DovaKitten

You might look into Pink Snowballs (pink rose, vanilla, snow), which I can only describe as a candied rose scent for people who don't like florals or cloyingly sweet scents. I know you said you tend to amp rose, but the rose in this one is so well-balanced and enough people have stated in the reviews that the scent doesn't really morph over time that I think you might be able to get away with it here.

The other reviews here are very similar to my experience, but I'll add my two cents. Wet on skin: LAVENDER and ginger. Perhaps there is also some rice wine here? It's sort of astringent. Dry down: The same, but the white plum blossom is coming out more and more. It's a white floral, not juicy or fruity. I can't place what this smells like exactly ... I'm getting an association with medicine and also with a bath product that my mom used to use when I was young. It's not cough syrup-y medicine, by the way. It's more like "I try to treat things naturally so sometimes herbs gain medicinal association." Dry: I agree with Jangzonrice: "This is nice, but becomes more floral than I thought it would be. Nice feminine perfume for spring." I would add that this is very well-blended and smells sort of like a high end perfume. I like it a lot and almost want to get a bottle just to add diversity to my collection, but I'm not sure. We'll see.

Gwydion's review is a better description of my experiences than mine is going to be, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Wet, this is assertively BERGAMOT. It's so citrus it's almost astringent, but also a little peppery. I think that peppery note might be the tobacco flower, but I can't be certain because I have no idea what tobacco flower smells like. As it dries down, it turns into ... evergreen? pine sap? That's weird. Oh, wait, nope. Not weird. Wikipedia says that benzoin "appears as off-white crystals, with a light camphor-like odor," so that explains it. The pepper and the sap notes make this a very masculine scent to me. It smells like something my stepfather would wear. There is a little sweetness, but I wouldn't that I get recognizable honey or sandalwood. I'm sure they'll make themselves known as it fades. All in all, a very refined and perhaps even traditional (for BPAL) unisex scent, but it smells too much like my stepdad for me to want to wear it. Off to swaps!

I am familiar with exactly one of these notes (honey), so take this review with a grain of salt. To me, it smells ... sweet-boozy, almost foodie as soon as I put it on. Then a strong, white floral begins to come up from the depths and make itself known. It reminds me of a Yule scent, maybe Dread Puddings, but without the tendency to turn into straight maple syrup. I'm guessing that's the mixture of bourbon vanilla and honey. By process of elimination, I'm going to say that the tobacco is spicy, sort of ... herbal? It's hard for me to describe. It definitely doesn't smell like cigarette smoke or even cigarettes, which is good. It's a lovely note, whatever kind of note it is. I would actually classify this as a foodie scent rather than a classically perfumey scent, but ymwv. If there weren't so many other fantastic blends this Lupercalia, I'd probably go for a bottle. As it is, I think I'll get a little nit-picky over the magnolia (I'm very particular about my florals) and pass it along.

The mint in this is nowhere near as strong as in the Lick It series, but it still has a cooling effect on my sinuses when I sniff it too close. (I love that, incidentally. It's what keeps me coming back to mint blends, even though the mint never stays this strong.) There is a really lovely balance here between the mandarin and the peppermint. It reminds me a bit of Disco Snowballs, but I like this blend better. (That one kind of smelled like orange juice and toothpaste, which was nice but also created a really unfortunate association.) I think it's the musk that makes the difference. It's giving this a sweet and almost-creamy depth. I absolutely love this blend and it is so very upsetting because I'm really trying to narrow down the bottles I need. Sigh.

I'm getting peru basalm, patchouli, and tea. The tea and the wood notes are very, very strong, and the patchouli gives them an even more earthy depth. There's something almost peppery here, too. I'm not getting much in the way of citrus notes or vanilla. The citrus is there, but it's very closely entwined with the black tea. The vanilla might be adding a bit of creaminess in the background. Or maybe I'm imagining it? I'd recommend this blend for anyone who likes woodsy and earthy scents. It reminds me too strongly of my godmom's massage room, making me feel kind of weird about wearing it. That's okay. I'll pass it along.

This is the perfect description for this blend, honestly. It is apple-y, but if you're expected the sort of bright green or candy apple scent you get from commercial "apple" scents, you're going to be disappointed. This is like pressing your nose into a just-picked apple. Very fresh and juicy, but also light and restrained. It's more the white scent of apple flesh than the red or green scent of apple skin. I'm afraid I don't know the other scents well enough to place them. I can tell for certain that I'm not getting much in the way of sandalwood, which I can almost always pick out from a blend. I would say the next strongest scent is probably ... bamboo? It's kind of a woodsy scent, but not as strong as other wood notes I've smelled. This lackluster review has made me realize I need to find a way to smell green tea on its own so that I can place it. In the meanwhile, I'll add this decant to the slowly-decreasing pile of scents I'm considering purchasing as 5 ML. Would recommend.

Mmmm. This is what I imagine my skin would smell like if I rubbed the best orange peel over a lovely but faded perfume. There's just enough complexity to keep this from being a one-note scent, and that amber that doesn't turn to powder on my skin (which I've found exists! in the Lupers!) is lovely in the background, but the non-fruity notes very much background scents. I can get a few whiffs of rose every now and again, but if that's the note that's making you iffy about this blend, I wouldn't worry about it. I'm going to try this on DovaPuppy. It's surprisingly unisex, and I'd like to see what it does with his chemistry.

Good news: I've figured out why I've struggled so hard to like Snake Oil. It's the myrrh. No matter how it ages or what it's blended with, it has myrrh, which is a death note for me. It is a little bit darker and deeper than my aged Snake Oil decant, if that makes sense. It's also making my wrist burn, so I'm gonna go wash it off. Verdict: If you like Snake Oil, you'll probably like this. If you and myrrh are locked in an eternal death match, probably not.

It's definitely a skin chemistry thing, JasminDreams. On me it is a very, very pretty floral without even the faintest hint of honey (my skin has not liked honey notes lately, ymmv). There is a BRIEF moment in the drydown phase that I thought, "Oh, old lady soap," but it quickly passed. (Also worth nothing: I think most florals smell like old ladies.) It's a nice perfume if you like light florals, very feminine and soft. Unfortunately, I need something sweet and foodie to balance out my floral scents right now (Pink Snowballs is my HG rose scent), and the honey just isn't strong enough for me. I happily will pass this along to someone who can appreciate it for what it is.

Mmm. I don't get much booze, although I do get a kind of sharpness that might be sake? Mostly what I get is amber and sandalwood held in check by sharp, bright citrus (huh?). I can smell the matcha as a delicious and slightly floral note, but if I had to guess without knowing what's in this, the only notes I would have gotten are amber and sandalwood. I would have guessed "something fruity," too, which isn't in the description but may be coming from the red bean paste? Anyway, it's delicious and reminds me (strangely) of something my mother would wear, placing it at the top of my bottles list. I'd also like to note that this is the first BPAL amber that hasn't gone straight to powder on my skin.

Oh my God. Oh my God, yes. This may be the first time in history that I have picked a BPAL because it sounded amazing and it turned out to be just as amazing on my skin. Normally I kind of try to rope in a variety of scents because my chemistry + BPAL's oils tend to be an unpredictable match, but this ... This is everything I wanted it to be. It's the kind of scent that reads as warm but would be great to wear in summer weather too. It's definitely fruity, with a sort of green (fig and mango) juiciness right up front, but it's anchored in white chocolate and this beautiful hazelnut cream. Really, really delicious. The patchouli and green tea are definitely here, but I think what they do is mostly just give this a more perfume-y and grown-up feel, because otherwise the notes could go straight to middle school lipgloss territory. As it warms and dries, I'm getting more patchouli over the white chocolate and hazelnut cream with much less fruit. It's still beautiful, but different. It's now more of an off-white scent than a green one. I love them both, but I kind of want to get a scent locket now so that I can actually wear them both instead of having one fade so quickly into the other. This would make a beautiful room fragrance for those of you who don't like to wear foodie scents, but as for me, I want to bathe in it. I'm going to test it all on its own after it settles down, and then I'll probably purchase at least one bottle. Possibly two.

Immediately on, I thought, "NOPE," but it is unexpectedly starting to grow on me. Unlike the previous reviewers, I am not getting a big hit of honey. I get a green floral and sweetness, almost like unripened fruit. I have to close my eyes and really focus to get any chocolate. I imagine it's like a dark backdrop, making the bright colors of the other notes stand out without making much of an impression on its own. The honey does start to show itself more strongly as it warms and dries, and I think it will eventually overwhelm the nightshade, but I can't complain because I love both notes. All in all, I don't think the chocolate has made enough of an appearance to warrant me buying the LE version of this scent, but I will definitely put Deadly Nightshade Honey on my list for GC bottles to purchase.

Mmmmm. I've never tried Blood Kiss, and actually wouldn't have picked it out for myself. The only reason I got this blend was because I went whole hog with the bonbons, and I am SO glad I did. It is juicy, sweet, fruity, and surprisingly innocent. To me it smells like the juicy red filling inside a fine, rich dark chocolate shell. There's some kind of "headshoppy-ness" too, like sweet incense, maybe vetiver and clove? I don't normally like vetiver, but it's lovely in this blend. There's maybe some honey in here adding sweetness, but it's not HONEY honey. I'm not getting much vanilla, but if my previous experience with BPAL holds true, I'm sure I'll find it as this scent starts to wear off. None of the notes are really standing up to announce themselves, but they're really gorgeously blended and totally wearable. It actually kind of reminds me of my beloved Cerberus, but I'm not sure why that is. It's more of a ~feeling~ than anything else. So far, this has been the biggest hit of the bonbons for me (two left to go!), and the only one I'd consider getting a bottle of. First I'm going to wait and test again when it's settled.

This reminds me of Velvet. The chocolate itself is very dark and dry, but the overall effect of it blending with the other notes is sweet, resinous, and powdery. It reminds me a lot of Velvet--so much so that I would probably not be able to tell the two apart in a blind sniff test, although I like this one better. As it warms up, I get lovely hints of patchouli and and red musk, which give this scent depth and keep it from being pure, sweet chocolate powder. There's no cinnamon here, though, and I don't know the scent of ylang ylang well enough to know if it is contributing to that Velvet-like sweetness or ... doing something else. Boomtownrat's description is very similar to my experiences, especially this bit: "a sour sweetness emerges." I kind of like that because it takes away from the overwhelming sweetness of before, but I could see how someone else would not. Closing my eyes and sniffing, I get ... patchouli but blended in so well that it's more of a feeling of patchouli than patchouli standing up and declaring itself, an almost baby-powder sort of scent that I am learning probably means myrrh is not for me, something sexy and perfume-y that I'm guessing is the red musk, and ... that's about it. Did my skin drink the chocolate? It was there during the application, but now I'm not getting any of it. The application area is warm to the touch, but that's all the cinnamon I ever got. I actually think this does have the potential for sexiness, as when I closed my eyes and pressed my nose to the skin, there was a moment where I went, "Oooh," followed by something that threatened to give me a headache. I'll have to come back to this after it's settled for a while, hopefully when I don't have Absinthe Bonbon competing for my attention further up my arm.

This scent held good news and bad news for me. The good news is that it's beautiful, positively gorgeous. Fresh on my skin it was all lemon, light mints, and powdery white chocolate. I actually would have said "cocoa powder" instead of white chocolate, but I think that's the interaction between anise and the white chocolate. You see, anise is very powdery on me ... and it amps ... and amps ... and AMPS. Which is the bad news. As soon as it sinks it, this scent becomes ANISE andwhitechocolateandotherthings. It's unfortunate, because Black Snowballs made me believe that anise and my skin could play well together, but I think that was a one-off scent. On me Absinthe Bonbon may as well be Kyoto, because both of them were PURE ANISE over the slightest hint of background notes that I desperately wanted more of and never got. Sobs.

This JUST came in the mail. It's very cold and I don't currently have anything with which clean and plastic to run a skin test, so I'll have to come back and edit this review in the near future. In the meantime, this scent is very, very sweet and white to me. I got sandalwood as soon as I touched the bubble wrap, but that's one of the few notes that really jump out at me from whatever blend it's in, so ymmv. It came out of the package smelling almost sweet-herbal-floral and a tad (dare I say it?) medicinal, but that may have been the result of it being packaged near other oils? I can't be certain. As it warms up in my hands, it's definitely becoming creamier and more foodie, but still sweet and white. This smells pretty much like sticking my nose in a bag of marshmallows--which I happen to really like. I think it's fun, and I'm glad I went ahead and snagged a bottle. Still warming the oil, I pressed my nose pretty close to the cap and found the ginger and anise, which is probably where the medicinal connection came from. (My family tends to cure things with herbal teas, you see.) There's maybeeee a slight edge of juiciness at the very back of this scent, but otherwise no cherries or currants. Perhaps they'll show up on my skin, but that seems unlikely. I'll update when I've let this mellow out a bit and found something to test with. ETA: I finally got a chance to skin test this (thanks, bendy straw!) and I am SO MAD. I am SO MAD because this perfume smells like my house on Christmas Eve and I've been homesick for so long and it's so comforting and I ONLY BOUGHT ONE BOTTLE. Seriously it's perfect, and on my skin it isn't powdery or oppressively sandalwood-y at all and I just love it. It's so great.

2013: Yes ... Just yes. What else is there to say? This is exactly what it says in the description. The hot chocolate is somehow both powdery and milky, as though you get to smell it both in the container and in the mug. The cinnamon is spicy and actually becomes more prevalent over time, but never dominates the chocolate. The coffee is in the background, adding another layer of delicious warmth. Only the brown sugar was a bit of a surprise, and that's because it was more of a top note on me, which I wasn't expecting. It was right there when I opened the bottle, surprising and confusing when I was looking for chocolate. Now that I'm in the dry down stage, I can't smell it at all. If you resolved to give up sweets in the new year, this blend probably isn't for you. For everyone else, I recommend buckets.

Princess Leia is a perfect comparison for this scent! Bravo, zankoku_zen! That's a great image. Like all of the other Yules I'm loving this year, this blend was a surprise for me. I was expecting it to be soft, powdery, and floral in a bad way. Instead it was rapidly-fading honey, sweetness, delicious spices, and florals that hold it all together. I really do feel empowered by this scent. If zankoku_zen's Leia image isn't working for you, then maybe think of Daenerys Targaryen in a far-East spice market or Katniss Everdeen at a dazzling Capitol dinner party. You get the sweetness, the girlishness, the prettiness, but also the raw, sexual, power of saffron and amber. That said, there is cedar in this, and cedar is forever a masculine scent in my mind. The blend as a whole is still very feminine-feeling, but I feel like it could be more tomboyish or even unisex with the right attitude and skim chemistry. The only people I would not recommend this for are people whose death notes are cedar, orange blossom, neroli, or amber. Everyone else should still give it a shot, in my opinion. It's a very lovely, very complex, very evocative scent worth experiencing at least once.

I actually said "mmmmmm" when I put this on, which is a first for me. I was not expecting the mint to be so front-and-center bracing, or the pink grapefruit to be right there behind it, shouting to be heard. For a few seconds I worried this would wind up being the perfume equivalent of drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth, but never fear! It turns out that smells a lot better than it tastes. I can't even be objective. This is 99% of the notes I love rolled up into one scent and then slathered all over my body kindly delivered to my home. Of course I love it. The best comparison I can think of (for those who are not already in the cult of mint and citrus), is the top note of Lick It over orangey-pink colored jelly beans. There's not much in the way of plum or black currant that I can detect at first, but they develop over time and really warm up and round out the blend. Even then it's all about the citrus, which is great for me, because I have been dying for a good BPAL citrus blend. I predict this will be a great pick-me-up on days when Seasonal Affective Disorder tries to turn my brain as foggy as the Seattle sky.

Pink Snowballs is such a true rose scent that I actually felt as though I could reach out and touch the soft, slightly waxy petals of the flower blooming on my wrist. It's a much more wearable rose note than some others I've tried. There's something intimidating about pure, red rose-rose, but those rose is lighter, meeker, and sweeter. It reminds me of Jezebel a little. Even though I can't actually smell snow or vanilla or sugar, I can tell that those notes are there, keeping the rose in line. This is a floral I could wear out in public without worrying about offending the allergies of passersby or upsetting my floral-hating loved ones because of that, and also because it wears fairly close to the skin. If this is the kind of scent you prefer to bathe in, I would worry about this fading too fast for you. My trick is to put it in the ends of my hair. You may want to wear it in a locket or get a big bottle to refresh often.

"Okay," I said to myself. "You got a lot of Yules. There are bound to be some bad ones, and Black Snowballs is going to be among them. Let's just test it and get this over with." I hate licorice. It smells like an ex that I had a particularly bad break-up with. Even the faintest whiff of anise is enough to make me feel irrationally weepy and angry and yell-y and ... a bunch of other bad things that this scent does not make me feel. In fact ... I think I might even like it more than Blue Snowballs, which was the surprising forerunner of the snowballs thus far. I'm getting a purple-black fruit scent (more like a plum or nectarine than a berry, something with thin skin and sweet flesh) balanced and grounded by the faintest hints of ozone and licorice. If this is sexy, it's Lolita sexy. It's definitely not a grown up scent, but that's okay, because I'm not a grown up and I don't want to be! Black Snowballs is candy-sweet, a little sour, and very delicious. It is surprisingly bright and cheerful for something that is supposed to be a goth scent, and much more straightforward than the blends I am accustomed to buying from the lab. I would almost recommend this as part of a starter package for people who are used to more traditional fragrance companies, or even for preteen wearers. When thinking of scents to compare this to, I came up with "those fruity deodorant sticks girls get when they're just starting puberty, but in a good way." Alternatively, maybe a more complex version of one of the better Victoria's Secret body sprays. (Note: khemistry's description of this as a scent for Hot Topic/black eyeliner goths made me laugh because it is perfect and also because this is a scent I would have worn when I was in that stage, so yes. Very much yes.)

This is an unexpected but delightful surprise! After trying Purple Snowballs, I expected this to smell wonderful in the decant and "eh" on my skin, but actually it just smells edible delicious all the time! Wet, this is BLUEBERRY. I agree that this smells sort of artificial, but in a nice way? It smells kind of like blue Skittles--not for everyone, but definitely something I want to smell like on occasion. As it dries down, it does become incredibly Christmasy, which is weird to me, since nothing about the notes particularly screams "HOLIDAYS" to me. Is that a hint of baking spices in there? It's like sour blue snow--blackberry, blueberry, and lime all blending together so well that they really just smell blue--with baking spices in a way that is lovely and not nearly as weird as it sounds. It works really well, and I think I'll keep my decant around for a while, but I probably won't be going back for a bottle.

I got a whiff of this as I was opening the imp and I thought mmmmm, yes. That scent was so rich and purple and juicy, I could almost have drank it straight from the bottle. (I know, I know, bad Kitten.) Unfortunately, as soon as it touched my skin, this blend went mmmm, no. Think purple scented candle from Yankee Candle that smells almost delicious but has a strange note that hits you right before you put the lid back on the jar--and that's just stage one. Now think overwhelming ozone-based men's cologne beneath grape cough syrup beneath a blend so beautiful and so purple and so fantastic that it literally pains you to not be able to smell it on your own. That, fortunately, dries down to a sort of potpourri scent that is rather nice, if not exactly something I want to smell like. Picture a bowl of pinecones, little purple flower petals, and some kind of bark all drenched in Glade air freshener and you get a basic image of what I'm smelling right now. The really horrible part of all this is, of course, that I know it's a fantastic blend. I can smell it in the imp and I can even catch hints of that beauty on my skin, but my chemistry is just ruining it for me. I want to keep it and try to find a way to wear it, but I also want to pass it along to someone who can appreciate it the way it deserves.

Mmmm. I am a happy kitten. :3 I remember thinking that Lick It Softly smelled like toothpaste when I put it on. I sniffed it, wrinkled my nose, sniffed it, sniffed it, realized it was getting softer as it dried down ... and then slathered a whole bunch more on. Eventually I realized I was sort of addicted to that bracingly strong mint/toothpaste scent and began a search for a perfume that would give me more of that for longer. Lick It Now ... is not that scent. Instead, it is a wonderful continuation of the Lick It line that I feel really captures the candy cane scent in a way previous blends have not. When Lick It Softly dries down, it becomes the sweet and sort of dusty vanilla that I recognize from Snake Oil and other blends. When Lick It Now dries down, it stays true to its origins to the end, though as others have mentioned it does sweeten up over time and something like white musk is coming out along with the tiniest hint of vanilla. I love it even if it isn't what I was looking for, and I'm almost definitely going back for more. I'd recommend this blend for anyone who liked the idea of Lick It blends but was turned off by the toothpastiness of previous blends as well as lovers of soft, white, and vanilla blends.