Pesha

Wow, see, I've been trying the OotD scents for the last little bit now because I just missed them and Dracula is one of my favorite novels of all time. I'm so so so glad this scent exists! In the decant: Count Dracula smells like time and lust in a bottle. There's a slight bitter edge to it that reminds me of tempered restraint. It's a very refined smell. I could sit here with the decant just smelling it really. I'm completely in love from first sniff. Wet on my skin: I could still wear this all day long and be happy. I think I'm dying of love. It's turned spicier somehow. There's a hint of smoke and just the tiniest touch of leather. I smell more of a wood scent than a leather one. I love this scent just as it is, then it dries. Dry on my skin (20 minutes): I'm dying. The smell of man isn't really here. It's the smell of arrogance, if arrogance has a smell. I love the way that it's so refined. I really could wear this myself all the time. I worry if a man was wearing this, I might have to have him. I really might. It's a really good scent. I love it painfully.

Penetrating and gifted, vulnerable, with just a hint of opium-blurred delirium: poppy smoke, champaca flower, tonka, sandalwood, ginger, white pepper. So that's what's in there! I was wondering because this smells so incredible on me that I think I should try other blends with similar notes. I really really like the way this smells on me from first application to when it's all faded away and gone for good (about 2.5 hours which seems very short to me, there's not a huge throw on this one at all either). In the decant: It smells vaguely floral to me. There's a heady sort of air to it that makes me think of excess. Wet on my skin: It smells more resinous really. It smells very different on my skin than in the container. I really like the first stirring notes and I love the air of sweetness that clings and drags on my senses. It's very drugging which is what opium dens should smell like, right? Dry on my skin (after about 40 minutes): It's got a very slight hint of bite to it that has the be the pepper coming out, but it's not too strong. I don't smell anything like tonka but I do smell the sandalwood really clearly. It's a scent that I think I could fall asleep and dream with. It makes me think of laziness and excess. It's a scent to wallow around in and just sort of day-dream. I really really like this. Now I must find more!

In the decant: It smells rather strongly of something just...masculine and indeterminate to me. I wasn't sure I wanted to put it on at first, but I decided to give it a good ole college try. On my skin (wet): MAN. It smells like new leather, squeaky clean new leather with a kind of sour scent that I wasn't prepared for. I almost thought it smelled like sweat at first. After about an hour (dry): It still smells like new leather and I've managed to determine that the sour scent I was smelling is a fruit. I looked up the description to tell which one and yeah, I can believe it's pear. It's a gorgeous blend really, but it's just too masculine for me. I'd love to smell it on a guy though. It's very rugged and inspiring.

In the bottle: I seriously bought a bottle of this blindly because I went "ooh! Flowers and sandalwood and OotD! YAY!" I've never been happier to receive a bottle of anything in all my life. Wow. I don't have words. It smells very dark in the bottle. There's the press of the florals then there's the presence of a very white musk scent and it's just a lovely sort of feminine smell. Wet on my skin: Very floral and light. I didn't get a very strong impression of anything beyond a rose scent with just a bit of waxy flower there. There's not a lot of sandalwood there when it's wet. I wasn't too impressed at that point, but I still thought it was nice. I like very feminine scents. Dry for a bit over an hour: It's turned to the dark side apparently because the musk is a lot more prevalent and I can easily pick out the sandalwood now. There's only the barest hint of flowers that seem more like the dead, dried sort than the live, blooming kind. It's still light and has very light throw on me, but it has an almost menacing air to it nonetheless. It's like the smell that I would expect from the woman who betrays her own good sense to fall in love/thrall with a vampire king. It reminds me very much of the '94 Dracula film Mina. I really got a lot of visuals out of it from that version of the story. I really really love this. I only wish I had another bottle.

I got mine as a decanted imp so I could try it out. I noticed a lot of people really seemed to love it and I'm a Halloween freak, so I figured why not? Right? In the decant: Why is it not October? Why is it not Halloween right now? That's what I was thinking. Wow, does this embody the holiday for me. I got a really big whiff of pumpkins and almost cider and spice and just warm feelings. I was really amazed by the depth of the scent. Wet on my skin: I almost cried. It really didn't like me at first and honestly kinda burned on my skin. I came very close to washing it off because it smelled like burnt pumpkin pie with a hint of something very bizarre and old. I wasn't feeling the love. After about an hour, dry: The scent has completely changed into something very lush. It's almost sexy smelling for a foody scent. It's got this dark undercurrent that's very nice. I really like the way that it still smells like pumpkin pie spices but there's an orange scent in there that lends its way towards a hard cider. It's definitely more "foody" on my skin since I'm inevitably reminded of pie when I'm wearing it. I really like the decant, but I don't think I'd buy a bottle of it even if it were available to me. I'm discovering I'm not much of a foody person. It does remind me strongly of Halloween. I'm longing for the season to come again, in fact. It's a very strong scent memory for me. I do like it, just not for me to wear. It'd make a killer room scent though.

Black Ice was the scent that made me decide that I had to buy more BPAL immediately. My favorite perfume is the limited edition Frozen Fragrance version of Cool Water and I was hoping this would smell like a darker cousin to that scent. Man, I've never been so glad to be wrong. In the bottle Cold with a touch of darkness, grit, and seduction -a stranger offering flowers as the wind picks up and the moon rises It made me want to wax poetic and read something filthy. Wet on my skin Heavier on the florals and I was worried about that as I am not generally the best with certain types of florals. I was afraid it would smell Avon on me or something, then it did this amazing thing when it dried. Dry on my skin (About fifteen-twenty minutes after application) This is now the best scent ever made. It's back to that awesome scent from the bottle except the hint of flowers has almost faded away completely, leaving just a ghost of itself behind. It's not completely frozen as far as cold goes. It's more a chill wind than an actual freezing scent. It reminds me of my favorite parts of winter and it made me want to wear it every single day. Rating Out of 5, I'd give this one a 4.5 if not a 5. I definitely want more and I'm so glad I managed to order some before it went off the market.

New to the BPAL world, I decided to try some decants of the Yuletide LEs before they were all gone. I tried Knecht Ruprecht first and I have to say that I was very surprised by how different it smelled on my skin than in the imp. In the bottle: Very heavy on the woodsy smell. Pine, evergreen maybe, very Christmas-tree-freshly-cut-from-the-forest with a hint of dried apples, almost an apple cider tinge. Warm smelling. Wet on my skin: Almost pure apple cider with the very barest hints of pine tree clippings. Dry on my skin: (About fifteen-twenty minutes after application) I'm really smelling the woods again with that very potent apple-cider scent tinging it all. It wafts pretty far on me and is a very nice blend. I guess that I would say it's got a heavy throw to it since it's not worn down in potency at all and I only used a little. It's mellowed into this very nice, very holiday feeling scent of apple-cider, tree clippings, and -for me- a strange butter-y tinge to it. I don't get any sense of "cold" from this scent personally which I found disappointing in a way as I really love "cold" scents for myself. I think this one is the warmest scent I've tried yet, to be honest. It reminds me of sitting in front of the fireplace at Christmas with the tree nearby and warm cider to hand. It's a very home-y scent. Rating: Out of 5, I'd give this one a 3.5 as I really like it and am touched by it, but I wouldn't buy another bottle just for my own use.