Bagfish

Luna moth smells like pear Jelly Bellies when in the decant vial. On my skin, it smells of lime candy, pear and a little like civit which is a bit odd considering the notes and slightly unpleasant. The vial leaked all over my bedclothes and is now smelling out my bedroom with a combination of lime sugar, pear Jelly Belly and something very unpleasant. This one is not a hit....

This is the best BPAL oil I've ever worn, it blows all the others out the water when I wear it on my skin. Beautiful spicy carnation with a smooth underlying creamy scent which reminds me slightly of Dana O'Shee in character. I get no almond from Hod, I can't wear BPAL almond and I think if there is almond in this, there's very little. I think it's more likely to be a milk and honey and amber sort of scent which anchors the spicy carnations in Hod. Whenever I wear this at work, I get complements, and people will walk in and say "what is that lovely smell". All in all I'm really pleased I got a bottle unsniffed, and also that I managed to get another before it was discontinued again. Absolutely delicious!

Samhain 2008 is the winner of the three versions of Samhain I have tried. For some reason it is more sweetly spicy apple than dark patchouli fir which 05 and 06 were on me and suits me so much. It also has a fantastic lasting power and amazing throw. My work colleagues were asking what the lovely mulled wine Christmassy scent was, and one of them said please keep wearing it all Winter! I am seriously considering getting bottle despite having previously sold one (of Samhain 2005)

White sandalwood, beeswax, and frankincense crowned by hydrangea, rose, and kantuta blossoms, dressed with tobacco, cocoa leaves and flowers from the sacred Cactus of the Four Winds. The rose in Day of the Skulls really overpowers everything else which is a shame because underneath the sour rose of doom lies something that bears a resemblance to the rich gorgeousness that is Khajuraho.

Really orangey to start with, a sweet juicy naval orange which cuts through the caramel-cake scent that BPAL's cake blends always have on my skin. This dries down within about an hour to a rich sweet amber/cake scent with quite a lot of throw. I get very little anise, but enough to temper the sweetness, and it balances amazingly well with the orange. I think I can just about detect florals which help to temper the bakery quality and make HdeS something rather more than straight cake. It has really, really impressive staying power. I'm sitting sniffing sweet goodness on my wrists at 11pm and I applied a swipe of Huesos de Santo at 8:30 this morning. It's pretty much the only Halloweenie that I'm considering getting a bottle of.

:sad-face: I have wanted to try a BPAL marshmallow scent for ages not having had a chance to try Marshmallow Pouf. But Sticky Pillowcase is all strawberry sweets all of the time until a couple of hours into the drydown when it becomes the smell of clean cotton sheets someone has drooled strawberry candy on as they've gone to sleep Beth has captured that bit of the scent really well, but I wanted marshmallows!

All I can smell on my skin is carnations, clove and plummy fruit - as someone above said, it is reminiscent of Bathsheba. Harvest Moon is a very spicy fruity scent, lots of throw but smells more like it should be a tart or candle rather than a skin scent. I'm glad I got to try it, but I'm really pleased I only got a decant.

A chilly, cold, dry and bitter apple. This quickly morphs into ozone-apple on my skin. It captures the disturbing nature of the Snow, Glass, Apples story very well indeed.

Each bottle of Chaos Theory is truly unique, a fragrant fractal, and exercise in the joy of chance and uncertainty! Each is a one-of-a-kind, utterly random combination of scents, the composition of which is based on whim, mood and gut instinct. CCCLX (360) In the bottle it smells like a mixture of fresh pear and apple, very lovely like freshly sliced fruit. Once on, the scent quickly morphs into a more aquatic scent, but it stays fruity in a more berry-ish sort of way with a sweeter touch of vanilla or amber or resin for 20 minutes or so and is still very pretty. There is definitely some floral in here, possibly gardenia. The early dry down stage reminds me slightly of the florals and fruit in Coral Snake. The throw here is very good and it is a really lovely scent. However on late stage drydown the ozone/aquatic note amps and amps on me until all I can smell are notes similar to those in Dirty. I will be swapping this one I think!

When first applied, Eisheth is lovely, with amber, honey and cocoa being very obvious. However, the peach comes to the fore after about an hour and becomes stronger and stronger until it overwhelms everything else. Even after 13 hours, I can just smell really strong peach, and whilst not offensive, is actually just too sweet for my tastes. So now I'm about to wander pretty much off topic here, I hope you don't mind! The problem is, I'm absolutely gutted as I so wanted this one to work for me. Eisheth is a character in one of my favourite series of novels, Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel trilogy, she is one of the angelic companions of Elua a God-like figure, whose motto is Love as thou wilt, and who founded a country based on the tenets of love. I really, really wanted this one to work on me so that I could be wearing a bit of Eisheth as she is a patron of healing and music. Here's a description Eisheth is noted for her gentleness. Her province is Eisande. Eisheth was noted for giving humanity the healing arts, which is why so many of the best healers come from her province, and for gifting mankind with music and story, which is why Eisande gave rise to the Mendacants, traveling bards. In order to conceive, a women of Terre D'ange must pray to Eisheth to open the gates of her womb. Once such a prayer is made, it can never be taken back. So yes, I tried a couple of times, but in the end Eisheth is just too sweet and peachy for me. I'm very, very sad indeed.

A flash of spicy orange and resins swoops past pursued by LILAC which catches them and proceeds to stomp them into submission. Lilac raises its flag and won't surrender. :stupid skin chemistry: :sulks:

In the imp and fresh on, scary leatheriness, definitely smelling the saltpetre, but within five minutes this morphs into a sweet, smoky vanilla'd beeswax that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the scent it has when wet. This is the first BPAL leather scent that has worked on me and I think it's going to be bottleworthy.

Aelophile is bitter and woody and has an overarching top note of verbena/citrus which is almost throat-catching in its intensity. I also smell a warmed metal scent - this is not listed as a note, but I can smell heat on unpainted metal, like the smell of a knife heated over a flame. The amber is not at all obvious on me, it may be smoothing the scent down and playing in there with the woodiness. Overall, this is a difficult, spiky, spiny scent on me and is not at all relaxing to wear. It's interesting, and I will give it another whirl later, and maybe try some of it on Mr Bagfish too.

In the imp, Ether is light and bright, I don't get any particular florals, it's just a clean, simple scent with a very slight hint of pine. Once applied, it has a citrus sharpness about it, quite similar to Shanghai. It's still light and bright and I still don't get any florals and I certainly don't get ozone which is a real deal-breaker for me. On drydown, after 20 minutes or so of wear, Ether oddly begins to develop a celery-like scent to it which is slightly unnerving! The celery note must be something I don't recognise which my nose is morphing to smell like celery. Ether sticks close to the skin, and never really develops into separate identifiable florals. It does smell quite different on my skin than in the bottle and whilst it's pretty, it's not really a me sort of scent, and I don't like the thought that my nose is misreading something as celery

A new year's blessing! Peony, China's national flower, with bamboo for flexibility, plum blossom for perseverance, courage, and hope, tangerine for wealth, lychee for strong family relationships and peace in the home, orange for happiness, pine resin for constancy, golden kumquat and quince for prosperity, narcissus and King mandarin for good fortune, coconut for longevity, and candied melon for good health, with a splash of blazing red of dragon's blood... to help you scare away the rampaging Nian. Pretty melon with floral, fruity and slightly resinous undertones. Something lovely smooths Earth Rat out - a soothing base note makes this less shouty-fruit than it may otherwise have been. The dragon's blood which can be a nightmare on my skin is not in evidence, there are slight hints of pine and bamboo and plums are definitely in evidence. Earth Rat is a heady sweet scent and very lovely, I can see why people like this one. Many thanks to my switch witch for finding me a decant of this, it has been a pleasure to try out and I reckon I will wear this on occasion.