Gateau

Maybe I will just start letting him sniff my stuff and see what he likes.

I want to be careful with his skin, but hair was a great place to dab it. Lasted forever, and I could smell it whenever I kiss his little head. Which is a lot.

Might try something like Dana O'Shee if I have some around.

Thought I'd bump this one up -- my 2 1/2 year old boy was watching me spray in some Hair Gloss the other day and asked what I was doing. I said I was putting in hair perfume, and now he wants some too! I dabbed a little of NAVA's Bastet's Amber on him the other morning, and it was a lovely clean white amber on his little head. Now trying to think of BPALs that might work on him. Clean fresh sweet baby is what I'm thinking of, and probably GC, because I don't want to waste the SuperPrecious on him!

His brothers both love Embalming Fluid, so maybe I'll try some from their shared bottle on him.

Neroli is a floral that I associate in my mind with other heady, strong, white florals. Like the gardenias, jasmines, and tiare or monoi. Not shy and super sexy but with some warmth.

What I especially like is that it doesn't have any of that rough edge that some of the other white florals (hello, jasmine!) can get. it's always so lovely and creamy.

I love neroli, but I am always mystified when I read reviews of neroli scents and people describe them as being orange juicy. I don't get orange from it at all, and if I didn't know it was a kind of orange blossom I wouldn't associate it with that at all. It's such a beautiful, warm, sweet floral. I do tend to like it best when it gets to stand out, rather than just being a hint of floral sweetness in something with more dominating notes. Lorelei and Akuma both show it off well.

Blue Morpho is one I love that doesn't have any of the coconut you so often find in tropical scents -- Wild orchid, pikake, honeysuckle, calla lily, agave nectar, pink geranium, violet leaf, and white amber

If you like coconut, though, a non-BPAL I like is Coconut Moonstone from Nocturne Alchemy.

I was looking for tiare scents and decided to check this out on that basis. Lovely tiare is in fact here, but even better, it has that beautiful "gilded" or "glittering" amber I love so much in Implacable Beautiful Tyrant HG. It also has some nice overlap with Lyonesse, but more floral. Not strong on the vanilla and the sandalwood does not go very cologney or powdery on me, which is a plus. Must hunt down a bottle.

Bliss? Boomslang? I bet Boomslang would be AHMAYZING with cocoa butter.

For me this was not strong on vetiver at all once applied, though I could smell the smokiness in the decant, and was much stronger on the fruits, especially tangerine, and the sheer coconut. It's not a creamy coconut, more on the underripe side, and fits with the notion of the other green fruits and the green patchouli. Very summery and tropical but not in a beach drink sort of way.

I love the black licorice note and that it sticks around for a long time. Less love for white sandalwood, which makes everything smell like masculine cologne on me. I'd slather it on the hubby, except after about an hour I get a sweetness from the orange blossom and fruits that might not be his thing, though worth a try.

I took a chance on a decant of this, knowing that jasmine is going to be my downfall 99% of the time, but liking the other notes so much I figured it was worth a shot.

Off the bat, it's very fruity but that jasmine note is prominent. Not a good thing for me. It's not the worst kind of cat-pee jasmine, but it has that jasmine edge I don't like.

After about an hour, the coconut becomes a unifying base for all the tropical fruits and flowers. The jasmine is smoother and sweeter. I don't really get the carnation. It's sweet and tutti-frutti. Not a keeper for me, but certainly not offensive.

This is a very nice rich black leather accord, well blended without the nutty or minty edge I sometimes get. With that I get a rising amount of sharp white sandalwood. Both of those notes tend to amp on me, so I have a hard time getting much else from this. I think on me it's a little masculine, but I suspect it will be very fine on my husband, if I can manage to smear some on him.

I love my florals to be fruity, and if not fruity, then something grassy and fresh. Some of my favorites:

Blue Morpho (Wild orchid, pikake, honeysuckle, calla lily, agave nectar, pink geranium, violet leaf, and white amber) -- the agave really fruits it up to me

Two-Barred Flasher (Orris root, lilac, galbanum, white tea, Italian bergamot, and blueberry)

Amsterdam (Tulips, peony, fresh flowing water and crisp green grasses)

Manhattan (sheer amber, black leather, white mint, lemon peel, white tea, grapefruit, kush, teakwood and orchid)

Morocco doesn't fit -- it's warm and rich, but I love it, and it shows of the carnation so beautifully.

And don't skip Summer Lace! (vanilla cream, caramelized tobacco absolute, white opium poppy, summer honeysuckle nectar, effervescent white mandarin, apple blossom, and green cognac)

I am a big fan of warm, creamy, fruity florals, so this is absolutely right up my alley.

When it first goes on, I don't get that effervescence, but I do get a bright blast of sweet fruit. I don't really pick out individual notes, but the honeysuckle, apple blossom, and mandarin seem to be blending into something almost tropical, like guava. It's summery and lovely. It reminds me of the early phase of something, maybe Moon of the Terrible.

Then the lace base with the vanilla, tobacco, and cognac heats up and blends in. It's creamy without having an actual cream note (which always goes bad on me) and really sticks to my skin in a delicious way.

Great addition to the Lace family, and one I expect to wear a lot. It feels effortless, not too aggressive but not a shrinking violet either.

OH YOU EVIL PEOPLE ARE GOING TO MAKE ME HAVE TO HUNT DOWN LEs!!!!

Now that I've finally figured out how to use hair glosses effectively, I've been loading up on the Coconut, Vanilla & Tiare HG and just loving that tiare note. What are some BPALs that make good use of this note? I had Pumpkin Princess but swapped it away because pumpkin and I just don't do all that well together. Thanks, enablers!

(mods -- I searched for a similar topic and did not find one, but please feel free to move this if I messed up)

Revisiting my collection and looking for what seems to be the likely contenders this year.

I tend not to go for "cooling" smells too much (like aquatics, snow/ice, or mint) but what I do look for is something that smells very clean and fresh, like I've just taken a shower. Boober is great for that, and grassy things like Amsterdam, The Doormouse, Rosalind. I also like citrus-herb combinations like Arcana or Happy Baby in a Long Dress for hot days. Even Manhattan, with the lemon, mint, and orchid, feels right in the summer. The one "cooling" scent I go for when it's hot is Absinthe & Lace.

Then there are the times I want to feel decadently hot and sweaty and sticky, just revel in the sultriness of the summer heat. For that I love Depraved, that sticky sweet apricot with the earthy patchouli just screams "hot outdoor summer sexy" and Pussy with all that honey and tobacco makes me feel like I'm part of the outdoors.

Lady Una sort of bridges the gap for me -- the honey connotes warmth, but the muskiness and the tea make it fresh. Blossoms in Springtime is like that too. I'd consider wearing those in polite company in the summer, while Depraved is something I'd only wear to go out with my husband on a summer night.

My supremely kind fairy delivered two bottles of this for me, so of course I dived right in.

Wet, I get all the sugar and spices and something smoky. As it dries down, I definitely pick up that incense note that folks are mentioning. As Great Vampire Bat was the winner for me last year, and I adore that incense note, this is a good thing. This is like a spicy, non-floral version of that.

After a couple of hours, I get pure Indonesian musk, which is a lovely brown non-sweet, non-powdery musk. I don't pick up the incense or spices anymore.

I'd like to see if this gets more blended with age so that it doesn't move as much in phases as much as present all those phases a little more mingled. If it doesn't, I might not need that backup bottle, but if it does, I'll be really happy to have it.

This is a lovely cute scent! Exactly what it says, lemon sugar and lavender, just very fresh and bright. I think it will be a lovely summer scent, something to put on when I've just had a shower and want to preserve that feeling of freshness and clean without smelling soapy. It's also the kind of thing you could wear to an office and not annoy anyone.

Gingerbread Poppet!

Chiming in with everyone else--this is a very creamy, worn leather. It's got a lot of nuttiness. The almond isn't that cherry sort of kind, but more like the creamy almond milk note in Brood XIX. No plastic at all in the leather, but it's sort of drowned out by the creaminess, which I suspect is enhanced by the vanilla. I don't pick up the oak leaf or patchouli at all, but suspect they contribute to the overall nuttiness.

So far it's too creamy for my taste, but I'm curious to age it a bit and try again.

Hard to improve on any of the prior reviews or the Lab description. This is a salty, sweet, ambery, oceanic musk. If you want something marine that isn't a soapy aquatic, you need this. If you love Lyonesse, you need this. Utterly wearable. Immediately snagged a backup bottle.

I was excited to try a decant of this, but not at all sure if it would agree with me. I'm fairly recent to the world of enjoying musks, and didn't really have a sense of what "vintage musk" would smell like, plus buttery foodie scents and tea don't always agree with me.

Wet I got a distinct cookie scent, but not so buttery that it turned me off. I got an instant sense of what vintage musk means, and the tea added, if anything, a briskness.

Early in the drydown I got the same sense of anise cookies littlebeky describes. It's more anisey than many scents I have with anise as a listed note. I love anise cookies, so this was not a hardship.

Eventually the cookies took more of a back seat (fine with me) and I get a very clean-smelling musk. It reminds me a lot of one of my favorite non-BPAL perfumes, Bastet's Amber from NA. This was a strong scent, too, lasted through the night and into the next morning.

Not sure yet if this is something I will turn to, but definitely keeping the decant and plan to give it more wear to see.

More art nostalgia here.

My grandfather was a commercial artist. He freelanced and worked from his studio at home. He also painted (oils) and did a lot of pastel work. I spent endless happy hours by his side, in his basement studio in my grandparents' house in Queens, drawing or posing for him and just soaking it all up. Then I studied etching and spent a lot of time in studios filled with the mingled smells of thick ink, solvents, oiled presses, and wet paper. I felt like home.

This is what it smelled like. Absolutely took me back 40+ years to these very specific places.

Bless you, Beth, for making this. I'll enjoy every drop of my decant. I know my mother and sister will get a charge out of it too.

Emphasis on girly-fruity here, with these lush peachy-melon-berry notes. The pink musk and woods add a little grittiness that takes this goth. It's a great representation of the concept. Color impression is a hot pink, not a baby pink.

Not really my style but if you're a fruity-musk person, worth tracking down.

Nothing quite that wide for me yet, but I've had noticeable differences in bottles of TKO. The first one had a more distinctive lavender and the later ones had almost a lotiony note.