filigree_shadow

Lovely! Strongly vanilla on me, with just a hint of florals and leather. The vanilla is perfect -- it's not cloying or creamy, it's kind of a smoky vanilla. It smells very feminine and sexy to me. Definitely going to want a bottle of this one.

I have a sleeping dog next to me who has just been out in the snow. I grabbed this decant to test it, having no idea what notes were in it, and swiped some on. I said, "Well, whatever it is, it's gotta smell better than wet dog." Then I sniffed it and said, "Eugh, yuck, no, I was wrong." It smelled like strong pine-scented cleaning products. About 5 minutes later I was sitting here typing, and I sniffed the air and said, "Hmm. What's that scent?" Sniffed my German Expressionist Horror swipe again, and hey! Smells pretty good now! The patchouli, myrrh, and musk have really come out, and the pine note has faded away. It's not gone entirely, but this no longer smells anything like cleaning products. It's a dark, deep, resiny scent. A little dusty, a little sweet. I'm going to set this one aside because I need to have a patchouli-resin death match at some point to figure out which one I like best. I seem to have several of those.

Thirteen usually works for me, unless the herbs are too strong. This is one of the ones that works. I can tell it has a chocolate base, but it's well blended with other notes. It smells a little dry and golden, and not creamy. It's sweet but not too sweet. Hmm. My reviews of Thirteen sometimes say, "Oh, this is nice, but the orange label 13 is still my favorite." I might need to do some side-by-side testing with this one to find out if orange label is still my favorite after trying this version. This one is a contender.

Fizzy gin, champagne, sweet. Maybe a slight whiff of some kind of cold note. Slightly perfumey. I don't wear fizzy scents, personally -- they just don't suit me at all -- but this is a really good one. It's a little softer than most of them are.

Honey? Lotus? I'm pretty familiar with both of those notes, and this doesn't smell like either of them on me. It smells like a stinging floral perfume of the 70s, like something with poppy in it. Exactly like that. No honey, no sweet bubblegum lotus. I'm beginning to think something has gone awry with my skin chemistry lately because nothing I've been testing recently has been working for me very well.

Ew. No, this one isn't for me at all. It smells like some particularly weird licorice at first, and then the coconut in it makes it smell artificial and strange. I'm VERY picky about licorice, and coconut often does that icky plastic-y artificial thing on me, so this is no big surprise. But no -- this doesn't work for me.

This smells strangely aquatic on me. Not sure why. Smells kind of like an aquatic note and candle wax. It's not bad at all -- it smells sort of lazy but fresh at the same time -- but it's more of my husband's sort of scent than mine. I let him try it, and he said that he likes it, but he has other BPAL oils he likes better. So I guess this one isn't a keeper for us.

VILF smells like... well, it smells exactly what you'd think those notes smell like. There are no surprises here. The patchouli and red musk are equally balanced on my skin (those tend to be loud notes on me), and the honey and sandalwood give it a smooth, slightly dry accent. It's not very spicy, it just smells complex. And maybe just a wee hint of leather. The red ginger, pink pepper, clove, and cedar are all behaving themselves. It smells GREAT. But I don't know whether I want to smell like this myself or whether I want to smell this on my husband. Obviously I would like to smell it on Eric Northman (insert mental image of me biting my fist and making ah-OOOGA noises here), but I'll settle for run-of-the-mill human.

This smells like something hazy, powdery, and slightly stingy in that sort of metallic perfumey way. Plus honey. Yep, I know. It's not supposed to smell like that. Beats me. But really, that's what I smell. It strongly reminds me of my grandmother's dresser where she kept her dusting powder and silver brush.

Wow, this smells as sweet and tart as a Jolly Rancher candy when I first put it on. This is not necessarily a bad thing, for me. It's like a strawberry version of Midwinter's Eve, on me -- it's that bright and sweet. It doesn't stay like that, though. When I put my nose right up to it, it smells a little bit plastic-y. So I moved my nose back and tried to sniff it from a distance... whatever smells a little bit like graham cracker crust smells a little off to me. Hunh. Well, I loved Beaver Moon 05 and 07, but this one isn't quite working for me. Well, that's disappointing.

I reviewed the 03, 04, and 05 versions (I think) of this a long time ago, and now I have a decant of the 10 version. As far as I can tell, it pretty much smells the same. Kind of a soft creamy light floral. As far as I can recall -- that squat little green bottle is long gone -- the 03 version of Snow White was my favorite of all the ones I tried. So I'm sure it ages well. I keep trying this because it keeps sounding like something I should like, but I don't wear it. It has an odd sort of plastic scent to it that I sometimes get from either some kind of coconut note or whatever the Lab's "cream" note is. My husband said it smells like play-doh. I keep trying to like Snow White, but it keeps not working for me.

I thought this would be all nice and warm and foody, but what I get out of it is something that smells pretty boozey. I'm not sure why. It should be fruity, but this smells like alcoholic fruit on me. Well, it sounded good, but I don't think my skin likes it much.

Well, with the pine cone and cranberry and coldness, this certainly does smell Christmassy. It's not a scent I mind, but it's also not something I'd wear as perfume, personally. I'm very picky about cold-smelling scents, and I only have a couple that I like enough to wear. I keep checking to see if there's a new one to add to my tiny wintery stash, but this one isn't going to be one of them.

I was hoping for a lovely vanilla-orange-tea scent from this, but that's not what it smells like on me. At all. It smells like kind of an herby carnation with a faint whiff of orange blossom. Not the kind of scent I like. Well, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.

It smells mostly like a woodsy pomegranate scent when I first put it on, and then it brightens up a little with the lemon peel and red currant. The sage and balsam in this make it a little too harsh for me personally (I don't usually like those notes), but it's pretty nice.

Hunh. I was expecting some sort of burning wood scent with a little bit of maybe fruit or something. Nope. It's a soft, dry, spice. Nothing hot or overwhelming, but definitely warm and spicy. It's not what I was expecting, but it's comforting and enjoyable -- and I'm not a gal who usually likes spicy scents. This one is nice.

When I first put this on, I thought Sweet mercy, that smells like shoe polish. Whew. I thought I'd give it a few minutes to calm down. That lavender in there is LOOOUUUD. And wouldn't you know, that's the listed note that I like the least. Luckily, it does calm down. It ends up smelling like a bit of a jumble, but mostly like a dry (in a rather woody way, probably from myrtle) sweet blackberry, with a hint of something vaguely alcoholic. The lavender is still there, but it mixes up with the blackberry in a pleasant way. It's a brighter scent than you were probably expecting. When it's dry, it still has a little too much lavender in it for me, but it smells waaaay better than it did at first.

When I first put this on I was surprised that I liked it so much. I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a soft, sweet, light floral. But then... when it was dry... hmm. Not as good. I guess what I'm smelling here is zdravetz -- it smells like a bitter, herby floral note that smells a little too close to green grass for my comfort. (Not a fan of grass scents, personally.) I can still smell the vanilla and musk underneath it, but I don't usually like any perfume that smells even the least bit bitter, so I don't think the floral notes in this one will work for me. Still, very interesting. I don't think I've smelled anything quite like this before. I'm sure some people will like this a lot -- these florals aren't heady and overpowering at all, and the vanilla and musk in this are very pretty.

This smells yummy on me. Kind of like some sort of sweet fruity cereal and cream, with a very light spice over the top. It doesn't smell overly thick and rich with cream, it seems a bit dry. If my BPAL box wasn't already over the limit of foodie scents, I'd be very interested in this one. It smells great on me when scents like Egg Nog don't -- this one doesn't have the dreaded note of plastic.

Uh... this smells like red musk and licorice on me. The licorice/anise part is strongest, which is befuddling because that's not even listed in the notes. I thought maybe it was just an odd skin chemistry reaction from putting the oil on the back of my hand, so I put some on my other arm. For the first minute it smelled kind of creamy and musky, and then BAM. Musky licorice. And yeah, it does kind of smell like sarsaparilla, like other people have mentioned. Rootbeer-esque. Only on me it's not a backseat, it's right out in front. Pretty sure something weird is going on here. I'll let the decant sit for a while and then try it again, because with the lineup of notes that this one has, I'm not willing to just give up on it. ETA: After an hour or so, the only thing left was red musk. That's nice, but... that just smells like all my other red musk blends. I'll still keep it and try it again in a while, but I think I like some of the other red musk perfumes better.

I've worn this three times, and every time it made me happy. I can't really say what it smells like because I can't pick out anything individually. It's definitely fruity -- kind of a red fruit? -- and it has a little bit of a spice kick that I guess is from the ginger. It smells a bit like fruitcake to me, to be honest. And now that I'm reading the notes and I see that it has green tea in it, I think maybe I can smell a little bit of tea. But I wouldn't have been able to tell you it had tea in it just from sniffing it. It's unusual, but it's quite pleasant. Cheerful, even.

I'm not sure what I'm smelling in this. I put some on, and a single note or impression wasn't jumping out at me, so I thought I'd let it dry and see what happened. Well, it's dry now, but it's so faint I can barely smell it. So I put on a little more, and this time I noticed orange straight off. But then it turned a little sharp, like herby. Not sure what that's from. It gets a little floaty and kind of ghost-like, but the citrus in it gives it a kick. Then when it's totally dry, it's just sort of a light, indefinable soft scent that's barely there. Again. I sort of see where this is trying to go, but I don't think it quite gets there for me.

Nice! It does smell like oak and paper. The herbs were a little strong at first but got softer as it dried, and the lemon cookies are just a smidge. Not overly lemony at all. Mostly that part of it just seems to be contributing something fresh-smelling to the scent. It's very warm and comforting to me. My husband loves scents like Misk U and Lurid Library -- and they smell great on him -- so after I discovered I like this I passed the decant over to him to try. He likes it too! So it's a winner for both of us.

I really like this for the first 2-3 minutes -- thought it was going to be a new favorite -- but then the dreaded Note of Plastic made itself known. Before that happened, it was a gorgeous sweet rum scent, and I could smell the cheesecake too. I get so fed up with my skin chemistry turning all these lovely BPAL foodie perfumes into plastic on me.

Oh. This is one of those ones. One of the ones that smells very different depending on where I put it. I put some on the back of my forearm. Nice. Musky -- rather like red musk, actually -- dry, slightly powdery. Not bad, but nothing that's making me dive for my wallet and hit the sales posts. I can smell the vetiver in it when I get up close, and it smells mostly like a pretty animalistic musky skin scent. On the prowl, for sure. Being of the fair-haired, fair-complected variety, I tend to have dry skin issues in cold weather, and that does sometimes affect my perfume oils -- often the ones that are complex with musk or resin notes. So I thought I'd give it a whirl on the inside of my forearm, just to see. Goodness, it doesn't even smell like the same perfume. The inside of the forearm swipe is strongly patchouli with a little bit of vetiver, and something so sharp it almost smells like anise. Hunh. Okay, let's try one more spot. On my throat, it smells kinda similar to Death Adder. Obviously I can't get my nose to my throat to sniff my skin there, but the scent that wafts up is much more like Snake Oil than the other two spots. I like all three scents. As you can guess, I'm pretty much sitting in a cloud of Tombeur right now after practically bathing in it, and it's wonderful. Sometimes with these ones that are morphers, I only like one of the varieties so I never wear it because I'm not sure what I'm going to get out of it. Well, I like all of these. I'm glad we can still buy this on the BPAL site because I'll be adding a bottle to my next order.