starfish327

Priala is very, very, very nice to me. Apparenty i get along well with the human phoenix.

on my chemistry, this is a much more wearable version of slaugh. slaugh is one of my favorite blends but it's definitely an aggressive sasparilla. this is very much the same feel (i'm guessing it's the myrhs and the smoke interacting) but it's much lighter and sweeter. on my skin she's got a definite hit of vanilla which i think is making me think of slaugh. the cinnamon keeps fading back and forth. the blend verges on plastic but it stays far enough away from it to be wearable.

very nice.

Greed. It was straight up polish dill pickle to me.

cernunnos. oh my gods how much i've fallen in love with cernunnos. it's what i wanted yule to be.

in the imp: something sharp...and then...meat?...and then nothing

wet: immediately a blast of sharp citrus. much better. i like the lab's citrus notes as general rule. i'm going to guess that it's something close to blood orange.

dry:...there's got to be orris or violet in this, and my chemistry must have shifted, because while i identify the note, it's not going horrible dirty skin on me like normal. this is the second blend this week where it hasn't done that. the longer it's on, the more the citrus burns off and leaves a vanilla/violet. the violet's threatening to go sour but something in there is keeping it in check. the sugar comes out a lot more and it keeps shifting between sugar/herbal and the vanilla/violet.

it's a lot prettier than i remember last summer. i remember not liking it enough to not want to write a review but for whatever reason my decant was still in my box. either the year's aging or my rather severe shift in eating habits has aided this one, a lot.

this is a very strange blend on me. it's very definitely high, sharp, and white, but there's something earthy and fruity grounding it as well. it goes on very very painfully sharp and aggressive, and almost overly strong but the longer it's on the more it mellows and grounds. there's a certain sweetness that comes forward and helps to control the florals.

the florals actually don't feel like florals, though the more i wear it and the more i think about it this does feel a lot like grief. however there's a certain woody-ness and a certain...fluffiness? that isn't there with grief. i can defintely see both the commerical perfume and shampoo aspects of this blend but it's a lot less off-putting for me that most of the blends that do that. it's a very loud blend though, i'll have to use it sparingly.

i will also say that this is a blend that shouldn't work on my skin, at all. there's at least 3 major death notes in this for me- the white musk, the violet, and the cedar. primrose is also really hit or miss on me.

^-- I used to like Clinique's Happy (and particularly Happy Heart). Might have to try out Xiuhtecuhtli sometime.

 

I'm looking for something incredibly simple, and yet I don't think BPAL has anything similar to it at the moment. Dorkily, I first got Sephora's Vanilla Cupcake body wash as a b-day sample from them. It's so freaking delicious. The description is pretty straightforward -

 

Sweetly decadent accords of French vanilla and almond, a delicious mix that joins subtle notes of honey and buttermilk.

I'm not normally a foody person, but it smells exactly like vanilla cream and honey. It's delicate and very edible-smelling. I don't get much almond from it, thankfully, as it normally turns into demonic cherries on me - however, I wouldn't mind a scent that had these notes as well as something nutty.

 

Just for reference, I have tried BPAL's #1 GC foody scent, Eat Me, but that was overly cloying on me.

the two that come to mind are dana o'shea and cake smash. cake smash on me was way too sweet/cloying but it's definitely cake and it seems to behave better on other people. that and i just don't like smelling like a cake. dana o'shea was much lighter and less intense, but it's more milk and grains though it does have a sweet vanilla feel to it.

crawdad and white rabbit are nothing alike on my skin but it may just be my chemistry. white rabbit went weird spoiled milk on me, and crawdad smelled like blueberries and bug spray.

i think that there's a resin thread, but faunalia was pretty much a frank single note on me.

Dawn: Cernunnos strikes me as a dark foresty scent, hence why I love it so much

yep. i was coming to suggest cernunnos.

Just as a "whee, excited" update, I read and read and read and then ended up with:

 

Bewitched, Black Forest, Faunalia, Fae, Lawn Gnome, Imp, Vixen, Hollywood Babylon, Black Phoenix, Fenris Wolf, Kitsune-Tsuki, Troll

 

Some of these are, as you can see, not necessarily related to what I asked for, but I decided to treat myself to 2*6 of what you appear to call "Imp's Ears" and wanted to test some different stuff too - I am So looking forward to these now - question though; when I do get them and test them, I'm allowed to write in reviews and be all "whee" or "blurgh" yes?

yes, they have their own threads just for that!

periodically there are blends that just shouldn't work, and almost don't get tested because all of the notes just shouldn't work. they almost never work. even with blends where rose doesn't go rancid on me, i tend to just not like it, and dirt's really hit or miss. i'm not familiar with moss as a note but it sounds green and green and i don't play well together.

except that zombi works, and it works in a really big way. the only downside is that it is a fairly potent blend and i always forget that when i first apply it. oops.

in the imp it's very much classic bpal rose and dirt.

on the skin it starts to alternate what's amping and when, so that sometimes the rose is forward and sometimes the dirt's forward. there is definitely a green element there in the background.

there's a public rose garden in buffalo where a lot of people get married. it's next to one of my favorite sections of my favorite parks in the city. this smells like that- it smells like late season rose garden where things are starting to wind down.

chesire moon is a very...masculine pink. it does meet the mental image in my head of the chesire cat.

in the imp it's a weird jumble of 'sweet'. i don't really get an impression out of it other than 'sweet' and 'weird'.

it starts out the skin in a similar chaos of scents though i do start to get the floral. and pink. but not girly pink or even mature pink, this is...a very masculine pink. i didn't realize that pink had a gender until this blend.

by dry down it's started to shift towards a gender neutral though it does remind me of a bath and body work's blend that i wore a long, long, long time ago. the florals start coming forward but the sugar and the red fruits i'm starting to get out of it keep it in line. it is vaguely bubble gum but i like to smell like candy so it's not a bad thing.

my only concern with this blend is that i'm not certain that moodwise it's something that i'd want to wear all the time. it kind of reminds me of a...tiefling. for some reason this blend makes me want to play dungeons and dragons but since i am in fact a gamer that's not entirely a bad thing either.

either way i'm keeping it.

in the imp this was extremely sharp, a touch sour...and familiar. but i couldn't place it.

on skin this morphed into a mismash of all my worst notes- rose, sharp white florals, and what i read as white musk but what i think now may have been the sandlewood. i'm not surprised on reading violet in the note list since this also bordered on skin sour.

and fuzzy red wallpaper.

this blend was exceptionally familiar but i couldn't place why, and i couldn't figure out why the mental association that i kept getting was fuzzy red wallpaper until it finally hit me as i was laying in bed that i reminded me of the bathroom of my parent's house when we moved in, circa 1990. prior to that point it had never occured to me that wallpaper came in fire engine red and fuzzy but it was this monstrousity of flocked red stripes and smooth white sections. my parents kept a bowl of rather dusty sad looking hand soaps in a bowl on the sink and the combination of staid floral hand soap and fuzzy red wallpaper strikes me as ridiculous in retrospect. fortunately both the

soap and the wallpaper are long gone.

i didn't realize samhain even had it as a listed note, though in retrospect i guess it probably does.

though it's not really an autumn scent per se, i love the caterpillar in autumn, along with the coiled serpent. i'm a big fan of samhain, samhainophobia, pumpkin I (the one with the brown musk), chimera, and raven moon.

i'm just curious since i have plenty and plan on getting more, what would a gc stand in be for samhain? i'm drawing a blank on what would be similar other than other weenies.

 

Ekhidna came to mind for me... dark, earthy, spicy, and kinda smoky & fall leafy, lol. The drydown is more resinous/incensey, but I do think it has a feel that's similar to Samhain.

i love ekhidna, but unless it's changed with a year's aging i don't get the same feel from it. they're still dark blends but i get a more...primal feel from ekhidna.

(i can't find a review that i've written for this one so i'm assuming that i haven't reviewed it yet)

2010 version

i've developed this weird obsession with smelling like gingerbread. i'm not certain what it is about heavily spiced baked goods that have caused it to become my holy grail in fall and winter scents but the past 18 months have been spent searching everywhere for a scent that'll meet my needs. i haven't tried any of the gingerbread poppet scents but i was willing to try a half decant with the idea in the back of my mind that i was going to automatically need to rush out and get a bottle, budget be damned.

unfortunately the poppet didn't bake through in the oven and i had a glob of eggy, bready, vaguely ginger smelling mess on my wrist. i put the imp away hoping that it was a combination of age and stress that did it; we had totaled the front of my car the week my decants came in and everything was smelling weird.

i pulled the imp out today...and discovered that not only had the blend stayed just as raw, it invited play doh over for the party and they both have somehow managed to go stale at the same time. i'm certain on the right person this would be a beautiful blend and i may try even older versions, but right now i smelled like i rolled in the gingerbread batter bowl and then just wandered around for awhile.

i'm just curious since i have plenty and plan on getting more, what would a gc stand in be for samhain? i'm drawing a blank on what would be similar other than other weenies.

cherries and vetiver, which would be wonderful if there was a third note in there to balance it out. it's a similar cherry to the one in bloody mary, at least with my skin chemistry (though i think that it's actually the same almond that's in hecate the longer that it's on the skin) and the smoky vetiver reminds me a lot of st. john's eve. it's just a weird blend with my chemistry, but i still haven't figured out if i like it-even with 3 or 4 wearings.

i think that the bigger issue for me that is that it makes me feel a little weird which is probably not a good thing for a conjure bag blend. i'll stick to high john when i need a money pull. it's probably more of a personal association for me but this blend makes me feel more like being thankful for what i already have than attracting more of something and i don't want to be putting up blocks.

this is such a bizarre blend on my skin.

it starts out with a burst of...skin so soft. my grandmother used to use skin so soft as a bug repellant. this took me straight back to summer as a first grader.

it then shifts into watermelon gum.

it then cycles through something vaguely herbal/spicy, the skin so soft, and a blast of fruit stripe gum. as it's on longer though it does shift into something more herbal and fruity and less skin so soft. i'm guessing the ginger and tea are interacting with the squash to make that weird chemical impression to me.

i do like the blend and i'm going to hang on to my decant, for novelty if nothing else.

if starbursts moved into the liquor/wine flavored catagory, this would be the champagne burst. it's really nice. it's not a champagne note, but i get a sweet white wine feel from the blend. i love the lab's wine notes, but most of them are really heavy and in your face booze on me. this isn't that dominant. under the wine/wine like note there's a jumble of really sweet, juicy fruits. the general impression is red, but it's red the way that a bag of life savers or starbursts are red- a pile of things with an overarching feel of red but no one single fruit coming forward the most.

i do really like this one, which was unexpected. it reminds me a lot of mason and jenkin's port jelly, but i can't wear that one to work because it's too obviously wine. this one i can get away with because it's much more subtle but very much has the same feel to me.

this is amazing. that is all.

it's a very green, masculine scent but it doesn't overpower me. it verges on the soapy but it pulls back enoguh to make it wearable (and it may just still be travel shocked). it is very indictive of 'forests', and it reminds me of late summer. i find this one very wearable, and i normally can't do herbs or woods, especially not herbs and woods together. there's a slightly spiced edge to it, though i'm not sure where it's coming from.

i'm also normally allergic to basil but this works well on me. i'm not getting any reaction from this.

i need to let this one settle a little more, but this is my initial impression.

in the imp: very sweet, with a hint of spice and vague greenery or florals. not as intense as i had feared it may be.

wet: i get a lot of jumbled fruit and florals. it's a little chaotic and intense at this point (but it could be travel shock as well). it does smell like fall to me, and of the lunacies i've tried this may be the only one that works other than raven moon (and crow moon on odd days).

dry: it morphs a lot on dry down. i amp the mulling spices and the cloves, which sit on top of something that smells faintly aquatic. i think it's the lily and the greenery working together. periodically i get hints of the fruit. it's a strange mixture but it's not unpleasant. and it does remind me of late fall.

i'm going to need to give this one more time to rest, but i think that this one will be a keeper.

I thought I had reviewed this one but apparently not. This is a heavy, dark blend on my skin but it's not so heavy I can't wear it to work. The first few minutes that I apply it, the blend's quite harsh on my skin. Myrrh doesn't always play well with my chemistry. After a few minutes though it becomes a smooth, vanilla and dark musk that's quite comforting.

and does remind of a bird, which i love because i really like birds.

i think that my yule decants were travel shocked when i first tested them, because on the second wearing of this blend i'm finally getting what everyone else was talking about.

in the imp, this is very foody. i don't normally do foody but i liked the scent description.

wet: wow. this is really spicy, orangy food with a hit of cake in the background. i like it though. i like really spice heavy blends and this is very close to gingerbread at this stage. there's a definite bready note here, but in a good way. i've never actually smelled a plum pudding but i have a mental image that this would be close.

dry: this actually keeps getting better. the spice starts amping forward even more, and the citrus sticks around. the bread note settles down into cake, and i almost feel like this has a brown musk vibe (and i wish there were more brown musk blends, so this is a good thing). i have a feeling though that it's a nut note though because it reminds me of some of the pumpkin patch blends.

yay, now i have to go through and retest all of my yules (this is not a bad thing lol).

2010

in the decant: i actually don't get anything in the decant. i thought i had picked up another blend initially.

wet: sweet resins, without any incense. i'm actually disappointed because i love heavy, rich incense blends.

dry: still predominately sweet resins, but there's smoke lurking in the background. i get a hint of incense/spice as well, but this is still primarily a resin blend on me with a hint of cedar.

in the imp: pine and thyme. thyme has a habit of ruining scents for me,i can't really wear herbs.

wet: pine and thyme. it's a fairly assertive blend. it's very woody but oddly it's not very green on me.

dry: the pine is still there, but it's definitely playing second fiddle to the thyme. way underneath there's a hint of lemon. i really don't like it when it's first on, but it seems to be mellowing out the longer that it's on. it's still very assertive, and while i'm not sure that it reads masculine on me, it's not really feminine or gender neutral either. it's hard to pin down.

i may have to let this one age a little to see what the thyme does before i let it go, because the throw is much better than the close-up scent and i like it as long as the thyme isn't punching me in the nose.