Wwindy

Just lovely -- warm and sophisticated without being heavy! This has a beautiful balance between a pomegranate note that reads on the dark, tart side to me and then the warm, golden, incense-y notes. The sandalwood is very rich and smooth; that and the pom are most present on my skin, with the amber in the background rounding everything out.

Overall impression: A high-pitched, silvery-white scent. The iris and silver musk (which seems very close to white musk on my skin) dominate, with a bit of added astringency from the tea. If I put my nose right on my wrist, I can pick up a trace of what must be the fig and maybe a hint of the sandalwood, but the throw is overwhelmingly "fancy white soap."

So glad I blind-bottled this one! It's what I like to think of as a "whole fig" experience: it smells like I'm standing outside under my fig trees, smelling primarily the leaves and branches, with occasional whiffs of fruit. It's so hard to describe what fig leaves smell like -- I went out to check this morning and yes, this really does capture it well! While I'm not great at isolating components, I think part of the woody aspect may be a warm, dry-ish sandalwood; it's very well integrated and doesn't stand out on its own. The fruit aspect seems a bit darker and sweeter in the bottle than it does on application -- wet, it doesn't start out super-ripe, maybe more still on the green side, but does sweeten up slightly on my skin during drydown. Overall, I'm getting a warm, earthy, slightly sweet green and brown scent with touches of fruit; it seems fairly gender-neutral to me and I could see it working well on just about anyone.

Lovely, warm, and elegant! On my skin this is a predominantly cinnamon-amber-myrrh incense with just a hint of fruitiness. Interestingly, the pomegranate comes out more strongly on my neck than it does on my wrists -- I didn't get much fruit at all from wrist application, but picked it up more noticeably once I applied at the base of my throat. While sensitive folks will probably already be a little wary of this one, I just want to note that applying on my neck left a (temporary) red mark -- anyone with cinnamon or cassia issues should proceed with caution.

I wish I got more plum and lavender out of this -- on my skin it's largely jasmine with just a touch of lemon and the moss lurking underneath. If I *really* focus with my nose right up on my arm, I think I'm getting a tiiiiiny bit of the purple notes. (My current theory is that the narcissus/moss combo is what's giving some people the oudh reaction, btw!) I'm testing from a decant, and looking at the mixed reviews above am now very curious to know if there was a lot of batch variation on this one!

I feel like Geena Davis in Cutthroat Island!!! This is gorgeous -- rich, bold, and beautifully blended. On my skin, I'm getting predominantly woods and patchouli (it's a smoky, elegant patch, not stanky at all) rounded out by the coconut and fig, which are reading as chewy and slightly fruity, but not particularly sweet or foodie. The rum stays in the background for me, which is great because I don't usually do well with booze notes! Overall impression: swashbuckling captain sailing the Caribbean and looking HAWT while she does it.

A bit of context: I've worked in libraries and bookstores pretty much my whole life, so I have very high expectations for book-themed scents! That said, I think this is my favorite (and most realistic) of all the BPAL bookish scents I've tried so far. First whiff from the bottle, this one is a little odd, to be honest: when I huff the 5ml, the wood polish smell is *strong*, but it's nowhere near as prominent once applied. Initial drydown, I'm primarily getting the dusty sandalwood, the mellow aged leather (it's 100% a bookbinding note, not a motorcycle jacket note), and the dry paper (with vanilla overtones). On my skin, if the wood polish is citrusy at all, it's only the faintest hint of brightness -- I think I'm picking up more wax than anything else from that. My nose also keeps insisting that there's a trace of something like a clean white floral note here, which I think is maybe the "draft" or cold air people have mentioned above? Or maybe it's just my brain doing something weird with the paper note! Overall, this is super atmospheric, and surprisingly wearable -- it reads very gender neutral. Despite the description, it feels more like an old yet well-tended library than an abandoned/haunted one!

Ooooh, nice. Fresh on, the dominant notes are the fig (a dark chewy fruit note, definitely not overly sweet or foodie) and lavender (herbal, also not sweet), shaded with a very slightly musty, dark green element that must be moss + thyme. Over time a light pop of lemon comes out, but I'm not picking up a whole lot of chamomile. This is pleasant and herbal -- not fresh cool garden-y herbal, but rather more witchy, dark, and warm.

(Note: This review is for the 2014 version) While I'm not usually big on the "cold" scents, this one is very pleasant, and not scary at all! After it dries down I get a predominantly mint-grapefruit combo with a bit of frankincense and very faint hints of a light floral. Overall, it leaves a clean, slightly sweet, light green/white impression -- nice for when you want something cool and invigorating without being overpowering. The only problem is it's very fleeting -- I had to apply about double the amount of BPAL I usually put on in order to get any kind of lasting scent.

So much bay leaf! The other notes here seem nice enough, but that one element goes terribly sour and sharp on my skin, and overshadows everything else.

As mentioned above, this winds up surprisingly berry-ish -- I think it's the pear and lavender mixing together to read more like purple fruit. On my skin, it's almost all berries and upscale, "grown-up" patchouli. I'm not able to pick out any sandalwood or sage. Hmmm. I really wanted to like this one, and it's not *bad*, but... in the late 80s/early 90s, my little sister went through a phase where she wore a ton of very fruity Victoria's Secret and other (mall-based) perfumes, and this just reminds me so much of one of those that I'm probably not going to wear it much.

Apple blossom, white sandalwood, and oudh. Oh, this is nice! Many thanks to the kind fairy who picked a bottle up for me. In the bottle, the three notes are each very much in evidence. The apple blossom is light and clean, perched right on the line between fruity and floral; the sandalwood is dry and warm; and the oudh is working that whole dark and earthy thing with all its might. There's something about the mix that reminds me a bit of Chintamani-Dhupa. On my skin, the oudh calms down over time, but it's definitely hanging out providing some structure and richness underneath the other two elements. I'm not going to lie, I suspect those of you who find oudh Band-Aidish may well have that reaction to this blend while it's in the bottle or recently applied -- but give it a chance and see if you can deal with it after the drydown, which leaves me with a lovely balance of the apple-y white floral and warm sexy wood. It seems so appropriate that this is a NYC-themed blend -- it's elegant, unusual, and a little bit dirty all at once! I'm glad to have sprung for it blind, and expect to keep it in rotation.

I smell like a hippie dipped in dark chocolate!!! Seriously, it's like someone took a stick of very warm, rich, tobacco-shaded incense and dunked it in chocolate like a Pocky. Most of the other notes blend together pretty thoroughly on my skin, but I can pick out the saffron (one of my favorite Lab notes), cedar, and patchouli, with hints of champaca and honey smoothing everything out. I'm not getting any particularly noticeable lemon, vanilla, or cognac. I'm not normally keen on foodie or sweet scents, but took a chance on this based on all the incense-y elements, and as it turns out chocolate-dipped hippie is *scrumptious*. I love this 13!

I'm not getting any leather or chocolate at *all* out of this, and I wouldn't even say any identifiable honey. All I get, both in the 5ml and on my skin, is something that hovers between the osmanthus note from Eclat and slightly sweetened tea if I "squint" my nose at it right. I don't know if something went awry in the formulation or what, but there's no leather or chocolate to be found here, although the flowery tea note is reasonably pleasant. I'm a little disappointed... ETA: I have fallen victim to one of the classic blunders!!! Because I didn't see any sediment or dark residue in the 5ml, I didn't roll the bottle. Once I did a better job mixing the oil, ta-da! Suddenly, warm chocolate overtones, a more realistic tea impression, and a tiny bit of what reads mostly as wood rather than a specifically identifiable leather note. The overall scent is now *much* richer and well-rounded. So, revised opinion: This is cozy and jovial, very much a tea-and-music-after-festive-dinner kind of evocation. Nice! Low to medium throw, and relatively short wear length. Don't be like me -- roll your bottles.

Jasmine. Jasmine. One of the three notes in my unholy trinity of "do not wants" (the other two being vetiver and orange/citrus). And this is not stealthy jasmine or subtle jasmine here, oh no. This is big huge in-your-face indolic jasmine. And yet... and yet... I somehow don't hate it? Unlike everything else I've ever tried with jasmine, I didn't have immediate "get it off!" The first time I tested it, I kept thinking "Oh, if only the jasmine weren't here, I would love all the rest of this," but the blend has seriously grown on me. It's got that exotic overblown white floral thing all intertwined with super-delicious, super-sexy honeyed, spiced vanilla and wood, with little whiffs of earthiness from the hay and the ambrette. It's... ugh, I'm going to use a hideously cliched word here, but... it's hypnotic. I cannot stop huffing it. I find myself reaching for this even more often than some blends I count as lifetime favorites! THE SCENT IS A GLOWING WHITE SNAKE THAT I CANNOT STOP STARING AT. PLZ SEND HELP. *ahem* That is to say, I looooooove this. Mmmmm.

This is so good. So, *SO* good. I want to smell like this always and forever! It's a surprisingly gentle scent given the note list -- it just makes a beautiful soft halo of sexy, spicy sandalwood with a touch of sweetness. My one issue is that I wish this came as a perfume oil, as I'm mostly using it on my skin and the scent doesn't last as long as I'd like that way. It holds longer in my hair, but as with all the HGs, I find that applying any more than the tiniest amount on my very fine, wispy hair makes it look oily. Woe! My one consolation is that I enjoy using this as a body spray so much, it's not exactly a hardship to have to re-spray every once in a while.

Not at all what I was expecting based on the flavor text! I don't really pick up anything glittery or flickering out of this. Instead, after a slightly daunting initial sharpness from the borderline harsh green galbanum (don't worry, that note does die down and blend in), it dries down to a smoky, sophisticated, dark green amber. I agree with previous reviewers that this is a big, perfumey chypre -- maybe with more of a hazily elegant glow than a bright flame.

Ah, this is a weird one. Fresh on out of the decant, I get this fascinatingly wild, almost nutty outdoorsy scent -- like somebody plunked a Starbucks down in the middle of a forest clearing. Feral but slightly foody at the same time! After a couple of minutes of drydown I start picking up on the leather and champaca... ah yes, there are definitely awesome hippies in leather vests hanging out at this woodland Starbucks. Aaaaaannnnd... then everything disappears but the cinnamon. I'm left with nothing but dry, spicy cinnamon. It's a shame, because for about five minutes this was a crazy intriguing blend.

I had a problem with Okayaki too -- my decant was all cool and elegant and greyish-green with a bit of creaminess, the overall scent registering like a very soothing upscale spa aroma, and then the bottle I wound up with smelled like powdery orange Pez. Ugh!

This reminds me of a lighter, spring-ier Midnight Mass! It's got that same woody incense plus strong evergreen feel, only brighter and fresher. The other thing it reminds me of is a layering combination I particularly like, Cathedral plus Lights of Men's Lives. The frankincense is very clear and bright-toned, with a slightly citrus-y edge; the myrrh and beeswax round it out and sweeten it nicely. The wood notes were *very* strong on initial application, but have quieted down after a couple of hours, and are now well balanced with the frankincense and a bit of green sharpness from the bamboo. It's nice to have such a lovely springtime option in my woodsy/incense-y repertoire!

Gah! SO GOOD. This is the sexy, earthy hippie scent of my dreams. I don't even know if I can say anything articulate about it, because it's like it just reaches into my brain and pokes the MUST SMELL EXACTLY THIS ALL THE TIME button. I am (sort of not really) ashamed to admit I've been dousing myself with this even though it's atmo spray and the skin on my neck reeeaallly isn't entirely thrilled about that -- the scent is just that fantastic. LiberAmoris's description of the color range seems exactly right to me, with the caveat that the scent itself isn't metallic at all; I get a very warm, smooth patchouli (not gritty or menthol-y at all) rounded out with incredibly rich wood tones and a tiny bit of lift from the green notes. So, yeah, basically I need a vat of this to swim in.

Seriously, I'm going to a Doctor Who burlesque show tonight, and I can't think what BPAL to wear! Hit me with your best (and funniest!) ideas...

So, we didn't actually make it to the September show (I thought we had tickets, but the show had already sold out)... we did, however, make it to last night's repeat performance! I wore Casanova, because that was just too amusing a connection to pass up. Thanks for all the great suggestions, everyone. The show was lots of fun! http://ocelotonaleash.com/Stars%20&%20Garters.htm

Be warned: You may need to disregard the previous reviews for this scent! The gingery scent described above is the 'old," light-colored version of Gnome. The Lab says that Gnome is actually supposed to be a dark-colored oil, and that's what they're shipping now; it's a *completely* different scent from the previous version. If you'd like to see a visual comparison, here's an image: This new dark-colored Gnome is very heavy on the "gear lubricant," which is an oily, deep-toned note, followed by some very woody balsam and a bit of peppery smoke. There is virtually no discernable ginger and definitely no fizz at all, at least in my imp.

Gnome update... It's true, the "official" Gnome is nothing at all like the first round of Gnome. Here's a side-by-side photo with an old imp and a recent imp so you can see the dramatic color difference: As mentioned above, the old, light-colored Gnome has lots of fizzy ginger. The dark-colored Gnome is a much deeper-feeling, brown-toned scent; the dark oily "gear lubricant" is most prominent in the imp, followed by a woody note and a hint of smoke. There is no detectable ginger in the dark-colored version. I don't care for this version at all, and am sad to have lost the Gnome I loved...