Little Bird

When I first slathered on some Red Devil, I smelled like very yummy red cherry candies. Hard candies. Sweet and edgy. That faded into the background and I started to smell a blend of pepper and cinnamon. The cinnamon wasn't as strong as it normally is on my skin though. And it was all muted by a strange, but good, floral smell. I thought that it was rather pretty at this point. Then it turned into pure headache-inducing jasmine on me. Smoky and overwhelming. I had to wash it off as the beginnings of a migraine came over me. Sadly, this is just another Voodoo Blend that didn't work for me... so far my only success in this category has been with Follow Me Boy. Oh well, up for swaps this goes.

I've wanted to try Roadhouse for quite a while now just because it sounded so interesting and unlike any of the other fragrances. Plus, I *love* the green/bitter scent of dandelions. Unfortunately, as I had feared, the 'booze' smell in this is ruining it for me. For the most part is does smell like bitter dandelions, but every once in a while this stale alcohol scent creeps up that really turns my stomach. It reminds me of a party that I went to once where some idiot spilled his beer down the front of my shirt. I was sticky, unhappy, and smelled awful the entire night. And that is the sort of memory that Roadhouse is conjuring up for me . I'm not getting any tobacco out of this... I have a hard time picking out the smell of tobacco in any of the blends that I've tried though, so it might just be me. I wanted to try Roadhouse for the novelty of it, and I'm quite glad that I did... this just isn't something that I could ever wear, really. It's not 'me' and the boozy lingering note in the background is turning me off.

Mmm... I love apricots. They always smell very warm and friendly to me (weird? perhaps). Grand Guignol smells just like the juicy fuzzy fruits on my skin. Like I took a ripe apricot and squeezed it over my wrist. It's very sweet and simple. I don't normally like or want to wear fruity scents, but I am definitely fond of this one. It doesn't smell boozy or brandy-ish on me at all either, so I'm thankful for that. Lasting power on me was decent as well. I wore it for 6 hours before taking a bath and could still smell it wafting up from my wrist. If I magically run into some extra cash, I'll be getting a full size bottle, lol. In the meantime... I will provide a loving and appreciative home for my imp

Tezcatlipoca was one of the very first fragrances that intrigued me on my first venture to the BPAL website. I read the description and fell instantly in lust. I knew in my heart that I would fall in love with it... but I still only got an imp of it. How stupid of me >_<. I can't even begin to explain how perfectly gorgeous and amazing this is. It's so good that I am at a loss to explain it. I could never do it justice. I was most excited about a blend of cocoa and patchouli (two favorites of mine)... and a little worried that the florals in this would 'mess it up' somehow. They don't mess it up at all. It's a perfect blend of every note. There's not too much cocoa, not too much patchouli, not too much leather, and not too much floral. Nothing overpowers anything else. They just meld into one glorious smooth scent. If I had to say this is anything, I would say that it is earthy incense (but not in that smoky harsh way that makes me ill, and it has a rich sweetness from the cocoa). Elegant and earthy. This would probably be excellent on my boyfriend, but I'm definitely not sharing to find out, lol. Tezcatlipoca is a 10 ml purchase in my next BPAL order.

Elegba is sugary sweet. The kind of sweet that makes me feel like I'm getting cavities just from sniffing it, lol. I don't ever smell any coconut from this blend... perhaps a hint of sweet tobacco in the background. It also isn't as boozy as I thought it would be (Grog smelled more alcoholic on me). It fades pretty fast (lasted about 2 hours on me) but it is crazy sugared sweetness while it lasts. Has a smooth buttery quality from the rum. In its final stage, it smells just like I pasted sugar water onto my skin. I like Elegba a lot, but I don't know that I'd ever buy a full size bottle of it. I love foodie scents, so I already have a lot of sweet/sugary fragrances. And I love a lot of them a lot more than I like Elegba... so I wouldn't wear this one enough to justify a full bottle purchase.

I was enchanted with Eden at first sniff. I expected this to be a foodie scent... with sweet coconut and honey. It's not foodie on me at all, but it's something much much better. At first it is just wonderful green leaves. It reminds me of climbing trees in the summer. How you can crush a handful of plump healthy leaves and they will leave a wet sappy mark on your hands. Eden smells of that vibrant green sap. After about fifteen minutes the toasted coconut comes into play. It smells like I've sprinkled coconut over some leaves and mixed them together. It still isn't tropical or foodie smelling on me though. It's surprisingly fresh and vibrant. An hour later the green leaves are fading (though they are still very much present) and a milky almond note is coming out more. The fragrance is still very soft and clean. It's not too sweet or foodie at all, for those who were worried about that. It's an amazing light fragrance that makes me think of summer. It lasts for a good four hours on me, the fig never really comes out and the honey makes a brief/light appearance at the end. In conclusion, I regret not buying a 5 ml of Eden... but there's always my next order.

I had the same problem with Persephone that a few others had... the rose completely devours the pomegranate. This is also the type of rose that I'm not fond of. A sort of light soapy rose. For a while it had a burnt of plasticy undertone that was making me sick. All in all, Persephone gives me a soapy-floral headache...

I was excited to try this because of the description of smelling like dried leaves and oak. I thought that it would be a lovely 'forest in fall' type of scent. When I first applied this, it was disappointingly awful. Sharply perfumey and bitter. The aquatic note is all I can smell and it is biting... the kind of bad taste in my mouth sensation that I get from biting into an orange peel. I kept waiting for it to get softer or more woodsy. However, I stupidly overlooked the 'white lilies' part of this description. This fragrance reminded me exactly why I usually run away from white florals. They go very perfumey/soapy and sharp on my skin. The woods never came out over my skin amping up the white florals. Sadly, this went from bad-aquatic to bad-floral on my skin...

ETA: My review below (and most of these other reviews) are for the original Dorian blend, NOT the reformulation that you can purchase on the Lab's site now. The reformulation of Dorian smells absolutely NOTHING like the original. So please don't buy Dorian based on these reviews and check the newer reviews. The new Dorian is pink, powdery, warm toned, and unrecognizable as Dorian. Add me to the already long list of Dorian fans because Dorian is my favorite bpal and one of my signature scents. Creamy, cool musk with the smoothest vanilla, plunked into a cup of soft, sugared tea. It's vanilla, but cool toned and leaning masculine (but, really, perfectly unisex). I love it so much and everyone loves it on me. I don't get any citrus tones and I'm good with that.

Just yesterday I was hanging out with my mom and she mentioned how much she loved the smell of butterscotch (she was admiring a new lotion of mine) and I was wishing that I knew of a perfume that I could get her with a similar scent. This isn't a pure butterscotch on me, of course, with the boozy rum in certain stages... but it is mostly a warm golden silky butterscotch scent. My mother is now absolutely fawning over the imp

Wow, this fragrance is really overpowering on me. Giving me that beat up nosebleed feeling. First off I do get a grapefruit smell. But it's not like nice juicy grapefruit insides... it's like slightly hardened angry grapefruit rind. Very sharp. I also get an odd/sweet incense smell in the background. After about a half hour, I have angry grapefruit rind and salt. Not saltwater... it's like I stuck my head into a bag of salt and snorted some up my nose. Sniffing this leaves me feeling lightheaded and wounded. It's... interesting...

I really don't understand why this is so popular. It smells like faint baby powder to me... it's the same in the imp, on my skin, and on other people. All I smell is baby powder. I definitely don't get any of the richness of carnation, red sandalwood, or spices. ETA: This is one of those bpal scents that never smells the same, like it is composed of random ingredients every time I've gotten a new imp or bottle. I've gotten versions that are powdery, versions that smell like sour cedar, versions that smell like fluffy vanilla, and versions that are spicy. I ordered a full bottle after getting a recent imp that smelled vanilla-y, but then the bottle smelled like sour woods. Really irritating.

In the bottle, this smelled strongly of patchouli. Just a small squeeze of lemon in the background. I was hoping that this is what it would smell like on my skin (never works out that way, does it? lol). On my skin, the combination of lemon, patchouli, and cedar smells very strongly of BBQ. I made the boy sniff my wrist and he seconded this notion by asking me if I was wearing something that was supposed to smell like mesquite... I smell like chicken marinated in a lemon dressing and roasting over a campfire. I don't like this as a fragrance, but I'm really hungry now...

I've been wanting to try Lex Talionis for a while now. Sadly, it was discontinued about 2 days before I had planned to place an order for a bottle of it. Anyhow, a lovely swapper sent me an imp of it... so I can finally try it. Perhaps I'm weird, but I LOVE black pepper and patchouli. If I could get a blend of nothing but black pepper and patchouli then I would be a very happy girl. When I first apply this, it is black pepper in all its glory. So spicy and pulsing and yummy. Then after about five minutes, it softens and starts going sweet. Which is not what I wanted to happen. I've spent the last two hours sniffing my wrist and hoping (PRAYING) that the pepper would come back. Or patchouli. Patchouli? Where are you? This is violets, myrrh, and cedar. It is a soft and somewhat sweet smell. Not at all what I had hoped... so maybe it is good that I didn't buy a full size bottle when I had the chance. It starts out so strongly and wonderful though.

I don't really like floral blends... I know this, yet I still had to try Twilight. I figured that this would be a really strong scent, with the jasmine dominating. My skin usually amps up the jasmine. I was surprised that the lavendar is what stands out the strongest on me. The lavendar is cooling, like crisp night air. Then there is lovely honeysuckle twisting about through the lavendar. I never even smell that jasmine (which was a relief). Overall this a lovely and not too overpowering floral. I've been looking for a soft honeysuckle scent, and this is that.

To me, Satyr smells like a deep red musk, sour resins, and cinnamon. A very dark and wild sort of musk that I find really sexy and aggressive smelling. My older bottles had less of that cinnamon note in it than my more recent bottles/imps, but I still like this scent. It's one of my favorites from bpal, though I can see it being a bit too much for a lot of people. It's definitely on the heavier, headshoppy side of things, which I normally dislike, but something about Satyr just smells really sexy to me. On a random note, it's similar in feel to Sin.

This is one of those scents that I really like, but would probably never wear. It's a very sweet/smoky incense. It has a sort of sooty/dirty quality to it. At first it smells like a nice floral incense, then dries down to something sweeter and more powdery. It lasts about five hours on my skin... I can barely smell it now, just a trace of something smoky, like the remnants of a burned out campfire. It just doesn't feel like me. I'd pass over this one when picking out a scent to wear each day... nothing is really outstanding or grabbing my attention. I'll probably end up decanting this one out to a few curious friends.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this, as I don't have a lot of experience with aquatics or ozones. Best way I can describe this: smells like a dryer sheet that has been soaked in murky salt water, with a squeeze of something citrus over it. It is a surprisingly lovely clean fragrance. I do think that this would be more at home on a guy... and I'll probably decant most of it for a few male friends of mine who have expressed an interest in smelling like the Great Cthulhu. ETA: After about a half hour, this smells like a salty lime margarita on my boy, lol. He actually thought that I sprayed him with my lime margarita body spray from Skindazzles... and that was the citrus that I smelled when I tried it on myself, a sort of salty lime.

The second that I read the description for Whippoorwill, I had to have it. I was so excited to get it, as it sounds like the perfect spicy green scent. Then I started reading the reviews and got scared. Many people describe it as perfumey (which I can't stand), powdery (which I hate), and soapy (which I'm not at all fond of). However, after wearing this all day, I am happy to report that this was not perfumey, powdery, or soapy on me. This is very well blended. Whenever I smell it, I think of wet moss and long green grasses in a marsh. Yet there is something oddly edible about this. It reminds me of nights from my childhood where my father and I would stand outside on the porch after a rain and listen to the whippoorwills singing. Wet, earthy, cool, green, and slightly haunting. It's wonderful. This is going to be my favorite scent this summer.

There isn't too much to say here that hasn't already been said. Add me to the list of Shub Niggurath fans. I've never smelled Gingerbread Poppet (though I've always wanted to try it, just can't ever manage to get an imp or bottle of it, lol) but Shub Niggurath is exactly what I had hoped it would smell like. When I first put it on, it smells like gingerbread cookies... then it dries down into something wetter, spicier, and more mouth watering. It is foodie, but not just foodie or overwhelmingly so. Shub Niggurath has that same wet spicy/almost citrus note that I loved so much in Cerberus. Mmm... I'm so glad that I got a bottle of this.

Wearing Nocnitsa was like dousing myself in PineSol cleanser. Smelled very very strongly of pine and a strange minty-menthol note. I normally am very fond of pine scents, but this was just too strong and sharp. I had to scrub it off after about two hours because it just kept getting more and more obtrusive and bitter.

I loved Wilde desperately when I first got into bpal (smelled like sexy lemon italian ice, lol). Then it went through a phase where it smelled incredibly dish soapy on me (but also, I was on meds at the time that seemed to mess up my skin chemistry). Now I'm trying it again after several years more of experience and while my skin chemistry seems to be normal, lol. In the imp, this smells lemony, sweet, smooth and cool. I think I'm picking up the lavender and bergamot. On my skin, this smells sweet, cool, and refreshing, like a sweet lemon ice on a hot day. The creamy, vanilla-y tonka makes the whole blend smoother and sweeter, and the lavender smells cool and gorgeous. Bergamot, lavender, and tonka, in that order. I don't smell any patchouli, moss, jasmine, or thyme exactly, but I suspect that the thyme is adding a bit of complexity and zing to the blend, and it and the lavender are keeping the blend from turning sickly sweet. Yup. I love this. It smells great on me. The lavender really smells masculine enough for my husband to pull this off, even though it is a bit too sweet on him. This and Vicomte de Valmont are two of my favorite masculine blends to give away to the menfolk in my life.

Okay... this did something very odd on my skin. Dragon's Blood and Musk are usually very sharp, bitter, and overpowering on me. I thought that this would be horrible and give me a headache... but I still tried it on, just because I have the need to try everything at least twice. For about one minute (if that) this was very spicy. Musk and cloves and peppers. Then it faded away in an instant and smelled like fruity bubblegum . Not at all what I was expecting. For about a half away, it continued to remind me of Juicy Fruit, then it dried down into a very faint light floral. Reminding me of tiny yellow flowers blowing in a breeze. Then it was all gone within an hour. Very unusual for a musky scent...

I was hesitant to try this as it has a lot of things in it that don't usually work well on my skin chemistry or that tend to give me headaches (roses, jasmine, and musk). At first, this smelled like a crazed blend of roses, screechingly bright and gave me that nosebleed feeling. Then the jasmine came in and actually seemed to calm the roses down. It became a nice floral blend, soft and very feminine. I hate florals like this, but even I had to admire how pretty it was. Then... after a half hour... musk. Nothing but musk. I'm used to that happening though... my skin will amp up the musk in almost anything. This is a very strong fragrance, a tiny dab on my wrist and I can still smell it clearly around me even three hours later. Which is bad, because the musk is giving me a bit of a headache...

Mmm... patchouli . I love how well BPAL's patchouli scents usually work on my skin. Urd is just gorgeous. There is a sort of grape-like sweetness to this, but not at all a candied plastic grape, just a sort of subtle fruity tang. The nag champa is sweet and incensey. The patchouli offers up that spicy dark quality that I love. It's so lovely... a wonderful sweet patchouli fragrance. Even my sister (who hates patchouli) thought that this was a wonderful scent. I may have to get a 10 ml of this one.