dluszcz

To start off, I am so thrilled to death with the 2007 Yule scents I was clever enough to order! With November in particular, in the bottle it was pleasant, fresh, woodsy winter greens with hint of bitterish spices. On my skin, it immediately turned to the most cold and clean foresty green, like I'd gotten into the "inner sanctum" at a high-end florists while they were preparing the x-mas wreaths. As it dried down, the rich browness of frosty wet leaves developed, balancing out the greens. After a while on my skin (and under my nose) I'm getting a sad, salty note of the winter sea. I think November is definately on the gender-neutral to masculine side, which makes me happy as those kinds of fragrances seem to sit better with my skin, even with conventional, "department store" perfumes. But it's gentle and complex enough not to smell like a high school locker room. This definately deserves to be worn with a gorgeous sweater! I'm editing this because I just tried out November in my oil burner. After trying on all of my Yule blends, this ended up as my least favorite due to a bit of lingering weirdness that developed after time on my skin, which seemed to result in a bit of a headache. However, in the burner, it doesn't seem to fade or change to that point, and is definately pleasing as a room fragrance. It's clean and woodsy without smelling like Pinesol, and the sad, saltiness lingers far longer. It also seems to be clearing up my cold congestion. Bonus points....

I just got thr Snow Storm today, and I absolutely agree that it is the perfect-most winter/snow/woods smell that I could ever imagine!

Maybe I'm just wrong or incredibly stupid, but I didn't get from this one anything that it was supposed to be! I'm glad that I received it as a frimp with my Raven order and didn't pay for it. In the phial, I thought it smelled really cherry lollipop with undertones of almond oil. On wet, it continued the cherry/almond thing and then immediately developed a chocolatey whiff. At this point I thought it was a really sweet, childish, joyful fragrance. In about 20 minutes a very citrusy soapy note developed, evocative of lemon scented dish soap. Eventually it resolved itself into nothing but candied cherries and citrus fruits, the kind that are unnatural shades of red and green, sold in plastic containers in the raisin aisle, and that are stuck into the middle of cookies for x-mas. I got sick of this, literally, rather quickly. I had to ride in the car with all the windows open to try to get the stink out and the headache to go away. Unfortunately, this stuff has incredible staying power on me. Several hours later, I resorted to scrubbing it off with rubbing alcohol and soap. The smell of a 12 year old, dipped in fruitcake, lingers....

The first sniff of Intrigue, in the phial, almost convinced me to chuck it out and not even try it- There seemed to be something dark-almost rotten- underneath the initial spiciness. When I gave it a shot anyway and tried it on, I had to agree with one of my high school students, that it smelled like a candle shop- that muddle of spice and woods and floral and sweets and waxiness. But I've always kind of liked that smell and felt warm and dipped in a sunbeam everytime I caught a whiff! It did fade pretty fast, so I reapplied every 3 hours or so but finally let it dim down to something like "paper candy"- very very soft and quiet and slightly sweet, but also evocative of licorice and something not quite identifiable, an acquired taste.

When I smelled this in the imp, I didn't think it was going to be anything too special, sort of soft and a little bit flowery. I wasn't terribly impressed with it wet, not that I didn't like it, but nothing unusually great about it. After it dried and sort of sank in, I was left with the impression of a warm, soft floral with just the tiniest touch of clear violet shining through-pretty and quietly feminine. I'm not much of a floral person but its fullness and the sweetness of the amber redeemed this one. I've found violet to be scary and tissue-linty-purple on me, but in this formula it came through without overasserting itself or turning to old-lady funkiness. This is my favorite, so far of the 4 or five BPALs I've tried. I think it'd be a nice everyday/default scent, but was a little disappointed with its staying power. It was almost completely gone after just 3 hours.

I thought that this sounded so lovely that I got the big bottle! This was my first time trying the BPAL scents and didn't realize that I should try it first as an imp! When it arrived I was so psyched and couldn't wait to try it on- In the bottle I thought it smelled perfect for a dark haired, ivory skinned chic like myself. Unfortunately, as it developed on my skin, it resolved into a scent very much like the CHoward's Scented Gum that I used to freshen my breath, when I was a cigarette smoker- no sandalwood or musk, merely square, sweet, violet chewing gum at the bottom of my purse. Still trying to find the perfect one...

I really really really wanted to love Sin! Everything note listed sounded absolutely like me and sniffing it in the imp, it smelled like just what I was looking for! Well, I wore it to work, and somewhere, mid-morning, started thinking that I smelled like an enormous rice pudding. In the October humidity, I decided to reapply mid-afternoon, thinking that something might be fading or what-have-you due to the weird weather/temperature/humidity. In the car, after work, my mom asked me if I was "wearing that new smell you ordered" because she thought I smelled "old". I asked her to elaborate and she said "you smell like an old lady." There goes that one! I don't know what this implies about my character or person, that the olfactory embodiment of "sin" makes me smell like somebody's grandma

I ordered Queen Mab as an imp and was really excited to try it out- I love sandalwood and musk and was intrigued with the idea of those notes mixed with floral. But when it dried on my skin, I found it oddly reminiscent of Crabtree and Evelyn's "Nantucket Briar" scent from the mid-late 1990's- which recalls powder room potpourri and soccer moms. Not my idea of what the Queen of the Fairies smells like.