Little Bird

I've pretty much given up on dragon's blood at this point. It always smells like rotting wildflowers on me, sometimes rotting wildflowers mixed with rotting cherries. But it always smells rotten. Blood Amber starts out strongly of rotten florals with a bitter cherry cough syrup undertone. I don't smell any amber until I've been wearing it for about 15 minutes, and it quickly goes powdery on me. Blood Amber smells like rotten wildflowers dusted with babypowder that are sitting in a vase of cherry cough syrup. I give up on you, dragon's blood...

I've really been wanting to try this one, it seems to have so much hype surrounding it. Now I see that it is very well deserved hype . Sometimes I cannot wear Jack because it is nauseatingly buttery. PK is nothing like Jack. This starts out smelling like warm apple cider and fallen leaves on me. Sweet and spicy, the cinnamon actually gives it a warming feeling too. Just like sipping on hot apple cider and watching the leaves change colour into fall. There might be a bit of patchouli here giving it that lovely earthy smell. I've tried 'pumpkin pie' scented oils from a lot of companies and have never been able to wear it. The spices always become overpowering and make me sick. The spices are very present here but they don't turn the blend into a pure cinnamon and nutmeg smell. It really does smell like pumpkin pie cheesecake. I adore cheesecake and this has all of the wonderful creaminess. I love how this goes from smelling like apple cider to smelling like pumpkin pie cheesecake. After about an hour the apple cider scent comes back and the two are coexisting perfectly side by side. I'm so hoping that this will be released this year. I've never smelled anything quite like it before. It is the perfect scent of fall. And I only have half an imp left.

Sekhmet reminds me of a type of candy that my grandmother used to give me when I was little, but I cannot for the life of me remember the name. I didn't really like the candies, because I don't really like the taste of mint or cinnamon. But that is neither here nor there, because Sekhmet smells lovely. Spearmint is one of the only mints that I really like because it seems lighter and softer than, say, peppermint. I smell spearmint here. It is mostly mint with undercurrents of cinnamon. They are both light and subdued and mingle perfectly. In the drydown this is so creamy and lovely. So creamy that I'm wondering if there is vanilla here. The mint is the main thing that I smell, but it is not overpowering at all. And it is all dusted with a bit of cinnamon. I really like this, it's nice and foodie on me... but I don't know if I'd really wear it a lot. I never see myself reaching for minty blends. I'll gift my imp as it was gifted to me and think about ordering a bottle if it is ever available. *ETA: For those who keep asking me... I was given a chance to try this from a friend who won an imp of it in an auction*

I wanted to love Black Phoenix just because of its name... but I don't. I've tried to wear it several times now, and ended up washing it off each time. It's just too thick and boozy. Like cherry cough medicine, syrup, and boozy almond extract. It has a sort of incense like quality in the drydown, but it's just too much for me. Too cloyingly sweet and thick. Sorry, Black Phoenix... it's time to put you up for swaps.

I really enjoy Shroud when I first put it on. It smells of dry woods and an almost green herbal scent. However, it quickly dries down to a perfumey floral scent and goes a bit powdery. This ends up being too floral on my skin. White flowers never seem to work on me...

Of all of the funereal oils that I've tried, Thanatopsis is the only one that I really like. The musk really helps to soften the sharp juniper and pine. I thought that this blend had amber in it, but it is probably just the musk giving it that golden warm smell. The pine and juniper are so sharp at times that I get almost a menthol smell from them. Still, this smells very much like walking through a pine forest and breathing in the smell of sharp needles and resinous pine sap. Another lovely BPAL pine blend.

I thought that I would love Himerus after a few minutes of wearing. I love the way juniper smells on me, so green and spicy. Unfortunately, the juniper is quickly fading. About 15 minutes later the red musk here seems to be dominating with some florals-that-I-can't-name in the background. Himerus has turned to all musky floral horror. I had to wash it off and take an excedrin before I'd even been wearing it for a full hour.

Van Van is one of the BPAL blends that I've tried recently that really surprised me. I wasn't expecting to like this at all. I closed my eyes and randomly picked an imp... luckily, it was Van Van. This smells like herbal tea and a type of citrus on me at first. The citrus isn't harsh like it often is on me though, it smells like creamy lemongrass. There's a strong vanilla here that, I think, is making it smell creamy to me. Like a vanilla milkshake. I hate the smell of baby powder, but the powdery smell in Van Van is in the background and sort of sweetens up and polishes the fragrance. It gets more powdery after hours of wear, but the vanilla smell keeps it fairly grounded. This is strong and has a lot of throw. I like it. I'm plotting to get a 5 ml of it now.

Bluebeard smells like nothing but violets on me. Extremely strong violets. The violets were sickeningly sweet and cold for the first two hours that I wore this. Then they became more and more powdery over the next six hours. When I finally got home 8 hours later, I had to wash this off. It was still going strong though. So... if you're looking for a violet scent with insane staying power... try Bluebeard.

On me, Thalia is mostly pear with a light touch of floral. Very fruity. Very summery. In the drydown, the 'champagne' offers a sort of effervescence to the blend. It's not as bubbly as champagne notes usually are. Overall this is fruity with a touch of floral. Light, innocent, and pretty. Sweet and juicy. And entirely not me. I'll be passing it on to a friend of mine who loves fruit scents.

I really should just give up on the Ars Draconis line. The lab keeps sending me freebies though, and I can't help but try them on. I'm helpless to resist. Dragon's blood does not work on me. It smells like sickening sweet rotten wildflowers. Like you put a bunch of wildflowers in a vase and then left them for a month. In the drydown, rotten wildflowers and leather. I don't find leather smells really appealing unless they are far in the background and held there by other good scents. The combination of dragon's blood and leather leaves me nauseous. This is already heading to my swap pile.

Golden Priapus has been a favorite for me since I first tried it in 2005. And I haven't noticed it varying as much as a lot of bpal's other scents. It's a misty, masculine evergreen sweetened with the creamy vanilla and warmed up by the amber. It smells like a traditional men's scent, though the vanilla turns a little too sweet & dominant on my husband. I wear this myself and my hubby loves it on me <3 says it smells like vanilla and trees.

My husband really likes Casanova, but I don't think that it smells particularly unique or interesting, and it's too sweet for my tastes. When the hubby wears this one, he amps up the tonka, bergamot, and lemon, so it smells very sweet and clean on his skin. It actually smells better on me at first, in my opinion, lol. On me, I get lots of sweet, candied lavender, creamy tonka, and a smoky leather dirtying the whole thing up. I can't ever pick out the patchouli. As it dries down, the leather dies off (unfortunately) and I'm left with sweet, cool lavender and sweet lemony cologne. I love the lavender, but the whole thing is too sweet and too simple to be a keeper for me. Casanova is pleasant and worth trying, of course. I'm just disappointed that it smells better on me than it does on my hubby, and the simple, sweet drydown doesn't do much for me at all. I wish that the leather note were stronger.

Laudanum is a very hard to pin down sort of scent. It's edible and foodie on me, but not in the usual sense of 'this smells like a bakery'. It smells like a kitchen with old fashioned wooden spice racks and all sorts of exotic spices everywhere. Definitely woodsy and spicy. The sassafras comes out after a few minutes of wearing this and smells like root beer on me. Spices, woods, and root beer. Very odd. I'm not sure that I will ever wear this again. It reminds me of the kitchen in my old house, growing up before my mom and dad divorced. The wooden pantry. My mother's exotic spice racks set up all over the kitchen. It's unsettling. I don't really want to smell like that. It smells old and a bit dusty in the drydown. I can practically feel that awkward silence of my parents' strained dinner conversation all over again, being caught in the middle of all of the bad feelings. Very unsettling for me. Amazing how a scent can bring back what the mind tries so hard to forget.

This is my least favorite of pine scents that I have tried thus far. Something about this is very medicinal and off on me. It's sharp rather than spicy and earthy. I never get any lemon out of this blend. It stays a sharp and bitter pine for about an hour and then suddenly disappears. After my bad experience, I tried this out on the boy... he didn't like it either, and I don't care for it on him. It's just too astringent.

Arachne is a very light and pretty scent on me. At first it smells like sweet grass, but it dries down into more of an aquatic scent with what I believe to be sweet lotus. Something about it is innocent and girlie to me. Comforting, even. It has a sweet, cool smell that I love. It's very faint and lasts only a couple hours on my skin, but I don't mind reapplying. I'm surprised that I actually like Arachne. It's going on my list for future 5 ml purchasing

Black Forest smells like a very spicy evergreen forest on me. It has an overall cool, dark and lost feeling to it. Like being lost in a forest as the sun is setting. This reminds me a lot of those car fresheners. You know the ones shaped like little pine trees that people hang on their car mirrors? I like it. I like Skadi and Mistletoe a lot more for pine scents though.

I love patchouli and frankincense. Sandalwood is okay too, not my favorite but I have nothing against it, lol. I was expecting to really like Anne Bonny. BPAL's Indonesian red patchouli just sometimes goes very off on my skin, and it's very bad in Anne Bonny. The best way that I could think to describe this fragrance would be that it smells dirty to me, in a sweaty and in need of a bath sort of way. On me... I smell like I was working in a lumber yard all day in the sweltering heat... sweaty, woodsy, gross. And this is insanely strong and has amazing throw and lasting power. This is one of the few patchouli blends that I don't love (or even like).

Heavy incense notes waft lazily through a mix of carnation, jasmine, bergamot, and neroli over a lush bed of dark mosses, iris blossom, deep patchouli and indolent vetiver. Hm. I'm not getting any floral out of this at all (for which I am grateful, lol). Usually the florals are very strong on my skin chemistry, but I'm getting no flowers from this blend. I have loved the complexity of all of the Mad Tea Party scents and I love The Caterpillar as well. This is such a green/herbal scent on me. It does remind me of caterpillars. Kind of clean, kind of earthy, definitely green. It has a sort of golden smell that is reminding me of dry hay as well. Interesting. I don't know if I'd get a full bottle of this, but I'm very glad that I had the chance to try it.

The pinnacle of wealth, luxury, self-indulgent pleasure, voluptuousness and sensuality. Bright violet with sweet clove, Mediterranean incense notes and tonka bean. Violets tend to either be sickly sweet and cold on my skin or they go soapy. They are sickly sweet in Sybaris. Smelling this leaves a bad sweet taste in my mouth. The clove starts to make its presence known after a while, adding a light spiciness under the sweetness of the violet. After 15 minutes, Sybaris smells like soap and bubblegum on me . It is mostly faded after an hour. When I smell my wrist closely, this smells very watery. Like a swimming pool filled with chlorine. Sweet, cool, and wet. I wonder if this is just the violets doing odd things with my skin chemistry? I never smelled tonka or incense. Very odd.

First on, Machu Picchu is fruity like sno-cones and fresh like dryer sheets. It's an odd combination, and the clean smell is just a bit too harsh and soapy for my liking. After 15 minutes, the dryer sheet smell has softened and this is more floral and aquatic on me. The flowery smell is sweet and not perfumey at all, it's a floral that's actually not giving me a headache. An hour into wearing and this is a very lovely and not too specific scent. It's more of a clean fragrance than it is anything else, but I can definitely smell florals, aquatics, and fruits here as well. I don't like that it smells fruity, but I can't think of any fruit that it actually smells like. It's anonymously floral and fruity. Machu Picchu is a nice scent, but it's just not me. It smells clean and bland on me. It doesn't remind me of a rainforest so much as it reminds me of doing laundry.

I loved Hurricane when I first got into bpal, but it doesn't smell at all the same if you get a sample/bottle today. It used to remind me of blackberry bushes soaked in rain, very real and evocative. Now it smells like cheap, soapy ozone airfreshener and a hint of waxy watermelon flavored lip smackers. Gross and disappointing...

When first on, Burial is a very strong pine forest scent. The juniper is sharp and the patchouli lingering and earthy in the background. It starts off with so much throw and strength that I thought this would be a very heavy scent. Surprisingly, after only a couple minutes, this fades away to almost nothing on me. 5 minutes later, I'm pressing my nose to my wrist and not smelling much of anything. That pine scent is gone and I don't smell any patchouli. I can almost smell something that reminds me of very light myrrh. Then after about fifteen minutes have passed, Burial gets stronger again. Only now it smells like bug spray . Sharp and unpleasant. This isn't working with my skin chemistry at all... it's still rather faint, but I know this smell and it reminds me of going camping with my mother and her slathering bug spray on all of her children. I don't want a bug spray perfume, so this will be going up for swaps to someone who has better skin chemistry than myself...

I've worn Regan 3 or 4 times now to try to give it a fair and proper review. It's odd because it starts off rather perfumey and strongly white floral on me, which I hate, but it quickly dries down into something light and almost edible. It does get powdery. It's not a bad powder though. It smells like a creamy vanilla dusting powder. With perfects some musky floral lingering in the background. It's very light and comforting. This is a 'wearing sweatpants and watching TV curled up with the boy' fragrance for me. Lazy, comforting, and ready for a nap.

I have a hard time wearing flowery fragrances. Floral blends often smell cheap and musky to me, sharp and headache inducing. I often do okay wearing rose blends, but it's rare that I have a floral love. And, as far as florals go, I actually don't mind Midnight. This is a pretty night-time floral without any white floral sharpness or heavy musky/perfuminess. The moonflower is the strongest note on my skin. I love moonflower's chilly, soft sweetness, and it's almost powdery soft here. Overall this is a sweet, slightly powdery floral that's dominated by the moonflower. It's enchanting and lovely. Cool toned and sugary. The LE "Midnight on the Midway" scent smells just like this Midnight with some fruity cotton candy added to it. Midnight is also a suitable replacement for "The Evening Star." The strong moonflower note makes them all smell very similar.