katharina

This is helpful, thanks!

UGH. Life happened and I have not been on my game. Dealing with parental health issues and getting my house ready for them to move in to--classic GenX stuff, I guess. I did do 30 min on the elliptical today with Native Gold. Gah, I love this scent! It's so happy to me, smelling like root beer and love, which I need lately. 😁

So many people are talking about the peach playing big in this one, but for me it's the rose that comes on strong. Perhaps I amp rose? I am still learning... I do get peach and the green, tart bite of apricot in the bottle and for about 30 seconds on my skin and then it is all honeyed rose, with a lushy background. The oud, frankincense, and musk are minor players for me.

I got this as a frottle from the lab. Admittedly, the plethora of notes made me cautious, a I wasn't sure if it would be cacophony of scents that was overwhelming. I am also not a fan of apple (force fed apples as a kid and I don't even like apple pie now), so the apple note worried me as well. In the bottle: As I feared, the amount of scents was initially overwhelming to my nose. As I continued to sniff though, I was able to start picking out notes in the chaos and the overwhelm reduced. Spicy, woodsy, alcohol. Hrm. Wet: Luckily, the straight up boozy smell settled down on my skin and the more fruity scents became apparent. None of them stood out to me, more like a fruit salad where they are all jumbled together and smell is of ripe sweetness. This mixed with spice and woods. I don't hate it. Dry: I am pleased to report that I don't hate it is the final verdict, though I don't know if it will eventually move to the swap pile. It has simmered down quite a bit. Smoke has come out to play with the woodsy scents, and the fruits are slowly fading to the background, combined with the spices they seem to be adding a touch of caramel to hold the woods and smoke together. ETA: I keep sniffing my arm and adding more, this is telling me a couple of things: This is a sleeper hit and as it melds with my skin it becomes more enjoyable, Two: I wish the intensity lingered a bit more, despite it's jarring.

Here is a link to the Amber & Cardamom review post. I am guessing that the others are reviewed here somewhere as well.

So, I wanted to update: My brother LOVED the Spider (Anansi Boys) scent and my nephew also LOVED I Want Nothing. So pleased that they approved, since I had to pick them out blind!

I did a search and couldn't find anything. I am IN LOVE with Indigo by Nest Perfumes. The notes listed are: Italian lemon, orange bergamot, Moroccan tea, Kashmir wood, and wild figs from the south of France. Any suggestions, you oh so wise BPALers? Thank you!

In the bottle: I definitely get the 'soft perfume', seems almost grandma-y. Wet: WTF?! Why do I smell caraway??? OK, that was weird. The caraway smell doesn't last long and soon starts to smell like dirt, I am guessing this is the grave loam. Dry: Once dry the grandma perfume-iness reemerges. I don't hate this, but it's def not for me.

This seems like one of those scents you either love or hate. I am in the love category. Bottle: Minty, spicy flowers. Wet: The peppermint comes out full force when it's wet on the skin, yet oddly, the sharpness is contained by the spices and resins. Dry: Once dry it becomes a spicy and slightly fruity floral. I really love it dry and as the mint settles it totally transforms into something so fucking enticing that I want to lick it. This is one where I thoroughly enjoy the journey it takes me on from bottle to dry down. This is an adventurous scent, which is so appropriate for a Mars scent. It is also highly comforting to me for some reason. I don't know if it is a hidden scent memory or what, but this one just makes me feel good. I am so glad I took a chance on it and bought the bottle blind. Allergen/Skin Sensitivity: I do want to note that this is one I can FEEL on my skin when it's still went--I think it's the mint and heat combo. I could imagine someone who is more sensitive than I might not like the sensation. ETA: The more I wear this, the more I love it. I may need to hunt for a 2nd bottle.

Thank you and that's awesome! And thanks for your insights @Amazonia! I did 30 min of a goddess flow yoga for fatties (my reclamation of fat!) wearing Anathema. Honestly, I didn't love it the first hour or so, but now that the top notes have settled down I can appreciate it more, but don't think it will be a favorite of mine.

Awesome, I am super excited to hear this. I did manage 20 minutes on the elliptical today and I wore Spider, which is masculine leaning to me.

I just bought Spider (White ginger, artemesia, vetiver, nutmeg, King mandarin, bergamot, and lime.) for my brother and I Want Nothing (the hiss of rage-red splinters of bile ejaculating from a haze of blood orange and a bellowing scrawl of ink-black musk on a sweat-splattered notepad.) for my nephew. I am hoping to turn them onto BPAL! My brother specified that he was looking for a scent with Artemesia, and Spider was the only one I could find. My nephew just wanted citrus, but I also wanted to do an activism scent for him, so hopefully he likes it!

Is this still a thing? It needs to still be a thing! I would love to jump on board. I need motivation to make better choices!

So, in a quest to become more familiar with scents I actually like, versus those that just sound nice, I have bought several BPALs un-sniffed. Mare Nectaris was one of them, and likely the most disappointing of the bunch. In the bottle: Punch you in the face peach! With a hint of musk and something that smells like stale bread. Wet: Pretty much the same. Dry: So, the peach has become more waxy smelling. It reminds me of cheap crayons and canned peaches. So. Disappointing.

This is effing delicious! It starts out as straight up root beer, but quickly dries down to a root beer & amber blend on my skin, with a hint of tobacco in the background. I have been forcing my roommate to sniff all new to me BPALs I have been trying out. Most of them she is unimpressed with, as our tastes differ. With this one she took my wrist and starting rubbing it all over her face! 😂 So, I let her put some on. I may need to hide it from her now!

I opened this bottle and felt completely drawn into it's salty depths. And then....I spilled the motherfucker all over me. So I am going with it. The initial saltiness is a constant threadline through the scent as it settles. It's somewhat sharper opening eventually settles into amber, verging into vanilla, and the whole time there is a tinge of salt surrounding it. When I read about different notes the deep dark ones (patchouli, oud, etc) always seem compelling on paper, but my nose says that aquatics are where it's at. I really adore this one.

This was my introduction to BPAL. It came up as a FB ad and I was immediately drawn to the name and the notes. I wore it daily for some time and still have half a bottle left. As I "discovered" more BPAL scents and this forum, I decided to check it out again. I originally bought it in 2016, so it's now aged 4 years. The smell has mellowed, particularly the patchouli. It's still there, just doesn't punch you in the face as it did when I first tried it. Someone above mentioned a tobacco scent, and thought it must be the fig since there is no tobacco note mentioned. I heartily agree. There's a very dried fig chewiness to this that is SO similar to tobacco. As I have aged, my taste in scents has changed and I now tend to shy away from heavy scents like patchouli and oud, but there's such a sense a of nostalgia for me with this one, well beyond 2016. It really takes me back to 1996, when at 20 years old I was fucking hippie boys, wearing dreadlocks and smoking too much weed. I'll wear this sparingly, when I need to cry with the ache of long memories.