aoiphe

Starts with a minty ozone, then settles into a sweet mint with melon. Refreshing and light, perfect for summer. 

Rose, rose, rose. I'm a spice fiend and could barely find the carnation and cloves in the first hour, then all rose after that point. Someone else will love this. 

Wet: lots of wet fruit (definitely feels red - more like pomegranate than fig).  Intense yellow oil.

Quick dry down to the classic smooth BPAL red musk/amber/vanilla blend - dark and smooth, sensuous and complex.  The amber isn't powdery and the black vanilla isn't smoky.  It swirls and softens in about half an hour and then stays quite stable (though still fairly sweet) for 8 hours until it fades.  This reminds me a lot of Madame Moriarty (2006) Inez (2008), Raven Moon and aged Snake Oil variants.  Definitely a keeper, and will probably age well.

Well, 10 years on and this bottle is still going strong.  It has aged nicely: a deep, spiced amber (though the orange note has vanished).  It's got heft - I can smell it after 24 hours on my skin.  

I'm a spice fiend, but not a lover of the gourmands.  This is a big slap of cardamom, blindingly bright, toothsome and chewy (not dry or dusty). The foody notes are only playing a supporting role.  Ordering a backup bottle.

A sheer resiny vanilla, with a tidy spice anchor.  Peg this one for an absolute stunner, but unfortunately short in wear time, even with slathering.  This is a milk note that played surprisingly nicely (usually the cream note goes to plastic on my skin). Lovers of Hod Resurrected, take note - this doesn't have that spicy carnation note as in Hod, but is otherwise very similar.

Wet, this is prominent vetiver with a fruity note (the red tea?). Drying down, I get tea and smooth dark woods, with an almost soapy undertone.

I'm intrigued, but this isn't my most favourite incense blend ever.

I think this may be my holy grail amber. As Beckie said above, this is very similar to the GC Lion, without the spices. This Gondola has a sweeter, more woody, rounded overtone. Seems to have less of a throw than the Lion, which is my only complaint. May just have to slather copiously.

I like to call this one "Trip to the Forest Library". It's such a morpher, and has two distinct stages: the wet/initial drydown phase of green balsam, then the awesome leather vanilla phase that starts about 2 hours later. This lasts all day for me (unusual for my chemistry with BPAL) and is also office appropriate. U FTW!

WTF? Soap, soap, soap. No sandalwood and bleakness here.

(2012 version)

You also might want to consider Wake from the Land of Dream series earlier this year. Huge slap of grapefruit, orange and lemon.

High hopes dashed. Juniper stomped all over everything (boozy gin note?) for the first 5 minutes, then an artificial fruitiness in the drydown. "Soap" says my DH, and I don't disagree. Glad this seems to work for so many other people.

This is a review crossed with a story, with a strong dash of "different people's chemistry".

 

This is a beautiful blend on me, all grasses, hay and cardamom - love in a bottle, even if it fades quicker than I'd like.

 

I wore this to the horse races this weekend (who doesn't need a little extra luck on a full moon... and I had a bit of success!! ... but that's not the story).

The story is that I brought a wee decant with me, and my friends decided to try a little on themselves.

One friend - Hay Moon immediately went to sweet, dusty powder, straight up, no change over time.

The other friend - Hay Moon blossomed into a heavy spiced amber. Gorgeous, but she wanted the hay.

 

I've never seen anything react so differently to different people's wrists before. Pure chemical alchemy. And also luck.

Chiming in to say that this is all honey, beeswax and vanilla on me - and nothing at all like the released GC scent. Lovely for layering, not cloying at all. It does disappear after three hours or so, which is too bad.

(another decant from shackjj)

 

This is certainly not one for the floral/foody-loving crowd.

 

I love me some vetiver-spicy-woodiness, so I had very high hopes when I saw this in the Pickman list. When wet, it's a slap of vetiver and champaca, which then dries to very masculine dry green woods. Too masculine for me. After two hours, though, it's soap. So... off to swaps...

I'm not a lover of foodie scents normally, but Autumn Cider is really a standout. Much more complex than Blockbuster (which is the only comparable GC I can think of), it stays true on my skin for 8 hours with apple in the foreground, with citrus, sweetness and spicy middle notes that even out the wear. I'm getting lots of compliments on this one. Must pick up a bottle before the 'weenies leave!

I get lavender and violets out of this. I don't wear it on a day-to-day basis, but this is my go-to scent for falling asleep at difficult times.

Sounds like dark, spicy woods? I'm reminded of Count Dracula, but he's an old LE so may be difficult to track down (black patchouli, neroli, tonka, cinnamon, bitter clove, leather, black musk, coffin wood and fiery ginger). Maybe Pallas Athene (antiqued amber, cumin, saffron, frankincense, Atlas cedar, myrrh, mandarin, Ceylon cinnamon bark, and osmanthus)? Aaand The Great He-Goat (Haitian vetiver, Egyptian amber, carnation, black musk, pomegranate, patchouli, and smoked ginger).

Thanks for your thoughts, Balame! I was already planning to pick up Pallas Athene when the Halloweenies are available, and now I have a decant of the Great He-Goat on the way from another forumite.

First impressions, wet - nutty spice cake. I can detect the lab's pastry note underneath coconut and cardamom or clove. A sharp wood comes through - I want to say its eucalyptus but not nearly as aggressive to the nose.

On the drydown - musk and sandalwood, underneath a beautiful, dry warm spice. The nut fades away and the cola impression that others mention comes to the foreground.

Not a lot of throw, it stays close to the skin and is very smooth and understated.

 

I bought this on a whim from the lab's etsy site - so glad I did!

When I first started with BPAL (lo, those many moons ago) I was looking for a replacement for my beloved Usiku by Jo Wood (an organic perfume out of the UK which stopped shipping to North America, for some reason) with a 9-month expiration date. Notes:

 

Top notes of rosemary and pine needle combine with a spicy hit of cardamom and hot ginger. A complex heart of coriander, clove and clary sage. Aromatic woody aromas of Moroccan cedarwood, patchouli and vetiver on the base.

 

This blend went down to basenotes very quickly, but retained the cardamom, clove and ginger for a good three hours. Amazing sillage...

 

Anyhoodle, I'm trying to find a BPAL replacement. I have tried, and liked: Plunder, Bezoar, Clemence, Pickled Imp, WILF, Snake Oil, Old Demons of the First Class, Sin, The Smiling Spider, Bengal, Kathmandu, Morocco, Port Royal and Sri Lanka. But none of these are quite doing the trick. Any recommendations?

This starts out as a lovely honey and tangerine smell, then the tagetes and currant morph the whole scent into a very smutty orange. It's musky, it's dirty, and I'm afraid it's not for me.

I'm currently waiting for a Pretty Indulgent package that was mid-delivery when the full strike hit - so I'm curious to see if my recent BPAL order (to be shipped post-strike) will actually arrive quicker than the order from Montreal last month!

 

Morocco smells nice, i think. I can hardly smell it at all, and then it dissapears completely. Where did it go? Strange. I reapply, it's subtle to start, and then again, 'poof' it's gone without a trace.

 

Is my nose broken? Am i congested? Why does this one smell 'invisible' to me?

 

I asked my fiancé to smell me, and he says it smells great... in fact, it's his FAVOURITE Bpal on me so far. So i sniff myself again. Nothing there. I burry my face in my arm and inhale deeply. I think maybe i smell something, but it smells like it was applied 24 hrs ago and it's so faint i wonder if i'm just imagining it.

 

 

SO. MUCH. THIS. I've been huffing my wrist intermittently for a few hours, and I'm only getting the smallest bit of musk and carnation. Where are the spices? Where's the sandalwood? (I must be too used to the heavier scents - I'll save Morocco for layering, or for super-hot days this summer)

Fruity peach tea is all I seem to smell. I can't find the vanilla or the myrrh, although this is very well-blended so that it is difficult to pick out notes. I think the lotus contributed a sweet aquatic note which left at the drydown stage. This is a very light scent, with little staying power. My decant is over a year old now, so I'm not hopeful that it will improve much more.

Wet, fresh-cut lily with green, wet stems. The greenness fades quickly as the scent dries down, adding a rounder, creamy note. I never got a sense of 'darkness' - only a very true-to-nature lily smell. About 4 hours wear, but not much throw. This is a scent for a mature woman, not a girl (heck, I'm in my mid-thirties and I'm not sure I can pull this off).

I understand that lilies resist distillation, enfleurage, and all the usual perfumers' techniques, so this is really a treat. A GC scent that shouldn't be missed by floral lovers.