Mishinka

Surprise free imp, but oh, this is fantastic! Right away in the bottle it's a sweet, fruity anise. I'm not really smelling any musk, but there is a subtle incense-y smell to it. It's about the same on. The anise seems to be the predominant note here, but it's a fizzy, spicy smell. It reminds me of soda, root beer or sarsaparilla. The anise stays strong for hours, but it picks up more of a smoky incense smell as it dries. This is not just in my "love" pile, it's in the "oh noes, the liquid is a hairsbreadth below the label and it's almost gone! What will I do?" pile.

I don't know quite what's in here. I don't really have any place to burn candles, but I cannot resist perking up at anything associated with Bast. It took me a while to come around to it, but I really like the Bastet blend from the general catalog. This reminds me a bit of it, but the first thing I get out of the bottle is a candy orange, sort of like the baby aspirin flavor. At the same time, there's enough going on in the background that it isn't just kiddie orange, but sort of herbal and with an incense-y sweetness as well. It's a very cheerful, sunny smell. I've seen some people calling it "golden" earlier in the thread, and that's about right. It mellows as it dries, turning into cherries and almonds and maybe some vanilla. I think there's almost definitely some lotus in there, too. It develops a bit of an odd note that I can recognize but not place, I want to say it's water or some kind of spice. Might even be saffron. This is a very sweet, happy smell. It's Momma Cat--warm, golden sunlight and a bunch of stuff I can't quite figure out.

I think this must be the lotus I smell so strongly in the bottle. It's a floral that isn't rose, with almost a melon smell to it. Once I put it on, though, whoof. There those roses are. It's strong, but not cloying or overpowering. It calms down after a little while and the lotus comes back. It stays mostly rose, but there's still a bit of that fruity sweetness to it that must be the lotus. It's interesting--up close I get either lotus or a nice blend of them, but from a distance it's the same strong rose. Also, the way this blends with Bakeneko is fantastic--spicy, earthy rose.

Hm. At first I just got a sharp, flowery-alcohol "Hi, I'm perfume!" from the bottle, but once I held it under my nose for a second I could smell the tuberose. It does better on, with more room to spread out. I don't know what paperwhite or narcissus smell like, but I can definitely smell lily and rose. As it dries, it dwindles down to a slightly smoky lily. I didn't like it at first, but this is quite nice.

nteresting the difference a few days makes. I like all of these notes but just wasn't that impressed with the way they blended together. Then today I tried it, and I got a big blast of mint and lemongrass out of the bottle that I hadn't noticed before. It's very minty and green. The lavender leaps out at me when I put it on, turning it into this green, slightly bitter scent. It spends a little while as a very green, citrusy scent that smells a bit like minty cleaning fluid and finishes as something very green and lavenderish with a little floral. It wasn't quite what I expected. Not terrible, but not my favorite.

Warm amber musk, Satsuma tangerine, black tea leaf, cardamom, cherry blossom and cinnamon. This one is fantastic! In the imp I smell the amber and cardamom right away, maybe some of the tea and cherry blossom as well. It smells a bit like warm, floral chai tea. On, the cinnamon leaps out liek whoa. This is gorgeous, spicy and with an earthy note under it that I guess would be the tea. It doesn't last terribly long, but it dwindles down to a nice sweet cinnamon that I like. A half hour or so later, I don't know if it's that I have this so close to Roux-ga-Roux or if it's doing this on its own, but I suddenly get a pretty strong floral (yeah, think it's the weird throw from the Roux).

I'm not quite sure of what most of those notes smell like, but I definitely pick up the ginger and white tea in the bottle. There's something fruitier and sweeter than they usually are and sort of citrus or orange about it. It stays a nice, light, slightly citrus and/or fruity floral as it dries. After an hour or so the skin musk pops out, and I wasn't expecting to like it nearly as much as I do. "Skin musk" made me think of sweaty smell, but this is just the scent of warm skin, like the back of my hand has been out in the sun, soaking up the warmth.

How interesting! I definitely smell the pepper in the bottle. It's spicy and dry and kind of sour. When I first put it on, I even get a bit of a salty note. Once I let it sit for a while it turns floral, even though it still has a bit of a sour smell and a definite spicy bite to it. There's something about it that makes me think of an old book that's had flowers pressed in it, though this isn't a papery scent at all. It's like... fermenting flower wine, almost an alcoholic scent. It's very different from any other scents I've tried, and rather odd in its difference, but I like it a lot.

Oh, this is wonderful! I bought it mostly because I love their description, though I don't think they quite meant it to give me the mental image it does, of some wolf-woman in lying-around clothes nomming down a quart of ice cream and watching late-night TV. Because seriously, that right there defines "mindless hunger" for me. In the bottle, it has a deep, piny, backwoods scent. It almost smells like a room freshener. Wet it still smells swampy--not like stinkwater swampy, but swampy like a swamp, wet and woodsy with lots of flowers and green growing things. The woods fade as it dries, leaving this floral blend. I can't identify any individual notes because I don't know what any of those flowers smell like, but its a floral scent that seems very southern to me. It makes me think of old New Orleans or Atlanta, one of those big old southern cities full of gardens and big, pretty houses. It lasts a long time and has a slightly different scent from far away as it does up close--at a distance, I get those moist southern flowers, but up close there's sort of a musky and spicy undertone to it. The wood smell is still hanging around a little too. Perhaps the desperate hunger is what happens when this stuff runs out, because it's a discontinued scent from last March and my imp is already almost down to the label need moar!

I'd been holding off on this one, because I don't know exactly what to say about it. I had to try it twice, because it is <i>strong.</i> Yesterday about all I had to say for it was "Ack! Get it off get it off get it off!" because seriously, this is something you don't slather. Just a drop or so of it does fine. I'd forgotten what this scent was by the time I got it, and the description surprised me. I can't smell a thing in the description except maybe the frankincense. In fact, I get a lot of sweet, green floral and herbal smell from this. Wet it's sort of spicy flowers, but it dries down to a very masculine-cologney smell that's still pretty sweet. After a little while I'm starting to smell the leather and something that reminds me of BPAL's water note. It's nice, but I don't know if it's really for me.

How interesting! For some reason I was expecting Kubla Khan to smell like Plunder. I wouldn't complain, because that's one of my favorites. Opening the imp, my first thought is that it smells like cake. Not sugary, generic sheet cake like you buy at a grocery store bakery, but something rich and spicy spiked with booze. Not quite sure where the alcohol comes from, but I smell rum cake. It mostly smells like jasmine wet, but on drydown it gets a little more complex. the smokiness of it comes out more. It's really, really sweet, mostly seems to be florals and a little vanilla. There's a bit of an edge to it, though, maybe the tobacco. Not my favorite, but it's certainly nice.

My sister lives in Providence. When I go up to visit her in the summer or fall, we go out to Newport and visit this candy store on the harbor that has all sorts of bizarre imported things--violet and rose pastilles, sesame hard candies. Last time I was there, I found mint julep taffies. Then we had to leave because it was about to rain. That's what The Coil smells like. Mint Julep taffies before a summer storm. The first things that jumped out at me in the imp were crazy strong mint and a green, herbal smell. Actually, the smell was about the same as the color, that delicate sage/mint green. On I start to notice the ozone and the florals. It works out to this sweet mint, with the mint fading away first. It leaves this very green, crisp scent behind. I had to sniff my wrist a few times to decide what I think of it, but I like it so far.

There's this little town near me, Yellow Springs. Antioch College is/was there and the town clings fast to its quirky, artsy roots. Until pretty recently, you couldn't tell in most of the town that it wasn't still 1972. It was sort of this island of liberal politics and individuality in rural Ohio. I wanted to live there so badly when I was a hippie-wannabe in high school No. 93 Engine smells like Yellow Springs. Not like any specific place there, not even like it actually is now, but like how I remember it smelling when I would go there with my aunt and grandma when we went to visit and it was this strange, wonderful place where all the stores had cats and smelled like incense and spices. in the imp, I get mostly sage and sweetness, maybe a bit of citrus. . But on, it is exactly Yellow Springs when I was seven or eight. It's sweet and spicy, with a rich, slightly earthy tang that's probably the frankincense. It lasts, too--I put this on in the afternoon and I still have some honey smell clinging pretty strongly to my skin. Fantastic! Love love love.

Shipping (except for large international orders, which you need to email to ask about) is on the BPAL FAQ page: The shipping rates for the US are as follows: Orders totaling up to $150.00: $6.50 …up to $300.00: $11.00 …up to $500.00: $13.00 Shipping costs will be waived for all orders over $500.00. There are international shipping rates on there as well, but I'm assuming you're in the US because of your flag there. Ahhhh. There'd be the problem with not paying much attention to the pages that don't sound like they have nice smells on them--sometimes they have things I should read anyway. Thanks!

I just remembered I'd been wondering about something earlier. I put in a couple of orders that I paid for by sending money to the BPAL PayPal address back in mid-May. At the time PayPal didn't say anything to me about shipping costs, and in one of them I made a note that I wasn't sure what to do about shipping, let me know plz. No one ever emailed me saying "you still owe us money, genius," (or at least I didn't get it; Gmail just a few minutes ago so kindly let me know that customer service had emailed me a question about one order on the 19th) so it kind of slipped my mind. How do you calculate what you owe in shipping for BPAL orders?