crimescenecleanup

This is a very powerful aquatic. The notes in this are freshwater, not salty or brackish in any way. I feel like I recognize them from other BPAL scent descriptions mentioning rivers and rain and deep water. Danube comes to mind. Over this deep blue-green pool of very strong aquatic notes, there's some leaves floating, but they smell tannic and a little bit poisonous. For some reason it smells "prickly" to me and reminds me of green nettle plants. This feels like a Rappacinis garden scent, but 90 percent water. This is Rappacini's garden pond. While most aquatic perfumes I've encountered tend to be light and airy, spring or summer scents, this one feels dark and heavy and cool. Clean water, but...shadowed under that deep green canopy.

Odd. All these reviews mentioning Florida Water, and all I get is all oakmoss all the time. Then after what seems like an eternity of oakmoss, finally merging and becoming one with the oakmoss, there is no beginning and no end all is oakmoss...there is a hint of toasted barley. Like the kind used in barley tea, not in beer. It is heckin effective.

When I saw this scent, I knew it would be my purchase from the Lilith collection this year. Peppermint and white chocolate? Hell yes! Bu after testing it, all I get is super thick, gooey, uncooked cake batter with waxy sugar sprinkles. And it is dead-on. This is not a bad thing - I love sprinkle cake - just unexpected. The white chocolate and mint is nowhere to be found. Oh well, I can always use more cake in my life.

The chapter in Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers on Augusta Gein was so powerful and sad. The baby's breath heavy Lovers from the Vampire Tarot is one of my all-time favorite BPAL creations. Lately I've been loving all kinds of perfumes with powdery notes. How could I resist this? I thought this would be a total win for me, so I blind bottled it. But I forgot one crucial thing - I hate actual Johnson & Johnson baby powder. Can't stand the stuff. It never occurred to me that this would smell like, well, actual baby powder. And it does - super sweet and a little bit funky sour floral around the edges. I feel like I'm standing in a nursery with an armload of freshly changed babies but without the happy feeling of snuggling babies. It's just like, wait, where did all these babies come from? Why are people still using baby powder like they did decades ago? It's overwhelming, in all of its cloying, outdated sweetness. The baby's breath - such a papery, delicate floral - is not enough to compete with the baby powder. It is getting crushed underneath it. While being a perfectly innocent combination of notes, Mama Gein gives me a feeling of being trapped. Claustrophobia painted in fragile florals and vintage drug store cosmetics. I think this perfume is brilliant. I am sad that I will not be able to wear it happily, but it really does capture the concept perfectly. If you are a nostalgic at all for the scent of the talcum powder that came in the old pink shaker bottles, then this is a scent you should definitely try.

I adore Sady Doyle's books and Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers is no exception. I am just discovering feminist theory, but it really spoke to me as a horror fan. As far as the archetypes go, I was particularly fond of the possessed teen. Stay mouthy and sullen, young women. If you have to spew, spew on the authority figure who is trying to drive the feral wildness out of you. As for the perfume - Ah, this is lovely. This was my surprise favorite out of this collection. We have really fancy soap as the main note and it smells so good- like the delicious moment when you crack open the wrapper on a really expensive bar, brand new. This ain't no drug store daily soap, this is the stuff you get in five star hotels in your gift basket. So luxury soap that makes you feel clean and beautiful, and the whole background of the scent is this rich deep Catholic church incense, like they burn on high holy days. I'm not usually a big fan of incense scents but this is so true-to-life and so layered. I love it. It would be a great scent for days when you need to feel confident and together. It is definitely the scent of someone who owns their own power and will not give it away to someone else. It is a scent for the self-possessed.

This starts off as a strong white amber musk - airy, soft, clean, and with a vanilla-like quality. It is very simple and straightforward. So well blended you can't tell where the musk ends and the amber begins. Then, lurking behind it, is this small spike of sharp opium. It is definitely smoky, tarry opium accord, but something about it smells, er, pokey. It smells the way thorns feel. Perhaps it is the combination of the other notes, or the dust accord that gives it that prickly quality. White musk still dominates the scent, but there is always that hint of other notes that tells you something is not quite right. It evokes a sense of unease. This is a malevolent haunting. The white musk and the darker opium/herbal notes feel disconnected. It wouldn't say that it is a thin scent, as the description calls it, because the amber musk definitely packs an oomph and the opium note is consistently noticeable. But it does feel hollow...like there is this vast empty space where I would expect other notes to be,. That absence really creates the experience. This is not a simple or boring scent by any means, but it does feel stark and spare. Like you are being forced to look at really notice just a couple of the elements under bright lights on an empty stage, and all surrounding them is darkness and the unknown. This is more of a spooky scent experience than something I would wear around town, but it is an experience I am happy to revisit and continue to puzzle out. I am very glad I tried it and glad to have a bottle.

I just realized that I never formally reviewed this. Well, that must be corrected. I get so much snow from this blend - a sort of piney, bracing BPAL snow note, which might just be a very cold version of the white musk. This particular cold white musk /ozonic/airy note is not my favorite, but boy does it capture the feel of winter air in your face. It is not camphoric or minty, if people are wondering about that. White oud has been in previous Lilith blends and I love it. Oud never does the dung thing on me. Maybe I just cant smell the animalic qualities, but to my nose it always smells like exotic woods and a hint of forest decay. Complex, a little rotten, but also clean like rain and beautiful in the way an autumn leaf pile is rotten. Wait, does that make any sense at all? Moving on. This oud soft and gentle, like if an ancient tree was also a fuzzy blanket. But most importantly, this blend has black rubber, a realistic black rubber note, which is hilarious and it made my day to know that this was in perfume. I actually love that smell, the way some people love the smell of permanent markers or gasoline. New tire stores are my jam. The only thing stopping me from snapping up a bottle (or multiple bottles) is that darn wintery snowy white musk thing going on. With very few exceptions, BPAL cold and frost blends tend to not play well with my skin chemistry (disastrously so). (The Snow-Storm, Frostbitten Jack, Berliner Dom Antics, and Krampus have been the only exceptions, if anyone was wondering and wanted to compare notes). I went through a whole multi-year phase of wanting to try all of the 'cold' Yules in hopes that one would steal my heart. I went through so many decants during the Winter Salon...ahem. Anyway. Many dozens of tested blends later, that experiment ended in rueful disappointment. So I am still on the fence about this one. It is wonderfully unique. It is playful and humorous, which is an important quality in perfume. And it is wonderfully cold. Do I brave the cold and try aging a bottle to see what happens? Trying to decide has been a toboggan ride I tell ya. For lovers of BPAL's cold and snowy notes, and lovers of perfumes that evoke the experience of the seasons and the outdoors, and for people who love the techie-steampunk perfumes that reflect the man-made world of metals and leathers and concrete - if you love any one of these things, the decision should be easy. PotzDamer Platz Toboggan somehow brings together these different worlds of perfumery, and does so quite elegantly.

For some reason all I get is powdery, sour purple violet candies...I think the iris root is what is smelling like fruity violets, the frankincense has gone all to powdered starch and lemon, and the violet leaf is reading as sharp and sour to my nose. I think my dry winter skin and the cold weather are to blame. I hear that iris root/orris needs warmth to really bloom and this is just not a good day for it. I will let this age and come back to it. This does, however, have a very happy and uplifting label and I kind of love it just for that. edit: Even just a couple of weeks of aging, and warmer weather have done wonders for this blend. It is now the a really rich orris with a lot of depth, with tart violet leaf around the edges. A really unusual combination, which is why this blend caught my eye in the first place. If I concentrate really hard, I still pick up a little lemony frankincense, which I think I will continue to develop with age. But now all of the elements of this perfume are very clearly themselves, and not just the candyish hints I got on first impression.

This perfume is like a loser boyfriend who just happens to have a hidden talent as a baker. You first fell for him and he seemed a little scruffy, but cute and so sweet. Soon however you are like "Ugh, get a job! I am so tired of having to pay for the tow when your POS flower-painted van breaks down! Yeah, I know you think your dog is going to be the next youtube sensation - I still think you should get a job. I don't care if he jumps into your arms sounds like he's trying to talk and say 'ruh-roh'. Just try not to sleep through your next interview. Why do you have go driving around all night with your weird friends checking out abandoned amusement parks, anyway? And are you smoking again? Whatever you are wearing is so strong that every time we make out, I end up smelling like a dirtiest hippiest patchouliest of patchouli for the rest of the day and my coworkers think I'm trying to cover up weed. What are you trying to cover up?" But then he's like "I made you homemade ginger cupcakes with little sugar hearts on them" and he seduces you all over again. Once you taste those cupcakes, you don't really care if your boss or your friends judge you. And you care even less that this is only the few remaining cupcakes - the dog likely ate most of them. You know that all those stoned hours he spent watching Food Network paid off. And maybe - just maybe - you are even starting to like patchouli (a little bit).

This has already gotten a lot of comparisons to Gelt, which is why I wanted to try it. Where Gelt is very warm and has a cocoa-powder note, Hohensalzburg Fortress is cold and has a milk chocolate note. They are both elegantly simple blends of two very nuanced notes. Gelt feels bright and shiny to me, hereas Hohensalzburg Fortress feels muted and quiet - a bit stealthyfor those who are little wary of wearing a chocolate-dominant scent.

This bag is a dark blue color, plain and without decoration, and it has a grassy/dried grass smell to it. I've been told that the placement of Neptune in my natal chart is very problematic, and tends to make me dreamier/less grounded than is perfectly healthy. Since working with Neptune, I've felt more grounded, and better able to strategize and plan. My daydreams are more productive, if that makes any sense. I've also noticed better quality sleep and more peaceful dream plots. I'm prone to nightmares and anxious dreams, so that is a nice benefit.

All I know after testing this is that I want more of that Indonesian oude note. Damn, that's nice. It smells classy and expensive and strangely clean for oude. Just a perfect, deeply complex exotic wood scent. And then there is this light, airy, fluffy, almost powdery jasmine that climbs all over everything, to remind you that this is a playful scent we are talking about here.

A warm, woody ambergris and smooth white musk. Ambergris smells a bit like sun-warmed driftwood to me. Underneath is...dare I say it? A jumble of notes that come very close to smelling like petrichor, like rain-washed streets, water-soaked concrete and stone. The rain gives it a fresh water quality, but the ambergris and musk makes it feel earthy and warm, like warm, fuzzy feeling. This is a wonderful way to capture the feeling of playing games in the rain. Each of the Trading Post Lilith Winter scents I've tried have showcased one really spectacular ingredient, and I feel that this showcases a really nice ambergris. I was expecting something fruity or floral to represent the blue and violet, but nothing like that shows up - just ambergris, the ground, and white musk.

This is perfect,. I'm not a big fan of the individual components, but together they are exquisite. I smell the vanilla, lavender, and sage and they are all very cuddly and airy, like fresh linens and fluffy towels. Not bitter, not astringent, not medicinal, not sweet. Just soft and lovely. I don't detect the patchouli or honey, and I suspect that it offers a gentle warming and grounding note. I really hope something very similar to this pops up in GC someday, because it is simply beautiful.

Yeah, BPAL ain't kiddin' about that giant bloop of blueberry. This is stewed, cooked blueberries - a really powerful blueberry preserves note. Pretty much a single note. It scared me a little at first until I remembered that the other Sufganiyots were super-heavy on the tart fruit at first, too, but as they settled and aged, the sugar and donut aspects of the scents became more prominent and eventually turned into something perfectly balanced. I feel like this is worth holding onto for that beautiful sugar-dusted donut hiding under all that blueberry, that will eventually make itself known and bring out the best in its fruit companion.