medvssa

Thanks, I'll pass the compliments on to him

I was not at all tempted to test any astrological blend based on concept... but I am so very glad I was by the notes in leo... this is excellent! I simply love it

The amber is the most gorgeous I have ever smelled (granted, only recently have I discovered that I love it and that it works great on me), I adore the nuttiness of it (it made me think of almonds at first, real almonds, since the almond note goes a little weird on me), and the light spiciness, and the background of golden incense, and something a little bit green that seems to stop it from going to sweet. The final balance is perfect for me. This is what I expected Jacob's Ladder to be! 24k gold in perfume form.

Whew, we've finally almost finished the database, after a break of, hm, months It was finished enough to upload it, at least.

http://www.innershelter.net/bpal-database

There are still a few details to fix, like the section list showing in all pages but linking only to the owned page, and some other stuff. Oh and I think it still looks weird in IE (all damn IE). It is completely dynamic (absolute overkill!) and the code is a complete nightmare for me to look at, haha! My geek boyfriend coded it. I figured, since you are not a handy person at all and cannot make a perfume cabinet for me, you are gonna have to do something else I did the graphics, html templates and the css. Since inserting all of the data directly in the database is insane and gave me headaches, he also made a set of backsites with drop-down menus and text fields from where I can enter all of the data, except a new section. Screenshot of that, it is password protected so you cannot see it online. I also have my "reviews", more appropiately called notes, there in the backsite. I don't really want to make those public, they are terribly messy.

Now it is mostly up to date. Entering everything was some work, too.

This has to be one of the most amazing things I have ever smelled

I had such high hopes for Crowley... well, it certainly didn't dissapoint, it is more than I could have ever wished for!

Well, it is unmistakably masculine. I would not mind to wear it, but it is not that it is good for me... damn, since I cannot drag around a man drenched in this stuff all the time, I want to wear it myself, all the time!

It is... just...

What can I add that hasn't been said yet... there are several amazing masculine BPAL blends, but this has the best of them all blended togheter and multiplied by 100. Or 1000.

Which makes me think... where the hell is my boyfriend!?

I cannot believe nobody suggested Yggdrasil!

Berenice if you can find any!

On the bottle it smells earthy indeed! gritty, a little bit woody, very brown, and a little bit spicy. It reminds me a bit of Alone, but it is not so desolate.

On, wet, it is very similar to Samhainophobia, the same kind of greenish vetiver. And wet, decomposing leaves. It might have a bit of patchouli too, and perhaps moss. As it dries down the little sharpeness goes away, and it becomes a very deep, low note scent.

This is SOIL in a bottle! moist, deciduous forest soil, with all the rotting leaves. I love that smell, and this is the scent that aproximates it the most from all those I have tried. Awesome, and it is spot on for the concept!

I will second, third, whatever, House of Night and Ephemera, these are very melancholic. I would add Nocturne. In general, lilac, wisteria and violet.

For actual sadness, I would say Berenice, although it is a very cold, contained and interiorized sadness. I guess Melpomene is very sad, but due to memories it brings it is not the case for me.

And Wings of Azrael, which is one of my favorites, has for me more a feeling of abandon than sadness.

And I would give the Dark Elements collection a try, as well as Destroying Angel, Slobbering Pine, Kumari Kandam and The Demon Islands (although I haven't tried any of those).

Slobbering Pine is definitely not dark... I expected it to be, and it was a dissapointment it is objectively very nice, though, if you like pine of course

Oh, my favorites are dark! hehe

So here is my list (* are LEs):

Omen

Black Forest

Lenore*

Sin

The Masque*

Hades

Samhainophobia*

Sloth

Brimstone

Alone*

The Pit and the Pendulum*

Wolfsbane

Cathedral

Gomorrha (not all that dark, but relatively very dark considering it is fruity!)

Black Annis (this one was creepy even for me, my favorites being dark)

Count Dracula*

The Isle of the Dead

Loviatar

Umbra

Iago

Satyr is more wild than dark, in my opinion.

In general, I agree that vetiver can make a scent dark, but not always. Patchouli, moss and dark musks, and even leather, can do that, too. Fro me, it is more a combination of the notes that gives a dark feeling to the blend, not one of the notes making the blend darken, if I am making any sense

Jolly Roger and Annabel Lee! Jolly Roger is definitely good for a man

Maybe knowing what kind of flowers where those might help? Where they many little white flowers? maybe in the family of the rose:

pear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pear_tree_flowers.jpg

cherry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cherry.jpg

plum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Plum_blossoms.jpg

apple http://biology.clc.uc.edu/graphics/taxonom...e%20Blossom.jpg

These are all very similar... and BPAL has scents with them all, I think. I don't know if they are aquatics, though.

Oh, and I have to suggest Annabel Lee, if you can find it

In the vial it smells gritty. I would think vetiver, but it is more grey than brown. On, uf! it smells of ashes! It amazes me how to capture this smell in perfume. It is not nice, however. Acrid, very pungent to my nose. Smoke.

But as it dries down, the acridness and pungentness seem to dissapear. It softens a lot. And now it reminds me of something... Cathedral? Penitence perhaps? one of the gritty incense blends. Hm, this must be the smoke note, that I don't quite like. I expected to love the incense blends, so there this scent was a dissapointment, I was very afraid of Brimstone, so here it is almost a relief, hehe. But it is still not something I would wear. It is too... sterile.

Dried down, I kind of get the pine and incense and wood people mention. This one is a morpher It is perhaps frankincense? It is a lot nicer. And it has a sweetness of pine. I am gonna keep the imp, it is certainly very interesting!

Watery indeed. Watery florals. It is kind of melancholic. Blue. It goes a little soapy as it dries down, though. It is pretty and evocative, but, I just don't think aquatics are very me, although I love water and rivers *shrug*

As it dries down, the flowers seem to be more apparent. This one is overcast, dark blue, and a bit sluggish. A big river alright!

In the vial it smells very, very sweet. Vanilla and a bit of bubblegum (=dragon's blood) On it is a lot warmer. And weirdly, it reminds me of neroli o_O Very strange, but it really does. It is a lot nicer than I imagined it. I guess it is the honey that makes me like it, since it is the note I like the most from those listed. It is pretty soft and not cloying. I can smell the vanilla, vanilla bean, but it is soft and nice. And I still perceive something that makes me think of orange flower! weirdd.

Not a scent I would reach for, I think, but who knows. I quite like it. I think that fae nectar is a good description.

Dried down, I think it is too much of a sweet vanilla for my tastes :S

But I can see why it is one of the favorites!

In the vial it smells of sweet myrrh (a bit bitter, the one in Wings of Azrael?) and gritty vetiver. On, wet, it is an earthy myrrh. Dark brown, humid, upturned and sweet earth. This is the earth note that I like the most from all those I have tried so far. On me, it is the most true to how the soil smells when it has rained, which is a scent I love. The throw is just myrrh, though. A bit darkened myrrh, but I do not especifically perceive the vetiver.

As it dries down, the earth note becomes more dry (duh ) on to the vetiver note as I know it from the lab. I like it a little bit less. I don't know why, I think it would make a nice room scent. Overall, very nice.

On "drier" dry down it becomes very, very dark, wow!

Overly sweet, cloying, and a bit play-doh in the vial. On, it is not as bad as that. There is also... saffron? something in Scherezade. *looks up notes* no notes are in both blends, hm. It definitely has that middle eastern air to it. It is very well blended and difficult to pick out individual notes, but I think that the result might be a little too sweet for me... I normally can do honey, but in this case it goes a bit weird.

On drydown the rose is apparent, but, still, too sweet for me *shrug*

Wet it is kind of sharp bizarre. This calms down fast, and there is a sweet white floral, in fact it reminds me of a creamy white floral in Medea, but not as intense, that must be the cereus. Then there comes a kind of sharp jasmine, a bit green, but it doesn't get out of hand, and as it dries down, it almost dissapears. I perceive a light musk in the background. Where are the spices?

The impression I get is certainly nocturnal, faintly lit, pale, a bit blue, serene. As it dries down it becomes more creamy and very soft, maybe the spices are doing this but I cannot detect them. Oh and iris. The iris becomes more and more dominant. It is very beautiful. It reminds me of Brides of Dracula, but it is nicer, no sharp perfumey scent I got from that one, it is not powdery at all but creamy. So far, I think this one is one of the nicer, if not nicest, white floral I have tried. Certainly not so much me, but very very beautiful nonetheless.

In the imp it smells kinda menacing. The musks mostly, and there a little bit of sweetness, but certainly, the dragon's blood is very tamed in this blend!

On, wet, it reminds me a bit of Satyr, this must be the black musk, but it doesn't smell all that wild and animal, no goat or cat pee It is nice in fact. Certainly very warm, furry even, and strong, not in throw, but in character. It is heady and primal. I like it more than I expected!

As it dries down I detect the red musk that I like so much, and some other things I cannot put name to (the fig and black currant I guess) that give dimension to it. Hmh, lovely! now, I am very afraid of dragon's blood, it has spoiled several blends for me, as it smells of bubblegum to me, but in small doses, or tamed by something else, like here, it seems to work, in fact, I have trouble detecting it. The musks predominate in this blend, for me, and that is apparently a good thing.

Now one of the Ars Draconis blends I actually like, and I didn't expect to!

It is airy, pure, very very pure and white, or better, transparent, in the vial and wet.

It is not warm at all, but it doesn't feel very cold either. And then there are some white florals, but subdued, cold, very airy. It goes a liiittle bit soapy, but very little, contrary to what most aquatic/airy scents do on me, I don't do well these kind of scents... They just all smell the same on me, but not this one. It is actually very nice. It is watery in a pure, transparent rainy way. It doesn't seem troubled or whirlwindy to me though, it is rather calm. Very subtle and nice, I don't want to run out of it, although I don't reach for it often, at least in winter.

I recommend it to people that can't do airy or aquatics, it might surprise you.

A bit cologney in the imp, with citrus and some florals. On, a citrus, it seems lemon, or lime. Or grapefruit? I am not sure. And then there is some sweetness, and some floral. Heliotrope? and amber.

It is certainly sunny, pale golden, radiant, bright and very uplifting (and I don't say that lightly!)

As it dries down, it becomes sweeter, or just deeper and warmer, I should say. I think there is amber in it, and perhaps some resin and wood, although these two go very light on me, if they are there. In fact no element predominates in this blend, it is very balanced.

The scent stays light golden, warm, but not hot. Beautiful! I like this scent very much.

Yeah I guess that why it is advancing fast is the opposite reason, my bf is not very loaded with work these last days

I can do HTML and CSS, plus layout with photoshop, and adding things to the database is a bit of a pain but pretty easy (although he is also working in PHP forms to add the info), but PHP is a bit beyond me (or I am lazy) hehe.

I do not like excel, so until now I just kept track of my stuff in an LJ and with the use of tags.

But I have a geeky boyfriend

He is building me a super cool PHP / MySQL database to keep track of my collection and my notes/reviews. It is looking great so far I made the CSS and layout, which is what you mostly see, but what you cannot see is the shitload of work to make it... actually work. That's the sad part of being a programmer

It is not finished yet, and for now we are working in his computer, when it is finished we will upload it to my webspace. So far it looks like this, although yesterday he added searches to it.

I do like patchouli but, still, I think that Sin (Thouroughly corrupted: amber, sandalwood, black patchouli and cinnamon) is very softened by the amber and spicied by the cinnamon, and it is definitely not musty, at least on me

Just yesterday I tried Sol Invictus, and it really makes me think of winter sun! amazing scent. I have to try The Lion too.