Diana

I love any combination of milk, honey and ginger, so this was a good one for me to try. I especially want to (finally) go through all my imps and properly try *everything*. Hah.

In the vial it's a nice delicious aroma. Not quite as spiced as chai, but not just plain milk. Sweet.

Putting it on, I realized this wasn't very stronly scented. I put on HALF AN IMP. And I could still barely smell it.

The ginger warms up a bit and the milk/honey combination is really sweet and light in the background. There's another note here, but I cannot for the life of me name it. Someone somewhere mentioned "rice pudding," and that almost exactly hits the nail on the head.

Over the day, it's still very faint & light, but I can occasionally catch small whiffs of it. The ginger becomes sharper & greener over time, and there's another spice note, which I think reminds me of cardamom.

This is oh so lovely, but sadly, it just didn't last and didn't have enough throw for me. This is a nice cuddle scent, though.

Catherine definitely has a strong orange blossom note, but there's also rosemary & rose in there, which you may or may not have issues with.

Akuma also, which has berry notes in it as well.

If you do a search for "neroli" or "orange blossom" on the site, you'll come up with lots of listings, but I think it's strongest of the ones I've tried in these two.

I'm not a huge fan of florals, but this had Vanilla and Musk and Sandalwood listed, so on some crazy leap of faith, I ordered a 5ml bottle.

Oddly enough, in the bottle, it doesn't smell like anything.

Putting it on, the Jasmine & Sandalwood are rather sharp, kind of soapy and a bit harsh, but I know that this is just the wet stage. And I'm right.

After having had this on a few hours, it erupts into a soft & wonderful blend. BPAL Jasmine is usually a bit too sharp for me, but this one is much softer and different than most of the others I've tried. The vanilla is just barely there, softening the jasmine, the musk & sandalwood form a dizzying base note and the whole thing is just GORGEOUS. I'm not picking up on the clove at all, sadly (I think my skin tends to ignore that note), but I'm not really missing it.

Even if you're skeptical with Jasmine blends or florals in general, you may really like this. It's soft, clean smelling, pretty. Reminds me a bit of those finely milled guest soaps, but without the super soapy part.

probably some echos, but here goes...

Dragon's Milk - sweet honey & creamy

Dragon's Heart - berries & figs.

Kali - sugary, chocolately note over sweet florals

Pele - sweet in a beachy sort of fragrant way.

Agalea - fruity, tangy, sweet

Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo - fruit stripe gum.

Horn of Plenty - cherry jolly ranchers

Spooky (LE) - mint & coconut cookies, covered in chocolate

Midwinter's Eve (LE) - plummy sweets

Dia de los Muertos (LE) - sweet. no other description. heh.

Sugar Skull (LE) - sugary, mapely, caramelly. yum.

13 (LE) - chocolate orange

Mi-Go Brain Canister (LE) - fruity fruit fruit.

Cerberus (LE) - lemony, nutty, fig newtons

Midway (LE) - caramel, funnelcakes, marshmallows

Absinthe - anisey-minty candy

Bliss - chocolate!

Bon Vivant - strawberries & champagne

Juke Joint - boozy, but minty & sugary too

Inferno - cinnamony-spicy candy

Gluttony - like wearing an entire dessert cart.

Dorian - sweet tea, vanilla & lemon biscuits.

Jailbait - bazooka bubblegum

Bordello - sweet plum with an incense base

Jezebel - very sweet combination

Kabuki - sweet cherry with a touch of anise.

Lolita - smells like a lollipop

O - honey & vanilla

Akuma - berry sweet

Hellcat - sweeeeeeeeeeet mead & almond and ow my teeth hurt

March Hare - apricots & clove - very sweet

Jester - smells like candy

Hollywood Babylon - strawberries & vanilla

Yerevan - also with the sweet apricot smells

by no means a complete list, but some of the ones i thought might appeal to someone with a sweet tooth.

Paris was pretty close to straight up lavender from what I can remember.

Somnus is also very lavendery, but it knocks me out cold. Something you may want to take into consideration.

ETA: Ace of SWORDS I remembered was also very lavender-based. You'd probably have to plead with someone to get an imp though.

edit because i was thinking of the wrong tarot oil

Vinland and Yggdrasil.

This is really difficult for me to review. I've worn it twice now, and it's hard to pick out individual notes.

In the bottle it has really sharp, overly perfumey notes. Like that smell that wafts out of department stores. This perfumey, slightly soapy aroma lasts for a few minutes after application.

After about 10 minutes or so, it's still perfumey, but nothing like the initial application. Here it reminds me of when I first apply Scherezade.

Another 20-30 minutes pass, and throughout the day, it turns into a floral. I can't pick out any specific flowers, though. Someone said Jasmine, and I can actually see that, though it's just a mishmash of flowers. However, there's more to it. It's got a musk note in it, no doubt. I also detect small wafts of coconut from time to time, but I don't know if that's my nose playing tricks on me. I do detect some similarities to Scherezade as far as base notes, but everything else is beyond me.

Though I'm not too huge on unspecific floral blends, this one is warm and pretty, and definitely something I, with my finicky tastes, can wear.

I really like Blood Rose. But it's rose + juicy freshness.

Two Five and Seven is similar, but more rosey than Blood Rose.

Persephone is good too, but has more of a juicy note as well.

Zombi is a beautiful rose scent, but has a "dirt" note, which some people don't really like too much.

Of course the ultimate is Rose Red, but that's tricky to get a hold of right now.

some suggestions:

Blood Amber - really rich & warm

Black Rose - if you like rose notes layered with your amber

The Lion - I didn't like it all that much, it was a bit too "dry" smelling, but it is a good amber scent

Sin - heavy & resiny & totally sexy

Brisingamen - probably the most ambery BPAL scent i've tried. lovely.

Verdandi - apple & black amber. yummy.

My initial notes on this oil, just smelling it from the imp consisted of "smells intimidating."

hahah ...And how right I was!

Putting it on, the top note is some sort of evergreen. Maybe pine, possibly cedar. Something needley. However that note fades after mere moments, and it quickly becomes pure vetiver. The dark, oily, peppery product of the devil.

Yes, vetiver, my nemesis. However, in this oil, it didn't bother me. Go figure.

And funnily enough, I felt really empowered and together all day (in the midst of a week of bawling my eyes out for no reason and having general depressive tendencies).

I may actually order a 5mL of this for ritual use, at some point. It did make me feel like I had The Power, so thumbs up in that regard!

This is a crazy morphing, magical oil. I guess that's appropriate for the High Priestess card!

I may edit this later once I get my 10mL, so I can slather without restraint!

In the imp & wet on the skin it's very strongly of almonds. Spicy, sweet, quite similar to the inital rush of cinnamon from Black Phoenix or Chimera.

A few moments later, the spicy note disappates, and the sweet almond smell is left behind. This reminds me a lot of almond syrup that my mom makes italian soda type drinks with.

Again, after a few moments, this starts to change again, this time a bit unpleasantly. It starts to smell of burnt rubber. The almond notes are all but gone at this point. The rubbery smell has a familar base note to it, but I cannot quite place it.

After a bit more time passes, the rubber smell starts to reveal a cedar note. This reminds me of the cedar closet in my parents' house.

After a little more time passes, the cedar remains but with a very light and subtle and faint innuendo of cherry.

(This whole morphing process probably took place in less than 45 minutes for what it's worth!)

Quite an interesting blend, and I cannot wait to get my big bottle!

In the bottle, I can smell tobacco most easily. Everything else is kind of a weird mixture of scents, that oddly enough, remind me of commercial perfumes of my childhood (think Jean Naté or Love's Baby Soft).

Going on, it still smells like that. Weird. Sharp, perfumey, 70's scent. And a touch of tobacco.

It does start to change a bit after about an hour. The rosewood, I think, and possibly balsam are more evident. It's soft & powdery, slightly perfumey. Less tobacco.

After about 4 hours though, it's quite lessened in intensity. It is still not really something typically me, something I'd wear with any regularity. But I don't dislike it. I just don't love it.

I give this one a MEH.

This smells a lot like cracking open a chocolate orange. The white chocolate and the orange are the two main scents that I detect, and the white chocolate kind of changes in intensity. Some times it is more apparent, sometimes hardly detectable. The combination of it with the orange sometimes smells oddly like chewable children's aspirin... that saccharin orange smell. Not that I dislike it at all, it's just the scent I associate most with that note!

Overall, I really like it, though I do wish it was stronger & longer lasting on me.

I love this.

Typically any time I've tried honey scents, they turn really artificial, cloying, and plasticky smelling. This is such a glorious contrast.

It starts out very strongly of honey. Real honey, like you've just squeezed one of those little plastic bears of it onto your skin. The next thing I notice is the soft, subtle eruption of thyme. It's soft but noticable. It kind of grounds the sweet note with a more earthy base.

The flowers sort of just stay very subtle in the background, their sweetness intermingling and playing against the sweetness of the honey notes. The thyme stays fairly apparent all throughout the wear of this (which, I must say, is one of the longest lasting BPAL scents I've ever worn), though it's never overwhelming.

This is so well balanced and wonderful!

I'd definitely echo Inferno & Chimera!

All Night Long had definite cinnamon notes on me, but smelled more like cinnamon-oatmeal cookies than candy.

Wrath is all around spicy. Clove + cinnamon + pepper. Dunno if that's up your alley though.

Putting this on this morning, it smelled sweet + buttery. I can definitely see it as an amalgamation of a variety of sweets and junk foods offered at a fair. There isn't one particular food I can pick out, but it's just that magical smell of funnel cakes and cotton candy and candied apples and popcorn and saltwater taffy wafting through the air on a warm night.

I'm surprised this lasted as long as it did. I went to the grocery store after work and kept smelling Cream Soda. I realized it was coming from me! Nice morph!

This is definitely one of my favourite LEs that has come out (and is so very close to a wanderlust suggestion I made for a Boardwalk scent). This is happy making. I'm so tempted to get a third bottle because I might accidentally drink one.

In the bottle: Sharp something. A tiny bit stingy, but not bad. Kind of ozone-ish? eh???(?)

Putting it on, though, it just morphs in to More Different Snake Oil. I can't really detect amber, strangely. And I'm a huge fan of amber and I'd eat it if it weren't so crunchy. Maybe there is something wrong with me? Quite within the realm of possibilty.

I'm getting a lot of spiced vanilla action. Red Musk, also, I think. Vanilla incense.

To me this is a lot more earthy and swarthy and warm. On my flesh, it's warm. Coconut slowly starts to peek through after about an hour, but it is not a really strong note. I don't get any plum at all.

I really like this a lot, and while it's definitely a keeper, I would pass on backup bottles, since to me it is so close to Snake Oil.

My cat likes it too. >.<

edit: the place where i put a heavier application smells musky. i did wipe some off onto another part of my arm. the lighter application does smell a lot more like amber. funky.

EDIT: This is really Snake Charmer --Shollin

EDIT: Fixed to reflect the correct oil

Utrennyaya smells to me very, very similar to Frost Moon.

CCC (300)

In the bottle, it's very coconutty-fresh-fruity. Is that pineapple I detect?

Putting it on wet: yes ladies, it's a Piña Colada! It stays rather coconutty through dry-down with the pineapple softening quite a bit to a background soft fruity/semi-floral note.

It's not particularly long lasting (at least not with this application), not as long as say, Spooky. But that could be due to the 23098350234% humidity outside. Blech!

This one is definitely a winner and a keeper. YUM.

... and of course I've got IF YOU LIKE PINA COLADAS AND GETTING CAUGHT IN THE RAIN stuck in my head.

ETA:

I wore this again for the first time in a while, and the scent is totally different. There is a pineapple note, which morphs into a dry, powdery lemon. Like taking a handful of powdered lemonade mix and sniffing it. The drydown is that dry, but citrusy note, and a slight leafy note ... reminding me of Samhain. I think I like this much better now! And it has me geared up for the new Chaos Theory oils.

something light.

dorian, aunt caroline's joy mojo, sybaris, etc.

Black Pearl was just about all Iris on me; the coconut disappeared after 5 minutes (wah).

Well, I have finally received my first small batch of BPAL, and one of the oils in it was Black Forest, which I had been looking forward to ever since my first visit to the Lab's site, but I ended up being disappointed in that one - it just didn't smell like a forest, at least not on me. You can read my full review of it here, but basically it was way too sweet on me, and the pine smelled kind of fake.

 

So now I'm looking for recommendations of other foresty scents. I've seen a number listed - Hamadryad, Nocnitsa, Yggdrasil, Skadi and others - but it's hard to know what would be best for me. I need something less sweet, and more earthy, than BF. So tell me: What smells most like a real forest to you?

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Skadi is piney. It does smell foresty, but in a cold winter evergreen way.

Yggdrasil is woody. It also smells like clean, sweet grasses & herbs & leaves.

Vinland is sort of similar to Yggdrasil. It's light and crisp.

If you can get your hands on either: Hexxennacht and Samhain are kind of incensey-woodsy-smokey smelling.

Noctnisa is in my pile of "to try" imps, so I can't comment on that just yet, and I haven't smelled Hamadryad yet, either.

Maybe you should look into the more dirt-type scents since you said "earthy." Look for oils with moss or earth notes? They might work out for you.

Along those lines, I'd give Burial a go; it's woodsy and dirt notes.

Maybe also Thanatopsis. I got some piney notes from it, and woody. If you're not into the evergreen, though, it might not work out for you.

Bottle CII (102)

I have to plead complete ignorance on this one. The one and only major note in this from wet application through drydown? I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT IS.

In the bottle, it smells very medicinal. Like something out of mysterious brown glass bottles in my parents' medicine cabinent out of childhood. There's a sort of Oregano-undernote in the bottle. It kind of smells like I always expected Benzoin or Gum Mastic to be, but I have no idea if that is what this is, as I've never been properly introduced.

Wet application, the Oregano-like odor becomes almost citrusy. Like a really deep, bitter rind of a grapefruit. The overwhelming scent is still the mystery medicinal note.

As it dries, there is almost a sweet "aftertaste" to it. I really actually like this stage, though it is short-lived. It kind of smells like Auyervedic therapy oils at this stage, slightly medicinal, tarry, tangy, undescribable.

Further on in the drying process, it smells almost pine-like, but mainly just retains that wierd medicinal smell. I wish I could have someone else's nose in on this because honestly, I just really want to know what this note is. It's driving me insane.

Overall, it's not bad. It's definitely different!

another vote for sybaris. just WOW. i get mostly violet with just a touch of powdery, faint incense. it's quite lovely.

I remember my first impression of Intrigue being thick Hershey's syrup... =)