Little Bird

I get lots of vetiver from this, especially at first. It smells like dark, charred, smoking wood, dark musk that reminds me of Satyr, and a dash of sweet cinnamon. There's also something strangely foodie in here that's reminding me of coffee or chocolate. I don't like the combination at all, it winds up smelling a bit like burnt coffee and cinnamon with masculine musk. Blech. After about a half hour, it's much the same, but the watery, sickly sweetness of dragon's blood has joined the mix and not improved matters at all... Bloodlust smells rather gross on me.

Absinthe definitely did not agree with me... though I usually am not fond of minty scents anyhow. At first I did get the licorice scent that others were getting, an odd minty licorice scent. Perhaps a bit boozy. I have no idea what absinthe smells like, so I can't say if the oil smells like the drink. In the drydown this is mostly mints and lemon drops. It's very light and completely disappears in about an hour. I think that I'll be swapping this one...

King of Clubs is a definite new love for me... I seem to be favoring more masculine geared scents lately. The King reminds me of a gorgeous shadowy forest. Dark and very green. Earthy and damp. I get a hint of leather at first but then it disappears forever after a few minutes (thankfully). And then the amber and fig start to come out and I am in complete heaven. The fig isn't as strong or sweet as it usually is on my skin, but it offers a fruity wetness to the blend and warms up nicely along with the amber. The golden amber feels like touches of sunlight falling through the forest. It's spicier and warmer in the drydown. Gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

Ugh. Leanan Sidhe wins the award for worst BPAL scent that I've tried thus far. This just does not agree with me at all. It's the most bitter scent that I've ever had on me. It's not floral or anything in particular on me, it just smells like some sort of poisonous chemical that is going to kill me . It seriously burns my nose/throat when I try to smell it. This is definitely one for my swap pile...

I wanted to try House of Night because it was described as green, and I love anything that smells grassy or plant-like minus the florals. For the first few minutes on my skin it was a lovely sort of peppery green smell, like the stalks of flowers. However, it quickly morphed into a sickeningly sweet floral. Like a vase of decomposing flowers. It makes me sick to my stomach, I had to wash this one off...

The Dormouse was definitely a pleasant surprise. I'm finding that I really like BPAL's tea scents. First applied this smells like green tea spilled over lush green grass. I love the smell of fresh cut grass. Then a lovely smell of green apple came through (not that fake candy green apple smell - real tart green apples). The Dormouse reminds me of sitting under the shade of an apple tree in a gorgeous green field. No florals ever come out on me, it's just wonderful, light, and clean smelling. I wish that this would last longer and that it had a bit more throw, but it's gorgeous and I'm still planning on buying a 10 ml of it.

When I first tried this in 2005, it smelled mostly of neroli (sweet orange) and bergamot (sweet lemon). The recent imps I've gotten have been heavier on the patchouli and rose notes. Dry, earthy patchouli, sour neroli and perfumey rose.

Brisingamen mostly just smells like baby powder on my skin, thanks to bpal's amber notes (no other company turns to powder on me like these do). There's a whiff of fruity, soapy apple blossom for the first few seconds on my skin, but that quickly disappears under the powder. I keep thinking that I smell a hint of vetiver (the earthy, dead grass variety) underneath the baby powder every once in a while. Bpal's amber notes are almost always a letdown.

Wow, this is spicy. Spicy like pepper, but it definitely isn't pepper. It's delicious and I want to season something with it. In the drydown I can start to pick out the hint of rose that other have mentioned. Rose and pine. It has faded quickly into a light cool scent. I'm surprised by how much I like this. The rose doesn't go powdery or soapy on me (a miracle!). This is a wonderfully crisp and rosy floral on me after about an hour. Light and not overpowering at all. Not really me either, but I still like it a lot.

I was extremely lovestruck upon first sniff. This smells like wet, green stalks of a lovely bamboo plant. It screams of lush green wetness. Then, after about 5 minutes, this starts to go bitter and perfumey on me. NO! >_< I cannot stand that smell. It's the same way that a lot of the Dior poison perfumes smell on me. Overpowering, should've been left in the 80's sharp bitter musky sort of scent. Kind of like hairspray. That's what I mean by perfumey, that throat clogging bitter hairspray smell. A half hour later. Still hairspray. I had to wash this off... and it started off so good too

First applied, this smells like Eternal, but with a big helping of dry dirt added in. Then I think that I start to smell jasmine, but it never comes out as strongly as jasmine usually does on my skin. 15 minutes later. Perfumey florals and something medicinal. I can still smell dirt, and I'm not liking this. A half hour later. Gah. This is turning really bitter, sharp, and perfumey on me. No more dirt, just disagreeable florals. I'm feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. And then it suddenly softens. It is a light floral that reminds me of wilting flowers. An overturned vase. No incense though. Crossroads disappointed me...

Simply cool, the essence of Lounge: the scent of a crisp pomegranate martini. It's so hard for me to fall in love with boozy scents... I've never drank alcohol and have never even been in the presence of a martini, so I'm not sure if this smells like one, lol. On me this smells like beer mixed with fruit punch. Verrry boozy and tart. After about an hour it fades quite a bit and smells like boozy soap . It's definitely not a winner for my skin chemistry.

I really hated strawberry scents before I tried BPAL's interpretation of strawberry. I'd been turned against the fruit thanks to lines like Dessert Beauty, where the strawberry is sickeningly sweet and plasticy. But BPAL's strawberry is just lovely. The fruit is somehow richer and reminds me more of the actual fruit, rather than bad candies. This does have a sweet candy smell to it, it's just not a gross and overwhelming sweetness. And the champagne is fizzy, alcoholic, and oddly clean smelling on me. The champagne amps up after spending hours on my skin and I dislike how boozy it becomes. In the end, I love Hollywood Babylon a lot more as a strawberry scent. Bon Vivant is still lovely though and I plan to keep my imp.

Hm. Kathmandu was an odd experience for me. I expected it to last longer, since the cedar was so strong and potent initially. I didn't expect this to smell kind of minty (didn't read reviews before trying). Minty cedar, I now know, is not really my thing. Cedar just doesn't seem to agree with me. It either reminds me of BBQ or smells dry and dusty. It smells sort of dusty in Kathmandu. It's all gone within an hour though. This is one for my swap pile.

In the imp vial, something smelled wonderfully fruity. I normally hate fruit scents with the exception of blackberry... and that's what I smelled here. It reminded me a bit of Glasgow (a favorite of mine <3). On my skin this became a wonderfully wet fresh water and ozone smell with a hint of citrus. The citrus wasn't bitter or overpowering as it usually is on my skin though. It reminds me of the way rain water smells on the sidewalk on a warm summer day. As it dries down I begin to smell the blackberry that I loved in the vial . And for hours this reminds me of Glasgow. A wetter Glasgow with a light charge of ozone and a hint of green grasses. Glasgow somehow improved. My skin chemistry LOVES this. I love this. After about 4 hours this is very light and faint, it has gone back to something light citrus dryer sheets. I want to reapply, but I'm afraid of using up my imp. I wish that I'd gotten a bottle of this along with Cerberus...

laochodia (my hero ) sent me a bottle and an imps worth of milk moon. I was a BPAL newbie when milk moon was for sale at the lab and didn't realize how quickly the moons sell out... so I missed my chance, and have been upset about it ever since, lol. But I now have a precious and much coveted imp. This is such heaven. It might be my all time favorite BPAL scent (maybe even better than 13). It starts out a wonderfully rich vanilla cream drizzled with caramel on my skin. Foodie and surprisingly strong. I'm not getting any mint, which is good because I don't like mint. I can smell this strongly on my skin for about 6 hours before it starts to fade. In that time it stayed mainly vanilla cream, but with a swirl of caramel, honey, and marshmallow scents coming out around the cream. It's so rich and amazing. I don't know what I'll do when my imp is gone. I hate myself for not ordering a dozen bottles of this. I love you, Milk Moon

Pannychis most definitely hates me. I thought that it had a lot of interestingly combined notes (currants, florals, frankincense, sandalwood, everything). Unfortunately, when first applied, this is just floral. Jasmine to make my brain throb. It has a lot of throw too. Putting on a sweater and tucking my wrist behind my back did not help the headache to cease. After about an hour a sort of fruity note comes up under the loud jasmine (the currants finally coming into play) and I think I smell an odd note that is the ylang ylang. Ylang ylang always turns an odd (but not unpleasant) metallic note on my skin. In the end I scrubbed this off of my wrist... it was just too much jasmine and too much floral for me.

When I first applied Tempest, it smelled like crushed lemon rind with a sort of salt water twinge. As it dries it begins to smell more soapy and I start thinking about dryer sheets. 15 minutes later the citrus starts to come out and is stronger, along with something that could be pine. It's sort of green and sharp. Not as much ozone or aquatic as I had anticipated. After about 2 hours... all dryer sheet. 5 hours later it was gone. I am not amazed with this one, probably wouldn't ever buy a full bottle.

Orange blossom pretty much always goes rancid on my skin... either smelling like burnt citrus or something like dirty baby powder. Catherine's orange blossom was no exception. Only in this the rose also goes soapy. When first applied, this smelled like soapy rose and citrus, very sharp and bitter. It dried down to soapy rose, a smell of burnt orange peel, and baby powder. I had to wash it off when it started to give me a headache

I knew that I would hate Nuit just by reading the description. White florals, jasmine, and white musks are all great for giving me migraines. Still, I tried it on because sometimes jasmine blends do surprise me. Nope. The jasmine is smoky/screeching and overwhelming... the musk is perfumey... the white rose is going soapy. And they're all fighting with each other to make their awful presence known . This reminds me of some awful Dior perfume I had once that I can't place at the moment. Very department store perfumey. If you like white florals, perfumey musks, or jasmine, you would probably like this. Definitely not for me though... everything that could go wrong here, does, lol.

I've put off reviewing Dunwich out of all of the SiA scents because it is my favorite and I don't know how to do it justice. I didn't think that I would like this either. It was only by accident that my boy and I got into a fight right before the scents were taken down and he felt bad so he bought me this out of guilt... lol. This is kind of green, kind of salty, kind of grapefruity. This isn't really floral or soapy on me. No ozone. No rotting flowers. Not even a really wet/aquatic fragrance. Perhaps a swampy forest. Mostly hanging mosses and mud. But it's pretty, really. It isn't what I expected Dunwich to smell like. It isn't dark or threatening to me, moreso a comforting, quiet forest with rays of sunlight peaking through the moss clad trees. So... yes... Dunwich is my favorite of the series and I am so glad that I have a bottle of it

I'm sad to say that the pepper never comes out for me in this blend (I'd kill for something that smells like pure black pepper, lol). I don't really like mint, but I was hoping that this would dry down into a mostly cucumber and pepper blend. At first this is nice cool spearmint. Spearmint is my favorite of mints, so it wasn't too bad. Then the cucumber lingers and offers up a nice clean wet smell in the background of the mint. Then it goes weird and smells like wild onions on me . I've worn Tulzscha 3 times now (light and slathered on like mad) and it always goes to this faint wild onions scent on me. It's weird and I don't really want to smell like onions. Throughout the day it changes from wild onions to cucumber to wild onions and back. It's great as cucumber, weird and sort of sickening with the onion. This is probably going to be another SiA blend that I decant away for the most part.

When I first applied this, it was nothing but sweet spearmint. Actually kind of warm, with a green mossy scent underneath it. After about 15 minutes, a sweet powder and pepper scent came out around the mint. It was pleasant and golden. Then, within an hour, this was nothing but baby powder. I don't really like mint... and mint apparently does not like me either, lol.

I thought that I would love Azathoth since people were describing it as masculine and I have a history of happily wearing men's colognes. The cedar in this is the main note on me and it is a very smoky cedar at that. All I can think of when I sniff this is 'BBQ' . This is probably a result of my father BBQing with cedar planks... I now have an association with that smell. The citrus comes out on the cedar as well, like a nice citrus marinade. This isn't really masculine on me either. It smells surprisingly sweet and smoky. Azathoth might be my least favorite blend in the SiA series, sadly.

First on I get very strong clove and jasmine. I also feel like there's patchouli in this, it's a very strange mix of overwhelming sweet and overwhelming spicy. I was intrigued by the clove and bourbon vanilla in this blend. Unfortunately, it did exactly what I feared it would. This smells like nothing but jasmine on me after about two minutes. Giving me yet another jasmine induced headache. Boo. All of the other notes sounded so lovely... but jasmine is a ruthless bully