blackrayne

Born in the shadows of a Temple to Set, this corrupted Egyptian scent evokes images of black pyramids, river demons, and bleak, deadly desert sands. Black lotus flower, amber, myrrh and sandalwood. From the bottle, this smells slightly fruity to me...but once on, my first reaction is that this is a very dark floral scent. Kind of cooling...would be prefect for hot summer nights (as opposed to below freezing with snow on the ground nights). I love the lightness of the lotus with the darkness of the amber, myrrh and sandalwood. I keep visualizing a slinky slip dress, barefoot in the sand, stars in the sky, faint music in the background. For me, this one's definately a keeper.

LUST From the Seven Deadly Sins collection... Uncontrollable passion and insatiable sexual desire: red musk, patchouli, ylang ylang and myrrh. Lust...if the daughters had been asleep, I would have attacked Chris on the spot. A second sniff and I feel a deep desire burning within. *edited to add the official BPAL description*

SLOTH From the Seven Deadly Sins collection... Thick, dark, sluggish and heavy with indolence: vetiver over black myrrh. Sloth...I have never been close enough to a sloth to know what it smells like, I can only imagine this is very close...dark, unkempt, musky. *edited to add the official BPAL description*

WRATH From the Seven Deadly Sins collection... A scent aflame with rage, swirling in the red haze of hatred: dragon's blood spiked with black pepper, clove, and cinnamon. Wrath...very firey, quite like my temper tends to be. Normally I don't like clove and peppery scents, but this one is far from normal. *edited to add the official BPAL description*

ENVY From the Seven Deadly Sins collection... Green herbs slithering through mint, lime and lavender. Envy...a very green (with envy) scent, makes me covet everything that isn't mine. *edited to add the official BPAL description*

GREED From the Seven Deadly Sins collection... Base and earthy, yet glittering with golden notes: patchouli, heliotrope, copal and oakmoss. Greed...brings about great desires and an urge to attain massive wealth. *edited to add the official BPAL description*

A catalytic, potent love oil used to spark (or rekindle) the flame of desire between lovers. I have had this particular one for a while...in fact, I think it was my first BPAL scent. I bought it at a time when my sexual desire was acting rather comatose, and needed a bit of oomph. If only my husband had been home when it arrived... It is dark, sensual, arousing, lusting, and erotic. Every sniff stirs desires that have been hiding far too long. If you ever need a boost in your love life, give the Fire of Love a try...let the scent entrap you in it's longing kiss, and feel those flames of desire burning within.

PRIDE From the Seven Deadly Sins collection... Vanity in extremis. The scent of rabid hauteur: Moroccan rose and narcissus. Pride...first impressions include feelings of strength, independence, and, of course, pride. *edited to add the official BPAL description*

A play of geological darkness and jagged brilliance. Soft and luminescent with flashes of black fire. In the vial: Very soft, and light, to the point where I can barely notice it... either my nose is very, very stuffed up, or this is so delicate that it really is this light smelling. On my skin, it is also very light, and I could almost swear I smell vanilla and a hint of coconut. But I could be totally off with this one. I am going to reapply after showering (I now have roughly 6 or 7 different BPAL blends on, so my nose could just have stopped working)... and I will update this review ASAP. EDIT: Freshly showered, sinuses mostly cleared up, I am still getting a very light, pale sort of scent from this, even with having slathered quite a bit on me. Definitely vanilla, not too sure about the coconut now, though. A hint of something dark, but what I have no idea. It's totally lovely, even with it being as light as it is. I have only had it on a few minutes and I really have to sniff close to smell it.

The enemy of God, also named Iblis, He Who Despaired of the Mercy of God. Al-Shairan is the leader of the Jinn, a tempter who whispers false suggestions to men enticing them into evil and perfidious acts, and is the sworn enemy of all of Adam’s children. His scent is fiery, bright and thick with sweet sinfulness: clove, peach and orange with cinnamon, patchouli and dark incense notes. In the vial: cinnamon, clove and orange with dark undertones. Wet: cinnamon red hot candies... spicey, slightly sweet. After about 10 minutes: The clove is very light on me, and the cinnamon is intense, but not burning my skin like most cinnamon scents do. There's a bit of a darker undertone to it, but it's not very noticable to my stuffed up nose. I didn't think I'd like this one because of the clove, but so far it's light enough that it's not bothering me. I will have to try it on Chris later, though, as he'd be more likely to wear this than I would.

DRAGON'S BLOOD Powerful, commanding, blazing with strength. I have, over the years, smelled countless different dragon's blood oils, but none have come close to Beth's. My husband and I once tried to explain Dragon's Blood to someone, and came up with it being somewhere between a rose and a cherry scent, though with a hint of earthy ruggedness mixed in. That's what I am getting from BPAL's version as well, but smoother. Creamier. More sensual. Somewhat exotic. Definitely sexy. I have yet to use this as a ritual oil, but I bet it would be simply divine!

Gluttony From the Seven Deadly Sins collection... Thick, sugared and bloated with sweetness. Dark chocolate, vanilla, buttercream, and hops with pralines, hazelnut, toffee and caramel. Gluttony...my first response..."Oh MY god!". My husband's..."Holy Shit!". Very buttery, with a hint of fresh-baked cookies, and oodles of other delectible treats. It's making me quite hungry for things I don't have on hand to eat. *edited to add the official BPAL description*

An ancient blend, swollen with arcane power: galangal, high john essence, frankincense, cedar, and sandalwood. From Bewitching Brews... I just tried this one on Chris, my husband...not exactly the scent we were expecting...fresh from the bottle it is a little too green for my tastes. He just said it smells a bit of old magick, as if you walked into a mage's temple. After about ten minutes, it smells much more subtle, and is about to be removed from the "to get rid of" bowl. He said he'd wear this to a function involving a group of knowledgable magicians. Don't judge this one by the in-bottle scent, try it on and let it cool down a little first.

VILLAIN A classic Victorian men's cologne: a lavender fougere, with hints of lilac, lime, and citrus musk. From Diabolus... *drool* I think Chris smells divine in this one...classically masculine, a far cry from today's over-produced, artificial-ingredient filled colognes too many men bathe in thinking that it will make women swoon all over them (sorry, the women are swooning from how obnoxiously overpowering you smell! ). This makes you want to get up close to the man wearing it and just sniff him for hours.

The grey and ghostly flower that fills the fields of Hades. In the vial: slightly sweet, light flowers. I know I have smelled this before, it is a very familiar scent, but I just can't place it right this second. Wet: beautiful light flowers, with a hint of sweetness intermingled. I *know* this flower. I just wish I could remember it... it is so amazingly lovely.

(I am hopefully going to have a description to add here soon.) Sekhmet is lovely... slightly minty, definitely cinnamony, and completely hot and sultry. Perfect for feeling seductive on a hot summer night. Unlike most cinnamon blends, this one doesn't bother my skin. Maybe it's possible that the sensitivity I had to cinnamon has decreased since this is the third blend with it I have tried in the last month that hasn't bothered my skin.

Relaxation, calm, finding center. In the bottle and wet: There's a sharp crispness to this scent... something I can't fully distinguish the culprit of. Faint undertones of something mellow and relaxing. 5 minutes after aplying: The sharpness fades on me, and I smell something still very crisp, but more green and herbal. p.s. I will be editing this to add more of a description when my sinuses stop throbbing... it's not a perfume related sinus pain, it's the crappy weather that's doing it this time.

LEO July 23 - August 22 From the Astrological Oils collection... lime / heliotrope / juniperorange / sandalwood From the bottle I actually find this very calming...not what I would have expected in an oil for a fire sign. On...slightly sweet, fruity. Almost like the smell of Wild Berry Skittles. I want to lick my arm (is this bad? ). Very playful, fun...it makes me smile for no apparent reason. It also makes me want to go buy some Skittles now. After a few minutes I smell a bit of a floral blend, it is subtle and very sweet...definately a scent I have encountered before, but I can't recall from what. Still quite sweet and yummy. The longer I wear this, the yummier it smells.

A subtly menacing blend of lemon verbena, white sandalwood and cedar, dimmed by droplets of the darkest patchouli. From the Bewitching Brews... Once on, the lemon verbena is the first thing I smell...a second sniff revels the cedar and a hint of the white sandalwood. The patchouli seems to be in hiding right now (odd, since I recognized the patchouli first from the bottle). An interesting scent...not me, though.

JUNE GLOOM Teddy's gloriously dismal creation. As a lover of rainy days, grey skies and chill air, summer is his antithesis. A spell of June Gloom is always welcome in our household. A bouquet of bright summer flowers dampened by the scent of morning mist and rain. Wow. From the bottle... fresh, light flowers of the mixed summery variety, with the crisp freshness of a summer rain. When first applied... this is just so amazingly relaxing and cheerful to me...though as a lover of summer rains, I didn't expect anything else. Smells the same as in the bottle, may dry down a bit differently, but I will have to wait a little while to find out. Stay tuned for a small update when this does dry down on me. ETA - dry down... this still smells divine! The flowers have become a bit lighter, as has the crisp wetness, it is as if I went from being in the middle of the rain and dew covered flower bed to about 10 yards away from it. Still beautifully gloomy, though.

Based on the notes I'd have never thought Spider would be a "me" scent, but Spider is so damn sexy it should be illegal. I loved Spider in Anansi Boys, my very first thoughts on him were "Yeah, I'd fuck him." And I can absolutely picture him smelling exactly like his scent - crisp and fresh and sultry and sexy. all rolled into one. I love wearing this scent. I cannot stop sniffing myself with it on, and even hours later I can still catch the scent unexpectedly when I turn my wrist or bend over.

I've been very silent regarding this whole situation, just silently sitting back watching everything unfold. And every time I read the H&E thread I am reminded of a similar thread from last fall... the Atropa's Cottage (egad... I don't even know if I spelled that right!) thread. Sure, they have a lot of differences, but they also have a lot of similarites, most notably the drama related to a company that came out of nowhere, with a lot of "unique" blends under their belt, and very fierce supporters who refused to acknowledge for the longest time that yes, there really was a problem with these blends... whether they bore similarities to popular BPAL blends or popular pre-blended bath and body ingredient oils, or whether they were named the same as already existing popular scents by other companies, or whether they infringed on trademark or copyright laws by their name, there most certainly was a problem. A lot of the H&E supporters keep saying her oils are nothing like Beth's, but there are several with identical or very similar names, and others with identical or very similar noted listed. Yet they are nothing alike? I am sure the supporters of H&E are right... they are nothing like BPAL, because BPAL has depth. Personality. Character. And class. I had a point in this reply. I think I lost it though, and I should be sleeping since I have a million things to do tomorrow, but before I post this comment, I just want to say that I really wish people would stop being blinded by the massive amount of freebies tossed into their mailboxes long enough to really see that there is something to this ordeal. F_S, thank you for your well-researched, well-thought-out post.

CT III: Strange Attractors; bottle # CXLVI in the bottle: a strange lightly sweet fruity, but almost faintly root beer type smell. first applied: smoky, a little dusty with a hint of powdery... the slightly sweet fruityness I smelled in the bottle is gone, though there's a hint of the root beer smell remaining if I search for it. dry down: Not letting it fully dry down, as it produced an instant sinus headache for me. Conclusion... as all Chaos Theories go, this one is indeed a wonderful experiment. I wish this blend had cooperated with my skin chemistry, but perhaps the next one I order will be the perfect one for me instead.

Sage, the 3 year old, loves Bliss. I have some in a rollerbottle that I put on her frequently. Every night she goes to bed smelling of Somnus as well. Sacred Whore smelled wonderful on her too, but well... I am not going there having to explain the name, so I tend to avoid putting it on her. Harley, the 10 year old, prefers Lick It right now. Alice and Anne Bonny work quite well on her too.

hehe...it would appear that i did not. Hahahahahahaha! Yay on the house, by the way. I slack with the comments these days.