patina

at first this is a little faint. I get a pale olibanum with a slightly toasted smell. Then the blackcurrant comes out. It's fruity and sweet and never gets too sharp. I think I can smell non-powdery amber even though there isn't any. Must be the opoponax. The toasted/spicy smell is still there underneath preventing the sweetness from being oppressive, though it still might be too much for some people. Verdict: Perfect

I was afraid to try this because of the bay leaf note. I thought it might turn out to smell like Old Spice. While it has a bit of a male cologne vibe, I'm happy to report that this is far more tolerable to me. First of all, there's vetiver. I like some vetiver scents that smell burnt, like Maladiction, but they're usually too simple and harsh and I get tired of them after a while. It helps that the opoponax sweetens and smooths this a bit. This scent is strong and I'd expected it to be, but it's not as heavy as I'd feared. Probably because leather doesn't stick around long on my skin. Initially the bay leaves are a bit like pickles, but the effect isn't offensive and doesn't last that long anyway. After some wear the clove becomes more prominent. I love The Hellgate of Ireland, The Smiling Spider, and Count Dracula and this falls right into the pantheon of awesome dark clove stuff. Sadly I will probably never find a bottle for sale. 2024 Aged decants So the original was more gleaming black notes including leather. Now, with aging most of what I get is clove and oakmoss. I may not need a bottle after all. Edit: Tested a second aged decant. While dimmed, this one has retained some smoky vetiver and leather. Maybe a pouring issue with the decanters? it does seem like aging has softened both decants.

Freshly applied: Cherry musk or dragon's blood, celery-like leather, and faint stone. The leather rapidly becomes less celery-like. There's probably not supposed to be leather in this, but I smell it anyway. A lot of the RPG line smell similar to me and this would fit right in, except it's a complete perfume and it's better blended than anything I layered on myself. In particular the red stuff reminds me of that note from Chaotic and the leather note reminds me of Rogue and Fighter. I do get a sense of a dungeon from this, but it's a theme park dungeon, lit by lurid red light bulbs. HOURS LATER: A while ago the dragonsblood/whatever stopped being bright cherry red all over everything. It's calmed down to a nice dark resin and there's something else. Pine tar? I think I can detect the faintest whiff of the lab's brimstone note. Beeswax has also come out to play. Verdict: Nice resins. This is in the same family as Blood and the RPG line.

I really want to try Callidora from BPTP, Totentanz, and Csardas Macabre.

This is unpleasant in the vial, sort of cleaningfluid-esque. It softens up on my skin, turning into the softer, maybe slightly floral relative of Night's Bridge. Am I crazy? No one else has mentioned that scent, but to me it's almost entirely alike. Edit: okay, so other people already mentioned Night's Bridge. I fail reading comprehension. Also I get champa from this rather than lavender.

Yep, that's dirt and moss alright. There's also a strong stone note on my skin. It's sort of airy and damp, if that makes any sense. I can see the resemblance to Zombi,except Zombi always smells desiccated to me and this is damp. Nice but a bit basic. I prefer Worm Moon for dirt.

This smells like Haunted plus light juicy pomegranate to me. I wish it was a tiny bit more spicy or woody, more fall-like. The pomegranate sometimes threatens to become overly sour/ sharp, but doesn't quite go there. It'll be interesting to see what aging does with this, whether it becomes sharper or more mellow and whether the pomegranate fades with time.

Flat, dark and a little sweet. I find myself wishing this had a tiny bit of spice. (Though the tobacco is almost spicy.) Maybe clove or something to give it a little extra dimension? Still not bad.

I wish I could see your costumes! Rather than handing out candy with friends and going to a memorial service it seems I might be staying home tonight due to rain. At least I can still hand out candy while dressed appropriately for a ren faire. Oh, and wearing Mary Shelley too.

This is mostly Absinthe on me, but there's some ozone too. I guess it could be called "soapy" but it's not unpleasant. This is really reminding me of Storm Clouds on the Midway. If Stormclouds mated with Absinthe, it would smell like this. This is lovely, but like Stormclouds it gets faint very quickly.

Unlike other reviewers, I can pick out the cypress easily. It's the most noticeable thing in the bottle. On my skin the roses bloom, along with a violet powder (the orris) and the myrrh. While the myrrh sweetens everything, it doesn't cover up the rest of the scent. Roses, orris, wood, and resins are all there and accounted for, but the sweet, powdery roses are the most prominent part of the scent on my skin. It may be a bit too far into face powder territory for me. There is some throw but not much.

This is a true wine smell a bit like zadok allen vineyard, except sweeter, with less of a vinegary quality. Does Balm of Gilead smell like honey? There's something like that here as well as a poppy flower note. Nice. Edit: I know I said it smells like wine, but actually, it smells more like someone took a glass of wine and mixed it with an equal measure of pomegranite juice. Still good.

I had to try this one. Applied, it's super moss. A whole roomful of dry dark moss to sink into. I can't smell the patchouli or balsam separately. (But then I'm not very practiced picking out balsam.) The spicy, bitter orange smell of cumin and neroli balance out all that moss very well. With certain chemistry, I can see this turning too sharp, even turning into body odor, but somehow it behaves itself. That almost never happens when I wear sharp scents. After a while the patchouli becomes a bit more noticeable. This is actually nice for a chilly day. I wouldn't go so far as calling the scent unhinged, but it suggests wild misery without actually making me feel unhappy. (It helps that I find oakmoss comforting.) As the other reviewers have said, it tends towards men's cologne. It isn't absolutely amazing, but it is good, very interesting and uniquely evocative.

I think Creature Feature would work if you could find it. I don't know if the GC Black Dhalia is still available, but if not, maybe Darkness would work.

The only GC scent I can think of is The Old Goblin which is ice and fir cones. One review says it smells like hard, dirty ice. If you want to try out Yules Snowball Fracas comes to mind immediately. It's snow and dirt. Jolasveinir the Yule LE is pastries and dirt and frost. There's Yellow Snowballs, and Pink Snowballs. There's also Lick it, Suck it, etc for peppermint candy. Snow Bunny and Waltz of the Snowflakes might be a bit too pretty, but I like both of those a lot. Frost at Midnight doesn't smell like frost at all, but it's a fairly pretty wilderness and florals scent. I haven't tried The Shivering Boy, Snowflakes, The Snow Storm, Archangel Winter, Hypothermia, Cold and Colder or Nuclear Winter but those might work too.

I'm surprised I haven't reviewed this. It's very perfumy, but such a lovely perfume. Aside from the roses and gentle musk I get a clear sense of blueness and a hint of leaves on a crisp October day. It's extremely beautiful, but somehow it just isn't me. And that's weird because usually I'll wear anything I like without stopping to think whether it's me or not. It's almost as if this perfume had a personality profile of its own. It's been a struggle to find words for it. I fumbled around with descriptions like "girly but not girlish," "ladylike," "sophisticated," "mainstream but better," but none of those really fit. Weirdly the closest I could come to describing the personality of this scent was "Martha Stewart." Seriously. So if you like really amazing vanilla musk and roses, clear October days, powder blue and blush pink maybe this is for you. If you don't like anything that could be considered cloying or powdery or conventionally perfumy, maybe it isn't for you.

A delicate, dry, grassy, foresty thing. This was underwhelming as a perfume, but put into water in a spray bottle it made really amazing room spray. Best "waste" of an imp ever.

Excellent! You reminded me of Jazz Funeral, which should be perfect...for someone else. It smells bad on me. Oh, and I see now I should have posted this in the costume thread. Darn.

So, what would be appropriate for Beetlejuice? I'm thinking something mossy, but what?

I can't believe I haven't reviewed this one before because this is one of the most evocative BPAL scents I've tried. You know the early, bright days of fall when the sky is extremely blue, the air is crisp and the leaves are still green? Yep. This smells like September. More specifically, this starts out smelling like green leaves. I can see where some reviewers would get green bananas. It also smells like ginko leaves. The amber in the scent gives me a strong impression of golden sunlight. After I've worn this a while I get the faintest impression of a tiny wisp of smoke which must be the rooibos. (Is the smoke a forecast of the leaves' future?) Your milage may vary. Not everyone will get such strong sensory perceptions. My mother called it "a lovely women's perfume."

Maybe this will help? I've tried a few of the Halloweenie scents from other years. Samhainophobia is a nice dark and brown scent, but it's a bit heavy on the vetiver for me and some people say it smells like burning hair on them. Day of the Skulls is a bit sweet. The white sandalwood sort of gives it the texture of bones, the beeswax makes it a bit polished and sweet and the roses and tobacco make it more sweet. Some people may have trouble with a slightly bitter undertone from the tobacco and hydrangea, but I was fine with it. In color I get a white-cream with pastel roses. Samhain is nice, but a little warmer and heavier on the foodiness than I'd like from this kind of scent. (If you're a big pumpkin pie and cider fan this might be for you). From reading the reviews it seems to vary a bit from year to year though. Also The Hell-Gate of Ireland was one of my favorites early on. I got a decant that was an absolutely amazing sweet dark clove scent. It's very warm and when I wear it in cold weather, it actually seems to make me feel warmer. Sadly my bottle of this seemed too heavy on the lab's sulfur note. But I think it has mellowed with age and become more like the decant.

On me, Pickled Imp. It's like being surrounded by a soft vanilla spice cloud.

The Poisoned Apple (if you don't mind the opium) and the LE Conical Beast are really nice. Edit: Though I forgot to mention Conical Beast has vetiver. On me it's a nice background vetiver that's held in place by the pine sap and the super sweet, sticky cherry. But vetiver. Yeah. Conical Beast, Clark Ashton Smith. Black cherry pulp, aged patchouli, wild fruit gums, pine sap, night-blooming jasmine, and vetiver.

I've used this twice. The first time motivated me to write a poem and then may have stimulated some vivid, but non nightmarish dreams. The second time I fell into a dreamless sleep almost immediately after applying it. The scent feels cold to me because of the camphor. Immediately after applying it, I get chills and feel very alert. It's like being terrified without the fear. Initially, the scents a bit too far on the medicinal side for me but the drydown (when I've woken up in the morning) is complex and amazing. I can tell there's mugwort and myrrh involved.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s RPG scent series was designed to emulate the character creation process, and are meant to be layered in order to create a character concept. In short: you layer your class, race, and the two fragrances that compose your alignment to construct your character scent. Elf Druid works well, though it's faintly soapy to my nose. (Could be the wool in Druid?) Evil Elf Druid is also nice, although Evil does a bit of that smothering thing it does. Gnome Druid is woody, and pretty decent. but my surprise favorite was Elf + Darkness (Non-Rpg scent). It's pleasantly smoky without being as coughgag overwhelming as Evil. Dark Elf is awesome.