LunaClaire

This is beautiful. And immediately, I feel a shimmer in my heart chakra, and the feeling of being enveloped. Hugged from the inside. An aside, I've been a serious meditator for the last 25 years, so I may be more open to specific energies, as this feeling is not at all foreign to me. The scent is gorgeous. Rose, beeswax, jasmine. Mostly, I smell the rose as if a flower. It melts into a lovely rose-honey scent. Someone mentioned that there may be repercussions to TALs as one later experiences the opposite effect. For instance first extreme love, maybe, and then extreme grief. I have had a similar experience. I can't say a TAL would be responsible since it happens that way for me in general without an aid. Regardless, it doesn't matter. The goal is to get past the extremes. And the scent is divine.

Purchased from Etsy, much quicker than the 3-4 weeks suggested on the site. I'm This TAL, "Love's Blessing" has strong soothing qualities. The scent is white florals, and a soft creamy-soapy scent. Very pleasant, soft. I placed a bit on each chakra, concentration on the heart, throat and 3rd eye. I'm a consistent meditator, and feel an immediate shift. As if enveloped and held. Warm and loving. I'm left in a state of centered peace.

I love durian; yes, it does smell of old dirty socks (valerian on steroids!), but the taste is amazing! An intoxicating blend of banana custard, mango, coffee, chocolate, and...onion or garlic - yes! But it works! Happily Beth captured the taste, not the scent. The brandy is quite sweet and strong initially, and the durian is fruity with the honey. The dry down is golden golden spicy honey. Overall yummy - but alas, I'm a Yew girl! Edited because i can't spell!

I love this scent - my favorite of the honeys. It starts out on me, as others, with a distinct evergreen note with the honey, that is somehow cinnamony. Somehow smoldering. Then relaxes into a lovely resinous, creamy honey.

Really love this scent; dark, earthy and resinous. It reminds me strongly of a Mitti Attar that I own; mitti means "baked earth" and it's the initial note I pick up. Then the Nag Champa sets in - the scent is evocative of India. Quite lovely. Kudos Beth!

Wow - I thought I would have done a review for this scent as I really love it! Probably my favorite 13 scent. I'm sitting here waiting for this month's 13 update, and was going to add my thoughts on the June 2008. But low and behold, I had none. I love the 13 scents, and the mythology behind them. 13 is a particularly holy number in the Gnostic tradition as Pistis Sophia's home is the 13th Aeon. Which is where Christ ascended to help her cross the bridge. Lovely symbolism. This one is a spicy dark chocolate with fruits and resin. The apple, fig and frankincense & nutmeg merge beautifully with the cocoa. Yummy & sinful. Love it!! And I'm wearing this for tomorrow's Friday the 13th.

Dia de los Muertos 2009 This is lovely; it starts off Jasmine, Pepper & Resins. It melds into a kind of All Souls with a spicy floral beat to it. Not foody, not floral, but earthy and heavenly at the same time. This is from the imp, and it has aged since it arrived. When I first tried it, it was hugely Jasmin. But as it aged over the month, the other ingredients have bloomed. Definitely will purchase a bottle, as it is an overall Autumn/Winter scent - even though Autumn/Winter is only a state of mind in LA!

Berry Moon Quite nice; a combinations tart berries musk and honey. I don't differentiate the berries - just tart berriness. The dry down is really lovely: honey-musk and berries. Nice scent for the late summer! Edited 9/29/09 to add: Wow - this bloomed after being stored for a month or so! The berries really stand out - and yes - Blueberry! The resins are even more resinous, and the honey more beautiful. I liked it before; I LOVE it now. Many compliments!

I didn't have many expectations for this scent; but that said, its complex and enchanting. The honey-copal blend makes it sweet and biting at the same time. With a backdrop of herbs and wildflowers. Nice. I'm glad I got it! 6/8/9 Just had to add that I LOVE this scent the more I wear it! So complex and feminine. Signature for Summer!

This smells bonfire; plain and simple. An incensey bonfire, but a bonfire just the same. And I LOVE it!!

Funny how chemistries differ - no trace pickles! A soft sweet labdanum with hints of rose. Absolutely beautiful - and I didn't expect it as many of the Carnaval scents don't work as well with me as other scents. Upon drydown, both the rose and the labdanum become fuller, sweeter, and musky. I think I'm in love.

Spellbound is amazing on my skin; the rose is a full, moist, sexy bloom. Sweet and salty. Luscious. Heady. Tantalizing.

Simply lovely. Animalistic - musk, maybe ambergris. Smokey, woodsy, I detect vanilla, and a bit of hay. A hint of fruit that's sweet - berry I would assume. Mmmm.

First off - I love chypre scents, so I sensed ( ) that the Deserted Village would be my favorite Irish Bard scent. I wasn't disappointed. The scent is primarily red currant & honey; grounded by the labdanum & ambergris. It's a bit earthy, a bit dry, which only serves to ground the sweetness. I wish I could smell the bergamot a bit more, but the I'm loving this scent just the way it is. It's sexy, sophisticated, sweet & tart - just love it! A bottle is in order!! Excuse me while I go back to sniffing my arm...

April 2007 - Purple Label. I love chocolate & the number 13, but I think I amp catnip. Must wash off. Quickly.

I wanted to try Dyan Moon because Diana has always been my favorite goddess, and the astroid Diana conjuncts my sun. The notes used looked interesting - especially chamomile, which I love. Musk rose sounded interesting, overall nice, but I wasn't expecting anything special. Was I wrong! I tried it on after the lovely Jacqueline had gone to the back to make up my order at willcall, and I absolutely HAD to have a bottle. WOW. The various notes blend together in a lovely, herbal-flowery symphony. Although its not mentioned, I'd swear wormwood is present - which would make sense. Perhaps mugwort, but a soft one, as Dyan moon is so well rounded. I can't stop smelling myself!

I think this is an April Fool scent if ever there was one! Bottle: I smell Huckleberry, florals, and some sharp bitter green scent. Wet: The prominent note is that sharp bitter Parsley. Pungent. Dry: But as it dries down, the Huckleberry, citurs & florals come to fore, merging beautifully into a fruity floral. The green note steps back. Almost as if to say "fooled you - I'm not a green, sharp pungent scent at all - if you're patient, I turn into a real stunner!" And that's just what it did.

I love this scent - LOVE IT - and find myself putting it on almost daily just to smell it on me. So far I've combined it with Snake Oil (ohmygodheaventodiefor), Red Lanturn, Skuld, Drink Me, Boomslang, 13, Chuparosa, others. Bottle: Honey with maybe a hint of mead Wet: Creamy cake batter with a touch of honey and spice. Dry: The aroma cake baking in the oven. As the hours go by, the scent deepens. <sigh> And yes, I like smelling like a cake baking in the oven. For me, it seems to enhance many scents, especially the foodies, adding a deeper dimension. It's funny, before BPAL, I never considered really considered foody scents as something I would be interested in. The lab scent me a cockaigne imp as a freebie - it would never have occurred to me to get it - especially since wine usually tends to amp on me. Cockaigne. <sigh>

The responses are so varied, I didn't know what to expect! Bottle - Very sweet, like a sweet liqueur. Wet - Still very sweet, the lotus is strong, and different from the pink lotus essential oil I know and love. Within a few minutes, the amber, myrrh and sandalwood emerge, giving the lotus sweetness the desert base this perfume refers to. However, for me, it is NOT demonic, or bleak, or the like. It evokes the feeling of forever - the endless desert night under a star-studded sky. Dry - Unfortunately, this beautiful scent doesn't have much throw. And it fades fast - my skin just sucks it up. So what remains are spicy desert embers with a hint sweetness. But one must get very close to detect it.

Another scent I tried & liked at willcall. Bottle - Sweet yummy butterscotch, similar to the Brachs candy. Wet - Still warm butterscotch, but a slightly too sweet floral note that becomes a bit plasticy. It could be the delphinium, as I'm not familiar with the scent of the flower; however, opium has been sickly sweet for me in the past, so it could be that or a combination of both. But when I don't smell my wrist too closely - just kind of wave it and take small wafts, its overall butterscotchy caramel. Dry - Somehow it merges into a caramel/floral scent that works. I can't say it's my favorite scent, but I like it, and can see wearing it on occasion. I'm interested in aging it for a couple months and seeing how it is morphs.

I loved this at the will call last night, but now I can see it was because of the initial aroma that lasted for about 5 minutes - then I was about trying other scents & didn't smell the drydown. Not bad, mind you - just not what I'm looking for. Bottle - Grape, sweet grape wine with hints of incense. Wet - This is gorgeous on me: Grape, raisin, resins and wood. Smokey, but not overly so. This lasts about 5 minutes. Dry - Dry red wine - not exactly sour; not exactly not sour. But an empty red wine glass that's been sitting a out a bit. The incense recedes as does the lovely fruits from the grapes and raisin. Still there, but overpowered by red wine. I notice that BPAL's wine tends to amp on my skin. Bummer.

Another scent that I sadly overlooked (missed, actually) until I tried it at last night's LA willcall. I turned to labbie Kathy and said, "whoa - this is amazing!" She nodded knowingly. And it's interesting that the word wouldn't leap out at me from the computer screen because the concept of longing is such a strongly personal one for me. Bottle: This the interesting part - I get practically NO scent. Almost nothing at all! Maybe the hint a hint of a bois de rose - but I REALLY have to concentrate. And I like that: it's as if to suggest that longing has no scent - is beyond scent. Wet: The rose geranium and bois de rose are most apparent in a subtle shimmery envelope of the golden musk. The cinnamon creates the shimmer I believe. And it stays that way for a while, very much like The Ecstasy of St. Theresa, only TEoST is more radiant, and Longing is somehow more wistful (the bay rum perhaps?) However the similarity makes total sense, as I've found the the qualities, longing and ecstasy to be one and the same - two sides of the same coin. Only the former is a contraction, and the latter an expansion. But really, the same quality. Dry: And on me, it remains the beautiful shimmery cinnamon, musky rose scent. There's something clean about it, but too shimmery and sweet to really be soapy. And there it remains. Lovely scent, and even though it didn't leap out at me from the computer screen, it did so at willcall - perhaps because the letters are so big -and I'm glad I picked up a bottle. Like yeahbutnobut, I find it also similar to Eclipse, the same ethereal quality, which I'm guessing is the cinnamon/musk; but I find an even closer resemblance to The Ecstasy of St. Theresa.

I glanced at this on the boards, and wasn't really considering it in favor of so many other scents - although I like a lot of the listed ingredients; then I tried it at willcall last night and it blew me away. The scent isn't in your face, but more of a nuance - it has an effervescent quality; although it doesn't smell like Longing or the Ecstasy of St. Theresa, I think there is a similarity. Bottle: Soft scent with hints of fruit and vetiver Wet: Fruit and hints of tea & vetiver, and something that gives it a sparkly feel - maybe the red musk - although it could be cinnamon or mint. The vetiver is the same as in Death of Autumn, but where DoA was strong with it, Eclipse has nuances of it. Almost like an afterglow. Dry: The frankincense, myrrh & spices emerge here and the vetiver, while still there, is even softer. Still tea, fruit, mush and mint - mint is a Moroccan spice isn't it?! The final drydown is the frankincense and spices with hints of vetiver. I LOVE this. I knew it when I tried it; the effervescent quality really hooks me as it did in the Ecstasy of St. Theresa and other scents. The contradiction of ethereal and earthy are at play in this perfume, bringing to mind the age-old fear associated with the power of the eclipse. Edit - 10/14/09 Huge changes due to aging. Mine must have been from a newer batch; now, a year later its deep musk, smoke, incense, tobacco. Smoldering loveliness!

Name: Brimstone Bottle: Spicey pepper - red! Wet: Red Ginger Dry: The ginger deepens and sweetens - not quite candy, but sweet. It's actually a lovely scent. A sort of burnt orange-red feeling accompanies the smell. Furthermore: Not at all what I was expecting - although still pleased I purchased a bottle. I was hoping for dark, intense, gritty smoke - the kind of scent that people back off when you walk by. Instead, I imagine people will crowd around me wondering what smells so yummy.

Name: Sacred Whore of Babylon - free imp from the sweet labbie at last night's will-call! Bottle: Sweet; dragonsblood & honey Wet: Dragonsblood, honey, musk & spices Dry: The sweetness deepens into a resinous incense, although the sweetness still remains. Sacred comes to mind. Furthermore: Really love this! And I don't get decadence, lechery or debauchery from this scent (like I did from Debauchery!) The Sacred Prostitute is a favorite archetype of mine; I found a description from moondance.org regarding Her that, for me, resonates with this fragrance: Ishtar, the Great Whore of Babylon, was sometimes called the Goddess Har since she was the mother of the Harlots. These Harlots were not prostitutes as we know them, but priestesses, sorceresses, prophets, and healers. Sacred Whores were known sometimes as the Holy Virgins of Goddesses such as Ishtar, Asherah, or Aphrodite. The famous Vestal Virgins were thought to have practiced secret sex magical rites in honor of the Roman Goddess Vesta, the same as the Greek goddess Hestia -- Goddess of the Hearth, or "center of the world." ETA - 'cause I can't spell!