Pottersville

Another test from the shoebox of ever-multiplying imps ... and you could've knocked me over with a feather once I'd come online to check the notes! As a rule, I don't do florals and I don't do aquatics and anything that even hints of storms or ozone will set my head to aching. Szepasszony is lovely, though. Very springlike and fresh. Lovely light florals - the earlier spring ones that don't have a heavy "flower" scent, like daffs and crocus. It's freshened with a bit of green and gently washed with spring rain. This *might* be a bottle purchase!

I've gathered up all the imps that have been multiplying in the corners of my house, stuffed them all into a shoebox (ok, so it's a child-size shoebox, but IT'S STILL A SHOEBOX STUFFED FULL OF IMPS!!!!), and have been determined to test them all ... randomly grabbing an imp or two a day. Today's candidate was Penthus. It almost didn't make it to a skin test, because out of the imp it had a sharp yet cloying note to it ... something bordering on vaguely chemical. It stayed that way for awhile on my skin, gradually mellowing down to a indeterminate, yet white smelling, soapy floral. Checked the notes when I finally got to my computer and realized that it was likely the water notes that were like nails on a chalkboard to me, closely followed by rose. Urk! It's tolerable now that it's dried down some, but not worth the wait.

Ahhh, this is my first 13 and it's a winner! I was lured in by the spice notes, and they certainly deliver. To my nose, the chocolate is barely present in this blend. Instead, I get rich molassas, the snap of ginger, and the warmth of nutmeg. It smells like I wanted Gingerbread Poppet to smell! And it's got great staying power. Glad I sprang for two bottles!

Ohhhhh, this started out so wonderfully complex on me .... fruity, spicy, resinous. I couldn't stop huffing my wrist! And then the rose came out, clubbed all the other notes senseless, and turned to cat pee. Srlsy. Rose, why do you do this to me????

I love, love, love lavender and adore bergamot, so I was biased toward loving Pontia. And I do love her, really I do! But I can't smell any bergamot at all. Not a whiff, not one jot. And Pontia has the distinction of being the most fleeting BPAL scent I've ever tried. I slathered from the decant THREE TIMES yesterday (did I mention I love lavender and bergamot?!) and could have slathered several more times. She .... was ... just ... gone. Definitely not a bottle purchase for me.

Black plum, burgundy wine, sandalwood, and champaca. Yup, this is definitely a scent where you begin the description with ... "this reminds me of ....". Makhanitis is a lovely scent. Rich, dry, and heady. She reminds me of a drier Bordello and a less complex Mdm Moriarty, and Prunella is her kinder, gentler cousin. I'll hold on to my decant, but won't go for the bottle since Makhanitis isn't as unique as I'd like her to be.

I love me some wood scents and this is a great one. It's verrrrry dry, but seems to miss the mustiness that I've so often found in, say, the Lab's Haunted House series. As others have noted, the blend is surprisingly bright, perhaps "saved" from darkness by the crisp lunar herbs? Sandalwood and cedar predominate, but I find the cedar notes to echo the whole cedar tree -rich, red wood and sweetly pungent leaves- so the sense is one of being outside in the woods under a full moon rather than stuck inside grandma's cedar-lined trunk in the attic!

OMG, I almost didn't order a bottle of this because I was convinced it would be amazingly sweet (and I amp sweet like nobody's business)! Thank goodness I ignored that fear ... Agape is sweet, but it's a very soft, fullsome sweetness .... the sort of sweetness you get from sun-ripened fruits vs. candystore sweetness. It is fruity, but those notes also have a gentle, tempered sweetness that coexist wonderfully with the floral notes. The cream and carnation are there, but on my skin they exist as undernotes that give the rest of the scent a lovely foundation.

First, I get TONS of berries, with a very spicy kick to them (what's in that paper bag?!). At the dry down, the soft fig peeks through, with some of the leather and cream showing up for company. For awhile, I thought I had a strong contender to dethrown Pinched, but there's very little cognac here and the overall scent fades extremely quickly. Little throw, less lasting power. A disappointment.

There's gotta be amber in this, and probably honey and vanilla, because it does exactly what O does on me ... go all sickly, nauseatingly sweet. And unfortunately it's also got a lot of staying power.

Such an odd little scent on my odd little skin chemistry! It's very cold and floral. The frankincense and sandalwood were what convinced me to try an imp, but they're being overpowered by the ... I'm not sure what! Maybe it's the amber going all wonky on my skin that makes it so sweet and flowery? Or the tinny ozone driving the herbal violet leaf and pungent hyssop down to the merest hints? And where did the smoke go? On me, this is a rather nondescript scent, and therefore not a keeper.

A frimp from the Lab - THANKS, LAB! Sadly, I didn't get a single one of the listed notes! At first sniff, I was hit with a wave of powdery sweetness (amber?!), quickly followed by something more acrid that I took to be vetiver or patchouli (tobacco?!). The two balanced each other nicely for a short period, and then the powdery sweetness was back. I hate my skin chemistry!

Beautiful and fresh! The pine is very distant and is not at all resinous. Instead, it lends a lovely crispness to the light florals. Glad I got a bottle! Edited to say that this is definitely a winter only perfume for me! I wore it again in June -first time in quite a few months- and am now getting a headache from the florals, which are overpowering in the warmer weather. Urk!!!!!!!!

This is much, much sweeter than I expected, with surprisingly little "darkness". I purchased a bottle unsniffed because the lavender, incense, and rosewood in particular beckoned to me. Those are usually pretty deep, strong scents on me. Amber can be iffy (it tends to go powdery on me), but I figured black amber would be able to hold its own. Is it the black poppy throwing a curveball into the mix? There's no fruit note listed, but I keep getting whiffs of overripe plums and currants. The scent overall is ok, but not what I expected. There's not a lot of throw, and what there is is fading fast.

Ditto to Kippy's comment that this was all grass and no leaves. It's lovely, but not at all what I was expecting and -for me- not at all evocative of the season.

Yup, I get the fruity SweetTarts thing too, but there's enough soft cotton to keep it from going all cloying and nasty. I'll definitely keep the imp, but I don't think it's bottle worthy!

OMG, I can't believe it .... a scent with rose in it that doesn't make me gag! Way to go, Beth!!!!!!!!!!! I hate rose. Hate, hate, hate it in any form other than the flower. Still, I keep trying Beth's creations and it's paid off. Alice is a gorgeous scent. Very sweet and innocent yet with enough spicy zing to remind you that Alice was an independent type who wasn't afraid to try new things. Love it!

Oh, yum! This is a spicier version of White Rabbit, with more throw and more staying power ... and since I love White Rabbit I must have more Ichabod!!! Love this stuff!

I don't get dandelion at all .... this is far too sweet for that, I think. In my mind I see a row of incredibly tall sunflowers standing against a sunny wooden wall (I smell a hint of warm wood in there). Those aren't terribly sweet either, though, so I'm not sure what I'm smelling. Ultimately, The School House dries down into something that smells quite commercial to me. Pleasant, but not a stand out.

Starts off all buttery pumpkin when wet and then quickly fades to a vague pumpkin-skin musk scent. Not a standout in my book, sadly, but then I'm still looking for Pumpkin Queen II !!

Very buttery pumpkin, but with an oddly sour note when wet. Dries down dry (not sweet, in other words) with an odd waxy smell to it. So it's a jack-o-lantern with an as-yet-unlit candle in it?! Odd!

First, in the interests of full disclosure, I HATE rose. So why did I get a decant of this? Because you just never know with the Lab! And ultimately, if I were going to wear rose, this would be it. It's a relatively light, airy rose (though still far sweeter than any of the lovelies growing in my garden) softened even more with cream. During drydown it goes thru a mercifully short baby powder phase, and ultimately settles into something that smells quite a bit like Burt's Baby Bees. I am actually going to hold onto the decant, rather than swap it away.

I was a little fearful of this one myself, since I've never had much luck with wind/atmosphere scents (ozone = evil!) but it's really quite incredible. If opopponax, cedar, and incense could ever be "light", this is it. It really does smell as if the Goblin Rider has passed by and you can just catch a whiff of his scent. There might be another bottle in my future!!

Urk! Tested this over the weekend, along with Goblin Rider, Fearful Pleasures, and Harvest Moon, and immediately thought,"Desitin and Raffinee" (aka baby butt creme and Dana Houbigant 1980s oriental spice/sandalwood perfume). I decided that couldn't possibly be right, so today I'm wearing Hellhound on its own. Urk, I say!! I'm mad about tobacco, and the addition of bourbon vanilla had clinched the sale (to the tune of two bottles). I was expecting exactly what the other reviewers have found - a bit of earthiness, some astringence from the herbs, a masculine edge from the bay rum/tobacco combo. Instead I've got this weird, headache-inducing and very strident cheap perfume smell that is distressingly like the chemical monstrosities I wore in the 1980s. I can't pick out any of the individual notes because the Raid-like scent is overwhelming. The only thing keeping me from washing it all off is the desperate hope that it will mellow ... A LOT!