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- Past hour
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Snake Oil forward, with a good dose of cinnamon and clove. A creamy coffee trailing in. Delicious
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Yuzu cuts through first, followed by sweeter orange notes, with a lanquid lavender underneath. As it dries I get a note I assume is the musk, clean and bracing. This feels bold and brave Vs a happy bubbly scent I usually find in citrus.
- Today
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Hungry Ghost Moon: Honey and Summer Herbs Hair Gloss
roseus replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Hair
Oh summery wildflower meadow indeed! Not super floral, but a beautiful fresh green herbal with maybe like a clover honey overtop. Regret not getting a bottle of this one. Really great throw. - Yesterday
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? snake oil is that you??? it smells exactly like my imp of snake oil in the vial. ok. well, the snake oil does dissipate on skin. the spices basically ditched me the moment it touched my skin. it's a little soapy... a little woody, i hate saying it reminds me of carved wooden bridal shop again but it does. woody, and slightly rosy for some reason. not my favorite, i would pick morocco or snake oil over scherezade any day. y'know what, lemme test my imp of morocco side by side. morocco is warmer, and spicier-- and more incensey. more sensual. scherezade is a little too-- perfumey? it really demands attention, unlike morocco which is more lax.
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The coffee note reminds me a lot of Woman Putting On Her Stocking. Roasty and rich, sweetened by the Snake Oil. Perfection!
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Black Butterfly Moon: Tuberose and Sparkling Blackberry Wine
roseus replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
Syrupy blackberry and the classic BPAL fizz in the bottle. On the skin the blackberry is more less sweet, more earthy and natural back by a softer fizz. The tuberose is a beautiful heady halo, and I agree with the above that this feels like a witchy incense. Smells like an elegant witch's cottage in autumn. -
It funny I never reviewed this, as it's been a perennial favorite of mine since it came out. I'm a long-time fan of all the various bread-and-baked-good notes the Lab creates, and the warm, crusty baguette of this scent is definitely one of my favorite. The bread note is strong in the bottle and lasts for several hours as the dominant note before it steps aside and the cream takes center stage. On me, this aspect is reminiscent of some of the Lab's more milky iterations as opposed to a heavy cream. I am reminded especially of My Baby and a Baby Goat, Milk Moon and Obatala. Medium throw (more than typical given the notes, but still pretty low-key as one would expect), this is a nice daytime scent for maximum coziness during the coldest and darkest part of the year. It's definitely cozy enough that I'd consider wearing it even to bed 😊
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Wet this is All Iris and it threatens to go musty-sweet on me as it is prone to do. Dry it softens a bit, less sweet but still the most forward note. Just a bit of fruity red musk pokes out underneath.
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In the imp this was incredibly muted to my nose, myrrh and amber smothering the neroli. Wet the neroli leaps out, but quickly settles in again. The mallow is very prominent. Golden and smudgy, a haze of sunrise kind of scent.
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Sugared cream, vanilla husk, white sandalwood, and flecks of caramel. I’m in the sweet buttery caramel camp on this one. It’s incredibly deep and smooth after aging for about five years. I have personally never gotten any sandalwood from my bottle, just warm, silky, fresh caramel with a lot of butter. I’m not in the mood for something this type of simple gourmand very often, and I do have to be in the mood because it has longevity and a not inconsiderable throw, but when I am, I’m happy I have a full bottle. This does also layer beautifully with a variety of other scents, but when I’ve done so the very late dry stages end up straight back to pure caramel.
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2025 version. This review is basically redundant at this point, but I am so in love. When I opened my decant, I actually said out loud "oh my god, this literally just smells like a rose?" It does! And on my skin: the same! It doesn't smell like a rose perfume, it smells like a bouquet of real, freshly cut red roses, green stem and all. Really just absolutely stunning. I can identify notes *of* rose itself for the first time: it's a little citric, maybe a bit of apple, very fresh and a bit green. Just totally gorgeous, and keeps unfolding. All the more stunning for me: I'm someone who adores rose, but tragically most of my previous BPAL rose ventures have turned to soap on my skin. (If you have this problem too, in case it's useful to note: BPAL's "wild rose" note tends to work for me. But I only have that rose in other blends with other notes at the forefront; this is the first of any rose-dominant BPAL I've ever tried that works on me at all.) My only caveat is that, as if a commentary on the ephemeral nature of a rose, this perfume fades very fast. It gets really faint within the first few hours, then fades almost completely. Could barely detect a trace of it by the time I got home from work. I know florals are top notes, I know! If this is the price I must pay for the freshest, most perfect photorealistic rose perfume I could've hoped for, then I will take it!
- Last week
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Stranger Things-Related Call for Papers Call for Papers: Welcome to Hawkins: A Special Issue on Stranger Things Slayage plans a special issue on Stranger Things for publication in late June 2026. ALT Slayage is an international and interdisciplinary refereed scholarly journal concerned with the “fuzzy set” with Buffy the Vampire Slayer at its center, and Stranger Things, a multi-season television series with kick-ass heroines, the irruption of the supernatural into the mundane, high-stakes action, strong characterizations, snarky humor, and an emphasis on relationships and the complexities of queerness and race, fits our definition nicely. It’s even got a Hellmouth in a library! As an interdisciplinary journal primarily concerned with visual media, we will be interested in nearly any approach to Stranger Things: literary-critical, sociological, historical, musical, queer theory, pop science, etc. Read more about Slayage at http://www.buffystudies.org/slayage-the-international-journal-of-buffy.html and please see the Slayage Style Sheet at http://www.buffystudies.org/slayage-house-style-sheet.html for guidance on citation style, especially for television episodes. Here are some ideas to consider: • Mothers and mothering: good mothers, evil mothers, avenging mothers • Strong women, beweaponed and weaponized girls, and the Ripley (Alien) trope • Fathers and fathering, and masculinities in general • Groupings of generations and cohorts, and how their different story arcs work together • Nostalgia and audience engagement • Mythic patterns in storytelling • Music used in the show and its significance; music as weapon and lifeline • Resonances with other texts: A Wrinkle in Time, The Lord of the Rings, the Indiana Jones movies, the Star Wars movies, Carrie, The Goonies, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Ghostbusters, the Whedonverse, and on and on and on. Not just a recap of inspirations, but digging into the how and why. • The show’s use of Dungeons and Dragons, and the early D&D panic • Queer characters, queer theory, queer history • Race in the 1980s: what the show got right, what it got wrong • US/Russia/world relations in the 1980s and what the show does with them • Crazy science and conspiracy theories • The stage play Stranger Things: The First Shadow and the canonicity of other supplemental texts • The independent-kids-on-bikes motif in Stranger Things and its sources • The midwestern setting and its callbacks to sources like Breaking Away • The suburban shopping mall: its significance in 80s teen culture and its use in horror films like Dawn of the Dead Editors for this special issue are: Dr. Kristine Larsen is distinguished Connecticut State University Professor of Earth and Space Sciences at Central Connecticut State University, where she has taught since 1989. Her teaching and research focus on the intersections between science and society, including science in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Her latest books are Science, Technology and Magic in The Witcher: A Medievalist Spin on Modern Monsters (McFarland, 2023), and The Sun We Share: Our Star in Popular Media and Science (McFarland, 2024). Janet Brennan Croft (ORCiD 0001-0001-2691-3586) recently retired from the University of Northern Iowa as Librarian Emerita. She is the author of War in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien (recently reissued by Bloomsbury; 2005 Mythopoeic Society Award for Inklings Studies). She has also written on the Peter Jackson Middle-earth films, the Whedonverse, Orphan Black, Terry Pratchett, Lois McMaster Bujold, and other authors, TV shows, and movies, and is editor or co-editor of many collections of literary essays, the most recent being Loremasters and Libraries in Fantasy and Science Fiction, co-edited with Jason Fisher (Mythopoeic Press, 2021). She edits the refereed scholarly journal Mythlore, is archivist and associate editor of Slayage: The International Journal of Buffy+, and chairs the Tolkien in Popular Culture Area at SWPACA. Send abstracts of 400 words plus selected preliminary references to Kris Larsen and Janet Brennan Croft at janet.croft@uni.edu and larsen@ccsu.edu by January 30, 2026. Decisions on abstracts will be made by February 4. Initial submissions are due by April 15, and final revisions completed by June 10 for publication at the end of June. View the full post.
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Cold Moon: Osmanthus and Sweet Frankincense
DiZZysTARdust replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
wet and in the bottle this is very light and delicate. freshly applied i definitely get the peach/apricot vibe from the osmanthus. it's fruity without being in your face fruit. as this dries the frankincense makes itself more present without becoming fully apparent. like the above reviews noted it's more of a waft of incense smoke rather than a chunk of frankincense resin. it blends amazingly well with the osmanthus. a light, sheer fruit-floral with flecks of green incense. i think the frankincense is helping to pin down the osmanthus and keep it from becoming a more cloying floral. stays pretty much the same throughout the drydown, and the throw is low to medium on me. -
A pretty and pair-able pomegranate scent! The labdanum embellishes the pomegranate with a warm resinous haze. Deep and slightly cola-like but not full on fizziness.
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Strawberry Lemonade Pie
faeriedust87 replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Gifts with Donation or Purchase
The lemonade is stronger than the strawberry. It smells very sour and sharp. Not my favourite pie The lemonade is stronger than the strawberry. It smells very sour and sharp. Not my favourite pie -
In the imp the florals feel a bit jumbled, bright and clean but hard to pull them apart. On my skin it is much more orderly, Snake Oil made squeaky clean and breezy. The linden blossom is first and foremost for me, followed by passionflower, and maybe just a tiny bit of waxy greenness of lily.
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Hungry Ghost Moon: Tomato Leaf and Red Pepper
roseus replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
Beautiful fresh green yet earthy tomato leaf with just a hint of brightness from the pepper. Very pretty garden scent -
Yeah that's a funky little guy! The wet stage is very confusing to my nose. Juicy green notes trailed by tomato, with warm beeswax and sourdough clamouring for the spotlight. Settled on my skin it's like the memory of pizza in the air while a herbal green candle is burning.
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Blood Moon: Pomegranate and Animalic Musk
roseus replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
Smooth sweet pomegranate, dark and inky with a warm and slightly spicy musk. It feels like a softer cousin of whatever makes up the fur in Bear Prince. -
this starts with carnation and cedar for me...spicy and woody. a hint of peony adds a soapiness, followed by some tonka. after a few minutes i get some smoky leather and vanilla. it's a spicy, smoky floral on me. it dries down to mostly carnation, vanilla and leather with some orris in the background. kind of dry/spicy/leathery overall. it's nice!
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One of the things my grandmother used to do was peel the end of apples where they're not edible or apples she intended to make into pies and then dry those peels to add to little crafts to spruce up the scent. The dried apple peel curls are a very mellow, almost apple blossom-like smell -- not nearly as strong as the juicy apple fruit scent underneath -- when they're done. And that's the apple peel in this blend. In fact, for a blend that only has one true flower in it -- the wild violet -- Many a Fair Toy, Many a Fine Flower has a distinctly floral blend going for it. The dry sweetness of the apple peel, the faintly astringent scent to the meadowsweet that is reminiscent of both wintergreen and almond blossoms, the (surprisingly) strong powdery spring scent of the wild violet all takes center stage, mostly upstaging the very gentle scent of hard fruit candies (giving the tiniest impression of pomegranate and raspberry). It's a sweet scent without reading as sugary on me, even though I tend to amp sweetness, and no one note overwhelms the other. As it drys down, it blends into this very balanced floral bouquet that gives the impression of winter blooms. I have no idea why my brain thinks that, but I'm picturing a small white winter flower specifically. Almond blossom, maybe, which never smells very almond-y to me. Or even apple blossoms, though those are flowers I associate more with April. Either way, I'm glad I have 3/4ths a bottle of Many a Fair Toy, Many a Fine Flower to play with. It's exactly the sort of floral I enjoy most.
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To disclaim, I have yet to dislike SO + fruit anything so I'm definitely biased. In this case, I think the 'candied' aspect of the pomegranate is making it lean into sugar plum territory. This is delicious, as I also love Sugar Plum Snake Oil and only have a half-bottle left from last year. If you're looking for the really rich pomegranate that you get with, say, Pomegranate Grove: Morocco then I wouldn't look here personally. This is a much lighter, hard candy or sugary fruit juice pomegranate, though it is still identifiable as its own fruit. I sniffed SPSO and SO&CP together, to compare, but it took them being next to each other to really feel the distinction. Personally, I love it and I'm glad I got a half-bottle of Snake Oil & Candied Pomegranate during decants. I don't think I'll upsize, but I'm glad I have 3ml to work through.
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Once again a scent with multiple notes I tend to really like, once again a miss for me. I guess I wanted this to be something in the vein of a black currant version of 'In Night When Colors All To Black Are Cast', the way that scent brings out the plum honey and then blends down into a lovely dark plumy resin blend. Instead, on sniffing I get a very sweet black currant and on skin it turns entirely sweet. Many blends do turn sweeter on me than they are in the bottle/others. In fact, from Yule I've already had that happen with Faithfully Yours, Charles Dickens and Snake OIl & Candied Pomegranate , but In Doubt & In Dread is the first time so far that the sweetness became the dominant feature. Once applied it smells like a syrupy myrrh, distilled down to its stickiest parts, without any of the black currant tartness or cistus ladanifer (rockrose) earthiness that might make it interesting. Like Assimbya, I already have enough myrrh-forward scents that this one fails to distinguish itself at all. For now, it's a pass.
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My partner and I ordered a half-bottle decant, mostly for their sake. I dislike most single note scents as perfumes so I knew if it favored one note it wouldn't be for me. I was hoping for a pine sap/amber resin duet, perhaps with a smoky edge that didn't amp to burnt embers on my skin. I do like pines -- like in Frau Holle -- and ambers -- like this year's Red Amber & Pomegranate Atmo -- but this tips too strongly one direction for me. After letting it rest a week, we cracked it open to sniff and it smells like pine sap. Pines are common here and anyone who has smelled actual pine sap is unlikely to forget it quickly. This smells like pine sap. Once applied, the warmth of the amber comes out a little bit. This scent is really well described, as I'd definitely consider it "amber ashes" with the emphasis on the cold embers of a dying fire when the smoke's already been blown away. In that sense it reminds me of 2024's Melancholy Fire. Mind you, I don't get any cinnamon from Melancholy Fire, so for me if you replaced the 'chilled bergamot' of MF and put 'pine sap' there it would be a good match for MF. Like a punch-in-the-face pine/melancholy fire mash-up. My partner is in love. They adore the idea of smelling like a tree. I'm very happy for them and it means I get all of Faithfully Yours, Charles Dickens. Win-win.
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I... smell like a bowl of oatmeal? With honey and condensed milk. I'm not sure what I was expecting given the listed notes, but I think I was hoping the carrot leaf, vetiver, and lemon verbena would balance out the more straightforwardly gourmand notes to make something more on the side of woody and herbaceous. Sadly on my skin this was not to be. I remembered liking the milk note in Equivalent No. 314, so I had no misgivings about milk, but it didn't occur to me that that was kind of a weird milk note, whereas condensed milk was likely to be extremely sweet (and it was). I never got any tea either, which is quite sad, as tea is one of my favorite BPAL notes. I got a tiny amount of a lovely lemon while applying, but it evaporated pretty quickly, almost on drydown. The first thing I noticed was sweet toasted oats, and that is exactly what stuck around for the next ~4-6 hours until the fragrance faded. I imagine that if gourmands were my thing, I'd find One Has to Be Careful to be warm, cozy, and comforting. If I were to smell this fragrance in, say, a scented candle or from standing in the kitchen while someone was making sweetened oatmeal, I'd find it warm, cozy, and comforting. I, personally, have no desire to *be* a bowl of oatmeal. This was just never on my list of aspirations in life. I think I'll hang onto this one in hopes that allowing it to rest brings out some of the other notes I was hoping for; if not, into the sales/swap pile it goes.
