SnappingTurtle

If the cryptid swap gets going, I call Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus...

I tried a decant of this one, because the ozone and rain and red musk didn't cancel out the risk from the myrrh and opoponax. Good thing. Once the oil is on my skin, the good notes disappear leaving only miasma redolent of old lady department store perfume.

Not destined to be a bottle purchase for me.

Raven Moon 2012. Smells like black feathers, with a birdy/dirty edge like pigeons getting too close in a city square. Sort of reminds me of getting rushed by smelly birds in Trafalgar Square years ago. Maybe I should have been able to predict this one not being for me, but I guess I never really thought it would smell like BIRDS. Was thinking more of Edgar Allen Poe.

Nevermore on my wrist. Sorry, couldn't help myself. Off to the bird-watching sister with this one!

Anyone have a picture of the Shanghai Tunnel bottle? I've got one coming and I'm curious since I've never seen it before.

 

Tried searching the forum and elsewhere and no luck. I've become a bit of a bottle collector, so now I'm excited to see the bottles and smell what's inside them.

Now I know who bid it away from me! To the winner goes the spoils, enjoy your new smellies Penance

In the imp: very sweet, spicy pear with a hint of quince.

Wet: Immediate hit of candy sweetness, no ginger at all. Goes to strong pear, but no spice or cinnamon for me from this. Since I was hoping for some ginger spice, or hints of cinnamon, sad now.

Drydown: Fades to plain pear, pleasant enough but more of a room scent for me than a perfume. Barely noticeable after less than 20 minutes, fades very quickly.

Will keep my partial decant, because it's pretty. But not enough love for a bottle purchase.

In the Imp: Kind of nasty. See observations above

Wet: Floral and light. Sweet, without being cloying. Something unsettling lurking around the edges, though.

Drydown: Catching the occasional whiff from my wrist, pleasant but still strange. Perfect for an unsettled mood.

Dry: Almost gone, but still smells good on my wrist when sniffed closely.

Liked it enough to put it right back on again once it faded. Don't need a bottle, but my imp is staying around...

A reducer is a plastic kind of plug with that fits into the bottle opening - it has a sort of narrow funnel that dips into the oil and pours out through a single small opening, and it functions as a kind of dropper - you can turn the bottle upside down and instead of all the oil pouring out, it will come out slowly, drip by drip. Some people like them a lot because you never run the risk of knocking over a bottle and losing all the oil, and it dispenses oil in nicely consistent amounts.

 

A wand cap is a regular bottle cap with a rod attached to it - either plastic or glass (glass is better for BPAL because oils can eat plastic). When the cap is on the bottle, the wand extends down into the oil. People can then use the wand to apply the perfume. Some people like these because they don't like sticking their fingers in oil, or feel like they get better control over how much oil they dispense, or to avoid contamination of the oil - if you clean the wand after every application, your skin never comes in contact with the oil in the bottle.

 

(This isn't the same as a dropper cap, which is a cap that serves as an eyedropper, and sucks up the oil - the wand only collects the amount that clings to the outside of the wand, like with an imp, and doesn't actually draw up oil like an eyedropper would.)

 

I don't think BPAL uses/offers reducer caps any more, though I could be wrong (I've never asked them); Arcana and Possets used to use them, but don't now, either. (I think something about the reducer cap makes it harder to keep bottles from leaking during shipping, although there's no problem with leakage at all if they're sitting in your house.) It is possible to buy them individually, though. (like here!)

 

You can get wand caps from BPAL, though - they sell them individually here (scroll down to the bottom), and I think you can request wand caps instead of regular when you place your order.

 

Personally, I quite like reducer caps (not enough to buy them and put them on my bottles, but I like the ones I have), because I like the greater control over how much perfume comes out (and the reduced risk of spillage). I don't really like wand caps, because I always worry about getting the wand caught up on the bottle and knocking everything over! and I don't mind sticking my fingers in my perfumes or care about contamination (since it's all my skin). But it totally just depends on what you like.

 

Hope that helps!

Thank you! I was also curious, but too ashamed to just ask like Butterbeer did...