BetteNoire

Glad to be of assistance. :-)

Seconding Morocco, but also would like to add OMFG Kubla Khan! Just got my bottle and wore it 5 of the last 7 days. Cozy, bright from the mandarin, just a little smoky. It is amaze.

Thought I'd get incense and a hookah smoking vibe, instead I get a grande dame's perfume a la Guerlain. Lovely, but sure as hell not what I imagined. The jasmine, iris, and moss notes are what's making that connection, since this notes are included in line half of Guerlain's lineup.

Cherry blossom and green tea may sound very generic, but this isn't at all. Probably because it actually smells like real cherry blossoms, and a pot of brewing green tea. Smells sophisticated and fresh, and somehow gives the impression that all the windows in the house have been open all day. Just lovely.

Definitely try Water of Notre Dame. No notes listed, but it had a lovely Lily note to my nose.

I received this as a frimp with a recent BPTP order, and advice given other places on this forum bears repeating: THIS IS WHY YOU SKIN TEST EVERYTHING. I don't do aquatics, they don't like my skin chemistry. I want to like them, they turn harsh and weird on my skin after smelling fab in the bottle. But this.... Water of Notre Dame is aquatic in a sort of dew-drenched grass and flowers and growing things kind of way. I'm terrible at identifying florals, and it's all so blended.....lilies? Roses? Lovely. Others have said citrus and violets, and I could see that too. But this is one of those BPAL oils that takes your mind to a very specific location and mental state, this is not just perfume. Water of Notre Dame is walking up to a beautiful house, on a quiet street, with a large well tended lawn and flowers growing out front. Everything is perfectly trimmed and weeded, but not overly landscaped. Inside, the house is airy and full of natural light, with cool flagstone leading to lush carpets. Most rooms are in a serene shade of pale green and the decor perfectly straddles the line between modern and classic by just looking clean and simple. Inside the house is immaculately clean, but still extremely welcoming. There is no clutter to jangle the nerves, but you still know that you are perfectly welcome to stretch out on any couch and relax. You can smell laundry drying somewhere in another part of the house, a few potted plants growing, but no artificial air fresheners. And woven through everything, the faint scent of a classic lady's perfume. She wears just a subtle application, but she's worn it every day for years and years and the ghost of that perfume has suffused the house as well. It's quiet and serene, and you really just want to stay here permanently. So now that I've written all that, when I say that Water of Notre Dame smells like my grandmother's house did, I hope you can take my full meaning. Thank you Beth and the lab, for making me relaxed and happy and on the verge of tears.

Okay, I'll bite. My top 5 are: Snake Oil Brisingamen Hymn to Proserpine Bette Noir Mouse's Long and Sad Tale Honorable mention to I am Tired of Tears and Laughter, my sleeping oil.

I actually had no idea until BPAL that there was already a superhero named Bette Noir - I had come up with an idea for a heroine by that name after learning the term bete noir for a vocab test in high school. Given that I use the name so much, I pretty much had to buy this. After I read the notes, I wondered if it was coincidence that it read like a list of my favorite notes. Anyway, on to reviewing. Sniffed from the lab-fresh bottle, I get hints of the beauty this sounded, but sadly poor orange blossom had a traumatic journey from the lab and won't stop screaming. She's scaring the others and annoying the crap out of me. I put the bottle in the back of my box for a month going she'd calm down and adjust to her new home. A month later: Nope, orange blossom is still shrieking. But she can't scare me away, this blend and I were meant to be. I left the cap off the vial for 15 minutes so orange blossom could cry it out. And it worked! She calmed the eff and the berries and plum came out of hiding. Wet, on skin: Man, this is interesting. All the notes come out like a musical chord - orange blossom as the highest pitch, benzoin as the lowest. Beautiful and intense and... deep purple. From the berries and plum, no doubt. This doesn't morph from that initial impression. The amber and benzoin warm up, but that's it. And the amber is indeed smoky, adding a touch of badass in a way that amber had never done for me. Bette is strong, as she should be, but be warned that the tiniest of dabs is the best way to go, otherwise my head feels like I've gone a few rounds with a marital artist. :-\ Overall, Bette will be a great night time scent, especially for dates or if I'm needing a jolt of femme fatale.

So it looks like no one ever got back a response about something resembling Coco by Channel. To me, it's an oriental with dark, not very sweet fruit. Heavy on the amber with a touch of incense, and pomegranate/some other dark fruit with just a smidge of clove. Hymn to Proserpine was the closest, but it's discon and hard to find. Any help?

I ordered a bottle of Brisingamen unsniffed based on a the suggestion by a forumite that it was similar to Hymn to Proserpine, which I loved and hadn't realized was discontinued *sob*. This has started my complete and obsessive love affair with Beth's amber. Amber and me are now the bestest of friends. When it arrived I was convinced I'd made a huge mistake in not trying an imp first, because it smelled like mossy baby powder and I was depressed. So I shoved the bottle in my perfume box and left it for 6 weeks, since I've heard some oils need a little time to age. This was clearly the correct thing to do. When I tried again, Brisingamen had become the most beautiful thing ever. It stays the same from application to dry for me. Creamy skinlike amber with an almost sticky apple blossom. Carnation gives a spicy bite that keeps the apple and amber from going cloyingly sweet, and myrtle adds a nice green mossy depth. I've now used half a bottle in 6 months. This is definitely "womanly" (as opposed to girly), but I don't get old lady out of that at all. This is glamorous and comforting and powerful and sexy and....well, I could go on. One word of advice: amber seems to turn creamy rather than powdery, at least on my skin, if applied to warmer, oiler, thicker skin. For example, Brisingamen still smells like nasty powder if I apply it on my wrists. Crooks of elbows, cleavage, inner thighs....that's where it seems to really bloom.

I got this imp as part of a lab order after Brisingamen inspired me to AMBER ALL THE THINGS!!! In the vial: Nothing. Seriously? Um, I'm confused. Wet: I'm definitely getting sandalwood, but it's soft and not skunky in the slightest. White, indeed. The amber is light too. Drydown: Now the sweet pea comes out and straddles that space between green and flowery. And the vanilla is comforting and almost floral itself. The vanilla kind of binds everything else together. Mouse is very faint on me. It's a very quiet scent, the kind you can wear around everyone and never give offense, but it has so much more depth and beauty and complexity than that implies. I've been wearing my imp whenever my baby isn't feeling well, since it's so comforting and light. Bottle to be purchased as soon as my imp's gone. I foresee slathering in my future.

A gentle vision of purity, goodness and virtue: white tea, carnation and Damask Rose. My first review! I've never understood why people want to smell "fresh" and "clean" - why not take a shower instead of putting on a fragrance? That's always my take on it anyway....until I put on some Maiden to test. It is "fresh" - but more in that it smells like the fresh air inside a greenhouse, with all the beautiful damp flowers making the air smell so much cleaner than suburban air ever could. Anyway, on skin at first this is a blast of sweet citrus and tea to me. Then it quickly blooms into the most perfect actual rose I've ever smelled outside of a botanical garden. This is a perfect recreation of smelling a prizewinning rose while it's still attached to the bush - the kind that make you feel kind of drunk when you pull your head away. And the carnation is just enough spicy bite to keep the rose from thinking it should actually be soap (thank god). Overall, Maiden has made me completely rethink my anti-floral stance, and is on my big bottle list. It just makes me feel pretty!