SophieCedar

I would recommend The Hell of Great Heat (2012 Lupers: Indonesian patchouli, tonka bean, red musk, natural hedoine accord, black opium, cassis, styrax, costus, oakmoss, frankincense, and kief accord.)

I've waited a long time to try this! It got discontinued right as I was about to order it..

Wet: ep.. cinnamon and myrrh and frankincense. My wrist is getting that burny feeling it did from Sacred Whore of Babylon... waiting for the redness.

Dry: no redness! yayyy!! I smell olive leaf, predominantly. Olive leaf & olive oil tends to amp on me big-time. I also smell beeswax... warm and glowing. The cinnamon has backed waaaayy down to a tolerable level. Honestly this reminds me of LUSH's Olive Branch. Wondering if there's some citrus too...hmm. It's actually really nice. Calming, joyful, vibrant. I would recommend it for the upcoming holiday season and as a great dead-of-winter pick-me-up.

I second the red musk = culprit. Especially around my period it goes all metallic and sour. red musk is very fickle on me..can depend even on what I ate that day.

Why this still only has 1 page of reviews is beyond me. This is GORGEOUS. If you missed out on Senelion, try this one. It's a close 2nd.

The red musk is prominent but not peaked or fiery pungent. Just smoky and lightly metallic.. I think the nutmeg, laudanum, and tobacco absolute are twining with it. The golden amber does an amazing job of smoothing out the edges and I can tell there's a good dose of it in here. Which combined with the skin musk.. this glows warmly and deeply. Orchid sweetens and brings a nice top note that's notable from the rest. Brilliant blend.

Apparently this has aged well... the musk is buttery on me.. I mean really buttery. The white rose is sweet, light, and fresh. The oriental perfume notes add a touch of resinous aquatic. This is.... dreamy. It's a clean, simple scent I can totally deal with. Mellow, buttery smooth, clean.. I can't believe I almost sent this to the sales page!

I'm looking for the fig in the White Sandalwood & Fig Hair gloss. Is there anything close to SN fig? Thanks! XOXO~Maven

I haven't really found an SN fig, (...not Strangler Fig at all..) but the strongest figs I've found are:

The Grave Pig: Fig, oakmoss, mushroom caps, and patchouli.

Hetairae: golden honey, fiery patchouli, sweet fig and clove, and a blushing touch of ylang ylang.

To some extent Eden, but it was more almond milk and coconut on me, honestly: fig leaf, fig fruit, honeyed almond milk, toasted coconut and sandalwood

and new but LE on my list of very figgy scents:

Figgy Puddin: (bptp) Calymyrna figs, dark rum, cognac, raisins, cinnamon, ginger, brown sugar, and clove.

Nymphes de Pave: (NYCC excl) White fig, rose otto, honey, and bourbon vanilla.

Wet: very sweet deep honey, rich resinous vanilla and refined rose otto giving it a balanced perfume-floral note. The fig comes on strong & consistent. Its like a golden syrup instead of the molassesly rich fig from some other blends. White fig for sure. It's almost edible. Reminds me of middle-eastern sweets flavored with rose syrup. Awesome.

Holllleeeeshit. Its Ninon and Banshee Beat's lovechild.

I see what people are saying about a sharp note at 1st or the honeysuckle being culprit. I'd say wait it out. Its worth it.

The patchouli is very sweet and mellow, honeyed leather: whatever that is I need more, sarsaparilla is laying low adding a slight non-foody brown-golden spiciness, the honeysuckle is amping the golden quality and making this decidedly feminine, french vanilla? who doesn't need that? No really it helps make this warm and sweet.

You know, I want to love this so bad. Really bad. In the vial its sweet lavender strawberry honey with cakey notes.

When applied its a toxic amount of baby aspirin hidden in vanilla strawberry cake.

I will not give up on this one. Retry in 1 month. one week tonight.

My husband says this reminds him of "when aunt Rhonda used to come over and get a perm from my mom". He was really creeped out saying it smells exactly like the perm processing chemicals and hairsprays used by his mom. I say it smells great, but I've been husband blocked. If I get a bottle I'll never hear the end of it.

Anyways, onward to the review. This is a wonderful balanced smooth silky floral & musk blend. Seriously, if my house smelled like this when I was getting a perm back in the 80's I'd be less traumatized.

Wet: White tea, olibanium, violet leaf, and saffron come out together creating a meditational feel with sweet notes. Its sweeter and smoother than the read notes would elude. Something in this spells pomegranate to me. Same feel on the nose.

Drydown: Ahh.. I can see where hubby is getting the perm chills from. The white tea amps a bit and the myrrh and olibanium kick in stronger with crypt dust and wormwood, making this a sharper herbal resin blend. Violet leaf settles down and departs. Red musk has decided its done with me, over the past year. So as a funny trick, goes spikey claws out do not touch me.....its happening here. Sigh.

For information, the limited edition 'Twilight' shower gel is basically liquid TKO.

Holy shit! Eeeeee! I have the perfume and love it. How would you compare the shower gel to the perfume?

Dear John is a near dead ringer for Skinny Dip. Seriously, if you're lamenting the loss of Skinny Dip (like me) try Dear John!

 

The Black Rider and The White Rider were both recommended, so does anyone have experience with both to better compare them? From reading descriptions The Black Rider seems more up my alley, but I'm curious about any further

opinions.

I there!

Black Rider is strong but smooth dark musky leather. A small dab is recommended.

White Rider is not my favorite, but evokes accurately. The white leather is clean, slightly chemically. From what I'm reading about your skin chemistry, you may amp this one in a direction you'll not be pleased with.

Honestly I would recommend you give Red Rider a try along with Black Rider. Red Rider has that spicy appeal I think you're looking for, mixed with leather and moss. It's a very warm spicy scent!

Going back to your request for spicy/sweet/masculine scents, my perception is that you're looking for slight sweetness that's smoothed out and balanced with masculine notes, but you're prone to amping them crazily, right? I'll try to recommend some that have a medium to low throw, that in smaller amounts may not send you running for the sink:

Gomorrah (love this one! It's evil and awesome)

Havana

Sri Lanka

Al-Azif

Santo Domingo

Brown Jenkin

Titus Andronicus

Blood Amber

Chimera (just a dab! I call this "not-snake-oil" because it's similar but I wear it on the days I don't want to wear SO hahaha)

Kill Devil (be careful with the amount on this one but it's lovely!)

Casanova

Golden Priapus

last but not least: Perversion.

Best of luck!!

Not sure why but Shadowy & Sublime is grabbing me this summer. The warm Moroccan amber wisteria white rose magnolia and mint is earthy and refreshing. Also Hod is pure awesomeness.

I've been veering away from my usual sweet summer scents this year. I do have to say Bones Trombone and Katharina are frikkin great though!

Humanah humunah humunah! THIS is the scent to wear on your 1st date, if you just want to knock em dead. I would equate it to a red musk version of Luna Negra. So glad I chanced on this during the lab's ebay sale. This is deep, dark, musky, sexy, feminine, but not too pungent/nasal cavity assault-like. Basically what I hoped WILF to be but wasn't. Frikkin sweet.

Springtime for me is Eden, Joyful Moon, Mantis, Josie, and Lady in Speckled Pink Kimono.

This is VERY pink and a straight split of peony and vanilla orchid. While this might not have the pow and wow of some other pink scents, I keep gravitating toward it. It lasts forever and just pervades the general area. I can handle this anytime: when I'm cranky, sick, boisterous, or pissed. That's a good scent, in my records.

There are a ton of win notes in here: nepalese amber, red musk, black musk, hops, mallow and chamomile. All blended perfectly. The lotus root is really the keystone of this scent, I think. It brings out the resinous, sweet nepalese amber, which on it's own places me on cloud 9. It's bizarre but I keep smelling traces of cinnamon, a la Chimera. It could be the star anise. The lotus addition reminds me of Kali. Even though Himalayan cedar is a death note on me, its perfectly grounding here. The chamomile is winey and soothing, perfectly mixing with the penetrating musks and sweet dry blue grey tinged orris. Mallow is something I wish I could curl up and go to sleep on. Need I say more? I'm in love.. unexpectedly.

Ok, so this actually worked out in the best possible way, considering the range to results I'm seeing here.

Wet: Very distinct notes, dancing together. Strange company that somehow manages to balance each other.

Matcha tea: sweet, powdered, sweet-grass like. I wasn't sure if this would translate as real matcha, but it does.. Supple black leather: strong and very seductive! Sweet! I'm psyched. Smokey deep oudh, tying together with frankincense.. these 2 are an amazing match. A waft of deep, earthy pink rose. Nice touch. The patchouli is mellow and syrupy. Petitgrain is something I'm not really crazy about, but it works here. It's driving it up from a basic carnal incense-y leather blend to something more balanced. Great gender neutral top note... Even though I usually cringe in it's presence. The himalayan cedar is just melding and muddling with the oudh and frankincense, giving them depth. That's great because I've had some nasty run-ins with it.

Drydown: this is where I can clearly smell the champaca and narcissus. Leather Phoenix is funny. It operates kinda like that old saying "hind-sight is 20-20". I can see exactly where these 2 fell into place during the wet phase and how it constructed the overall effect, even though I can't pick out the 2 at that time... the epiphany causes a forehead smacking "of course!" This turns greener as the the leather looses it's hold and the frankincense smooths. It's got this soporific, drugged daze feel, but in the clean nothing can harm me kind way. I'm creeped out and captivated. Wonderful.

NYE was a cornucopia of awesome. Little dabs of each: Perversion behind the ears, Haunted on my chest, and Ushi in the crooks of my elbows. What fun!

Wish I could find a bpal similar to Champagne Snowshowers! *laments loss of favorite scent*

Did you manage to get a bottle of Snowshowers perfume? It was on their Canadian website last week & is a LE fragrance. I was considering getting Twilight as well, but I have a BPAL that smells similar (SDPU1) and the bottle was $50. Eek.

 

I'd love to know what BPAL smells like Snowshowers though, because I tried the perfume and it was gone in 30 minutes.

Oh man I had no idea Lush made a snowshowers perfume this year! I still have a tiny bit of the solid version they put out about 4 years ago. Still smells the same. Glad you found something from bpal that's similar. I will keep my eyes peeled for others and post here when found!

Wet: a blast of orange marmalade, rosemary, pine, and apples.

Drydown: cinnamon, orange marmalade and orange rind, with a hint of apples, deeper rosemary. Comforting and energizing (emphasis on the zing part..) Reminds me of fabric and craft stores but not too offensive or too potpourri-ish.

OK, so my 1st impression of Snow White last year was "Smells like Skin Milk", though I was completed pleased I didn't have to deal with nasty chemicals to get this lovely scent any more.

Pink Snowballs is a rosy Skin Milk..without the chemicals and fake perfumes...YAY!

Wet: sweet soft vanilla and rose with a touch of...spearmint? What's the ingredient that makes it snowy? We'll never know. It's actually incredibly strong during this phase. Joyful, light-hearted indeed, optimistic, bouncy (bouncy? Yes. Bouncy.). Glad I'm starting my day with this.

Drydown: still exuberant and fun. Still sweet airy vanilla & rose, with that snowy note. I honestly like this one better than Snow White, which comes across as sweet & sad, doleful. Don't get me wrong, I love that combination, but this is more playful. My favorite morning scent these days. There's basically a protective wall of anti-fuck-up-my-day oil on my wrists, right now. Awesome.

Now my question. anyone knows a bpal scent thats simular to sakura bath ballistic or rubrubrub. my sister is the biggest fan of this scent.

Also does someone knows what bpal comes close to the olive branch? Snake oil goes very well with it but its not really close to it

Oooh good one. I do know a couple out there that are similar, but looking at the threads, everyone wishes there was a stronger cherry blossom scent from bpal.

Similar to Sakura IMO: Suspiro and Spirit of the Komachi Cherry Tree

Any suggestions for matches for Ghost?

 

Also, would anyone say Jezebel is similar to B never shower gel?

Hey ya know look at that! I was *just* thinking to myself yesterday how Ghost resembles Lyonesse. I was trying to figure out why I LOVE Ghost so much but don't really care for Lily Savon soap. Ghost is kinda more vanilla-y than the Lily Savon bar soap..most people compare Ghost to Lily Savon, but my experience was that the Lily Savon bar soap is MUCH heavier on lilies to the point of burning my nose.