Little Bird

The amber, honey, and vanilla smell just like O to me, with the addition of an earthy yet smooth patchouli that smells like its been roasted (the way tea leaves can be roasted to be warmer and richer) with a hint of cedar in it.  It's been forever since I've had a decant of the original Feed Me, but I do remember the amber in the OG going way too powdery for me.  This starts off a little powdery and concerning, but within a couple minutes, it shifts into a rich, honeyed, vanilla-y, dark, creamy, amber-y glow.  It's very reminiscent of O's thick sweetness and warm amber, but with a wonderful patchouli note swirled into it, making it even more amazing.  Possibly multiple bottle hoarding worthy for me.

I don't remember trying the original Our Lady of Pain, so I don't have any useful comparisons to the OG.  I didn't really enjoy the 2013, according to my review, and I do like this one, though.  So perhaps the blend has changed and/or my tastes & interpretation of the scent have changed and matured.  I am much more into floral blends than I was back in 2013.

The 2024 version, in the drydown, strongly reminds me of Tom Ford's Black Orchid, but not as complex, smooth, or rich in feel.  It has a similar juicy (fruity leaning), musky, dark orchid and earthy, raunchy patchouli thing going on.  Perhaps the blood musk is adding some of the incensey spiciness that's reminiscent of Black Orchid as well.  If I smelled Our Lady of Pain '24 without knowing what it was, I wouldn't guess that it was Tom Ford's Black Orchid exactly, but I would guess that it's a dupe of that popular scent.  It comes very close to hitting most of the main notes of Black Orchid.  

For about the first hour, the patchouli in this is quite funky and animalic, but it settles into a dark, earthy, slightly chocolatey patchouli (also reminiscent of Black Orchid) that's very sexy, and it's mixed with the juicy, musky, shadowy, femme fatale orchid and undertones of metallic yet spicy and slightly incensey blood musk.  I don't really smell the lavender or opium tar, and those were the two notes that my review mentions as bothersome in the OG.

It feels like a mature, sensual, gothic, dark floral that's confident and expensive.  I like it a lot and I can see myself wearing this blend on days when Tom Ford's Black Orchid is too strong for me and I want a similar feel, but with softer throw (I find that all of my favorite Tom Ford fragrances will last for days on my skin and months on fabrics, so I have to be ready to commit, lol).

I love vanilla, patchouli, and amber, but I don't care for this scent.  It has a sour, dark, dusty woods smell to it (rosewood?) and a musty, dusty, fuzzy, dark and dirty quality as well.  It makes me think of heavy fabric left to molder in an old, stuffy house that used to be full of heavy cigarette smokers.  The musk makes it even more dry as it settles.  I've already nudged this bottle over into my swap pile.

Smells so late 90s/early 2000s to me, like a mix of Bath & Body Works' Cucumber Melon lotion and a strong impression of waxy watermelon Lip Smacker lipbalms.  The sweet, vanilla-y, waxy base and artificial melon is deadon Lip Smackers.  I can't get past the artificial tones of it to convince myself that it smells like authentic cake, whipped cream, or honeydew, but I still kinda like this for the nostalgia points.  It takes me right back to middle school.

I love rhubarb (one of my all time favorite perfumes is 4160 Tuesday's Rhubarb & Custard) and I love this for the first 10-15 minutes when it's realistic, tangy rhubarb and a golden muffin scent (distinctly dry, golden muffin with not much sugar).  Unfortunately, the drydown smells more like sour strawberry candy and chalky sweet tarts candy.  No baked goods and no custard; I get zero creaminess or vanilla tones at all in this blend.  I would have been happy with rhubarb single note, but the drydown doesn't smell like rhubarb to me.

Old fashioned rose soap, something strong that smells like cheap aerosol hair spray, cigarette smoke, and musty woods.  It has a very 80s hair salon scent to it - big, perfumey, chemical-y, and sour, with a cigarette hanging out of its mouth.  80s hair salon chemicals with smoke and dark wood?  It's awful on me, unfortunately, and I had high hopes for this one.

I got a decant of Jovial, but I will definitely full size it before the collection comes down because I love carnation and this one is so pleasant and easy to wear.  It's a dry, sugared, clove-spicy carnation that smells realistic, but not exactly dewy/fresh because it's all ruffled carnation petals and no green stems.  I've always been fascinated with carnations because we always got at least one carnation flower every Valentine's Day when I was in elementary school.  I'd sit on the bus and stroke the soft petals and I was just enraptured by the scent of them.  Those memories solidified carnations as my favorite flower and the epitome of Valentine's Day and romance for me.  It's one of those scents that I want to nuzzle into and that makes my soul and my heart fill with joy.  I digress.

I was so happy and smelling myself the whole time that Jovial radiated from my skin (strongly for about 4 hours before it starts fading).  

Jovial Tengu is frilly, feminine, pink carnation with creamy, sweet vanilla & warm, glowy, amber-y powder, with the sugared sweet clove making everything lean gourmand.  The overall scent makes me think of tousled, blushing ladies on a bed in a jumble of pink and white ruffles.  I was worried about the opium, but it only shows up for the first half hour or so, and even then it isn't overwhelming.  It adds an interesting hint of clean yet darkly resinous undertones to the scent.  In the drydown, it's a pink powder puff mix of carnation, vanilla, and sweet clove on that warm, powdery, amber-y base.  I don't smell the peony; I'm not getting any of its fresh, rosy qualities, but it might be contributing to the blushing pink feel of the overall scent.

I love this one, and it amuses me to no end that this year's Shunga collection has Pleasing Two Women and then - upping the ante - Jovial Tengu Making Love to Four Women.  Tengu is the real MVP of this year's Lupers. 

I bought all of this year's Gingerbread Cotillion scents and have wound up swapping all of them away because they do not have any complexity to my nose.  They all smell mostly of cinnamon and that's it.  I can smell banana candy in the bottle, but no banana to be found once it touches my skin.  I'm left with skin burning cinnamon and not even an impression of baked goods.  I still think that Shub-Niggurath in the GC is bpal's best gingerbread scent.

All the oranges.  Fizzy orange soda, sweet orange gummi candy, and the sharp, crisp, sour scent of orange spray as you peel a ripe orange.  There's a little edge of soapiness to it and, over time, it starts to remind me of all of the orange citrus scented things at a LUSH shop, mainly because it starts to develop a soft, powdery edge to it that makes me think of bubble bars and bath bombs.  I don't get any of the usual snow notes, but it does smell like it has a hint of soapy ozone in it.

Starts off smelling like I dropped a slice of vanilla frosted pumpkin cake into a tangle of dark weeds, including a strong impression of bitter, tangy dandelion greens.  I enjoy the green opening, but over about 20 minutes, it gets more and more dry until it smells like dried, powdery oakmoss (not the spicier, vintage perfumey type of oakmoss that I love) and maple syrup with a hint of pumpkin spice.  It oddly feels bland, washed out and powdery, yet also cloying from the maple syrup and sweet spice.  The drydown makes me sad.

Beautiful, gourmand rose.  The toffee, vanilla, and honey are really unique and I can smell them in equal measure, melding into this creamy, sweet, deep, golden scent.  It really smells like toffee (and not brown sugar, which is what I get when most house's say they have a toffee scent), the honey is the most pleasant, candied honey I have ever smelled, and the vanilla is so creamy and luxurious.  The rose smells like rich, dried, red roses petals and a hint of dewy, fresh rose.  I've been getting sick of vanilla rose scents lately, but the toffee and honey make this really special.  A little dab on my arms or in my hair also lasts all day with really strong throw.  It changes over hours of wear to have more and more of the gourmand portion taking over while the rose becomes more subtle (but never disappears entirely).  The monthly painting series is full of so many loves for me.  I wish that The Salon would come back and they could be GC instead of limited editions because I wish more people were able to try them.

I love the opening with the authentic nougat note.  It's a chewy, cool, creamy vanilla with honeyed nuts, covered in a thin layer of earthy-yet-sweet, dark chocolate.  It's my favorite part, so of course it's the most short lived note.  Mostly I get a lot of the fur (which smells like powdery, warm, brown musk) and an authentic honey sweetened with a sliver of chocolate.  It's warm, cuddly, and sweet, but too powdery for me.

Reminds me of 2005 Brimstone, but better.  It smells of camping in pine forests near blackberry brambles (the spicy scent of thorny branches with a very light, tangy fruitiness) and the river, waking up after a stormy night and smelling the slightly minty scent of rain-soaked wood ashes.  The pine sap and aromatic wood in this are really pleasant to me.  It's not a full on bonfire because the pitch smells distinctly like cooled, damp ash. 
I smell this and it takes me to a calm place in nature.  It's not a scent that I feel comfortable doing a full wear of because of the ash, but it's one that I keep dabbing on my wrists, light enough for me to enjoy it for a while.

I don't love this one, but it's not unpleasant either.  I love the smell of Palo Santo and it doesn't smell like Palo Santo on me, but it does smell of warm, dry, almost creamy woods and soft, slightly earthy, gray smoke with hints of wood ash.  It's like woodsmoke and bonfire if it were turned into a much gentler, less sharp scent.  More gray and cozy than blackened.  I get no black pepper and lots of vetiver, and I can see how it would be an impression of burning Palo Santo without actually smelling like Palo Santo.  The couple times that I've worn this, I wished it smelled as good on me as it does in the bottle, and I thought it was a warm, gentle fragrance, but the simplicity of it starts to annoy me after a while.  It lasts all day in a close-to-the-skin, smoky veil, but I start wishing it had more complexity and the ashy quality that it has starts to grate on me.

I do not like the frankincense note that bpal has been using in some of their newer releases.  The frankincense here smells like the frankincense in Batty Cathedral, which smells more like pukey, fizzy champagne spilled on a very dusty floor than it does any of the frankincense notes that I'm more familiar with.  Not even the sweet, creamy, slightly powdery marshmallow note can fix this blend for me (and it does have a strong marshmallow), and the edge of watery greens only makes it weirder to my nose.  The weird fizz and dust scent really bothers me.

Crunchy, green bell pepper (which almost made me write this one off immediately) and actual black pepper that settles into a really beautiful forest fragrance.  I'm very happy with how quick the bell pepper note disappears; it's gone within a couple minutes.  It quickly settles into an impression of warm, earthy, rich patchouli and pine needles touched with sweet pine sap and warm, creamy woods.  The sweetgrass has a gentle, incense smoke quality to it and makes me think of bundles of dried smudging sticks.  And it's all wrapped up into an impression of a sophisticated, woodsy men's fragrance.  A half hour in, I start to smell a hint of something that smells like sweat (a sourness in the pine, maybe?), but I still really like it.

I have no idea why I full bottled this one because I tend to hate bpal's dead/green leaves note, but it's one of my favorites of the 2023 Halloween scents.  I'm always looking for scents that smell like a sexy romance novel lumberjack or that remind me of where I grew up in the pine forests of the Ozarks, and this makes me think of both of those things.

I like Vintage Witch enough to keep my decant, but not to go for a full bottle.  The white chocolate is my favorite thing about it, and smells sweet and lightly creamy/milky.  I don't love the lemony, sharp green tea, however, and the toasty, warm amber turns a little more powdery than I would like in the drydown.  It leans a little too powdery and a little too sharply lemony for me, though the white chocolate does soften and sweeten its edges enough that I wind up enjoying it. 
I have an epic hoard of the original Thirteen blend for when I want a white chocolate and citrusy tea blend, and I do prefer that one.

The first time that I wore this, it kept reminding me of citrusy gummi bears.  I wish it had stayed the way that it was fresh out of the mailbox.
Today, with some rest, Snow Moon '24 went on like limoncello shaved ice spilled over clean, damp laundry, and then it settled into a perfumey-musky, soapy, harsh floral. 
I don't get any of bpal's traditional, slushy snow note (which doesn't go soapy on me).  The snowdrop is adding the soapy white floral tone and the crystalline musk a clean, perfumey, department store type of musk. 
After a half hour, the sweeter, juicier notes that I enjoyed have disappeared entirely and I'm just left with soapy, powdery floral and sharp musk, which started to give me a headache until I scrubbed it off around the 1 hour mark.

Smells very much like a dupe of Kilian's "Love, Don't Be Shy," but less complex.  The orange blossom is like a sweet orange flavored syrup with hints of creamy, clean flower blossoms, made even sweeter with the extra sugar.  The champagne is most noticeable in the bottle and lighter once applied.  On my skin, the champagne sticks around in the background and adds a fuzzy, musty, soured undertone that I don't love. 
Super sweet orange blossom, breezy white floral perfume, and sour champagne.  I don't smell any of the chocolate.  I'm not really loving this year's box of chocolates and that makes me sad because I usually have a lot of loves in this collection.

Cat Stealing A Fish smells like a mashup of Bath and Body Works' Ocean and their OG Sea Island Cotton fragrances. 
Starts out all super salty, chilly aquatic, like a cold dip in the ocean, and then a powdery, warm interpretation of driftwood and ambergris begins to take over.  It makes me think of white linen on a clothesline, whipping around in the breeze, while ocean waves crash nearby.  The vetiver and lichen don't come out at all to my nose, and I've worn this several times now.

Powdery, clean, salty aquatic.  I wish it were less powdery on me, but it's still a pleasant aquatic that doesn't turn to outright soap.

I get zero rose, honey, plum, patchouli, or geranium. I slathered this on tonight and didn't enjoy it at all, and I normally love all of these listed notes.  Amethysts is an impression of screechy, dry, sharp white floral and it strongly smells of perfumey / musky, white floral dryer sheets in its drydown. Something like a sharp tuberose and dry soap. It's intensely strong, but I unfortunately don't like the fragrance. I expected something more sensual and sweet, but it has no real complexity, sweetness, or earthiness to it.

Starts off with a weird white chocolate cream and sharp cinnamon (my nose sniffs out the cinnamony tones in everything, maybe because I often have an allergic reaction to it and my body is just screaming at me to please stop putting it on my skin), but that phase is short lived and then it dries down to something very similar to Haus of Gloi's Ghost Puffs. It smells like gooey marshmallows and a hint of buttery popcorn. Creamy, warm, and sweet. Lasted about 4 hours for me before fading into oblivion.

ETA: I wore this again about a week later and I'm getting a lot of sweetened coconut cream along with the marshmallow goo and buttered popcorn thing.  This is my favorite in this year's Box of Chocolate.  It is purely gourmand.

I was hoping for jammy, sweet black currant and juicy pomegranate, but this has a very dry, tart, slightly sour interpretation of those notes. There's also an undertone that smells exactly like chalk dust. After a while, a clean, perfumey, white musky smell joins the mix and enhances that bone dry quality. I find this to be more musky and less creamy and sweet when compared to the ruby chocolate in Millennial Pink.

Tart, sour, dried fruit, chalk dust, and an impression of sharp, dry white musk with a barely there hint of chocolate. Lasts about 3 hours.

This definitely isn't as dark, powerful, or smoky as I thought it would be.  In fact, it's oddly soft and clean, like baby powder and non-sweet cream with a little swish of incense cone ash mixed in.  It takes about a half hour to shift at all, and then it's still powder soft and clean, but I can start to pick up the impression of singed fabric (which is still more clean and starched than it is smoky) and dried herbs, which smell of oregano and salt.  It has almost no throw; I have to have my nose nearly touching my skin to smell this one at all, and it doesn't last more than 2 hours total.

2024 version. Lyonesse has changed so much since it was first released. I used to really like the fragrance, but the sweet, creamy vanilla and subtle, golden amber are nonexistent now. It's a clean, plasticy scent to me now, a barely there sense of clean, powdery musk and an undertone of super plasticy vanilla that I don't find pleasant at all. It starts off subtle and then disappears very quickly. It's an extremely pale shadow of what it once was.