ivyandpeony

I think that Maiden v2 might be my new favorite BPAL scent. *swwon* Two of my most beloved GC scents are the GC version of Maiden and Alice, and to my nose, this beautiful scent is a cousin to both. I get mostly honey, carnation and rose from this - the sweet, delicate honey that's in Alice, a spicy and fresh carnation, and a dainty sweet rose, maybe tea rose or white rose. In contrast with the released version, this one doesn't have the prominent crisp white tea note - it's a scent with a creamy feel although I don't really detect a cream note, if you get my drift. (I don't think you can ever have too many honeyed florals in your BPAL box, so maybe Beth will pull out this old formula card one day, be struck by a bolt of inspiration and realize it's perfect for a concept that she's had on her mind - I can dream!)

I love this latest round of labels! In particular, the Julie Dillon artwork for the blockbusters (which I love) came out really well in miniature for those labels.

Red currant, Moroccan musk, sage, and frankincense. I'm completely surprised by how much I love this one! Sage is usually a note that sends a blend straight to the swap pile for me (and that's if I was foolish enough to think it would work in the first place ) My skin takes it and produces that weird, slightly burnt rubber smell that you get from a freshly opened, old-school Band-Aid. No such thing happening here, and the frankincense that can sometimes get a little sharp on me is also cooperating perfectly. It must be the gorgeous musk that brings all the other notes into harmony with one another. Like so many other reviewers, I'm definitely getting lots and lots of musk and it's a really beautiful one, warm and sweet and a little bit spicy. The currants give it just enough sweetness but don't really make it fruity. It's a really gorgeous blend in every way.

This has the lightest throw of the three scents from Le Mat. I get lots of pear when it's wet, but as it dries down the pear recedes a good bit and allows the spicier, more resinous notes to bloom. So it's definitely not a sweet pear scent like The Perilous Parlor, or even as sweet as Endymion is on me, yet it's definitely feminine enough for a woman to wear. I didn't get any impressions of pyrite, although trying three scents at once can sometimes interfere with picking up the subtle pleasures of a scent like this one Definitely a keeper, though!

I knew from the start that Motley probably would not be a scent for me, due to my poor history with mushroomy, earth notes as well as champaca. And I was right. It smells lovely in the vial, deeply fruity with a spiciness from the mushroom and an incensey vibe from the champaca. Then my skin takes over and turns this combination of sweet fruit notes and earthy mushroom into a sticky sweet soil base with a cloying champaca on top; as it dries down the earthiness amps more and more, which is what happens with almost all notes in that family for me. I can't say that I'm disappointed since I pretty much expected this one to clash with my chemistry - I definitely wanted to try it when I read the fascinating combo of notes and I'm glad that I got to try it alongside its companion scents. It is unique among BPAL scents, so those whose chemistries love these notes may really have a treasure on their hands.

If you haven't tried using the search engine tools that help narrow your search, looking for reviews by title would be a great way to practice with them (not necessarily just "you" Pendragon, but anyone ) It is much easier than scrolling through page after page of reviews looking for one scent name. (You can open a second window or tab to go through these steps if you need to.) On the search engine page, put in your keyword - try "Minotaur" - in the main keyword box on the top left. Immediately below that box, there's a pulldown menu - use it to highlight "Reviews" (this will keep you from finding all the Swaps and Dead Swaps with Minotaur in the title). And before you finish, look at the four boxes at the lower right. Leave the top two alone for this search, the bottom left one has two radio buttons and you want to click the one that says "search titles only." The bottom right one also has two radio buttons and the default should be "show results as topics," which is what you want. If it isn't, click that one. Then search. The only topic that should pop up is - Minotaur, in reviews. As long as you don't make any spelling mistakes in the scent name, that should be an easy way to find most scents, particularly if you aren't sure which subforum it might fall within.

Oh, I can't touch vetiver either - it amps like crazy on my skin to the exclusion of everything else. The one Gaiman I recall having a strong vetiver note was Stormhold, which also had some aquatic-ozoney qualities. So you should probably put that one on your never-never list. I don't find any one note in Jasmine Cottage to be dominant and I was worried about some of them, too. It is more of a green, outdoorsy wildflower blend. I had the same experience as sqwook with Mr. Ibis, which made me sad! I have smelled it on other women and it's gorgeous, many reviews say the same. And there was also a little something in Mr. Jacquel that my skin took into men's cologne territory, but it's beautiful both in the bottle and on lots of other people

have you tried Hi'iaka or Ether yet? Those are two I always recommend to people who are loving Pele! And a lot of Pele fans also end up loving Xiuhtecuhtli.

I don't think Famine smells like vomit in any way, shape or form. It's a smoky black tea scent, very sexy. You're always taking a gamble on skin chemistry, but it looks like it's just a handful of people that have mentioned that odd morphing quality in their reviews. Off the top of my head... I got some aquatic notes from The Macabray and Stormhold, Spider is a clean scent that could almost be aquatic to some noses. What notes do you love?

I can totally see where that comes from, bluelena. Velvet Bandito smells extremely carnation-y to me - I had no idea that tumbleweeds could be so spicy and gorgeous! And Potion is almost all carnation on me, barely any rose. They will probably layer wonderfully.

There are a couple of threads that discuss some of the individual symptoms. Looking over them at your leisure may also give you some ideas to try, and you can share any thoughts, discussion of results, etc. here. None of them are too huge or unwieldy, but you can use the "search thread" feature (at the bottom left of any page of the thread under the last post) if you want to narrow it down to certain topics within the thread. BPAL for sleep issues BPALs to help with physical pains and illness Comforting, cheering scents Scents to help with depresson Relaxing and calming scents

I found this old post of mine in a different thread, but thought it might be relevant here. I still LOVE Silver Cloud and was excited when I found out that they returned in a limited run for a forum party this past Christmas but were also available online. Oddly, they don't smell "Christmasy" at all to me, they smell spring- and summer-y!

Any suggestions I have probably have to be tempered w/the fact that I really amp geranium - although I do love the smell, I sometimes don't like blends with it because I basically turn them into single-note geranium. Two that I don't see on your "tried" list - Winter Stress Relief, while not the ideal perfume for many, is a really yummy mint-geranium blend. The oil is hard to find but the bath oil from this past holiday season might be a little easier to get your hands on. Ephemera was pretty much all violet and geranium on me, like a green violet blend (the notes are violet, chamomile, muguet, white geranium, calla lily, tea rose, and "a hint of" autumn leaves).

Depending on how much you've been dabbling, you might want to try layering some of the florals that you are loving with Antique Lace and seeing how they click. I'm not the queen of layering, so I don't know how well Antique Lace plays along with other scents, but it might be worth trying. I get a lot of vanilla from Antique Lace although it does have some unique lineny qualities that I haven't found in many other scents, so I thought I'd recommend some vanilla-white floral scents in the GC you might want to try (if you haven't already) - Euphrosyne (vanilla, tea rose, gardenia and jasmine) and Le Serpent Qui Danse (vanilla, violet and gardenia). Monna Vanna, from the Salon, won't be available as an imp, but might be worth a try too - the notes are Russian rose, mimosa, gardenia, bois du rose, parma violet, calla lily, red currant, ambergris, and bourbon vanilla. A little harder to find but certainly not impossible, I have definitely seen both in the swaps forum and no one was demanding a firstborn male child for them - MonsterBait Bigger Critters (gardenia, jasmine, vanilla w/a little grapefruit that makes it bright); Marae, from last year's April Fool Tiki line (vanilla orchids and gardenia with a little incense). Two more past LEs, one that has a sultry, Southern white-floral feel to me - although it's lacking much in common with Antique Lace - is The Swan Maiden (notes: gardenia, white iris, sandalwood, calla lily, French magnolia, muguet, jonquil, and orchid). And one that lacks the magnolia-gardenia requirement but does have stargazer lily and a little bit of that Antique Lace vibe is Berenice (stargazer lily, white musk, clear aloe, blonde amber and linen). Just as an aside, I wonder if magnolia is an expensive bouquet for the Lab to produce or procure. It seems like it's been used much more in the pricier Salon blends and in LEs than in the general catalog. It's a note that I love, too, although I love so many white floral scents that I don't find myself missing it too much in the GC.

Lorelei, it's been a long time since I had a cuppa Sleepytime tea so I don't have a rec off hand - but I was going to mention that you might want to take a look in the thread about mint scents to see what spearmint-y scents may be available. You can crosspost your request there too. =)

Off the top of my head I don't know the answer - but I wonder if there's any kind of chlorine-neutralizing soap or bodywash on the market these days? My husband likes to swim and he uses some kind of chlorine-neutralizing shampoo but I can't remember what it is called. You might even want to try the shampoo as a bodywash if you can't find one. It might be that getting rid of the chlorine altogether would work better than trying to find something that offsets the smell, and it might be better for your skin (and health - since you can absorb chlorine into your body!) in the long run. ETA: a comment from my swimming husband! Are you using noseplugs in the pool? When he doesn't, he feels like he smells chlorine for much longer because pool water gets up his nose.

The occasional bump, since there's so much info for us all to keep up with.

Hand of Glory has this beeswaxy-honey quality that is offset by dry leather (I can't wear leather myself, so it didn't work on me, but it might be a good one for you). I also thought of Ichabod Crane, which has cream and beeswax/honey notes but nothing foody - a very unusual blend but I find it lovely. And Hanerot Halalu is a warm, waxy honey that I love! I find beeswax and honey notes to have a lot in common, so even though I think all of these listed beeswax rather than honey in the official Lab description I get a lot of honey on my skin. I'll be interested to see what other people have to say and what they suggest

unlaced, the closest thing to that - at least on my skin - is Midway. It becomes a very simple, creamy, sweet scent. It does not have the strong cream note that a lot of other BPALs have, more of a creamy undertone. But if you can find some it might fit the bill for you. And, I thought I'd cross post this request here for maximum results

Another LE to LE comparison - and it's more of a "if you like X, you might like Y" than "OMG these smell just alike!" Makhanitis feels like a kissing cousin to both Hellion and Nahemoth to me. It's probably the plum, champaca and sandalwood evoking Hellion - Nahemoth's notes are a mystery but it's quite plummy to my nose. Both Hellion & Nahemoth are a little more complex than Makhanitis. But fans of the two, and anyone who loves plum, should check it out. And that's not to say naaelah's comparison to Prospero isn't a good one - for some reason the champaca in Prospero went wild on my skin and I just turned into a walking, talking, blooming champaca tree. One that had been drinking a little too much red wine. And I don't loooove champaca in large doses, so Prospero and I parted ways. I had much better results with Makhanitis cinnamonmel, it has been a while since I tried Knecht Ruprecht so I checked the notes to refresh my memory (The snow-covered foliage of the Black Forest and the fruit and woods of apple and almond trees). I remember it being almondy on me more than anything although there was some evergreen and apple in the background. Maybe take a peek at the thread about almond scents if you're getting that note and branch out a bit from there? What are the predominant notes you get from it? Phox, have you tried White Rose from the Unity set that the Trading Post is offering? You have to buy White and Red together but of course there's always the possibility of finding a partner beforehand if you absolutely don't want Red or swapping it away afterwards. Two, Five & Seven has lots of sweet rose - Eternal also features that gorgeous white rose note with some other sweet florals.

The Lab would be your final word on this (answers@blackphoenixalchemylab.com). But because of two policies they've adhered to since I've been around - not permitting add-ons once orders have been placed and not combining separate orders - my guess would be that they aren't able to do it.

just a reminder!

Oh look, it's me again. This might seem like a really odd rec for the clove thread, but Red Rose (from the Trading Post set of roses) has such an incredible clove note. Oddly, I don't think you necessarily have to be a rose lover to love this scent. My mother in law had tried Rose Red in the past and didn't care for it, finding it too boldly "rosy" (she does like Alice) - however, she really liked the scent of Red Rose. The rose note is subtle, the clove is dominant when wet and as it dries, it becomes a more gentle spice that blends with the amber and musk. If you were on the fence about trying it before it's gone (or just going ahead and ordering the set ), I'm the enabler who would push you over the edge.

I'm anxiously awaiting reviews of the Box of Chocolates and hoping that someone who tries them all, will post some opinions about my questions: If you could only order one of them which one would it be? and Will you rate them from your favorite to your least favorite? (of course, commentary about WHY is welcome!!)

Bumping this thread because I think the Valentine's set of roses from the Trading Post may be the best rose scents Beth's ever done. White rose has been my favorite rose note for ages and the White Rose scent is phenomenal - it lasts forever, & the vanilla-y component and the tea and coconut are genius in combination with the sweet white rose note. And I think that the Red Rose scent may even work for people who don't like, or who can't usually wear, roses. For me, the red rose note is very subtle - instead I get lots of amber and spice and a little hit of that deep, pretty musk. It's completely different from The Peacock Queen or Rose Red, which are predominantly rose.