ImperatrixMundi

Why is my bottle so different from the imp I had? First - The Imp: I ordered a lab-fresh imp. It was a bit cologne-like and herbal at first but on the skin the leather really developed and formed a dry base and the vanilla and musk sweetened the blend enough to make it smooth and sexy. The dominant notes I could pick up were leather, vanilla, white musk and sage. The carnation was there but very light. Now - The Bottle: Could not find my imp but I wanted a bottle anyways. The bottle smells like a mix of vanilla, white musk and carnation. The herbal elements and the leather that made the blend smooth, wickedly elegant and sexy in a very unisex way are nowhere to be seen. It is still a pleasant scent but the carnation is very overwhelming and after it fades a bit I am left with a slightly empty, sweet scent. It is probably not just my nose or chemistry, the scents already differ in the imp or bottle. Both were lab-fresh! The bottle is just missing most of the gorgeous leather note and has loads of carnation. Meh. I think I might hunt for an other bottle to see if it is me or batch varations that cause the difference. But overall I really loved this scent in the herbal and leather-heavy version and want to smell like the Antichrist all the time!

Czernobog is scary. Well, he is supposed to be. It smelled absolutely horrible on me but on my boyfriend it was a great, sexy musk scent. Maybe you get lucky and it works for you, otherwise find a male specimen to try it on

Ummm... I'll go for a very obvious one: Smut It is a Lupercalia LE that has been released a few times in different years. Not exactly natural but it hardly gets any smuttier than Smut. But it might not be quite the right thing if Lust already reminds you of a porn shop. Smut is far worse. Also Dragon's Musk is one you should try, especially if it is aged a bit. I love it and it always gets a good response Wulric, the Wolfman from Carnaval Diabolique is also intensely musky with a cocoa note. And if you like the red musk scents like Fenris Wolf definitely try Mme. Moriarty. Edit: And I forgot to mention Sed Non Satiata, that might be a candidate as well.

Actually - add Goblin or one of the other GC recs to that list and you would have a great imp pack for her to try. It would contain fruity, floral, woody and resin notes paired with the patchouli - which covers a big part of the perfume spectrum.

Is the Body Shop oil just straight patchouli? The notes listed with the product description were not very helpful: Top notes: warm Middle notes: herbaceous, patchouli Base notes: earthy The search function on the Lab website brings up 70 blends with patchouli that are currently available. But in most of them the patchouli is just a complimentary note or a base note. http://www.bpal.org/search/index.php?term=...=1&search=1 It might really help if you could find out what other notes she likes and dislikes, so you know what direction to take - or not to take - when you chose Bpal scents for her, because they will not exactly be straight patchouli. If all else fails - if the Body Shop oil is straight patchouli you can get her a bottle of high quality patchouli essential oil in addition to some bpal imps. It is fairly inexpensive, even in high quality, and is supposed to improve drastically with age, it gets considerably more mellow and smooth with time.

Warm weather and musk go together much better than i would have thought. Especially the white and egyptian-type musks and even red musk because of that fruity aspect it has. And stuff like Dorian or Zephyr. And by the way - does anyone have any recommendations for a mostly pure skin musk scent? I loved the note in Ebisu but the oakmoss and mandarin in there with it were not that great.

So sad... Mimosa is such a wonderful scent... I hope the Lab finds a new source for mimosa soon because I had to resort to Lush for my mimosa fix. Of the BPAL ones I tried before their discontinuation none had a strong and dominant, fresh mimosa note. Marianne pairs it with a lot of Red Musk, Madrid is mostly bitter red wine and clove and Tannin'Iver was a somewhat fruity and rather complex blend but the main ingredient remained dragon's blood since it was an Ars Draconis line blend.

Picked it up today, it really was my order. I think I'll go post in "IGMO" so other Europeans know too

D'oh. I knew it would arrive as soon as I started complaining... Today I got a notification from the post office that I got a parcel to pick up and it is definitely my Bpal order. Woohoo! The decants are here... I hope you get your order soon as well, mimosa! Thanks for your reply. It was so long since I ordered anything from the lab, I guess I forgot how long it takes.

Where is my order??? I ordered on Feb 2nd and have not received a cns or anything as of yet. Sometimes with previous orders I did not get a cns or my spam filter ate it, but I am getting really impatient here. But I don't want to bother the lab yet.

Ye Gods. I hope customs does not open my parcel with Signor Dildo and Beanman and Beanwoman Prepare to Attack the Vagina. Nope. I really don't want to explain that to customs. I really don't think I can keep a straight face. Great pictures though, thanks to the people who posted them. The labels look so much nicer if you have all the bottles of a series in a row!

Does anyone know a bpal substitute for Sugar Babe sugar scrub? It is not a good idea for me to use scrubs (sensitive skin...) but I bought it anyways because I LOVED the smell. It is mainly mimosa and some ylang ylang (since when do I like THAT??). But in a recent discontinuation disaster so many of the bpal mimosa scents were axed due to component issues So what is left that I could try?

It sounds like everyone has very personal comfort scents But the overall tendency seems to go towards scents with honey, amber, vanilla, milk/cream and musk. Mine are Mr. Ibis and Dragon's Milk and maybe also The Lurid Library. Mr. Ibis helps me when I feel anxious and panicky. Anything that is a little sweet, soft and musky and sort of "enveloping" falls into that category for me. Does that make sense?

Himerus is Latin right? And as I remember from my days in school Latin vowels are very consistent and for me the pronounciation never was much of an issue in school because if you speak German you automatically get Latin 90% right because the vowels are pretty much the same. We never had to learn how to pronounce it, there are just some basic rules about which syllable to put the emphasis on - and don't ask me now, that was long ago. The grammar sucks though. So my humble opinion would be Him-er-us. But the us at the end is not an us like in Toys'R'Us. More like u in racoon but shorter. But I am pretty bad at writing English phonetically since that is not my native language.

Mint and cucumber?? Huh? I even tried it three times to make sense of the cucumber impression. Where is the amber and wood? This is surprisingly light, clean and watery and never warms up as I would have expected it to do. The amber that I was hoping for stays hidden which is surprising, normally I do extremely well with any kind of amber. Not that it is unpleasant but it is really too light and not what I wanted at all.

The rosewood and rose geranium almost tricked me into thinking this actually does contain rose. No. But in the first half hour after application they form an almost credible substitute that is just a bit too woody and green for rose. A bit of lavender joins the mix and there is a smooth and sweet background. After the initial phase it gets hard to describe. What was the background before becomes a very sweet and smooth scent and I can not pick out anything specific except maybe for the poppy. But it does not become as dominantly soapy as other poppy blends. Leaves an ochre-brown color impression. Very sweet, mellow and rounded. Very strong and lasting throw. Unique, actually very pretty and smooth scent. As misscoldheart says above, it is different from other bpals I have tried so far. I was happy to test it but at the end of the day it does not fall into the range of scents that I would wear regularly.

Tried both versions but the 2007 version was aged two years while the 2009 version was fresh. 2007 - dusty, a bit powdery amber and frankincense scent with maybe a hint of orange blossom and citrus remaining. I blame the frankincense for the dusty impression. The volatile citrus notes are mostly gone. 2009 - very bright, sweet and sunny citrus. The amber shows in the background when it dries down but it remains on the citrus side for along while. I am not particularly good at picking out anything more specific when florals and fruits are involved. But on the whole the citrus is strong and does not really seem to blend so well with the amber on me and it is brighter and sparklier than expected while I was looking for warm and sweet. So as far as I can tell there is a big difference between fresh and aged Sol Invictus, the citrus notes say goodbye rather soon.

But Men Loved Darkness Rather Than Light probably was the scent I was looking forward to the most of all the decants I got. But it was not to be. I love all the notes but obviously that does not have to mean they cooperate to form a nice scent on my skin What I was expecting was a smooth, dark and slightly sweet scent with maybe a little spice. But the clove is very dominant on me, like it was in Samhainophobia. And under all that clove the other notes form a background that is stale and a bit sour, why I have no idea. From reading other reviews I guess that other people were luckier with it, maybe my chemistry is a bit off track right now. The bottle is already on the way to a new home and hopefully a happier owner. But I still feel rather heartbroken right now

It's really pink. Very pink grapefruit pink. In fact it is all grapefruit and yuzu at first and maybe something a little floral in between but everything else is lost. I guess this is for spending christmas in the Caribbean. But it fades really fast and leaves a faintly sweet residual scent that is a little powdery. Not really thrilled with this but then I never do well with fruity-florals.

Not so unnerving as hard to describe. At first it goes through a stage that is mainly redwood and clove and I definitely catch the hemp accord on top of things. The hemp fades quickly and after the initial woody phase has passed it becomes mostly currant and red musk, a dark red, sour scent with undertones of sweetness and possibly peach blossom.

Creamy sweet coffee? No, after application it smells a lot more like egg nog. Lighter and not as extremely sweet as I feared. Lightly spiced with a dash of booze. Ok, I am still not converted to foody scents by this but it does not make me sick like some others do. It sounds so tempting to have a scent like that, Egg Nog is just so good. With nutmeg and a dash of cognac... I have to stop it! But actually smelling like that is still just a bit too much.

All of the above. I also have a "no rose" rule and Snow White smelled like a molten Barbie doll sprinkled with sugar on me. I loved it in the bottle but on my skin it really turned on me. Same with most BPAL vanilla scents. But I am so glad that I picked up a decant of this! It is the surprise winner of this Yule. Somehow the rose and Snow White-like notes keep each other in check. The rose is a hint of freshness behind the sugary-sweet snow and keeps it from turning into molten plastic but never takes over. The scent also has pretty good throw and staying power, I kept getting a sniff of it from my collar all evening.

Do you know that kind of disappointment when you read the notes in a blend and everythings is absolutely wonderful and sounds gorgeous until you get to the very last note and it is one of those non-negotiable death notes? "..., and traces of caramel." Argh. Well, I tried it anyways. Traces? Did you say traces? Caramel is pretty much all I can smell. At least in the vial. Once it hits my skin it turns into a mix of burnt sugar and celery. No kidding. Everything else is buried under that caramel avalanche. Damn my chemistry.

Are there a few Boomslangs crawling around in the Black Temple? The oil is completely brown and all that chocolate absolute sticks to the imp vial At first all I smell is cocoa, like in Boomslang, but then the black musk comes out and does the baby powder of death impression. The tobacco is so scared, it goes and hides. This also has HUGE throw. Weeell... If you like Boomslang and black musk, this is for you. If, like me, you get baby powder from black musk and find the cocoa too overwhelming you can skip it.

I haven't smelled the candle, but septima_pica's suggestions of Mr. Nancy and Shoggoth were the first things that came to my mind. Mr. Nancy isn't creamy, but it is super-foody with a very sweet lime. Shoggoth is a little creamy from the coconut but is more delicate and subtle. Schrodinger's Cat (Bewitching Brews), Croquet (Mad Tea Party), and Detox (Panacea - best lime ever) are all sweet lime/citrus blends; you could try layering them over some creamy vanilla blends. Tombstone smells like a vanilla candle on me and might be a good base, and a lot of people get a creamy vanilla from Dorian and Mouse's Long and Sad Tale. Maybe Zephyr could be an option, it always reminded me of lemon baiser cake although it is not a foody scent by definition. It is not an exact match for Yankee Candle Vanilla Lime, which I also love btw, but maybe you like it.