ravenfeathers

surprise, surprise, it's samhain. one of my all-time favourites from the BPAL arsenal and now i don't have to squander it in my tart burner to make my room smell fantastic. not much to add about the smell. it's apple and fir and the generally orange-coloured smell of autumn.

that distinctive lab carmelized brown sugar note is much in evidence with a cocoa-y undercurrent. someone came into my office and said that it smelled like coffee, but others shot him right down. this isn't quite my thing, which is fine since i got it for my kids.

in the bottle MMM! i could eat this! the sassafras and woods are really soft and the vanilla is forefront. very sweet and oddly unisex. wet on skin okay, the sassafras is really getting on my nerves here. it drowns out all the other notes and has a big, ol' root beer-y party on my wrist. and that nice sweetness has gone cloying. dry on skin ghastly, cloying root beer candies with pocket fuzz on.

in the bottle oak, snake oil, and dish soap? wet on skin i can barely smell it, but there's a soft smell of all the various notes. dry on skin this fades really fast on me. it's not as glistening, golden, or gorgeous as haloes and, given my love for haloes, really comes across as a really poor echo of that great scent. it's fantastically red in the imp; i might have to retest this with a bit more oil, just to make sure.

in the bottle lavender. or, if you prefer, OMFGLAVENDERRRRRRRRRRRR! this bodes ill wet on skin well, gee. bye, lavender, nice knowing you. on, this is your basic dorian only darker and sweeter. my biggest problem with dorian was the sweetness, but the darkness of snake oil's resins are really evening this out and keeping it from being in the least cloying. dry on skin dark, sultry vanilla. also, vanilla. and vanilla. did i mention vanilla? this is a vanilla lover's dream and i'm pretty damn enamoured of it myself. this makes love's philosophy seem like the world's biggest vanilla wuss. hate dorian? try it. hate snake oil? try it. hate vanilla flower, lily of the valley, lavender, and fennel? try it! i was prepared to really disenjoy this scent and i was highly wrong! i love it!

chemistry is bizarre. after reading these reviews, i was not expecting this. in the bottle dark, boozy, earthy; sexy like schwarzer mond with a three foot hard-on. wet on skin i have no idea why this smells like licorice, but it does, like licorice root from my herb garden with the soil still clinging in the crevices; dark, sweet, herbaceous, but not sharp or astringent at all; i expect this is the hyssop. dry on skin there's a dark greasiness here that's so reminscent of schwarzer mond, but the overall scent is quite different. drydown is sweet and black, heavy on the bay with a peep of vanilla and tobacco. it's earthy, but not dirty, in fact, it has a very clean overall feel.

in the bottle DIRT! also DIRTDIRTDIRT! more earthy and less perfumey than worm moon, this is one i need to get me through the scentless days of winter. wet on skin a little fungus-y, but still so loamy and amazing. dry on skin it's a dark, humus-y, earthy, amazing scent and it doesn't smell like a perfume rendition of dirt, but like somehow beth was able to distill actual dirt. this is art. i'm not sure what it is about dirt scents, but i've noticed that people who aren't expecting them really reel back from the bottle when you proffer it. it doesn't make me reel at all, but i've had two people now say "whoa" and stagger backward from dirt scents.

in the bottle warm, green grass, like the pale part of the grass near the roots on a hot, humid day in early summer. wet on skin keeps grassing dry on skin this sweetens in the dry down like red clover blossoms in a sea of grass and i never smell anything crunchy or dry like the autumn leaves, just sweet grass. pure art, but possibly wearable as a sophisticated perfume. this one is calling to me purely for it's aromatherapeutic value in the dark, cold days of february.

in the bottle BPAL buttery pumpkin all the way, sweetened heavily with the honey and vanilla. it has nearly the regality of pumpkin V from last year without the spicy ginger. wet on skin same dry on skin drydown just mellows the whole thing, dissipating some of the strong sweetness, and what's left is a strong waft of buttery pumpkin with a hint of the cherry tobacco and the smell of a polished wood box. fantastic! had to buy a bottle of this on the spot and am wearing it today!

in the bottle a little musky, a little leather-y, but something medicinal here that's unexpected and disturbing. wet on skin band-aid. dry on skin this goes very leather-y in the early drydown, then mellows out into something that smells a lot like mushrooms. much later, in the extreme drydown phase, it smells a lot like a mildewy saddle. this makes me very sad, but i'm glad i got a chance to whiff it before buying a bottle.

i love horses. i don't even ride, i just keep a small herd because i enjoy them so much. what i enjoy even more is the aroma of horses, everything from linament to cobwebby stable dust. gunpowder? no brainer. in the bottle this smells like that cereal with the little bits of dried fruit in it. honey bunches of oats with strawberry clusters? wet on skin fruity and oaty. hellishly oaty. dry on skin no hay/chaff, no molasses, just a touch of maple here and a nice waft of musk. i agree with the first reviewer, this smells like a hot mash with drop apples sliced up in it and the little bit of horsey smell that even makes its way into a closed feed room. and later, it's still the oats that won't quit. this is tremendous fun for me and i'm looking forward to see what changes as it settles and ages, if anything. eta after a retest and a lot of thought, i have to admit that i'm disappointed by this scent through no fault of its own. it just doesn't capture the horsiness for me. retest is bland, sweet oatmeal with a blot of artificial maple syrup. i think it's distinctly too foody for wear, unfortunately.

in the bottle the love child of sugar moon and creepy. interesting. there's a thick, near cloyingly sweet, caramel-y undertone and bright, bright strawberry. it's very weird. wet on skin okay, this is even weirder. that almost maple-y creepy caramel vanishes as soon as it hits my skin and it's BERRY BERRY BERRY in the throw and close to the skin. dry on skin it has an almost booziness which is odd and a crispy note that must be the pillowcase. also BERRY BERRY BERRY. you know, i got this for my kids, who are small-time BPAL addicts and tend toward the candy sweet scents, as you'd expect from 10 year olds. this is almost playfully sophisticated enough for me to wear, though. so, do i give it to them and get my own or do i pretend i got it for me all along?

in the bottle cider with an undercurrent of spice and a very dark, murky orange. this makes me want to whimper. wet on skin um. hello, dead ringer for punkie night. dry on skin there's a slight waxiness, just as in punkie night, but it gets a little smokier. it's like punkie night and brimstone, live for one night together. i'm not sure but what the two together smell somewhat like a band-aid fresh out of the box, though. hm. maybe that's the oakmoss. after a second test, i'm not getting the almost-band-aid smell, so that's good. i actually tested this side by side with punkie night. i like them both and the drydowns are very different, but wet they're near identical, so i'm not sure that i need both.

2008 i happen to have the dregs of a bottle of 2007 on my desk, so i'm able to do a side-by-side comparison. in the bottle seems to be lighter, brighter, and more fruity than 2007 without being particularly apple-y wet on skin the extra fruitiness flees and the fir needle and smoke really take over. i seem to remember this being the same progression when 07 was fresh. the 07 next to it is distinctly more apple-y and less smoky. dry on skin no real morphing. i'm nearly positive that the differences in the two bottles are due to age, as the note similarities are so obvious; defintely not a reformulation, although possibly closer to samhain 06 than 07. doesn't matter to me, i'm a fool for samhain of all stripes.

the original SM being one of the only hard-to-get holy grail type BPAL scents that has ever worked on my skin (i'm looking at you, underpants and buck moon), i was thrilled to get another chance at a bottle. i've been using that bottle so, so sparingly, paranoid that i'd run out. in the bottle crack! no, okay, must try to be more articulate than this. heavy. black, black, black. so heart-burstingly sexy it shouldn't be allowed. it's softer than my aged bottle, but somehow darker, too. could it be that i like this better fresh?? wet on skin sweet with a root-beerish twang that i don't get in the aged version, almost aniseseed, but much sweeter. no, i think i like it better aged. dry on skin there's an almost condom-ish pop early in the drydown, not unlike smut 07. the anise sort of scent is mellowing to a spicy, peppery top note while amber, musk, and patchouli keep it gritty. one of my co-workers, who insists on sniffing all BPAL that comes through my office (i get my packages at work), told me it was "rough" after i dabbed some on him. i said "oh, really? you don't like it?" and he said "oh, NO, i like it! i'm just afraid there will be women following me around all day!" you betcha, baby. pure, filthy sex. i'm not generally a hoarder (with a few exceptions), but this might call for another bottle. *shifty*

this is fascinating, really odd, but i'm digging it. first of all, i have to say that i've been waiting for this scent for nearly a year and i was getting really nervous hearing people compare it to snow white, which was one of the all-time five worst BPAL scents on my skin. i kept hoping that it was just a "thing". and it was. in the bottle a sucker punch of pure apple, the first whiff sent me reeling. there's a slithery shot of ozone, too, which makes for an almost-melon scent on second, deeper whiff. wet on skin dryer sheets. wonderful, beautiful, totally BPALrific dryer sheets, but no. bah. dry on skin there's the sexy vampire apples! it seems to waver between apple and melon, nearly pulsating with sweet, sticky fruit. the ozone, almost aquatic it's so thick, is much in evidence, but loses the sharp dryer sheet bite. and, oh yes, there's the musk and mint, which are so, so good with the apple. i never would've guessed. throw is tremendous. my office is self contained with two windows and a door out and my perfume loving coworker just told me he could smell it outside my door, from just a tiny, clean test on the back of my hand. i think that slamming throw dissipates pretty quickly. the label is pretty, although i wish more detail from the book cover could've been squanched in there. the cobalt bottle is lots of fun for an LE of this magnitude and mood. the book(let) is quite nice (although i was disappointed in #563, since i'd been hoping for #666, ha ha), although i could wish for more illustrations. despite being a monster neil fan, snow, glass, apples is not one of my favourites of his works, so i was looking more for the perfume here, anyway. i'll put the book away with my meagre other rarer books.

in the bottle i'm getting lots of patchouli, lots of tea, with just a smidge of spiciness wet on skin zing! it's carnation and clove all the time! now, carnation has a clove-y smell anyway, but the dry, spicy clove note here is sitting just underneath the slightly floral cloviness of the carnation. the patchouli is barely there, just a grounding element. dry on skin the drydown on this gets darker and spicier, then even darker and even spicier, then... it disappears in a puff of sweet. love it. eta after further testing, i'd say this has a fairly cloying, slightly decomposing smell on drydown, a bit like someone's storage closet, to be honest. a fantastic scent, but not on me.

in the bottle more perfume-y than i imagined, i'm getting a lot of the mimosa and orchid. wet on skin still perfume-y and it's raising me a cloying. dry on skin no, this just isn't me at all. it's so frekking sweet and there's something in this that i can taste, which is not terribly pleasant. it's bloody strong and has an ultra-long wearlength, like all oils that hate my guts. this is a decent dark-ish floral, but me≠floral. *sigh*

so, there really wasn't much chance i wasn't going to like this. with samhain, SS candy apple, and autumn being in my BPAL top five, l'autunno was a no brainer. so why am i so shocked at how absolutely GORGEOUS this is? okay, let me wipe the drool and other assorted euphoric moistures off my notes here: in the bottle magically sweet and mysterious with a murky, heady apple wet on skin absolutely blooms with spice and smoke! the apple is buried under a deep figginess and layer upon layer of mulling spices dry on skin this has a resinous underbelly that slithers over the spices and allows the apple to dominate. it's similar to the sweet-tart apple of creepy, but shares some of the syrupy apple whiff of samhain, too. if i could replace each bottle in my collection with bottles of this tomorrow, i would. even my top five.

this is freaking heaven, OMG! in the bottle thick, waxy honey *swoons* wet on skin sweet, sweet, sweet! HONEEEEEYYYY! dry on skin wow. i'm just blown away by this. it's so amazingly sweet, so thick without being cloying, so golden and sticky and FANTASTIC! throw is negligible, unfortunately, but that's okay. the scent is all mine!! the spices are very, very much bit parts, just existing to round out the sweet nearly-single-note honey. there's the tiniest little tartness at the end of a sniff that must be the lemon, keeping this buoyant. eta: wearlength is great, lasting even through a handwashing (i test on the back of my hand). throw still negligible, but six hours later it's still sweet and sticky-ish close to my skin. why did i not get two bottles of this? *headdesk*

i am a hay nut. i've got horses, cattle, and goats and all of my most bestest quality time is spent with hay and other livestock-y things, so hay moon was a no-brainer for me. it's probably the very first lunacy i've had some connection with. in the bottle sharp, very cologne-y. nothing's really jumping out at me in the way of notes wet on skin amber and... errr... why is it lemony??? there's a tiny, tiny, tiny touch of honey and the golden greasiness of amber, but it's mostly a dry, sweet lemon. dry on skin a touch soapy and still LEMON LEMON LEMON (honey) LEMON (amber) LEMON. i'm a greedy little slut and tested this within fifteen minutes of getting it in the mail, so i'll retest in a few days once it's had a chance to calm down a little.

this will be a placeholder review. after testing lucifer, i fully intend to get myself a bottle in the next few weeks and test it more rigourously. in the meantime: in the bottle hardcore patchouli like all my worst nightmares of patchouli wet on skin god, the patchouli! make it stop! or at least shower! dry on skin (after i'd already bought something else and left the store) what is that amazing smell? it's snake oil with no funny business, schwarzer mond with a serious attitude problem. it's freaking fantastic! it's the darkest, most menacing, though lightly sweet scent i've ever had the pleasure of absolutely loathing upon first application. it sort of waffles between a man's man's man's cologne and infernal ashes from the very bowels of hell. which doesn't sound very appealing? but somehow it is. it will be mine!

really gorgeous, lushly fruity but sweet and with a real sense of dignified innocence. the currant and honey were the real stand-outs to me, kept from being at all foody by the herbs. the thyme is an amazing foil to the sweetness of berry, honey, and gardenia. i have to say, i don't find this scent to be a particularly amazing interpretation of the artwork, but it's beautiful in its own right.

okay, first of all i'd like to come out as a total samhain addict. i have used more of samhain than any other bottle in my collection, with the possible exception of mme. mo. i really, really wanted to like samhainophobia just as much as i liked samhain, but i couldn't quite. there was a medicinal quality that, not being balanced by the fruitiness of samhain, just didn't work on me. ENTER AUTUMN! in the bottle dark, glowing, dry, and melancholy, the rose and "dry leaves" supporting each other wet on skin this keeps the same general scent, but blooms gloriously into a golden haze. it's similar in tone to both samhain and harvest moon, falling somewhere between those two extremes. dry on skin no morphing here. the rose that made me so very nervous before i sniffed it just keeps the whole thing buoyant without adding a smidge of floral to the mix. the sandalwood stands in for the fir needles of samhain and -ophobia and keeps it golden and lovely. amazing, amazing scent.

sweet, foody, smooth, and delicious, and i say that as someone who is only so-so about most particularly foody scents. it reminds me vaguely (just because it's in the same family of scents, not because of any note similarity at all) of haloes, being undeniably gourmand, but equally undeniably perfume-y.