aphrodite

I have tried the board search and searching this topic and I can't seem to find anything. If this has been asked a thousand times, I do apologize. Anyway, my cousin has recently fallen in love with a rollerball of Lady Gaga's Fame perfume she got at Target. The scent descriptions are kind of weird and vague, especially since it says that the fragrance doesn't play by the typical scent pyramid rules we're all accustomed to. This is the description from sephora.com:

 

"This black fluid exudes a lustful, floral, fruity essence for fabulous little monsters. Enriched with tears of belladonna, a black veil of incense, and pulverized apricot, this fragrance may cause illicit fits of extravagance, unrivalled rushes of adoration, and prolonged moments of ecstasy and rapture.Notes:Belladonna, Incense, Apricot, Honey Drops, Tiger Orchidea, Jasmin Sambac.Style:Empowering. Mysterious. Fabulous."

 

I assume that belladonna tears smell just like belladonna itself, but who knows? If anyone has smelled this and can think of a close equivalent in BPAL's range, I would be overjoyed. I can think of a few floral-incense blends that I own, but they all lack the fruit.

 

I haven't smelled it, but maybe Tamora, Morgause, Midnight on the Midway (good luck), or Butterflies, Flowers and Jewels Attending?

Ok guys, we need to find an equivalent to House of Unquenchable Fire! Implacable Beautiful Tyrant Hair Gloss is very complimentary, but I want a perfume too (and a bath oil, candle, and anything else.) In the meantime, I am spraying HOUF all over my clothes (but worry about staining)

 

I know I'm not alone in adoring these scents!

I second this for the house!

 

Hesiod's Phoenix.

My favorite fancy BPALs are...

 

The Girl

Butterflies, Flowers and Jewels Attending

Champagne and Opium

Basically any lace

Nevar

Phoenix Steamworks

The Robotic Scarab

 

Stardust (the Yule) isn't for me, personally, but it definitely smells very fancy and makes an impression. I haven't smelled the 2013 version, but I imagine it's more or less the same.

Even though the list of notes may sound scary, I swear Butterflies, Flowers and Jewels Attending is the prettiest thing you'll ever smell. It's too well blended to smell like particularly one thing, so everything pretty much plays nice. It's like walking through a butterfly garden in the fae realm while fresh honey is pulled from the flora by magic bees.

I'm not sure whether I've reviewed this before, but even if I did it was an earlier version, so here goes. I definitely disliked the older Pink Snowballs I tried, but I also didn't like any rose scents until Nymphes de Pave. At this point I've grown to appreciate quite a few rose blends, so decided to give Pink Snowballs another go.

 

I really like it! It's bright, creamy, rosy and fun. It very much lives up to its name. I have a bottle of Love and they’re pretty similar, except Love has strawberry, so I’m not sure whether I’d bother getting a full bottle of this (especially since it comes back so often, it’s never hard to find). They’re both the sort of young, girly scent that I don’t usually wear but once in a while find myself craving. However, Pink Snowballs is sort of like Love’s cousin that’s a few years older and Love looks up to and tries to emulate, and I think if I had a bottle of PS I might reach for it a bit more often than Love.

On me, wet: What, why did they go playdough? But...it's good playdough? Like, made out of sugar and almond-mint icing playdough. I like it!

 

This is the exact description of my wet phase. It keeps this weird, kind of likable playdough smell for at least an hour. After that it becomes something creamy, soft and minty, and reminds me of the creamy element of Pink Snowballs. I think if it were named something else I might not even keep the decant, because it takes a while to become amazing and I think will be better as a layering scent than a standalone. But I love the name so I'll probably try to find a partial 5 ml.

This was really pretty and I adore the name (one of the best BPAL names ever, I think) and the label is exquisite. A somewhat sweet aquatic that reminded me of a few candles I've owned and loved over the years. If it were a candle I'd have bought five. But it amped so strongly when I tested it on just one wrist, I knew in my heart if I ever actually wore it for a day I would feel sick and have a headache by the end. It's just not the kind of smell I could handle amping around me all day -- a little too sweet. I was tempted to keep it anyway and try to let it grow on me because it really is lovely and again, the name and the label are perfection. But I let it find its way to someone who will hopefully not have to fight so hard to make it work.

Out of over 20 Yules I tried this year between decants and bottles, this was one of only five I bought blind. I was certain it would work. Alas, I think the plum in this and Ezekiel's Phoenix must be the same, and it simply doesn't register on my skin at all. This was just the snow note and cardamom. It wasn't bad, but I have plenty of BPAL snow perfumes, and this one just wasn't special on me at all. :'( I sold it to someone who will hopefully love it as much as I wanted to.

 

This is gorgeous and perfect. It smells like House of Unquenchable Fire atmo spray with a bit more vanilla. The vanilla is dark and rich, not at all the kind that goes plasticky or cakey. Absolutely lovely and if you love HOUF you should get this.

Very sad about this one. The reviews all sound divine, but it just doesn't smell like anything to me. In the bottle I couldn't get an impression of it, and I basically saturated a cotton swab to slather it on, at which point if I realllly sniffed deeply I got a faint whiff of something. I was sure I would love this and that it would fill a specific void in my collection, but it's off to the sales.

So I didn't buy a bottle of Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Pyre last year, but this year I can't get enough of my decant and have been on a wild hunt. When Wassail appeared I bought a blind bottle immediately, hoping it would fill that warm, spicy, wintry comfort void. And it does! It definitely does. I definitely smell the ale and port, but it doesn't make my house smell like alcohol or anything. More like if you dumped a bunch of flat but not gross beer down the sink, that kind of lingering smell - but in a good way. I'm making this sound gross but it's really nice! I've been utterly dousing my living room furniture. The spices are very present as well, and it provides just the snuggly feel I was looking for. For those of you who hoard squirts of The Inn, this in no way smells like The Inn, but you might want to try it for that same effect of warm, sweet comfort that is foody and yet not foody. I might need a backup of this one.

It is definitely very cakey! I was hoping for mint with a soft vanilla base to make it feel creamy. I like for my bathroom to smell like creamy mint. Instead it's predominantly a very foody vanilla, with the mint growing more apparent in the drydown. The cake smell stays too, though, the mint doesn't take over. Just, when I first spray it I don't even notice the mint, and after a few minutes it's cake with some mint. After a few hours it becomes more what I was looking for. It's VERY delicious, but i'm not a particularly foody person, and something about my bathroom smelling delicious creeps me out a little. I think I'll decant out half or even 2/3 of my bottle to resell, but I do like it enough to keep a portion.

In the bottle I smelled a lot of snow. It smelled a lot like the snow and pine BPAL oils, which I love, but i had yet to try it because I just wasn't craving that sort of smell. Well, I just reached for my bottle of Wassail and sprayed this all over my living room by accident. It's really pretty! It's more pine heavy than snow heavy once it's in the air and on the furniture. It smells very fresh and natural, and VERY seasonally appropriate. I could see spraying this on a fake Christmas tree to make it feel more authentic. It also makes for surprisingly gorgeous layering with Wassail -- the scents are so different, but it's like wandering through an enchanted forest and coming upon a cottage where a hedge witch has been baking magic treats.

 

It reminds me of Fae Forest, but I would say a lighter version. My best friend strongly dislikes Fae Forest, so much so that she gave me her full size bottle for free (score!), but she got Schwarzwald and she loves it.

This is soooooooooooo pretty and delightful and happy and I love it so much! Omg. If you're a big fan of the "Champagne & ______" scents, I would recommend getting this. It has the same effervescent note and will layer beautifully with all of those. The champagne grape is definitely dominant, and there's something sort of smoky in a soft way (not at all smoky in the way of things like Bonfire Night; more like some opium scents, and things with soft purple incense) that could be the bourbon vanilla. The bourbon vanilla definitely adds a sweetness as well, but it is in no way foody or cakey or plasticky or any of those things that vanilla can sometimes be. I don't pick out any roses or violet leaf, but it's quite well blended so they are probably contributing to the overall deliciousness.

The only issue I have with this is I wear hair gloss every day and don't own one that's a good match, so I'm gonna have to do some more BPTP shopping. As a blind guess, though, I think those of you with Peaches and Incense or maybe IBT hair glosses would probably find a nice complement. Out of the ones I own I think it would pair best with Loosened and Soiled, but Loosened and Soiled has a ton of throw on me and might drown out the subtleties of this beaut.

I used it as moisturizer rather than bath oil, but it has gorgeous throw. I was running late so didn't bother with a perfume, and I'm enveloped in scent. I might edit the review if it's drastically different as a bath oil, but it was very similar in strength and scent in the bottle, so I would think it's pretty consistent across the board.

This is just unbelievably beautiful. If there weren’t already an Endymion perfume, I would say that’s what this should be called, because it is most certainly a thing of beauty and a joy. It’s so soothing and happy and really reminds me of being a carefree young girl on the island of St Maarten where my family has timeshare apartments every January. I can actually smell warm sunshine in this, and there’s something in the ice cream that reminds me just a bit of sunscreen. Overall the smell is vanilla ice cream, a bit of lavender which is definitely not overpowering, and just unbelievable warmth and happiness. While it’s incredibly evocative of childhood feelings of freedom and happiness, I don’t think it’s a childish scent at all. I actually cried a bit because the first time I put this on I was so overwhelmed with feelings of joy and security. I will definitely need at least one bottle, probably two, and it will be the first scent to sometimes take Lady Amalthea’s place when I need something to help soothe nighttime anxieties.

I read through to up to page ten but most of the talk for the last few pages were more talking about scents for husbands and boyfriends so I decided i'd just reply and see what sort of replies I get.

 

BPAL are my first oil perfumes ever. The only perfume I ever liked before was Hypnotic Poison which I found to be a burnt vanilla that wasn't sickly sweet but rather rich in a sort of baked slightly burnt cookie way.

 

I already have Imps of O, Eclipse, Ravenous, Snake Oil, Mme. Moriarty, Zarita the doll girl, Snow White, Eclipse, and Dorian on the way. I also already purchased a bottle of Hunger. Can anyone give me some other suggestions?

 

It's been years since I sniffed the Diors, so I can't recall distinctly which Poison smells like what, but you might try Antikythera Mechanism for a rich, dark vanilla, and Belle Epoque for a classy, intoxicating vanilla blend. AM is also a good one to try because I've found that several limited edition amazing vanilla smells use that same vanilla, so it's nice to be able to read a review and see the reference and know what it means.

I'm looking for something similar to Avon's discontinued Far Away Sensual Embrace. A friend of mine has hoarded bottles over the years, but is now running low. And it's ALL she ever wears. I was hoping to find a BPAL blend that is similar, but so far all I've come up with is other commercial perfumes.

Far Away Sensual Embrace is described as an Oriental Floral with notes of camellia, passion flower, amber, hibiscus, orchid and vanilla.

I think Cacharel's Amor Amor is similar scent-wise (by memory only, I can't compare as I no longer have Amor Amor), but the notes are pretty different.

Amor Amor is described as a fruity floral. The main notes are: pink grapefruit, mandarin, blood orange, Malati Flower (Malati is a very fragrant Indonesian Jasmine Sambac), lily-of-the-valley, white musk, sandalwood, vanilla and ambergris.

I also think Valentino V has a similar vibe, but also not so similar note-wise.

V is a woody, floral oriental with heliotrope, rose, and orange blossom, pink grapefruit, green fig, freesia, amber, mysore sandalwood, cedar and musk.

I'd be happy with recs that are of a similar tone - they don't need to have the exact same notes. But I would prefer to find her some BPAL rather than another designer fragrance.

 

She might love Butterflies, Flowers and Jewels Attending, but you'd have to hurry since it was supposed to come down from the site almost two weeks ago and could theoretically vanish any day.

This is stupid beautiful. If you've read the "GO GET THIS NOW" reviews and thought, "but will it really work on me?" probably yes. It's amazing.

 

It definitely does have a commercial vibe, but not in an overwhelming or bad way at all. I can't wear commercial scents anymore, and I've been wearing this constantly. It's sweet floral, the way a butterfly garden is sweet floral, and very well blended.

 

It's also extremely consistent; I've worn this at the height of my monthly cycle and it smelled exactly the same as it does the rest of the time. It lasts all day, although by the end of the day it's faded to something softer and a bit more vanillaic.

 

It's just lovely. Ethereal and lovely. I bought a bottle less than 24 hours after trying the decant, then demanded that my best friend take the rest of my decant (I'd only purchased a half decant of each Lilith, so at that point it was only 1-2 uses left) and try it. She's much less likely to buy a full sized BPAL bottle than I am, but she bought one after very little time too. We also don't have particularly similar BPAL tastes/love notes.

 

I can definitely see some people rejecting this for not matching their personalities - it's quite feminine and light (as in sparkling sunlight, not faint smelling) and not at all dirty or spicy, so if you strictly like your scents to be deep, dark or masculine, you might not have a place for this in your treasure chest. But if it sounds like it even might appeal to you, track some down. There's a REALLY good chance you won't be disappointed.

 

ETA: I agree with ObliqueRed that it's reminiscent of a much more wearable Coco Mademoiselle.

It seems like generally every six imps come with about two frimps. I know it can vary, but that's been the average for me. Is there an average for frottles? Or a certain number (20, 30, 50?) of bottles that seems to be guaranteed to include at least one frottle?

 

You're right - it does seem that there is a proportionate amount of frimps with orders - around 2 x frimps per bottle... generally (of course, this varies). However frottles seem a bit more random. I've received a frottle with large orders, but also with not-so-big orders.

 

I really don't think there's any such thing as "guaranteed to include" - free *anything* is to be appreciated, not expected. I don't mean that as a personal thing aimed at you, aphrodite, but I just felt it's important to remember this

 

No, I know that of course, and I doubt I'll ever make an order big enough for a frottle. I was just getting curious / awestruck by the number of BU GC bottles on the sales pages of people that run circles.

What's a frimp?

 

It's a free imp (get it?). The Lab will sometimes include them in orders, as will forumites sometimes when they swap or sell you something.

 

If you place a huge order with the Lab, Frottles have been known to occur.

 

I'm not a newbie, but I was searching for "frottles" and this is the thread with the most relevant convo it seems...

 

It seems like generally every six imps come with about two frimps. I know it can vary, but that's been the average for me. Is there an average for frottles? Or a certain number (20, 30, 50?) of bottles that seems to be guaranteed to include at least one frottle?

First? Okay, then. First.

I'm very sad to say that I don't love this candle. Last year's Black Clove and Pumpkin Tart candles were two of my favorites ever. As much as I love pumpkin food, I don't usually buy pumpkin type candles, because I don't want that sweet, foody, often inauthentic smell in my home. The anise seed crust was the perfect element to last year's candle, and I thought the clove would lend a similar darkness and complexity.

Unlit it smelled like soft, semi-sweet pumpkin with a distinct undertone of bubble gum flavored children's toothpaste. Strange. Still, I let it burn for two hours, completely melting the top across and all.

The throw is pleasantly strong; I had it in the bay window in my kitchen, with both side panel windows open, and I could smell it in wafts from my living room couch. (The two rooms are connected.)

It doesn't smell cloyingly sweet, or like those intense pumpkin candles from things like Yankee, and that bubblegum note doesn't take over. All in all, it's fairly nice. I wish there were a much more prominent clove note; I wouldn't say it's entirely absent, but I don't notice it particularly at any point.

I'm curious as to what this would smell like to someone walking blindly into my home. I almost don't know whether I would have picked out either pumpkin OR clove had I not known the name of it.

I'm a huge BPTP candle fan, so really, this is probably a lot nicer for some people than I found it. I just have such high expectations, and this sounded like a combo of two all time favorites. I don't think I'll go through the effort of trying to sell this on my sales page and ship it, but if there were a perfume oil I liked this amount, I would probably sell it. If any of my friends at home want to buy it in person, I'm sure I would part with it, if only to get money to try another BPTP candle, but I could also see myself eventually using the whole thing up if I end up with it long-term.

I love araña. Like everyone else says, it does start out very similar to the Antikythera Mechanism. And I do love AM; it's the only scent I've ever applied in my cube and had coworkers flock to sniff me. But AM can sometimes go wrong on me during different parts of the drydown depending on my chemistry that day, the weather, etc. I don't mind wearing masculine scents when they're incredible, but AM sometimes turns masculine in a bad way.

 

So if AM is a sort of confident, androgynous type, araña is its younger sister that has inherited all of the same family allure, but with a more distinctly feminine and somewhat youthful vibe. I lose the wood notes in araña after a while; they might still be there to other people's noses, but with AM I smell the oak throughout the drydown, whereas araña just becomes a fluffy vanilla. It's the same vanilla as Love from this same collection, and at times I get the same fluffiness from the vanilla in Feed Me And Fill Me With Pleasure. I absolutely love this perfume.

I'm going as a victim from a black and white horror movie. I'm looking for (sniffing for?) a scent to go with grayscale makeup and the sweater with a pencil skirt look.

 

 

Any number of the BPAL for Dark Delicacies horror movie blends could work:

http://www.darkdel.com/index.htm?bpal.htm&1

 

I have 3 costumes for Halloween!

 

One is a 1920's flapper

the second is day of the dead skeleton

and the third is Marie from Breaking Bad. My husband is going as Hank.

 

I am trying to decide what I should wear for bpal....

Jazz Funeral for day of the dead?

Something purple inspired for Marie?

 

For the flapper you might do Jazz Funeral, Belle Epoque (wrong era but still right vibe, depending on how it smells on you), The Robotic Scarab, Juke Joint, Manhattan, any of the Champagne blends or anything with gin. I would personally probably wear Champagne and Opium.

 

I finally decided on a quick and easy Halloween costume: femme!Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians! I have white hairspray (and a lot of it because damned if I don't have a metric ton of hair), dark jeans and ordered a custom hoodie from Etsy. Any thoughts as to nice, wintry-but-playful pairings?

 

Definitely any of the Yule snow blends, or Snow Moon.

I'm planning to dress as Lady Stoneheart this year for Halloween. I want to be pretty authentic to the book, but not gross -- e.g. my hair will be white and grey, but by means of a sleek, gradient-style wig, and I'll be pale and have the bloody scratch marks, but won't try to make my skin look grotesque and bloated.

 

So, how should I smell?

 

(BTW if you're a fan of A Song Of Ice And Fire / Game of Thrones and have not read the third book inf full, DO NOT GOOGLE LADY STONEHEART. I can't recall if she's mentioned by that name in book three, so if you've read the first three and the name doesn't ring a bell, you're safe to look it up.)

 

I have tons of BPAL, both GC and LE (including GC discontinueds), so throw out any name that comes to mind.

If anyone is ever looking for a GC similar to Araña or Feed Me and Fill Me With Pleasure, try Antikythera Mechanism. AM used to be one of my beloved go-tos, but I find the other two variations a touch more "me". If I ever run out of both, though, I'll be able to turn to AM to fill my need for deep, sweet woodiness.