filigree_shadow

Oh. That's leather? I thought I smelled some vetiver in this. Maybe that's the hellfire part? Mostly a very dark peppery leather scent, with some of that hellfire that smells like vetiver to me. There's a little smidgen of something that's probably lime in there, but I think this decant is kinda old at this point and the lime has probably faded somewhat.

Powdery honey, with a faint and very mild and pleasant herby note (chamomile?). I have problems with some honey notes smelling like play-doh on me, and this one doesn't. This smells great. Really like this one.

I expected something fabulously foodie out of this, but... lemony herb. With a slight whiff of pie crust. Weird, and not all that pleasant on my skin. When it's dry it smells sorta like lemon and graham crackers. I read the other reviews and got depressed because it sounds like it's great on other people. Stupid skin chemistry. Oh well. I have other great BPAL foodie scents.

A dribble of absinthe? I smell more than a dribble. With lemon and absinthe in this, this is a very sweet sour scent. Very bright and bold. But the vanilla and chocolate in it smooth it out underneath so it's not one of those MY EYEBALLS ARE BURNING sorts of scents. It's not that bold. Cute and happy, and unusual. I like this. I don't know how often I'd wear it, but I really do like it.

Oh. I saw "mud" in the notes but I was kinda hoping that was just for fun and not real. Nope. Smells like dirt. Mud and grass. I might smell a smidgen of leather and lemon, but mostly? This smells like mud and grass. Really, really not my thing.

Unexpectedly delightful. It doesn't smell rotting or moldy to me. Clean, and something green and kinda squishy, like cucumber, not like grass. Faintly floral and faintly aquatic, but mostly bright green. I thought this would smell like a musty old attic or something, but it doesn't at all. Very nice spring scent!

A sweet, resiny musk. Not very monstrous at all. Quite pretty, actually. It's not a masculine musk -- very wearable for both women and men, I think. It's just a touch powdery (amber in there, maybe?), but it's soft and sweet. I like it.

Blue musk...? I'm not sure what that smells like. I don't know what I'm smelling here exactly -- it smells like a licorice-y musk, to be honest. It doesn't smell really very "blue" to me, but there's something kinda shimmering about this scent. As it dries, it seems like it gets sweeter and a bit more floral -- it ends up being quite sweet.

Hunh. This is smelling like pomegranate usually does on me -- which is, unfortunately, extremely reminiscent of a bathroom air freshener. That's why I usually avoid pomegranate. We're not friends. It's soft, a little fizzy, and fruity. And although red musk is usually quite loud on me, I honestly wouldn't have guessed it was in here. I don't really go for the fizzy scents, but this one isn't nearly as WOW FRUITY FIZZY as the Tikis are or ones like that. It's softer than that.

I thought this one might be a good one for my husband -- I thought it would smell like a peppery wood scent. He usually likes stuff like that. And it does smell like that... kinda. Sadly it's also a bit astringent. It's quite bold, and smells more brisk than I imagined it would. I gave it to my husband to try, and he said he thinks it smells like cleaning products. Hmm. I don't think this one is a winner for either of us.

This smells like a nice-smelling man. It's smoky, woody, and dry. Mostly sandalwood and teakwood. I like it, so I passed it along to my husband.

This one is my favorite of the series. It's soft, pretty, sweet, smooth, and feminine. It reminds me of Lovers in a Ricefield -- not in scent, but in feel. It's not super loud, and it doesn't stay around for a long time, but it's sweetly pretty. I can see the comparison to Tiki Princess. I have trouble with some coconut notes smelling like plastic on my skin, and this one is doing it a little bit but not overwhelmingly. I can only smell that strange artificial scent if my nose is right next to my skin, but sadly this one isn't strong enough for me to smell it at all unless my nose is right next to my skin. So... although this isn't a clear winner for me personally due to my skin chemistry, I bet it will be hugely popular.

This is the 2006 version, which is the only version I've ever tried, I think. I remember it being more cakey than it is now. Now it's a soft, sweet incense scent. There's a sweetness to it that doesn't smell like sweet incense (like you know how frankincense is kind of high-pitched? this is different from that) -- it's just lightly reminiscent of some kind of food. I'm not a huge fan of straight-up incense scents, but this one has more with it. I like it better than most incense scents.

This pretty much smells exactly like the perfume to me. Maybe a little bit creamier, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I use the bath oil as a moisturizer when I get out of the shower, and it's great for that. It leaves a light scent that layers well with basically every perfume I own. I can't think of anything I have that would smell bad with cream and amber. BPTP makes fantastic bath oils.

I haven't smelled Spanked in years -- a long time ago I swapped off my bottle to a friend who LOVES it. The only thing I remember about it was that the leather was strong. I was a little surprised when I tried it again this time because it's a lot spicier than I thought it was. The cardamom is pretty strong on me, and the leather and patchouli seem pretty evenly balanced. Normally I'm not a gal who likes the spicy scents, and cardamom is generally a no-no for me, but with patchouli and leather? Yes, please! I like this more than I remember liking it.

This is one of those rare ones that's way outside my usual fragrance preferences but for some reason I'm completely addicted to it. That doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it's always a pleasant surprise! My impression of it is that it smells kind of expensive and slightly haughty, but in an approachable way. It's mature and elegant, rather than being playful or cute. But it's not stand-offish. It draws you in. It's musky, dry, and sweet, and blended together fabulously. No one note is glaring out at me. It smells golden. Also, there's something in this that reminds me ever so slightly of some BPALs that my husband wears, so for that reason it's kinda comforting to me, too. Maybe it's the lavender or tobacco leaf -- I'm not sure. Very, very nice. I'll for sure need a bottle of this, since I've reapplied it from the decant three times today already and I show no signs of growing tired of it.

Wow. Way different from the original version. I thought the first Sugar Moon smelled reedy -- kind of plant-like, like celery. Wasn't my cup of tea at all. This one's much different. I mean, I can sorta tell that it's sugar cane in this and not like teeth-achingly sweet pink sugar or anything like that, but it doesn't smell nearly as planty as the last one did. It's not over-the-top sweet, it's a soft sweet floral. Currant, gardenia, strawberry, and rose are generally fairly loud on me and easy to pick out in a blend, but honestly I can't single out any of them in this. Just a musky sweet floral. It's pretty.

Well, looking at the reviews it kinda looks like there's not much Virginia love yet, but so far this is my favorite of the Courtesans. The musk is quite reminiscent of red musk, but it's about 20% as strong as red musk usually is on my skin. It's just a little waft of it. There's a trace of orchid, but mostly this blend smells like musk, sandalwood, and caramel on me. The caramel isn't buttery-thick, it just gives the scent some sweetness. I thought with the tobacco and sandalwood it might be kind of dry, but it's not. It's pretty smooth. It was a smidge powdery when it was wet but as it dried the notes all melded together wonderfully. I like this one a lot. I ordered a bottle of Celeste unsniffed plus decants of all the other Courtesans, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a bottle of this one too. I'm a little hesitant, though, because a couple of people described their oil as being opaque, and the oil in my decant looks just like regular perfume oil. I wonder if there was some batch variety.

Although pomegranate usually doesn't get along with me very well, I wanted to try this one anyway because with that many varied notes, you never know how something's going to turn out until you try it. Sadly for me, the pom is pretty strong in this one. The jasmine was strong at first but it backed off a little and the other floral notes came through. I can smell a wee bit of moss too. If you like a kind of herby/mossy floral scent with a pretty strong pomegranate overtone, give this one a try! I definitely don't object to it, it's just not my kind of scent personally.

Honeyed vanilla with an orchid background and a sweet strawberry overtone. For some reason it smells slightly off to me -- this might be one of the honeys my skin doesn't get along with (my skin chemistry likes to do that play-doh thing with honey). It's not too bad, and really I can only detect it when my nose is right next to my skin. Mostly it smells smooth and pretty. This is one of those ones that I'm sure smells lovely on other people but not really a true love for me. I'll try it again later to be sure, though. ETA: Tried it later. Wore it for a day to see how it went. Loved it!!! Now I want more.

I don't remember why I didn't immediately want to try this when it first came out -- I love plum and brown sugar, and sassafras usually agrees with me. Maybe I was scared off by the clove, which has a tendency to amp on me. This definitely does smell spicy -- more spicy than I usually like my perfume to be -- but I'm a big fan of plum + spice combinations, and the plum and sugar with this makes the clove tolerable for me. There isn't a huge amount of sassafras in this, just enough so I can tell it's in there. All in all, it's a good one. I'd like it more if the clove would back off a little, but that's my skin chemistry's fault and not Spicebush Swallowtail's fault.

When I first put it on, it was a watery rose scent, and my hopes leaped up. Dewy/watery roses are my favorite roses. Plus I really like davana. Then it dried and I could no longer smell any rose scent. The aquatic note is still there, but there's kind of a smoky dryness too, which is a little weird with that watery scent. I think the olibanum is pushing this a little too far it that direction for me.

At first it's just WHOA FIG. Then it's a smoky almost powdery fig, and then it settles into a spicy sweet dark carnation scent. That initial blast of fig backs off a whole lot, and the scent blends together very prettily. When it's totally dry it smells like a fairly traditional perfume scent to me -- a good one -- and it smells familiar. I think I used to wear one that was similar to this, and I liked it. Since Apatouros is reminding me quite strongly of whatever it was that I used to wear (Prada perfume, maybe?), I automatically like it. It's slightly bitter, slightly floral, slightly spicy, and resinous. It smells expensive.

When it's wet this has an odd chemical-ish smell to it. When it's dry, it smells like a vetiver single note on my skin. Seriously. That is all I smell. Whenever there's a blend that has vetiver in it, I'm always one of the few reviewers saying it smells lovely and I like it. (Amidst all the people saying "Blech, vetiver!") This is why. This is exactly what vetiver smells like when it's on my skin. Olisbos seems to be fairly well-liked, so I can only assume that vetiver must really smell a lot different on all you guys. I have some sort of bizarre skin chemistry -- some notes that lots of other people seem to love really don't smell great on me, and some that people seem to hate are just fine for me. It's kind of a dry, hazy wood scent. The olive oil was more pronounced when it was wet, but I don't really smell much of it when it's dry. I don't smell anything citrusy that people mentioned in reviews of last year's version, and I guess there's a smidge of leather in there but mostly it smells like a wood scent to me.

Lovely! Definitely in the fruity-floral category, but not really one of those bright/sweet fruity-florals. More elegant than that. The plum musk is divine. It for sure smells purple, but usually when I describe a floral as purple it's because of violet, and this is different. It's purple because it's plummy. The grapefruit adds a sparkle over the top and keeps it from being too floral. Not heady at all -- very graceful and pretty. I like this one quite a lot.