AprilB

I think this may be the saltiest BPAL scent I've tried? This smells very much like the beach. It's got a fresh, marine tang, like wind whipped over murky teal waves and through beach grass. It's a wonderful scent memory for me (I grew up near the beach), but not necessarily something that I would reach for often as a perfume.

So, this reminds me of everything I love about A Flaming Sword? (And I love Flaming Sword A LOT.) Upon further thought, that makes a lot of sense; they both have oudh, coconut, and patchouli in common, and, for whatever reason, A Flaming Sword has always smelled like warm and fragrant cedarwood to me. Leave Her has just got a bit less smolder, and a bit more sweetness, if that makes sense. This is incredibly beautiful, nothing like I expected it to be, and something I am definitely upgrading from decant to bottle. It's such a warm, grounded, comforting smell.

This is lovely, and matches the painting very well. It's a pale, luminous pink scent. While wet, the peach and hay were the most prominent notes on me, and they continued to be fairly prominent as other notes began to appear. Together, the hay and peach have a gently sweet, warm, earthy, and dry quality that I enjoy. Either the carnation, the osmanthus, or the rooibos is adding a bit of a green quality--the sense of there being a living plant in the mix somewhere. The orris and the musk create a hazy, gentle, shimmery quality that unifies the scent. This is a scent that bridges winter and spring nicely.

This is the snow note from A World of One Color, or at least a close sibling to it, I think? It's quite sweet, to my nose, and weirdly reminiscent of a combination of frozen pineapple and cedar or fir branches, full of frozen sap. The marshmallow note didn't appear on my skin until well after it was dry, and mostly manifested as a sort of sweet softness in the background.

Describing this as a blur seems pretty spot-on. There's something blurry, silvery but opaque, and soft about this scent. I was expecting some sharp edges in this, but it's a very gentle sort of scent. To me, it conveys an antique mirror with age spots and cobwebs on it--you can just catch your reflection in it, but distorted and shadowy enough that, for a moment, you think it is the figure of a stranger. It does read as aquatic while wet, but as it dries the sandalwood begins to come out a bit and ground the scent as something less watery. This is a very lovely combination of notes.

This goes on sweet and heavily boozy, settling into something warm, rich, and almost buttery. The dead leaves note in this is more subdued than in the other dead leaves blends I have tried so far, this year (DL and Cinnamon Buns, Dead Leaves on Fire). It doesn't have a lot of staying power on my skin, but it's a wonderful scent. I kind of wish it was a cocktail?

Smells exactly like I hoped it might. This is not the smell of woodsmoke or campfire. It is definitely a bonfire made of dead leaves, like you sometimes catch a distant whiff of in the Fall air. It's well balanced--the dead leaves leaves component and the bonfire smoke component are each just the right amount not to be overwhelming one another. Evocative and intriguing.

This is a very strange one. There's something about it that reminds me just a bit of the Nepthys v.2 prototype, but where that is dry as a bone, this is vegetal with papyrus in reed form, rather than in paper form. It isn't aquatic, but there is a sort of damp quality about it. The balsam and cardamom, on the other hand, do have a very dry quality. The three notes marry together oddly, but I don't dislike the result. It's an unconventional scent, for certain.

This scent shifts around in interesting ways over the course of wear. Sometimes the oudh is dominant, and sometimes the flowers and resin are. The oudh in this toes the line between pleasant and not--it's not indolic, but it smells very organic and alive. This is Joan after a battle, sweat under chainmail, smelling of the horse she has been riding, being greeted with flowers and a waft of incense. The iris and frankincense uplift and elevate this scent, but it's still very earthly and human, at its core.

This goes on bitter and acidicly sharp, with the fruit and floral notes lurking underneath. I could smell each of the notes, except the laubdanum. It softens over time, becoming muted by a veil of subtle saltwater. The salt is quiet, and not intensely mineralized, less prominent than I hoped. On me, this is a scent of bitterness and hidden resentment, rather than melancholy.

Starbrow above compared this to buttercream frosting, and I agree! I can smell the Snake Oil, but mostly this smells of buttery vanilla sweetness. I enjoy this quite a bit, and am very glad I got the opportunity to try a decant.

This smells like those peach ring candies! I was expecting something a bit more grown-up and sexy, but now that I've wrapped my head around this being a candy scent, I really enjoy it.

I had high hopes for this, but also a fair amount of trepidation. Coconut and fig are two of my favorite scent notes, but I don't enjoy scents that come across as too foodie. Waltzing Matilda was very fig newton on me, and I feared this would stray into the realm of baked goods, too. Too my delight, this vanilla actually takes it away from the realm of food. The smoked note makes it into something sultry, instead! With that addition, the bright fig nearly reads as floral. It's a beautifully sexy summer scent. However, the smoke note fades incredibly rapidly as the perfume dries, rather than lingering, leaving me with something I enjoy--and which is still not too gourmand for me--but don't love.

This smells medicinal, but in a good way? It's not that it smells like medicine, so much as that it smells fortifying. It sort of puts me in mind of the 13 from September, 2019--again, not for similarity in scents, but for that fortifying quality. Spicy-sweet, with a mineralic hint (I think that's the labdanum?). On me, it did not have a ton of throw.

When I sniffed this in the decant vial, I wasn't very hopeful. On the skin, though, it smoothes out a bit. The champaca in this is more aggressive than it typically behaves on me (I've had fairly good luck with it in some other blends), and makes me want to sneeze, a bit. The cocoa dust is faint, and bitter, rather than being foodie. I love that! Chocolate notes don't usually work for me, but that one does. It gives the scent depth, and actually helps ground the incense a bit. The tea note is initially mostly swamped by the champaca, but gains prominence with wear. It does smell different to me than the standard black tea note (lighter on the tannic bitterness--it does seem to have that fruity/floral quality of darjeeling, while still being recognizable as black tea). This is a very, very dry and dusty scent. I like it more than I feared, but less than I hoped. It might grow on me. I really do love the cocoa dust note...

This is so good. The beautiful incensey champaca note is light and gentle, made more so by the sweet creaminess of the basmati rice that grounds it, and gives it a sort of voluptuous softness. The lemon is light, and sweetly zingy, lending the brightness of a sunny, cloudless late spring day, and eventually gives way to the very faint vegetal tea note. I didn't detect the vanilla, but it may be lending sweetness in the background. Overall, this is a hopeful, uplifting scent. I'm so glad I tried this.

I love this scent. It's one of my favorite BPAL scents. It's peppery-spicy, resinously sweet, and warm. It's a comforting, strengthening sort of scent. This is very well blended; I don't have any issues with the red musk, patchouli, or Oudh overwhelming the other notes; they all seem to lift one another, or add depth and nuance. It's bright, sweet, and bracing, all at once. I'm sure why, but the notes together almost make me think of red cedar. This is a bottle I reach for when I need a scent that strengthens and comforts me. If I had to defend my thesis again tomorrow, I'd do it wearing A Flaming Sword.

This was a very odd one, on me, and I'm glad I tested it twice. The first time I tried it, I got absolutely no floral scent from it, just a smell of PLANTS! VEGETATION! Which was then followed up by the scent of skin musk, and a bit of amber. I tried it again several days later, and this time I got a brief ghost of flowers, though still it mostly smelled of vegetal musk warmed by a bit of amber. I've never tried a honeysuckle scent before, so perhaps my skin chemistry just devours it. Still, what I do get is a bit like the smell of someone's skin after they've been rolling around in sun-warmed grass, which is a pleasant enough smell.

I posted a review of this in the Luper Stalking thread, and it occurred to me that I probably ought to post it here, as well, so: I managed to get a partial bottle from decanting leftovers, and gave this a try yesterday. I really, really love it. It's got staying power, and I kept stopping throughout the day to close my eyes and just breathe it in. The golden amber and the sandalwood rose are the stars of the blend, but the moss does give it the "plush" quality described in the scent notes, as well as helping to ground the florals. The orris and vanilla add a bit of creamy sweetness. Overall, it's luxurious and golden. It's like a silk brocade that has been stored in a sandalwood chest packed with rose petal sachets, but now it's been taken out into the freshness of a spring day, and is gleaming in the sunlight.

This is such an interesting perfume. It is almost an autumnal scent, rather than a vernal one. I had no idea what to expect from the violet oud, but it's beautiful, and very definitely a deep and vivid violet. There's nothing indolic about this oud. It's darkly elegant, and has a melancholic depth to it. That oud, and the cedar wood, are the stars of this blend--and they marry fantastically well. The cedar note in this is particularly amazing, beautifully aromatic and evocative of the wood. The cognac and balsam are slightly more backgrounded notes that emerge harmoniously, as the perfume dries. I worried this might have a cologne-like quality, but didn't find that to be the case. Overall, the scent creates an impression of a cedar forest, as the shadows of the trees begin to stretch and deepen, and day succumbs to the liminal half-dark of twilight.

This evoked a surprising visceral scent memory of my earliest trips, as a baby pagan, into witchy shops. This patchouli, smoke, and sandalwood blend smells like nothing so much as the inside of those shops, as a much younger me self-consciously perused statuary and jewelry, and considered the tarot decks behind the counter. This is weirdly comforting and specific, though not in the style of perfumes I enjoy wearing. I'm so glad I got the decant of it, though!

This is very myrrh-forward, with a bit of spiciness under all that sweet, heady resin of the frankincense and myrrh. The cassia-myrrh combo is less punch-you-in-the-face intense and dark than the cassia-myrrh combo in Wolf Moon 2020. I don't get the lily water until it dries, and I find it a very pleasant and subtle element in the perfume. It's not papery, and doesn't really remind me of other white floral notes. It's very true to the scent of the flower, I think. But, to sum up, if you love myrrh, and sweet, heady resin, I think you'll probably enjoy this.