redlisse

This can't be right. I sniffed this in the bottle and on my skin and every phase in between, and never got even a whiff of cranberry. No ginger or lilies or spices, either. In fact, in every stage, this is a dead ringer for Dragon's Heart, which went all heavy and cloying and thick on me. I'll try again in a few days and update, but...right now I'm wondering if there was some sort of mixup, because this doesn't smell anything like the description. And it's very disappointing, too. I love cranberries.

If you have skin allergies at all (just from personal experience here) you might want to be extra-extra careful with things that have cinnamon in them (like Hamadryad). Even people without sensitive skin have had reactions. And, on a note completely unrelated to allergies - if you're going for light scents, Dragon's Heart is pretty heavy and strong, at least on me. Just sayin'.

This is only the second BPAL scent I've fallen head-over-heels in love with after only one wear. In fact, I just opened it; just put it on about an hour ago in a frenzy of 'SQUEE I GOT MY ORDER' testing. I had Come to Me on my left wrist and Follow Me Boy on the right (I figured I'd go with the theme, you see). I wasn't terribly impressed with either in the bottle; they both smelled like those fancy little molded soaps you put in the guest bathroom and then never, ever touch, because it feels vaguely blasphemous. But within a half hour or so, I went and washed my right wrist so as to better appreciate the absolutely lovely scent on my left. Follow Me Boy still smelled sharp and herbal and soapy, but Come to Me - oh! It's gone all soft and sweet and clean and somehow cottony. You know when you're in love with someone, the way their skin smells right at the curve of their neck? That wonderful, indescribable smell that can only be defined as contentment, or maybe love? I've always said that if someone could bottle that smell, I would give them my soul with a ribbon on it. And Beth has gone and done it. Let me know what color ribbon you want, Beth, and where you want me to ship to. I have never ordered a bottle so fast. ETA: When I tested this the first time, my Boy of Choice wasn't around, so I couldn't vouch for the oil's effectiveness as far as intent goes. Last night, I decided to give it a small whirl (I am hoarding my swap-gained half-imp until my big bottle gets here) to test its voodoo properties. I couldn't tell you if it smelled as good the second time 'round, because I was otherwise occupied. Note to self: do not wear Come to Me around the Boy unless you want to be busy. And by 'busy,' I mean "Let's do it again! Or maybe two or three more times, and then we'll go from there. Hey, you didn't actually plan to sleep tonight, did you?" And aside from that, he was far snugglier and sweeter than he is wont to be; generally his fear of sappiness prevents him from telling me I'm beautiful and so on. All in all, Come to Me is just about my favorite thing Ever.

I don't get any root beer from Laudanum at all...but then, it's hard for me to be objective about my One True Love. Laudanum, of course, was not originally purchased for me. No, I got it (along with five others) to send to a friend as a graduation gift. None of those imps ever made it to her. For future reference, when ordering BPAL as gifts - either have it shipped directly to the recipient, or make sure you only get them stuff you've already tried. In the bottle, Laudanum smelled sharp, and headachey, and vaguely medicinal. Not at all appealing. But as I seem to be incapable of opening an imp without getting it all over my fingers, I just sort of rubbed my fingers off on a wrist and forgot about it. An hour later, I got a whiff of something...heady. I couldn't really think of any other way to describe it. Dark, languid, smoothly spicy. Narcotic. Sexy, in the languorous way of an androgynously beautiful person, sprawled across a velvet couch in a semidark room, heavy-lidded and smoky-eyed and utterly indifferent. It took me several minutes to figure out that that intoxicating, delicious smell was my wrist, and that on my wrist was my first bottle purchase. I can't praise this enough. And the Boy, whose response to any perfume at all is 'it's fine,' or, if he's feeling cranky, 'they all smell the same! why do you keep asking?' - the first time I wore Laudanum around him, he grabbed me, wrapped himself around me with his nose pressed to my neck, and said (in the tones of divine, contented happiness) 'You smell so good.'

Between Vice and Gluttony, I'm kind of suspecting that despite my adoration of food scents and chocolate in general, chocolate notes have some sort of conspiracy against me. In the imp, Vice smelled overwhelmingly of cherry-flavored cough syrup. And not even the semi-decent kind, either - we're talking Robitussin here. But, having had serious morphing experiences before, I gamely tried it on. The Robitussin faded very quickly, but what it left behind wasn't a whole lot better. For about an hour, my wrist smelled headache-inducingly sweet, like standing next to a really strongly scented flowershop on a day so hot that any scent at all is absolutely nauseating. It was an absolute miasma of thick, heavy orange blossom. And then, when the orange blossom quit clouding up like hot fog, I was left with...My Little Ponies. The dusty, sweetish smell of scented plastic Ponies. Which was neat, in a nostalgic sort of way, but not really a perfume sort of scent - and even if it was, the initial floral makes it not worth it. This imp has already been passed on (along with the treacherous Gluttony) to a friend, who, to my utter jealousy, smells like a walking chocolate bar in both of them. Life isn't fair, I tell you.

Oh Gluttony, how could you break my heart like this? Review is (far, far) after the fact, but Gluttony was the entire reason I finally made my first order. I ordered lots and lots of imps that first time, but the chocolatey-sweet goodness of Gluttony was the one I really couldn't wait for. In the bottle, it...didn't smell like chocolate. But I am a newb, I said to myself; surely I am just inexperienced with these things. So I applied sparingly (in order to preserve the precious oil that I would undoubtedly fall madly in love with) and...it still didn't smell like chocolate. In fact, it smelled burnt, like a cheap cookie-scented candle. There was no sweetness, no nuts, no chocolate. Just that waxy/plasticky overtone with an underlying burnt vanilla-powder note, favored perfume of badly made candles the world over. And then, as if to rub salt in the wound of rejection (Gluttony! we were made for each other! why don't you love me?!) I broke out in giant flaming red hives where I'd applied the oil. You could see every single spot where it had touched my skin, even down to the tiny uneven spots where I got the splash effect. It was the saddest (perfume-related) day of my life, I tell you. Tragic.