sarada

The day before this was announced as a new scent, I had been looking at a picture of the painting in my folder o' symbolist art and thinking what a great fragrance it would make. This is exactly what I imagined!

It's actually not the kind of thing I would wear, but it's definitely a blue scent. I imagined that blue musk would be similar to white or pale musks, with its thin sheen of succulent funereal sweetness, touched by aquatic, crisp floral notes. These are all of the most translucent, pale, ethereal white-blue notes, but they are not a loud, blasting floral trumpet.

I occasionally like a bit of pale white funeral flowers at my disposal for days around Easter, where it's still a bit cold and crocuses and hyacinths are blooming. I think I'd prefer something that was mostly sandalwood with a touch of mint, tea and peach, since I don't smell any of those enough...I mostly get the flowers. But they are dew-touched flowers glowing blue in the moonlight, the embodiment of silence.

I've wanted to try this for a long time because I love snow blends and this is a favorite piece of art of mine (also my mom's favorite artwork). The comparisons to Ice Queen were also very exciting, though I already feel like Talvikuu and Kumari Kandam kind of fill that niche for me and I don't wear a lot of overtly minty blends.

Just as I expected, this is very close to my memory of Ice Queen, but the mint is on top in this blend. Rather than the impression of the smooth surface of an iced-over lake, this is a quick blast of ice cold air just outside a church, because I do get a hint of that frankincense.

It doesn't quite have the complexity of Ice Queen as it dries though and stays a fairly flat mint. I love that icy quality that is achieved by the mixture of pale musks, electric airy ozone and a breath of cold mint, but it's just not making the magical backflips that Ice Queen used to do for me. And I think I like the complexity of Kumari a bit better too, with its evocative mineral notes.

This does what it set out to do and evokes the artwork for me, but I think I have enough blends like this for the moment. Maybe if I run out of the other ones I'll give it a spin again!

I had to grab a bottle of this one right off the bat, since vetiver, patchouli and pomegranate are among my favorite notes, and amber and black musk work for me in many a blend. Carnation and ginger also tend to work very well with patchouli (Masque, Masquerade, and Lycaon have various combos in this realm).

In the bottle it's a strong, sweet earthy scorched vetiver with a hint of deep red pomegranate, sparkling just a touch with those earthen crystals and a hint of ginger adds light.

My skin loves nothing more than vetiver and patchouli. While it reminds me of Malediction at times, it's not as harsh and bitter as that blend. It's a much more advanced incarnation of the concept though. The lighter notes of pomegranate and ginger fizzle off quickly and a deep, dark looming shadow of vetiver takes over. Ominous and steeped in rich, dark earth, soaked in blood-red and shot through with flashes of light.

If Malediction was too burn and oppressive, but Samhainophobia suited you well, this would be a good balance. I'll have to wear it around awhile to see if I can get any more of the other notes, aside from the earth and resin tones, but since those are my favorite things anyway I'm quite content! Another favorite among the Salons!

The spectrum of ingredients in this version of 13 was completely baffling to me. It seemed as though there were so many things thrown in the mix it couldn't possibly work.

But after sniffing it, I couldn't tear myself away. There are so many layers to this scent, and each sniff brings a different combination of the strange bouquet -- at once the sweet chocolate-vanilla candy store, a crisp garden of dew-soaked herbs and a warm bowl of tropical fruit. The sandalwood -- one of my favorite varieties of it no less -- ties it all together in a mix that lasts on my skin with a lot of throw, like a stick of very fresh, moist sweet incense.

I don't smell a lot of the individual notes, like lavender, but I know that they always add a little bit of magic to a blend, making it sparkle and vibrate.

I have never liked any blend with cocoa in it. The first 13 was OK but I never wore it after the first couple tries. This however really takes off on me. I can't get enough. I can't stand foody blends yet the floral, fruit and wood aspects take this out of simply being something that hints at chocolate and vanilla. I think my DH found it too sweet when I first tried it but he was having some allergy problems at the time. I think under normal circumstances this would entrance anyone around the wearer and draw them in until they couldn't take their nose off your neck.

The Darkling Thrush is another Yule blend that I had a hard time getting a feel for until I tried it by itself, and then I began to wonder if I might have a mislabeled decant because it was so minty. It was overwhelmingly minty, almost like Snow-Flakes, but without the Snow White layer underneath.

The snowy note in this most resembles the one in Snow Bunny, but it's really going in a minty fresh direction on me. Underneath it, the orris, amber and violet are indistinct. If anything it resembles the cosmetic foundation scent that I get from I Died For Beauty. Must be the violet, plus that dry orris, making it remind me of layers of thick caked makeup. Unfortunately that's not a positive smell for me.

The underlying powdery scent is drowned out by the minty slush though. While I think it's similar to some of the minty scents that I liked in this regard (Nuclear Winter, Talvikuu, etc.) it's really just not working on me. But fortunately I think I have plenty of other snow scents to keep me busy!

Afraid of almond, I didn't get this one at first, figuring that no matter how much I loved the pine and hoped for a crisp, fresh apple, that the almond would smother everything.

I was wrong! And this might be my favorite of the Yules this year, alongside Krampus.

This is a pine-lover's pine. One of the lab's strongest, greenest pines. A dark, dark green but perfectly clear and glistening, sparkling with snow. The apple adds just the right touch of crisp sweetness...it's the kind of apple that I like, the tart, fresh kind, not the sugary, cidery kind. And finally, the almond is barely noticeable after it dries on my skin, though I can sense it in the bottle at first. It just melds into the background.

I keep craving this and going back for it. There are a lot of snowy-snow scents out now and I love them all but this has a stronger emphasis on dark green pine and that suits me just fine. A true Christmas tree scent!

My first impression of this was fairly faint and perfumey so I haven't reviewed it until now. Now that I am trying it on by itself its personality is a little more clearly discernable.

This scent broadcasts golden, yellow-orange and white light. It is ambery with a touch of orange and a general fruitiness to it that remind me mainly of Haunted Palace, but without the deeper notes in that blend that make me like it.

In the cold and dark of winter it is a cheery, bright scent, though probably not strong or dark enough to last long on me. I imagine it would be lovely in a locket, but I have a lot of scents like this already -- I think Haunted Palace remains the winner in the amber with touches of orange and berry category, but as this dries on me the resins give it a little more staying power and throw.

Thank you abejita for the pronunciation help!

People always mangle my name (sarada being my real middle name, from Sri Sarada Devi) and if they don't think it's "sandra" outright people invent weird pronunciations for it. We say "sah rah dah", or even "suh rah duh", but not "suh RAY dah." As for why mom chose the name...it was because it was the early 70s and mom was a scholar in Indian religions (although we ourselves are not Indian).

On-topic, I just gotta say how much I want Hope & Faith now that I've thought about it for two days! Do we have a vampire smiley? I can't stop thinking about them, but I had like $220 worth of other things that I needed urgently too...

Les Bijoux! It is surprisingly strong in the apple department on me.

As for LEs, Harvest Moon '06 is my very favorite blend with apple in it. I don't like the caramel/cider aspects of apple but I love the crisp/fresh kind. Punkie Night was another good one.

Lycaon is likely to take its place as one of the great gods in my personal pantheon of BPAL that seems custom made just for my tastes. At the moment, a cold is preventing me from fully experiencing its many layers and transformations, but if these are meant to be transformative blends, it certainly lives up to its promise, shifting through every stage into new and fantastic forms.

When I first tried it, a dusty incense emerged among the sultry, musky oils that reminded me of Schwarzer Mond -- glistening resins playing against fragrant greenery. The ginger moves out into the foreground quickly -- the hot, sharp ginger that recalls biting into a crystallized ginger candy, where it shoots right up the back of your nose. I thought for a moment that I smelled Shub, but it was that warm ginger playing tricks on me.

It dries back down into a more dusty, earthy incense scent and I do pick out the olive leaf, though at first I couldn't detect it. Frankincense, patchouli and myrrh -- what could be better? Ahh, a touch of cypress and spikenard, that's what. This is an ageless and ancient blend and despite its lycanthropic inspiration it makes me think of the Bible. So many ancient, mystical, sacred oils -- oils to be applied in the dead of night beneath a full moon, in a landscape at the beginning of human history.

When I'm back to normal I will get a better idea of the many faces of Lycaon...I think we're going to have a fabulous, torrid relationship.

Wolf Moon hangs bright and clear in the sky over a forest of evergreens, reflected in sparkling blue-black waters. This is a pure, fresh breath of air carried over mountain snows and tumbling through valleys full of pine and cedar.

The lab's snow note is strong in this blend, unlike the previous Wolf Moon where it was somewhat melted and slushy. But cedar takes the center stage early for me, a very deep green cedar that rises up out of the moonlit snow.

It subsides for a time and a faintly fruity note emerges, probably a combination of juniper with the warmth of amber, but then in the later stages a dry cedar rises like a column of smoke in the night sky.

It's definitely a fair bit different from the first Wolf Moon, but in the same family. Lunacy blends rarely work for me, but this one is spectacular.

I've long wondered about Glasya. Hey, it was one of my favorite illustrations in the original AD&D Monster Manual! But aside from being a sexy she-devil, she also has some of my favorite fragrance notes: red musk, patchouli...civet and ylang ylang do give me pause.

Glasya snakes around my wrist with sensuous grace, bathing me in a deep, luxurious red scent. There's this odd thing dragon's blood does sometimes where it smells more like a berry or wine scent. It's mostly a red musk scent though...touched with that bit of sweetness and a pervasive cloud of the unavoidable civet.

BPAL civet smells like mothballs to me. Black musk, too, seems to have that dusky musty quality. In most blends it overwhelms and kind of ruins it for me. But here, the red musk and sweeter earthy notes keep it at bay. I don't smell rose or ylang ylang, but all of these forces working together actually remind me a bit of Lilith without the strong wine note.

She sticks around for a long time, with the musky mothball scent dying off quickly. It lingers as a red earthy scent with a touch of an almost berrylike note.

I have a zillion things with red musk in them now so I don't feel I need a bottle of every single one...this is a lovely one to sample though.

This isn't urgent, just a question out of curiosity. I've noticed a lot of people talk about having money uploaded into their PayPal account from their bank before placing an order. I, however, just have the money taken out of my checking account when I place my order. Is there some advantage to doing it the other way?

I wondered that too, but I think it's just that you can't do an instant transfer from your checking account if you don't have a credit card on file with Paypal. If you don't have a CC on file you have to do an echeck I think. I'm not sure if having a confirmed address has anything to do with that, too.

I automatically deduct from my checking account when I pay, but I also have like two credit cards on file as a backup funding source so I think that's why it transfers instantly from my checking.

Once, as an experiment, I pre-uploaded the funds and it took four or five days. So I think I'll definitely try to keep a CC on file as long as I have one!

I only have a small sample of this to test but wanted to record my thoughts on this very unique blend!

I concur that I don't recall anything else quite like this, though the heavy, heady spicy floral blends might have something in common with it. But it is darker and sweeter, incredibly complex.

A dark, thick, heady, smoky perfumey floral with hints of sweetness --

a vanilla-like sweetness, maybe a touch of creaminess, with fruit zest

around the edges.

Synaesthetically, and maybe this is just the time of year right now, it gives me the visual impression of strings of multicolored lights and multicolored tinsel and painted tin ornaments in every color. Bold, jewel-like and maybe just a bit garish if it's on the wrong person.

As it dries it has a faintly sweet, slightly creamy (not in a foody way) quality and the hint of fruitiness, though for me it's mostly a thick, smoky floral. It fades rather quickly, but is strong while it lasts.

I'll probably never see more of this but I am very glad I got to try a little! I'd say it's worth grabbing a sample if you like dark, strong, sweet florals, but I probably wouldn't ever need more than an imp to play with.

I love the new resurrected labels but my main joy these days is just that everything is GLOSSY! Every single one of my old labels is stained and smeared because somehow a drop of oil or liquid gets on them, or just age in general wears away from the frequent opening-and-sniffing. Switching to glossy labels has improved my quality of life 18.9%!

This is a fascinating scent, because I love frankincense and grave loam and would do anything to get more of them, but ... I smell nothing but thick, powdered cake make-up. It is the exact scent of either the face powder or foundation that my grandmother used. I don't smell any of the notes listed, except that it has the powdery quality that violet imparts, but I'd have to characterize this as rather foul, for my tastes.

I can almost feel the thick, paste-like flesh-colored powder being smeared on my face or drifting around me in a cloud, when I sniff this. I could barely survive the skin test. I had hopes for the loam and frankincense, but this is a big no for me!

I haven't been getting the last few moons because they seem very floral, and while I can like florals there's not point in my wearing them because they vanish instantly on me. They are nice in the locket sometimes but I am trying not to hoard bottles I won't use!

This however is so nice in a locket that it might be worth a bottle, just for that purpose. On my skin, it is beautiful as well at first -- light and fruity, smoky sage around the edges, and then it becomes grapefruit, of all things. It reminds me a Cheshire Cat a little at that stage, but with a hint of sage. I don't know where the illusion of grapefruit is coming from.

In the locket however it stays true to the fresh, exhilarating scent that I smell in the imp. It is not terribly floral. There's more of a fresh, clean fruity scent, a smoky herb and a tang of bitterness that I can almost taste. The floral notes take a back seat, the vetiver is nowhere to be seen and I think the tonka ends an even sweetness to it.

While it's gone from my skin in 15 minutes, this lasts in the locket and I will seriously consider tracking down a bottle just for the purpose. It feels more like a spring/summer blend to me anyway, so it's OK if I have to wait a little before I get more!

I'm allergic to many commercial perfumes, but not to BPAL.

Even if my workplace banned perfume (which it won't, because I'm in charge anyway!) I would still wear BPAL unless my immediate officemate had a major allergy to everything. If anyone asked me if I was wearing perfume I'd say no, it must just be my shampoo/deodorant/laundry detergent/tea.

I'm just thinking in terms of the kind of officeplace that institutes arbitrary rules to prevent personal expression though. In a food service industry or in close proximity to people with allergies I would of course comply. But I have an almost private office so I tend to be selfish!

Pumpkin smells like pure molten butter to me, as a fragrance oil, and although I love eating pumpkin pie, I detest the scent. Apparently, once the butter scent burns off, most pumpkin scents also include delightful spices. But if you don't like the smell of melted butter, you might not like the pumpkin scents.

(This is the Resurrected version)

Typhon is the most glorious thing I have ever smelled.

Smooth, dark, glossy wood of the deepest brown, sparkling with resins. Layer upon layer of deep, shining color, this is every wood and resin scent portrayed in scintillating clarity. The natural sweetness of these notes comes through beautifully on my skin. Oddly, I don't really smell the musk part...I thought it contained myrrh, as musk usually is fairly noticeable on me. But this is mainly a light vetiver, a deep sandalwood, and a sprinking of sweet patchouli.

This is probably my new favorite in this genre of scent. It reminds me of Capricorn, but a bit lighter and more buoyant. It reminds me of Scwarzer Mond, but it is deeper and thicker than that. It is nothing like the bitter, harsh patchouli/vetiver scents like Malediction and has none of the smoke of something like Brimstone.

If I had smelled this before it was Resurrected for the anniversary this year I would have died pining for it. As it is now I have to convince myself that I never need a second bottle of anything, to keep myself from buying more...but this is utter perfection. I feel like I need one bottle to wear and one to put in a shrine and bow down to.

I'm a purple person, and love purple fruity fragrances. When I read the description for this, I thought at first of Blood Countess, though the grapes made me wonder if it might be a bit like Horreur Sympathique.

Purple Phoenix is purple indeed, and not overwhelmingly grape at all. In fact I'd say it's somewhere between Blood Countess and Medea, much as Queen of Spades was, though it has its own personality. It is purple shot through with streaks of gold and a bit of effervescence.

I adore purple flowers but they are horribly powdery on me normally -- in the past only Blood Countess was able to redeem them, with healthy helpings of juicy plum. It is again the hero in this blend! No powdery florals here at all. Just a strong, regal crush of berries lightened by a floral aura and gilded with the glistening sparkle of wine and resinous myrrh.

I'd agree that this is a cousin of Queen of Spades and combines some of my favorite things: dark fruits, resin and purple flowers, while combatting their powdery qualities by steeping them in deep wine. Other than the fact that it fades quickly I'd have to immediately say this is a dream scent for me.

I was ready to try a bottle of this unsniffed but I opted for a decant -- dragon's blood is great, but anything with DB in it JUST smells like DB to me. On first sniff, I wondered if this or The Castle might have been mislabelled because they smelled so similar.

No, wait...okay, this is definitely different. This smells like a light, faintly woody Dragon's Blood. Sort of like Dragon's Bone or Claw. It is one of the lighter, sweeter, moister ones in that scent family though.

As it dries I do get some of the clean, almost aquatic scent that could be metallic...and the whiff of that same high, pure leather note from Quincy Morris.

It dries surprisingly perfumey and sweet, with a hint of powdery resin.

This isn't different enough from the other DB blends that I have to warrant its own bottle, but I'm certainly enjoying the test.

The immediate association I have with this scent is very strong and unmistakable but I don't it will make sense to anyone but me. It smells exactly like my parents' basement when I would go down in December to bring the Christmas decorations out of storage. It smells exactly like it. I don't know why, except that it smells of must and dust. The leather scent does go straight up the back of my nose until I can taste it on my tongue, but it still comes across as a musty scent.

Pear is front and center, which is great -- I enjoy the sharp, tart, fruity scent. I have no idea why old Christmas ornaments in the basement smell like that, but they do. Maybe the pear is even coming across a little like a sweet evergreeny kind of smell.

Leather and pear, this stays strong, sweetening slightly on my skin with time as the vanilla and tobacco meld into a distant smokiness.

I don't actually like leather as a scent, though in some blends it had a resinous quality when I wear it. In others, it's just sharp and unpleasant. In this, it is very dusty, though it's the perfect surface for the pear and tobacco to play on, and this is one that really needs to spend some time on your skin to get everything to come together.

I mainly wear scents that are considered masculine, so this is great for me, and very unique in my collection. Leather and pear? Sure, why not! I thought the leather would put me off but it's really quite nice. It doesn't smell like a handbag or a jacket. It does smell like the basement, but that's my own weird thing I guess.

Lust, Urd, Morocco, The High Priest Not To Be Described, come to mind.

I like the red musk in Scherezade, you might like other blends that contain that as a main ingredient, but High Priest is especially groovy as a combo of spice and red musk, I found.

I like Gamaliel too actually. And Sammael was an oddly-appealing floral to me. I don't like florals, but I liked Sammael a lot. Gosh it's been a long time since I tried them though. Which were your favorite blends, Mrs. Black? A lot of the Qliphoth struck me as somewhat perfumey but not in an unpleasant way. But a lot of florals to my nose...