ivyandpeony

Hi, Kat, we've got a lot of rec's floating around that might be just your thing: try the tea thread, or the chai thread for starters. ...

yay tartchef for tracking down those threads! DeusDM, another thread you will have fun in would be this one, discussing the spiciest BPAL blends.

I agree with the posters who have cited Bakeneko as the ultimate spicy tea scent. It can be hard to find, though, because it's so damn good that no one wants to part with a bottle (it was an LE from January 2007).

Famine, from the Good Omens series, is a very unusual tea blend: it's smoky and a bit sweet and spicy, not a drop of vanilla in sight (the listed notes are black tea, tobacco leaf, frankincense, lilac, and white musk). It's not available from the Lab in imp form, though, so you'd either have to take a chance on a bottle or track down a decant in the swaps forum.

If you like Kumiho, have you tried The Apothecary? In comparison, the tea note is stronger and the ginger is lighter, but it's so pretty and fresh.

I also love the spicy, creamy tea that I get from The White Rabbit. Although vanilla is a listed note (the others are black tea, milk, white pepper, ginger, honey and linen) I don't get vanilla from it at all. If you read the reviews, it seems to be one of those blends that can smell wildly different from person to person, depending on what notes you happen to amp. But since it's GC an imp won't set you back much and trying it will be an adventure.

Oh, and one quick mod note - I added a subtitle to the thread, so people will see it's a request for personal recs and not a dupe thread of the tea, spice &/or chai threads.

The vetiver kills Blood Kiss for me.

I love Red Phoenix though. The only similar scents I can think of are LE, and Blood Moon can be hard to find these days. But Alone was re-released with the Poe scents at Dark Delicacies very recently. I think there's a possibility that they share a patchouli note or that there's an unlisted drop of cardamom in RP and Blood Moon that I pick up.

Mortarion, I'm not the number one go-to girl for recommending men's scents because I can't get my husband to wear BPAL (or any scent). But of things that I have tried on myself, Anubis came to mind for evoking death and the desert. It's resinous and spicy and definitely gender neutral (the notes are holy myrrh, storax, balsam, and embalming herbs). Ozymandias might be a good choice if you're looking for something that's on the more sophisticated end (vs. natural/earthy), although your character looks like he'd be more of an outdoors, roughin' it kind of guy. The description doesn't list the notes, and although I have heard some people compare it to Chanel No. 5 it smells very dry and masculine to me. (I'm sure you're already picking up on how different a blend can smell from one person to another from reading reviews and looking at threads here in Recommendations!)

Good luck finding something to inspire you!

I smell a lot of ylang-ylang in Seduction too! I do like it, although ylang-ylang is one of those notes for me: when it's good, it's very very good, when it's bad it's horrid. I recently found a Seduction bath bomb from the days the Trading Post was selling them and I really like the way that the scent of Seduction blooms in a warm bath. So I may be putting my bottle to use in the bath.

I was curious to see if I could discern a pattern in my ylang-ylang likes and dislikes so I looked at the search engine on the lab's site. It seems like blends where it's paired with other sweet florals are the ones that work well on me: Blue Moon 07, Melancholia, Loralei, Suspiro, Veil. If it's paired with a note that has a tendency to go sharp on me like apple blossom or dragon's blood or if the blend doesn't fall more on the sweet side of the scale, then the ylang-ylang ends up taking on a sharp or acrid quality.

Hi LizardQueen I think your question is just fine in this thread, for the record. Not everything's going to be a perfect fit and I want someone to slap me to my senses if I spend an afternoon going through these giant similarities threads, splitting out posts and making yet another pinned thread titled "LE scents you can substitute for Discontinued GC scents!"

Dublin is one of my all time favorites - oh, I seriously love it. I just got my Lupercalia order this week, and although I think The Passionate Shepherd is going to be a favorite of mine this spring, a resemblance to Dublin didn't even cross my mind, I am sorry to say. Of course, this is all my evaluation of how these two perfumes work on me, so it will be interesting to see what other people say. I also find that BPAL blends can change a bit after a month or two of ownership. So for those reasons I definitely think The Passionate Shepherd is worth trying on its own merits, it's a gorgeous scent.

Here's how I would describe them... The Passionate Shepherd is green in a bright, grassy way, with a hint of woody spiciness from the ivy and carnation and a bit of soft rose adding a bit of femininity. The florals also seem to make this one sweet enough for my chemistry (heather in particular tends to be a sweet note). Dublin is predominantly evergreen, although somehow it's a very sweet and mellow evergreen, and I find the white rose is a prominent element - it's soft, as in the opposite of sharp, whereas in TPS the rose is a team player, more of a contributor to the overall feel of the scent and the green notes are predominant.

If I can answer any specific questions about them, just let me know, I'll do my best.

Hmmm... what does remind me of Dublin? The LE bath oil, Ice Prince and Snow Moon - both have that combination of evergreen forest with floral notes to my nose. It's difficult, though, there's not a lot! Maybe some layering is in order?

I haven't tried Fascinuum on my own skin, but I smelled it on Andra's and it indeed was very reminiscent of Doc Buzzard. That combination of rich resins and lime is just so lovely. I definitely am going to add it to my wish list - although I loved Doc Buzzard in theory, I never wore it because somehow, I make masculine scents even more swarthy and masculine! Not a drop of sweet girliness in my natural skin chemistry, I have to get it all from my perfume. And my husband just won't get into BPAL with me, so the manly stuff ends up being swapped away.

Policyoftruth, BPAL has a very nice pineapple note, but I don't think that Beth uses it in a lot of blends. It sounds like the L'artisan blend is based around that note (I haven't smelled it myself, but since they named it Ananas Fizz, I am assuming a little bit).

If you click here, you should get the results of a search that you can then skim over. I searched through the Recs subforum for all the posts where the word "pineapple" was mentioned. If the link gives you problems, go to the search form and try this: search for "pineapple" highlighting the Recommendations subforum only, specifying that post text and titles should be searched and results displayed as posts (as opposed to topics).

You can also try the same search in the Reviews subforum to see if any additional scents pop up!

Looks like Drink Me, Elegba, Tzadikim Nistarim, and Shango are most frequently mentioned and the new GC addition Defutata is getting a few comments. The 2007 version of Milk Moon also gets mentioned a bit, but it could be harder to track down. I'd try the GC ones first since you can order imps so easily, then if nothing seems similar, you can branch out into old LEs...

zankoku_zen, there's nothing worse than when a bad memory ruins a nice scent! I knew a girl who wore Coco back in the 80s but she smoked so damn much that she warped the smell into something awful - so when I smelled the normal, should-have-been-lovely Coco on anyone else I would get so grossed out by it even though the ashtray reek element was missing. If I smelled Coco today I bet I would have the same reaction.

I'm finding The Presence of Love to be very balanced - although the floral notes are dominant, the jasmine doesn't stomp out everything else in sight the way that it sometimes can when it's touched my skin. I want to erect a statue to Beth for her genius in combining pink grapefruit and jasmine - love it intensely in BiggerCritters and I love it just as much here. This is a more sophisticated scent than BiggerCritters as you'd probably expect from the notes - I agree with clover's assessment, it's very traditional (and I am very fond of traditional, as interpreted by BPAL of course!)

I don't think there's been a single jasmine blend I've received from the Lab that I haven't loved even more after a couple of weeks, so I am looking forward to seeing what The Presence of Love is like just a little bit down the road. I don't know if jasmine doesn't travel as well as its friends, or if it takes time to meld with other notes, but invariably I open a bottle after its little resting period to find mellower, smoother jasmine. The jasmine in this blend isn't sharp or pushy at all (and my package just arrived a few hours ago) so there may not be a dramatic difference - which is fine with me, it's an absolutely beautiful variety that Beth chose.

There are tons of recs for Euphrosyne and I will throw my cap in the ring for her, too. Gardenia, jasmine, tea rose, and vanilla - they're all so lovely together and the other notes complement the gardenia wonderfully, playing up its sweetness.

I also get some gorgeous gardenia from Eternal (which also contains stephanotis, cyclamen, heliotrope, and white rose) - it's a beautiful sweet, simple floral.

Mad Kate, from the retail exclusive Salon series, was Mad Gardenia on me (not a bad thing in my book). If you don't have a retailer near you, shelldoo here on the forum is an official retailer and can help you out.

I am hoping to move my gardenia bushes this spring - they do bloom, but I don't think they get enough sun to be truly happy. They've gotten much taller and spindlier than they should be and they don't bloom as profusely as my sister's do (hers are in a much sunnier spot in her yard). They smell so incredible when they're in bloom! I will bring just one or two blossoms in and they scent the entire downstairs.

...

As someone on the second half of the journey to old ladyhood myself, I'm feeling inspired by tziporra to claim and celebrate the term "old lady perfume" the way I've seen my LGBT friends assert they are "dykes, damnit" and "Queer and Proud!"

ha ha! I like the way you put that, OdetteOdile, as you know you and I are around the same spot on the Road To Old Lady Map. Technically, you could consider ALL my perfume "old lady perfume."

Rose and violet seem to incite the most "ew, old lady" comments from my husband, who has no idea what notes he is actually smelling. So the old ladies in his life must have smelled like roses and violets. But not every blend with one or both of those notes gets that label from him. Hope and Faith have gotten compliments, Moscow, The Haunted Palace, Le Serpent Qui Danse, Rose Red, Rose Moon and White Moon have too. Some other rosey &/or violetty blends that I think no one could accuse of old ladiness are Morgause, Ace of Hearts, Three Brides and Utrenyaya - all seem very sophisticated and sexy to me.

Havisham was probably the one he disliked most - which was fine, it was already extremely hard to find three years ago when he told me he hated it and used the OL label.

Madame Tracy reminds me a bit of Marie, as the tea rose and violet are dominant on my skin. But Madame Tracy is more complex and sophisticated than Marie, with more depth, a different sweetness and a hint of green. I can't pick out the geranium, but I think it anchors the blend and provides that hint of green and some spicy depth under all the sweet blossoms that Beth chose to include in this one. It's very much like Madame Tracy herself: younger and sassier than meets the eye (although I don't see any signs that it's possessed).

I like the comparison to an old fashioned garden with a bit of damp instead of bright sunlight - that's a great description!

My feeling would be that if you don't like rose and/or violet, you will not like this - but if you are a fan of the two, you'll want to add Madame Tracy to your floral line up.

Magpie, honey might be my favorite BPAL note (well, in honesty, there would be an ugly cage match with amber ) and I love florals with honey. I haven't dabbed on my Brides of Dracula lately - I will try to make a note and remind myself to do so - but a couple ideas just from skimming my spreadsheet are Jezebel (which shares BoD's honey and sandalwood notes, has rose & orange blossom), Khajuraho (honey & sandalwood again with tropical flowers), The Penitent Magdalen (honey & sandalwood again, with lily of the valley & almond flower) and The Spirit of the Komachi Cherry Tree (once again, honey & sandalwood, this time with lilac and cherry blossom).

There's a thread here discussing the "sunniest" scents - I'm not sure that I understand completely what you mean by "wealth" in the title, but if that's the ritual aspect you were using Ahathoor for, you can search the TAL sections for information on the Prosperity blends such as King Solomon's Gold, Aunt Caroline's Money Draw, Perpetuum Bonuum or Foundation of Fortune.

I second northatlantic's recommendation of The Lion - it's warm, sunny and spicy. I haven't tried Ahathoor in ages but I have heard people compare them favorably.

natarae, I can't speak as an authority on Angel at all, I have only smelled it once or twice on other people. However, after modding this section for 2+ years, I can say that many more people have said that Xiuhtecuhtli smells like Angel than any other BPAL blend. It doesn't mean that econley is "wrong" for thinking Masabakes smells like it - BPAL definitely is known for smelling different from person to person, and I think that Xiuhtecuhtli is also a more popular blend than Masabakes, meaning that odds are more people have tried it and therefore more people are prone to mention it.

If you need to choose between the two, maybe you should try Xiuhtecuhtli first - then if it doesn't fit your expectations, you can add Masabakesl to your next order.

....

 

I have yet to try Morocco (blasphemous, I know - everyone seems to love it too much to sell any to me ), and I can only hope I'll get to try Hod some day.

 

And here's a quick question - I know there's been some discussion about Bathsheba in here before, but I was wondering specifically if it (and its carnation) are similar to Frumious Bandersnatch at all? Both have carnation and plum with very few others notes, so I'm curious if they'd be alike.

I find Bandersnatch to be much fruitier and sweeter than Bathsheba - I'd classify Bathsheba as a musky perfume with spice, floral and fruit tones, and Bandersnatch as a fruity perfume with spicy tones. On my skin at least, the carnation in Bandersnatch probably cuts the sweetness of the plum a bit with its herbal spicy qualities, but I don't pick it up as a distinct note. I do smell lots of carnation in Bathsheba (it is especially nice to layer with Lush's Potion lotion, if you are a hoarder of that stuff). I really like them both, personally, and it's actually kind of interesting how two blends with such similar sounding notes can end up being so different.

You really need to order Morocco - no matter how selfish all those swappers seem to be, the Lab will always be happy to sell it to you! You're depriving yourself! People who think they hate florals love it, people who think they hate sandalwood love it... even if you splurge on a bottle instead of an imp, as you see from its rare appearance in the swaps forum, you will probably not have any trouble finding someone who will give it a new home if, horror of horrors, it doesn't work for you.

If you're looking for the posts that refer to one scent, try this trick - look to the bottom left below the last post on the page. You'll see a box that says "Enter Keywords" and a button beside it that says "Search Topic." Type in "olive" or "fairy" or whatever you like and you will get a list of all the posts within the topic where someone's mentioned your favorite Lush smell.

I think the success of a blend you use can depend a lot on personal preferences - if you don't care for a certain smell it isn't going to help you very much.

From what you're saying, it sounds like you need something that will help your mind stop racing to other issues so you can concentrate on what you're doing, that will relieve your stress without putting you to sleep with your face in a book. There are two Panacea blends that sound good to me, Quietude and Succor. Quietude (the Lab says: Peace, serenity, tranquility, silence) has a nice sandalwoody feel and Succor (the Lab: Relaxation, calm, finding center) smells like a spicy geranium blend to my nose.

If you're thinking you want to add a TAL to the mix, Concentration has aromatherapy properties so it could be a great help.

Bumping this old thread because I stumbled on it during forum tidying and I just had a sad-for-me, might-be-good-for-you moment... I wore Al Azif yesterday for the first time in a while. (I have the original version, not that I think it's been reformulated, but it's 2 1/2 years old and nicely aged.) And wow, don't know what my chemistry has done to it, I didn't smell anything different when I applied it, but it went super-sharp on me although it still had that lovely sweet incense note anchoring it. I have a wiggedy-whack thyroid and I am actually very lucky that this doesn't happen to me more often when I pull something out that I haven't worn in a few months.

Anyway, when I read SurrealReality's list of requirements there, I thought, "Hmmmm..." Because our chemistries and perceptions are so different from person to person, it could end up being lovely on you or other Chergui fans. If you love incense it's a must-try anyway, and since it's in the General Catalog now the only obstacle is your budget.

Angsting a little over Midnight Kiss....

 

I really like Midnight Kiss. A LOT. But I'm still waffling over whether to buy a bottle and I need some advice! I still haven't tried Kali. I have an imp of it on the way, but I feel like I really need to compare it to Midnight Kiss before I buy a bottle. My new goal is not to fall in total love with any more LEs, and Kali is GC, and both have cocoa and wine notes, and you know where I'm going with this....

 

SO - for anyone who's tried both Midnight Kiss and Kali: what do you think? Are they at all similar? For that matter, are there any other current GCs that are similar to Midnight Kiss? (I'm still systematically working my way through every scent with chocolate or cocoa notes).

I was weeding out this thread this morning and happened to notice this post - futuregirl may have made up her mind already I have plenty of Kali experience but not enough Midnight Kiss experience to answer. Just thought I would bump it to see if anyone had comments!

To me, Ma Bar & HIWTK have some caramel notes w/ their honey goodness. And due to my severe caramel warping-and-amping issues (I bitch about them all over the forum, surely I've cornered you and complained once or twice ) I am the world's worst source of caramel recommendations. I bet if you dabbled with some caramel-y things. though, you might find something that complemented those Lush favorites even if you don't find something that's close to a duplicate.

O is especially tricky, it seems to be one of those BPAL scents that is wildly different from person to person and is either beloved beyond measure or the subject of dirty jokes. Maybe it's the honey, that does seem to be a note that can go very, very wrong on people that it doesn't love. It's also on the simpler end of the spectrum, there's nothing to hide.

Another search trick you can try is searching for the term "fur" within the Reviews subforum. When I do a search that way, I will get results by posts, then skim the posts and see which scents the most people are mentioning. A search by titles can be less helpful, since not everyone that uses your search term in a review is using it to describe the scent - with fur, for example, people use imagery like a haughty woman in a fur coat or describe the feeling of being wrapped in a warm fur coat. It's not a perfect method but sometimes if you are seeking something that is a bit obscure, or if you're looking for a certain feel instead of a note, it can be really helpful.

This link should show you the results of that search - in addition to Ivanushka, Hunter Moon and Coyote, which seem to get the most mentions, Bastet and The Lion got a lot of comments like "a cat's fur when they're lying in the sun."

Hunter Moon has two incarnations - 2004 and 2007 - in addition to being much easier to find, to my nose the 2007 version would be much more like what you're seeking. 2004 was very deep and heavy, whereas 2007 was a light and clear musk (it definitely suited me better than the original).

Ivanushka is by far your best bet - Buck Moon has that feel, too, but it's become incredibly scarce (it was released in June 2005 and was apparently not a huge seller). Ivanushka was an LE so you can't order it from the Lab now, but you can check Swaps and Sales here in the forum and watch eBay for it as well. It was released in October of 2007.

...

Oh, no merge necessary (unless you want me to move the discussion there) You have a lot of wiggle room in this section - usually when there's a thread where someone's looking for recs for gifts and they've got some specifics, it just stays on its own, then I archive it after no one's posted in it for 30 days or so, to give the OP time to dabble, order, comment, etc. (For those who are curious about how I sort it all out, you can read this post - and if anyone's having trouble searching or finding their way around Recs, of course, drop me a line and I'll be glad to help.)

...

So much great discussion of recently released green scents had gone on in Tamburlaine's thread, I thought it would be really helpful to the Green fans to merge it into the general green discussion. =) Spring is coming (oh please, hurry up spring!) so the action will be picking up in this thread!

....

 

Perhaps you could search for grains, instead of bread? I'm pretty stumped, I must say.

That is a good idea =) Dana O'Shee and Blood Moon both have grains listed in their notes, Haloa and Lugnasadh reference grain in their descriptions. Anyone looking for a grain/bread scent will be relieved to hear that Lugnasadh doesn't smell anything like a bakery, it smells like lost eBay auctions, never ending quests and empty bank accounts. (A couple of scents contain "grains of paradise" but that is a pepper-like spice.)

I pick up something slightly grainy & yeasty in Dana O'Shee, that note reminds me a little of raw oats when wet but the scent dries to a heady, creamy oats and honey.

Reading over my post this morning, I hope that it didn't come off as unsympathetic to anyone who does deal w/ the kind of allergies that terrenity, ymmat and others have. I've read so many articles about families with kids who have life threatening peanut allergies, for example - hearing the precautions they have to take and how terrifying it is to send their children off to school each day makes me so appreciative that I don't have to worry about being poisoned, basically, by something that's so prevalent in our food supply and that nearly everyone else on the planet considers innocuous at the least, even a diet staple.

Allergies are a scary thing even when they seem to be mild. Mine have gotten worse as I've gotten older - I had hay fever as a kid which grew to a full spectrum of respiratory allergies as an adult and in the past year or so my skin has become very reactive, much less to particular substances but extremely so to any kind of trauma - pluck a hair on my face and I get a huge welt, absentmindedly scratch at my arm and it looks like I have been mauled, slightly itchy mystery welts will appear here and there throughout the day. And this is with a daily dose of both Zyrtec and Singulair, and I do see my allergist regularly. Even though I have been stung by bees in the past, for example, there's no guarantee that I won't have a horrendous reaction next time, since it's obvious that my allergies are escalating, so on a smaller scale I do appreciate the worries.