Zorra

Wet it smelled like the kind of paper penny dreadful would be printed on, and after someone left it outside in the mud for a while and then put it out in the sun to dry. That, with something resinous-kind-of-sweet below. There is something I can not put a name on. It may be the earth note, but I didn't smell enough earth notes to be sure about that. It reminds me of a note in Orc. I think it must be an earth/dirt note. After an hour it is a very nice scent, vaguely sweet and vaguely earthy and, alas, vaguely fragrant as a whole. It seems to fade rather fast on me. I'll reapply and see what that does to staying power.

At first it smelled oddly incensy to me, like there was frankincense in it (which may still be the case although it isn't mentioned). I did not really smell grapefruit, but there was a certain sharpness in the very beginning that might have been grapefruit. The frankincense however was stronger. Then, after a while, there was a spicy smell that made me think of the Indonesian shops we have here, selling ingredients for Indonesian food. I wondered if there was galangal in the scent, which I use in my cooking as laos. Again it is not in the description, but it might well be there. Slowly the champaca began to come through. I decided to reapply, knowing that a second application after several hours helps me to distinguish more different notes. The second time the champaca was obvious, but it was still a rather spicy champaca. Like I was still in the Indonesian shop, somewhere between the incense area and the spices. Another reason why I reapplied this scent twice today is that after about two hours it lost its lift to the heavens and stayed very close to my skin. Al together this is a rather strange but very nice scent, different from anything else I have tried. It's a warm and indeed smoky kind of scent but not in the way of tobacco smoke or wood smoke. It is more like a spicy flowery incensy kind of smoke. It would feel at home in an Asian temple. ETA: I have this scent for 10 days now and I have hardly worn anything else during those days. When I wrote this review it had just arrived and already the next day it was more a piece of music than a few different notes. It's still a champaca incense kind of scent, but in a much more beautiful composition than your average champaca incense (and I do like those too). The wood softens it, the amber sweetens it and it never gets too heavy, there is a lightness to it. It is very beautiful.

I thought I should try O because just about everyone making a top ten of popular scents puts it in. I know now that I don't like O. I am not a great fan of honey scents to begin with, unless they have a good balance with something else like Harikata. O is simply too sweet for me. I might have enjoyed the amber and vanilla without the honey. I might even have enjoyed the honey and vanilla without the amber. But the three of them is just too much.

It smelled good enough in the imp, roses and lemon and apple. But once I had it on my skin it whacked me in the face: sharp lemon and rose. So sharp that for the first time I thought a scent might give me a headache. I didn't wait for that to really happen and washed it off thoroughly.

I envy Angelamaria, because I didn't get even a hint of orange. It was all night-blooming jasmine from the first moment. I hoped it would leave some space for the other notes once it dried, but no such luck. I have to press my wrist to my nose to smell a hint of benzoin, at arm length all that reaches my nose is night-blooming jasmine. Am I amping this, or is it really pushing down all the rest of the notes? I had expected a more 'brown' scent (there are enough notes suggesting brown, oudh and benzoin seemed promising) with only some 'stripes' of the white Queen of the Night. That's another name for the night-blooming jasmine. And she certainly is the queen of this scent, leaving hardly any space for anything else. edit: typo. ETA It's 10 weeks later now and the night-blooming jasmine isn't quite as dominant any more. She is still obviously there, but so are the oudh and the bog wood (if it's bog wood I smell) and they mix well. It's a much more interesting scent now, I am even considering a bottle.

This is the third Metamorphosis scent I am testing and so far it's my favorite. It's a warm citrus scent, much more red mandarin than pink grapefruit. I can smell the petitgrain, but it's not as sharp as it can be in more aerial blends. I think the copal and black amber give it a sweeter and softer foundation. I don't really get the mimosa, but I'll concentrate on it the next time I wear it. Right now it has faded again. It is indeed rather short-living. Just like the scent t reminds me of, Enraged Orangutan Musk. That one too I keep reapplying.

From the decant and in the very first wet stage I get a bit of gardenia, then it's honey, honey and honey with an edge of ginger. The ginger (well, it must be gingergrass but it smells like ginger) makes that I like this mosquito better than Jezebel, which is also almost pure honey on my skin. I am very sorry that I don't really get any dragon's blood, although I think it does something to make the honey less sweet. Perhaps I amp honey. But who would have thought that the yellow fever mosquito smells like what must be a dream of Winnie the Pooh?

I had decided not to try any decants until they had rested for at least 24 hours after arriving, but this one leaked after I sniffed it. The spillage smelled almost soapy, not good at all. But I gathered what I had spilled on my skin and there it changed. It's different, that was the first thing I thought. Then: OMG I smell cologne. And it can't be, but... tobacco? I detest both so that wasn't good, but both were faint so there was hope. And then it smoothed out and now it's different in a very good way. I smell the tea now and the orris root and I think the lilac, but it's much more complicated than the notes that I can identify. It's also very summer-butterfly-like, I can almost feel the soft butterfly wings.

I can't compare Entangled and Paduan Killer Swarm because I only tried Entangled. But it did not give me a lot of ginger. Opuhi is a great ginger scent (if you can still get it). I love Vixen too, but the ginger in Vixen is very well blended into the rest and doesn't really cry out 'ginger' (not in my aged Vixen anyway and I got it aged so I don't (yet) know how it is when fresh).

If they look like this: they would be the Pumpkin Patch of 2005. But I think there was another Pumpkin Patch in 2006. This is just what I found searching the review section of the forum. I am sure you'll get answers from people who have known BPAL longer than I do. ETA: they even posted while I was writing. ETA: Oh and thank you so much for that link to the gallery portalkat. It is just what I need for my blog.

But they have Supervillainess Extrait. That is the scent to go with the soap, isn't it?

I am glad I am not the only one who smells lemon. For a moment I thought my decant had gotten the wrong label, but I didn't think my experienced decanter would make such a mistake. My Sweetest Lesbia is not at all what I expected! When it was drying it went to lemonade and then it went to lemon balm or lemon grass (some herbal lemon scent). I don't smell hay and I am beginning to doubt whether I know what osmanthus smells like. I wonder what it will do when it ages, but right now this is scent is a world away from what the description made me think it would be.

This was my first order directly from the lab (though I have been enjoying BPAL scents for about a year and a half now) and it was the first bottle I bought unsniffed. And I am glad that I did! From the bottle I recognise the dry note that is also in Atlas, that must be the oak bark. Wet on my skin I smell the oak bark and a woody note and something green and fresh. When it dries a sweet note comes in, making the scent warmer and rounder. I got the package in the evening because the postman delivered it to the wrong house, so I tried the scent not long before going to bed. During the night when I woke up there was the light, a little sweet, woody scent on my wrist. If it had been day I would have reapplied because it was rather faint, but in fact this stage smelled even better than the earlier ones. The next morning I found out I had some of the scent on the sleeves of my sweater. And it smells wonderful! Not every scent still smells great the next day, but this one does. Wow! I am really happy I bought this one!

I was curious about this one. And in fact now that I am trying it it still puzzles me. It seems to have two very different stages. When it's wet it's a strong gardenia, but when it dries down I seem to completely lose the gardenia and I smell perubalsam. When I put my nose to my wrist I smell there is more than just the perubalsam, but I do have to put my nose to my wrist to smell that. I don't get any of the smokiness that others have mentioned, for which I am glad because I usually don't like smoky scents. I think I have to try it again, in a different part of my hormonal cycle.