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- Today
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Going on, I'm getting quite a fruity amber--or possibly BPAL's fruity snow accord, or maybe both? It's also very much a sweet balsamic. I hesitate to compare another aspect of it (possibly the birch bark, or part of the snow accord, or both) to wintergreen because it doesn't quite smell minty, but I'm getting just a whisper of something mentholic, leaning a little towards pine, albeit the light, citrusy kind (is "terpenic" the right word here?). I'm not sure if I'm getting any beeswax, but apparently beeswax can sometimes be quite balsamic, so it could be contributing to that aspect. As it dries down about a half hour in, I start getting a distinct touch of warm resinous spice too, which might be the frankincense or more of the peru balsam. Snowy Landscape strikes me as oddly fresh for a wintry scent, there is something about this blend that is very fruity on me, with some pine-forest vibes in the background. There's also something about it that feels very very clean to me, almost soap-like, or some kind of masculine-leaning cologne I associate with clean freshness. It actually reminds me quite a bit of Thalassa, it has the same warm-balsamic-spice thing going on, but I'd have to do a side-by-side comparison to really test that. I don't think this is one I'll be reaching for all the time, but I'm very interested to see how it goes for me. (Normally I wait for my thoughts to cohere a little more solidly before reviewing, but I thought I'd get this up now since this blend will be coming down in a month. If something coheres a little more for me the next time I try this one, I'll update here!)
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The lily here seems more on the realistic and pollen-y side as others have said, though for me it isn't as much clean or green (or soapy, though I don't often find lily scents soapy anyway) as it is sweet, like it's just absolutely dripping in a sugary nectar. Overall I find this to be a very sweet floral scent with a good amount of projection. Compared to the other lily scents in my collection (Black Lily and Silk Tiger Lily) this one is probably the strongest. I think out of the 3 I prefer this one the least just due to how sweet it is, but I still enjoy it and can see myself using it as a layering note with other perfumes.
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Tuberose, Wild Tobacco Flower, and Red Clover
SmellsPrettyGood2Me replied to Seajewel's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
A beautifully creamy, clean trio that perfectly portends the transition between spring and summer. All three notes appear in the bottle in equal strength, but the waxy tuberose takes center stage on skin right away. About 10 minutes in I start to get the grassy green sweetness of the red clover and another pale white flower that must be from the tobacco. The balance here between the notes is exquisite; if all florals were this well constructed, I'd like a heck of a lot more floral fragrances! Medium projection and reasonably good longevity at just under 6 hours of wear. Very likely on the fringes of workplace and small space safe as long as it is applied with a light touch. My partial, secondhand bottle is from a less BPAL-centric period of my fragrance journey, which is unfortunate because I would grab 3 extra bottles of this now if I could. The gentle, creamy sweetness here somehow reminds me of another beloved discontinued favorite, Armani's Si Fiori. I will be saving this for special occasions like spring or summer weddings while I hope for a Trio Comeback Tour. -
Beaver Moon: Lime Blossom & Amber Sugar
bheansidhe replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
Sniffed: crisp, slightly pithy lime rind, sugar, lime candy, and amber in distinct bands, no blending. There's an initial moment where I can't see how it's going to work together, but I take the plunge. First swipe: wow. This is a deliriously perfumed petit-four straight from the confectioner's case, with glossy white fondant topped with delicate curl of crystallized lime. It smells too pretty to eat and nothing like a resin. Wearing: the cake note gradually softens, deepens, melts into a rich amber puddle. It's a perfect ombré fade from lime to sugar to dark, treacle-y amber. Damnit, damnit. I didn't need yet another bottle of an amber duet (looking at Amber and Grey Musk), but apparently I do. -
2022 version! This is a gem worth cherishing. Time has aged the musk from red to a deep purple that fills your nose with each sniff from the bottle and goes jammy on skin. I'm getting vanilla sugar crystals and a touch of amber as it dries down. The booze is either a port wine or fruit cordial, high proof but not overtly alcoholic. I do also detect the vegetal Snake Oil musk here. Perfect for both days and evenings in every season except summer, when it might be just a bit too much. Big, bold projection and 10 good hours of wear on my skin. Will return to review 2024 and 2025 versions in good time...
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On me this is exactly as the description promised, and I love it: creamy chocolate and sweet nectar combined. It's not quite giving jasmine to my nose--perhaps honeysuckle or tuberose?--but definitely the syrupy nectar of a flower in that family. It reminds me of picking and tasting honeysuckle flowers off the vine on summer evenings as a child, with humidity and greenness all around. It's not overwhelming or powdery at all; it's very natural and very beautiful.
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This is so dang good I needed a bottle just about immediately. Echoing what others have said, I am one of the unfortunate souls who's been unable to wear any BPAL with milk or cream notes without smelling gross and sour. The two exceptions (so far): Glowing Vulva, and this. I don't know if they share any components, and they don't exactly smell alike (GV is glowing, feminine lotus and teak, this is more cozy dulce de leche), but they're both sweet, lushly creamy, and addictive on me. (Another odd factoid: they are the only two scents I've tried that not only don't go weird but, in an odd way, smell *better* on/to me during, uh, that time of the month.) DILF is rich and very moreish, but not cloying; lingering, but not overpowering. Delicious.
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The petrichor here is absolute perfection. It's watery and deep in the bottle, and transitions to skin in a gloriously clean (mildly cucumber-y) burst of freshness and renewal. It's now less classically aquatic and more a little bit mineralic, not salty like an ocean note. The silk and vanilla notes appear promptly, within 5 minutes, and the scent shifts from the cool spring rain to the smell of the forest nymphs frolicking in dewy woods. Per usual, the Lab's fabric accords are award worthy and the silk note shimmers in the air. The vanilla is sweet, powdery and dry. Despite being delicate, projection here is moderate and lasts a good six hours. This is a fragrance for a gentle mood, whether it's present already and needs a scent to match, or if one needs to evoke feelings of mental escape into an outdoor woodland fantasy. Ideal also for an intimate, bedtime perfume.
- Yesterday
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Terrible Moon: Coffee Bean and Cinnamon Stick Hair Gloss
Numanoid replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Hair
OOh so good. Saw this and HAD to get it. Sniffing in the bottle and in my hair, I mostly get just coffee bean, which is ok. I love coffee scents. The cinnamon stick is way in the background, so if you are worried about this note being strong, it isn't! So lovely!! -
it’s a sweeter incense than you would deduct from the description alone. definitely green and herby with a big dryness that wants to catch on fire, like a pre-smoke? anticipatory smoke note? i’m not sure. there’s not really any freshness that i can pick up, all dried up herbs and dry old incense. only got drier and more powderish with time so be warned if that’s not your cup of perfume
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Love love love. Often scents that are meant to smell like the holidays go Christmas candle or craft store for me, but this is the real thing. This is what a Christmas candle *aspires* to smell like; or the smell one imagines wafting from the Redwall Abbey kitchens when they're making up a batch of candied chestnuts. The sweet/nutty/spice balance is harmonious and just right, and it has gourmand vibes without being a disconcerting (to me) carbon copy of something edible. The allspice has cinnamony notes without actually being cinnamon, which can sometimes be overpowering on me. This is definitely a decant to keep around for conjuring up holiday coziness in front of a winter fire; I can almost hear the carols on the radio.
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The Inexorable Finger
SmellsPrettyGood2Me replied to caith_bpal's topic in Black Phoenix Trading Post
2025 version! Sweet, sticky and dark in the bottle, it goes on skin a purple-y grape scent and gives Big League Chew vibes for the duration of the wet open. The oud is there, barely, but gets a bit stronger as it dries down. I don't think the patchouli is as strong in this iteration as in past seasons; it takes over an hour to present and does so a lot more gently than expected. Projection is relatively bold and longevity is very good at 8+ hours. It must be the obsidian note that is leading the charge in this version. While I like it, I think it could benefit from a good rest. -
It has similar vibes weirdly to another one of my favorites, Four Penises, because they're both cool-toned invocations of luxurious vacations. This one is closer to a vacation in a very lovely Pennsylvanian bed and breakfast with 80's pink Laura Ashley duvets. You went with your mom when you were 14 and spent the whole weekend doing fun grown up "woman" things together, like painting your nails, shopping in the upscale downtown boutiques practically frothing with frills and lace, and doing those fancy green facials every girl dreamed of doing when they saw them in the movies. Sorry for getting so descriptive and metaphorical, but the faint tea rose, bubblegummy lotus, cold vanilla amber and what I think may be white musk under the almond just really invoke a soft femininity that makes me think of a girlhood from times past, something so soft and luxurious and unhurried and unfolding. powdery tea rose, softly crumbling amber over a base of vanilla and creamy almond. 9/10 fancy vanities
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This may be one of my first bottles to be used up. It's hard to pinpoint what the notes are. The sap, okay I get. The dried leaves, somehow, are here. And there's that hint of smoke. But how?? What is this magic?? It's a very interesting blend. Green but...not. Smoky but...not. Also, it's no fun to think about, but with climate change and all, this in all actuality is November in a bottle, not October. But let's be honest, this scent is properly good in February, too.
- Last week
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(2013 bottle from the lab through Etsy) If this is wintery, and by that I mean a U.S. Midwest winter... This is powdery soft snow, not wet, not icy. However, I think it's actually the very end of winter, when it's not quite spring because there are no buds on the trees, and you're just hoping it doesn't snow again. Hope for growth is on the horizon. That's the sunshine coming through. It is not exactly a floral, despite the jasmine and iris being nice. It is slightly aquatic, as others have noted, due probably to the sea buckthorn berry. The earthiness of the carrot seed intertwines with the frankincense for the base. Sometimes soft, sometimes sharp, sometimes salty. Each sniff is slightly different. Interesting enough for me to keep the bottle!
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Sich Aufstützender Weiblicher Akt Mit Langem Haar
valpal replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Limited Editions
This wears like a clean, fluffy comforter, like a big blanket you can sink into. It’s a “your-skin-but-better” scent that stays soft and close to the skin. It reminds me of Gloomily Gloomily, but without the lavender: the same calming, smooth, lightly clean, comforting profile. Although it wears close, I've been getting lovely wafts of warm skin and freshly laundered fabric with a gentle sweetness. Clean fabric scents don’t typically work on me, but this one does. The sweetness is balanced, so it never turns into dryer sheets -
Lines Written by a Bear of Very Little Brain
feyofthefellwood replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Yules
I love all these notes and sometimes this smells so wonderful to me . . . but sometimes I catch a whiff and it smells like minty toothpaste. I'm very sad my nose/brain is making that association. It must be something about the cardamom and slush combination. -
So for a while now, I haven't been enjoying the Lab's honey scents as much as I did the older ones (maybe it's just my nose or else the understandable change to vegan components), but all the honey scents I've tried for the Hundred Acre Wood collection have had that same deep, golden honey scent I adore. Edward Bear has the closest honey-vanilla scent to O that I've smelled since Feed Me and Fill Me With Pleasure (I put them on each arm and compared them). However, it's heavy on the cuddly vanilla and gourmand elements instead of musky-sexy. It's also not as strong on the honey or throw as O, so I caution that it's certainly a different scent. I still think I'll need a bottle, and I think aging will probably be wonderful for the vanilla.
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I love reading when a scent really hits for other people; it makes me happy for them and excited to try it for myself. I went into this wearing experience with high expectations, but I did not have the same love-at-first-sniff as everyone else. What I got, mostly, was Honey Nut Cheerios in a bowl of vanilla almond milk. Tasty smelling, more oats than toasted bread, with a bit of sweetness from the amber and the vanilla. Projection was strong and it lasted over 8 hours on my skin. I like it, but it has to be kept aside for days when I want to smell like breakfast.
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I was sure I would looooove this, and it was PERFECT for all of five minutes on me, but then an evil and ancient demon known as skin chemistry snuck up & bit me by the neck, dragging me down to the depths of weird plastic and burnt coconut girlscout cookies hell it smelled lovely on a friend when I tried it on her but she found it too sweet so I sold it. I want to track down an older version someday and see if I have a different experience. Sometimes certain blend years jive with me when others didn't (looking at you luperci!) 3/10 girlscouts moonlighting as firefighters
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Unusual, spicy but refreshing, creamy and sweet and floral.... Clean but sexy. Harkens to a really high end niche perfume (which BPAL is in my opinion, they just don't charge eye-popping prices for it...) that someone's rich aunt might wear. She took french at her London university but only because she was already fluent and needed the credits. Sometimes she smokes weed and watches the sunrise on the balcony of her beachfront apartment and is quoted as saying "the morning seasalt styles my hair better than any products I put in it!". She visits Japan three times a year, but not Kyoto, no, she goes to Okayama because she "prefers the food and culture". She eats oysters raw for dinner, washed down with three dirtyyyyy martinis every Friday. She wears a lot of 80's cream, baby blue, angelic pink and pale orange silks from vintage reclaim stores, paired with chunky silver jewelry from small and upcoming designers. Sometimes she favours linen but usually for weekend errands. I hope to be her someday. Glamorous in a weird way. AS FOR THE ACTUAL SMELL OF THE PERFUME white rabbit & Alice went on a long cavort through a strange psychedelic waterworld. I know that sounds insane but this has the same clean, sweet and herbal scent as white rabbit, but ALSO the ginger and the "ivory rosettes" read similarly to alice's warm and spicy floral thing-and of course the blue musk notes make for this weird watercolour filmreel experience.. like you're watching this strange, sordid adventure on a fuzzy projection screen. Sillage: Arms-length scent bubble, that ginger really anchors it to my skin for some reason. Wear Time: Pretty good, 6 hours full strength with a lovely creamy late drydown that lasts for 3 more hours. fab. 10/10 I'm Better Than You's.
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At 16 years aged, there's no nutmeg here anymore; both in the bottle and on skin is just the quietly creamy black sandalwood, the sweet benzoin and vanilla adjacent tonka. Throw is low, and soft, but beautiful. Like others, I only got two hours wear, but it was really nice. If you are like me and love getting to experience a piece of BPAL history, this is worth a grab if and when you see it.
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I've been very much feeling like curling up the freshly dug graves of the local cemetery lately; I'm desperately craving the sweet, cool stillness of moist coastal dirt and moss, cloistered against the responsibilities breathing down my neck and the real world. Thankfully for my clothes (and job) this potion gets me about 95% of the way to that experience. My bottle is rather old, say about 2008, and I notice that when compared to my more recent imps, it's a wetter, cooler formula, with a richer, bolder rose geranium. It tickles the nose a little when sniffed straight from the bottle. On skin the oil blossoms, and the dirt takes center stage. Earthy, so damp, so chilled, it's as if the hands of death themselves graced this soil. The rose geranium is not a delicate floral, it's a little complex and sharp, which prevents the rich, earthworm-tilled loam from skewing too dank or "Nosferatu" (indeed not, as that is Cicuta layered with Silenti.). No this reads as a little fresher, more youthful, less dank-crypt. Perhaps you're just lingering near the ajar door of the mausoleum, not quite inside. I wear this version as often as I feel I can get away with smelling like I legitimately just crawled out of a grave, which is unfortunately not as frequent as I'd like....the customer base of my job prefers women who smell like cupcakes. The newer iteration of this perfume has a different floral component (watery-er, less sharp, more rounded and perhaps a little sweeter) but the dirt remains as faithfully earthy, if not just a little bit dryer overall, giving the impression of a warmer graveyard experience. It feels more "Above ground". Perhaps the sun is shining and a black cat keeps you company while you read poetry to your lost love. More of a bittersweet, wistful impression than the older version, but they're so similar I doubt many people would be unsatisfied with the current iteration as the vintage one is actually a little more difficult to wear. The newer version also lasts less time on me which again, for many would be a pro because it fades into this gorgeous earthy herbal thing that I love. I only have imps of this for now but would genuinely consider upgrading to a full bottle. Overall a stunning perfume and one so unique in profile that I've never smelled anything that holds a candle to it in terms of realistic graveyard silt. Sillage is rather aggressive so if you track down a vintage version be aware of that. Wear time: A stunning 10 hours for the vtg, about 6 for the newer. 10/10 Wistful Yearnings
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mainly got a sample of this one for giggles, because BPAL cookie scents have not traditionally worked well on my skin, but holy cream-soaked shortbread, batman! this cookie is the JAM! smoked vanilla not super smoky and pairs beautifully with the cardamom, while cocoa and pink pepper seem to be mostly light accent notes. the sillage is all cookie for me and it's really great.
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I cant believe I’m the first to review this one! I absolutely love it. To me, it’s the perfect balance of cozy and sexy. Nuts Cracker goes on with a blast of.. well, nuts. It’s like inhaling a bottle of almond extract. Once that burns off a little, you still have the creamy hazelnut/ almond forefront with a background of smoke and wood. There is something in here that my brain first interpreted as leather or leather polish, but that’s maybe gunpowder. Over time, the smokey woodiness comes to the front. The patch isn’t sharp like, say, Revenant Rhythm, but more of an accent to the other notes. My only complaint is that it doesn’t seem to last as long as similar scents have on my skin, but I’m hoping that improves with aging. Another winner from the Girth of Venus collection ❤️
