badseed1980

Oh, this was a TOTAL WIN. A friend was selling some of her BPALs, and I called dibs on this one. I love orange blossom (fell in love with Vixen last summer), and have no issues with sandalwood in general. I didn't have much experience with champaca, though I know it's often a component of nag champa incense, about which I have mixed feelings. The sweet incense note of the champaca is sharpened a bit by the bright orange blossom, and given some backbone by the sandalwood. Is it a little bit hippie-ish? Maybe? But overall, the blend is elegant and delightful--a perfect warm weather perfume.

Hadn't worn this one in a long time.The initial scent for me when I sniff the imp is very much that cherry-like almond scent. On me, as it dries, it turns oddly...peachy? I almost thought I'd accidentally picked up my imp of Tamora! It's weird, I don't get any of the cardamom or myrrh. Saffron is a distant whisper. It's just really very fruity. Pleasant, but perplexing!

This past summer, I was looking for some warm-weather scents, and in the middle of my browsing, I saw Horses listed. It didn't sound like a warm-weather scent, but I knew from the description that I needed to check it out. I've sometimes been disappointed when I've bought scents based on the imagery evoked in the description/inspiration on the website. Sometimes I lean too heavily on that, and don't look closely enough at the notes to think about whether they'd actually create a scent that could work for me. In this case, though, I looked at the notes too. Amber is my absolute go-to. Beeswax? I love it, and love honey notes in the scents where I have them. Fire? Hmm. Could be anything. Could be interesting. I did something unusual for me, committing to a whole bottle of something I'd never smelled because imps weren't available. I'm glad I did. This perfectly matches the description and the scent works so well for me. On me, this scent is hot and dry, lightly sweet and slightly sharp--like woodsmoke even though it doesn't smell like woodsmoke. To me, it's a bonfire on one of those winter nights that's cold and crystalline and dry, breathing in wisps of smoke and feeling the flames warm your skin.

I got an imp of this as part of an order that was a quest to find some good summer scents. In the imp: huh, it's a perfume. I don't get a lot of differentiation of notes in here. Nice enough. There's some musky, floral stuff going on, that's about all I can tell. On me: Oh. Wow. Those flowers are leaping out now. I'm getting what I know to be ylang ylang, which I love in general, but there's something about it--an almost fruity creaminess I'm not used to from pure ylang ylang that almost makes me think of gardenia. And there's a skin musk in there that makes me think a bit of Sed Non Satiata. I feel like I put it into the same category with that scent. It's warm, sexy, but not seductive-sexy. To me, it's cuddling naked after sex with a long-time partner on a warm afternoon with the windows open to let in the smell of flowers. I could see this being My Summer Scent. I adore it. I want a bottle.

When I first put this on, it was mostly sandalwood with some lemongrass. After about 15 minutes or so, the rose has started to come out, making the whole thing a little more rounded. All I can think of is, "I smell like a hippie." Not a head shop hippie, but a Whole Foods hippie. A yoga class hippie. I have in my mind this little spa with hot tubs and massage therapy in Northampton, MA where my husband and I have gone on dates. I smell like I belong there. This is very much NOT a scent for me to wear in general, but I think it would make a marvelous scent to add to a massage oil or a bath when I just want to relax and pretend that I AM, in fact, at that little spa and that I have time for things like going on dates on the other side of the state.

I tried an old imp of this (from the amber imp pack) today, as I'm working my way through old stuff I never wear to see how I like it. The description sounded just lovely, but I was really disappointed. Wet, I got mostly sandalwood. It was a rather sharp sandalwood, but the edges of it softened pretty quickly with the amber, and I got a bit of the rose. Oh, nice! Not my favorite, but not bad at all. But then, gradually, the rose got more and more obnoxiously present until it really overwhelmed the sandalwood and amber. While I've been known to wear a little rose, it's usually a sweeter and more powdery rose (think a culinary rosewater scent). This was a much more perfume-y rose that just did not work on me. It's a scent for rose-lovers, not one for amber-lovers--at least, as it behaves on my skin. Boo.

So this is my review of this scent from six years ago. I don't think I ever touched the imp again after that, until today. Today, I have tried it again. The peach is still the most obvious, in-your-face note up front, but I'm getting a bit more of the amber and sandalwood, with a whisper of the heliotrope. It no longer seems to have the same longevity that it did six years ago, as after only 30 minutes or so, it's faded significantly. I'm finding it very pleasant, though, and may consider wearing it more often this summer. It no longer strikes me as cloying, and it seems better balanced.

When someone compared this to Habanita, I was excited. That's my favorite non-BPAL perfume. Like most people, I'm finding that in the imp, the leather is really prominent. It also seems that my skin amps leather, as I'm not getting a lot of other distinct notes as I wear it. I do like it, but I'm not getting the orange blossom or other florals or the amber, really. There's enough other scent to take the edge off the leather, and make more pleasant than a pure-leather note, but nothing that adds a lot of character of its own. There isn't a lot of throw on me. It's OK, but not one I'm going to want in a full bottle. EDIT: OK, I just realized I reviewed this...FOURTEEN YEARS AGO. OMG. I have had the imp that long? I just...wow. Or maybe I got another imp at some point? Anyway, yeah, my opinion hasn't changed!

I have had an imp of this for several years, but never really used it. I just gave it a try at the recommendation of some lovely folks here on the forum. I'm so sad, though--it's not doing anything for me. I'm actually thinking of washing it off. I tend to love BPAL amber scents, and two that this one has been compared to--O and Haunted--are scents that really work well for me. But somehow, this one is just striking me as very heavy and unpleasant. I can detect some good notes in there, but they're all wrapped up in stuff that is not very nice. It's weird because I'm someone whose favorite non-BPAL perfume is Habanita by Molinard, which is an extremely old-fashioned scent, and I really don't mind a bit of sharpness in some perfumes. On me, though, Brisingamen is unpleasantly sharp, sour, and old-fashioned. It reminds me of some old perfume bottles my grandmother had--ones she bought for the vintage bottles rather than for the perfume, which she never wore. I can get a BIT of the spicy dusty sweetness that other people mention, but it's only a trace, and so fleeting while the rest of the scent lingers. It's possible this might eventually fade into something wearable on me, though. Now, interestingly, I was going to get up and wash it off when I was done writing this review, but it's almost like it heard my thought, and it may in fact just be starting to transform into something a bit more mellow and wearable. OK, Brisingamen, I'll give you a little while longer and maybe sniff some coffee beans before I sniff my wrist again. EDIT: Nope, sorry. it's not happening. The offensive smell toned down after a while, but never turned into something I really liked. I ended up washing it off and replacing it with Haunted, which is SO MUCH nicer on my skin.

I haven't placed a BPAL order in YEARS, but I'm finding that I am starting to wear perfume more again now that I'm working from home. Pretty much all my favorite scents are things I feel are more cool-weather scents, or just plain heavy-sexy. I do a LOT of amber and musk. I need to find something that is summery, but MY summer, not everyone else's summer. Stuff I currently love: Bien Loin d'Ici Sed Non Satiata Palmyra O (but it can be a little sweet) Snake Oil The Lion (but it can be a little cinnamon-heavy) non-BPAL: Habanita by Molinard, and a solid perfume from Hawaii that smells like tiare flower. I vaguely recall a very bitter-green-warm solid perfume I had in college that was fig and neroli. It was not at all fruity fig, but a green fig. (Strangler fig is nice enough, but there's not much THERE there for me). In my cart now: Horses, Lyonesse, Morocco, La Petite Morte. I don't do great with really rose-heavy scents, fruity stuff, or wine scents. I love stuff that is WARM rather than cool. Sun-soaked. I love white ginger. Pele is nice but again, it kind of disappears into a generic wisp of shampoo or something on me. I can wear jasmine and ylang-ylang well, but they are often really heavy. I can wear gardenia-like scents. I'm having trouble thinking of other florals I like. Most resins and ambers and musks work nicely on me. My skin amps honey something fierce, and it can get really thick and heavy unless it has more heavy stuff backing it up. I would LOVE some help finding a summer scent!

Thanks everyone, so much, for your suggestions! I think the recommendation to look in the forums for imps to buy of the scents that aren't offered as imps is a great idea. I am always hesitant to commit to a full bottle of an untested scent (Horses is an exception, as it sounds like pure perfection in my mind, and I've also bought full bottles where money goes to nonprofits I support). I've tried a few of the ones suggested here (#93 Engine is one I really like). I actually have an imp of Brisengamen (got the amber imp pack a long time ago), and should probably give it a serious try. It's been a long time since I did anything but sniffed the bottle. Womb Fury sounds awesome. Inez is one I was considering ordering. You've all given me some stuff to think about, and I appreciate it!

Wow, I am getting NONE of the ginger or the heat in this one! From bottle to dry, over four hours, it's basically just a rather approachable floral. Nothing particularly sensual about it, nothing warm or spicy. The musk is really keeping its head down for me, just providing a slightly earthy backdrop to the florals. It's not at all unpleasant. It's enjoyable enough, but I'm not in love with it.

I wasn't sure which of the notes was going to be most prominent in this after reading reviews, but for the first hour or so, it was all sweet, sweet peach. It was a very sticky-sweet peach, sort of a wet peach, not quite as warm and golden as the smell of the actual fruit (which I happened to bring to work today as a snack, so it's easy to compare). It wasn't unpleasant to have a whiff of it, but wearing it, especially since it has a lot of throw, it began to cloy pretty quickly. Finally now, after an hour and a half, I'm starting to be able to get some of that amber and sandalwood, and the sweet fruit is fading. It's actually becoming reasonably enjoyable, but I am not going to buy a full-size bottle of it when it annoys me for the first hour or so that I wear it. It's not what I was hoping for. Too bad!

Oh dear. I put this one on, and had to wipe it off with alcohol. It doesn't smell BAD, exactly, but...it made me smell like a Yankee candle. I would have at least waited for the drydown to see if it got any better, but I'm going out to dinner tonight with my husband and friends, and I don't want to take the chance that I'll smell like a Yankee candle during dinner! I put on my Sed Non Satiata instead. (Incidentally, this time, I got some of the "peanut butter" notes, but I think they're fading.)

I got this as part of the Amber Imp Pack. From the time I put it on about 2.5 hours ago until now, I've noticed very little change in the scent. I'm surprised when I see people calling it "soft and gentle." On me, it is "HELLO, AMBER AND SPICE HERE. LOTS AND LOTS OF AMBER AND SPICE. DO YOU LIKE AMBER AND SPICE? BECAUSE WE HAVE LOTS." Actually, now that I sniff again, the spice--a very powerful cinnamon to my nose--has been outpaced by the amber. The amber here is very hot and sweet and potent. I think this scent could work very well for a confident, sensual person of any gender. I like it well enough, but I feel like it doesn't have the kind of nuance and subtlety I want in an everyday perfume.

I haven't been on this forum in probably YEARS. It's been so long since I placed a BPAL order...maybe eight years now. I finally decided to get a big bunch of imps to play with. This was one of them. My first whiff from the imp was powerfully smoky, in an incense-y way. I had been a little wary of the red patchouli (usually, when I smell patchouli, I just think "hippie"), but combined with the musk and myrrh, it formed this smoky, warm, dry scent that I adored. After a little while the honey became the most prominent note, and it started to remind me a bit of O, but more grown up and interesting. I have a bottle of O, but I think this is what I always wanted O to be. I am not getting the peanut butter notes some people are getting, or the orange notes. That might be a skin chemistry thing. Now, a couple hours later, I'm getting some of that smoke again. Gods, this is glorious. It reminds me of when I went to Vegas in the summer, and the way the desert air felt on my skin. I don't think of myself as a hot weather person (I'm from a more humid climate), but I just wanted to bathe in that hot golden breeze. The sexuality of this scent reminds me a bit of Vegas as well! I am almost certainly going to buy a bottle of this. I keep sniffing myself. I am a huge fan of the poetry of Baudelaire, and I love the fact that Beth has named so many scents after his poems. He talks so much about scent in his work, and mingles it with sights and sounds and desire. The perfumes do the same--especially this!

Ooh, this one might have to be a bottle purchase! I absolutely love Haunted! I got it as an imp. When I first opened it to sniff, it had a definite lemon note. But that first opening seems to have scared it away. The second time I opened it, it had a very perfumey smell to me, like an older-style perfume of the kind I tend to love, from the '20s and '30s. As soon as I put it on, I got, "Oh hi, I'm amber! Nice to meet you!" and it was gloriously sweet and spicy. Now, three hours later, the musk has come out. It's not a heavy musk, but it's not all light and powdery-sweet on me, either. There's a very slight and pleasant bitter edge to it. What a lovely blend! Amber and musk are usually good on me, and this is pretty much the quintessence of both. Gorgeous!

I had seen the descriptions of this scent before, but thought, "none of the men in my life would wear it, and I'm not sure I'd ever be attracted to the kind of guy who could pull it off well." I'll be the first to admit I was wrong. I just started dating a guy who wears Villain, and I'm surprised at how much I like it. It's more masculine than I expected, a little sinister, and suits him perfectly. You do not need to be the kind of guy who has an entire wardrobe of Edwardian clothing, calls himself Lord Something-Or-Other, or studies renaissance dance to wear this scent well. It's more versatile than that. I think that given the right body chemistry, any guy with self-confidence and charisma can manage it.

My boyfriend got an imp of this from his other girlfriend, who got it as a freebie. I took a sniff and got: patchouli vetiver? civet or musk of some unusual kind I have only tried it on myself thus far. The scent isn't necessarily pleasant--certainly nothing I could wear, myself!--but it IS powerful. Someone mentioned associating this with a "king stag" archetype. Yeah. That's it. This is not a scent for sexual play or flirtation. This is a scent for rutting season. I will see if I can get my man to wear this at Beltane. Then we'll see if I can keep my hands off him.

The more I use it, the more I love it. It sounds like this one reacts badly with some people's chemistry, but on me, it is sheer heaven. I get the sweetness of the honey, but instead of that and the caramel becoming cloying, there's this musky-floral note that makes it less thick, and more airy. It's one of the most wearable scents I have ever tried. I'd thought I'd found perfection in O, but this year, it's not pleasing me as much as last year: for some reason it seems a bit heavy. Bien Loin d'Ici has all the dead sexiness of O, but it's so wearable. This is more like a dream of sex than like actual sex. I only wish it lasted longer on me. I must get a full size bottle.

This is more floral and less sandalwood/musk/amber than I expected. The violet makes this a very rich, purple scent right out of the bottle. On me, as it dried, the sandalwood and musk came out more--the word "halo" was exactly right to describe how those scents acted. The amber was a bare whisper. This was lovely. Not something I'd wear every day, but very nice.

I put this one on this morning, first thing after getting dressed for work. I have my five year anniversary tonight with my boyfriend, so I want to smell GOOD for him tonight. What got me to say, "Damn, I NEED that one!" was the reviewer who (on the first page of reviews) said it reminded her of Bandit and Habanita. Now, as someone whose non-BPAL signature scent is Habanita, and who is eager to try Bandit, and who loves 1920s-1940s perfumes in general, that was a ringing endorsement for Les Infortunes. Wet and drying on me, the primary note is the leather, tempered a bit by the orange blossom. The oakmoss is just generally a grounding influence, barely there itself. But slowly, the leather seems to be disappearing on me, and I can barely smell the florals now! Oh, bummer! This one had so much promise right out of the bottle, but I can barely detect anything anymore except the gentlest whisper of flowers. This is pretty, but not noticeable enough on me. What a pity.

Balm of Gilead, benzoin, frankincense, balsam of peru, beeswax, saffron, galbanum, calamus, hyssop, mastic, lemon balm, and white sage. Tried this one on first thing this morning. This is a scent that makes me go "yay!" It is a mood-lifter for certain. Oddly, the first thing that entered my mind when I smelled it was, "This reminds me of being happy as a young teenager." It took me a little while to figure out why. When I was a teenager, I used to hang out at the mall, either alone to shop or with friends. Yes, just like most teens. There was a store I liked there that sold incense by the stick, among other things, and I would always, always get a bunch of incense there, in various scents. No. 93 Engine reminds me of the smell when I walked over to the incense display. This isn't the smell of the incenses burning, though. It's not a heavy, smoky smell, but the scent of the resins themselves, warm and mellow. The beeswax sweetens them all. I'm not yet smelling anything that I think of as metallic, though the lemon gives a sort of shiny note to it. There's something utterly bouyant and delightful about it. It's warm and spicy and somehow, takes me by surprise when I smell it. Oh, oh wait--there's the metal. It takes a little while to come out on me. It adds a certain feeling of motion, of change to the blend. This is truly glorious stuff. It makes me feel happy and creative and energized. What an amazing thing to experience, first thing in the morning! I think this is the first BPAL scent I've fallen head-over-heels in love with that doesn't really strike me as SEXY, but which still really smells like something I can wear, and often, at that. YAY!

Got this one as a frimp in my last order. In the bottle, it was all juicy red fruit. When I first applied it, it got something of the weird cherry cough drop note that Wanda has on me. Unlike Wanda, though, Lady Macbeth didn't hang onto that note very long. Almost immediately, it vanished, and the lush fruitiness I smelled in the bottle took center stage. It was tempered by something less sweet, though: probably the thyme. Considering I often blend a tea that has thyme and berries in it, I think this was a great combo. I realized within a few minutes of applying it that I like it a lot more than I thought I did at first. I'm not usually much for fruity scents, but once in a while, they're ok. Lampades is a fruity scent that's not overly sweet or sticky-smelling on me. Lady Macbeth is clearly another. It's refreshing and pleasant. Not a scent I'd wear often, but definitely enjoyable when I'm in the right mood. I probably wouldn't order a big bottle of it (whereas I might consider it with the crisper, darker Lampades), but I think the imp will last me a good while.

Mmm. Not bad. I don't know that I'm as much in love with it as some are. I wouldn't buy a 5mL bottle. However, it IS nice. I don't get much of the sweetness of the vanilla on me. Instead, I kind of smell like the cask in which the vanilla was soaked in bourbon to make extract. It's a dry scent, very woody, with a veneer on top that's almost powdery. Pleasant, but not head-over-heels. --Laura