Llanval

I swapped a bottle for this little delight and it was a gr8 swap!! This is exactly what I was hoping for: all sweet, dewy green green grass, supported by herbal clarifying white sage. The scent stays the same through dry down, but almost "opens up" like a spring lawn livens up as the sun rises, with sweet hints of little blossoms. I was surprised by how long this stuck around, but 7 hrs in and I was still finding the scent as I moved around. A fairytale song of green dew-speckled grass and sage

All mystique and thrumming power: gurjum balsam, Sumatran dragon's blood resin, olibanum, galangal, oleo gum resin, and frankincense. Mage smells like the inside of the big tote where I keep all my Christmas candles. 🤬 On my skin, Mage is a swirl of indistinct spices, sweet berries and fruit, with a slightly waxy but oddly "fizzy" top not (I think that's the galangal and gum resin combo at work). But the dragon's blood resin makes the scent a little darker and deeper than your average waxy christmas candle scent. I'm going to blame skin chem...and probably the galangal/gum resin. 🙃

I get got by florals every time, and yet I hope for a different outcome. This is just straight up opaque, fake rose on me with the faintest hint of some lovely, resinous wood and incense hiding behind the ROSE. On my skin, this is the rose of dried petals and off-brand rose hand cream or dissolving bath petals. And laid over is a sharp/soft church-y incense smoke that turns the whole affair into a powdery dried rose, with juuuuuuuust a hint of...pencil shavings?! Honestly the pencil shavings save this for me, and make it more enjoyable, lol. I individually love almost every note in this bottle (esp champaca flower and peru balsam), but the rose amber is in charge here, to the detriment of the other notes. As time goes on, I do get other hints of resin-y goodness poking through the rose amber, but it's basically powdery, fake rose with a promise of something deeper, richer and more profound lurking just under all these stiff, dried petals. Boo, skin chem! I really should stop hoping that amber and I are going to be pals, lol. EDIT: I found the culprit - palisander is rosewood. Gettin' clocked with a one-two rose punch, lol

This is a holy grail scent for me, if not THE holy grail BPAL for me. The most perfect expression of a pine forest I have ever picked up from BPAL. This bottle was one of my first purchases when I found out about BPAL in 2019, and I am still in love with it. Nothing compares to this bottle, for me. Nothing. This is truly perfect on my skin, and immediately takes me by the hand and walks me up to the top of the most incredible stone bluff I've ever stood on, surrounded by waving pine trees, just getting hammered by the hot sun, the scent of dusty stone thick on the wind. This one still makes me want to bang my fists against a table just to shout about how perfect it is. If it's not pulled down before the end of '21, I'll get a back up bottle. True love in a bottle. An unparalleled song of pine and stone and sun, all in just 5mls. *sigh*

Imp bought from the Lab Dec 2020, so aged a little bit. I had wild, outsized hopes for this but alas, the wine and patch/spiced herbs dominated on me, and trampled the burnt grasses, wood and leather. That said, it's very good spicy, fruity wine top note with creeping greens and ozone and maybe some leather hiding in the background. Very nice, much lighter and more wearable than I thought on first application. I was hoping for a dire tower thrust against a black, crackling sky. Instead it's a tower window overlooking a distant garden. Or: Cersei Lannister enjoying her breakfast of fermented grapes, plotting at the tower window, lol.

Love this one, even though to my nose it starts out with a cloud of very very fresh pencil shavings and lead. BUT I like that?! And that's only because my nose is so overwhelmed by the beautiful red patchouli combined with the grassy vetiver. This is a mega long distance runner kind of scent, perfect on my skin, resinous, woody and a dire sort of green. Malediction also has a long and enjoyable dry down. This is a patchouli show piece and by the third hour in, that just takes off into this heady, airy but deeply earthy, grounded and sinister experience. Deep, sharp, captivating and echoing. But so beautifully evocative of patchouli I find that the last hours on my skin are simply, purely patchouli and nothing else. These are deceptively simple notes that come together really well, and I think Malediction would be an incredible layering tool for anyone interested in doing that with their bpal. I put it on my GC bottle purchase list.

Picked up this imp in my big Dec 2020 order and I've gone back and forth on this one. I really enjoy it, but the cedarwood and vetiver tag team in this bottle and on my skin, to the detriment of every other note. I do really enjoy the almost burnt, smoky vibe to this wood blend, but I get minuscule amounts of tangerine and saffron. If anything, those two notes lift the scent out of the echoing black of the cedarwood and vetiver to lighten the edges with the suggestion of something lighter, sweeter and more natural. Azathoth is a dark library full of towering bookshelves and otherworldly wafting scents - a library run by a being extremely unlikely to be in possession of any appendages like hands to read all those books.

This one seems to not be popular but I have to say this is one of my most used bottles, one of my fav scents, and one of my first purchases from the Lab! I blind bottled this in 2019 and have loved it ever since. On my skin, I find it it does not shift into that unpleasant men's cologne note, and I don't feel this is an overly commercial scent either. On my skin, wet and dry, it really is a scream of white hot metal and glittering stars. This is sharp, hot overwhelming bergamot aldehyde and the hot burr of super heated metal. I really really enjoy this and have used up a good half of my bottle. This is the same scent idea as the Divine Scientist but rather than clean glass and a hint of pine/juniper, this is the screaming tail of a rocket ship or a comet and I really love it, lol. It's also super long lasting, one fairly gentle application will do it for the balance of the work day. Also, the scent description and the tarot card are just so much my thing, I was doomed to love this from the beginning.

This one, like Ecstatic Dancing Penises, I knew was going to be a bottle purchase before I even got it on my skin, unf its sublime. Discarded Sandal is the pine and beeswax scent of my dreams, opening with big beautiful waves of pine, tolu balsam and hinoki wood. The hinoki gives this a softer almost heated/dry edge which leads into this bottle's fantasticly rich honeyed beeswax heart. The beeswax is perfect: a golden core braced by layers of green resinous pine and tolu balsam and soft supportive hinoki, all while the muguet dances around with the juniper, giving this a kiss of sweetness that stands apart from the beeswax really beautifully. Everything I was hoping for! Probably should have bought two bottles. 😅

I wanted to like this one so much, and I do, just not as much as I was hoping for. This starts out as an incredibly bright, almost peppery spray of juniper and pine with little puffs of frankincense rising up through the cade and spring water. It stays atmospheric and intense for about 20 minutes until it suddenly shifts into the dreaded arctic blast/men's cologne note that I find so frustrating. I wanted the stone to play a bigger role, because up until the men's arctic blast overwhelms me, this is so incredible and bright and invigorating. This captures the label art perfectly and its so crazy atmospheric I still want to sniff it despite it not working on me. I'm crushed. This bottle honestly reminds me of my fav BPAL scent, the bottle I've used the most of - The Chariot from the Vampire Tarot. Only on me The Chariot really is a scream of white hot metal and glittering star dust. It's so forceful and enveloping, but where Rippling Water turns into waves of cold men's scent, The Chariot stays hot and bright and sharp. It's the femme version of Rippling Waters and if the damn arctic blast hadn't beaten me up and stolen all the other notes I love, I would have bought two bottles, that's how much I like scents like this. 😰

i got to sniff this one too and I have to say I did not dislike it at all. Natch, the jasmine bullies everything else in this bottle and on my skin so it isn't a blend for me. BUT I totally get the whole, gauzy veils of incense vibe, and that part I really enjoyed. I put a few drops on the inside of my elbow and it just bloomed out in big lovely waves of jasmine incense, with all the other ducklings hiding under mother Jasmine's wings. Only jasmine incense hates me, and I hate it, which is too bad because pink champaca is great, and I actually like rose sandalwood despite not liking rose in general. This baby has incredible throw and crazy lasting power. If this incense had been anything other jasmine, I would have snatched this up, as I love BPALs with big time throw!

the reviewers at the top of this thread were right: this is CK Obsession BPAL style. This was so immediately CK Obsession I assumed it would play out that way too. Not quite. I did enjoy the drydown on the amber, it didn't immediately morph into dreaded "grand dame oriental" notes but it was too close for comfort. I was hoping I would get the dry hot stone note, or some smokiness as reported above, but no such luck. This rounds out into a soft, cuddly amber with a comforting furry halo. But the close impression of CK Obsession just can't be overcome for me. It is a very comfortable, comforting and cozy blend, close to the skin and refined but my 90s childhood lives in this bottle and I do not, not any more!

I had high hopes for this one, as my wheelhouse is forest/garden/green scents. This started great with a big burst of true to life pine. I really love pine, pine bark and terebinth a lot and I've never had any of those notes go janky on me. But about half way through the scent life, this bright, bracing, oddly floral tengu turns from true to life pine forest dotted with roses and almost lemon-like zest into that pine forest but with a generous waft of "grand dame oriental" powder. And that's the kiss of death for me. So either it's the bulgarian rose, the orris root or the white sandalwood, or all three that's turned this too close to Mom/Grandma scent memories, but it just doesn't come together as I was hoping. If you do like roses and florals with only a hint of bracing pine, this is a great experience. Just not for me. Edit 2022.07.25: I kept my decant and wore it again about two weeks ago and fully fell in love with this scent all over again, ha! While it is a powdery floriental, it is beautiful, more lovely than I remembered. Plus, the slightly powdery dry down no longer bothered me. Luckily I was able to track down a full bottle to add to my collection because I was very sad I passed on this bottle last year, lol.

this bottle is a heartbreaker for me, as it's so soft and subtle. Nothing really leaps out either in the bottle or on my skin. I get a dry whispering leather with a dry but not too sharp parchment note. Behind that note is everything else, including the smoked oud which does not go footy or pickle-y on me at all. But nothing else comes out to play. Everything is so subtle and quiet. If I'm very still and breathe very deeply, I am taken to both my grandfather's ancient wood workshop and to a shinto monastery high in the mountains, with rushes on the floor, a lit lantern and a bowl of freshly ground ink. But it's so quiet it's just not bold enough, and doesn't have a lot of staying power. Maybe in a while I'll see if I can track a full bottle down, but I'm very very sad this didn't become something else on my skin. 💔

I'm going use the review I sent rivetted when I first tried this scent, because it captures...everything about this bottle for me. rivetted must have been inspired to send this one to me, because I thought I'd hate it and I'd have to wash it off but: But no. No. NO. That's not what happened. Holy shit. I am fucking blown away. I got salty buttery bread right off the cap, wafting out of the bottle, which oh no I did Not Like. But the minute it hit my skin it just unfurled into this beautiful downy soft cardamon bun scent. It's so smooth and well blended. It's creamy without being cloying, the star anise and cardamon and almond cream just swirl together in this billowing magnificent little song of spice and comfort and toasted milk bread. The amaretto makes the star anise a warmed airy sugary thing. I actually smell a little salt, that salt on the crisp edge of a fresh sweet bun. HOLY SHIT. I AM NOT KIDDING. Rivetted. What have you done. RIVETTED I hate foodie scents. I THOUGHT I HATED FOODIE SCENTS. I can't stop sniffing the test dot. I can't believe I like this. I can't believe the almond cream behaves on my skin and doesn't smell like sickly sweet blossoms of DEATH. I CAN'T BELIEVE I LIKE THIS. I think Unsubtle would overwhelm me quickly if I were to actually wear it like a perfume, but what a scent experience. Just. WOW. After I placed my final Shunga order, I IMMEDIATELY regretted not getting this bottle. Luckily I've found one thanks to a very kind forumite and I'll actually be adding a FOODIE scent to my collection. Can't believe it, lol! Magical. Weird. Perfect.

thanks to rivetted, I got to try this and it really impressed me. The coconut stays fresh, bright and inviting without turning to suntan lotion or cheap sweetness. The rice milk does so much lifting in this bottle, all the heavy work honestly, lol. I can clearly discern the light, watery but creamy rice milk note and the white tea just elevates everything that little extra step more. This is a beautiful, soft, sheer but refreshing experience. For having only three notes, this bottle has so much depth and enjoyment inside. If you like any of these notes, this one is worth it.

thanks to rivetted I was able to try out a scent I would never have picked for myself. I may have said "nope" out loud before I even got the cap all the way off the imp, but it was worth braving the initial blast of florals and gardenia specifically. I'm what you'd politely call floralphobic, so I wasn't hopeful but even a light application was just so beautiful. Honestly, this is Sailor Moon in a bottle (and I think Naoko Takeuchi would approve, lol) and I'm kinda heartbroken this doesn't work for me. This is the captivating romantic magical girl anime scent of my dreams, if it had NO gardenia in it. The vanilla cream just knocks the shouty florals all the way down to a creamy wistful simmer, turning the whole scent experience into floating rivers of glowing pink cherry blossoms and white florals carried along by an impossible, magical breeze. This bottle just makes me think of the soft little tune that played each time Usagi opened her star locket *sigh* And I'm so sad the gardenia made this impossible to wear for me. Gardenias hate me. And I hate them. I agree with the reviewer above, this needed more nuance in the cherry blossom note, with a more true to life scent and more tartness from the plum blossom. If those had been there, I would have just dealt with the gardenias.

Thanks to rivetted I was able to test a sniffy of Ecstatic Dancing Penises before I bought it! I. LOVE. THIS. SCENT. SO. FUCKING. MUCH. This is absolutely everything I was hoping for and then some. I didn't even need to get this all the way on my skin to know I wanted a bottle ASAP. Starts with an incredible rush of GREEN tomato leaves freshly snapped, GREEN stems freshly crushed, the ripe bite of tomatoes, just GREEN GREEN GREEN. I get no soap at all, just the idea of pure rich sun heated earth and a RIOT of green, growing things. The woodiness of the blend just makes me think of the sun hot garden gate, not specifically mahogany. YESSSSSSS this is why I love bpal so much. This bottle makes ME ecstatic! I get no shift into obnoxious overbearing men's cologne (🙏 thank g-d) on the dry down which is a huge relief and legit makes me want to European cheek kiss the whole blending team for this perfect little bottle. This is the wild, frenetic dancing garden spirit scent of my dreams. This brings me joy and makes me smile, genuinely. I can't fucking wait for my final Shunga order to get here!!! EDIT: Bottle got here. It's still perfect. EDP Might be a little too energetic and bold to wear in the office tho, oooops!!

I'm glad I got a full imp of this one to test. I was very hopeful for this one. Right away, I got a whiff of plastic and dry green cardamom on the wand that immediately became a soft, sweet green blanket with puffs of really lovely incense smoke on my skin. The incense smoke turns this into such a soothing but oddly scratchy blend. I don't mean itchy, but the smell equivalent of touching tomato leaves. The white tea and florals aren't shouty at all. This is such a calming, comforting scent. I love it, but I wish the cedar and beeswax and even the smoke were a little stronger. Normally, I'd pass on this because of the low throw and the somewhat chalky turn the sweet florals take. But I want to age a bottle, I like it so much. I want to wear this to sleep every night!

I wanted Butterfly Dancer to take my hand and lead me somewhere magical so badly. It came so close. SO CLOSE. Thanks to rivetted, I got to test a full imp of this bad boy and I still don't quite know how to explain this little bottle. I love it, and yet, I do NOT. It has a glorious, resinous, rich opening full of character. The red oud behaves perfectly on my skin, and it takes this dancer into a dark fluttering red silk sheer with a weight and presence I really enjoy. But then time passes and as the scent dries it shifts from this almost darkly foreboding floral scent to heaps of the IDEA of red and pink florals on much quieter woody resins. That unique opening quiets down so quickly it immediately falls off the peak it was climbing up to, straight down into this oddly conventional, ultra lux femme scent. I've smelled this in a perfume bottle somewhere else. Not the opening, that's 100% bpal magic. The end. The end of this dance is in a bottle of Lolita Lempicka, or Juicy Couture, or yes, Betsy Johnson. But I like smelling like a wizard, dragon, witch, or demon, so this doesn't do it for me. It's just too conventional. And YET, this scent is ALSO a high-end French hooker (thank you VetchVesper, you were right, this bottle is so hard to describe lol). I just don't know, it's such a weird little dance! I do wonder what it it will be in a year, so I may stash the imp and come back. This one frustrates me because I think if it had the smouldering wood/embers found in Under the Foot Warmer or Gokugetsu this would have been an immediate buy. I wish this worked more for me, and I'm annoyed it didn't, lol.

Another skin chemistry fail, sadly. Like the Laughing Seagull above, I get a blast of wintergreen that trips into those individually wrapped spearmint lifesavers and what I can only identify as envelope glue?!?! Almost right away, only the wintergreen and glue blooms on my skin. Tragic, that this is what I'm getting first. Unfortunately, even as it dries and the rose and woods come out to play, this doesn't turn into the atmospheric delight I was hoping for. I definitely can SEE the Victorian drawing room this scent belongs in - it's a beautiful room, well acquainted with the principals of maximalist decorating - as the wintergreen gives this an airy, cool sensation I can catch on the back of my palate. If this was louder, if the rosewood and lilac were more present on my skin, I might have really enjoyed this. As it is, this is a spectral, whispering little ghost gilded in mint and left to stare longingly at the flowers just outside the window glass. Even with the shock of wintergreen and envelope glue, I don't hate it, it's just not enough to really want to keep reapplying.

Imp, aged ant 6 months: Skin chemistry fail, I guess, because all I get is the scent-memory of a grand dame, of a matriarchal, vintage Clinique Aromatics Elixir 😨 I wish this was more true forest on me, something that can compete with the true to life stone and pine forest of Theoi Nomioi, but it's not this bottle. This is a dark and dire version of Clinique's Aromatics Elixir, and I'm betting the culprit is either the lily or opium smoke. *sigh* I really really wanted this one to work on me.

This was the bottle I was most excited for, and I'm so glad I love it, its unique and beautifully atmospheric. In the bottle: sweet wood and swirling mysteries. It's lovely in the bottle, with just the hint of red berries. This is a winter vibe for me. Wet on the skin, the scent just takes off with a rolling cloud of sweet red musk and smouldering pine wood, very like a sauna without the tang of salt or that hot, watery note that amplifies all scents in a sauna. Honestly, this is a damn good approximation though. The amber smoulders too. The pine wood smoke is so fab, it has a genuine sweetness that so clearly recalls lightly charred pinewood I wish this note was a bit louder on me. As this dries, the sweet smoky wood become a little stronger, and a cream-like smoothness slips over the wood, without reading saccharine or cloying. I love how much this blend becomes again, a hefty atmospheric for me: this is the sister of Gokugetsu, which for me was a wood panelled room looking out onto a garden. Under The Foot Warmer is in the same elegant wood panelled home in 16th c. Tokyo, but this is an enclosed room in the heart and hearth of this home. There's a little foot warmer in front of you, and the scent of winter and spices rings around the gentle drifting scents of smouldering embers and heated wood, two cups of freshly prepared matcha steaming nearby. Love this one, might be my favourite of the 2021 Shunga I blind bottled. ❤❤❤ Now if only I could find a bpal that truly captures the muggy, heady glory of a greenhouse in bloom, I'd be quite content, lol.

This one, I was a little nervous about, because I desperately want aquatics to behave on my skin and BE aquatics, not dryer sheets. Thankfully, this one works beautifully from start to finish. In the bottle its salty and cypress sweet, but nothing really jumps out. Wet, it's a blast of salt and cypress and, for me, big swells of sweet, salt-water fed greens. The spice, the tingle is what I'm assuming is the carnation. I can't pull it out specifically but it adds a lovely floral je ne sais quoi to the whole thing. Really, really lovely. The whole aroma is laced with warm salt and feels almost like the beach of a sun blasted, conniferous forest. Dry down stays not too far off the initial application and I really enjoy that. This scent is so evocative for me. This is a cove of salt water, clean and faintly steaming with heat, embraced by thick cypress woods and tangles of salty greenery. This almost has a "sand" note hiding behind all the others, just a thread of dry heat that I love hunting for as this drys. 😍 I really enjoy every minute of wearing this, my only wish was a bit more strength through the dry down. But this is still really suited to the artwork and the vibe of the idea of cycling for pleasure as well. I love this little bottle, really. It's so much fun, I fully agree with the review calling this avant garde. 100% agree. Very cool, glad I rolled the dice on this bottle.

Imp from the Dirt Imp Ears, aged 2 years: In the bottle, its dirt and a little simmer of rose. As soon as it goes on, it becomes an open grave, ringed in mushrooms. I get that specific little dry dirt funk note that I associate with mushrooms. I do get why so many would classify this as wet, earthy loam, but there's not enough levity in the dirt here for me. This starts as the tireless thok thok of a spade into the earth, but from below, from inside before the rose blooms. After the rose arrives, it truly is like dragging yourself out of the last cradle you'll ever know - with a garland of roses and tangled green sprigs around your neck to ward away the smell. Once I might have loved this. Now, the dirt dries and recedes to a light stony furze and the roses dance and sing and wilt and dry and all I can think of is my grandmother. My mother kept a single jar of this very old, quite retro (I guess??) fragrance powder, y'know the very old fashioned round containers, with the big decadent white powder puffs? Zombi tragically, accidentally toes the line into that scent-memory too often for my own enjoyment. Zombi embodies a specific finality for me, and it's not one deep enough or engaging enough for a full bottle. Anyone out there who is a traditional, old-school Goth who loves to live their lifestyle on their skin, and rose doesn't remind you of grandmothers or long gone days, this shit is for you. If it does, and that's your thing? You're going to love this. Goodbye, ancient imp, I'm going to use you up and put you on the "no" list. Edit: did a total 180° on this scent and ended up buying a full bottle, lol. I ended up using my Zombi imp at work to cover up the 😖 when new imps I'm testing go funky on me. So I guess i got used to the vibe of the scent and it wormed its way into my black little heart! This scent truly is the embodiment of funeral gloom so I guess I just needed to come back to it after a bit of time. So far, it's the only rose forward scent I love enough to wear on the regular.