modernsaints

Yep, it's a really really nice men's cologne. Couldn't pick out specific notes, really; it's just very light and crisp, with a sort of tang to it. It does seem sort of gender-neutral in that a lady wearing this would not be out of place, and a man wearing it would not seem excessively masculine; I can picture it being REALLY lovely on loads of people. I suppose it's just very "meh" for me because... if I'm going to wear BPAL, I want it to be fabulous, amazing, unique. This is AMAZING for a generic cologne but not quite what I want out of BPAL for myself. (If I were a man, though, I would probably own three bottles of this! So, you know, there's that.)

I sort of want to do a study seeing if there is a correlation between "being short" and "loving this perfume"! I am short, and I really enjoy it. The amber plays really nice - it provides a perfect base for the bright spicy pepper, and the flowers never get floral, just round and sweet and delicious. There's some unnameable tang to this that makes it... something else, and while I am unsure whether I'd ever use a 5ml, I definitely need an imp.

Bought this in an imp pack for a friend - I'm an ~*~enabler~*~. But I am also a really awful person, and all, so I snuck a tiny bit out (with the plastic bit off a q-tip, so as not to contaminate it.) And omgomgomg the Fae references are DEAD ON. And I LOVE Fae. A bit sweeter and more syrupy, but only in comparison - it's still bright, fresh, sweet-orange fruit, and the white musk does that same brilliant sparkling thing, and agh! Big bottle list! Right now! If any of the scents get her, it'll probably be this one, hehe.

Somehow my nose reads 'kumquat' as 'just like the mandarin in Carnal'. It's a really nice, sweet, candied fruit; however, the tea and pepper are just too light to give this any real base, whereas Carnal has the fig grounding it perfectly. Tweedledee floats off my skin in twenty minutes. I do not think I need to keep this, especially if I plan to buy a bottle of Carnal!

Heavy gardenia at first, drying down into weird, metallic-y sharp ginger, and finally a soft, powdery floral. Much less aquatic than I wanted or expected; not me at all.

Frimp from the lab! Very strong, VERY pure cedar-sandalwood. It's surprisingly nice, and very reminiscent of the other frimp the lab sent (Fenris Wolf). What are the odds!

Imp, wet: HOMG BUBBLEGUM And then it dries down into... spiced oranges. Huh. Very Christmas-y spices, in a potpourri sort of way. Jailbait... is Christmas... huh. *looks at imp suspiciously* Anyway, it's a bit too fake-spice for me.

OH DAMNIT of course Selkie is, like everything beautiful and awesome. That typeface omg Once again, honey spites me with its presence in a blend!

SWEET and sort of spice-cake-y; no black cherries, just an undertone of vanilla. Delicious but not at all something I'd ever want to wear. It's like... there's cake perfume, and then there's stuff that falls on your wrist that happens to smell kinda cake-y. Which, you know, CAKE, but it doesn't blend right with my skin, so. Off it goes!

... Her ofrenda is a bounty of melons and grapes, strewn with the petals of the flowers of motherhood, draped with sea mosses. This is very reminiscent of watermelon & grape Bubble Yum, somehow swirled together. And yet there's some layering to it - I keep sniffing my wrist and it's never quite the same scent twice! It's lovely, and absolutely full of melon, and the sugariness is definitely there. I'm very unsure about whether it's a bottle buy, but I'm NOT swapping the imp off.

Frimp from the lovely lab; I make it a rule to try everything that passes through my hands, regardless of whether I think I'll like it. Very much red musk on me, with a bit of the wood note off the sandalwood. Red musk goes faintly to powder on me, but the powder is REALLY faint here. This is nice! I wouldn't wear it, but I really enjoy smelling it, to the point where I want to find an excuse to wear it. I know I won't though... sigh.

Sweetly powdered sandalwood. Rather lovely, but ultimately not for me; I'm picky about my sandalwoods, and I have yet to find the BPAL blend that makes it sing on me. This one has probably gotten closest, though!

Started out as a sort of cocoa (NOT chocolate) mixed with Snake Oil... nom nom delicious! Sexy and spicy and wonderful. Sadly, it dries down into a sort of spice mix that's... meh. I can appreciate it as a nice scent, but I would not ever feel the need to reach for it in the imp box, and I would NEVER go through a whole bottle. Something about it feels very much unlike me.

In the imp, pure bright cherry - obviously that's the almond, but it just felt like cherry to me. DELICIOUS. I am excited and cannot wait to put this on~ And then of course it goes pure frankincense on me. The mum sniffed my wrist & went "EW MORE INCENSE?" It's okay I guess, but after the cherry-almond deliciousness, I just can't bring myself to be excited about this. Off to swaps!

Mm. Definitely far too old for me to wear as a perfume; very strongly lavender/herbal/floral, as other reviews have said endlessly. However, it's a sweet, relaxing scent, and I plan to keep this on hand in the purse, just for those days when it's really, really necessary. It's... I'm trying to think of an analogy for the mood of this, and the best thing I can come up with is: it's not the friend who takes you out dancing after your breakup, it's the one who sits at home and watches John Cusack movies with you. I like it, though.

Huh. Sugary, dry incense, with... lemon? A very sweet, lemon-esque floral over it. Huh. (For the record, the madre smells it as straight-up cone incense, nothing else.) It's intriguing, in that way where I keep sniffing myself, but I don't especially enjoy it. I can imagine keeping an imp on hand if I had one, but I will NEVER need a bottle of this. Ever. Really weird.

.... Oh. THAT'S cassia. *suddenly feels the urge to hunt down some monsterbait NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES* This is barely Snake Oil on me - it's just a very faint background note. It's all sweet delicious dry cassia with a backup of ginger. I get the Chimera similarities here, definitely, but Chimera is more 'cinnamon frosting' and this is more 'dry powdered cinnamon', except it's not cinnamon, it's cassia, but you know what I mean. nom nom nom so good.

A very natural, sweet, cocoa-butter type of chocolate on me. Somehow it's REALLY faint though; I am torn, as I don't need a whole bottle, by any means, but I'd have to really slather it off the imp to get anything. Hm! I suppose that means it's time to try Bliss & Vice, huh. EDIT: I lied. I need a bottle. With only a mild bit of slathering, this gets a decent throw and the BEST staying power of any BPAL I've tried yet. It's pure, natural, gentle-but-not-quite-sweet chocolate: cocoa-y, like Godiva hot chocolate. Wore it through a long day at work and while it wasn't... cheering, or soothing, it just sort of grounded me in a way. Absolutely stunning.

This was kind of heavily floral in the imp, but I went "oh maybe it'll soften up a little" It did not. It turned into the heaviest, most sickly, disgusting powder I can imagine. I offered it to the madre, who was heartbroken (she'd been expecting a most perfect floral). On her, it had the same effect, though not as intense. I don't even know what the hell note did this; it just... wow. Ack.

So NATURAL peach-y and fresh and summery and sparkly. I want a bottle of this, like, now. The madre had been complaining that all my scents were too fake and candy-like (though, mind you, this is a woman who can look at a delectable cake and say 'meh', so.) I put Fae on, and she could not stop huffing my wrist. Seal of approval from all!

Not quite Turtle Soup: blurry aquatic notes, with a confusing, contrary splort of iris, ambrette, green apple, vodka, white mint and a squish of lime. Word to whoever said this smells really familiar... it's sort of like a lotion I remember someone wearing, perhaps? I have no idea what makes it smell lotion-y. But it's a delicious, cool, apple-y lotion, with that sparkle of mint and lime, and it's very distinctly a GREEN apple. (Not at all the crisp yellow-red apple from The Hesperides.) I'm really glad I got this one in time for summer! ETA: Upon re-wearing, nevermind, it's just lotion-y apple. Really classy apple lotion. Eh. If I wanted that, I'd put some of my Hesperides into an unscented lotion; I wear perfume to smell like perfume! Off to swaps.

In the imp, distinctly plum & currant. Very fruity and sweet. On the skin it goes even brighter and brighter, more purple, until the whole thing is just this sort of purple jelly candy glued to my wrist. I LIKE how it smells - I really do - but I cannot imagine ever wearing it as perfume. The amaretto & wine never came out, except for the grapiness of the wine - but no alcohol notes to sharpen things at all.

So close to being perfect, but the lilac goes way heavy on me, and then the galbanum (I think?) adds this sharp, SHARP green note that disagrees with me. On the madre, the green note never came out, but it was even heavier on the lilac; she turned it down as well.

WHOMP MINT WHOMP EUCALYPTUS And then a few peeks of violet, but it disappears back into the high, screechy MINTEUCALYPTUS. I almost am tempted to keep this for when I have a cold; it is sharp and sinus-clearing, but sadly I cannot picture ever wearing it as perfume. Perhaps on others it will calm itself down!

Fruity and nice, but there's this bizarre, familiar, sweet plasticky note that I recognize from... Thalia & The Hanging Gardens. Bwuh? Those two both have pear & plumeria in common, but this has neither; this & Hanging Gardens both have pomegranate, but that is absent in Thalia. I am highly confused. Sadly, that note seems to be strongest here, and so I am forced to pass!