meeow712

Jezebel is also a lovely rose, and most rose does not work on me at all.

Oh this make me so happy!! I've got a bottle of Candy Phoenix coming...hopefully soon. I looooove currants.

I think my all time top favorite currant is in All Souls - whoa . But I also really enjoy Bordello.

This was the first claw polish that I tried, and I'm addicted (what's new?).

I love the shimmery plum color of this, with an occasional silvery shine that just makes it more fun. I painted my toes 3 1/2 weeks ago and just now is when I see that it needs removing.

I definitely have to give other polishes a shot.

In the Imp: A very light incensey type blend? I couldn't pick out any specific notes.

On me: A very dirty vanilla, as if vanilla were in a mud fight and just got down and dirty with it. It is very dry, and there's a resin in this that I can't place, but that might be the sandalwood. It's not the usual sandalwood note, however. Now that I look at the notes, I am also detecting the dry leather.

This is a very strange scent, not an every day scent, but it is very different from anything else that I've smelled - in a very good way.

I'm usually a sucker for incense, but this just didn't go incensey on me like I was hoping.

I smell like old crumbling parchment that has been locked up in a dusty library with some very stale incense traces. It's not awful, but not something I enjoy smelling like either. I usually love red musk, where is it hiding?

In the imp: dark, broody, incensey.

On me: Midnight on the Midway's more sinister cousin. The incense is sweet with the plum, but it gets all dirtied up by the opium tar and wormwood. This is a dark burgundy feeling scent. It has a pretty strong throw and very good staying power.

It's what I wanted Blood Phoenix to be, and has a similar feel to Midnight Kiss. This is definitely a must have!!

I have died and gone to heaven.

In the imp: Fruity sweet musk! A dark scent, just like I like them.

On me: (I picked it this morning without checking out the notes - after sniffing and HAVING to look them up I now know that she was made for me). These notes blend so beautifully on me. Lotus root is the base, giving the blend a delicious lotus sweetness that is absolutely heavenly. The orchid, black currant, and bergamot blend into a delicious sweet fruity gorgeousness and the red musk brings everything together to make it drop dead lusty. Wow.

They don't share notes, but she kind of reminds me of Temple Viper (another favorite).

I am going to have to hoarde this one!!!

At first sniff, I thought "whoa floral" and thought it would be a no go. But I sprayed anyway, and WOW!

The plum really blooms and becomes the prominent note, sweetened up by the sugar cane, and springified (yes I made up a word) by the florals. The main floral note I get is jasmine, and some orange blossom as well. I'm not a rose lover, so I am happy to report that this isn't a rosey blend at all.

This is a gorgeous room spray, and it definitely reminds me of the beauty of spring. And it lasted almost 2 days, so it's got great staying power.

Now.....to try the bath oil.

The violet in Faith made me realize that I do love violets. And Hope made me love rose, which I usually run from.

Aside from those, I've got a few favorites in the sweet floral category (which I love too)

Daiyu

Purple Phoenix - this is the most purple scent I've ever smelled, sweet purple florals

Euphrosyne

The Flower Song

Black Lotus (lotus is always a sweet floral to me)

In the imp: Acai Berries!! Berries with a teeny bit of floral.

On me: Wet I got a whole lot of acai and not much else. On the drydown it gets musky and blends beautifully with the acai berry. I also get plum, but it's not listed as a note (it's probably the musk). I get a bit of teak leaf to ground the scent beautifully, but only a smidge of indestinct florals.

An example of skin chemistry gone very wonky....

In the decant: a delicious sweet almond (mostly almond) with a tiny bit of sarsparilla peeking out.

On me: This was absolutely amazing for about 15 minutes - a sweet almond blend with a kick. And then.....it turned to soured milk that had been expired for a few weeks. This was much worse than Milk Moon 07. The worst part is, I was already in my car on my way to work when it turned into soured milk....and I had to open the windows and keep the nausea in check.

I'm drawing a blank on Gamaliel (tried it once in a long-ago decant circle but don't remember much about it) - but I have Nahemoth and like it a lot. I find it has a lot in common with Hellion, but that can be very hard to find too. Have you tried Blood Countess? It's got a lot of smoky plum that reminds me of Nahemoth a bit.

Nahemoth reminded me of Hellion too (like ivyandpeony said), but also Red Phoenix. It's not a GC, but I think Red Phoenix is easier to find than Hellion.

Thank you!! I'll be adding Hellion and Red Phoenix to my wishlist and hope I get lucky. I do have an imp of Blood Countess, hadn't thought of that but I'll go home and give it a shot.

Have you lovely smelling ladies come across any GC scents that smell like Nahemoth (a Sephiroth)? I absolutely adore this scent, and have a wee little imp and can't seem to find any more of her. But I'd be willing to try her twin or close relative. Please.

Tristan is a very sexy masculine scent. The redwood and sandalwood are sweetened up a bit by the tonka, with the lemon peel lightening up the scent so it isn't too woodsy. The coriander is in the background, rounding out the scent with a bit of herbal goodness that blends in perfectly with the woods and lemon peel.

I love this on me, but I need to sneak it onto the boy somehow because I think it would smell dead sexy on a guy.

Upon first sniff I didn't think it would work. I got a lot of leather, which has a 50/50 chance of going wrong on my skin, and vetiver, whichusually goes wrong on me if it's GC but not with CD blends.

Wet: The wrong kind of leather and some rotted spinach smelling vetiver underneath. I didn't even wait for the drydown and tossed it into the swaps pile.

And then, 10 minutes later, this scent morphed into one of the most amazing scents I have ever tried. Talk about a morpher!!! It reminds me of Temple Viper, another favorite.

The leather blends beautifully with the resins and champaca to create an slightly leathery sweet incense scent that is absolutely amazing!! Must hoard.

Temple Viper is my absolute favorite snake, and I will be hoarding several bottles of this.

In the bottle: It definitely has a strong Snake Oil presence, but with a sweet incensey quality. I get mainly frankincense, champaca, and sweet sugar cane. The labdanum and hyssop are there in the background.

On me: A bottom layer of Snake Oil with sweet incense blooming on top. Still a very strong frankincense, champaca, and sugar cane presence....but now the other notes come out to play with them. Opoponax and labdanum blend in with the frankincense to make it even more incensey delicious, and sweetens it up a little more. The hyssop gives the blend a touch of herbal goodness, but not overwhelming.

Love!

I really wanted to love this.

In the imp: I got a little currant and undetectable florals, no mint at all, but it was very very faint.

On me: I'm wearing perfume? Really? Where is it? Even with my nose up to my wrist I could barely smell anything. I couldn't smell enough of the perfume to pick out any notes, so this one is definitely not for me. I've never had any BPAL go into stealth mode like this, what a shame.

In the bottle: sweet orchid!! Yummy!

On me: Orchid darkened by frankincese and sweetened by something (hysspo maybe?). The pomegranate keeps this from being overly floral and really accentuates the beauty of the orchid. The frankincense makes it a little bit incensey, which I love! No iris in "sniff" thankfully, as it doesn't usually work for me. The patchouli is hiding somewhere, I think it's keeping the blend from being omg floral, which is great.

This reminds me of a sweeter and less perfumey version of Tom Ford's Black Orchid, which makes me a happy girl because I loooove it!

This is definitely a favorite!!

I am on the hunt for the perfect ylang ylang blend. I looooove this flower! But when she is in perfume, I don't like it to be super floral, so I'm looking for not-so-floral ylang.

A few of my favorites have ylang without being floral:

Skuld

Et Lux Fuit

Loralei

Any other suggestions on a not-super-floral ylang?

Tiki Queen went awfully wrong on me, and I'd had such high hopes for her!

To my nose, Harikata smelled a whole lot like L'eau d'Issey.

Hi Lovely BPALers,I'm still looking for something resembling Issey Miyake's L'eau d'Issey. Urania and Black Hellebore have been mentioned upthread, and I'll try those, but they were mentioned many months ago, and I wondered if anyone had any new ideas. The thing about L'eau d'Issey I loved so much was that the initial blast of rather sharp aquatic blooms settled down into a sweet, light musk with just tinges of floral and aquatics. I'd love to find something like that in BPAL, but so far all the aquatics I've tried are too sharp, and the florals are too over the top floral. I guess I'm looking for a skin scent with muted aquatics and florals. Any ideas?TIA!

In the bottle I got a lot of yland ylang, red hibiscus, and some sweetness from the coconut. I had been hoping for more coconut and some vanilla in there, but it still smelled like a very good coconut-y floral.

On me: Bubbelicious tropical bubblegum. I guess it's not bad, and I'm sure if I was 13 I would love to smell like that, but no. Unfortunately we didn't get along.

I've discovered that on me, Fae smells A LOT like Ebisu Making Love as Two Octopuses Look on. Yay! I liked too many salons and didn't end up buying all of them, one of them being Ebisu. Now I can haz Ebisu-like Fae from GC.

In bottle: A delicious green Spring scent. I got a lot of mint from it, but it blended very well with the herbs and greenery. I sniffed no flowers in this one.

Wet: For a teeny tiny second, it smelled just like it did in the bottle and I was in heaven.

Dry: Oh my. The mint lost its sweetness, and almost turned to a soured mint? And I now smell like some sort of cleaning product. This is NOT good on me at all, my skin chemistry totally went wonky. And I'm sneezing my head off, so something in this is giving me allergies (which is strange because no BPAL has ever made me sneezey).

In the bottle: sweet cherry and plum blossoms with a touch of wisteria.

On me: it deepens and turns into a sweet, rich cherry and plum blossom and the hint of wisteria to keep it from getting sickeningly sweet. It smells absolutely amazing, and I didn't get soap/shampoo/commercial perfume from this at all.

I really wish I had gotten more than one bottle, because I am in love.

I am not seriuosly craving baklava! And have had to add a few things to my wishlist.