Little Bird

Yup, Erebos is all lavender and vanilla to me. It lists a ton of floral notes that are usually pretty heavy, but I can't pick them out at all.

A lot of the Yule blends are minty. If you can find any of the Lick It series for sale on the forum, those are all peppermint heavy scents. There are these you might want to check out: Bewitching Brews: *Cathode - "A negatively charged scent. Ambergris, Spanish Moss, oakmoss and three electric mints." *Juke Joint - "A bawdy, gleefully wicked and unruly scent: Kentucky Bourbon, sugar and a sprig of mint." *Ultraviolet - "Lush violet and neroli spiked hard with eucalyptus and a sliver of mint." *Undertow - "The Dark Side of Water: clean and purifying, yet menacing -- lotus and juniper with a hint of mint." Sin & Salvation: *Envy - "Green herbs slithering through mint, lime and lavender." *Sea of Glass - "A scent of inimitable purity, crystalline grace, and limitless light." A lovely aquatic. The Salon: *Cloister Graveyard in the Snow - "Three white musks, ozone, frankincense, mint." This is all lovely, cold mint and chilly snow to my nose. I can't smell the frankincense at all in this one. Boom Studios: *Volt - "Leather with a shock of eucalyptus, green mint, elemi, ravintsara and lime." Gris Grimly: *A Fit of Artistic Enthusiasm - "Electric jolts of mania: a salt-crusted coffin bobbing through tumultuous ocean waves." Not exactly minty, but I find this to be a chilly, ocean-y aquatic. Last Unicorn: *Lady Amalthea - "A luminous white winter musk with lilac, wisteria, white chocolate, white mint, and tuberose." Lots of minty, vanilla-y white chocolate in this one.

Pink, Tattered and Red Lace have all turned awful on me with aging (and Autumn, Mourning and Absinthe Lace were awful to begin with). Pink Lace now smells like pink medicine and dust on me. Really weird and flat. Fades quickly. My original review when the scent was fresh: Pink Lace is mostly strawberry and rose with a little bit of creamy vanilla on me. I don't get a strong impression of the tobacco and incense, though there is a little bit of a smoky feel to it after an hour or so when it's mostly faded away. This is a sweet, candied strawberry, but not sickly sweet or heavy on me (more like a fluffy strawberry cotton candy than a heavy strawberry syrup, if that makes sense). The rose almost smells a bit watery and perfumey (reminding me of rosewater?), cutting through the sweetness, and the vanilla just makes the whole thing smell creamier and softer. This actually doesn't remind me of Pink Phoenix. It isn't as sweet as Pink Phoenix, and the perfumey rose and touch of smokiness really subdue the strawberry and vanilla. Smells like strawberry cotton candy, perfumey rosewater, and a hint of smoke on me.

Mourning Lace is too dry and sharp for my tastes. It smells like splintered, dry, dusty wood with a sprinkling of baby powder, and then the clove isn't sweet at all, but more of a sharp, perfumey spiciness. Something also smells a bit soapy on me at first, and then the drydown is super powdery. I don't think that this smells anything like the other Laces; it smells masculine, but also very baby powdery... Black Lace is one of my favorites, and I'm not getting anything similar from Mourning Lace. I definitely don't get any vanilla from this. Mourning Lace reminds me of Fledgling Raptor Moon more than anything, but this is sharper than FRM.

You might just be having trouble with darker musks and perfumey florals. Snake Oil smells like it has lots of bpal's red musk in it, their black/dark musk is pretty sharp and intense, and the Chinese/crystalline musk mixed with perfumey florals went pretty sharp on me too. Dorian, I think, has more of a creamy/sweet white musk to it, but I get mostly the 'sugared vanilla tea.' Some blends are just heavier on the musk notes. And some white musk scents are more creamy & sweet and others are sharp and perfumey.

Most of the lunacy blends don't really make sense to me. They never smell like their imagery to me, which I realize is a highly subjective thing, and they rarely smell like their listed notes. Most of them just fall into a perfumey, soapy mishmash on my skin. But Blackbear Moon really matches its theme for me. It smells like warm fur (like the warm, almost resinous black musk/fur note in some of bpal's kitty themed blends) and a hint of pine with lots of sweet little touches. There's a sweet, dry, woody hazelnut with an almost brown sugared sweetness and a little bit of sweet fruitiness. It smells like a bear's fur, a bear's den, forest, and the sweet nuts and berries that they'd eat. Very cute.

I love the illustrations and your blog <3

I haven't liked any of the lab's champagne scents. The champagne note is just sickly sweet and sort of pukey-sour smelling on me (it always reminds me of the smell of someone throwing up alcohol, which is not pleasant, to say the least). But I do like a candied peach smell, so I like the peach in this. Unfortunately, the champagne smells bad on me, as it always does. I get mostly peach candy from this, but with that soured undertone that I can't wear...

I got a partial decant of this in a recent swap. It's not as dark and spicy/earthy as I was expecting it to be, as it's mostly white sandalwood and a hint of sweet beeswax. The white sandalwood always turns baby powdery, so this is like a powdery, dry, honeyed wood scent. Surprisingly light and faint on me.

I second the recs for High-Strung Daisies, Mouse's Long & Sad Tale, and Hunger. And White Chocolate & Sugared Violets is great for an LE. And I'd add: *Dawn: Maiden (Dawn) - "Tea roses, honeysuckle, heliotrope, olive blossom, milk, and honey." *Eternal (Ars Moriendi) - "Stephanotis, cyclamen, heliotrope, white rose and gardenia." *Euphrosyne (Excolo) - "Gardenia, tea rose, vanilla and jasmine." *Josie (Crib Girls) - "Heady magnolia and honeyed peaches." *Lady Amalthea (Last Unicorn) - "A luminous white winter musk with lilac, wisteria, white chocolate, white mint, and tuberose." *Le Serpent Qui Danse (Ars Amatoria) - "Violet entwined with vanilla and gardenia." *Love-Lies-Bleeding (Rappaccini's Garden) - "The velvet flower. A lush, thick, luxuriant bloom, bold and red." Smells like cocoa and roses. *Roses Pearls and Diamonds (Marchen) - "Red roses, dazzling crystalline musks, and pearlescent coconut-tinged orris." *Tamora (Illyria) - "Amber, heliotrope, golden sandalwood, peach blossom and vanilla bean." And some of the Rappaccini's Garden scents are heavy floral with sweet honey (Yellow Jessamine honey is a nice jasmine & honey, and Oleander Honey is white floral & honey).

On me, this is mostly perfumey rose that dries down powdery with a hint of light resins. I already have a bunch of resin & rose scents from bpal that I like more than this (Parlement of Foules for a LE, and Rose Cross in the GC that is also rose & frankincense).

The rose in this is sharp and turns slightly soapy on me, with the vetiver smelling like smoky, charred wood in the background. Doesn't work for me at all.

Plum Puddin is like very tart, slightly sour fruit and a dash of cinnamon on me. I don't know if it smells super plum-like to me, but reading over the other reviews, it does remind me a bit of red currant (sour-fruity). It reminds me of sweet tarts.

Figgy Puddin smells like burnt caramel, cinnamon, and a hint of fig on me. It's too sweet, but it's also really light on me and only lasts about an hour. A World of Fools was last year's figgy pudding blend, and it was more complex, not as sickly sweet, and longer lasting than this blend. I also prefer Molly Grue for a foodie fig scent, and Intrigue for a general fig scent.

I don't care for any of the Christmas Puddins this year, but this one was my least favorite (not really surprising, because I don't often like the lab's cherry notes). This pretty much just smells like cherry cough syrup on my skin, and lasts about a half hour.

I agree with cuervosueno that Arcana is really different from bpal (I like Arcana's honey and rarely like bpal's). Madame Lapin is also a very unique (and awesome) scent to me, nothing else in my collection smells like it. It smells as advertised and is strong and comforting <3. That said, if you're looking for something with spices & honey in the bpal catalogue, I'd suggest Cockaigne (smells like cinnamon toast on me, or at least it did in the bottle I have from when it first came out) and Bengal, and Dragon's Milk for just comforting, honey & cream sweetness. And maybe Horse Chesnut Honey for honey and a slight foodie feel...

I always wore whatever I wanted to classes, but went light on the application. I usually spritzed perfume on my wrists, and that way it was easy for me to smell my fragrance, but wasn't like I was covered in a cloud of scent that might overwhelm someone else. For bpals, I wore Alice & Dorian a lot when I was in college.

I swapped for a sample of this, because I enjoy ambergris, but verbena tends to be one of my death notes and bpal's white sandalwood turns powdery on me. Unfortunately, on me, this is a very loud, sour, lemony verbena with a drydown that's sharp verbena and baby powder. I catch a whiff of the wisteria for the first few minutes (smells a bit perfumey and sharp floral to me here), but then it disappears. After a half hour, I'm left with a very faint baby powder & incense scent.

This starts off with lots of black musk (smells like smoky/musky, sharp, cold men's cologne to me) sweetened by the myrrh, opoponax, and tobacco. Opoponax smells intensely, syrupy sweet on me, and I'm getting lots of that super-sweet resin/incense here. As it dries down, the black musk actually calms down and something in this starts to turn powdery. It's mostly sweet opoponax and myrrh on the drydown, golden and warm smelling on me, with a powdery undertone. I thought that I might like this on my husband, but it goes too sweet on him as well. There are resin blends that I like a lot more than this one, so it's not a keeper for me.

This reminds me a bit of Story Time at Dark Delicacies at first, with a very faint, soft leather smell and hints of something like citrus (though this doesn't have the sweetness that Story Time does for me). As it dries down, it start to smell like clean, powdery skin musk and a whiff of smoky tobacco on me, with not so much on the leather or old books smell. It's not really sweet or leathery enough for me. This version of Old Moon is really light on me, clinging close to the skin and only lasting about an hour and a half. There are a lot of leather and book scents that I like a lot more than this one...

I didn't know that boneflower was tuberose before reading this thread. Tuberose hates me, and this scent does that sharp, high pitched, perfumey white floral thing. The white sandalwood turns baby powdery and the oakmoss adds a dry, slightly earthy edge. It winds up smelling like the usual perfumey white floral with a dry, herbal, woodsy sort of undertone. A very dry, perfumey scent on me.

This starts off with a chilly blast of eucalyptus and mint on me, then quickly dries down to mostly blue musk with a sharp, perfumey iris. I really like the lab's blue musk note, which always smells cool, watery, and still to me (like a still, chilly pond in the middle of the woods), but the iris is a little more perfumey-floral than I'd like. It's a quiet, cool, musky smelling floral.

I don't know if I have much to add about this scent, because a lot of bpal's snow/frost type scents smell very similar on me. This is like minty snow/slush with a bit of a cool spring air and slightly soapy floral smell to me. Nothing about it really sticks out to me...

The Last Evening smells unusual to me because it's soapy and clean, but also dusty smelling, like someone took soapy, wet clothes from the washer and tossed them into a dusty attic instead of the dryer. I'm not smelling any rose here, just lots of soapy laundry, dust, and a chill from the snow.

I'm really surprised that there's no pine or snow listed for this, because I get a really strong pine scent from A Wonderful Light. It's like sharp, cool pine covered in golden honey. I'm not getting anything like O or orange zest, which is making me wonder if my bottle is wrong somehow (I seem to keep getting 'off' bottles like the Beaver Moon variations lately) A Wonderful Light is like a blast of pine and chilly snow note with a vein of sweet honey, and dries down to clean, dryer sheet-esque snow note and honey. Soap and honey for about two hours before it fades. I'm getting nothing like amber, vanilla or orange from this at all. My bottle is pine, soapy snow/ozone, and honey...