Tal Shachar

In the bottle I pick up a faint top-note of something sharp and medicinal, which I actually like, but it vanishes quickly. To me, the orangeyness doesn't dominate; I get a bit of sunny citrus sweetness, very soft resins, carnation and spice. Things that smell like pomanders aren't usually my favourite, but I kinda love the smell of this. Effects: obviously with healing stuff, it's pretty hard to say what made how much difference. I'm not sure I want to go into a whole story of how I used this and what the effects were, but they were dramatic and the energy around the working felt golden and beautiful. Good power. I was mainly interested in this one for healing, but I also got some "blowback" in general sunny-type blessings, as a relationship grew more loving and someone I care about began to come out of a long funk. Basically, I now want a bottle of practically every TAL there is.

Use this oil to bring a steady blossoming of prosperity, growth, and financial solvency to your business. This oil works beautifully in conjunction with our Money Draw and Attraction blends, and can be used with other oils if you wish to emphasize the nature of your business. (Lust oils for sex workers, Earth for landscapers, Hand of Hermes for writers, 13 Crossroads to expand your business opportunities, etc.) Use this oil with green ritual candles and appropriate conjure bags, and to anoint your cash register, Square, or any other money processing receptacle. Dab a tiny bit onto contracts and agreements, and add a few drops to your floorwash. This is a bracing scent that was predominantly allspice and patchouli to my nose (apparently cinnamon and honeysuckle are in there too). I wouldn't wear it just for the smell, but it smells like a money oil should. I used it on a white candle (because my major concern was keeping my current gig safe, while also attracting new opportunities and clients), and dotted it here and there around my workspace. I'd been worried about team changes and my relationship with my boss, but once the candle work was done everyone at work was cheerful around me again and appreciative of my contributions. My hours were supposed to be cut, but mysteriously people kept finding extra work for me to do, letting me bill for more. I also felt a huge push to work on another project, with a lot of synchronicity-type signs nudging me towards it. Very heady, palpable sense of power to this oil.

I've been thinking for awhile that I just can't wear anything with orange or neroli in it unless I want to smell like 100% citrus with no other notes. Orpheus proves me wrong: green mandarin, neroli, and citrus peel, but they don't take over the scent and turn it into Tropicana. I'm not even sure I'd recognise them as "orange" if I didn't know the list of notes--the lavender and grassy notes are far more prominent. I can even make out the slight salicylic bitterness of the willow. I love green scents and every time I pick one up I think, "Why don't I wear these every single morning?" No sign of cedar or benzoin, but my skin doesn't really amp those, and I think they're still present in the sense of making the scent last; it goes a lot longer than something with so many sharp, clean top notes ordinarily would. It's not musky or masculine at all on me, just a clean unisex scent.

My skin eats vanilla a lot of the time, so the most popular blends often aren't that special on me--vanilla notes seem to be the biggest crowd-pleaser in BPAL land. But this one works! Smooth, fluffy, happy-cloud vanilla with jasmine. It doesn't specifically smell like the jasmine tea in my cupboard (which is a bit greener), but it's a lovely warm jasmine note, heady and beautiful. This is a nice one for wearing to bed, and maybe I want another bottle.

2015 version: Oh boy. I like sharp, medicinal, herbal notes, but the geranium in this is way too much for me. It hangs around for a long time, and what's underneath is a respectable woody patch scent but to be honest, I have others that fill that niche for me. I wish I got some benzoin but I don't, unfortunately. The bourbon geranium (probably combining with the cedar) smells like Deep Woods bug spray on me. Sic Erit and I just can't be friends.

2015 version: Okay, I feel like there's something wrong with my nose/body/brain/universe because in the bottle I get horse. A happy horse in the sunshine, munching on some violets. I cannot account for the happy horsey in any way from the notes. On skin, the horse immediately gallops away and I get Ivory soap. At no time do I get the smallest whiff of any vanilla at all, and I'm trying. I love orris and violet, narcissus is not my favourite but can that really be responsible for what's happening here? Like it doesn't smell actively bad (even the horse doesn't smell like a dirty horse or anything) but the vanilla should be the star player here and it's missing in action. So this isn't going to work for me the way it is. I have to decide whether to try aging it or to just swap and make room in my BPAL box.

Joyful Romp is amazing on me. The plum reminds me of the same note in La Notte, a deep purple sweetness that lingers. I was curious about the indigo note, since my mom used to spin and dye her own wool, and there is something here that reminds me of home-dyed wool...I may be just imagining things and picking up on the earthiness of the vetiver, but it evokes that to me. For me the tuberose remains cloaked in plum, so while the scent opens up and gets that pillowy floral softness of tuberose, I had kind of forgotten there was tuberose in it. Just "ooh, this plum blossom is going to town." Purple-and-white chiffon is exactly the image, beautiful to wear.

The weird opening "rubber" phase that people have mentioned reminds me eerily of État Libre d'Orange's Fat Electrician. Maybe they both have a similar vetiver note. I love Fat Electrician and the rubbery thing is neat in this one too: gritty, dark, like a fresh new tire in the mechanic's shop, very black and strangely artificial, giving off bright sparks from the ginger note. This stage fades quickly, and the apricot and honey take over on me from there. It does feel like it has vanilla in it, but that's probably just the honey's sweetness on me. It's a real morpher, and I absolutely love it.

Defututa should work on me! Jasmine, honey, and olive blossom are always strong notes on my skin, even though vanilla tends to disappear. Instead I get perfumey sandalwood, sliiight champaca, and nothing else, ever, not even when I'm sniffing in the imp. I am baffled. I keep trying because it makes me feel insane, and also because I love the name. But it never works. I would probably be heartbroken if it were an LE, but luckily since it's GC I can just shrug and go on with my life.

A Lab frimp that I would never have chosen for myself, because I stay away from chocolate, mint, and (as much as I can) orange. Surprisingly the tangerine was blown out of the water by the grapefruit, which is a note I do love. I looked it up and zdravetz is just a kind of geranium. Okay, no problem there. This stayed light, feminine, pretty, and not really very weird at all. It reminds me of Arcana's Soft-Hearted, which also has a dominant pink grapefruit note. I can't eat grapefruit anymore because it interacts with a med that I take (for real) so I like having it in perfume--both delicate and energetic, and surprisingly long-lasting. After 7 hours I can still pick it up on my sleeve. I get zero chocolate mint, yay! So I like this? Maybe that's weird after all.

I get wood and...flowers and wood? Usually leather is a note that positively screams on me, so I don't know where it is this time. I know that when I smelled this the other day I could get the plastic and leather, but testing it today on skin, not so much. It's still lovely--something here is behaving like vanilla, possibly the wool making things softer and warmer. I love the fougere element too, a delicate green underlying the other notes. The rosin blends with the sandalwood at first and isn't easy for me to pick out, but then it gradually emerges and evolves. It's a beautiful dark, dusty scent...reminds me of German Expressionism but not nearly as nose-tickling as that one gets for me.

Oh man, I am in trouble. Something in this (and I couldn't guess what) seems vaguely plastic or rubbery on me, not unlike the plastic notes in Adam...but it's in a good way? We have an old antique washstand at my house that my grandfather built, and the drawer is full of miscellaneous weird junk along with old plastic packets of pipe tobacco. When I was a kid I would open that drawer and come out with something somewhere between junk and a toy (an old watch, a tiny horn for a tricycle, army medals, a miniature Bible, any damn thing) and it would have this intense smell of wood, tobacco, and creaky old plastic. Of course there's no tobacco in this, and there shouldn't be plastic, but it smells dark, old, and intensely evocative. On me, the jasmine isn't excessive, but my skin tends to play pretty well with that note. The vanilla, as usual, is barely there for me. (Sometimes vanilla will come back after three hours or so to say hello again before disappearing. My skin is ridiculous.) The hay and ambrette are probably contributing to the memory-overload factor, since those smells are so subtle, earthy, and human. I really love this, in all its strangeness, and I'm getting to be stressed about the OLLA collection in general. I already missed Eve and just barely nabbed Adam in time! What beautiful stuff.

Frimp from the Lab, and I like this a lot more than I expected! The wine note is not shy, but maybe my skin chemistry is changing as I become ancient and withered, because the wine only takes a few minutes to calm down--anything with wine used to be instant Welch's Grape Juice on me. Instead this turns into dark sexy jasmine and myrrh with rose. I could see myself with a bottle of this, as if I need more bottles.

Whoa, yup, lemongrass. Something somehow sugary here too. (Why am I reviewing an herbal scent with no listed notes, I have no hope of cracking this case.) It doesn't really develop anywhere from lemon onward. Like most of the Conjure scents, it smells nice but not so nice that you'd wear it just for the scent, you know? If I'm going to wear a lemon-candy smell it had better be a great segulah for parnossah, as the Orthodox say.

I usually stay away from cinnamon/cassia/anything that sounds like it has cinnamon in it. Not allergic, just find it a boring note that takes over. It doesn't do that here--there's an ash note that I think I recognise from Hellfire, and pine and/or mint giving that effervescent thing, cinnamon for sure, a fresh ginger (I think that's responsible for the lemony bit), and something smoky. I like it, although it's quite odd, mainly because the first blast of heat is so striking when I open the imp. Mission accomplished, that's the smell of a djinn, all right. I don't know how often I'll reach for it, but it's wearable.

Frimp from the Lab. Without looking at the notes, my thought was "wow, single note leather", but I can smell the metal now that I know it's there. No blood, or at least none of the blood notes that often give me pause--this isn't dragon's blood, or wine, or tomato leaf, or the odd barbecue-sauce note I got from scents like Valentine of Rome. So I suppose it smells like actual blood, which is to say like metal and a bit of skin musk. It's a really great leather note, and like SweetEpiphanies just said above, "shoe store" really hits the nail on the head. I love that leather smell. Maybe this warrior just got himself a fresh new jerkin and gauntlets and he's ready to hit the town.

I was very worried about the lettuce in this being weird on my skin. Fortunately, I get coconut/white chocolate that is indeed very frosty (hint of extremely subtle mint there that adds the cooling effect). The lettuce fades in and out as a dewy, crisp bit of green. I get florals but not any lilac that I'm familiar with--I know it's one of those flowers that can only be approximated with accords, but so far I've had bad luck in getting the perfect lilac, soft and dreamy and spring-like. But this is lovely, pale, and very strange while still being pretty. The various components settle together into a whole that can't be divvied up into separate notes, something white and velvety-soft but remote.

As much as I love resins, I never bought this one in years past, but got it this year to remind me of my late father. My dad was highest of the High Church Anglicans, and he used to train the altar servers--incense was one of his favourite things, and he was way disappointed when his church stopped having it (lots of people are allergic, I guess). Anyway, does this smell like the classic Three Kings stuff that I remember from childhood, hanging out in the sacristy with him while he tidied up? Not quite, but close. Unlike a lot of the Lab's resinous blends, this one distinctly smells like smoke and not just the raw unburned grains. It's more fruity and less woody than the incense I remember (which almost certainly has cedar or sandalwood in the mix somewhere), and there might be something creamy like beeswax going on in this too. I like this a whole lot, but it doesn't strike that instant sense memory the way I was hoping.

This was amazing on me, it's the standout of the Yules for me so far. As people have said, the furry musk is similar to Coyote/Ivanushka, and the starry forest resembles the snowy forest of Moon of Small Spirits, a chilly and slightly effervescent note. Same soft pines as in that one too, where they smell like trees rather than pine air fresheners. And yet it's definitely worth having all on its own: the musk is a few ticks more toward the masculine side (still pretty unisex), a little less sweetness and more bite. This is one of those scents where you go OMG I CAN STILL SMELL IT ON MY SCARF MMMM. I may buy a backup bottle just because I don't think it attracted too many people. The fools! I shall take it all!

Nobody else said it yet? Garden Path with Chickens. I had to get that one out to compare, and to me they smell very, very close. Garden Path has the rose and verbena making it sharper and more floral, while the musk in Pa-Pow is very soft and sweet, but the grassiness and the "peppery" smell of the flowers is the same to my nose. I love it, so it's nice to have a Garden Path with Puppies version. I really love this furry musk, which I think is in Faunalia as well (the Coyote/Ivanushka/Hunter Moon sweet-fur-smell), and it's very low-key compared to those ones. Lighter, not as dense and sweet, and it stays close to the skin while the planty notes waft upwards from my wrist. Once the grass goes (grass always goes so fast, sigh) the flowers soften up and it's a quietly sweet outdoorsy-fresh scent, herbal more than floral. I like this a lot.

Moon of Small Spirits has a strangely fizzy quality to me, I think a combo of the snow and cranberry notes.

I bought this solely because I love the whole Year-Without-a-Summer cadre, including the hapless Dr Polidori. Also, hope springs eternal concerning the lab's blood accord--I really want it to work instead of smelling like grape juice (Head of Holofernes) or steak sauce (Valentine of Rome and Mort de Cesar). Lord Ruthven scores because yes indeed, that sullen lurking note does smell like blood. The aqua admirabilis is a very masculine cologne smell in the bottle, but on my skin it quickly gets an oddly sweet and musky-creamy note which I maybe would compare to Hunter Moon--that's the closest thing to leather that I get. (Bear in mind my skin makes a lot of things sweeter than they are.) This note overwhelms the cologne, paper covers rock. It's creamy leather and very subtle blood, the exact metallic-salty smell of blood, and a little strange because of that. I like masculine scents so I approve.

The tonka and champaca are very strong in the bottle, creating an almost foody impression that surprised me, but on my skin the pepper and ginger dispel that--penetrating and gifted, yes, with the softness of the sandalwood and florals adding the vulnerability. I'm very pleased because the poppy/opium smoke note doesn't turn plasticky on me the way it usually does; it's quite muted and well-behaved, not too harsh at all. Not a whole lot of staying power or throw (but I'm sure that would change if I wore it out somewhere, since lately that seems to be the only way to make sure my perfume gets aggressive). I like this quite a bit and I think it will become my benchmark for poppy/opium notes. The ginger is also great on me while it lasts.

I was about to post that I have no idea what people are talking about when they say "tart", because it was initially very smooth and soft when applied to my wrists, but for some reason when I added more on my elbows the ginger and bergamot came right out. So I see it now--in fact when I sniff between the two sites I get two different sides of the blend, the gentle sweetness of the fig and olive blossom on my wrists and the sharper ginger and bergamot on my elbows. Surprisingly I don't pick up frankincense, which is usually not shy on my skin. Pierre Trudeau said, "Justice is to me a warm spirit, born of tolerance and wisdom, present everywhere, ready to serve the highest purposes of rational man." The golden gentleness and clarity in this really does evoke justice and democracy as a warm spirit as opposed to something cold or harsh or cynical, and that's what I love about it. It does have very little throw, so I'll save it for occasions when I don't want to be an obnoxious walking scent cloud.

Small amount frimped by the very generous GoldenRubee. In the imp the sharp effervescence is really remarkable and very true--until I read the ginger ale comparison and yeah, I can see that. It's been awhile since I smelled champagne in the flesh, unfortunately, but as a boozy note it's a great success. The tobacco is definitely of the not-yet-smoked variety, the cigars still in the box, and for some reason BPAL's tobacco notes are always very subtle on me. It's a nice blend of both fun and sophistication.