DurAnorak

I did not have a good time with this - I'm glad to see someone above mention coconut, because I thought I was losing my mind when all I could smell was extremely sweet sunblock! not what I was hoping for, alas, which is maybe what I get for leaving it until 2020 to test...! 

I know it's harder to find but my absolute #1 Silent Hill hospital scent is Kinnabari v4 - I wish I could decant things so I could send you some! it's a terrible cold medicinal stone sort of scent and I only wear it at Halloween :x I hope you can turn up some somewhere because it's really perfect Silent Hill perfume to me~

I'd also suggest the possibility of Rumpelstilzchen for Pyramid Head - there's not enough blood in there but there's a good amount of nastiness all the same. A++ for Smokestack too, & at least those are both GCs!

another vote for Rumpelstilzchen, Bonfire Night and Agnes Nutter - which has a definite masculine leather/smoke combination on me, more so than Bonfire Night which is more bonfire smoke and sweetness. they're all gorgeous though

 

this is a really neat idea - to make it harder for y'all I have tried...a lot of things over the years so I'm really curious as to whether anybody can suggest something I wouldn't have thought of, or confirm some of the things I'm still desperately seeking :x my top five :

 

1) Glühwein

2) Black Pumpkin Floss

3) Story Time at Dark Delicacies

4) Egg Moon

5) Shub Niggurath

 

tried to do some honourable mentions but it just devolved into a list of everything else I own :x

Have you tried Third Charm,The Arrival at the Sabbath and Homage to the Devil, or Red Lantern? Your faves seem to be complex with a hint of sweetness. Those might be worth at look. Or maybe Butterscotch Balls and Black Beetles?

 

thank you! <3 I LOVE Arrival at the Sabbath - Red Lantern was just a combination of notes that aren't great on me, unfortunately. the other two I haven't tried; Third Charm is definitely on my list but I hadn't considered Butterscotch Balls and Black Beetles - I think based on reviews that it would probably be too cloying for me, but I might see if I can pick up enough to test from somewhere thank you though! I will move Third Charm up the list :x

The Smiling Spider from the discontinued Salon series, and Arachne of Lydia from the Last Unicorn series, both have the kind of clove note that makes me think of thick velvet curtains the BPTP scent Helpful Crone also might fit what you're looking for...I wish I could think of something more available from the GC but I'm drawing a blank!

this is a really neat idea - to make it harder for y'all I have tried...a lot of things over the years so I'm really curious as to whether anybody can suggest something I wouldn't have thought of, or confirm some of the things I'm still desperately seeking :x my top five :

1) Glühwein

2) Black Pumpkin Floss

3) Story Time at Dark Delicacies

4) Egg Moon

5) Shub Niggurath

tried to do some honourable mentions but it just devolved into a list of everything else I own :x

this thread is talking my language :x my creepiest and best beloved :

Kinnabari v4 - absolutely smells of like, hospitals in Silent Hill to me, I only break it out at Halloween :x

Hand of Glory - sometimes I see people writing about how comfy and warm it is to them and marvel at the wonders of skin chemistry, because on me it smells like exactly what it says and it's truly horrible :x in a way I really appreciate, but still

Pain - will second what Balame says above, it's sharp and screeching and very cruel indeed

Sarah - nasty stuff, just like it says; stone and blood and fluttering dead things

In His Hands Thy Cruelties Thrive - I'm not saying I don't like smelling like an experimental villainess in her dungeon, mind

Rumpelstilzchen - what everybody else seemed to get from Gore-Shock and I didn't (because Gore-Shock was all bacon)

Theodosius - truly grim in a white kid gloves, sharp razor, Jack the Ripper sort of way

Bezoar - I couldn't have it in the house :x too creepy even for me, which is really saying something. or creepy in the wrong way for me, anyway~

U Mutter Museum - oh my god, yes, it really is the smell of a wunderkammer it's SO AWFUL, I love it so much :x

also I've yet to try it myself but Black Annis on my flatmate is the creepiest most amazing awful magic :x

I received a couple frimps from both the Lab and a swap and Im having a bit of trouble figuring out what they are

Maiden

Dee

O'Hara

Pint O' Stout

help?

Some creative Googling for the other two suggests that they might both have been scents by Bombshell Bath/Fyrinnae (who I think don't make perfumes any more? but I could be wrong) - I can't find notes for either of them, though, just a description of O'Hara as being similar to BPAL's Miskatonic University, and of Pint O' Stout as being indescribable :x Not too helpful - I hope that at least helps place them, though!

I was scared by the reviews of this because 'cherry' and 'blood' kept coming up and I know what that usually means - my arm smelling like I've plunged it into a pool of melted cough sweets. But the spice and wine comments made me curious enough to try it in spite of all scents with 'blood' in historically being a spectacular failure - and it is GORGEOUS *_* Deep, heady honeyed red wine with heavy spices - everything I've wanted in a really thick honey scent but hadn't yet found. Far, far too much for a sunny day in August, but definitely something I'll wear clubbing or walking around graveyards in October.

I've been SO excited to try this one, but when my decant of it arrived yesterday and I opened it to sniff I said '...that's a lot of red musk' and put it down again making worried noises, because heavy red musk generally just smells like artificial cherry cough drops on me and it was so strong I doubted anything else would be able to fight through it.

Oh me of little faith :x Even in the first few seconds of the wet stage when I was expecting it to be red musk and nothing else, there's a glorious halo of sweet and salty popcorn over it, and now it's drying into something complex, savoury and utterly wonderful - the kind of grand guignol carnival scent I could never find in CD or CN (much as I love all the scents that are in those!) but have also found in Black Pumpkin Floss, which despite not officially sharing any notes with this is for me in a similar family. A performing family in a slightly unnerving circus I LOVE it.

First post on the site, whee! Hello, everybody! This looks fascinating and I wanted to give it a shot.

 

Okay, so:

 

20 years old, 5 foot 2, plain old brown hair and eyes, 122 lb. College sophomore, theatre major/classics minor. Lover of Old, Middle, and Early Modern English. Shakespearean actress. 8 years of Latin, 2 of Attic Greek and I can read both with some facility. Fan of Discworld, A Song of Ice and Fire, Potter, Tolkien, Hitchhiker's Guide, Homer, Beowulf, Chaucer, Marlowe, and Shakespeare above all else. Snarky as all hell, loyal to friends and family, passionate about learning and working hard, usually isolated but not by choice, quick to anger and slow to forgive.

 

 

My absolute favorite BPAL scent is Rumpelstilzchen, which suits me to the point of being 'creepily fitting', according to a friend. In that same vein, if you want a good picture of my personality, think of a slightly toned-down version of Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold from Once Upon a Time. Minus the magic and murder.

 

If anybody has recommendations, I'd be more than happy to hear them!

First may I say : hi & welcome, you sound seriously awesome :x As for recs, I'd definitely second Bonfire Night, and if you can track it down also St. John's Eve which is much gentler but has a real scent of old England about it, like being in a manor house kitchen at night after everyone has left with the fire just dying down.

GC-wise, and in an entirely different vein, I find Athens is very much what I reach for when I'm having ancient Greek moments these days I've just got an imp of Ekhidna and although all the notes led me to believe it would be dark and nasty (in a good way), and it is, to me it smells of nothing so much as theatrical makeup - evil theatrical makeup :x & if you like Rumpelstilzchen you might also like Agnes Nutter for similar smoky goodness + bonus Pratchett reference<3 Also seconding what other people have said - Yorick, Black Annis and Voodoo would all be things I'd have recced as well

(I have quite a lot of Potter-based possible suggestions but they're all more in the line of 'I've spent way too much time thinking about which house this perfume belongs in/who would wear what' than actual...useful...anything :x That said, if you can wear coffee scents (which I can't, so this one never worked on me, but others love it very much) I'm pretty sure Miskatonic University is a good place to start for Hogwarts :x)

I hope you find something new to love!

Sometimes I buy BPAL oils because of how strange they are, so in my collection - definitely BTOD1, which really does (as per its reviews) smell of roast chicken and pencil shavings; I also find Kinnabari v4 absolutely extraordinary as it absolutely smells of something mineral and unsettling and I will never understand how the Lab achieves that kind of thing!

Outside of prototypes, Hand of Glory may be comforting candles and spice to some people but for me it alarmingly does what it says on the tin; I also find Pumpkin Smash quite gritty and disturbing. Also I'm currently waiting on a decant of Halloween In Innsmouth because I couldn't resist something people said genuinely smelled like fish and incense

I kept Gore-Shock for a while for its novelty value as well but eventually traded it away because it was more like bacon than anything else and I wanted it to be creepier :x

Hahahaha...I love this thread! I am so glad I'm not the only one who does this; I have an entire BPAL list for the characters of Robin of Sherwood.

Oh my god I would so love to know what is on your list if you felt like sharing, that show is the most amazing thing *_*

I totally agree with Dorian as a Draco scent conceptually - unfortunately it's a complete disaster on me, but yesterday I did try Theodosius again (after several years of not wearing him :x) & when I was looking at the reviews they all said how much like Dorian it is, but it's a) a much better scent on me and something adult Draco would also wear, I think. Similarly refined, but also subtly nasty

Then I started trying to figure out which Hogwarts house my perfumes are in. It's possible I need more sleep.

Oh, my god. I would move mountains for this thing. I would marry it and build it a shrine and sing its praises in interpretative dance. Short of being able to do that, I am writing a review, which I've always been too shy to do very often, but sometimes something's just so amazing I can't help wanting to :x

In the bottle it's a heady, resin-y, creamy spiced work of art that reminds me of Bengal without the dry notes that make that go so powdery on my skin. Wet, it spends a while being dead-on perfect crème brulée - which I would have been more than happy with, as I've been searching for something like that for years :x As it dries, though, it starts to become more about the resins, and this is where my review is going to lose all coherence and usefulness because all I can tell you is that it is so beautiful that every time I breathed in I found myself on the verge of tears. I'm totally given to hyperbole - I won't pretend otherwise - but I really mean it. It's like being in the oldest, most peaceful places on earth, and it made me cry, and I am going to hoard it forever

I mean, honestly, from the reviews I was hoping for custard tarts, but I'll happily pass that up in favour of what was basically a religious experience :x

I love this thread so much *_*

Part of the reason I have quite a few of the perfumes I have is that they feel like certain fictional characters to me, or like things those characters would wear - usually ones nobody has heard of though so I feel shy about joining in the discussion :x I RP a version of Blaise Zabini from Harry Potter and around ten of my perfumes belong exclusively to him - he's easy to find things for - but I have been looking for something an adult Draco might wear, if anyone has any ideas? :x

I can't believe how much I love this perfume :x I purchased it from a lovely forumite after reading everyone's reviews, because it seemed as though even the things that disappointed others might end up being a good thing for me, no matter which note I ended up amping - but it's shot straight into my top ten. I don't think I've ever before had a perfume where I could follow each listed note as it rose, blossomed and faded, but that's what happens with the notes in this.

And they are all WONDERFUL, oh my god. Wet, it's like everything I wanted from a Carnaval Diabolique blend and never got (much as I love some of those in their own right) - smoky, thick candyfloss with something dark and twisted and probably very dangerous to either wallet, heart or life lurking underneath.

As it starts to dry it's a heavy, dry pumpkin with dark sugar syrup, and then suddenly that's taken over by the licorice - and it's very clearly licorice, not just the scent of anise, there's something black and sticky about it. Just when I'm starting to worry that it's going to become licorice SN, it opens up a little into a seriously sexy blackcurrant, and then after a while the smoked maple arrives and just hangs around for hours making me want to eat my wrists.

tl;dr it is EVERYTHING I WANTED and I want to wear it forever. I never post reviews because I'm usually too shy to but this is SO GOOD I couldn't help myself.

They're not kidding. Roast chicken all the way on me, with an occasional edge of pencil shavings or plasticine every now and again. Very, very strange, which is exactly what I wanted, but I'm fascinated as to what they were going for originally, or, if it was this...why :x

I've played a vampiric character for a few years now, and in the role-play, they have beem described as smelling like cinnamon (or melange, if you're familiar with Dune). Does anyone know of a sexy-spicy scent with an emphasis on cinnamon or cloves, or something just generally autumn/Halloweenie? The closest I've found so far is Bengal, and any recommendations would be appreciated.

A little late to this party but have you managed to snag yourself any original Three Witches to try? It's my goto spice scent for when I want something a little darker than the average cinnamon stuff (there's a lot of black pepper in it on my skin) - or maybe The Smiling Spider, which is 100% goth club clove smoke and velvet on me (but YMMV). Three Witches isn't that easy to get hold of but if the reviews sound right to you, I probably have some lying around you could have, I like enabling people. And vampires.

On the plus side, this is the only BPAL I've tried thus far with a listed cherry note that hasn't turned into an all-singing, all-dancing CHERRY EXTRAVAGANZA musical where only cherries are allowed on stage or in the audience.

On the less plus side, it really does smell like someone on the wrong end of a long, heavy night out. Heavy, overheated, musky, beery unpleasantness. I don't drink or go in for particularly serious clubbing any more; I kept sniffing my hand in confusion wondering why it seemed so familiar, until I realised it was the scent of a particularly unfortunate ex-boyfriend of mine. Swap pile, stat :/

For something that genuinely smells, on my wrist, like I have been standing too near people roasting a hog on a spit at a mediaeval fete, I really like this. Mind you, I've always dreamed of something that would smell like that, so~ It's more than just ash and spices, it's heated, ashy leather and smoke. I am craving a bottle. :x

I was very kindly gifted a partial decant of this, but it is going to have to find a new home as I have just tested it and am sad to report yet another of BPAL's harder-to-find scents turning into frothing drain cleaner on my skin. \o/ I have no idea what makes the champagne in Bon Vivant work on me while this is so lamentably bad, but it really is; no champagne, no cigars, 100% bleach. Sadness. My skin hates me, but loves my wallet.

It was always going to be a fight between the pine and the cinnamon. Cinnamon usually stampedes through all other notes in scents on me, trampling them into the ground until it takes pity on their tiny cries and leaves mere shreds of them clinging to my wrist. Pine, however, usually screams and screams until absolutely nothing else can get a word in.

The cinnamon won.

I smell like Christmas in heaven.

I am very happy. Soon I will also be very broke. Oh well.

I was worried about this one, because patchouli is become hippy death on my skin - I can't seem to wear *anything* with it - but instead, my hand smells like I have been lying in crushed Lush Flosty Gritter bath bombs for two hours. I could not be happier - their American Cream solid perfume doesn't quite work for me and I ADORE the scent. No patchouli to be seen anywhere! I probably won't get a bottle of it, as between Inez and Pickled Imp I am going to be bankrupt anyway, but it is really soft and beautiful on me, definitely a keeper.

Oh, this is heavenly. Sweet sugar cookies with sharp lime (almost like wearing a mojito cocktail, which is my favourite drink on earth) and a pinch of tobacco adding a faint touch of slick licorice-y darkness to it. I am utterly in love.

I don't know what's going on with this. I ordered it before I realised how much BPAL's florals hate me - near-universally, except that this thing is gorgeous. Gorgeous. In the imp, all I can smell is a bucket of ylang ylang, but as soon as it hits my skin it unfolds itself and becomes genuinely a scent of longing; warm, languorous, beautiful.

Which is very welcome, but seriously, what's up with that? I wish I knew what made it one of only two non-rose florals so far not to turn into OH HI DISH SOAP on my skin...