Lorelai1945

In the imp and when wet this is very licorice-y. As it dries, I'm getting root beer and it's mellowing out. It gets sweeter, and then dries to sort of a powdery root beerish herbal scent. The herbs come out more and more as it is dry, and most of the sweetness goes away. Then- Oh hai Dragon's Blood- but not sweet. I really like the sweet stage- I wish it would've stayed there. As a Scorpio, I'm glad to have an imp, but I don't think I'll need more than this. This is quite the morpher.

In the imp this smells softly floral with a hint of some spiciness or muskiness. When I first put it on, it is very light- not much throw, and hard to detect. For the first minute or so I smelled soft floral- not particularly sweet or sour. It was like a very soft rose. However, something in this is turning nasty on me. I swear I now smell a cheesy/ranch smell over top of the floral. Like Doritos. It's soft, but gack. I don't know which note is doing this to me, but definitely makes it a no-wear.

Have you tried The East or Fairy Market? Both incredible, complex, sweet florals. Titania is a sweet fruity floral. Marie is a combination of rose and violet- very sweet and very nice. Hope and Faith from Carnaval Diabolique are sugared rose and sugared violet. Lady Lilith is a LE, but is easy to find on the forums- it is also a very nice sweeter floral. If you don't mind vanilla, try The Mouse's Long and Sad Tale- it is sweet pea and vanilla...very sweet. It has amber listed as a note, but I sometimes have issues with amber, too, and I don't detect it at all.

 

Hope these help!

I have an imp of The Red Queen. Does anyone know where to find it? Thanks.

 

The Red Queen is a GC from the Mad Tea Party collection. It's about halfway down the page.

 

Mad Tea Party

Resurrected version: Creamy vanilla mint. Vanilla + mint. This is very simple. It's slightly buttery, but not to the point where it's overpowering. It smells like a butter mint.

I got a sniffie of this to test, and I was really surprised at how little this smelled like my expectations. I get a lot of lemon- almost a sugary lemon- but there is a lot of lemon that I wasn't expecting. There is definitely tea in there helping to tame it, but I don't really feel any leather. I wondered if this is maybe because I had such a small amount to test? I was thinking this would have almost a masculine, library (minus books) smell, and it turned out to be a lot sweeter. I'm glad I got to try it, but I don't think I'm missing anything.

 

This is beautiful! It is sweet and musky, with a hint of floral and autumn leaves. It is very well blended, but I can definitely tell there's vanilla in there, and just the faintest hint of rose. It's tamed with that soft blue musk (I often can't wear rose blends). If you like The Girl, this is one you should try- the musk gives it a very similar feel. I'm really surprised this wasn't a break-out star last fall.

I have more bottles of Lilith Victoria than any other Bpal scent. I love this! It is very similar to TKO, except softer, and you can definitely tell that Dorian is a big player. It is a sugary lavender with some vanilla and a hint of tea. After drying down for a while, the Snake Oil comes out to play and I get a lot more vanilla and less lavender. It has a lot of staying power and throw. This is one of my go-to Bpal scents for pretty much anything.

Crazily enough, the first time I tried Snake Oil I thought it smelled like herbs and didn't like it. It was a lab-fresh imp, and it wasn't until I tried some that had been aged a few months that I fell in snakey oily love. This is a deep, rich, unique vanilla unlike anything I've ever smelled. It is sweet and spicy and exotic and damn sexy! This is the scent I go to when I go out on a hot date with the BF. I have tried various ages (everything from lab fresh to 3 years old), and I have to say that my favorite stage is aged a few months, although I love the long-aged as well. If I could only have one Bpal (the horror!), this would probably be my pick.

This smells extremely "wet" to me. I immediately start thinking of the sea, and especially the sea on a cool, cloudy day. This is a very gray-blue scent. It is very clean. I can kind of tell something floral is helping to create the "sea" feeling, but it's very blended and I can't pull out individual notes. I don't get any sweetness from this. When very dry it is just too aquatic for my taste. This is interesting, but it's not something I would wear.

When I first put this on, it smells like a really nice men's cologne. As it dries, I start to smell a bit of sweetness from something mixed with the soft leather muskiness. This is one of the few leather blends that doesn't crazy amp on my skin. I still get that sweetness- I don't know what it is, but it makes this a lot more wearable for me. I definitely think it would be nice on a man, but my skin likes some "masculine" scents, and I would feel comfortable wearing this one. Other than maybe when wet, I don't get the sharpness others have had. To me, it's a well-blended unisex scent.

Anactoria happens to be the only scent with honey in it that I've tried and been able to wear..(it's the only white honey I've tried, too). I think it must be because white honey is not as heavy and cloying as " honey honey". O is so thick with honey that it makes me nauseated, but I really like Anactoria.

It's a discontinued LE, but I found Velvet Unicorn to be OH EM GEE PINK SUGAR!!!

 

OOH great! What about Velvet Pink Kitty.. ?

 

I thought VPK smelled a lot like a drink- you can definitely get the gin in there. I haven't tried Velvet Unicorn, but Pink Kitty didn't really remind me of Pink Sugar. Not nearly as sweet.

Wow. I definitely get the same cream note from Love's Philosophy, which immediately makes me love this. It's very creamy- almost velvety. I don't really detect the teak- just creamy amber with...something else. It's very well blended. Once it's completely dry it reminds me of Moroccco in a way. Kind of cookie spiciness.

 

Now I just have to track down more...

Not exactly the same, but Mouse's Long and Sad Tale has the sweetness of vanilla and sweet pea- very pink. I am hoping that Pink Mood (new Shunga) will be reminiscent with its star anise and vanilla (I think there's vanilla- I'm at work and don't want to pull it up...).

I can't believe I haven't reviewed this one yet! It goes on a very sweet vanilla with a waft of the pink sweet pea floral, and the more it dries, the more it becomes the drydown vanilla that I love in Antique Lace. It is very girly and pretty, and great for an everyday scent. It doesn't have a ton of lasting power, but I have no problem slathering throughout the day...

If wearing synthetics is not an issue, then continuing to press this in a rather terse manner feels more like an attack on the company and you trying to be "proved right" somehow- like you're trying to prove some sort of flaw in Bpal- than it does actual concern over your use of the product. I think that is what people are having a problem with. If you had genuinely been solely wondering about natural v. synthetics in the first place, it seems to me that it would have been unnecessary to bring in comments from negative critics and statements that were written in a way that were offensive to people. Multiple times you've been told to contact customer service directly, and instead you keep posting in this section almost like putting on a show. People have a right to know what is in the products they purchase, but if that's what you really want, I think you've gone about it all wrong. I'm sorry if you can't see that. Creating drama for the sake of drama is not trying to be a good consumer.

Beth! Aside from the fact that I am absolutely obsessed with the Lab's products (I'm wearing Tombstone, Snake Oil, and Under the Harvest Moon right now just because I can!), another reason I am so much in support of the company is because of their integrity and that it's not about big name bullshit. They really do the things they say they do. Hopefully it's been made very clear that Bpalers are loyal and aren't swayed by the random naysayer who just want to bring a good thing down to their level. I feel good giving my fun money to people who I know are truly good people with values and beliefs I can stand behind.

Something else I just thought of- I know Beth is not testing her oils, blends, or materials on animals, or using animal-derived products. I can't be sure with department store brand perfumes.

And since several people have answered your question, and you still seem to be unwilling to take the answers at face value, I don't know what you want us to say. You basically just told me you either think that I'm mistaken or that I'm lying because there is no way in the world perfume could be that cheap otherwise. It's seeming like the only answer you want is that BPAL is an etailer that buys preblended fragrance oils and tweaks them, then lies about how they were blended by Beth. I just don't understand what you want to get out of this when you won't believe people when they answer your questions.

 

I agree with the above. It sounds like you've already made up your mind. If you're so doubtful that the product is going to be good, then why are you messing with it? Sounds like arguing for the sake of arguing. It's sad you have your mind set that way, too. Because Bpal truly is amazing. It's fun, it's creative, and it's a community of amazing people who generally welcome newcomers with open arms. If you think you're getting cheated, then don't play. But know you're missing out.

 

I have a few department store perfumes on my dresser. Ever since I was shown Bpal, they've been collecting dust.

Can somebody hand me a grilled cheese?

 

 

 

Smells delicious.

 

I'm certain the mall scents...lack creativity. I prefer not to smell like everyone else.

 

Besides, I can not stand how [fancy house, commerical perfumes] are mass marketed with little to no real inspiration.

 

 

I'm sorry but that sentiment makes me really angry.

 

This is exactly what you accuse BPAL of doing. So maybe you should sit back a minute and think of whether we should be just as mad at you.

 

Beth takes enormous amounts of pride in her work and will take YEARS to perfect a blend. It is RIDICULOUSLY insulting to say that she just slaps together fragrance oils like a generic chain candle maker. You should have read the FAQ and About Us sections of the site, and the FAQ section of this board before you started making judgements.

 

 

You know... I would really take what you said more seriously if BPAL didn't produce hundreds of fragrances every year for the exact same (very low) price. The people on Luca Turin's blog had a point about the basic logistics/economics of it all. I'm trying to do the reading suggested by some very nice commenters but so far I'm still left uneasy.

 

And for the record, while I did quote people who compared bpal to velveeta, I never endorsed their view.

 

Who says that more expensive is better? I'm sure a lot of the big fashion-house names jack their prices up because they can. It's the same concept as is a high-fashion t-shirt really worth that much more because it has a name across the front of it? I personally think it's wonderful that we have access to so many different scents at a reasonably affordable price. I'm extremely thankful for it. Maybe Beth just wants to be fair with her pricing and not gouge people. I think it's rather snobbish to think that because something isn't expensive that it isn't good. at this point, after reading several pages of this thread and being increasingly...more heated..I think that Jayne should get her imps and try them. If she likes them, fine. If not, fine. All this disguised put-down of the lab beforehand really makes no sense in the place where all the ardent followers are lurking. Can somebody hand me a grilled cheese?

Masculine scents tend to like me (good examples are Hellhound, Tombstone, and Robotic Scarab), so I am curious about Port-au-Prince. The butter part scares me though- I hate the buttery smell of, say, Jelly Belly buttered popcorn beans. Something else I tried- Boo maybe?- was super buttery and I didn't like it. Anybody know how much butter is in Port-au-Prince? I think Hellhound has bay rum, and I lurve Hellhound.

I would definitely recommend trying Liz. On me it was very leathery with a hint of vanilla, and I didn't really get any floral at all. It's all about the body chemistry I guess.

 

ETA: Robotic Scarab is nice. Rather masculine, but my skin likes it.

Lady of Shalott, although I may be influenced by the poem.