Aveya

So - I hunted for this bottle because I did a big college report on Turn of the Screw I was super duper proud of, based on The Governess and Miles relationship and my theories on why she sees ghosts everywhere being based around her coping with her emotions for miles because of so many reasons. Anyways - It was solid. I did a good. And now I love Miles and The Governess so so so so so much.

So this bottle was going to be displayed and kept if it smelled like dirty socks or not.

THAT SAID

Bottle: Dusty violets.

Initial Skin: Oh, surprising vanilla violets.

Drydown: A super well blended vanilla floral musk. It feels pink-purple to me. Very strong, balanced scent. Feminine and herbal floral - but sweet and grounded. I actually love this one a lot.

Keeper for more than my weird thesis!

Peach and patchouli. Uh, yes please? Searched out a bottle from a fellow forumn-ite

Bottle: Tart/sour peach pit
Initial Skin: Patchouli blooms. Peach is strong. Exactly what I hoped for. A softer, more grown up Depraved. With Peaches.
Drydown: Really liking this one. This will easily be an everyday grab for me. It's everything I love in Depraved - that dirty thick gnarly patchouli, with that wet dollop of apricot. But in this case the peach instead of apricot makes it sweeter and more gentle. The addition of sandalwood & crew mellows out the super gnarled patchouli into something a bit more refined and gentle. It's basically a more wearable / less in your face version of Depraved. I'd wear Depraved every day all the time, except that I know it smells odd to some people so comes across poorly in the workplace sometimes. Peach VI fits the bill for what I love, but being sensible to people around me. It, to me, makes it more universal without sacrificing any BPAL beauty for my nose.

Verdict: Adult, professional, grown-up Depraved.

But still amazingly dirty under the bun & button-ups.

Keeper. This is amazing.

I'm a hunt for tasty peaches lately. I also like patchouli. Honey is hit or miss but I want it so bad to hit. So I was really excited to try this. Got my bottle from another bpalista.

In Bottle: Super tart & bitter. Worriesome and not the direction I hope.

Initial Skin:

Drydown: Uuuuuuuuuhmuhgawd this is amazing. The peach is juicy and prominent. It's being plumped up by the honey. The combo comes across as EXTRA ripe peaches, and as the Honey amps on my skin (as it does) it just feels like the peach is ripening. It smells like ... fresh peach-orange honey from a beekeepers farm. I can almost taste it.

Later Drydown: The Peach/Honey starts to mellow a bit and patchouli remains. Once the peach has ripened so much it falls off the tree and falls to the ground, nature takes it's course and reverts to a sweet earthiness.

It reminds me of a very specific memory from when I was little. Like 10 or so? My father brought me and my sisters to a big farm - flowers, bees, candles. Their big thing was they had their own hives. We got those little samples of honey with specific flavors based on the flowers the honey bees pollinated. This is like eating a peach-orange blossom vial while walking among the spring plants. Bright, sweet, earthy, happy, innocent.

This is joy in a bottle for me. Keeper keeper keeper.

Verdict; Peach-Orange Honey vial. Sweet, Ripe, rich.

Les Bijoux seems like a gracious, refined scent, so Eisheth is like her unruly tomboy younger sister, always out in the fresh air by the sea.

Yes. So much yes <3

Imp says September 2015 on it. Label is a bit wrecked so I know this lady has been aged.

In imp: Tart and musky
Initial Skin:
Drydown: Hm this is confusing me. First sniff was absolute love. Later sniff, something is a bit off? I think I can't do Pomegranate on my skin. It's becoming a death note for me sadly. But it's brief and passes, shew. It's mostly just smoky musk, I swear sandalwood is in this because of the smoothness. Must be the red musk or a red patch. It gets almost buttery on me and any fruity notes are drowned out. Smooths out into a red-patch red-musk heavy blend. Strong.

Verdict; Musky incensey, with the barest whispers of fruit, and a tonka-reminisce backdrop.

The apple note on this one is beautiful. However the "candy corn" gets a toffee-esq scent on me that's a no go. I smelled something similar in Sticky Pillowcase before as well.

There are plenty of other apple scents I like much more, so this one is a swapper for me. But it was straight forward. Beautiful tart juicy apple, and sticky-toffee + sugar sweet on top.

Imp: Wet, astringent, licorice

Initial Skin: Licooooorice. I mean, sure it's absinthe. But I'mma call it astringent fennel.

Drydown: Gets a touch sweeter and less astringent. There's an aquatic dampness to everything. Moss is blurring the edges a bit and making everything a better blended, more depth kind of scent. But on my skin the front runner is.. oh you guessed it? ANISE.

No obvious pear. Patchouli is not the black variety, so I can barely detect it. I think this might be a skin chemistry kind of thing. Fun to know I might amp absinthe?

Verdict; Green Fairy single note, accidentally dropped in some sea water. Genderless. Seasonless.

Imp: Almost wine-tang. Must be bourbon and flowers.

Initial Skin: Herbal and green. Surprising! Very much like The Vine or Passionate Shepard

Drydown: I don't.. this is so green! I was expecting October or Harvest Moons or Samhains. The Mums and marigolds are really predominant here. I didn't know what to expect as far as perfume versions of them go - but yep. This is, to my nose, a spring scent. Maybe this is what autumn smells like in California . We call that summer here in South Dakota.

Later drydown gets a bit dustier and less Fresh Green. But by that time, the rose starts do to it's thing and keeps things feeling floral and fresh.

Verdict; Green, Floral, Bright, Spring/Summer scent to me.

Lovely for the right people. Swapper for me!

Somehow I missed this scent release entirely, so when it popped up as an offer for a swap - the scent description sounded perfect. And I have been a HUGE fan of the Lilith scents, ever since Crawdad.

Note: Haven't tried TKO. So no comparisons for you here.

Bottle: Lavender. Beautiful, soft, sleepy lavender.

Initial Skin: It instantly gets... "soapy" But I say that with the most love possible. I use lavender as a bath oil - so it me it smells like bathtime. Plus something in this coconut is really clean and fresh. I swear I can smell fuzzy clean puppy hair in this. probably in my mind, but so lovely.

Drydown: Coconut starts to bloom beautifully. This is legit coconut to me - not plastic or fake or suntan-y. This feels like coconut cream. Backing up a still herbal natural lavender that's staying strong.

Verdict: This is absolutely stunning for me. It's a soft, gentle scent. and it's NOT soft in throw. It's actually fairly powerful on the scent-front; but it's such a calm scent that you could drown in this and love it. I'm going to be trying this in the diffuser in the house. It might also be nice to keep AT work, for those stressful moments I feel I might go homicidal. So relaxing and calming. Nom.

This one wasn't on my radar, but came up as a swap option. I adore carnation. I adore "sugared" things (Faith and Hope as examples). So figured heck why not! I had previously not saught after because I don't know what Phlox will smell like as a perfume. I assumed generic floral so ran away - I dun like floral.

But, let's try it!

Bottle: massive head tilt. Sweet almost floral. ethereal musk?

Initial Skin: Artisan Red Hot candy. Like, smells like those so much to me, but without being fake or too cinnamony. It's super gentle beautiful. Artisan organic. lol

Drydown: More of a floral tilt comes out. I own the single note of the Spanish red carnation. Perhaps this is not the same carnation note, so I'm taking a gamble- But if I assume this is the same note, and remove that carnation from this scent in my brain - what's left I'm assuming is Phlox. If so - Phlox appears to be a soft gentle floral. Almost buttery? My brain thinks it's a cream-colored floral.

Carnation is as spicy as ever on my skin. LOVE it. it's tempered down by a soft sweetness to everything - nowhere near candy levels or straight sugar notes. There's an overall soft delicacy to this scent that I'm really adoring. This is one of the few florals I'm going to keep around. My kind of strong powerful feminine.

Verdict; Summery carnation, spicy power, soft and gentle floral hints. Very Woman to me. If this is pink, it's in the burgundy family.

Edit to add: This baby has BEAUTIFUL drydown. 12 hours after applying and a really flippin' long workday it's the creamiest most beautiful vanilla-like faintly spicy shimmer left behind. Thing is beautiful the whole way through.

Imp: sweet wood

Initial skin: GOOY SWEET BEEERRRRIIIES of indiscernible origin.

Drydown: Daw, the goopy strawberry/blackberry amazingness i was excited about gets quickly replaced by watermelon. That is a powerful watermelon shew.

Another reviewer said it best. This is watermelon bubbilicious.

The wood comes out on further drydown and just sort of makes the whole thing extra odd to me. Spiffy scent, but super weird and confusing for me.

Nailed the mark. lol

I actually don't know when/where I got this imp (lol). But these notes are scaring me. Pumpkin if not spiced right just goes wonk on me, Chocolate turns to chalk, pomegranate amps to bitterness, and cream is 50/50 chance to be beautiful, or to be sour milk.

So. Lets do this.

Imp: Dark chocolate pomegranate bar, from the organic section.

Initial skin: Sort of uneventful. Not really.. anything. My skin is thirsty I guess.

Drydown: Cherry/Cranberry white chocolate. Dry, chalky... stale? Caramel pops out but not in a wet thick way - very much so stale and old.

Dunno. Maybe it's aged poorly. Maybe it was always that way. But just not anything to write home about. Sometimes it wafts and reminds me of some of the Sugared She-Goat chocolates with white chocolate. But only for a few moments, then its like the caramel gets in the way. The pumpkin is just making a mess of everything as well.

Proooobably should have trusted my instincts on this one. Not one for my skin.

Got this one as a tester in a swap. I'm not a floral person, but I like rose and vanilla musk sounds awesome. So let's do this.

Imp: SHEW FLORAL

Initial Skin : :| Yep so that's floral. All kinds of floral. Powerful floral. I'm realizing "tea rose" is a white scent that amps all over the powderyfloral place and I just can't handle it.

Drydown: I think I can sense the vanilla musk in there. These florals are high notes and powerful. The vanilla musk is acting like a base note gluing them together and making things cohesive and just slightly smooth and sweet.

But SHEW FLORAL.

Hm. I thought this scent would be more interesting.

Just a mash of spices in the already spiced pumpkin scent from the 2012 year. Faintest hint of mimosa? That and the spiced pumpkin are the only light/high notes. Everything else feels base and heavy. Making this a real heavy autumnal scent. There are these tendrils of lightness that waft through ~ like, mimosa and tea tree oil almost. Not very strong.

Verdit; Masculine deep smooth heavy.

Imp: yuuuuuum this reminds me of my favorite Friday the 13th scent (Feb '09). rich spicy almost foodie.

Initial Skin: mmm keeps it up. Please continue pumpkin III, so I can hunt you down instead of Feb '09, because you might be easier to get.

Drydown: I really love this scent. Everything is playing well together. It's spicy, warm, smooth yet peppery, sultry but foodie. I just love it.

Verdict; 13 Feb 2009's cousin. Yum yum.

Imp: Coffee Patch (omg why isn't that a flippin' thing)

Initial on skin: Eh. Dumbed down pumpkin latte, basically.

Drydown: Woodier elements peak out through the pumpkin. Spicy, rich, deep. Not bad.

Verdict; Strong spicy pumpkin scent - I just prefer some of the others. Nothing crazy notable about this one to me. But it's solid. Slightly masculine.

Imp: wet (as in, being ruined it's so wet) leather

Initial on skin: Yup BPAL spiced pumpkin

Drydown:

I don't even. Maybe age is hard on hay. This smells like "BPAL's Spiced Pumpkin Scented Crayon".

The leather is strong on me, and clashes awful with the pumpkin. Crayons everywhere. Blech. Life was not good to you, little imp.

Imp: leather tobacco. Super masculine.

Initial skin: Smoky herbal.

Drydown: very masculine. Dee + Carnival smoky leather scents. It's got a tart green-ness to it that makes it really unique and fuzzy.

Verdict; masculine fuzzy warm dark scent, rubbed with herbs.

Creepy thing - it again smells exactly like the spider looks. So Creepy.

Imp: Super herbal and green

Initial skin: Remarkably floral at first, but quickly fades off.

Drydown: Super smooth base that reminds me of vanilla, but not vanilla scent. Like a coconut milk floral drink. On top of it is sparkles of lime and gentle ginger. It blends really well together. It's a bit faint, I wish it had more uumph because I would really love this.

Initial morpher, I had to wait at first. But it blends into a smooth, gentle, key-lime coconut slush. Really relaxing to sniff. I looked at the picture on scentbase - and this scent is EXACTLY THAT SPIDER! It's fragile, unimposing, but yet somehow flawlessly and eerily beautiful.

hmmm going to keep this imp and try again. I think it will be a fader, but something about this scent really draws me in. We'll see how it does as a room scent too.

Wet in imp: Dirty dirty pine

Skin initial: Patch pine.

Skin drydown: This is tricky. I LOVELOVELOVELOVE black patchouli. I can smell it clearly in this and want to love it. But then there's pine. and they weirdly go together very seamlessly. But it's... wrong. But it's right. It's vaguely sweet, herbal. But it's just MOSTLY patchouli and pine making love on my arm.

It's beautiful but it's wrong.

Imp: Oh my. This is orange cookies of amazingness

Initial Skin: I'm going to eat my flipping arm what is happening. This is heaven. Orange sticky glaze on pumpkin ginger cookies kind of heaven.

Drydown: YUP stays amazing. All the other reviews are spot on too. This is heaven.

My imp was from the original decant in 2012 I never got to testing. REGRETS. SO MUCH REGERTS.

Imp: Diluted BPAL pumpkin

Initial Skin: What the. This smells exactly like stovetop stuffing.

Drydown on skin: It's still bordering on stovetop stuffing for me. Which i really weirdly kind of like. I'm pretty hungry right now too... It's basically pumpkin on me, with a level of cinnamony spice on top of it. But predominantly foody with almost herbal tangs to it.

Verdict; Stovetop stuffing. I'm sorry.

Imp: Classic BPAL pumpkin foodie.

Initial Skin: Ballooned around the room into a pumpkin latte frenzy. Literally exactly like pumpkin latte

Skin drydown: F me this is better than pumpkin latte. It's got a dark thickness to it that pumpkin latte lacks. Smoky maple smells amaaazing. At first I got no licorice at all, but then it started to slowly and gently bloom. It is proper BLACK licorice. Rich and dark and appropriately Halloween.

Verdict; This is Pumpkin latte's brooding older brother, snacking on halloween candy.

I like this a lot. I'd consider this a TRUE unisex scent. It's got sweet from the candyfloss/licorice, but yet smoky-spice from the pumpkin & maple. Nommy. Wish I had tried it in 2012 so I could have grabbed a bottle.

2012 Version (I noticed there's no tag on this thread for that... so that's weird.)

Apple apple apple.

That's it, that's all I got. Apple. Juicy juicy apple, with splashes of Pomegranate.

In the imp this smelled FUNKY as funkily possible. But on skin it was just juicy red apple and pom musk. I'll probably trade it off because I like a little more depth, and Pom. is not a great note on me :s

In the imp this was all green musky.

Skin initial - HONEY. Bloomed beautifully. Reminded me of Crib Girls with the intensity at first.

Settled on skin ... this is Crib Girls Light. Actually this smells a lot like Diabolical Offspring did on me (from years ago). It had a "Baby sweetness"; this is basically this scent entirely.

Like really well taken care of baby butt. Kind of lovely but uh, you know.

On a never-ending quest for Peaches and Blueberries. But ... I don't know how I feel about strawberries yet.

Thankfully I don't need to know yet, because while the initial add was all strawberry Jam, it quickly faded on me. What it leaves behind is a soft, warm, musky vanilla concoction with the faintest peach stirred in. It's almost like my blend is entirely different from some of the other reviews.

Oh this gets so beautiful as it wears and melds. Gentle, sultry, musky, sweet. Sweetness is all fruit (no added sugar ) and I don't care to dissect peach from strawberry. The musky base is probably benzoin + sandalwood - I don't even care. It's just the warmest, softest, best thing ever.

makes me want to sunbathe in the grass while eating a bowl of fresh picked fruit. Flipping amazing scent. These peach scents I swear. I love you so much.

EDIT TO ADD: My bottle was thick with ribbons of something in the oil. Within ten minutes of setting my bottle down after rolling and mixing, it's separated again. Worth checking to make sure it's well mixed for applying.