Heaven_Star

In the bottle: Straight up fougere and citrus, not a lick of lavender in the bottle when I sniff. A whole lotta cologne smell instead. Wet: Still lots of the fougere and citrus, but the citrus dies back pretty quickly on my skin. After a few minutes the initial sharpness of the fougere softens and sweetens, starting to let the lilac and lavender through. Dry: Sweet lavender/lilac with the fougere going all soft and musky around it. Quite different to what it smells like in the bottle! Villain is one of my favourite scents - it's androgynous in good way. It stays sweet and beautiful on me, with a hint of male from the fougere. I wear it to work a lot and it's my "go to" for interviews because I always feel in control and yet still a bit feminine. It's hard to describe but this is my comforting, in control scent. I don't get the shaving cream analogies, but when I put it on my man it was straight up, almost cliched shaving cream! I quite liked it on him, but he couldn't get past the typical cologne associations he has with lavender fougere I think.

In the bottle: Coconut, musk and a tiny bit of rose if I look. Mostly coconut, though. Wet: Boom! There's the roses. All the creamy, sparkling bits are in the background. They start to come forward as it dries and the orris and coconut ground out the blend to stop it becoming too sharp. Dry: Beautifully balanced. Everything is represented and nothing dominates over anything else. It ends up being this really nice sweet, sparkling rose scent. This is exactly what it says on the bottle - roses, sparkles and sweet, creamy notes. I wear this all the time, especially to work or if I've used Lush's American Cream hair conditioner (they pair really well!). it doesn't have a lot of throw but it's really pretty and non-offensive. Glad I've got a big bottle of it

In the imp: Pear! Some musky elements and a hint of lily of the valley, but it's all pear up front with everything else adding to it. Wet: It goes a bit green on my skin initially, which normally would be a warning sign! But the white musk and bois du rose are rallying in the background. The pear isn't really apparent wet on my skin, which is good, because foodie scents of all stripes hate me. Dry: Lily of the valley, beautiful white musk, a hint of sweetness from the pear and a beautiful something from the rosewood. This doesn't morph very much despite what my descriptions say, it more deepens or rounds out as it dries? The sweetness rolls back and the musk and flowers come forward more, but it doesn't change to something different. I originally got this for my mum, but I loved it so much I bought an imp for myself. It's replacing my beloved Ophelia as my go-to girlie floral. It's sweet, beautiful and feminine. There's probably a big bottle in my future.

Golden Priapus - Vanilla and amber with juniper, rosewood and white pine. The Raptures and Roses of Vice - Red roses, heady Moroccan musk, cinnamon, lobelia, coconut flesh, magnolia blossoms, and tobacco tar. Countess Karnstein - Red musk, purple orchid, frankincense, smoky vanilla, Styrian herbs, peru balsam, tonka, Zanzibar clove, and patchouli. Morocco - Arabian spices wind through a blend of warm musk, carnation, red sandalwood and cassia. Pallas Athene - Antiqued amber, cumin, saffron, frankincense, Atlas cedar, myrrh, mandarin, Ceylon cinnamon bark, and osmanthus. Anteros - Throbbing red musk and shimmering chypre with saffron, sweet patchouli, Italian bergamot, red currant, and vanilla bean. Ranger - Buckskin accord with Terebinth pine, Russian birch, black ironwood, elder bark, hay, armoise, juniper, patchouli, galangal root, Spanish moss, and cabreuva. Holy crap some of those sound incredible - thank you!! And how did you know I loved Golden Priapus?? I suspect you're magic

I originally got this as a frimp and I'm glad I did because there's too many unknown notes in the description for me to have picked this up myself. In the bottle: Sharp and green. Looking at the reviews this is probably the galangal or the balsam talking, it smells almost antiseptic to my nose - it's powerful. There's a bit of dragon's blood in the background but it's the overwhelming force of that spicy green note that gets your attention here. In terms of what it's trying to evoke this is the "thrumming power"! Wet: The big sharp green-ness hangs around for a little bit but it gets reined in by the other resins pretty quickly and backs way off. It starts softening to a more well-rounded incense scent. It's smokey, not sweet, and still a bit herbal. Dry: Sweet incense! There's still a few 'sparks' of the sharper green notes from earlier but it's a lovely sweet incense blend now. It's not a traditional sort of incense smell, there's no church frankincense (even though there's frankincense in this) and it's much more natural and warm. It's no less rich but it's a very different incense blend to what I usually think of when I think 'incense'. I love this. I'm sad I don't get the cedar or pine notes others have noticed, I usually love those sorts of notes, but maybe they're working well on me overall and just helping make this one smell lovely on my skin. I find this scent hard to unpick because I don't recognise the notes individually, but I know it's beautiful. I'm sad to say it took how much my man friend likes the scent of it to encourage me to get a big bottle but I really didn't notice how much I was using it as an everyday scent until I had a big bottle. I wear it at least once a week, it's in the default rotation now! I haven't tried it with the other RPG blends but I'd like to see how it played with other scents.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved Dorian. Food scents are death for me, especially sugary things, but Dorian doesn't die. It keeps the beautiful, sweet vanilla fougere that it has in the bottle, just deeper. Dorian is a comforting and nuanced vanilla for me - it's not bright, it's just warm and deep. The tea note is there but for me it's only if I look for it, it's not dominant. The fougere pushes a bit more on me than what I've smelled on others but I don't mind it, it's less cologne-like to my nose and just adds a sort of cooling balance to the vanilla. I think the blend would be boring without it. Also, try this one on your man friends - it smells great on my lady skin, but it becomes sexy man vanilla on my man friend 5/5 Will always have a bottle on hand. Always.

Ooh! Great thread! 1. Fascinum 2. Spellbound 3. Omen 4. Haunted 5. Lyonesse Honourable mentions: Black Forest, Vasilissa, Mage, Dorian (See what I did there, I did like a top 9...)

This is one of my faves, in fact it's the scent responsible for my BPAL addiction. A random eBay bay of imps and this one rocked my world. Hard. In the bottle: it's dark musk with juniper to my nose, not a lot of pine.The juniper is almost a berry-scent here, but that could be me not being able to split the scents of juniper berry and straight juniper apart very well. I love both, so it's not a biggie for me, but there's something ripe in there. Wet: Straight to big amounts of pine wet on the skin, there's a bit of juniper and cypress in the background but pine is dominating. It's like you're surrounded by trees straight up. Drying: Cold - it's like a mist rolling in - it's almost menthol-like but I can't think what note in the blend could be doing it. "Essence of lab genius"? There's not a lot of amber yet. The black musk is lurking in the background but hasn't moved forward yet, it's like shadows or animals lurking just out of sight - this is a hugely evokative scent for me. Dry: The black musk and juniper are all here now, the 'cold' note and possibly the amber dry down to be a bit powdery on me (amber does that on my skin) but I think it mellows the scent out. There's a lick of pine in there but mostly musk and juniper. I really love this one and wear it a lot. It's responsible for my love of woodsy scents. I've seen a bunch of reviewers saying they like it but wouldn't wear it much, which I sort of get - it's not floral or inviting, and it sticks quite close to my skin so I really am just wearing it for me. But at the same time I really do wear this one because I enjoy it - it's my perfect dark woods scent. Lush and deep. I tried Thanatopsis recently and it had a similar sort of feel to it and I liked it, too, but I'll always keep coming back to this one.

Hi guys, I'm looking for a scent similar to Britney Spears' "Believe" - notes of guava, tangerine, honeysuckle, linden blossom, amber and patchouli. So a sort of sweet, citrusy floral? It's one of my guilty non-BPAL loves but I hate that it's commercial/tested on animals etc, so I'd love to find a BPAL equivalent. Thanks!

I'm so glad I ordered a bottle of this! I loved the idea of the candied apricot, floral, tonka mix but what really sold me was the poem that went with it - lovely! (I'm a sucker for buying BPAL based on the description/concept) I was really worried about the jasmine because I haven't tried the Lab's jasmine before and I know it does crazy things with some skin chemistry. In the bottle: All I get is that apricot and something citrusy which is likely the quince? Also the C02 note was pretty strong here. Wet: Strong jasmine. Dry down: Soft apricot, honey and tonka scent. Really pretty and wearable and not a huge throw. I didn't get much patchouli or orris from this at all, really, but then again I'm still relatively new to scent recognition so it could well be my nose. In short I love it and I'm so glad the jasmine worked! It's exactly what I wanted this scent to be - it's sweet but not sickly or overwhelming. I should have bought two!