sunshinedaisybliss

Why isn't there more love for this one? Whassamatter with you all.. did those scary notes put you off? Did you think this would be all pepper and clove and pepper and clove? Well.. you were wrong!! I don't think pink pepper has ever let me down, and in here it's particularly gorgeous - slightly spicy, but with a definite 'pink' tone.. kinda like spicy bubblegum as other people have said. I'm not really picking up any black pepper at all, and the clove is very subtle.. it's there, but it's in the background and very mild. I can definitely smell the dark chocolate, but it doesn't smell 'chocolatey' at all - it's just there as a base note really. As gorgeous as this is, I have to confess to a slight disappointment because I really was expecting it to have a lot more POW than it does - it doesn't really match up with the whole 'cacophony of madness' theme in my mind. The myrrh and labdanum are hardly there at all to my nose, and the dragon's blood is also barely there - just a hint of it, but hardly noticeable. Unfortunately the staying power isn't great - it fades pretty quickly on my skin - but that could be because I've over-huffed it right off my arm After about 30 minutes on my skin, the pinkness and the whole bubblegum thing has gone away and the chocolate has gone powdery.. but in a good way, it's dusky and gorgeous. I actually really love this - it's not like any other BPAL that I've ever tried, but there's something about it that is very intoxicating and sexyish. I think I will need a backup bottle of this one!

Oh.. this is such a pretty one! I was concerned that it would be overly sweet and candy-like, but it really isn't. YAY! Like violetblue, I also picked up a sour tone to the orange blossom when I first dabbed it on my skin - but thankfully that went away pretty quickly and then everything else was revealed - the vanilla, the pink candies, the strawberry sugar - all in beautiful balance, all very soft and lovely, all good! The orange blossom is the most obvious note at first, but as with all the other flavours in this conconction it's soft and dreamy. The vanilla has a hint of creaminess, but it has quite a dry tone which keeps it from being too icecream-ish. I see the comparisons to Celeste in previous reviews, but the vanilla in Celeste was ghastly on me - sour and sharp - so for me, this one is not Celeste-ish at all. The pink candies and strawberry sugar come into play much more after about 15 minutes on my skin, which is how long it took for the orange blossom to fade a little - and unlike some previous BPALs I've tried, the strawberry here is not plastic or artificial - it really does smell like fresh, juicy strawberries. The staying power isn't great, but it does hold its fragrance nicely as it fades. Is this "the intoxication of the first kiss"? Hmm.. I'm not sure - I think it belongs more to a young girl scoring her first smooch in the school playground, rather than to a grown-up woman intoxicated by her first lusty kiss - it's just full of sweetness, fluffy bunnies, young romance, unicorn rides and a kind of innocent girliness. It's the perfect BPAL to wear for sharing a milkshake with your love whilst holding hands under the table outside at the cafe on a sunny day

They're lovely! And I followed the link in your signature to your blog - I love the way you use cute illustrations of yourself throughout your stories, you have a real talent there! Nice work

Invidiana is eleventy billion varieties of awesome for sharing a little bit of this with me!! I can't possibly write as eloquent a review as she did, but I'll give it a go anyway This v1 of Black Lace is way more dark and heady - it's a more grown-up version; more sensuous and smokey and sexalicious. I'm a big fan of Beth's cognac note, but where in the released version of Black Lace I find that the cognac gets a bit lost within the brightness of the tobacco and sweetness of the vanilla cream.. in this prototype version it's rich and sumptuous and much more out in front. Mmmm cognac The incense in this version is also much more prominent - and again, that was another of the elements that I always wish would come out more from the sweetness of the released version. In v1, the incense is smoky and dark and exotic and I'm pretty sure there's a dark resin in here - perhaps it's a musk, but it seems more resinous than musk usually does so it's probably something within the incense. I find the musk in Dark Lace to be slightly cloying sometimes, but there's nothing like that going on at all in v1 - if there is a musk in here, it's much less.. err.. musky. There's also a big difference in the tobacco - to my nose, there's very little tobacco in v1, where in the released version I find the tobacco to be quite bright. The vanilla in here is definitely different - in the released version the vanilla is quite sweet.. but as invidiana mentioned, in this one it's is a rich, boozy, syrupy vanilla - the perfect partner to the cognac.. together they present a warm, heady, lusciously swoonworthy sweetness that has a different tone completely - it never crosses the line into foodiness or candy-ness, not at any stage from first application to complete drydown (although the vanilla definitely comes out more at drydown, when I first applied the oil I didn't really notice it that much). Gorgeous. I agree with another observation of invidiana's.. the linen/cotton tones seem to be missing from this version completely - when I do a side-by-side comparison between this prototype and the released version, it's really obvious that Black Lace has cotton/linen but I'm not noticing it at all in the prototype and I think that's perhaps the greatest difference between the two. To me, this is much more 'black lace' than Black Lace is. Way more dark and smokey and sensual, way more sophisticated, just.. so much better. Black Lace is the black lace that stays under your clothes and behaves itself.. but Black Lace v1 is the black lace that shows itself off and says RAAWWWWWWWWR. I have to be honest and say that I've never really managed to totally love Black Lace - it's nice and all, but I've always thought it's just a bit too sweet and perfume-y, even my years-old bottle of the original version is still that way, so personally I wish Beth had decided that this prototype version was The One because I would buy vats of it and wear it whilst I go on a debaucherous mission to seduce Dave Grohl, Chris Cornell, Johnny Depp and Jim Morrison (who is only pretending to be dead). And maybe Slash too, if I have time. I don't mean to criticise Black Lace, because it's a beautiful blend in its own right, but this v1 is just so perfect that I can't help feeling a little sad that I can't get more of it. OK.. I have to finish up now, because I'm going over to invidiana's house to steal her bottle

Oooh.. how about these: Jailbait - sticky pink bubblegum and the thick, sweet scent of orange and cherry lollipops smeared over a breath of heady womanly perfume - the 'womanly perfume' has a hint of florals, but really this is all about the lovely fruity bubblegum smell. Hollywood Babylon - glittering Egyptian amber and heliotrope, infused with the sweetness of strawberry and vanilla - dragged into debauch by lusty red musk and a dribble of black cherry - not really a floral as such, but a gorgeous strawberry with a touch of naughty fruitiness - not overly sweet. Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat - green tea, melon, mint, lime rind, and champagne grape with lemon balm, mullein, and toadflax - the melon is the star of the show here.. this is a lovely sweet fruity sparkly one. High Strung Daisies - daisy, pink carnation, pink pepper, and sugar - this one is pink and sweet but not overly candy-ish, and the daisy is gorgeous. Have fun on Valentine's Day!

Yep - if it's a vanilla marshmallow-y kind of lavender, then TKO might be it. The TKO oil has a slight yellow-ish colour Tony wasn't aftershave-like at all on me.. just clean, soft, sweet fresh laundry smell. I hope you do manage to find what it is!

Honey - could it be Tony from the Irredeemable series? I just got a bottle of that recently, and it's a real 'fresh laundry' smell and I'm pretty sure there's some lilac or similar sweet floral in there. Or since you mentioned lavender.. TKO? I'm thinking no, because TKO is a pretty simple lavender+marshmallow kinda smell but I figured it was worth a shot

Bread and Butterfly on me smelled exactly like raisin toast. I wonder if Werepuppy is any kind of a match for Madame Lapin? That one was heavy on the milk note for me, but I know other people got a lovely furry warmness from it.

eeeeeeeee... Black Bear! So cute Thanks for posting the pic, SadariEvenstar

Hmm.. interesting, I actually thought of Vixen immediately when I saw what Drae was looking for! On me, the orange blossom is very much background to the patchouli and ginger so I'd say it's probably still worth a try because I think orange blossom is a fickle beast and it does behave very differently from person to person. I also thought of Masquerade - patchouli, ambergris, carnation and orange blossom - the carnation isn't floral at all on me, but it has a nice warm pepperiness similar to ginger. But I've never smelled that candle, so I'm not the best judge!

Honestly.. I think you should wear whatever makes you feel good - what you enjoy, what you think smells good! Sure, you need to consider other people and avoid wafting really strong perfume fumes all around you - but that's more about how much scent you wear rather than which scent you wear. But having said that, I think the BPALs more likely to get up other people's noses would be the more resinous, incensey, 'dark' blends.. and also very strong florals. If you're concerned about it, ask a couple of your friends if your perfume's overly smelly and they should give you an honest answer

Yes.. it sure can be. It's actually quite common You need to be especially careful with scents that contain certain notes. For example; cocoa tends to sit in the bottom of the bottle - if the decanter doesn't 'blend' the oil in the bottle properly before making up the vials, you will get a decant that has less or more cocoa than what was intended when the mix was made at the Lab. I've noticed some booze notes like rum also don't always distribute themselves very well through an oil, so that could be the problem with your decant of Egg Nog - maybe you got one that came from the top of the bottle rather than the bottom (the rum tends to hang down the bottom of a 5ml). Hellhound on my Trail is well-known for having dark globules in it, like a lava lamp, and as far as I can tell by investigating my bottles.. it's the rum in the globules! There's also the whole issue of batch variances - like the infamous Infernal Lover red musk/no red musk bottles... so that also needs to be considered. I just want to add that what I said above about decants is in no way a criticism of decanters!! Having done many many decants myself, I know how difficult it is to get cocoa and other things out of a bottle and evenly distributed into vials I think imps are generally more susceptible to imbalances in the notes - I guess if you think about it mathematically.. in a 5ml you've got five times as much oil so the chances of all the notes being perfectly mixed is better than in an imp, which holds only 1ml. Oh - and just one final thought.. Snake Oil is a bad one to compare imp vs bottle, particularly if your bottle is 6 months old and your imp is fresh.. the oil in your bottle would have changed through aging Edited to add - there's actually a whole topic here about different smells/colours, same perfume that might give you some extra info! .

I'm not familiar with that B&BW fragrance, but I think the best cherry blossom scent I've found in BPAL would have to be Voyeurs Among the Cherry Blossom, which came out with the 2009 Lupercalia collection. The notes are soft moss, vanilla musk, and cherry blossom, and you can find reviews here. It doesn't have any pear or apple, which are probably quite present in the B&BW blend if they're listed as top notes - it's just a lovely soft/smooth cherry blossom scent - not overly sweet or 'fake' smelling at all and the 'soft moss' gives it a slightly woodsy feel - so I think would work beautifully as a layer over or companion to your B&BW fragrance. I know it's bad form to recommend a Limited Edition blend, and that one may be a bit tricky to find because it is quite sought-after, but I'm sure you could track down at least a decant to try if you hunt through the For Sale area here on the forum The Phoenix In Spring, a more recent LE (notes are dandelion florets, cherry blossom, spring wildflowers, and myrrh) also got good reviews for its cherry blossom but I haven't tried that one myself. Reviews are here. In the GC range, you might want to check out Kyoto (a gentle, soothing blend of cherry blossom, white sandalwood and star anise) for a nice dusky cherry blossom blend, and also maybe Aizen-Myoo (yuzu, kaki, and mikan with cherry blossom and black tea) which has a nice tangy fruit element. For layering something completely different that would work nicely with the cherry blossom in the BB&W blend, you could look at Morocco for a touch of spice or Lyonesse for a nice soft amber. I hope that helps - good luck finding The One!

Oh.. I wouldn't say Gore Shock is quirky or bizarre.. it's just downright disgusting. Dead flesh, rotting things, stale vomit and unflushed third-world toilet. It's the only BPAL everthat has made me actually gag. The quirky and bizarre thing about it though, is that some people (albeit only 2 or 3 that I know of) actually like it

Hmm.. this is WAY softer than I was expecting! I did one spray up in the air, and couldn't smell a thing!! So then I did a second spray... and there it was The leather is definitely the star of this show - it's a gorgeous soft, snuggly leather - really warm and lovely. The brandy adds a top note of sweetness, which doesn't really smell boozy at all - just a warm rich sweetness which mixes nicely with the sultry pipesmoke smell. I'm not sure where the 'crackling firewood' comes into play - I don't pick up anything 'smoky' as such in here at all. This will be positioned right next to my main man, Doc Constantine, as my 2nd favourite leather spray

To my nose, this is mostly spicy coffee.. with a touch of candied fruits, but the 'fruit' aspect is overwhelmed by the sweet spices which I presume are coming from the 'apple strudel' bit. The apple is there, but pretty well melded in with the coffee. Overall, Konditorei reminds me very much of the Gooey Pillowcase atmo spray from the '08 Halloweenies.. which is kinda weird, since they have no common notes, but I really am getting a very strong brown sugar/caramel fragrance from this one. Unfortunately, I can't distinguish any hot chocolate - that's what I was most hoping for, so it's a bummer that I'm not getting any of that at all. This is a lovely spray if you like your room to smell like spicy coffee

Mmmm... Moroccan musk is a favourite, and it's gorgeous here with the opium poppy and clove - dusky, sweet and sliiiiiightly spicy. Orris is not often my friend though, and it's not working for me in this one. Overall, this ends up smelling like a rather generic commercial perfume - it's lacking the depth and complexity that I enjoy about the BPAL oils. In the end, all I get is a kind of bland red/smoky scent on my skin.

uhm... mouldy dirt with bitter pepper on top. I'm not sure what I expected this would smell like.. but that certainly wasn't it. Not a keeper

Oh honey, honey you fiend, why do you hate meeeeeeeee? This would be beautiful, if only the honey would GTFO. Combined with the amber overload (I love amber, but there's a LOT of it in here), the honey is powdery and cloying. I can barely pick up the other notes because they are being smothered by the honey, but they are beautiful. BEAUTIFUL. Damn you, honey.

For something that's more 'manly' sounding in its description, I'm finding Tony to be quite un-manly! As everyone else has said.. this is the smell of clean laundry - that 'busy day at the laundromat' fragrance of warm soap and clean towels. The smell of a bathroom after someone's just had a shower and the room is still a bit warm and foggy and soapy clean smelling. It's a bit more complex than that though.. I swear there's something floral in here - lilac maybe? A hint of violet? I dunno - it's a pale and slightly sweet floral, not a herb-y one on me. Iris? Orchid? Gah - this is going to make me nuts, trying to figure out what it is!! What's also driving me nuts is that Tony smells very much like another BPAL that I've encountered.. but I can't remember what it is. When I first put it on (and I confess, I did slather rather a bit) - it was a bit too heady and overly sweet, and I was concerned that it was just too much of a good thing. But it calmed down within about five minutes, and has now settled into being a lovely warm and snuggly soft scent. It's almost got a baby powder fragrance about it - not that it's powdery at all.. it just smells a little like baby powder. And I'm pretty sure there's a skin musk of some variety in here. Good throw, and excellent staying power. I think I will wear this one quite a bit - it's one of those BPALs that don't really have a distinct or obvious fragrance.. it just smells good. Oh.. and I'm adding my voice to the chorus of "this would make a great room spray". And although I did say that I don't think this is a particularly manly smell.. if more men actually did smell like this, I certainly wouldn't be complaining

Hi willrollinsnow Welcome to the forum! There's a couple of topics in the Recommendations topic that you might find helpful: Best winter blends Best snow scents But in general, the best snow/winter/ice/frost etc blends come out in the Yule collection each year, so now's the time to check those out since they're still available at the Lab here - just scroll down a bit and you'll see the 'Yule 2011' blends listed. For a crisp/sweet candy-cane type vanilla mint, there's the 'Lick It' series - this year's is called Lick It Discreetly. For a lovely windy mountain snow, there's Ondurdis, and Snow White is a huge favourite for many.. it's a lovely vanilla with a cool wintery vibe. You could also check out the reviews for Yules gone by here - you'll see that some do contain a pine-type note, but there's lots that don't I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but all of those are old Limited Edition (LE) blends, and they're going to be hard to find Some of the others in the longer list you posted are also either past LEs or no longer available so it's not going to be easy to find them all. I would suggest you stick to current LE blends and/or General Catalogue (GC) blends for now, until you have a better idea of what you like/don't like - there's so many scents to try, and looking for old LEs can be frustrating. I've seen a lot of the current Yules up for sale here on the forum - look for decants, or even half-decants (those are a great way to try a bunch of things without spending quite so much). Oh, and to try and get as many imps/decants as you can at once - you could post an 'ISO' (In Search Of) in the 'Wanted' topic here - hopefully someone who has a whole bunch of your wanteds will be able to help you out. Good luck in your search!

Oh.. oh my That ^^ was my first impression. I did one of those 1870's type swoon thingy when I opened the bottle and was greeted by a sensuous, heady blast of leathery patchouli and oudh. On my skin though, I got something completely different - lime! Err.. what? Wait a minute - maybe it's not lime, it could be orange. No.. it's neither - it's like a mix of citrus-y something-or-other that smells like orange+lime. So this is the matcha tea, I'm guessing - I'm not a tea connoisseur at all, so I confess to complete ignorance about what matcha tea smells like, but I see previous reviewers have said it's got citrus tones. And at this stage I can also smell the rose - it's dancing around there in between the sharpness of the citrus - and the narcissus is also noticeable, along with the frankincense which almost always goes citronella/lemon-y on my skin and is totally doing that here. OK.. this isn't what I was hoping for, so I leave it alone for five minutes to see how it develops. Five minutes later - WTF? All I smell is lemon. This is not looking good. Let's give it another few minutes. At the 10-minute point, I start to worry that this just is not going to work for me.. it's still all lemon but the rose has perked up and amped quite a bit. And it's faded a lot already - it's now very powdery and faint. Where is the oudh, the patchouli, the star anise, the leather? WHERE?!?!? But I will not give up.. so it's now 20 minutes since I first applied the oil.. and finally, Leather Phoenix is rising. There's the oudh - smoky and slightly sweet, and there's the patchouli - dark and rich but also slightly sweet. And the leather - well, it's more of a top note here than how leather usually is on me, but it's definitely come through. The star anise isn't really featuring, but I can tell it's there. The lemon/rose thing is still a bit too dominant for my liking, but it's not bothering quite as much now that it's mellowed into more of a sweetgrass sort of tone.. and what's really strange is that the whole scent has come back in full force when ten minutes ago I thought it had almost faded away - it came back with a pretty decent throw. But that only lasted for a short while before it disappeared again. It takes about 30 minutes on my skin before I really start digging this, and that's probably what will see Leather Phoenix ultimately ending up in my swaps box - I didn't enjoy the early stages of it at all, and even when the leather/oudh/patchouli finally does come out it's still not really winning me over, and that lemony/rose thing never really goes away. If I had my Note Removal MachineTM and could take out the frankincense, rose and matcha tea.. oh, that would be perfect! But alas I have not, so I can not. I know I'm being selfish here, but I kinda wish Leather Phoenix had stuck to being one thing or the other.. I just don't think that citrus tones partner well with woodsy/earthy/leather tones in general, and they certainly don't on my skin at all. Overall, I'm bummed

VioletChaos pretty much wrote my review for me! We must be skin-twins YUM YUM YUM - it's HOT BUTTERED RUM! Boozy, smutty, hot, buttery, gluggy - it's all good. I guess I expected this would smell like.. you know, hot buttered rum, but I'm surprised at just how much it actually does smell like hot buttered rum. Is that my most useless review ever? Yes! I think it might be! Sadly, the initial YUM YUM YUM thing dries down to the awful smell of burnt brown sugar and melting plastic, as these kinds of things tend to do, so it ends up being not so great. Big to the always lovely Dark Alice for sharing this with me

Sweet, buttery pumpkin.. with an undertone of orange candy. Nothing particularly impressive, unfortunately - to me, this type of buttery pumpkin has been done already in previous pumpkin-related blends so this just doesn't stand out as anything special. It's not horrible or anything - it's just.. nothing new.

Usually I can discern individual notes, but with Senelion I'm finding it's just so well-blended that it's difficult to do that. On my skin, the amber is very noticeable (dry, dusky, slightly powdery but in a nice way) - and the combination of musks also gives a very soft/snuggly and dry tone to the overall scent.. so the amber + musks together lay down a beautiful foundation that really does feel like a dusky velvet night sky. The red musk is definitely there, and I would say that Senelion overall fits in the red/warm category, but it's not all HI I'M RED MUSK like it sometimes can be - the black musk is toning it right down. I was worried about the chamomile, which generally goes horribly wrong on me, but I'm not having any problems with it here. On the not-so-wow list - I was hoping the star anise would be more of a feature, but it's really not all that noticeable at all once the oil has dried on my skin. The cedar is adding a slightly sharp/bitter tone, as cedar tends to do on me, but I know that it will tone down with some aging so that's OK. I'm also picking up something flower-y and earthy here - not floral as such, but just a general kind of smell - I guess that's the lotus root, orris and zdravetz influence. The red musks are definitely the most dominant here. Side note - Senelion reminds me of Glowing Vulva but without the cream... also it's similar to Elephantine Colossus but without the sweetness/foodie factor of the root beer. Overall, this is a lovely scent that stays pretty close to my skin - minimal throw, but it smells good up-close. And as others have said, I'm sure this will get even more sensuous with some age on it. Edit a few weeks later.. my earlier comparison to Elephantine Colossus still holds true - except where before I said it was similar, now it's more than that - it's almost the same on my skin. And where before I thought the red musk wasn't too strong a player.. I was wrong about that (or possibly just these couple of weeks of age have changed the musk balance). I'm beginning to think that red musk might not be a good note for me . .