BPAL Madness!: valentina - Viewing Profile - BPAL Madness!

My spouse purchased this for himself at my urging, but I had to sample it myself, as the scent sounded too intriguing not to try! On me, Halloween Los Angeles is a dry, vaguely smoky sage and chaparral fragrance. It smells more like holding some crushed leaves in your hand and smelling a fire in the distance. On my spouse, it is certainly much more smoky, almost tar-like, rather akin to being in the city smelling a nearby fire, with the burning vegetation off in the distance. I find this to be a fairly masculine scent, but I would love to wear it on a day when I'm in a t-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots.

This is loverly! I am quite fond of Mme. Moriarty, and there is indeed a similarity between the Mme. and Pomegrante IV, except that the anise and thyme of Pom IV give it a not-too-sweet herbal infusion that goes nicely with the almost dusty dryness of the pomegranate and tobacco combination. The red musk and cognac give this scent the warmth that is needed to keep it from turning too bitter on my skin. There's something about this scent that is indeed evocative of that wonderful autumnal outdoors scent, when some vegetation is still green and other parts of the vegetation are drying out.

The Hag! She was a deceptively sweet old thing at first, in a rummy, raisiny sort of way. That lasted about 10 minutes and POW! The peppery black musk and earthy vetiver took over -- although not entirely, because normally those notes are too sharp and go bitter on me, and their edge was cut by the sweetness in the blend. There is just something about vetiver that smells like autumn to me, so this is a great chilly, woodsy scent for late autumn weather. It's also very unisex and has to smell equally wonderful on a man.

In the imp: Oh Lordy, how yummy. I do love the smell of almond. I think Uruk smells absolutely delcious and perfect.

On my skin: Totally changes. Usually I'm an almond and jasmine amper, but when lilies and figs are involved, not so much. They just take over. I get a low-key incense, but I do believe fig is the big offender as far as this blend is concerned. Fig is getting to be a enemy note of mine, because it just blows itself out of proportion. Nuts. After a while my old friend patchouli shows up to help kick the fig's ass into line, but it's too late, the original balance of the scent is gone.

Conclusion: I am hanging on to this imp and using it to scent some potporri that I will make from dried flower petals from my garden. That way I will get to enjoy this gorgeous scent the way it should be appreciated. I've never really considered getting a scent locket, but Uruk really make me rethink that decision. My body chemistry can't hold the scent the way that it smells in the bottle, but if I could keep it off of my skin and have that smell around me, I would feel exotic and wonderful.

In the bottle, Feeding The Dead smells a lot like Cockaigne. That sweet cakey booziness. Once it goes on, it gets sharp and fermented really fast, but dries down to become very, very sweet and foody. It smells a lot like the honey and spice syrup that is poured over baklava. That lasts for about 5 or 10 minutes and then the fermentation gets much stronger and sharpens up the scent. Shortly after that, the incense notes appear, and they remind me a lot of the incense notes in past Halloweenies like All Soul's. Pretty! A couple of hours into wearing this, I found that the sweetness and booze had worn off and what I was left with was sweet incense, which is fine with me. My skin does tend to eat sweet scents like a fiend, so my experience with this scent might be different than yours. I found the throw to be relatively strong at first, and then it mellows out a great deal -- this might be a scent that needs a bit of re-application as the day goes on. However, I think it is worth it, especially if you're a fan of those food-and-incense fragrances. I also suspect that this might age nicely and become mellower, smoother and more intense with a bit of time.