orata

...and off bpalscentsual's bottle went, to me, and I am so pleased with it! I wasn't impressed at first but the second time I tested it, I fell in love. It reminds me strongly of The Harp of Cnoc I'Chosgair in feel, even if they don't share any notes but vanilla--a creamy, golden vanilla-musky skin scent with just a touch of florals and greenness. The notes are well blended for me, although osmanthus is slightly more prominent in the mix. So good! I just love it.

Thalia! Plumeria, pear and white champagne. Sounds like exactly what you're looking for

This smells very, very similar to The Dormouse to me, which tells me it must be mainly the peony note they share hitting my nose. Minus the strong fresh, grassy green tea note of The Dormouse, but it does have a slightly green/astringent tea-like undertone to it for some reason. I thought it would be more vanilla-ish. I actually don't smell vanilla in this, and it's not a creamy scent to me. It comes across as a fresh, clean, flowery green scent, and I'd probably be in love if I didn't already have The Dormouse and didn't keep thinking "where is the green tea?" I just got the decant today, so I'll see if future tests or a longer wear time change my mind, but for now it's a "use up my decant but don't need more" type of scent.

I was trying some Khrysee I got in a swap and it reminded me very strongly of a less-peachy Tamora!

I love The Night Hag Visiting the Lapland Witches and am so glad that I ordered a bottle while it was live. I have never been interested in pine scents before, but the sandalwood and smoke are wonderful, and I think it I've discovered a new love in the terebinth pine note. Can anyone recommend something similar? I've tried Black Forest, but it is lacking the smokiness that I love with Night Hag, and I can't think what to layer it with to bring out the smokiness of Night Hag. I'm also hesitant to randomly try other pine scents for fear of them smelling like bathroom cleaner.

YMMV, but I made a note in my spreadsheet about the drydown of Odin being somewhat similar to Night Hag--dry smoky wood. It starts with lots of vetiver though.

So, I'm trying to turn my mum on to BPAL, since it would make it so much easier on her wallet than buying her favorite name brand perfumes. Plus, it'll save her the three-hour drive to get anywhere with a mall that sells it. She wears Estée Lauder's Estée, exclusively, and I'm wondering if anyone has found anything similar?

 

According to their website, Estée has: Top Notes: jasmine, rose, muguet. Middle Notes: coriander, ylang-ylang, orris. Base Notes: sandalwood and moss. It's called a "lush floral," but I mostly notice the sandalwood, jasmine, and what I'm pretty sure is the ylang-ylang when she wears it. It's a bit incense-y on her, with a sweet trace of floral just over it. If anyone can recommend something they've found with such notes, it'd be much appreciated.

 

Also (slightly off-topic), any recommendations for a vanilla-heavy scent that might work as something to be added to a body lotion for her would also be appreciated. She doesn't wear any vanilla-y perfumes, but she does frequently buy BBW's Warm Vanilla Sugar lotion, and generally loves the scent of vanilla both for her own uses and on my stepdad.

 

ETA: I'm thinking of trying an imp each of Namaste, Venice, and possibly one other to start...those have some of the notes, but I'm not sure how the rest of the notes in them will change things. A third option would be much appreciated.

 

Ave Maria Gratia Plena might be worth a try. It has jasmine, orris, and sandalwood.

Maybe Defututa, Salome, or Vasilissa? They all have jasmine and sandalwood notes.

 

Re vanilla--I just bought a bottle of Castitas from Black Phoenix Trading Post and it is a lovely sweet vanilla blend! I'm going to try using it as a moisturizer by itself. Other vanilla-heavy GC scents that frequently get recommended: Snake Oil, Detestable Putrescence (pure vanilla AFAIK), Mouse's Long and Sad Tale, Eat Me, Tombstone, Lyonesse, Sachs, Liz

There is a Chinese loquat honey cough syrup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nin_Jiom_Pei_Pa_Koa) that smells EXACTLY like Blood Kiss in the wet stage. I love that medicine, so that's not bad. Vetiver started to come out as it dried and I was kind of unsure about how I felt about Blood Kiss, but once it was completely dry, I liked it again. Lots of cherries and wine and a bit of darkness from the vetiver, opium, clove, and musk that keeps it from smelling too Robitussin-y. It reminds me a lot of Madame Moriarty once it's dry--that dark strong fruitiness with vanilla--but minus the patchouli.

The only one I can think of is the Neil Gaiman scent Lemon-Scented Sticky Bat, but I'm sure someone else will be along with more suggestions!

I got both this and Mango Lychee Champagne. I liked this one better right off the bat, as I found it more instantly appealing, mellow, and wearable, but after wearing both for a while, I did like how much the fizziness lasted in MLC.

 

Anyway. This is delicious! A mixture of soda-pop effervescence and fresh fruits (red wine/grape, apple? Maybe orange?) I am wary of booze notes because I'm not a huge fan of smelling like alcohol, but this is nice and doesn't leave me smelling like I've doused myself in the demon drink. As it wears on, the fizziness fades and it becomes more of a fruit punch scent with just a touch of fizz. Whatever the fruit notes are, this smells fairly mellow, sweet, and natural, not fermented, fake, or cloying.

So good! This scent has a ton of champagne fizziness, but it doesn't smell boozy so much as soda-pop-sparkly to me. I wasn't a fan of Bon Vivant, and I was afraid this could easily go the same direction of oversweet fake fruit and booze, but thankfully it stayed nice all the way through. It's a real mood lifter. The fruit notes smell primarily like the slightly sharp and sour green mango from Tweedledum to me, without the patchouli dirtiness of that scent. Not the most realistic scent, and it doesn't smell like ripe lush mangoes to me, but it also doesn't scream "plastic" or "air freshener" like I find some fruit scents can. I do smell the slightly floral and appley sweetness of lychee, too. I'm surprised the other reviewers find it smells more like lychee--to my nose it's very much a green mango scent. Not much of a morpher; it stays similar in the wet and dry stages, bright, fizzy, fruity, and happy. I got Sangria Champagne as well and I like that one slightly better overall, but the fizzy quality definitely persists longer in this scent.

This is lovely, though it doesn't smell like cologne to me. Instead, it smells like soda pop. Very clean and effervescent. Almost like ginger ale or 7-Up to me--the generic airplane soda type of ginger ale that's not really strongly gingery, more fizzy, sweet, and vaguely citrussy. I could see this having juniper in it, and maybe white musk, but the main impression is that light, barely sweet, very pale and clean effervescence I associate with soda scents.

I wore Halloween: Las Vegas last night, with an extra dab of Snake Oil, and it felt perfect. Wine, smoke, cake.

My faves are Deadly Nightshade Honey, Lights of Men's Lives, and Against Idleness and Mischief--have you tried any of those? I found them less sweet than O.

I have bottles of Pink Snowballs (sweet soft rose), A Wonderful Light (warm orange beeswax), and Beautiful and Adored (musky, girly fruity floral) so far and I really love them all. Haven't gotten my decants yet, so this list may grow

I didn't like the dragon's blood in The Zoom, but it had a nice fresh lime note.

I find Crowley similar to Mme Moriarty, without so much of the red fruit aspects--you could try layering it with something fruity.

This is a gorgeous scent. Very sweet, which I knew it would be, but also much fruitier than I had expected, which I suppose must be the pink musk--smells like an abstraction of strawberries and caramel. It dries down creamy and sugary-sweet, with grounding notes that I think are the sandalwood (but a nice, smooth, non-dry sandalwood), amber, and perhaps the jasmine, but no overt florals really ever come forward for me.

A natural, gentle, slightly vanillic beeswax scent drying down to a soft smoky note. Lovely, soothing, comforting. The throw isn't too strong on me. It was one of those happy scents where I put it on, forgot what I had applied, and then an hour later was like "what is that gorgeous smell?"--in this case, a sort of vanilla-tinged smoke. I was scared this would be either too sweet or aggressively smoky (still have bad memories of the insane smoke in a Milk Chocolate, Bacon, and Cassia sniffie I was frimped). I love it!

Lemon Pledge, roses, and jasmine, with some sandalwood in the mix as well. I wanted to love this for sentimental reasons since I used to live in Venice (my main scent memories from that time are of the horrible sulfurous smells coming out of the canals, though) but it was kind of a kick in the face from brash, soapy florals with a cameo appearance of furniture polish. I'm not sure I can see how it dries down--may need to wash it off as I'm getting a headache.

First off, this throws out a huge warm glow of amber, rounded, creamy, and lovely. There is a slightly pomandery orange zest scent (with a hint of fragrant, bitter oils--like bicyclette said, it's definitely orange zest and not orange juice). I get the same sort of smokey honey-vanilla combo as in Defututa, too, with a nearly plasticky note to it that I also associate with tonka bean. There's a little sparkle that I think may be from the linden, but it's not coming out as a prominent note--it's mainly amber and orange zest to me.

 

It dries down to a very comforting, warm scent, with lots of vanilla and beeswaxy honey (in fact, it smells much more like beeswax than like honey to me), with a slightly bitter, almost medicinal note to it underneath if I put my nose right up to my wrist. It reminded me a little of O as well, but it's not nearly as powdery and sweet. I'm also a little bothered by the bitter undertone, but it's mainly detectable from close up. From further away, it's more just a warm, lovely beeswax, amber, and vanilla.

Ooh! First time being first! The bottle is fresh out of my cold mailbox, so I'll come back and edit if I find this any different after it's had some time to settle from transit and warm up.

Beautiful and Adored is a very traditionally feminine scent. It's very floral--bright and well-blended with TONS of gardenia and musk hitting me at first sniff (I'm not good at IDing musks other than red musk, but I would say the rose musk smells to me like white musk plus tea rose). It seems gentle in nature, but it's not as delicate as I would have thought; the musk was quite assertive and sharp on me, so much that I almost felt my nose hairs crinkling when I inhaled! The pear is a pretty strong note as well, and is lovely, but fades a bit as the scent dries. I do get some honey and vanilla as well, but I can't pick out the redcurrant at all (it may be blending with the pear to produce a general fruity note). It settles a bit and is a beautiful light scent when it dries down completely, but it's definitely not for everyone, as it's a very, very girly, "conventional perfumey" lightly fruity floral.

Edited to add: it's far into the drydown now, the florals have died down and the redcurrant has come out to play at last. I keep getting the most amazingly beautiful whiffs of perfume wafting from my wrist when I move, lots of creamy vanilla touched with light musk, pear, and redcurrant. Gorgeous.

Robotic Scarab maybe?

Twenty-One, of course

So much lavender. SO MUCH. TOO MUCH. It is backed with some cloyingly sweet cheesecake and maybe a tiny whiff of honey, but the overall effect is a sharp, bitter, almost medicinal cloud of lavender with a powerful throw, rather than the creamy cheesecake goodness hinting at lavender that I was hoping for. (I don't smell crust or anything, just LAVENDER and a little cake.) I guess I don't like lavender as much as I thought I did! I think I have the cheesecake version rather than the incense version that people have been discussing, but I still don't like it.

I found this very pleasant when wet, sort of a thin, watery, citrussy bergamot lemonade type of scent. Not a sharp or powerful citrus at all, definitely thin, pale, and rather weak, like a teabag of Earl Grey on its second steeping. However, in the drydown, the bergamot faded back a bit, and along with the white musk and vanilla (mmm!) some kind of gross, sickly-smelling resin made an appearance and made me feel sort of nauseous. Not sure what the culprit was--maybe the labdanum or styrax? Or it could be a stray bitter undercurrent from the caraway or wormwood? Like drinking a really big glass of watered-down lemonade with just a little bit of dirty dishwater still in it; almost nice, but something was just off. The scent feels rounded, soft in texture, and a little cool. I really wanted to like this, and the Will Call reviews comparing it to Liz made me think I'd love it, but it didn't work out for me. Perhaps I'll try it again in a while if a decant makes its way into my hands again, in case aging mellows out that killer component, but at the moment it just doesn't work for me.