All Souls

[Melantha]

... An incense blend that invokes the higher qualities of mercy and compassion, mingled with the soft, sugared currant scent of offertory soul cakes.

I liked this when I first put it on; the cakes were right up front, and I could get a waft of the incense.

Within five minutes, however, it was completely gone.

[Phaedra]

Wet this is sweet myrrh and resins mixed with creamy sugar notes. When first on it's a lighter version of how it smells in the bottle- sweet myrrh and resins. This is very similar to Midnight Mass (which I LOVE) but with a sweeter foody note. When I wear this I catch lovely wafts of it all day long. It doesn't change much on me but that's fine because I love how it smells! It's a very comforting scent. Fans of Midnight Mass will love this one too.

[Dinah]

There are buttery, yummy cakes and frankincense, but over that there is a very sharp, spiky incense smell that has indeed something slight rosey about it. It's pleasant but probably not something that I'll wear often - that sharp note is just too distracting.

[arabella]

First Impression: Smoky October air.

 

Dries down to: No change.

 

Additional Comments. It feels like taking a walk in the woods after dark in late October. Regrettably, I don't get any sugared currant or anything resembling cake at all.

 

Lasted: A few hours.

 

Rating: 2 out of 5

[Ajila]

In the bottle - Caramel (please don't turn into ashes)

 

Wet on me - Sharp cinnamon

 

Dry on me - Slightly sweetened incense, warm and creamy, but faint

 

Overall - I'm suprised at how much I like the dry down on me, but it is very, very faint

[wakingdreaming]

This is an imp sized decant from shadesong. Thanks, 'song!

 

In the imp: Again, dunno. Getting groups of imps all at once (I got a few others along with this) ruins their in-bottle scents individually for me.

 

On my skin wet and dry: Definitely some nice warm incense with a great deal of sweetness. It's not overwhelmingly sweet or overwhelmingly incense smelling. I like it and will probably keep it but I doubt I'll ever need a whole bottle of it.

[Tess]

Incense with foody currants? Mmmm... Hope this one smells as good as it sounds.

 

In the bottle - The incense is very dark to my nose with the buttery note there, but I'm getting nothing sweet nor currant.

 

Wet - There is something sour here... The butter maybe? It's not good.

 

Drying - The incense really is dark and heavy, like patchouli to my nose. The currant is there, kicking itself out from under the cloud, but there still that lingering sourness. It must be the butter note.

 

Dry (45 minutes) - So very sour with so much patchouli. The currant is gone and a powdery note has come out.

 

Overall - I know it's my skin chemistry to blame and it makes me sad. Bah.

[theseagrows]

i should know better to stay away from churchy incense blends, but i keep hoping for one to work on me! this one has the dreaded frankincense which turns to pencil lead on my skin in the imp it smells nice, like something bright and shining with a slight cake scent, but on my skin i just get pencil lead and something sharp and sneeze inducing.

 

ETA: an hour later it smelled really nice and warm and musky. so now i'll have to re-try it/debate whether or not it is worth wearing because of the 1st stage.

Edited January 4, 2007 by theseagrows

[roxyhead]

Managed to get the imp cap off without breaking it!

 

In the bottle, it seemed sweet and buttery, but on my skin, incense. After I finished breakfast, incense. The sort of sweet kind of incense, different from Samhain's patchouli, which smelled more perfumey at first, and I like this sort of incense better than that, I think. I smell something apple-like somewhere, but that could be coming from anywhere, perhaps oils which rubbed off my wrists onto my laptop when wearing something else, as I don't smell it close up at all. But it's a good, warm incense, like I just walked out of an occult shop where the stuff sticks to your hair. Another one I like.

[ilona]

I can't get enough of All Souls 2006. I've been carrying the bottle around with me in case I need to dab some on, or put a drop on some tissue to scent my office.

 

To me, this is a marriage of Penitence (Smell sanctified! A blend of pure, pious frankincense and graceful myrrh.) and Eat Me (Three white cakes, vanilla, and red and black currants). Which makes sense - currants, cakes and incense. Yum!

 

All Souls is sweet and warm. Comforting and inviting, and somehow wise.

[cranberry]

This was one the Halloweenies that I was most looking forward to, and ordered a bottle right away in addition to the decant I was getting as part of a circle.

 

In the imp this reminds me a lot of Eat Me. I smell currants and cake. With an underlying base of incense.

 

This is a light scent and when I first applied it, it was like I had a scent block on it or something, I just couldn’t smell anything. Sniffing hard though, there is a hint of cake and butter with incense as a backdrop. As it wears, the incense really comes out with the cake taking a secondary role and the currants all but disappearing. It stays a predominantly incense scent. The resins are dry, not sticky. I really like the drydown, but the beginning doesn’t do it for me. I find the combination of foody and incense smells offputting. I have some good incense scents already so I don’t need to keep this one. I ended up keeping the imp but the bottle has found a new home.

[forspecial_plate]

To me, All Souls is pretty much how it's described, cake and sugary with incense. It's a drier cake smell, not as buttery as, say, Eat Me, which smells very rich, buttery, and somehow a bit deeper to my nose. All Souls is pretty balanced between the foody aspect and the incense, although later the incense comes out stronger. It's a sweeter, more floral incense than other bpal incense blends that I've tried. Not much wood in this, that I can detect. As for the currant, I think it may have blended with the incense notes because it did remind me of a floral and fruity incense smell.

 

Pretty straightforward, All Souls is a lighter scent than I was expecting. It smells good, but there are other incense scents that are darker and more exciting to me (especially Midnight on the Midway). I'm glad I got to try it and I can see that it would be very appealing to some.

 

Edit: Well what do you know, 2 years later, I'm wearing this again on Halloween night, and wow....it has really grown on me. It's the same scent as far as I can tell, I just grew to love it more. I want more than my one little decant now!

Edited November 1, 2009 by Forspecial Plate

[Quiara]

In the bottle, this is a nice blend of cake and something spicy. I like the way this smells. On, however, is another story.

 

Wet: HELLO FLOWERS! Now I'm choking on flowers and incense. This is very strong on me and has a ton of throw. My roommates can smell it across the room and I only dabbed the tiniest bit on the back on one hand.

 

Dry: On me, this is all rosey incense and . . . something I can't quite place. It's definitely strong and it lasts forever, even after showering.

 

Overall, my bottle may need a new home.

[snapesbabe]

Incensey cakey goodness with a hint of Rose and a dab of cinnamony-sweet-spice. Can't stop sniffing my wrist.

 

I agree with ilona: "Comforting and inviting, and somehow wise"

 

[grrrlennyl]

at first: super sweet and foody.

on: still sweet and foody, but a bit lighter.

2 hours later: incense and cakes. interesting.

5 hours later: very sweet incense. nice.

7 hours later: a fresh incense.

overall: this is interesting. i like that the super-foodiness of it calms down after a while, and that it ends up being a nice, simple incense scent. very pretty.

[Ciircee]

Got this from swapping with Growwild! Yay!

 

The first thing I get from this scent--that lasts a good hour--is the caramel notes from Red Lantern (2006). It's very sweet and syrupy on me. But there's something behind it that smells almost sharp.

 

To be honest, I wasn't sure I liked it very much. But after the first hour, it calms down into a very sweet incense and stays that way until it fades into the expensive-soap-scent that most BPAL incense turn into me (and after half an hour of that, it's gone--it's rather pleasant). The first hour really throws me, but Mr. Circe likes it a great deal and I love the latter half, so it's definitely a keeper.

[icing]

All Souls is one of the blends from my first order that I was really looking forward to – cake and incense?! I’d never worn such a combination before, but I didn’t see any way it wouldn’t be appealing!

 

In the bottle, it does smell like incense and cake batter… but once it’s applied, All Souls instantly turns into warm, sweet, comforting resins. ‘Polished’ comes to mind to describe them, though the hints of wood (well worn, but cared for pews under filtered sunlight?) I pick up from time to time could be contributing to that adjective.. Occasionally, I might catch a hint of crisp cakes (such as the ones in Eat Me), along with hints of jasmine (among other soft sweet flowers), and blown out candles (smoke-coated wax, along with even more candle smoke), but the majority of the time, it’s just a subtle, but long-lasting, sweet blend of resins.

 

Currants tend to hijack most blends on me, turning everything into nothing more than a heavily sugared gumdrop, dried fruit that almost screams ‘Crasin’, or a watery red popsicle, but All Souls usually manages to keep them subdued.

There is a noticeable currant note from time to time (usually in Crasin form, swimming amongst the resins, though the gumdrop has surfaced on occasion as well), but the majority of the time, their sweetness and miniscule bite only manage to contribute to the depth and richness of the resin, smoke, and wood notes.

 

I purchased All Souls, hoping for a soothing, meditative scent, with a little cake kicked in, and though I’m disappointed on the pastry front, I still adore this scent, and it has a firm holding as one of my top five favorite blends.

[likie]

In bottle: A very sharp incense smell, with butter smacked over the top. I was expecting something much sweeter, but this to my nose is just not.

 

Wet: The 'incense' has become more planty; it's a scent I know, but can't place. Maybe Wings of Azrael. It's slightly more sugary now, but only because I'm looking for it.

 

Dry: Vast, vast improvement. It's a glorious soft scent, with a touch of something plant-like (but not 'planty' - just the smell of green, living things). It's far sweeter than before, too. The throw is faint, but it's lasting at least six hours, which is far longer than most oils do on me. Fantastic!

[lightgatherer]

At first, this is all floral on me. Fortunately, this is a good floral rather than a chemical floral. After a short while, the florals turn into a floral incense, and I start getting the first hints of fruitiness from the currants in the cakes. I never outright get cake from this - just a general sweet note. After a bit longer, this has melded into a delicately smoky incense with hints of flowers and fruit and that elusive sweet note. This was not how I expected this to smell, but I really like it.

[gwynethr]

A very generous BPALer threw this in as a frimp, and it wasn't something I would normally try (the word incense scares me as a general rule, and I know I will sneeze a lot). But I'm so glad I did.

 

I can smell the soft cakes and the currant, both very light and gentle, and the incense is softened by their notes, though it's still prominent. In all, this is really gorgeous on me and I think I will have to find a bottle. It's the kind of perfume I can see wearing often.

[dixiehellcat]

This is some luscious stuff. The floral and incense & sweet notes all blend beautifully on me. So why did I have to get this imp the day I swore off buying BPAL till I save up the money that was stolen from me this week?

 

(aha...swap!!)

[asciident]

Wet: Sugar and spice.

 

First on: Sugary, very sweet incense.

 

Dry: I had relatively high hopes for this, but I get the dreaded plastic sugar smell out of it. Plastic sugar and incense. It also smells vaguely of soap and leather (don't ask). Meh.

[fountaingrl]

I wanted this to be good on me so bad. I am getting married this year, either on All Soul's Day or on the day after, and I wanted this to be my wedding scent.

 

In the sample decant it was great. Spicy, sweet, incense-y.

Immediately upon application it starts doing that odd thing that MB: Closet did on me that made me swap out my bottle almost instantaneously. I have had this on for fifteen minutes and I can already tell it is horrid.

 

Did you ever chew on your Barbie's feet? The smell of this on me is like the taste of if I had sucked on a Jolly Rancher ten minutes ago and now I'm noshing some Barbie feet. Fake fruit and Barbie feet.

 

So. Sad.

 

And I love incense too and there is NO incense in this blend at ALL on me.

 

So much for the perfect wedding scent for a wedding on All Soul's Day. Bah. It would have been so cool.

Guess I'll just have to pick out a different blend for the big day (and the hunt is on, and like that upsets me right?!)

[Tal Shachar]

I am ordinarily not enthusiastic about foody smells, but I wanted to like this one--All Saints and All Souls are two of my favourite days in the liturgical calendar. And I do like it--I get cake like crazy, although no currants, smoke and incense including woodier notes and that very sharp rose-like incense that was mentioned above. Wet, it smells too harsh or chemical, but dry it softens up, just as the extremely cakey note fades away.

 

Very glad I hunted down a bottle.

[mspixieears]

In the vial I smell the cakey scent first then the currants but once applied on skin I immediately get the incense – do I detect myrrh? It’s a very warm, comforting fragrance. I also think I’m detecting the faintest hint of Indian-type spices albeit very gently. I’m hoping the fruity/cake scent will come out more – same with the currants. I do like this very much and will definitely use up my imp. I think it would also smell fantastic on males because of the spices and because it’s not overly foody – though of course that is just a personal opinion. Great for winter which is when I tried it.