Little Bird

On me, Mary Shelley is tons of sharp, intensely soapy ozone, smelling like soapy dryer sheets. I can smell hints of the mint and black licorice as it dries down, but they're covered in an unpleasant, sharp, dry soapiness. Starts turning baby powdery after about a half hour. I don't care for this one at all.

Aquatic, slightly soapy, generic men's cologne muskiness with hints of smoky vetiver and lemony bergamot & hay (the lab's hay note usually smells like dead grass, dry wood and lemons to me, and I get that impression here too). I don't really like the clean cologne mixed with a darker smokiness here. Opoponax is usually super strong on me, but I don't smell it at all for about the first hour on my skin, and then I started catching wafts of resinous, syrupy sweetness. Still, this is mostly lemony, cologne-like, and slightly soapy, with a weird, dark undertone of smoke and resin. The parts don't mesh well to me. New imp of this smells like tons of sour lemon cologne with an undertone of ashy vetiver and dry, dusty hair. Not a fan.

Not sure what the 'yellowing, ancient bones' are supposed to smell like, but I definitely get the rose. Big, heavy, lush, red roses with a musky/perfumey edge to them. No greenery or anything to them, just a perfumey red rose scent.

The original Velvet Pink Kitty perfume oil was so sweet that it gave me a headache and made me feel sick, so I'm not sure why I thought it would be better as a room spray, lol. I don't smell any gin at all in this formulation (or maybe the gin went away entirely with age?), which I'd need to cut through the cloying sweetness. It's like strawberry bubblegum, cheap strawberry hard candy, and extra sugar. So so SO sweet.

Starts off smelling like a bathroom disinfectant with lots of sour lemongrass and settles into a soapy, dry, tart citrus. Not my sort of thing, but very clean and sharp.

Stale beer, sharp cinnamon (like red hots candies) and a sour, tangy citrus. I don't care for this scent at all.

I have two imps of this directly from the lab, and both smell different. In the first, the black musk and vetiver make for a dark, powdery, slightly smoky, black incense cologne. The honey weaves through and smells sickly and a little urine-like. The drydown starts to smell ashy, sour and sharp, and still has that undertone of urine-honey... I was worried about the lemon, but I don't get any lemon. Sickly honey, ashy vetiver, and powdery black musk. My man said it smelled like fireplace ashes and rotting flowers. In the latest imp, it smells nowhere near as bad. The vetiver is still a touch ashy and smoky, but the black musk is enveloping, sweet and resinous, and the honey is just a pleasant, creamy sweetness that wraps itself all around the black musk, so that this is rather similar to the muskiness + sweetness that reminds me of Snake Oil. No lemon or saffron to be found in either version.

I expected a rich, heavy, sweet rose with incense. This is a watery, perfumey, thin, sharp little rose on me, though. It has a sour, lemony sharpness to it. A little sweeter in the drydown, but still no incense, and this is far too sharp for my tastes. I think that Hedylogos is my all time least favorite of bpal's roses. I like rich, bold, sweeter roses.

It's interesting how different this is on everyone. I was hoping that I'd be in the camp of people who are getting tons of sugar and apple jolly ranchers from this, but apple blossom does its usual thing on me and immediately turns to soap. I smell like apple-floral shampoo.

The cubeb overwhelms with its tart, lemony scent. Cubeb mixed with honey starts to smell like lemon & honey flavored cough drops. I'm surprised that I'm not getting any carnation or rose, because florals are usually pretty strong on me. Lemon-honey-cough-drops

Pretty, soft rose with a hint of greenery clinging to it, coated in a warm, honey scented dusting powder. I'm not getting the cream or a creamy impression from this, but it's a pretty, sweet, honeyed, powdery rose with some unusual green notes.

My decant is now well aged and red musk amps up on me to high heaven, but I was still sad to not get any of the 'lavender fougere' from this. I enjoy bpal's fougere and masculine blends. This is a big, incensey, slightly smoky red musk on me with a hint of sharp citrus. It goes a little grapey and reminiscent of nag champa incense on my skin. Strong red musk.

Another 'weenie that seems more like a spring scent than a fall one to me. Apple blossom smells bright, clean, green, tart and soapy, mixed with a watery sort of coconut. Dries down with warm, powdery sandalwood, but no leather or woody musk for me.

Always reminds me of Olympic Orchid's Woodcut, but less natural and not as good or complex (though I do still enjoy Disappointing Pencil). I collect the stranger sounding single note blends, so this was a keeper for me. I don't know if it really smells like a pencil to me, but it has a rich, dry wood (yet it smells creamy and soft as well, like a wood that would be easy to carve) and almost a caramelized sweetness to it. I love cedar and this is cedar without cedar's natural spiciness. Somewhere between good cedar and good sandalwood. I don't know if I'm making any sense, but I like this and think that it's a very good wood fragrance.

I was afraid of the beer, but this is an explosion of cinnamon on my skin, and not much else. Starts off very dry, but has more of a buttery, creamy edge to it in the drydown. But mostly all cinnamon all the time.

White musk and tobacco flower make this have a white, soapy, dryer sheets feel. The neroli and white tea form a creamy, orange-y, sharp citrus refreshment next to the laundry pile. I don't get any leather at all. It's a clean, spring-like fragrance.

I bought this, because I'm planning on collecting all of the Seven Word Story installments (why? who knows), even though I tend to hate the lab's pomegranate note. This isn't as dry and tart as the pom usually is on me, though. It usually smells like powdery sweet tarts candy. The red fruit here is bright, perfumey, and a little soapy, like a pomegranate scented shampoo. I'm not getting much incense at all, just a slight smokiness in the drydown that reminds me more of cigarette smoke than incense, which is appropriate for the story, I suppose. I don't really like this, but I'm keeping my bottle for the set, so maybe something magical will happen to it with age.

The aquatic/ice parts amp up on me and go straight to soap. It's like a nice, lavender scented laundry soap. I actually think that my mom might enjoy this, because she gets all nostalgic over soapy lavenders that remind her of doing laundry when she was a little girl (she loves Sleepy Moon, but this is a lot soapier and not as sweet as Sleepy Moon). For me? Too much soap.

I hate the lab's opium/poppy note. It smells sharp and chemical, sort of like hairspray chemicals, with a white, sharp smokiness. I get lots of opium here, with hints of sour rose and maybe a sharp spiciness from the carnation. I had to scrub this one off.

Tobacco, tonka and vanilla are nowhere to be found. This is a big, heavy, soapy white floral scent on my skin. Perfumey and sharp. Gives me a bad headache.

Baby powdery sandalwood and a lemony, sour, sharp rose I haven't had good luck with the OLLA blends, other than Ian, Streets of Detroit, and In Templum Dei.

I love the smell of real cedar (closest I've found to that is Solstice Scents' Attic and Olympic Orchid's Woodcut), because it has a pleasant spiciness and green tone to it. This doesn't smell like cedar to me. It's sort of like pencil shavings + a hint of sour rose. Very dry, and slightly powdery in the drydown. This one fades fast on me.

In the vial, this is metallic, a bit peppery, and has undertones of dry wood and barely-there leather. On my skin, it's sweet and quickly turns into a beeswax single note. A sweet honey-vanilla aroma, actual wax, and a swirl of candle smoke.

Cookies and incense sounded good to me (I like a lot of the lab's cake & incense blends), but this has the bad almond in it, the kind that smells like cherry cough syrup and sickly-sweet maraschino cherry syrup. Dries down to boozy almond extract (cherry all the time) and... cinnamon? I'm not getting anything that reads as incense.

Fragrance review: Spooky is in my top ten of all time favorite bpal fragrances. I have a little orb bottle with the handwritten Spooky label from '04, and bottles from all of its re-releases, and it's one of those fragrances that always makes me smile when I wear it. I'm also always surprised by how complex it actually is. It's buttery vanilla with a drizzle of frosty peppermint extract (like a Shamrock Shake in perfume form), golden and warm from the oven sugar cookies, and a hint of toasted coconut and sweet chocolate that swirls around the vanilla cookie heaven. I'm surprised at the reviews that get a lot of rum and coconut from Spooky, because it's tons of buttery vanilla and cookie on my skin, a persistent undertone of sweet mint, and the tiniest hints of toasted coconut (not the suntan lotion variety to my nose at all, and I hate suntan lotion coconut) and chocolate. The buttery, sweet mint reminds me of Snowblind, but this is like Snowblind in cookie form. I don't tend to enjoy bpal's rum fragrances, but I don't smell the usual rum in Spooky, and think the rum just adds that buttery, silky edge to the vanilla. I can only use tiny amounts of hair gloss on the very ends of my hair or else it turns my hair into a greasy mess, but I also use the hair glosses as a body mist, so I'm loving having Spooky in spray form Product review: Overview: Hair gloss is a heavy, oily spray that quickly overwhelms my long, fine hair and makes it look and feel very greasy. I can't use this product anywhere but very sparingly on the ends of my hair, or else it makes my head look like an oil slick. I'm really careful with my hair and the products that I use on it. For a while, I was using this to fragrance the ends of my hair, but I find that it makes my hair fall out a lot, either from the high fragrance oil content, the heaviness of the oil itself, or something else. I wanted to love these and wanted them to work, because of the fragrances, but now I only use the hair gloss as a body mist on my arms and legs, not actually on my hair.