OctoberGwen

Two years later I had to edit this review, as my BPAL tastes have changed greatly! Trying O now, I find it far too sweet for me. The honey is a particularly cloying one, and the vanilla gives this an almost plastic edge that I do not care for at all. We are no longer friends, O and I.

Ye Gods, how I love orange blossom, and rosemary is one of my favorite herbs. This blend is fabulous, and the above two keep the rose nicely in check. Lovely, I will reach for this during the warm months when I want an interesting floral to wear. This smells like my backyard, growing up. Love.

When I first put this on, I thought, "Nice but not distinctive." Then something begins to emerge...is it the musk? And there's carnation in here, which I thought I hated? Whatever, after a few minutes I was practically swooning over the beauty of this scent. This is actually how I hoped Bastet would smell; it is very sophisticated, gorgeous, and sexy. I will put this on when I dress up for special occasions.

I adore TKO; the lavender/marshmallow scent is extremely soothing and it really does help me get a good night's sleep when I have trouble drifting off on my own. It also works great for headaches: I apply to my temples and the back of my neck, and wear in my scent locket. My headache is generally gone within 15 minutes. This is one of those BPAL blends that I never want to be without.

I adore this blend: the orris and the rose are exquisite together. This is very creamy on me, not at all powdery. It's soft and bewitching, with a decent throw. It lasts nicely, too. Another unexpected winner, and I think it's worthy of a big bottle purchase for me.

I love this, and I'm not a tobacco fan. It's like Snake Oil's raven haired, heavily tattooed, body pierced cousin. Niiiiiiiice.

Just when I think there are defintely notes that I can't stand (white musk) or that do not work on me at all (honey), BPAL comes up with a blend that turns those notions on their heads. Biwa is GORGEOUS, all soft honeyed loveliness. It's a snuggly skin scent which has pretty good lasting power...and I will be hunting down a bottle for sure.

This is lovely, an ethereal floral that swirls and blends and separates again. One of the few "perfumey" BPALs that I like. I'd wear this on a night out with my husband, maybe to a Cirque du Soleil show.

Like milo, I can hardly smell a thing on my wrist - just a very faint whiff of citrus with an echo of ginger. Even that is gone fairly quickly, so I'm afraid Mag Mell is not for me.

This smells oddly perfumey on me, with a heavy and somewhat unpleasant undertone. Honey often turns weird on my skin so it may be that; I also think the myrrh, usually so lovely, isn't playing well with one of the other components...the resiny, incensey quality is too strong here and is not complemented by whatever that 'yuck' factor is. At this point, I was almost hoping for the peanut butter. With such a sexual description, I wanted to like this, but alas, it's really not for me.

I don't get powder from this at all, it's just a gorgeous, smooth, complex blend. I adore the inspiration for the scent and happily, I adore the scent as well.

Thick, sugared and bloated with sweetness. Dark chocolate, vanilla, buttercream, and hops with pralines, hazelnut, toffee and caramel. Hmmmmm......I almost love this, but there is a note in here that goes strongly tobacco-like on my skin. I suspect it's either the hazelnut or the buttercream, because the same thing happened with Hellcat (only worse.) It's probably the hazelnut, but I shall have to investigate this further.

I'm not sure which note did this, but the top part of the scent smelled like Bandaids. There was a gorgeous underneath to it, but I can't get past the Bandaids. I'll have to try and isolate that so I can avoid it in future (and look for the ones that smelled lovely.)

I like and have good experiences with many of the notes here (except for agarwood, which I wouldn't know if it, well, punched me in the nose), so I had high hopes for The Dodo. Unfortunately, on my skin it smells like a restroom in a gas station.

This is an interesting one, and probably smells amazing on the right man or woman. Before the sparkly wine note faded, I sort of liked it; sadly it then turned into pure pipe tobacco and leather. Not my sort of scent at all, I'm afraid.

This is beautiful. It's hard for me to find a floral that's not either too girlish and high-pitched or too Old Lady, but Queen Gertrude is IT. Sophisticated and elegant, it may just turn into my go-to fragrance for 'grownup' special occasions. I love the violet note in this, and normally I find chrysanthemum too bitter but here it just adds a nice complexity and undertone that works very well. I do wish it lasted a bit longer, but next time I'll slather and see what happens with it.

This is the first honey I've tried that doesn't go awful on me. A very interesting scent; wet it's very strong and green, with a cool - close to menthol on my skin - tingle. It's like I'm breathing in the color green. For a few minutes after that it smells like a sophisticated version of Love's Baby Soft. Once it dries down the honey becomes much more dominant and the greenness subsides. This ends up a soft, very true clover honey scent. I like this a lot more than I thought I would. Very nice for a warm Spring day, I think. A cuddly skin scent once drydown is complete. ETA: Also lasts a very long time, indeed - after seven or eight hours, it was still going strong.

This really IS another work of art; it smells exactly like one of those slate grey days that is so particular to November in the Northeast. Truly masterful. Unfortunately, I'm discovering that the slushy snow note does not work on my skin at all. With this blend I can stand it in the diffuser, thankfully, but others are intolerable to me even like that (Frau Holle, for one.) Strange. Another complete win for Beth the Scent-Witch, though. It's spot on.

I am a big fan of gothic horror, both in films and literature, and this scent personifies that genre so well. This is what I'll wear when I'm using my favorite tarot deck, the Bohemian Gothic First Edition. Crumbling castles, giant urns filled with faded roses, dusty velvet draperies, candles burned down into pools of wax, dark shadows, overgrown gardens, a long sigh in an empty room. Love it. Not an everyday scent for me, but perfect for that certain mood. ETA: And the label art is fabulous!

Mmmmm...this smells gorgeous on me and I'm SO glad! Complex and unique, Tavern of Hell is a work of art. Edited because the above review is terrible! 9/4/12 I love the florals in this (orange blossom and gardenia are two of my favorites), and they are offset beautifully by the non-floral notes. I don't get booze or woods per se, but they lend a balance that keeps this from going off into old-lady-floral boredom. Tavern of Hell is sophisticated, feminine, and VERY wearable for me. I would reach for this on days when I wanted a reliable scent that wasn't Snake Oil.

I bet this is gorgeous on some but for me, honey = no can do. Honey and rose are the predominant scents in this one and the combination is making me slightly nauseous. Must. Wash. Off. ETA: This smells wonderful when burned in my diffuser, however.

Oh my freaking word. I keep saying I'm not a foodie scent person, but this is delicious! The opening act is all white cake yumminess with no too-sweet frosting to be had; it dries down to something just a little tart with the cakey goodness underneath. At no point does it go nauseating or plastic on me, which is what MB: Closet did. Divine. Once again, Beth challenges all my preconceived perfume notions in the best possible way. I predict that my husband will go gaga over this one...I'll let you know tomorrow.

I wanted to love this, but alas...the cassis killed it for me. (I assume the cassis is the red hots/cinnamon aspect of this scent.)

What a bizarre smell this is. It's sour and sharp and weird...but oddly familiar. My mother grew masses of Lily of the Valley beside our front stoop when I was little. That must be why this is familiar, but it's a corrupted version of that scent I remember. Creepy, strange, and sort of compelling. I don't really want to smell like this, but I might burn it in a diffuser on a rainy, windswept night when I'm summoning the dead. You know, if I summoned the dead on a regular basis.

I've decided that my new favorite scents for those horrible "dog days" of Summer will be anything described as 'fizzy' by BPAL. Golden Afternoon is a wonderfully fruity-but-not-too-fruity blend that has the same feeling as Golden Wave to me, albeit with seltzer rather than gin. Both are refreshing and happy-making to my nose, and will be perfect for next August when it's so hot and humid I just want to shoot myself.