ivyandpeony

I am not sure if you can successfully search for it on the forum, the search engine is funny about terms of three letters or less - it's just that it's one of my favorites so I knew exactly where to go

You'll find 51 in Wanderlust - forum reviews are here.

Beautiful dress, sophiecedar - and congrats Have you tried Gypsy Moth yet? It really is a very "white" scent to me without being too sweet and innocent.

This was absolutely beautiful in the bottle and wet, bright fruit with spices, and my skin then immediately turned it into cloying fruity spice with sugar that was on the edge of burning. I call this the caramel curse and it happens with certain sugar notes as well as caramel. Ah well - if you are free from the curse, chances are you will love this one.

I'm finding this to be one of the more unusual note combos Beth's put together for the Metamorphosis series, but I really like it! Although it's creamy and sugary, on me this coconut has a toasted edge which I think could be from the black pepper. And the angelica is super-subtle but it's giving me the faintest reminder of licorice instead of the usual stronger herbal-with-a-hint-of-licorice or fennel smell I associate with it. Overall, it's kind of like I have a summer version of Humbug - a sweet creamy foodie base iced with a little licorice. (I will mention that I get just a little licorice and lots of vanilla from Humbug, so don't go nuts if you're a licorice/anise/etc. freak and want a strong scent. I'd almost call it an "afterscent" as in "aftertaste," if that makes sense.) Like other reviewers have mentioned, you really need to try this one because the list of notes alone just can't describe what it does - and honestly, a sniff of the bottle alone is NOTHING like this scent on the skin. This is the sleeper hit of the butterflies IMO.

As far as "settling," I really just like to let things come to room temperature, that sort of thing, especially in seasons where there are temperature extremes. If I don't like something that I really expected to like, I will try it again in a couple weeks - but for me, that also takes into consideration hormonal ups and downs. I think that your chances of a blend being completely different when you order a bottle are pretty small. There can always be subtle differences because the batch of amber, or patchouli, or carnation (on to infinity) could be a different one even though Beth will always use the same variety for that blend. So, for example, the tea rose for Marie is always a certain type from a certain supplier but because it's naturally sourced, subtle differences can occur. With the frequent swapping we do in BPAL communities, the biggest difference may be that you end up swapping for or buying an imp that's a couple years old and you love an aged blend, then you buy a new bottle fresh from the Lab and at first are shocked by the difference. Often, just a couple weeks of letting it settle makes it much more like the blend that you fell in love with, so just keep in mind if you're getting imps from the secondary market that different notes respond differently to aging. Citrus notes are notorious for losing brightness, patchouli, vanilla and resins become smoother and richer, that sort of thing. Most BPALers find this stuff becomes part of the fun and find that true disappointments due to batch variation are rare. In cases where it seems like there's been a big batch variation, you will even see that factions seem to form - swappers in search of version 1 and version 2 I hope you will be happy with your imps!

The temporary hiatus of Antique Lace has so many people flustered, I thought I'd compile some of the suggestions from the big similarities thread, reviews and a couple of other spots for easy access. These suggestions come from lots of different people and different chemistries, so some may make you go "Huh?" and some may make you go "Yeah!" but that's the fun (and occasional frustration) of BPAL. Feel free to comment on what you do and don't find similar, add suggestions, discuss at length and comfort one another. LEs Atrocious Attic - more floral, but with similar lineny notes Bearded Lady Berenice Black Lace - pretty hard to find so if you are new to BPAL, skip for now Boo (current Halloweenie) - vanilla with a little linen Cottonmouth (current Carnaval Diabolique) Enraged Bunny Musk The Girl (current Halloweenie) Hope and Faith (current CD) - rose and violet AL respectively La Fee Verte - another HTF one Love's Philosophy Monsterbait: Underpants - if you don't have it now, pretend you didn't see this, but enough people mentioned it in reviews that I thought I'd note it. Opuhi The Oval Portrait Pink Moon 2007 Snow White White Rose GCs Black Opal Dirty - the lineny notes more than the vanilla Dorian - likely to be more lemony than AL Euphrosyne - a heady white floral AL Lyonesse Morocco Mouse's Long and Sad Tale Peitho Regan - sweeter and girlier than AL, must like orchids Vechernyaya - not vanilla-y but similar musks and airy feel Victoria White Rabbit Zephyr others Haloes (Retail Exclusive)

Every reminder needs a bump now and then. And if you'd like a bit of a refresher in what's allowed and what's not: You're free to contact each & every person who's posted stuff for swap or sale in the swaps forum - by posting there, they are tacitly giving you permission to do so. They're also indicating that these are things they want to get rid of and they have the time & inclination to communicate with other members about swaps or sales. In contrast, you should not be contacting someone to swap or sell you an item on the basis of their negative review of it or an offhand comment they've made in the vein of "Off to the swaps pile with this bottle!" Until they list it on their swaps page, they aren't sending you those tacit signals listed above. So you are contacting someone without their permission about something they haven't said they want to swap or sell without knowing if they have the time or inclination to deal with you. That fits the definition of bad manners, and bad manners violate our guidelines. It's also a violation of swapping outside the swaps forums. Although you might not be bothered if someone did it to you, many members have reported this happening to them and ARE bothered by it - enough that the mod team has had to make repeated announcements asking members not to do it and ultimately announcing that you can receive a warning for it. If it doesn't bother you, you don't have to report another member for contacting you - but be aware that you could be reported and warned for doing it to others. And if you are in a position where you've been suspended or banned from swaps and are using this technique to circumvent that, please be aware that it could result in a penalty from permanent banning from swaps up to and including banning from the forum.

Aureus came to mind for me - it's not identical but you could describe both as resinous yet light, with a bit of an herbal quality. Little Bird's recs are really good ones too.

I love this scent - I had trouble imagining what it would smell like from the description and it really is so unexpected. A red musk scent that somehow is light, clean and pretty instead of sultry, dark and heady really doesn't come along very often, but here it is. Unlike the reviewers who picked up a little vetiver, I get none - and I tend to smell nothing but vetiver when it's in there, and amp it like crazy, often to the exclusion of everything else in the whole bottle. Not saying there's none in here, just that it's some kind of super mellow vetiver if it is! Ultimately this is a resinous red musk blend that's turned on its ear and made into a light and airy, translucent skin scent by some sort of magical stuff that Beth put in it.

This one was a very pretty, sweet cream scent on me. I was disappointed in my chemistry, though, because not one bit of the sarsparilla that I could smell in the bottle would come out on my skin. So as pretty and sweet as it was, it ultimately was like a lighter, less vanilla-y version of Detestable Putrescence for me, when what I wanted was that slightly spicy root beer float. Nothing bad or offensive or anything like that, but when a super-special hard to find BPAL doesn't blow me away, to me there's no sense in tucking it in a drawer and not enjoying it, it's meant for someone else. So it made its way across the country to a new home and I scored a bottle of something else that was meant for me

I particularly love the White Rose scent from the White Rose/Red Rose pairing - and when I recently tried Roses, Pearls and Diamonds from the GC it struck me that they're a bit similar I love having a light, fresh rose scent (not that I don't appreciate the dark, sexy ones on occasion too).

For some reason BPAL strawberry scents really make me think of being a teenager, although I never wore any kind of strawberry perfume myself in the 80s - I did have a friend who wore some kind of strawberry "essential" oil, maybe that's where it comes from. So Maenad or Swank might be good ones if that appeals to you, either of the Strawberry Moons or Candy Phoenix might work too. And janelle_hell is right, there is something in Stardust that does have a bit of hairspray feel about it. I definitely get a hit of nostalgia from the scent of pure, hardcore Aquanet I haven't found a BPAL that truly smells like Love's Baby Soft, another 80s hit for me, although there are some that are kind of soft & baby-ish, like Lilith Victoria. There is a thread here devoted to scents that remind people of babies, if that's one of your 80s nostalgia scents too it's worth a look. But Dolce Stil Nuovo really reminds me of Sweet Honesty in the strangest way and I doused myself in that stuff on the earlier end of the 80s! That's the thing about the 80s, I was 14 in January 1980, 25 in December 1989, so that's quite a lot of change. By the end of the 80s it was heavier stuff for me, like Obsession and Poison. There are plenty of heady, grown-up-lady BPAL scents like Chrysanthemum Moon, Romanti.Goth, and Haunted that have a similar feel to me as those scents.

Here are some threads that might be helpful in your search - Gourmand & foody blends - general recs The sweetest and most candy-like blends Baked goods scents Keep an open mind as you try new scents - sometimes you'll get a beautiful, pure sweet note from a blend where you least expected it. Sudha Segara comes to mind for me.

Here's a completely subjective list of some scents I think could have dragon's blood where it isn't specifically listed as a note. Far from inclusive, and I am sure people will have others to add and may disagree with some of them. LE: The Cracked Bell (lots of people smell it, this went odd and sharp on me so it probably is in there! But it is still a beautiful scent) Inganok Jewelers (ditto on that) The Castle (I can wear this and I absolutely love it, so if there's dragon's blood in it, it's an exception to the rule!) Midnight Kiss Quicksilver Phoenix (that cinnabar note seems a little dragon's blood-y to me) The Chapel The Dole of the King's Daughter GC: Centzon Tetochtin Thorns My disclaimer is that I really can't wear dragon's blood at all. I like the way it smells in the bottle but my body chemistry gives it this terrible acrid quality. However, sometimes I can wear blends that have just "blood" or "blood accord" listed, which makes me think that those notes in a description don't automatically = dragon's blood and that Beth probably uses a number of formulas to achieve those notes. Still, when you have exhausted the list of dragon's blood scents, start trying the ones that have just blood or blood accord listed and you may find that you get a nice resiny dragon's blood effect from one or more of them. Also, keep an eye out for "daemenorops" as a note - this is another name for a type of dragon's blood. Anactoria, Man with Phallus Head, The Contract of Theophilus of Adana, I Married A Vampire From Planet X, and Wilhemina Murray are all LEs that contain it and The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed With the Sun from The Salon has it as well.

I thought I would bump this as I'm doing a little Recs housekeeping tonight - since the question of "this one or that one" comes up fairly often, I changed the title of this thread to open it up for all of that sort of discussion.

I do find them very similar - crisp, pretty and simple, if there are other notes in there I don't pick up on them. And since it's GC it's an easy, low-cost & low-risk investment to pick up an imp in a lab order or via swaps.

Chrystanza, I will have to pull out my Dreamland and give it a whirl again, see if I come up with anything. It's such a beautiful scent. I wish there were more tuberose BPAL blends! I was able to buy a bottle of Egg Moon at GA Will Call last night and realized that it reminds me a bit of Bakeneko - the resins and spices are what are doing it, I think. Bakeneko leans toward "clean" with the brighter tea and citrus notes, where I find that Egg Moon is creamier. (I was also amazed and relieved that I didn't get even a hint of redness from the cassia-cinnamon punch in Egg Moon, since I am famous for being pale and sensitive and welty.)

For those who are specifically interested in eucalyptus scents, there is a thread here. And if you find that you really, really want more medicine than perfume, the Panacea category is a gold mine. For example, OOF is super menthol-eucalyptus and is really heavenly if you are congested! Even the ones that aren't in the "relief" category seem a bit medicinal to me, I think it's the way that they are all very organic, essential-oils-only in feel. Even when cherry notes give me a brief memory of cherry cough syrup, it doesn't turn me off a scent too much. But I can remember eating entire tins of cherry Sucrets when left to my own devices as a kid What does bother me is an orangey-baby aspirin smell. I don't think there's any such think as baby aspirin these days since it can cause Reyes syndrome and there are so many alternative fever & pain meds for kids, but those of a certain age will remember those orange flavored St. Joseph's baby aspirin I get a little bit of that from Kunstkammer since it is so predominantly orange. Luckily, Beth seems to offset sweet citrus notes with other interesting things that are spicy or resinous, so I haven't ever gotten a true snozz full of baby aspirin from BPAL blend. (But I do have a curse - if I try to mix up a cocktail without using some kind of bartender's guide or a recipe, 95% of the time it tastes like baby aspirin. Really! But that's probably a discussion for Eat, Drink & Be Merry)

The Lab never released a description or notes for The Last Squished Jelly Bean, so you'd definitely have to e-mail them to get a definitive answer. Otherwise, you're just relying on reviewers and what their opinions are. (It's been a while since I smelled that one, so I won't offer any guesses - but Saw Scaled Viper is a notorious skin-burner for the sensitive Right up there with the super cinnamon-y Inferno!)

I love the Lab's bamboo note - it does seem to land in LEs more often than GCs to me. The Asian lunacies from 2006 (Holiday, Peony, Budding, Dragon, etc.) all seem to have it, as does Whippoorwill (hard to find LE from the original Springtime in Arkham). Although it isn't listed I think Silk Road may have it too. I'm not much help on aloe since it's a note I don't particularly care for. But another thread that you might want to look over is the one on Green Scents. If you enjoy bamboo & aloe it's likely that you'll find lots of fresh green scent recs there.

CCNow charges a higher percentage of fees to the Lab for its services than PayPal does - I think I saw a figure somewhere of 9% versus 3.5% but I can't remember where that was, so don't take that figure as gospel. I do know it's higher As far as the ordering queue goes, even though the Lab gets PayPal orders directly, as soon as they receive CCNow orders those go into the queue by their order date and not the date that the Lab receives them, so that customers using CCNow won't be at a disadvantage. It is true that you have a milestone w/CCNow as far as knowing if your order was harvested - but when it comes down to it, I'd say just use the method you prefer, because I've seen plenty of people post about problems with CCNow too. There's the occasional PayPal order that somehow gets lost in the ether, then there are people whose cards get charged 2 or 3X by CCNow so their money or credit is tied up, or whose order is inexplicably cancelled sending them into a panic about whether they'll be able to get an LE that's been pulled down by the Lab in the meantime. Here are two threads that might help (the last few pages that are most recent are likely the most helpful): CCNow or PayPal - how should I pay CCNow questions and problems

Yeah, no matter how much I liked the smell, I don't think those symptoms would be worth it to me. It's the kind of stuff I'm trying to avoid all the time just due to pesky nature by taking Zyrtec, steroid nasal spray and prescription eye drops, so if I can easily avoid something unnecessary that causes those symptoms I definitely will. With all allergies, your reactions could also get worse the more you're exposed to the allergen(s). You can always try other scents in the same category &/or scents with similar notes to see if you can find one that doesn't trigger a reaction. Keep in mind, too, that you can develop allergies or sensitivies to stuff that you tolerated in the past - but on the other hand, it could also be that there was just a higher concentration of whatever ingredient made you react in this blend. I've reacted to cinnamon with big welts when I tried some blends where there's a whole lot of it, but can tolerate a little. Next time you try a blend with rosewood, try a really small amount in a less-sensitive area like the back of your hand and be ready to observe, wash off, etc.

Purple sage, red patchouli, blackberry, lemon blossom, and lime rind. At first, I'm scared, because sage does this crazy thing on my skin: it turns into a band-aid smell. But I don't even smell sage in the bottle, just fruit and patchouli. As this dries a bit, it's rich blackberry brightened with lime, but softened with herbal notes - I barely smell patchouli. Very pretty, very interesting, and one of those that immediately makes you wonder what it will be like in a month or two because of the fresh brightness of the fruit and the wonders that can be aged patchouli. I'm really pleasantly surprised by this one!

I get lots and lots of fruit from this - in the bottle, wet and when it's dried down. For me, it's less a candied citrus than a candied quince, similar to a super-sweet pear note. I really get very little mandarin, it's probably the least prominent note in the blend for me. This heavy, sweet fruitiness isn't quite what I was expecting, but something I find that I like now that I have tried this. There's a little booziness from the cognac and as this dries down, the fruit does back off a bit. Not completely, but enough that I seem to pick up on the tobacco and honey anchoring it. This has really strong throw and lasting power too. It's beautiful now and I will be looking forward to seeing how the elements interact as it ages.