Evilynn

In the bottle it's all vanilla extract and marshmallow. On the skin it's a faint, warm vanilla that all but disappears. It sort of rallied on my skin after awhile and I had a warm marshmallowy vanilla scent hanging around for hours. The sillage and throw aren't huge, but as a comforting skin scent it's quite lovely.

In the bottle I get almond and cherry, on the skin there's also a bit of chocolate to start out. The anise makes a brief appearance, but the drydown is a cherry flavoured marzipan, rounded off by the chocolate, a sort of darkly fruity blend. I can't say I notice much mint or anise after about 15-30 minutes, but since I'm not a huge fan of anise this is fine by me. I've been looking for a dark cherry scent that doesn't turn into bubblegum/scented eraser, and this seems very promising! Edit: A couple of hours after application it's turned into the dreaded scented-eraser-from-the-80ies scent that I'm trying to avoid. This is from a bottle freshly arrived in the mail, I'm going to let it age for a bit to see if the dry down improves.

I was hoping for cherry with a hint of red musk to make it a more mature scent, but got red musk with the barest hint of cherry instead. I, too, think Smut was actually fruitier on me than this is. It's a dark and slightly dry and dirty red musk with nary a cherry in sight.

I've held off reviewing this until it had aged a few months, since it was a very green woods single note when I got the bottle. However, it is still pretty much single note oudh on me, in the most screechingly perfumey, headachey way possible. I have never thought of oudh as a death note before, but I think I will, from now on. Off to the swap pile it goes.

It's so pretty! Not the label (although that's pretty too), but the oil itself, which is teal coloured. I've let my bottle age since March, because it was a weird sharp banana-smelling mess on my skin when fresh. In the bottle: Herbal, green banana. Damned. Wet: Banana and grass. I guess it's the green musk (or something in the green musk) that my nose registeres as unripe banana, weird. Dry: Sharp grass, and a bit more rounded out musk. It's better in the dry stage than when wet, but sadly, I think I need to let this one go.

In the bottle it's all buttery sweetness, foodier than I thought it would be, and no coconut in sight. On the skin the butter burns off pretty quickly, but this still heads into cookie-territory and is toothachingly sweet, except the cream accord does that sort of goat-y thing that Boo does on my skin. The drydown was sweet marshmallow with a hint of spiceyness (amber doesn't usually read like that to my nose, but I don't know what else in the notes would account for it). I might let this age a little to see if the goat goes away, and if I can get over the overt sweetness.

In the bottle it's predominantly dandelion and grassy notes. On the skin I get dandelions and something more sharp and floral, which is not entirely agreeable to my nose, but the drydown is grassy dandelions over a gaint warmth of honey, which mostly makes up for the sharp note in the middle register.

In the bottle: Minty lavender, quite sharp Wet on the skin: Toothpaste. Drydown: Slightly herbal tooth paste. Mint is tricky on me. I prefer the taste of peppermint, but it seems like the spearmint and green mints work a lot better as scent on my skin.

I usually like the brass-y grease-y scents (like the RPG Goblin), but the aftershave in this does seem to contain violet, which is the death note of all death notes on me, so off to swaps it goes. Before the violet amped to its vomit-y hell stench (ain't skin chemistry grand?) it was a nice warm brass scent mixed with engine grease.

In the bottle this is mostly strawberry to my nose. On the skin I also get a bit of pickle, and more of the vanilla comes forward. I don't notice much tea rose at all (the only rose I can wear!), but a touch of cognac. The drydown is some kind of strawberry candy on me. Very pink and not really my cup of tea.

In the bottle this is a sweet but still zesty citrus to my nose, alas the grapefruit note that I love vanishes quickly on my skin and I'm left with something sharp and soapy and rather unpleasant.

This smells predominantly sweet orange and white chocolate(!?) on me. I believe I was frimped my first imp, but upgraded to a bottle pretty shortly since it not only smells fanastic, but is unintrusive enough to be worn to work. It's one of my goto daytime perfumes.

In the imp this smelled aquatic and a bit minty to me, but that impression only lasted for the first 5 minutes or so on my skin. After an hour or so it's predominantly oakmoss, which I amp like crazy, and it's a little too masculine to really work on me, but after another half hour or so the ambergris shows up and it turns into this warm, mossy ambergris scent which is really lovely, although not exactly what I expected. Very comforting, and I'm holding on to my imp.

I'm working around the issue by applying oil to my clothes (which is what I used to do with perfumes before BPAL). The only problem is it's a little bit trickier to change scents. Luckily enough I've never had a reaction to cinnamon, the only skin issues I've had with BPAL until now (and I've been at it for over 5 years) is that I'll get cystic acne(!?) if I apply oil to my neck.

I wore my beloved Gypsy Moth while being in the sun for too long a couple of weeks ago, and broke out in a rash on my wrists. It subsided and I went back to using bpal as normal, and now they're baaack. Argh. I thought it was the cardamom in Gypsy Moth in combo with the strong sun that did it, but I think I wore a Dorian chaos theory when I relapsed, and I'd tried keeping my wrists covered at all time. I guess I have to lay off using perfume on my wrists for a while.