Em-

This was part of my very first imp order from the Lab and was one I was extremely excited to try. I love Spain and was really hoping for a scent filled with notes I love and evocative of sangria and languid Spanish evenings.

In the vial, it smelled quite strong, but quite yummy. It was sweet and familiar and fruity - in retrospect, kind of grape Kool-Aid-y, but deeper, spicier. I really liked it and couldn't wait to try it on.

On my skin the fruity/wine note faded quicky and the clove exploded. We are not talking clove, we are talking CLOVE!!!!!!!, which is not a bad thing per se, as I like clove.

What is a bad thing is when the sides of my head start thumping and my vision starts to blur. That's when I need to go scrub down my wrists, because my brain has objections that it has not learned how to express in socially acceptable ways.

Ah well. Come to think of it, Madrid is also where I was told that I have the eyes of the devil, so perhaps this was just channeling the wrong Spanish train of thought...

In the bottle, like a lot of people, I got almost pure almond - it smelled a lot like a spicier Dana O'Shee in a way. It was a yummy yummy smell, but not at all what I was expecting Port-Au-Prince to small like and not really evocative of Haiti to me...

 

The second, and I meann the absolute instant that the oil hit my skin -> transformation. The spicy, rummy notes shot out like a cannon shot almost completely overwhelming the almond.

 

On drydown, the almond fought its way back into the mix, though. This is a really yummy blend and something that I will almost certainly be keeping around in come form or another. My only real disappointment is that it is one of the few blends that actually faded quickly on my skin.

 

Al well. Can't have everything.

I am not even sure how to express how much I really am loving the smell of this scent on my wrists.

 

Let's start with the fact that I usually like sweet, spicy darker scents. I am quite open about my floralphobia.

 

But sometimes our guts tell us to do things that seem not to make much sense, so my love of tea and like of herbs overcame my fear of the peony and I acquired an imp of this in a swap.

 

 

This is a truly dizzying scent to me. It makes me want to twirl around like a little girl. I love the way the tea (which I can smell, but faintly) plays off the swee green flowery herbs and the actual floral smell that doesn't smell "perfumey" to me.

 

There is a fruity edge that draws me in, but it really is the tea and peony that keeps me here. I almost certainly will need a bottle of this one...

I absolutely adore this scent, but for none of the reasons I thought that I would. I received a frimp of Dirty in a swap which helped me identify that the linen is the predominant note that I smell both in the bottle and on my skin. The tea, milk, honey, pepper - they are there, but in the background - spilled across the tablecloth by a careless tea party guest.

 

I bought this imp for all of those other notes, and I love them, but mostly I love the lightness of this scent - someone else mentioned the similarity to my beloved Sudha Segara - this is the lighter, more...airy cousin. Where Sudha is a sea of milk and honey, White Rabbit is a tea drenched splash. I love them both for amazingly different moods.

This is definitely one for the fruity lovers among us - I get barely any clove both in the bottle and on my skin, but boy does that apricot smell yummy! It is sweet and ripe and just a little cooked into the tart. This is a scent that stays true on me from bottle through drydown until it fades. It is not a scent I would want for everyday, but it is definitely a yummy fun spring/summer scent for playtime!

There is absolutely nothing for me not to like about this blend...the name is perfect, the notes are fabulous, the way they combine is lovely and so very true to their natures...

 

Oh yeah...it's discontinued...that's definitely not to love.

 

And at the end of the day, I am not entirely sure that I want to smell like a spice cabinet all day long, but it really is a lovely scent - one that I would love in a candle or as a room scent and that I will save up for crisp autumn days and that I will probably layer sparingly with some other things that I think need more kick.

 

And I am so so happy that I got to try some before the coven fled this world for good!

 

Edited to add throughts re Ressurected version:

 

I decided to order a bottle of the resurrected blend in the hopes that I would somehow fall madly in love with it a second time around. Alas, I still smell like a Yankee Candle when I wear this. Sob. I so want to love it. I really really do, but it just does not love me back.

I really really thought that I would like this one based on the notes, especially the vanilla, almond, lime and clove. I snagged an imp on a whim based on notes alone in a forum purchase and even going through the reviews, nothing prepared me for the fact that on me this blend is all patchouli.

 

Not just patchouli...PATCHOULI!!!!!!!

 

I'm not getting *any* of the other notes, except maybe as deep background and I have to sniff way too deeply to get them.

 

I don't mind patchouli per se...it is a nice backdrop to, say, Hetiaere (sp?), but I cannot handle the full bore you-smell-like-you-did-in-your-high-school-hippy-chick-days feeling of what is an almost uncut patchouli scent on my skin. (The background being that I used to drench myself in pure patchouli oil during a brief period in high school - I had actually forgotten what it smelled like. Now I remember but good.)

 

I need to go wash my wrists off in the work bathroom now, because sadly it's giving me a headache - cursed brain. Watch for Voodoo coming to a swap post near you.

I was so happy to acquire an imp of this, because I was just absolutely sure I would love it - I love sweet scents, I love brown sugar specifically, and maple sugar...for the longest time the only scent I could wear was Fresh's Sugar and I just love the whole idea of a scent based on, well, Sugar Skulls...

 

And I'm really on the fence with this one...I kinda like it, but I don't lovelovelove it the way I thought I would. It is nice, but it just doesn't sing on me...

 

I may have to think about this one for a while...or save it for a rainy day swap for something I want desparately or something...I'm just not sure.

 

Although first, I will try layering it with Dia de los Muertos...

berry-berry-bo-berry-me-mi-mo-merry-fee-fi-fo-ferry-BERRY!

 

Oh, sorry, forgot myself for a minute there.

 

I am trying not to review scents before I've been wearing them for at least 6-8 hours or so, since so many times hidden notes will pop out at me while I am driving home, or putting my son to bed and the like, but I just can't help myself - Bewitched is just such a fun and happy scent that I need to share my joy with the world now!

 

I keep wanting to run up to people and stick my wrist under their noses and say "I smell like berries today!" and run away giggling!

 

So, yeah, I'm getting berries - mostly blackberries, very evocative of picking fresh ones at my grandparents' farm in Oklahoma growing up, and a little apple, and some other wild berry in there too. As the day wears on (keeping in mind that I put this on abour 6:30 this morning, so it has been almost 4 hours already), I can get little hints of the musk and the sage and the tea...definitely the tea, but the berries are the reason why I would put this on in the morning.

 

This is a great summer scent. It will be fun to layer this I think - with honeybody products and SN, maybe with Sudha Segara or Milk Moon, even with White Rabbit or another tea scent for something with a little more kick or with something very dark that could maybe use a little more fruit...we will see.

 

In the meantime, this scent makes me want to giggle - I picture a group of little girls playing witch in the blackberry brambles, kicking up some herbs and maybe running across a dead thing or two and making their own brand of the summer magic of children - that is Bewitched to me.

This was laganappe if my very first lab order and if they were hoping to give me something very different from everything else, boydigidy!

 

I have sworn to myself that I will at least try everything that somes my eay, even if when I read the description, my reaction is *whoo-boy, way too floral - Pass*.

 

So I gave Leanan a whirl, for my beloved Irish poets, if nothing else.

 

Whoo-boy, way to floral. Pass.

 

Honestly, I wish I could past that stage, into the herbs and the fruit!?!, but my chemistry (both brain and body) simply will not cooperate.

 

But, the upshot is that I have gifted a coworker with my imp and thus begun the initiation of yet another convert into the cult of BPAL and she has been getting compliments right and left! So there you go...

Just when I was coming to the conclusion that wine and rum were my limits on the alcohol scents (which still leaves quite a bit open, to be sure), along comes Juke Joint.

 

When I first read the description, I found it very appealing, but thought that perhaps it was not necessarily aptly named, in that I do not really associate Mint Julips with what I think of as juke joints. Burbon? Sure. Mint? Not so much. Mint Julips are a Kentucky Derby kind of drink, a big flowery hat wearing, lounging on a sun porch cocktail. Juke joints are the kind of place where the folks who make and serve the julips go to unwind with cheap burbon straight up or mixed with Coke at the end of the day...but I digress.

 

Ultimately, I think this is a very aptly named blend, because it doesn't really smell of mint julip to me. In the vial, it is very strong - it is a stiff drink in there. A man's pour, as they say. There is some sweet and some minty herb, kind of like being in my backyard (which has been taken over by peppermint plants) after a storm.

 

On my skin, it goes from being *whoo-deamon-alcohol* to something more complex - I can smell all of the notes, but they way that they blend together creates something much more refreshing...it is hard to describe, actually. I may have to come back and edit this when I am actually wearing Juke Joint. It is not an edible scent...it is...earthy on me - it is that fresh unwashed mint, mingling with other plants.

 

Suffice to say that I will be ordering more of this, size to be determined.

In the vial, this was all...something sharp and astringent that I cannot quite put my finger on. It was not terribly pleasant, to tell you the truth, so I put off trying this scent, even though it was among those that I was excited enough to try that it was part of my first order.

 

On, it immediately transformed into...Absinthe! It really does smell exactly like absinthe. It never ceases to amaze me how Beth can nail these things right on the head like that.

 

Unfortunately, while the scent is dead on, at the end of the day, I don't think that this is a scent tat I really want to smell like all day long. It is a very fresh scent, and it has a very herbal, masculine core, which I like, but when it comes down to it, I think that Absinthe (the beverage) both smells and tastes kind of like herbal mouthwash. I'm not getting any of the anise, or the lemon, which is too bad, because if it was minty, anisy lemon, I would be all over it.

 

But, my loss will be someone elses gain, unless the man falls in love with this one on himself...

For some reason when I read the description and reviews of this, I just knew I was going to love it. Mango, sage, amber, red musk...some of my favorite scents and lavender's not so bad either.

 

Somehow, this blend is amazingly everyhing I imagined and nothing I imagined all at once.

 

Some of the blends I've tried so far are solid - they smell like what they are in the bottle and I put them on and that is what they smell like all day. Others dance around and change and morph in the most amazing ways - Corazon is a dancer. A damn fine one.

 

In the bottle and wet on my skin it is juicy and sharp. I can smell all of the notes and they are playing well with others.

 

About an hour later, my wrists smelt of turkey - Thanksgiving Turkey rubbed with juice and *SAGE* - for about two hours I was afraid that the purple sage was going to be my unduing. I love the scent, but that was *all* I could smell for wnat seemed like forever.

 

Then, I sniffed my wrist and it was...Mango! The mango, interlaces with the herbs and the amber, oh, it was wonderful...

 

And then, just when I thought Corazon had beaten it's last transformative beat, about 6:30 this evening, almost 12 hours after I slathered myself this morning and long after most of the scent had faded, there was my friend red musk, slipping out from behind his desert rock for an evening stroll.

 

This is really a breathtaking blend and I am so happy to have laid hands on a bottle (which is lovely in itself)...

I got my swappy imp of Skadi in the post the same day as my very first order of imps from the lab - that order was mostly heavy, spicy, hink sirts of stuff, like Blood and Szherezade and Madrid. It was a hot night - still probably over 80 even at 9 pm.

 

The first thing I thought of when I opened Skadi was cold and clean - like snow when it has first fallen. Like the blue that virtually always represents January on a calendar. I have a very hard time picking out the notes in Skadi, and I like that. The pine doesn't jump out at me - it blends in with the berries and the chilly aquatics and makes this a very fresh scent. I love the hint of sweetness, from the berries, I suppose, although something about this makes me think of the divinity candy that my grandmother used to make every December.

 

I know there is already an "Ice Queen" oil, but to me, Skadi is my Ice Queen. If there were a series based on The Lion, the Which and the Wardrobe, Skadi would be the Winter Queen - cold as ice, but with a hint of Turkish delight. To be sure, I've not had this scent in winter, and if there is any left, I am sure that I will love wearing her as the chill of December decends, but for now, she is a welcome breath of winter on a sweltering summer day.

My first sniff of this in the bottle, I was not so sure about - it was very sharp, and I could not really smell the fruity notes at all.

 

On my wrist though, this is very similar to Blood Kiss, but...thinner - the non-fruit foody notes round out Blood Kiss for me, where as this is a starker perfume. Unfortunately, I'm not so good at picking out individual notes, so I'm not entirely sure where the Dragon's Blood leaves off and the musks begin, but this is definately a deep rich scent and one that I might keep an imp of around, but I still think that BK will get the big bottle...

OMG...this is the first lunal oil I've tried and it is the most absolutely amazing scent... like a couple of others above I got a teensy little taste of this as laganappe from Shay in an eBay auction (which is so amazingly cool, might I add...). I missed out on the April lunar order, but thank goodness I already have an imp lined up from a swap, because I am going to need something to hold me until I can snag a bottle(s) here, because this scent is incredible...

 

In the vial, it is a decadent, creamy, buttery potion...on my skin, it lightens just enough to not feel *heavy* on a hot summer day. I can still smell the cream, but the butter lifts and the light mint (like fresh mint in a garden, as opposed to the sweet peppermint smell of Spooky) and coconut start to come out. It reminds me a bit of a coconut cake I make with coconut milk as the only liquid - it has that same rich denseness about it.

 

Every time I catch a whif of this, it gives me little shivers of delight. Oh how I want more...

This is an incredibly fruity scent on me (which I suppose is kind of a duh statement, but there it is...)

 

In the bottle, I am not sure what I smell, but it's not quite pumpkin. Wet, it is all fruit - at first it was more like apple or pear, but then I started to smell the pumpkin and a lot of the peach note. Unfortunately, I am not getting much of the spice at all - it is not a pumpkin pie/bread/baked good smell for me, but very "fresh cut jack o lantern" with other fresh fruity smells which must be the peach, and an almost apple cider note. I really *like* the fruit, but I would like it to have more of an anchor - spice or rum or brandy or something would help this party a lot.

 

I do really like the scent. It is very evocative of early fall and going to apple orchards and pumpkin picking and the scent of bonfires and cider and caramel without necessarily trying to cram all of those scents into the bottle. I think it will make a smashing perfume for September and October and possibly a room scent as well...probably not a 5ml purchase, but definitely an imp I'll keep around.

 

Edit - I really need to wait more than a few hours before writing these things - at about 8:00 last night, after I thought Jack had already completely taken his leave from my wrists I sniffed and lo and behold, there was the creamy icing scent that others have posted about...the intense fruityness was mostly gone, so it was almost like a very faint carrot cake. Crazy how these oils morph over the course of a day...

First off, thank you to requiminblack for parting with some precious...

 

I have to admit that my first thought when I opened this imp was...hunh? It didn't smell like much of anything to me and was, if anything, a bit chemically. When I sniffed the applicator and actually put a bit on, though, it was immediately *GINGERBREAD!!!* Amazing, wonderful, perfect gingerbread. How does Beth do that?!?!?!

 

An hour or so later it is still true, yummy baking gingerbread...I feel like it is December and I'm baking Christmas cookies.

 

Truth be told, this is probably not a scent that I will wear year round. One thing that this whole BPAL exploration is teaching me is that while I think of myself as liking "foody" scents, I tend to prefer scents that evocative of ingredients mixed with other things, as opposed to the finished product (Spooky is something of an exception, but then again, once the OMG-thin mint!! stage is over, it smells more like a mixture to me than a specific baked good, but I digress...)

 

Gingerbread Poppet is a scent I can definitely see myself reaching for in late October, when the leaves are drifting in the streets and the skies are shifting to gray and I want something warm and spicy to remind me that there are wonderful days to come yet in the year. Oh, and if it comes back again, a Poppet is absolutely sneaking into my shopping cart!

Spooky has to have the most apt description of any BPAL blend I've encountered so far (not all that many to be sure, but whose counting...)

 

Spooky is like a holiday party...the Peppermint? It's that friend that you really like and you hope that they will show up, but at the same time you are a little nervous that they might kind of freak out your other friends. So when Sir Peppermint shows up, parties hard for about an hour, dancing a lot with Ms. Cocoa, but then leaves for more exciting digs, it's cool to see him, but him leaving is really not such a big deal.

 

Especially because when he leaves, Coconut and Buttered Rum and Vanilla really start to get their groove on. Cocoa sticks around, but she is quieter after Peppermint takes off...gets a little shy - he really brings it out of her, and now maybe she's had a little too much to drink in that quiet sort of way...but the rest of them, they stick around and just hang out. Maybe they are talking politics, or music. They are definately getting sloshed on your liquor, cause, at leaston my wrists, they stick around five, maybe six hours.

 

It is a *really* good party.

From the moment I read the decsription of this scent, I knew I had to try it and I knew that one way or another, it would break my heart.

 

When I got hold of an imp, thanks to an accident of good timing, I was estatic. And my first whif from the imp was everything I hoped it would be...so sweet and rich and full of goodness...it reminded me of exactly what it must smell like in a Mexican bakery on del Dia...and I just knew right then and there that somehow I was going to have to find a bottle of this amazing elixor...

 

I thought that was going to be the heartbreak...then I tried it on...in some horrible alchemical joke, the moment this blend hits my skin, the wonderful sweet food evaporates and all that is left are the funeral flowers. And that, ladies, is how this oil broke my heart, but saved my wallet.

 

Luckily, the flowers do still smell lovely, and there is a hint of sugar left in them, and, thankfully, they do not trigger a migraine as so many florals do for me, but I was hoping that they would stay in the background...

 

Ah well...it is still amazingly lovely to sniff...

 

I have to update this to say that on subsequent wearings, I am coming to absolutely adore the richness of this oil...once I got over my initial "ew, it the flowers" (I swear, I love flowers in person, just not so much in bottles!) I really started to appreciate the complexity of the layering here - over the course of the day the florals come and go, as different scents come forward - the bakery, the procession through the village...this scent reminds me very much of Ray Bradbury's story about Del Dia, which is just lovely. I can imagine slathering myself in it for a visit to one of the tombs he described.

 

This may well start to become one of my favorite scents, which will lead us back to the *original* anticipated heartbreak...

I tried this on a whim in an LJ tranasaction and am *so* gld that I did. I was afraid that the cyprus/mossy/woodsyness would be a bit more than I could stand without some sort of sharp cirtus note (a la Nero) to help lighten it...

 

The scent in the bottle did little to allay my fears, but on my skin, this party belongs to that sliver of hazlenut and boy does it know how to have a good time. The woods are way in the background on my wrists.

 

Not only that, but the nut has stamina. Not Blood Kiss -I-can-smell-it-the-next-morning-like-I-just-put-it-on kind of stamina, but it sticks around to see what's for dinner.

 

In reading the other reviews for this one, I am struck by just how incredibly different oils are on different people's skin - I wish I could share my version with those of you who wanted the hazlenut...

Reading the reviews, I thought that I would have to love Vice. Chocolate, orange, cherry...what's not to love?

 

Vice is fairly true to its nature on me - I smell like chocolate, although I'm not getting as much of the orange blossom or cherry as some others, methinks.

 

The question then becomes, do I want to smell like chocolate all day? I am quite surprised, really, given that I have decided that I Spooky, and generally love vanilla, honey and other "foodie" notes, that, I do not in fact want to smell like chocolate all day. (Which I suppose nixes Bliss for me as well...)

 

But, since I have approximately 100 different scents on my wishlist and at least 20 heading my way, I do not have struggle with this agony any longer.

I tried this on a lark. I tend to like masculine scents, as they tend to smell cleaner than feminine scents and to not have the flowery notes that set off my head-demons. Nero is very very pine at first (cleaner, according to MDH, but what does he know), but on a second sniff, I can smell something else coming through.

 

When I first tried Nero on my skin, it felt like a risk, as I was very afraid that something in it might set off a migraine and I was going to be away from the house all morning...omg, I loveed it. It is not something that I would want to wear every day, be it is something that will become a comfort scent for me, I thin.

 

On dry down, the sharp piney scent fades away into something much more mellow...kind of like a big cozy grandpa chair or something. I find it very comforting in an autumn leaves sort of way - I can definitely see myself keeping an imp of this around to wear on fall and winter days when I just need something warm and comfortable, or on those days when you just know that work is going to be hell...

This was one of the very first BPAL scents I tried, thanks to purchasing a decant here on the forum, and I was *so* hoping to love it.

 

Unfortunately, while I like it in the bottle, it goes sour on me quickly. I cannot pinpoint why exactly - I think that perhaps chocolate may not agree with my chemistry, but it smells very astringent both wet and on dry down on my skin.

 

So sad.

 

Edited to add later impressions

 

As noted above, Cerberus was one of the very first (as in the second) BPAL blends I tried, and I swapped it away quickly and never really thought about it again.

 

Then, just yesterday, I received a decant if the pooch as a frimp from a forumite and decided, what the heck, it's been several months, perhaps my palate has matured a bit.

 

I am really glad that I did. Whether it is a matter of me being more prepared to appreciate it, batch differences, age, or what, I really enjoyed Cerberus this time around. I can smell the fig and the cherries and the cocoa seems to be similar to the more unrefined note that I like in Freak Show (as opposed to the fine chocolate notes of Vice or Bliss that I'm less fond of). The darker nutty, woodsy notes really base this and it is, frankly much more lovely than I was able to give it credit for.

 

Cerberus would still not be in my regular rotation, but I think I will be holding on to this little impsy after all...

Blood Kiss is the first BPAL scent that I put on my wrists and just knew was perfect.

 

In the bottle, it is complex, more "perfumey" than I usually wear, in that it cearly has a floral/musk undertone, but the vanilla and wine and deep fruityness balance that for me. And, of utmost importance, it would seem that poppy is not a migraine trigger for me!

 

I love this scent on. It has amazing staying power and just envelopes me in a way that none of the other oils I've tried (only 8 to date, to be fair) have. Hours later, it is a *little* powdery, but I can still smell the richness that was there in the bottle and wet on my skin (this smells remarkably similar to me in all stages, actually). I definitely want at least a 5ml of this one...