On me, Fallen is all sandalwood, musk, and amber, with a twist of purple florals in the center. I do not detect any vetiver, although my skin doesn’t tend to amp up that note in general. It’s incredibly well-blended, but for me it smells like an extremely good cologne---something I would appreciate on others but wouldn’t necessarily reach for myself unless I was in a very specific mood. This is one I’m going to douse the boyfriend in before taking him out. ETA: I love the quote from Milton in the description. Paradise Lost has the most compelling portrait of Lucifer/Satan I've ever read. A wonderful inspiration for a blend!

The Marquise de Merteuil is fantastic. I immediately recognize the galbanum and amber from one of my favorite blends ever…the Queen of Spades. The Marquise is like a peach version of the Queen of Spades to me, not dark and sticky-berried, but elegant and suffused with a somewhat menacing peachy lusciousness. There is so much going on in this blend that it seems to have a kind of intelligence, if that’s not too weird a thing to attribute to a scent. I had the same experience as some of the reviewers above---the vetiver was not prominent at all (yay!) and the florals were extremely well blended. There is something mature and fully-realized about the Marquise that I really adore. I only hope I’ve lived enough to carry off this blend when I wear it!

Kyoto is really interesting…like black licorice in a flower shop. A truly fascinating blend, one of those that I keep sniffing my wrists to catch because it’s just so provoking a combination. The anise is strong at first and then backs off as the cherry blossom comes through. The sandalwood is very light to my nose, in fact I probably wouldn’t even notice it if it wasn’t listed. It just flickers a bit at the edges as a base on which the cherry blossom and anise rest. An hour later, this is a spiced cherry blossom, or an aged cherry cordial. This is one of those blends that I don’t think I need a bottle of, but I definitely want to keep the imp. It’s really a remarkable and unusual combination of notes.

The Lady of Shallot is very pretty, to my nose a floral aquatic that has a lushness to it. I think on the right person it would be divine, but on me my skin brings out a banana note (?!?) that trumps the lovely flowers. In the vial, mounds of white flowers under running water. On my skin, banana cream pie. Many things about me are making sense at this point…skin chemistry is just damnable! I think I’m going to send the imp to my mom, as this is one of those BPAL blends that seems like a perfect ‘gateway drug’ for the uninitiated. In some ways it’s a traditional floral…but it’s BPAL, so it’s an untraditional floral! I think this might be the one to get my mom hooked.

Mmmmm…Magus is chock-full of the woodsy, incensey notes that I really enjoy in Beth’s blends (frankincense, cedar, and sandalwood, oh my!). I agree with the reviewers above---if you like Cathedral, Anne Bonny, or Kathmandu, you might want to try Magus, as they seem like they belong in the same scent ‘family.’ Magus reminds me of the way the books in my office smell when I’ve been burning incense on a regular basis…like smoky books…