bellumed

This is my second BPAL sleep blend, after Nanshe. Full disclosure, I don't have any significant problem with insomnia.

The smell is wet, soapy, and herbal. With maybe some kind of sharpish citrus? The jasmine comes out on my skin, whoa, very jasmine. Well, I certainly won’t wear this as a perfume, but it works quite well as a sleep blend.

I did have very deep, restful sleep, but oh god did I NOT want to get up in the morning! This is best used on nights when you can stay in bed as long as you like.

A Snake Oil cookie, almost like a ginger snap—something hard and flat and spicy. It's dry smelling, no buttery note at all to me. S'alright, but I'm guessing it'll be much better when it ages for a year or two.

A buttery, subtle pumpkin blend. A little foodie, doesn't hit you over the head. Super light, though, I’m having a hard time smelling this on myself.

All in all, for me this is nice, but nothing special.

Certain foodies, for some reason, have this Essence of Cream Cheese Frosting about them. Usually other people don’t mention it, but I see several mentions of it in this thread. It's not really a good sign for me.

In the bottle: orange cream frosting.

On me: orange cream and tea. Strikes me as being a kind of childish comfort scent, like a perfume hug.

...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND drydown is plastic. Sorry Yule Cookie, I was suspicious of you, and you are not a winner.

Gingerbread plus Snake Oil? Should be the best thing ever, no? But this is sharp sharp sharp SHARP. GS softens up a lot on my skin, but still reads more like ginger (with maybe a LITTLE sugar) than gingerbread to me. It’s okay, but not a favorite. Seems like this works for a lot of people, but different strokes and all that.

2013 version:

Not too much to say about this, just a lovely and well-blended perfume with all the listed notes present. Hot chocolate fans unite!

Really light and nice. Grass and a little citrus and sour leather. I can’t detect any dragon’s blood in this. This SHOULD be very boyish to me (grass usually does that) but the lemon candy keeps it from going there.

DAAAAMMMNNN way more manly on my skin. The leather and mud just BOOM out. Much more of that sourness, with a little grass at the back now.

Dry, it's closer to the bottle smell, a sort of sour, citrusy grass. Weird as hell, but I keep huffing it. I like this one!

Original 2006 version:

Basically, if you like resin, you'll like this. Myrrh and patchouli and just a touch of amber, mmph. Yes. I can understand comparisons to cola or nuts, but it certainly doesn't bother me. This is... just good.

100% dead-on-the-money candy cane. Unfortunately on my skin this comes out as a sort of mouthwashy mint. Not at all wearable for me, though I'd be curious to try later iterations of Lick It.

Side-by-side review of Snow White 2005 and 2012:

This is interesting. After a few seconds to identify, 2005 smells a bit boozy. Like some sort of light fruity alcohol. 2012 is sharper, more straight-forwardly snowy.

AHHHHHH, this is so effing weird! Wet, '05 smells a bit like salted meat. Not a big MEAT smell, but yeah, light and salty. I think this is the florals, somehow? Or that coconut thing people mention? '12 is also salty, but not as odd, goes more directly to the florals.

Dry: Getting more of the “flurries of snow” with some understated florals from 2005. 2012 is a little sharper/stinkier/Play-Dohier; just not as nice. Though of course it’s hard to say whether this is a variation issue or an aging issue.

2005 has settled down to such a soft, pretty scent, with the coconut more present now. I wouldn't say 2012 is exactly BAD, but side-by-side there’s no denying it’s just not the same! Definitely swapping my SW 2012 and keeping the 2005 version.

A nice spicy tea scent in the imp. On me the pumpkin comes out more, so it’s a pumpkin-spice blend. Really, this is just a perfect understated pumpkin pie scent, and I will take 3000000 bottles please.

Ahh, sweet and fruity and just a little creamy. Nice. Wet, the caramel is more obvious, with coconut and florals right behind it. Uh oh, I’m not crazy about that frangipani…

UGH YUCKY FLORALS WITH COCONUT IN THE BACKGROUND, WHY. Eventually Pet Magah Bird gets back some of that creaminess and a little of the blood orange, I think. Of all things, the creamy note reminds me a bit of Morocco. Still, this is a pass for me.

Lots of musk-wood-spice, and I can maybe barely detect peach blossom at then end. Masculine to unisex.

Ahh, okay, much friendlier on my skin. Lots more peach blossom! That’s what I like to smell. Peach blossom and hemp, interesting! I recommend this to anyone trying to find more hemp blends; I smell like a red-musky fruity hippie! I was totally prepared to put this one in the swap box, but it's surprisingly awesome.

Booze and some spicy carb-y desert. Fruitiness comes out more on my skin. This does smell very Christmassy! Pretty short wear-length on this, though. Not really my style but not bad, especially if you like rum.

Unstern! Sinistre, Disastro

 

OOHN-shtairn! (Unlucky!)

(I'm going to guess the Spanish is pronounced "SEEN-istruh, DEE-zahs'troh")

I'm pretty sure that "sinistre" is French and "disastro" is Italian. In Spanish it would be "Siniestro, Desastre."

Thank you for helping with all that German! That's extremely useful.

First impression: a big disappointing blast of baby powder. But it grows on me as I continue to smell it. It’s a gentle honey-sweet powdery one for sure.

On me I get the honey skin musk, with the lavender coming out soon after. This isn't’t quite what I’d hoped for, but it’s just nice. Okay, the longer it’s on me the better I feel about it, because now I’m getting the Dorian. This is a lovely, subtle cuddling/sleep blend. Pretty pretty pretty. This helps the fact that my favorite sleep blend, Lilith Victoria, is hard to find and expensive when you do get it. Eminently comforting.

Very typical with these notes and my skin: fluffy lavender, nice but nothing to write home about florals, sharp evil sandalwood. Not a must-have for me.

All Saints' Day: Pomona '12 during the day, Kuang Shi (nice zombie-inspired scent) for early evening, then yummy-sexy Pumpkin V '09 out to Rocky Horror!

Today for All Souls' Day, I'm testing out Veil (as in Beyond the...)

Third Charm for tonight!

Halloween scents, everyone? I'm putting on Sugar Skull '12 this morning, but I think I'll cycle through a few before the weekend is over.

Classic, sharp floral, borderline chemical. There's some springy grasses in there, too. Not so bad on my skin, but it’s kind of a boring floral. Big "meh" on this.

I hate cherry, and I’m not wild about honey, so I didn’t have high hopes for this one. It’s actually not that bad. Smells as much floral as anything else, with a hint of cherry cough medicine. But yeah, unsurprisingly, not at all for me.

My first impression was honey with something vaguely fruity, which I now suppose is blackberry, having read the other reviews. A bit sharp, but it softens up and goes a little powdery on my skin, like honey often does. This one is pretty subtle. Nice enough but I’m not all that attached to it. O remains my go-to honey scent.

A little plant-y when wet, but otherwise my overall impression of this is just salty chocolate. This is a "like" rather than a "love" for me, but yeah, not bad!

Candyish dragon’s blood, slightly sharp. A little softer on skin. On the drydown, oh man, this reminds me so much of O. That makes sense, I think that one is amber, honey, and vanilla, so very similar notes. I will have to deathmatch these two.