Little Bird

I love The Snow Storm in the bottle, but it's less amazing on my skin (boo skin chemistry). On my skin, this isn't the chilly pine scent that other people have mentioned. In the bottle it's a frosty mint layered over a crisp fir note. On my skin, it warms up for some reason and smells less appealing and dry. The mint doesn't retain its chilliness, it just goes all sharp and wrong. Something about this takes on a bit of a body odor funk too... dry woods or evergreen notes sometimes turn on me this way. After a while, this kinda smells like I rubbed one of those Christmas tree car fresheners on my skin to cover on some body odor. Not good. This isn't a foresty blend that I can pull off. I don't think that this reminds me of any of the other BPAL blends that I've tried either.

In the vial this is milky and sweet smelling. I can smell the almond milk's silky sweetness and perhaps some coconut in there as well with hints of a light, pleasant incense. On my skin, the sweetness kicks up a few notches and I get hints of something fruity, without being able to pick out any one fruit note. It goes a bit softly powdery on me before it takes a turn into a stage that makes it unwearable for me. Diwali is a hard blend to describe because it melds together pretty well, making it hard for me to pick out any notes, though the almond milk is strong and makes its presence known above everything else. Something about this gave me a vicious headache when I wore it though. It turns a bit sharp and smoky after a while, but still has a heavy smack of sweetness to it and the almond milk screaming for attention. Perhaps this is just too heavy of a scent for me, and a bit too smoky with my skin chemistry.

First sniff in the vial, I could definitely smell a zesty orange citrus bite from the nectarine, a sweet touch of honey, a quick flash of something that reminded me of vetiver, and then a finish of perfumey floral. On my skin, there's an earthiness to this that I don't like. It doesn't strike me as smelling like any of the patchouli notes I've tried from BPAL before though. It smells dark and a bit ashy. As the earthiness quickly fades, I'm left with a citrus zest and perfumey floral note. The gardenia goes eye stinging sharp on my skin. Angeronalia's sharp floral note dominates on me (smells rather musky too), but I can see how this could be a pretty blend on someone else. The hints of citrus and sweetness are rather nice. Overall, though, this is too musky-sharp-floral for me.

I'm not sure why I wanted to try this one out. I tend to hate sage and tuberose is one of my perfume kisses of death. Plumeria also tends to be perfumey and headache inducing on me. At first on my skin I was surprised at how nice this smelled. It was sweet and juicy with a hint of dry sage or chrysanthemum lingering in the background. Within a minute, though, this morphed into exactly what I was afraid it would smell like on me. Perfumey, sharp, white floral mishmash with an herbal sage note in the background. White florals seem to turn into something reminiscent of cheap, sharp, drugstore white musk and hairspray. That sharpness is strong for me in this blend. Noche Buena is definitely not for me. I can't pull off perfumey florals; they just give me headaches.

BPAL's roses are often either love it or hate it on my skin. The Peacock Queen is one of my all time favorite scents and I cannot stand Rose Red, for example. In the bottle this smelled powdery-sweet, almost like pixie stix. I'm not really sure that I would ever guess that there is even rose in this. Reading back over the reviews, I do get that bubbly, champagne like twist that other people have mentioned. Champagne with pixie stix powder thrown in? In the drydown the sweet powder gets a bit more baby powder-esque, but it's so sweet and odd that it makes me sort of nauseous. I had to wash this off after 15 minutes. This is so cloyingly sweet on me that it really made me feel like I was going to throw up. I could almost smell a soft woods and colder notes creeping in, but I can't handle whatever notes are in this blend as top notes. I was hoping for something like The Peacock Queen with snow notes for a Christmas Rose scent, but this powdery, overly sweet mess is a definite no-go for me.

I love Chanukkiyah when I first put it on. I get a clean olive oil that reminds me of some of the olive oil hair products I have, and a strong scent of something like jelly donuts. A sugary pastry and fruit (it smells kind of like raspberry to me, but I guess it's pomegranate playing nicely on my skin for once, lol) with hints of a clean, sweet olive oil. After a half hour or so, this isn't so good on me though. The amber makes it a bit baby powdery and the other notes in this have gone perfumey and sharp. The sweetness has all faded away, leaving me with something cold, perfumey, powdery, and odd. I think that the beeswax and olive oil need to be paired with something sweeter to be bearable for me.

The Shivering Boy has bpal's usual snow note (which is a lovely, cool, slushy note). At first there's a bit of sharp ozone that I don't really like, but it doesn't smell like dryer sheets on me at least. In the drydown this gets spicy on me for some reason. It smells kind of like sharp cinnamon and snow. I had hoped for more of a grape vineyard in the snow backed up by some resins, but this smells like it should be a winter candle fragrance to me. Snow and spice, but too much on the sharp/potpourri side for me to enjoy it.

Archangel Winter reminds me of a slushier Numb at first. Men's shaving cream and snow. In the drydown, this smells almost identical to Sea of Glass or House of Mirrors to me. A clear, cool, crystalline sort of ozone/aquatic note. I'm not sure I could tell this and House of Mirrors apart, except that Archangel Winter has a bit of soapiness to it. It goes a bit off on me after 15 minutes or so. Something in this starts to smell like burnt rubber on my skin. This isn't a keeper for me...

I love the original Lick It so much. It smells like real, crisp, sweet candy canes and a hint of vanilla on me. Perfectly cooling and sweet. I hated Lick It Again, it was sharper and almost menthol-like on my skin. Not as sweet as the original. I was hoping that Lick It One More Time would be more like the original... First sniff in the vial, this is bracing, loud, peppermint breath mints. Intense. I hoped that it would calm down on my skin. On me... peppermint breath mints. It's much sharper on me than the original. Lick It One More Time reminds me more of peppermint mouthwash and peppermint breath mints than it does candy canes it's more medicinal than sweet. In the drydown it gets a strange extra something that actually reminds me of chewing tobacco. Blech. After a half hour this is peppermint listerine and dirty ash tray on my skin. I'm going to continue hoarding my few bottles of the original Lick It, but my decant of this year's version is going straight to my swap pile. Lick It One More Time is my least favorite version so far...

In the vial, this smells like loads of cinnamon sugar over something tasty. One sniff it's like really sweet coffee and the next it's hot chocolate. On my skin... I don't even like cinnamon under normal circumstances (it's sharp and gives me a headache) but the brown sugar seems to really mellow out and sweeten up the cinnamon. It's so good. I was a bit worried about the coffee note in this because my boy really hates the smell, but I can't pick out any coffee from this once it touches my skin. El Dia de Reyes, on me, is hot chocolate completely smothered in buttery cinnamon sugar. And it's quite wonderful - a warm, cheery blend that I can actually see myself wearing this winter

In the vial I smell caramel and something like candied violets, almost fruity in their sweetness. There's also a hint of something ashen or smoky, but not quite. It really does smell like charcoal, and I'm surprised that I like it. I normally hate smoky blends, but something about this really appeals to me. Perhaps it reminds me something of the way fireworks smell. It smells the same on my skin at first, but the caramel definitely dominates, and that's fine because I looove bpal's caramel note. Over time it softens and this is such a strange scent. It sinks into my skin and becomes a very subtle fragrance. It smells sort of like I threw a caramel chew onto a few smoldering pieces of charcoal and then decorated it with a few violets and gumdrops. After a half hour, the fruity aspects have overtaken any floral notes and the caramel just adds a deeper sweetness to the blend. The smoky, reminiscent-of-fireworks scent amps up on my skin after a while. La Befana is interesting. It actually ends up reminding me of a 4th of July picnic. Fireworks, warmth, and the fruity sweetness that keeps making me think of popsicles. I like this, though I'm not sure I'd ever actually reach for it and wear it again.

I'm a sucker for anything with BPAL's awesome red sandalwood note listed, but the combination of the hazelnut, honey, and amber makes this go all wrong on me. I have a hard time wearing nutty blends because they turn sickly sweet (and they're usually blended with other sweet notes as in Gluttony and Hellcat, making them even more overwhelming to my nose). They tend to remind me of candle fragrances and don't feel right as a personal scent. Wezwanie / Hold has that same issue on me. A bit buttery and much too sweet. In this blend, I amp up the honey and the sweet, buttery, nutty notes. The honey has a slightly off, metallic tang to it. It dries down to a light scent, but I really don't like the nuttiness and powdery honey.

Fixed Water: the essence of passion. Dark musk, wormwood, basil, dragon's blood resin, galangal, and opoponax. The lab's dark/black musk note tends to smell like generic, musky men's cologne on my skin, so I wasn't expecting to love this. I'm surprised at how wonderful this smells on my boy though. I gave up on trying to wear this pretty quickly, washed it off, and slathered it on the boy instead. The dark musk in this smells slightly watery, in an empty, cool sort of way. It's sharp and too masculine on me, but sexy and pleasant on my mister. The dragon's blood also turns sickly sweet (like rotting flowers) on me, but is more subtle on my boy's skin. Those two notes are pretty strong at first, and the musk is like a strong base note. In the drydown, some herbal and resinous tones join the masculine musk and sweet dragon's blood. It's rather complex and the sort of cologne that my boy doesn't mind wearing. The notes smell less cheap and sickly sweet on him than they do on me. The combination of dark musk and dragon's blood make this a no-go for me to wear personally, but that's okay because my boy has stolen my decant anyhow, lol. It's like a sweetly resinous, musky, dark men's cologne with hints of an uplifting herbal tone and some sweetness rounding out the edges. On him, at least.

Windward Passage is one of the soapiest bpal scents I've ever tried. I do get a salty tang that I enjoy upon first application, but then this turns to soap and dryer sheets. I might smell a hint of something citrusy after letting it settle for a while, but the overall result on me is that I smell like citrus scented dryer sheets and some sort of strong, generic soap. I have a hard time wearing clean scents, and I can't pull this one off.

I'm updating my review for this because, while I really liked my decant, I've found that I'm head over heels in love with the bottle that I just purchased off of ebay. Maybe this just needed some time to age and settle to be even better than it was initially. This is my favorite of this year's Trick or Treat blends. Sugar-Slathered Candied Apple is exactly what I had hoped Creepy would be. It's caramel apple dusted with sugar crystals (but not overwhelmingly sweet at all). It has none of Creepy's boozy, bitter, butterscotch-y weirdness. Sugar-Slathered Candied Apple starts off with a great apple note – sweet and juicy. It's a bit of a sharp apple on my skin at first, but not in a bad way, just in a crisp sort of way. I'm a fan of apple scents as long as they're not perfumey and fakely sweet, so I like this. It smells crisp, cool, and airy. In the drydown, the apple starts rolling around in some sugar and I get a bit of a caramel scent with a pure white sugar smell. My boy actually sniffed this on me and said, "What is that? That smells amazing. It smells really fresh." This surprised me, because my boy hates caramel smells (says they're buttery and gross) and he tends to dislike fragrances that are really sweet. When I told him the name, his eyes widened and he said, "Wow. That sounds like something I would hate. The apple in that is really good." And the apple *is* really good and completely mellows out the sweeter aspects of this. I'm so glad I finally got a full bottle of this after going through my un-aged decant (thank you, ebay, lol).

Of this inquisition round, Egg'd Mailbox and TP'd Trees really smell nothing like what I was expecting. I thought that, from the description, this would have to be a pine and woods fragrance. This doesn't really smell of pine or woods on my skin though. On me, this smells like powdery-sweet toilet paper that was rained on. A mixture of soapy aquatic/ozone and powder on me with a hint of something like spring fresh dryer sheets. It's more laundry than forest on my skin. I have a hard time pulling off aquatic/ozone scents and don't really aspire to smell like wet toilet paper, so this one is headed for my swap pile, lol.

I love the bottle art and story behind this scent, but all of the white florals swirl into something awful on my skin. Iris is often a floral kiss of death for me, smelling insanely sharp and perfumey. Calla lily just goes to soap on my skin. Most white florals give me migraines. This morphs into a scary, perfumey floral with hints of soapy dryer sheets, but it isn't quite as loud and aggressively musky as I thought it would be. Orchid makes it a bit juicier and sweeter while the sandalwood kind of smooths it out, I think. It's too perfumey and goes a bit soapy on me, but I do like some of its other qualities. I'm trying not to hate on it entirely, because I think this would probably be lovely on someone else, with someone else's nose, lol.

I love the Fruit of Paradise label. It makes me wish that pomegranate weren't so evil on my skin...

I love the beeswax note, but I can only pick out the pumpkin and beer in Pumpkin Smash, and I'm not overly fond of it. The pumpkin is spicy and a bit buttery. The beer makes the whole blend a bit sour and off to my nose and there's a sharp twang of something like woodsmoke. The overall impression on my skin is a gritty, dirty pumpkin. I wish this were more beeswax and candles on my skin than booze and pumpkin.

Vampire Tears starts off with a strong citrus jab on my skin. BPAL's grapefruit notes tend to go bitter on my skin, and this definitely has a bitter, sharp sort of citrus to it. I normally hate jasmine, but the jasmine here isn't too bad and seems to calm down the sharp grapefruit (I suppose it's the lesser of two evils, lol). I have a hard time pulling off citrus and florals, so this probably wasn't ever going to work on me. The mid stage isn't so bad with a sweet, soft floral tone and sharp grapefruit cutting through it, but it's still not me. In the drydown this goes a bit soapy, and then it's definitely not for me.

I was surprised that people were describing this as a patchouli single note, because I'm honestly not sure I would even recognize that it has patchouli in it. I *love* patchouli and I love this blend, but the patchouli in this is wonderful and doesn't overwhelm the other notes at all. On me, Goblin has a smooth, sweet, resinous quality to it that is similar to Midnight Mass on my skin at first, and then the coconut takes over the drydown. The coconut in here reminds me of the fragrance I get from LUSH's Trichomania shampoo. It's a gorgeous, sweet, almost buttery, creamed coconut smell that really amps up on my skin. For a bit I can pick out patchouli that reminds me of the black patchouli that is in Depraved (heaven), but then the earthy qualities take a turn and remind me of something like cedar chips. Goblin is like an awesome coconut blend on me with a changing cast of characters rotating in the background. It starts off as coconut and sweet resins then morphs into something like coconut and black patchouli and then settles into coconut and cedar chips. I'm not sure if all of those woody notes are actually the patchouli drying down or what, but Goblin never smells like just patchouli or a strong patchouli on my skin. I'm glad this isn't really a dry sort of blend on me either, the coconut is creamy and sweet and the earthy/woody notes are spicy and lively. Gorgeous. I love this and it works out so well on my skin. I'm definitely upgrading my imp to a full bottle.

Red musk, ambergris, coconut palm, red sandalwood, balsam, date, warm leather, tobacco, ebony, lingum vitae wood, pandanus grass, an' a touch o' lime. In the bottle and at first on my skin, Pirate Moon reminds me of a swampy scent. It smells of mud and sweet grass and almost a sweet floral tone. The grass note in this is lovely, but not a green grass smell at all, sort of a pale, sweet, meadow grass. It starts off lovely, but quickly goes sharp and chemical. Within five minutes this has turned into a perfumey musk and meadow grass on me, and the grassy note that I like gets eaten alive by the musk shortly after that. Pirate Moon is very sharp and musky on my skin. I normally like ambergris, but the lab's ambergris here seems to turn into a sharp, chemical, department store perfoom smell on me. It's a sharp, unbearable sort of musk within 10 minutes after application. It actually has a cheap hairspray sort of smell on me. I'll definitely be swapping away my decant of this.

I cannot wear Snake Oil (smells like oily hair and baby powder on me), but I loved a few of the Snake Pit blends, so I decided to give this a try. I also have trouble wearing aquatics, but I loved Banded Sea Snake. The Phoenix has potential. I love this in the bottle where it's salty, sweet sea air with a hint of lime and an exotic twist, but it's not very good on my skin. I dislike BPAL's gunpowder note and that combined with the blood gives this a metallic, dry, gritty sort of smell that I'm not fond of. Over time a bit of the salty sweetness that I loved comes back out, but it's not enough to save this blend for me. The gunpowder shoots down The Phoenix

Plunder definitely has the cinnamon. It's a bold sort of cinnamon too, like red hots candies and big red gum. My skin has a history of amping up cinnamon like mad and I don't really like heavy cinnamon notes. This doesn't ever change much on me either, except that I *think* I might be getting a sharp bite of pepper after a while. Plunder pretty much stays the same from the vial to my skin and over several hours. It makes me smell like hot cinnamon candy, which isn't for me. ETA: For anyone sensitive to spice notes, this definitely makes my skin red and tingly.

In the vial when I first sniffed this, I recoiled and thought, "Ugh. Way too sweet." It's like syrup and sugar and honey and more sugar. There's also a high, sharp something in the background. On my skin, this is much, much better. It's also a hard scent to describe. I'm pretty sure that I smell lime in this for the first half hour or so, and the overall scent reminds me of some sort of tropical bar with dim, intimate lighting. I get a zesty, sweet lime-esque note mixed in with dark sugars, syrups, and booze. There's also a sense of polished, dark wood. This isn't overly sweet at all on my skin, especially after giving it a few minutes to dry (though it has a definite SUGAR hit to it). Something about this makes me want to go dancing. In a dark club. On a beach. It makes me sad to be in Canada on the edge of winter. This is dark sugars, a bit boozy, a bit tropical in feel, and with enough other notes cutting the sweetness to make it delicious and very wearable for me. All in all, this is a fantastic sort of party scent to me. It just smells fun. Kill-Devil is the sort of scent that I could wear and feel like someone else (like an energetic, exotic party girl). My boy, however, hates this blend, lol. He gave it a 2 out of 10 and couldn't describe what he found off putting about it. I might get a bottle of this and wear it on nights out when we're not together though.