SadariEvenstar

This is wonderful. I'm picky about my lavender (TKO actually made me cringe when I smelled it in the bottle) and up to this point I really hadn't found *my* bpal lavender.

This is lavender grounded by a deep spicy sweet base. It settles in like a second skin on me. I want to cuddle myself. It's very gender neutral. I keep thinking, "masculine, no feminine, no...."

The throw is not huge, but the lasting power is excellent. It's been 8 hours and it's only now starting to fade.

Take Humpback Whale (which I love), tone down the mint, add flowers and a bit of soap and this is what you get. It is refreshing and light, but not for me.

15 minutes later. No, yuck. This smells like stale vomit with a side of toothpaste.

No. blergh. Stinky flowers over aquatics. I definitely thought jasmine when I put this on.

I haven't tried it, you could try Tobacco Honey.

Wet: A delicious cake note and a very high pitch citrus floral note having a death match. It's aggravating my allergies something fierce.

Fully dry; Both notes died. wtf, This is an entirely different perfume. I smell nothing of the intial notes after about 40 minutes. This is now a very perfumey perfume. Musky and rather pretty. I like it much better at this stage, though I miss that cake note.

Further testing is going to be needed to see if I can wear this one.

Interesting! This is a very light perfume, but lingering. It's been about an hour and a half since I put it one and it's still there, but very quiet.

It reminds me of walking into my local garden shop in the winter. We always go there for a Christmas tree and while I wouldn't say it's christmasy but it does remind me very much of that shop. The strawberry is more of a tart (I don't know if tart is exactly the word I want, but it is a slightly green strawberry) strawberry that lingers around the edges of the scent especially as it dries. It sweetens a when it is completely dry, but it's never super sweet. There is a dusty quality about this, kind of like garden soil that has crumbled off of flower pots and dried out. It's got a lovely green herbal feeling to it and the peppermint is there, but it doesn't really smell like peppermint, it just smells cool.

So yes, just like the garden shop in the winter. Shelves that held plants in the summer are now empty and covered in a fine layer of dried soil. Other shelves are full of an assortment of dried herbs and strawberry candles. The cold from the outside comes creeping in every time the door is opened.

I like it! It's not really like anything else I own, but it's going to be a nice gentle perfume to wear in the summer.

eta:Several hours after I put it on it is a soft herbal strawberry, all other notes have faded away. It's very pretty, but very light.

2013 version

I initially passed this over because of the jasmine, but I got to test it at will call and was blown away. This is sexy, sexy honey and ginger. No flowers to be found in mine. It actually reminds me Mother's Shub's Gingerbread Temples, but with fewer floral notes, as funny as that is.

This smells really bizarre on my skin. Soap, a hint of rose, and a really awful scent I can't put my finger on. No spices.

Something in here is making my wrist itch, which has never happened to me before. Weird and definitely not for me.

I picked this decant up on a whim. I really didn't expect it to work. In fact, I'm allergic to lilacs though lilac fougere is sometimes okay. This must be one of those times because I actually really like this.

I actually don't get lilac from this at all. The tea comes to the forefront for me and it's a pretty true to life tea note (tea can go horribly wrong on my skin and this is very nice). There is a lovely sweetness behind it that must come from the red licorice. This is an unexpected hit, and I see a bottle in my future. This will be wonderful in the summer.

eta: I love this, but it has no staying power at all. I reapplied 3 times yesterday and I usually don't have to reapply anything.

Roses and strawberries, a touch on the soapy side. Sadly the orris butter is giving it a bit of a nauseating undercurrent.

Wet, This smells like a simpler version of Glittering Apple of the Stars.

Dry, This smells exactly like this green apple scented shampoo I used to use when I was a kid. Exactly. I'm about seven years old sniffing this. I used to bathe before I went to sleep so my hair was always wet when I laid down and my pillow always smelled like this. I'll be keeping the decant just for the nostalgia.

Wet: Grass! Grass, grass, grass. This is just like grass in the early morning the day after it was mown. It's a thick carpet of grass clippings, wet from the dew. The kind of grass that stains your shoes and the bottom of your pants just from walking through it.

Dry: Used dryer sheets (not as strong as unused ones), still warm from the dryer.

Right off the bat I get a softer version of the honey musk in Lady Una. It's sunny and warm without being cloying. I don't really get a lot of gardenia and rice milk as separate notes, but I think they must being adding to the creamy sunshine feel of the honey musk. This is really beautiful, almost perfect, but... I don't think orris and I can be friends.

True to the description this is a very gentle orris, so much so that I didn't notice it for the first 10 minutes or so. Then I caught it lingering in the background, smelling persistently of wallpaper paste. I don't even know why orris smells like wallpaper paste to me, but the scent is so familiar. Every room in my parent's house is wallpapered and they rewallpapered them all at least once when I was growing up. The smell is kind of stomach turning to me, but at least I know what ruined Unveil the Grace in Thine Eyes now.

I'm going to give this one another try or two because I would really, really love it if I could get past the orris.

This is so fluffy and pink! On my skin it is mostly soft fuzzy rose petals and marshmallow. It is not an overpowering, soapy rose at all. The strawberry is there in the background tying it together, but I wouldn't call this a strawberry scent. I feel like this scent should be an ice cream flavor that I would buy gallons of.

eta: After about 15 minutes on this does develop a bit of a plastic smell to it. Like a scented doll I had as a child. I'll likely keep the decant, but I don't foresee this becoming a bottle purchase.

eta 2: Surprisingly, I did buy a bottle of this. It's a little plasticy but I just keep wearing it anyway. It's like a hotline to the happier times in my childhood. I know I had a toy that smelled like this, I just can't remember what it was.

This is lovely.

Wet, it has a strong blast of mint with the aquatics underneath scrambling to gain purchase. I'm not the best at differentiating notes in bpal aquatics, they tend to smell very similar to me. I like them, but there has to be a twist to get my interest. The mint is the twist.

Dry, the mint and the aquatics balance out. This is the cold ocean. Bpal aquatics always seem to make me think of warm, sunny water. This is cold and deep and quiet. This is going to be a wonderful scent to wear in hot weather.

Oak Moon and The Antikythera Mechanism had a beautiful, beautiful baby called Arana. AM is amazing on my husband, but goes sickly sweet syrup on my skin. This does not, this is everything I hoped AM would be on my skin. This is vanilla and oak in perfect balance. It's a little cologney, especially at first, but in a good way and it does tone way down on the drydown. I'm thinking I'm going to need more of this one.

When I put this one on I loved it, but as it dried it rapidly lost its complexity. After an hour it was basically a strong dirty patch, so strong that it's bothering my allergies which is something that patch has never done to me before. This has mega staying power, when I woke up the next morning I still smelled strongly of it. Bleh, not a fan, sadly.

Wet, I get roses and something citrusy. It's interesting. Dry, I get soap. Soap, soap, soapy soap.

http://www.bpal.org/topic/13519-how-do-you-layer-your-bpal/

This thread is probably what you want.

In the bottle: Om nom, nom, nom, nom

Wet: Om nom, nom, nom, nom

Dry: Om nom, nom, nom, nom

On my kitchen floor: Om nom, nom, nom, nom - combined with the salty brine of a thousand tears.

Anything with lilac. Hello asthma attack.

So, I've been trying to decide how I feel about this. It should have been glorious, every note is great on me. And it is great - except for the part where I keep getting wiffs of wet paper and wallpaper paste. I want the beautiful, fuzzy scent without the 'house remodeling' base.

I don't really get 'green' out of this. The clove is at the forefront giving a beautiful sweet spiciness to the maple leaves. This smells like autumn to me. It might be because I come from a part of the US where maple trees are dominant. I always love bpal's dry leaf blends, but they always seem to be missing the warm sweetness that dry maple leaves give off. This is September in a bottle for me. The leaves are just starting to turn and the sun is still warm in the afternoons, and the air is full with the light, sweet scent of maple leaves.

Cinnamon. My skin must be reading the cayenne as cinnamon because that is mostly what I smell. Straight up craft store cinnamon with some honeyed fruit underneath.

I am disappoint.

eta further dry down: The cinnamon scent does settle down and it ends up smelling kind of like The Vine with cinnamon. 3 or so hours after application it mostly smells like pure honey.

I'm really enjoying this one. Wet, it goes on as a sweet pine scent, kind of like Black Forest. As it dries on the skin it blooms and become infinitely more complex. This is very well blended with the green tea tying all the other notes together. Woody, spicy, a little bit sweet. The image it bring to mind is of sitting by the window in a cottage in the woods, a cup of steaming tea, a drizzle of rain through the branches. Quiet, peaceful, contentment.