kajacana

Hi everyone! I've tried a lot of scents in the GC to figure out what I like and now I'm looking to be more adventurous and to branch out into some more complex and multi-faceted scents. I'd like to try out some LEs, some CDs, and some of the un-impables from the GC - but with so many options it is pretty overwhelming!

 

For my birthday I ordered my first two 'blind bottles' (The Waltz from CP and the LE Taurus blend) and I'm excited to try those out.

 

My top 5 (in no particular order) as of today are:

 

Catherine (in the rose category Persephone is a very close second)

Tavern of Hell

51

Absinthe

Pele

 

I don't have a lot of time to hunt down discontinued items, so I'm mostly interested in still available or relatively recent releases, although if there is something you really think I should make an effort to find on the forums or from eBay, I will do my best!

Thanks in advance!

Absinthe Bonbon was a Luper a few years ago; it's Absinthe + white chocolate, sweeter and smoother than the original but with the same personality. I'm a big Absinthe fan and I loved it.

If you like 51, I agree that Rendezvous at the Bath from this year's Lupercalia is a great choice. Or Dirty, a slightly floral, clean-smelling GC.

Simple and beautiful.
I'm not getting any mint, but there's definitely a coolness about this blend that could be attributed to mint. It's mostly green tea on me, but I can detect the watery cucumber, too. It's fresh, a little juicy, clean, and light green.

I agree with the comparisons to Elizabeth Arden Green Tea (one of my favorites back in high school), but Rendezvous is much softer. It's a lovely, close-to-the-skin scent, without the alcohol-based harshness of EA Green Tea.

I would LOVE Rendezvous as an atmosphere spray. Like so many others have said, it smells very spa-like and I think it would make a relaxing room scent, although I will definitely enjoy wearing the oil as well.

Did you have specific scents in mind that you want to search? If so, googling "BPAL [scent name]" will give you the forum review page within the first few results (it'll be the one with BPAL Madness in the title), and scents typically have reviews going all the way back to their release, just click back through the thread pages. If an LE scent has been released multiple years, unless it has been reformulated, you'll generally find all the years in the same thread, more or less chronologically.

If you're just looking for lists of which scents came out which years.... I think some diligent forumites have made lists like that, I'm just unsure where to find them.

I was so excited to get this one as a frimp, I've been curious about it for a long time but it's not something I'd ever buy for myself.

In the imp it smells like dryer sheets (not a bad thing, I actually love that smell!). On my skin it turns into a clean, white floral... and yep, I'm catching the similarity to Bath & Body Works Plumeria, although whereas I always found B&BW Plumeria to be aggressive and cloying, Dirty is much better behaved. It's like a classier version of Plumeria, if you will!

As it wears on, I start to get a little bit of the linen. "Clean" and "breezy" are the perfect words for it, so the Lab description is spot on. It's like white sheets moving in the breeze on a clothesline over a garden of white flowers. Not really my thing, but if you like light, clean floral scents, you should definitely try Dirty.

Obatala is an amazing coconut scent. You might try layering it with something fruity/floral to add a more tropical dimension... maybe Titania?

Son of BiggerCritter is awesome and beachy, but fades very fast on me. Your mileage may vary. (Also can be hard to find since not many bottles were made -- I think only 100?)

Elegba is coconut/tobacco/rum, which, depending on your chosen beach activities, might be accurate

In the bottle: Straight-up marshmallows.

On skin: Marshmallow vanilla cream. Like fluff, only perfume! It's definitely sugary, but as it wears it's almost like there's a light musk in there that's keeping it from just smelling like food.

(If you've got these to compare.... to me, Stekkjarstaur is on the spectrum between Boo and Edith Cushing, both of which I also love. It's not as in-your-face buttery/cakey as Boo, but not as musky/perfumey as Edith. It's somewhere in the middle.)

This is a really awesome vanilla scent and if you have any desire whatsoever to smell like vanilla or marshmallows, please do yourself a favor and try this.

How have I not tried this before?! It's mostly peach, with a breath of light florals, grounded (but not overwhelmed or darkened) by the oakmoss. I'm not typically a floral perfume person, yet I love this, if that tells you anything. It's more fruity than floral, but the flowers help keep it smelling like perfume and not candy. It's sweet, light, and gorgeous. This would be a perfect scent for summer and even though I just tested it for the first time ten minutes ago, I already think I need a bottle.

You can actually smell the garland. It's tart cranberries on an evergreen garland that isn't fresh anymore, it's been sitting out and has dried up and only the softest hint of pine scent remains. I honestly think it's more garland than cranberry on me at first. But it sweetens up as it wears, and takes on more of a juicy, red quality, with something sliiiiightly soapy in the background. Really happy to try this and will keep the decant, since it's not often a cranberry scent comes up!

This is all berries on me. I'm not getting any yogurt or oats at all. It reminds me of a "wildberry" or "mixed berry" scent; no specific fruit stands out among the rest. On my skin, it's right on the line between a nice, sweet, candy-like berry, versus a super-artificial berry that you might find in a car air freshener. When my nose picks up the sweet candy side of things, it's very reminiscent of Bath & Body Works old Sun-Ripened Raspberry scent, but I'm still getting hints of... slight soapiness? Car freshener chemicals? It's weird. I'd love it if it stayed in the sweet, Sun-Ripened Raspberry range, but there's something about it that I'm just not digging. Really glad I got to try it, though, and will hold on to the decant -- maybe this will work better in a scent locket.

So uhhh not long after I posted that, I was in a pretty awful car accident. I'm in the hospital for at least a few days and it looks like I will be spending quite a bit of time recovering. Sooo... more time/need for crafty swaps, I guess? But it'll probably be awhile before I'm put together enough to eun something.

Wishing you a fast & complete recovery!! I was in a really bad car accident myself a little over a year ago, it was a terrible experience and I know all too well how scary it is. Sending you a big hug.

Interesting idea! I compared the notes of all the bottles that I own (23).

 

Vanilla - 10

Patchouli - 6

Spices - 5

Sugar - 4

Coconut - 4

Amber - 4

Ginger - 4

Wood/trees - 4

Honey - 4

Lemon/lime - 4

Cream - 3

Hey, we are really similar!!!

Ginger and honey didn't show up in my list, but I love those too (though pure honey tends to go baby powder on me, and I do better with things like honeycomb or honey mead).

I love this idea!
I'm not organized (or patient!) enough to figure out the stats for my whole collection, but I thought of 15 favorites off the top of my head and tallied up the notes in those. I wasn't very precise... I know there are differences in types of amber, types of musk, types of milk, etc., but for the sake of this experiment I just lumped them all together.

In order of frequency, out of 15 oils, here are the notes that appear more than once:

Amber: 6
Cream/Milk: 6
Musk: 6

Vanilla: 5

Sugar: 3
Patchouli: 3
Coconut: 3

Oudh: 2
Tea: 2
Water: 2
Wood/Bark: 2
Rum: 2


Very interesting!

My list leans craaaaazy gourmand, which is not at all a surprise.
I'm kind of shocked that patchouli shows up three times (Sumatran red in So Below, aged in Mary Read, white in Edith Cushing -- so all over the map there).

Sugary dark chocolate with marshmallow. I'm also getting the faintest hint of coffee. It's foody, but somehow... elevated? Like, this isn't a bag of mass-produced cookies that you buy for $3 and eat straight from the bag in the car and wipe the crumbs on your jeans. This is a perfect pie that took hours to make and is the elegant centerpiece of the holiday dessert table.

Basically it smells really good and if you're a fan of chocolate scents, you need this.

2015 version, first year I've tried.

A little green, a little sweet. Definitely getting the olive oil (as it dries, it smells like The Body Shop's olive scent). After it dries, it's like a beeswax candle glowing over a table set with fruit and pastries. Really well blended, and hard to distinguish individual notes. Pretty!

What a beautiful scent!

In the bottle: rich, foody, sweet.

Initial application: The vanilla immediately leans more perfumey than foody on me (looks like I'm in the minority there), and I'm definitely getting the oudh, which I love. It's almost reminiscent of So Below, only it's lighter and softer. It's like So Below's younger cousin!

Drydown: Ah, now I see the comparisons to Morocco -- only Edith is sweeter and more vanilla-y (and it's still that perfumey vanilla musk for me; it doesn't smell like a cookie or anything).

I really like this

I sprayed some into my hands and then ran it through my hair. Initially it was all spices, but as it dried it became all about the peach. Delicious, juicy, candy-like peaches, with just a bit of pie to keep it from going full-on lollipop. Sweet, foody, wonderfully peachy, and really really good!

I get the Pez candy quality that others have mentioned, but ONLY when sniffing directly from the bottle. Once this oil is on my skin, it's pure orange marmalade on a buttered biscuit. It's fruity without being Jolly Rancher fruity; bready without being a straight-up loaf of bread. It's foody, light, close to the skin, a big waft of baked goods with a generous hint of something orange. I like it

 

 

 

 

Aw dang that sounds SO much fun! I'm so bummed I missed it this year. I'll keep an eye out for next year, thanks so much for your help!

 

You're welcome!

Keep an eye on the Circular Swaps section anyway, because even if Switch Witch isn't going on, there are always new ones starting up. Right now all the Christmas/holiday ones are about halfway over, but after the new year I wouldn't be surprised to see some new ones opening.

Hi! Seeing as it's in my signature, I can explain

There's a Circular Swaps subforum here, where people run all kinds of swaps involving many participants. Switch Witch is just one of those. Lately it's been happening once a year around Halloween, but in the past it's been more frequent as well. It's basically a giant game of Secret Santa, where you get assigned to send gifts to someone (your Witchee) and someone else (your Witch) gets assigned to send gifts to you, and you spend about a month thinking up notes and packages and e-cards and presents for your Witchee, while your Witch does the same for you. Lots of people tend to participate and everyone gets really into it, so it's really fun! You basically spend time trying to secretly learn about someone else, surprising them with presents, and trying to brighten their days with nice notes and things like that.

I've participated twice and heartily recommend it!

Edited to add: the link in most people's signatures goes to a list of their answers to questions for a given round. The more questions you publicly answer, the easier it is for your Witch to find out more about you without asking directly!

^For what it's worth, I was bummed that I missed the virtual tourist swap last time and would totally sign up if someone ran it again!

Maybe try Hellcat? It's one of my favorites, a GC from the Diabolus section: hazelnut, buttercream, honey mead, rum and sweet almond. It's sweet, strong, and foody.

If you end up liking Snake Oil and feel like tracking down some limited editions, try...

Womb Furie (a Lupercalia scent; those are usually released around February and this one has come back a few times) - Snake Oil and three types of honey

Boomslang (from the Snake Pit section of the old Carnaval Diabolique, which might be returning in the not-too-distant future) -Snake Oil with cocoa, teakwood, and rice milk.

Total almond/cherry in the bottle.
Marzipan while wet on skin, and as it dries it turns into... cola? It's like those little gummy Coke-bottle candies, or a Dr. Pepper LipSmackers! Weird!
As drydown continues, the LipSmackers and Coke gummies disappear and the leather emerges. It's definitely a soft, worn, brown leather. The sweetness of the vanilla and amber comes out soon after that, and mellows out the leather even more. After drying on my arm for several minutes, it's mostly suede and amber, with a hint of vanilla. It stays close to the skin.
I really love this scent, and I'm so glad because I also love the story behind it!
(Hint: I tested the 13 from Nov. 2015 on my other arm, and these two smell REALLY good together.)

Hi!

I second the above link. You can also head to the Reviews subforum --> Limited Editions (scroll down) and find threads for each of the current CT series.

I ordered Oriental and Gourmand this round. My Gourmand is spot on what I expected (toasted nuts & chocolate), while the Oriental reads more in the floral category to me.

Take the chance; it's fun

This starts out on the skin as bright, fizzy, sweet ginger ale, which I really like. I used to have the ginger ale perfume from Demeter, and when freshly applied, this smells almost exactly like that.

As it dries down, though, the smoke and gear lubricant emerge, which turns the blend much darker. The delicious soda aspect all but disappears, and I start to smell a weird spicy candle burning in a mechanic shop. Not too pleasant.

I wish this one stayed in the ginger ale phase, because once it dries it's really not for me. But I will say, it's unique and intriguing, and it would work perfectly for someone who likes a slightly foody/slightly metallic combo in their perfume.

In the bottle: Nuts, and maybe the tiniest hint of chocolate.

On skin: Smells a lot like Wezwanie/Hold to me, which includes hazelnut, so maybe it's hazelnut? It smells toasty! There's something in there that's rounding out the blend really nicely, which I'm guessing is chocolate, because I think I'm getting a very faint whiff of cocoa. It's not sweet, though. I'm picturing dry roasted hazelnuts lightly dusted with cocoa powder.

I like it a lot!!