Bagfish

Luna moth smells like pear Jelly Bellies when in the decant vial. On my skin, it smells of lime candy, pear and a little like civit which is a bit odd considering the notes and slightly unpleasant. The vial leaked all over my bedclothes and is now smelling out my bedroom with a combination of lime sugar, pear Jelly Belly and something very unpleasant. This one is not a hit....

This is the best BPAL oil I've ever worn, it blows all the others out the water when I wear it on my skin. Beautiful spicy carnation with a smooth underlying creamy scent which reminds me slightly of Dana O'Shee in character. I get no almond from Hod, I can't wear BPAL almond and I think if there is almond in this, there's very little. I think it's more likely to be a milk and honey and amber sort of scent which anchors the spicy carnations in Hod. Whenever I wear this at work, I get complements, and people will walk in and say "what is that lovely smell". All in all I'm really pleased I got a bottle unsniffed, and also that I managed to get another before it was discontinued again. Absolutely delicious!

Samhain 2008 is the winner of the three versions of Samhain I have tried. For some reason it is more sweetly spicy apple than dark patchouli fir which 05 and 06 were on me and suits me so much. It also has a fantastic lasting power and amazing throw. My work colleagues were asking what the lovely mulled wine Christmassy scent was, and one of them said please keep wearing it all Winter! I am seriously considering getting bottle despite having previously sold one (of Samhain 2005)

White sandalwood, beeswax, and frankincense crowned by hydrangea, rose, and kantuta blossoms, dressed with tobacco, cocoa leaves and flowers from the sacred Cactus of the Four Winds. The rose in Day of the Skulls really overpowers everything else which is a shame because underneath the sour rose of doom lies something that bears a resemblance to the rich gorgeousness that is Khajuraho.

Really orangey to start with, a sweet juicy naval orange which cuts through the caramel-cake scent that BPAL's cake blends always have on my skin. This dries down within about an hour to a rich sweet amber/cake scent with quite a lot of throw. I get very little anise, but enough to temper the sweetness, and it balances amazingly well with the orange. I think I can just about detect florals which help to temper the bakery quality and make HdeS something rather more than straight cake. It has really, really impressive staying power. I'm sitting sniffing sweet goodness on my wrists at 11pm and I applied a swipe of Huesos de Santo at 8:30 this morning. It's pretty much the only Halloweenie that I'm considering getting a bottle of.

:sad-face: I have wanted to try a BPAL marshmallow scent for ages not having had a chance to try Marshmallow Pouf. But Sticky Pillowcase is all strawberry sweets all of the time until a couple of hours into the drydown when it becomes the smell of clean cotton sheets someone has drooled strawberry candy on as they've gone to sleep Beth has captured that bit of the scent really well, but I wanted marshmallows!

All I can smell on my skin is carnations, clove and plummy fruit - as someone above said, it is reminiscent of Bathsheba. Harvest Moon is a very spicy fruity scent, lots of throw but smells more like it should be a tart or candle rather than a skin scent. I'm glad I got to try it, but I'm really pleased I only got a decant.

A chilly, cold, dry and bitter apple. This quickly morphs into ozone-apple on my skin. It captures the disturbing nature of the Snow, Glass, Apples story very well indeed.

Each bottle of Chaos Theory is truly unique, a fragrant fractal, and exercise in the joy of chance and uncertainty! Each is a one-of-a-kind, utterly random combination of scents, the composition of which is based on whim, mood and gut instinct. CCCLX (360) In the bottle it smells like a mixture of fresh pear and apple, very lovely like freshly sliced fruit. Once on, the scent quickly morphs into a more aquatic scent, but it stays fruity in a more berry-ish sort of way with a sweeter touch of vanilla or amber or resin for 20 minutes or so and is still very pretty. There is definitely some floral in here, possibly gardenia. The early dry down stage reminds me slightly of the florals and fruit in Coral Snake. The throw here is very good and it is a really lovely scent. However on late stage drydown the ozone/aquatic note amps and amps on me until all I can smell are notes similar to those in Dirty. I will be swapping this one I think!

When first applied, Eisheth is lovely, with amber, honey and cocoa being very obvious. However, the peach comes to the fore after about an hour and becomes stronger and stronger until it overwhelms everything else. Even after 13 hours, I can just smell really strong peach, and whilst not offensive, is actually just too sweet for my tastes. So now I'm about to wander pretty much off topic here, I hope you don't mind! The problem is, I'm absolutely gutted as I so wanted this one to work for me. Eisheth is a character in one of my favourite series of novels, Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel trilogy, she is one of the angelic companions of Elua a God-like figure, whose motto is Love as thou wilt, and who founded a country based on the tenets of love. I really, really wanted this one to work on me so that I could be wearing a bit of Eisheth as she is a patron of healing and music. Here's a description Eisheth is noted for her gentleness. Her province is Eisande. Eisheth was noted for giving humanity the healing arts, which is why so many of the best healers come from her province, and for gifting mankind with music and story, which is why Eisande gave rise to the Mendacants, traveling bards. In order to conceive, a women of Terre D'ange must pray to Eisheth to open the gates of her womb. Once such a prayer is made, it can never be taken back. So yes, I tried a couple of times, but in the end Eisheth is just too sweet and peachy for me. I'm very, very sad indeed.

A flash of spicy orange and resins swoops past pursued by LILAC which catches them and proceeds to stomp them into submission. Lilac raises its flag and won't surrender. :stupid skin chemistry: :sulks:

In the imp and fresh on, scary leatheriness, definitely smelling the saltpetre, but within five minutes this morphs into a sweet, smoky vanilla'd beeswax that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the scent it has when wet. This is the first BPAL leather scent that has worked on me and I think it's going to be bottleworthy.

Aelophile is bitter and woody and has an overarching top note of verbena/citrus which is almost throat-catching in its intensity. I also smell a warmed metal scent - this is not listed as a note, but I can smell heat on unpainted metal, like the smell of a knife heated over a flame. The amber is not at all obvious on me, it may be smoothing the scent down and playing in there with the woodiness. Overall, this is a difficult, spiky, spiny scent on me and is not at all relaxing to wear. It's interesting, and I will give it another whirl later, and maybe try some of it on Mr Bagfish too.

In the imp, Ether is light and bright, I don't get any particular florals, it's just a clean, simple scent with a very slight hint of pine. Once applied, it has a citrus sharpness about it, quite similar to Shanghai. It's still light and bright and I still don't get any florals and I certainly don't get ozone which is a real deal-breaker for me. On drydown, after 20 minutes or so of wear, Ether oddly begins to develop a celery-like scent to it which is slightly unnerving! The celery note must be something I don't recognise which my nose is morphing to smell like celery. Ether sticks close to the skin, and never really develops into separate identifiable florals. It does smell quite different on my skin than in the bottle and whilst it's pretty, it's not really a me sort of scent, and I don't like the thought that my nose is misreading something as celery

A new year's blessing! Peony, China's national flower, with bamboo for flexibility, plum blossom for perseverance, courage, and hope, tangerine for wealth, lychee for strong family relationships and peace in the home, orange for happiness, pine resin for constancy, golden kumquat and quince for prosperity, narcissus and King mandarin for good fortune, coconut for longevity, and candied melon for good health, with a splash of blazing red of dragon's blood... to help you scare away the rampaging Nian. Pretty melon with floral, fruity and slightly resinous undertones. Something lovely smooths Earth Rat out - a soothing base note makes this less shouty-fruit than it may otherwise have been. The dragon's blood which can be a nightmare on my skin is not in evidence, there are slight hints of pine and bamboo and plums are definitely in evidence. Earth Rat is a heady sweet scent and very lovely, I can see why people like this one. Many thanks to my switch witch for finding me a decant of this, it has been a pleasure to try out and I reckon I will wear this on occasion.

The Jersey Devil does not work on my skin at all. It smells pretty good in the imp of, blackberry leaf and tomato plant and similar on first application, but the cranberry swiftly amps up in a most awful way on my skin and hounds everything else out of existence, ushering in a headache. This had to be washed up pretty damn quick.

TKO massage oil smells far less lavendery than TKO the scent. This is a GOOD thing as TKO the scent is far too lavender to wear on my skin, so I have always resorted to using an oil burner to diffuse the smell in the bedroom before I go to bed. All the things I love about TKO (the scent) when diffused are there in the massage oil. There is more vanilla and marshmallow and much, much less lavender which is fantastic. It's a gorgeous, soothing light oil and I think it could very well be used as a scink moisturiser (I have dry skin though). TKO massage oil on my skin is quickly absorbed but has an incredibly intense scent which is still noticeable on my PJs and duvet when I wake up in the morning - YUM . However, TKO massage oil in the burner does not work at all as the burner starts to diffuse an oily smell after 10 minutes or so (the carrier oil) and exudes gummy oil all over my bedside table So the moral of this tale is, use TKO massage/moisturising oil on the skin as it smells as wonderful as oil-burner-diffused TKO scent. But don't use it in the diffuser!

As everyone else has said, this is very piney to start with, however, it's not the pine smell of Christmas trees or of walking through a pine forest, it's more of a fake pine candle smell, although not pine-sol by any stretch of the imagination. Along with the pine comes a green herbal scent that reminds me very much of Yggdrasil which scared me a little (it is NOT a good smell on me). Anyway, the pine/herbal scent lasts for 20 minutes or so until it warms into a more ambery, much sweeter scent. There is still a hint of greenery which melds with the sweet amber. and a slight smoky muskiness. All in all, this isn't bad on my skin, but it also isn't WOW on my skin. If this had been a popular oil which was in demand, I would probably try to pass the bottle on, but because there are going to be loads of bottles kicking around I think I may hang on to it as I have a feeling that the amber will mellow the rest of the blend as it ages. I've got a feeling this might be one to watch as the bits of the scent I like (amber and musk) are those which are likely to get stronger with age. Edited to add (July 08) This is definitely improving with age which I had a suspicion it would. I have worn it on a couple of days recently, and the pine has mellowed hugely and the amber/musk has come to the fore. It's smoky, sweet and musky. There is still a slight herbalness to it, and best of all it lasts all day, and gets more and more lovely the longer it dries down. I am so pleased that I didn't pass this on as it is now a delight to wear.

Glorious warm vanilla/incense/wood all bound together by the most wonderful soft and creamy scent. This just gets better and better the longer I wear it with the woodiness deepening and becoming more spicy after two hours wear. This is a stunning scent, doesn't have huge amounts of throw, but nestles softly on my wrist in the most delicious sort of way.

A pretty, spicy golden scent with a musky resinous heart. It is a hot and dry sort of spicyness and conjures up visions of desert sands and bedouin tents in my head. Very nice imagery and a lovely smell. Definitely the best of this round of new GC scents and one of the first Love Potions to work on me.

Good grief this is utterly HORRIBLE on my skin. There's a sort of aquatic herbalness to Defututa that drowns out everything else, even the champaca which is normally a dead cert winner on my skin. With the descriptions and the notes it contains, this oil should have been another Khajuraho on me, but it is utterly awful. I have a feeling that the dreadfulness comes from the Olive Blossom as I know what everything else smells like. I can't even identify the vanilla, sandalwood, champaca or cinnamon in this. How something with so many resinous and spicy notes can smell so wet and herbal and stinky is beyond me. This is not a winner and needs a new home.

Rosewood and black cherry with white musk, red rose, red musk and a spark of lavender. King of Hearts has to be one of the most changable BPALs I've ever tried. In the imp and on first application it smells very sweet and almondy (I imagine this is the cherry). All of a sudden after a few seconds, the lavender rushes out and mixes delightfully with the cherry-almond scent and the very sweet smell decreases and becomes more refreshing. This stage of the perfume is really, really lovely, it's like smelling a fragrant herbal tea or eating a light sugary confection. Gradually the almond sweetness disappears completely and the rose and lavender mix together and become far more herbal and eventually the scent of lavender declines just leaving a rather sad and sour rose/rosewood behind. This happens over the course of about 2 hours. If the delightful first 15 minutes was the whole of the scent, I would be going for a bottle of this, however, the sad rose is not for me. Edited to add scent description

Kill Devil has the same dark molasses kick to it that Queen Alice does, only here it is showcased as Kill Devil is a relatively simple scent. Very, very sweet, but with that slightly dark, woody and bitter undertone that molasses has, especially when sniffed up close. This has a surprising amount of throw, and the throw is very different and more honied than when it's smelled up close on the skin. This for me is not a caramel scent - I can't wear the buttery ones, Kill Devil is far more of a pure sugar scent. It has some similarities to Sugar Skull, but is it's dark brown scent cousin.

Plunder smells exactly like the black chai tea blend that I drink. I don't get such a cinammon kick as others seems to, it's far more of a clovey scent. Plunder is really dry spices rather than sweet spices and there is perhaps even a touch of bitterness to it. I can't see myself wearing this often as it isn't quite sweet enough, but it's rare for a spicy BPAL to work on my skin this well, and I do like the concept a lot.

When applied on my wrist I get a lovely, slightly spicy vanilla. When sniffed up close, I get an almost marzipan sort of scent, not really too almondy but sort of heading that way. However, when I apply this to my chest I get a sour milky yoghurt sort of smell that is almost stomach churning. This is very, very weird indeed. Based on the wrist smell, it is probably worth getting a bottle, but based on the chest smell, no way. Hmmmm, do I don't I?