Little Bird

In the bottle... this smells exactly like Snow Moon with a little black dirt added. Exactly what I was hoping for from this blend. On me... this is a bit sharper and less sweet than Snow Moon was on me. Menthol-pine-and slush... In the drydown, this turns on me. Sharp snow and something that smells like charred wood and rotten fruit . It's so nice in the bottle, and so bad on me.

In the bottle, this one is like a black tea with *LOTS* of sweet honey and sugar added. On me... the honey is the main thing that I notice on my skin, with an extra helping of sugar. Insanely sweet. Golden, sticky-sweet honey. It also smells a bit like sweet flower pollen. Gennivre is all warm and super-sweet honey. Not as complex as I thought that it would be, very simple and kind of sickeningly sweet after a while.

In the bottle, this is all white musk and lavender. Chilly and crystalline. Strangely, I can't really pick out either of those notes once this is on my skin. On me, this is a strange one. I can smell a beautifully sweet black coconut, fig, and plum trying to beat their way through the sharp lemon verbena. It's like an exotic and creamy fruit salad that's being smothered in lemons. Catching whiffs of this from afar, it's really lovely. The woodsy fig mixed with a creamy toasted coconut and fruity sweet plum... it smells candied and edible. However, if I sniff my wrist up close, it's overpoweringly lemony. This would be such an awesome blend if there wasn't any lemon verbena in here to muck it up As it is, the lemon is way too sharp and eats the other notes on my skin. The Carny Talker is pretty much a fruity blend on my skin, dominated by sharp lemons. I can't pick out any vetiver at all.

I was really looking forward to this Carnaval blend, just because I love black cherry and patchouli... and fruit + patchouli tends to work out insanely well on my skin. The cassia in this worries me though. My skin really amps up the sweet spices. In the bottle... luscious, dark cherry, sweet cassia, and hints of earthy patchouli. Phantom Calliope is a deep and rich scent on me. It's dark and none of the notes are really overpowering each other. This smells sort of manly on me, surprisingly. The black cherry here actually begins to smell a bit like black licorice on me. Anise plus cherries, wrapped up in a velvety dark cloak. The hint of lemon paired with the black cherry makes this a really delicious fruity blend, and makes the fruits seem somehow juicy on me. And there's just enough earthy patchouli in the background and hints of spice layered over the fruits to make this completely unique and complex. This isn't too fruity, too citrussy, too earthy, or too spicy... just a perfect mix of everything. I'd love to dab some of this one on my boy, as it's such a dark scent that it strikes me as one that would be really sexy on a man

In the bottle, F5 reminds me of a more watery version of Embalming Fluid. Makes sense... they both have notes of green tea, white musk, and aloe. On me... green tea with a salty aquatic and a squeeze of lime. It's zesty and sharper than Embalming Fluid's smooth blend. After 15 minutes or so... this is mostly clean white musk and aquatic, with hints of fruity lime. It's kinda boring to me. It smells like the sporty colognes that teenage boys were favoring back in highschool. F5 fades pretty quickly too. It only lasted about an hour on my skin.

Port Royal is a masculine, spicy, warm, musky sort of scent with hints of dark, dry wood. It's a little too much on the sharp/musky side of things for me, but I think that this would smell so cozy and wonderful on the right man. I love the wood notes in this. It has great staying power too, and I'm happy that the spices aren't overwhelming and that this blend isn't too sweet. I can imagine the clean, rugged, tan, muscular, dark haired pirate on the cover of romance novels to smell like this, lol. I slathered this one on my husband and it smelled lovely on him, but still a little too musky for my tastes. I can't wait to try the bptp Port Royal soap, though. I think that this will be awesome in soap-form.

In the bottle and on my skin at first, Mag Mell smells clean and spa-like. It's reminiscent of blends like Shanghai and Embalming Fluid, with the mix of lemony and green notes. This starts off mostly smooth, sweet, slightly herbal, lemony verbena with a hint of green from the green grass and a spa-like freshness from the ginger. I was worried about the "rain" going soapy on me, as aquatics usually do, but this is more clean feeling than outright soapy smelling. As it dries down, this is much the same, except the ginger gets stronger (delicate, fresh, sweet spiciness <3). Sweet lemon and fresh ginger with a hint of green. It smells like a spa fragrance. Not really my sort of thing, but this is very pretty, smooth, and calming.

This scent has changed so much. In 2006, it had lots of a warm vanilla-amber presence, and the vanilla was very noticeable, golden, and sweet, almost honeyed and nutty smelling, and very creamy. The other notes swirled together to add a salty, cold aquatic and soapy floral presence, giving it a clean counterpart to the sweet vanilla amber. In contrast, I've received a 2019 frimp of this, direct from the lab, and there's none of that vanilla at all. There's lots of bright soapiness, like sniffing Zest, Dial and Irish Spring, and some powderiness in the drydown, but I wouldn't call it creamy or sweet anymore. Aged for 3 months, this is still a whole lot of soap and no vanilla.

I'm really loving Caliban. I was afraid that the "salty seas" would smell like dryer sheets on me, or that the "bittersweet wine" would smell like rotten fruit on me... but this is just lovely. This is the wonderful rainforest smell that I was hoping to get from some of the new Wanderlust blends. The wine adds a sort of sweet, exotic fruitiness to the blend. The palm and ferns are very apparent and lend a dark greenery to the fragrance. And I smell hints of soil and a slight salty aquatic note, like the ocean is crashing about behind the thick foliage. It's definitely a very green blend, filled with plantlife and a few surprises lingering in the background. Wearing Caliban is like being transported to an exotic tropical island. I'm sorry that I didn't get a 10 ml of this one when I had a chance, but there's a definite 5 ml bottle in my future

In the bottle... juicy lemon and refreshing white tea. On my skin... zesty lemon, white tea, and a pinch of sweet grapefruit. This is very citrussy and clean smelling on my skin. Normally I dislike citrus (it goes really sharp on me), but the smooth white tea is keeping this grounded and keeping it from going bitter on me. I was expecting this blend to be more complex than it actually is on me. I never smell most of the mentioned notes. In the drydown, this is white tea with a squeeze of lemon. Sweet, crisp, and refreshing. Unfortunately, I already have so many BPAL tea and lemon blends that this isn't a standout for me...

In the imp vial and first on my skin, this smells bitter and green and reminds me of dandelion stems. Over the next few minutes after application, the bitter green smell remains but a sugary note also comes out to play. Dandelion stems coated in sugar. There's also something crisp going on here that smells slightly floral and slightly of limes on me. After ten minutes or so of settling on my skin, this is rather bright & sweet and not at all hellish. It's not smoky or dark at all on me. It morphs into a sort of fizzy, boozy floral with a white sharpness that reminds me of the dreaded tuberose. Definitely not a scent for me.

In the bottle this smell like a classically perfumey sort of scent. Cool and powdery. It actually reminds me a lot of the musky/powdery perfume that my mother wore in the late 80's. I hated that perfume, lol. On me... I Died for Beauty smells like delicate, sweetly bruised little violets. Sadly, this gets sharper and more offensive in the drydown. Ylang ylang is very piercing and smells oddly metallic on my skin. The ylang ylang here is coming out in full force and killing the sweet little violets. After 15 minutes or so... boring and powdery. Just a cool, faint powder. A bit more chilly and bland than baby powder though. I'd never wear this one.

Yup. Definitely almond. Boozy cherries drenched in sugary cherry syrup. After a few minutes, the psices and citrussy bergamot begin to cut their way through the cherries. For a while, this is a pleasantly spicy (but not overly sweet) incense. Then this morphs into something that makes me nauseous . I'm assuming that it's the river lily in this that goes intensely soapy on me. Soap, smoky jasmine, and woodsy fig blend to make something very unpleasant on my skin. This is very light and subtle in the drydown, but the strange mixture of notes were making me so ill that I had to wash this one off.

In the bottle... this smells of dirt and something sinus-clearing like eucalyptus. On me... this is a surprisingly light, subtle scent. It smells like rich, black soil and a sweet mint. In the drydown, this is soil, sweetly frosty mint, and something like smoky, charred wood coming in through the background. Surprisingly, I don't hate this as much as I thought I would. The sweetness from the mint keeps this from becoming too earthy or smoky for me. Then again, I still can't see myself wearing this as a personal fragrance either.

I've been eagerly waiting to try Kumari Kandam, after reading the list of notes including clay and stone. Strangely enough, I've been looking for a perfume that smells to me of wet clay and rocks. In the bottle, this smells like snow. Aquatic and smooth. On me, this goes oddly sweet. Now it smells like snow and sugarcane. Not at all earthy or incensy or decaying or even really floral. The snow note almost smells like pine, almost like mint, almost like cliche aquatic... but not quite any of those things. It's strange and pleasant when paired with this warmer, sweeter note. Kumari Kandam isn't like any other BPAL blend that I've tried before, though it falls into that category with all of the other 'snow-aquatic' blends. This is very pretty and smells slightly edible. I want to eat this snow Kind of sad that I'm not smelling anything like clay or stone though.

In the imp... cassia. Nothing but cassia. Which is fine, because I love that note. It reminds me of a more powdery (not baby powdery, just a silky powdery), softly woodsy sort of cinnamon. On my skin, this smells like Blood Moon or Spanked or any of the other heavy cassia blends. Warm, spicy cassia, warm blood musk, and something that's kind of creamy and foodie. I can't actually smell any resins or fruit or florals, but it does get a bit more of a smoky smell to it in the drydown. Out of the entire Ars Draconis category, Dragon's Milk, Ladon, and Tanin'iver are my favorites.

Dragon's blood usually doesn't work so well on me. So far, the only Ars Draconis blend that I've actually liked has been Dragon's Milk. I am kinda hopeful for Ladon though, because I love BPAL's apple and apple blossom notes. Sniffing this in the vial, I immediately thought of fall harvest festivals. This is crisp and apple cider-like. On me... this is the same smooth, delicately sweet, golden apple note that I get from Les Bijoux. Apple with a background of clean white musk. I don't detect any dragon's blood at all, which is a good thing in my case. In the drydown, this is still just a wonderfully sweet, crisp apple scent. Simple and pleasant. It sweetens up quite a bit on me after a while and makes me think of candy apples. Wonderful. I might get a 5 ml of this one in the future.

This has two of my ultimate migraine-inducing notes in it... opium and tuberose. All of the other notes are so promising though. In the bottle... this smells like creamy lemons. On me... creamy lemon-head candies, with some other unidentifiable fruit thrown in for good measure. I kept waiting for this to drydown and develop into something more complex on my skin, but this is pretty much it, lol. Creamy lemon-head candies. Sweet and candy-like, with the unpleasant sharpness of lemon. At least I don't detect any opium or tuberose.

In the bottle: Gah! Balloons! This has the same rubber smell in it that I got from The Candy Butcher... only it's a lot stronger in the bottle here. It kind of makes sense here though, since I can see the relation between clowns and balloons. I keep thinking of the clown in Stephen King's IT with the whole "Want a balloon?" thing. On me, that unpleasant rubber smell is nowhere to be found (yay!). And wow... I love this. The Weeping Clown is a big winner for me from the Carnaval . I don't know why anyone would cry when they smell this damned good though. I definitely get the fruity citrus notes from the guava and orange peel, but the guava gives this a sweet and pleasant tropical fragrance and keeps the orange peel from becoming too sharp. The apple blossom is also quite noticeable, but it's candy-sweet, pink, and gorgeous. This makes me think of fruity lollipops; and, with the spun sugar in the drydown, this is all lollipops and something like cotton candy on me. I don't get any pepper here. Just fruit and candy and sweetness.

When I originally opened all of my bottles and gave them a quick sniff, The Organ Grinder and the puppets were the ones that I liked best. It's a sweet, edible, milky almond note that reminds me a bit of some exotic danish and then a lovely smack of sweet pine. I grew up in a place called The Whispering Pines, and I love the evergreen notes that BPAL uses. I hate almond (it smells like hyper, boozy maraschino cherries on me), but this almond milk is very lovely. I'm still getting a wee hint of something like sugared cherries, but mostly this is a sweet, milky, honeyed almond scent. After 5 minutes or so... great, my nemesis tobacco is coming in full force to ruin this for me. I hate tobacco notes Tobacco Smoke + Pine = forest fires. I smell burnt and suffocating. I had such high hopes for this one... dashed. This smelled so nice initially, but the drydown is unbearable for me.

I love the puppets, so it'll be interesting to see how I like their mistress. Jasmine is one of my least favorite BPAL notes, so I'm not really hopeful. In the bottle... I definitely smell jasmine, but it smells creamy and sort of nice in the bottle. Creamy jasmine flowers and vanilla. On me, this is an incredibly soft floral. If I didn't know that this had jasmine in it, I would never suspect it. Weird, because my skin usually amps up jasmine like mad. Mostly this is mimosa on me... very light and slightly fruity sweetness that goes a tad powdery in the drydown. I can also pick out a watery violet note that is a bit sharp after a while, but not really bothersome. The Puppet Mistress is a barely there floral on me. Sort of like standing underneath a tree that's heavy with sweet, pink blossoms. I can't pick out any jasmine or musk. I don't generally love florals and I don't love this, but this is a light enough floral that I could get away with wearing it and not getting a migraine.

I feel like I've smelled "Bitch" somewhere before (ha that sounds funny). It's definitely a sinus-clearing sort of herbal scent. It threw me into a sneezing fit and made my nose run when I first put some on. It really bothers me that I clearly know this smell from somewhere, but cannot place it. This almost smells like dill pickles, almost like lemongrass, almost minty, almost herbal lavender... but never quite any of those. On me, wait, I know what this is (or at least what one of the notes are)! Chamomile. It smells very strongly of the Roman Chamomile singlenote that I had once upon a time. There are some other sharper herbal notes in here as well that are kind of ruining the chamomile for me though... I think I'll stick to fragrances like Lump of Coal for my PMS-relief, lol. Chocolate makes me much happier than this sharp herbal blend.

I'm not exactly sure why I bought a 10 ml of this one unsniffed. So many of the new Wanderlust descriptions just sounded like awesome places that I'd like to visit... the whole unspoiled rainforest idea appeals to my sense of wanderlust so strongly. And I liked the thought of smelling "wet, dark greenery." In the bottle... this reminds me of Two Monsters. All masculine, chilling black musk. On me... black musk. It's a cold, dark, almost crystalline sort of musk on me. I also get a hint of something funky and BO smelling at first. After a few minutes, a sweet and lovely floral note begins to twist its way through the black musk. There's also a very damp feel to this, like flowers in the dark depths of the jungle, smothered in thick droplets of condensation. I was kind of enjoying this one and then, 15 minutes or so into this, it becomes so sharp and perfumey that it's making my eyes water . The floral is now reminding me of sharp opium poppy, and the musk has taken a violent turn. Is this that volcanic gas note? If so, I hate it. In the drydown, this blend quite literally stings my eyes and becomes painfully sharp on me. I had to wash it off. It is not the dark greenery that I was hoping for

Pulcinella and Teresina was the Carnaval scent that I was most excited about. Which figures, because it appears to be the most unpopular one . I am always the odd one out. I heaved a sigh of relief when I realized that it was not the leaky bottle in my order. I love puppets. My dad used to put on the most brilliant puppet shows for me when I was little (he passed away when I was 12), and he made them seem so lifelike and funny. They always make me smile and, no matter how creepy they are, I find them adorable. The artwork for Pulcinella and Teresina is my favorite BPAL label ever. What wonderfully evil little marionettes In the bottle, this reminds me so strongly of one of my favorite rose blends ever: Parlement of Foules. But this is much more intense than Parlement. Deeper and richer. The notes in this have me really worried though. BPAL's cedar goes insanely funky and smoky on my skin, and labdanum tends to smell like baby powder on me. I *so* want this to work on me though. I want to love this more than I've ever wanted to love a BPAL blend... On me... this is another wonderful BPAL rose blend and unique enough to stand out from the others as well. This is a perfect blend of peppered woods, goldeny sweet resins, and full red rose on me. No one note is overpowering the other, but it has awesome throw and keeps wafting around me in the most sensual sort of way. I'm not getting any funky cedar or baby powder. After an hour or so, the woods have calmed and headed to the background (but are still very much present and lovely). Now it's mostly soft rose and a sweet, almost syrupy resin. I love everything about Pulcinella and Teresina. It's going on my top 10 list for LE blends, and I'll definitely snag a few more bottles before it disappears

I am now well acquainted with The Candy Butcher. It butchered itself while it was en route to me and leaked all over my package . Bad Candy Butcher. In the umm... bottle... and mostly leaked all over my other bottles... this smells like dark cocoa powder, hazelnut, and rubber balloons. In my attempt to clean up the leaky mess, I got this all over me. And I mean ALL over me. Like a whole bottle of leakage. And this is still incredibly light on me, to the point where it has almost disappeared after only a half hour. I got that rubbery cocoa smell for a while, then it dried down to a faint creaminess that actually reminds me of butterscotch or caramel. But that strange rubber balloon smell is really off-putting. Candy Butcher is more creme brulee than cocoa on me, with a weird rubbery undertone. Staying power is awful on me too. At least I don't have to deeply mourn the loss of my bottle now, lol. There has to be a bright side. ETA: I usually do well with BPAL's chocolate scents (I LOVE Lump of Coal, Bliss, 13, Cerberus) and the creamy, milky, vanilla scents... so The Candy Butcher is an odd exception for me. ETAA: I aged my replacement bottle for a bit over a year and this still smells off on me. The rubber tone isn't as strong and has morphed a bit, but now I get a faintly burnt scent from this. It's like loads of creamy vanilla added into a bit of milk chocolate with a background of burnt rubber. *Why?*