SerendipityHQ

BOON-FIIIRE!
Burninating the countryside,
Burninating the peasants,
Burninating all the peoples,
And their thatched-roof COTTAGES!

So yeah. I've been looking for smell that approximates the smell of leaf-burning/wood burning fireplaces for a while but 'Leaf' on me, apparently means 'Stinky Bandaid feet cologne' so I decided to go out on a limb and try Bonfire. Let's do this.

In the bottle: Peppery. I can smell that weird acetone base smell that is the usual harbinger of Stinky Bandaid Feet Cologne. Under that there's a true woody smell but I am sceptical.

Wet: First five minutes edges closer to acetone and then- hard right turn into BURNINATING. Yes! Fiiire! I feel like Jimmy Hendrix worshiping his flaming guitar. This legitimately smells like super hearty, burnination and woodsmoke. The acetone is long gone and it smells exactly like what it says on the tin- pure smouldering bonfire. I don't get pine- more of a slight ceder smell.

Dry: A burning leaf pile with some sticks in it. This definitely smells like stepping outside on an autumn day when your neighbor has a fire going. It isn't overwhelming though- just really pleasent and exactly what I was looking for. It has a pretty mild throw for something that starts off so assertive and as it drys down further it isn't gone per se but gets really subtle. Great layering scent and smells like exactly what it's meant to.

Oh...ooo...*This* is why people like Snake Oil.

So, Snake Oil perfume might actually be the most foul thing on earth on me- It tends to smell *exactly* like burning band-aids and skank so even putting this on was a questionable decision. Still, it smelled *way* less harsh in the imp than normal Snake Oil so I figured, eh, what the hell, worst comes to worst I take another shower to wash it off.

I used about half an imps worth as a moisturizer. First impression was like Snake Oil proper but sweeter, with that sugary incense vanilla smell everyone raves about in the perfume. It was good the minute it his my skin and as it dried down it just got better. Definitely more foody then standard SO without that sharp herbal note. And no burning rancid band-aid stench.

Can you wear these as a perfume? I lurve this...

Scored a whole bottle of this! My first MonsterBait, mmmmm- let's see how this goes.

In the Bottle: Cinnamon schnapps? Errr. A super sharp, unpleasant blast of booze-y red hots. Cake? Are you in there?

Wet: ARGH! Cinnamon explosion! This is *not* nice. It's a super dry single note cassia- it smells like I covered myself in spice rack cinnamon and nothing else. Sharp- like a cinnamon room spray. No way is this supposed to smell like this. Maybe it's gone off?

Thirty minutes later: And it burns too. Boo. This might win the prize for single worst BPAL on my skin.

Dry: I should just go wash this off this is just disgusting...HOLY CHRISTMAS! I smell gorgeous! Where did this come from? It's coconut pound-cake drenched in maple syrup. Seriously though, this goes from horrible to perfect at *exactly* the 45 minute mark each time I've tried it. It's the strangest thing. Loving it now- I can live through the wet stage to smell like this. It smells foody but totally grown-up, sophisticated foody. The only issue is the fact that it's still burninating my wrist a bit. This goes away at about the hour mark.

Final Tally:

Wet- 0/5

Dry 5/5

Skin- Burninating.

In the bottle: Generic perfume smell mixed with iced tea and a little lemon. Completely unoffensive, but nothing to go into raptures about. Hmmm.

Wet: Nice black tea smell, but with a vanilla sweetness coming out-- After about twenty seconds this turns into the world's most beautiful sweet vanilla smell. No lemon on me- just vanilla sugar with maybe a little lavender waaaay in the background. Wrist glued to nose. Omigod. This is just lovely. I don't think I understand people saying this is a unisex scent- this smells *really* gorgeously feminine to me. This is the kind of smell that makes people want to stick their nose right up to it- not super assertive- just wafting awesome that makes you feel like the sexy goddess of smelling bloody wonderful.

Dry: Stays mostly the same, but powdery. Not baby powdery, just dry vanilla powder with a little lavender instead of vanilla syrup. Want to lick this. Only problem is it fades a little faster on me then other bpal. Totally worth a re-application though.

TL:DR: Want to lick myself. This is amazing. Buying more as soon as possible.

In the imp: Really nice, subtle, earthy green but not 'Oh, HAI, cut-grass' smell. Interesting and really promising. Seems nicely balanced- I still don't get much of the fig that I've been searching for but, such is life

Wet: Still like but...someone mentioned that this reminds them of commercial perfume and that's mostly what I'm getting from it too. The notes sort of disappear behind a smell of Perfume. Tautology perfume smells like itself, I guess.

And there is no dry. Sorry. Just like with normal perfume I started to sneeze like a motha'. I've always been allergic to scents- something quite a lot of BPAL hasn't triggered. This seems to have just the right Perfume smell or chemistry to punch my nose in the face. Sorry Apothocary.

TL;DR; Actually really nice perfume-y smell. Punched nose in face. Beware people who tend to react badly to normal perfume.

In the bottle- Hmmm. Undecided. I opened the package it came in and recoiled a bit. Opening the bottle and taking a snort- pretty nice. I can smell pumpkin, but not aggressive pumpkin and a sweet cream smell like white chocolate. Not bad. Not absurdly sweet. Cool. This might be better then expected.

Wet- AGH! Diabetes. And I *like* sweet. I like Trick or Treat and that smells like I took a bath in caramel. This is SWEET. The white chocolate note jumps out, punches you in the face, and demands your wallet. I can't smell anything but kind of off-smelling chocolate now- it's super familiar. I know this smell and I'm getting a very specific sense memory of stuck together teeth and eating bits of candy wrapping.... wait a second....

Dry- This is Tootsie rolls on me. Washing it off with extreme prejudice. Goodbye BPAL chocolate note, I hardly knew thee.

TL:DR- 'Effing Tootsie rolls. 1/5

In the bottle- Interesting...this smells like booze and...something else. Definitely not fruity. Maybe the bread note...

Wet- Oh. It's meat. Yep. That's totally meat. This actually has a meat note. Well, that'll teach me for thinking it's some kind of metaphorical mince-pie note. This smells a hell of a lot like a real Christmas-y meat pie when wet. There's a rasin-y booze smell in the background, but it's behind the mince pie and holly.

Dry- Okay, here we go. Holly and fig and booze start to assert themselves past the suet/mince smell. This is interesting... academically this smells nice- and avoids smelling like potpourri or a Christmas shop- but this is not a sexy scent. This is really thick and savory in a way that's good but not nice. I can't imagine a boy smelling me and wanting anything except maybe a pork-pie. I think this goes in the 'good room scent' category for me, because it really does smell like Christmas without being *obvious* Christmas but...don't want to smell like this all day.

TL:DR I smell like meat. But interesting meat. 2/5

In the decant- Marshmallow crust. Exactly, exactly like the brown, bubbly crust of a marshmallow when you're roasting it over a flame.

Wet- MARSHMALLOW! It stays exactly the same. No cinnamon scent on me, this is such a perfect reproduction of a roasted marshmallow it's actually a little unsettling. Like, you think you want to smell like delicious roasted marshmallow but you don't actually want to smell exactly like roasted marshmallow because then you smell like you're carrying around a boy-scout troupe in your blouse.

Dry- Okay, so marshmallow smell starts to fade, unfortunately on me it fades into a woody, smokey smell, like the campfire they're cooking the marshmallows in. My skin tends to bring out any possibility of a burn-y smell though, so it could be that, but now I smell like a ceder chest.

Eh, not for me as a perfume- think I'll try putting it into a lotion to distribute it better and hopefully avoid the smell of burninating.

I was looking for a sexy scent and this one was on my radar for a blind bottle purchase. Happily, I got it as an free imp from a lovely forum member...who therefore saved me twenty bucks.

In the Imp: Ugh. Upsetting right off the bat. Bathroom. Strong bad bathroom. Opening it scared off my cat.

Wet: Bathroom/ Ashtray. I have no idea what jasmine smells like, but people seem to be blaming the rotting/decomposed smell on it so I'll just assume it's that. This is not promising at all.

Dried: Well, at least it's consistent. It smelled vaguely floral for about ten minutes, then returned to the nasty decomposed smell. I'd be happier with old coffee grounds.

0/5. This is the only scent so far that I legit dislike. This is anti-sexy on me and didn't seem to change much from the imp to my skin. Same rotten smell. Maybe the oil has gone off because I can't smell any coffee at all, and certainly no rose. Just stink.

Hi everyone! I'm pretty new to Bpal and just got my first bottle and well, erhm.

Same sort of story that as everyone else. I got an imp of Strangler Fig- it smelled unholy good. Deep, thick, smell like figs poached in honey and a little earth. I wore out the imp almost instantly and jumped at the chance to grab a bottle from the forum.

And its so different, man. Not just slightly different- almost 100%. This one smells like the white stuff in dandelions wet and drys down to sharp green vegetation in a hothouse, it makes me sneeze and burns on my skin which the other most assuredly did not.

So, to anyone who owns this one or knows these symptoms- HELP!

Is this a case of one being aged? Storage? How is it that one triggers allergies and one doesn't? Which is the normal state of affairs for this scent? Is there some strange alchemy that I can do to make this turn into the gorgeous imp smell? I can't imagine this type of difference is normal- no one could have a favorite if it smelled this different every time. Anything anyone could tell me would be hugely appreciated.

Just got a bunch of imps to sample- first time ever using any BPAL stuff. Of all of them this is the only one that I'm inspired to go write about. I smell so awesome it's not even funny.

In the Imp- Brown (slightly burnt) butter and vanilla. A little rummy at the end I think, but that's probably just because I'm not used to perfume. Very sweet- it sort of smacked me around a little- and while delicious, slightly concerning that it would be a very little-girly free- with- your-barbie type of smell on me.

Wet- Sweeet. Not absurd, but quite sugary. Very strong smell of butter and vanilla still but instead of smelling like extract it turns into delicious cake. Actually- St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake, almost exactly. No real current smell. Just cake-y goodness.

Dry- Sugar cookies! I smell exactly like sugar cookies. It gets much more powdery and adult smelling. Still no current but I'm happy with the baking smells- I don't doubt that this would be amazing if you layered a fruity scent on it-I'm tempted to mix a little March Hare on top of this and see if I smell like peach pie.

I'm off to buy a bottle of this. I smell like everything good in the world. At once. Definitely the best of my sample group.

(P.S. Yep. I smell like peach pie. Might have to find a bottle of that too.)