elka_knits

there is a pinned thread called Limited Edition equivalents in general catalog which this probably will swoosh into but until then I believe the general consensus at the time was

roses, pearls and diamonds : Red roses, dazzling crystalline musks, and pearlescent coconut-tinged orris.

I personally find Raptures and Roses of Vice much headier with more depth making it a winter time or night time version of the above. I am hoping it will make a reappearance sometime. Maybe with next years luper.... it was a Luper subset if I remember correctly.

I wore banshee today so that might be coloring my perceptions

Gritty patchouli with something peppery tickling my nose.... cayenne? Went in for a sniff to figure out what spice was bothering me and got wafts of tobacco. Once it dried I still had chewy patchouli ala wet banshee but no softness from vanilla. Deep dark and murky. After a few hours I am getting mainly tobacco with musk.

acquatic.. murky dark green tho. It reminds me of what I call plump green stems.... I imagine succulents and plush little leaves and and bigger soft stems all *taste* like this smells. I know makes no sense. And once I got that plump little green stems smell I knew I had smelled this before.

*ranian Galbanum smells like this

^^^ Thank you, elka - I'm going to investigate all of your suggestions. I am finding that carnation is one of my top-favorite notes.

I came to BPAL as a long time carnation wearing gal. In the 80s {and I mean early 80's} I wore the carnation sn that was available at those scent your own places, along with the carnation glycerin soap, and scented shampoo, conditioner, lotion purchased as said places. In the 90's I wore Bellodgia which is a floriental created in the 20s put out by Caron. I wore that, and the scent your own places offerings until 2005 when I got tired of trying to hunt down Bellodgia and a fellow knitter mentioned BPAL. I started with all the carnation scents I could find. Thankfully there is a thread http://www.bpal.org/topic/21410-carnations/ although I started by searching for Bellodgia {or bellogia as some spell it} in the http://www.bpal.org/topic/30307-looking-for-a-bpal-that-resembles-a-favorite-perfume/ thread but HUH I cannot find any reference to Bellodgia and I could swear one of my first posts was in there asking for suggestions.

Anyway you might also want to try things like blood amber. It is delightfully creamy and lush. BPAL is a wonderland.

I'm such a noob, I wish I could help out on this thread, but I'm clueless.

 

I would, however, take any recs anyone wants to offer, though

 

I freaked out for Morocco and Lyonesse both. Those 2 make me drool. Big bottles are already ordered.

I also like - Dragon's Milk, Neutral and Scherezade.

 

I'm wondering, would I like Haloes at all? (from what I understand, that one can only be found at retail locations? Not sure how I could make that happen.. There was one on the swap board that I noticed today but when I went back for it, it was gone. You snooze, you lose!)

 

I generally like creamy, spicy, warm, I guess. I never thought I was a vanilla fan, but Morocco and Lyonesse really changed my mind.

 

I have imps on the way of Dorian and Perversion, but obviously haven't smelled those yet.

I'm also thinking about possibly, The Lion?

And/or maybe Liz?

French Love reminds me of Dragons Milk but without the strong vanilla base {which verges as plastic on me when fresh/wet}. Same vibe

spicy creamy warm scents: pepper, defututa, pickled imp when the carnival comes back, bastet, mama ji always reminds me of morocco but more floral, le lethe and almost anything with carnation will be a spicy creamy scent. Alice if you like roses as well and Bathsheba has depth due to plum.

with the exception of pickled imp I picked all gc scents for you. The lab has tons of lovely snuggly scents with vanilla and or amber as base.

I love this one. I am so happy to have a happy gentle rose scent to replace my Miss Emma Benedicts when it runs out {in about mumble mumble mumble years-- I stockpiled it}

roses help you chill for bed yo

I have used over 2 maybe 3 bottles by now and am out. GAH. My husband often massages my back before bedtime to help with my insomnia, bad back, being a general stress pot etc etc. Okay I am spoiled what can I say? I used to hate lavender. I mean it gave me headaches. I had no clue why anybody in the universe would choose lavender to help them sleep but this is so snuggly and comforting. I wake up smelling all sweet and vanilla ish... like a marshmallow or something. It is great for my dry skin-the husband loves the scent and the slip.

My next post order will include TKO. Sadly I have been saying this for months. I have warned the husband that I will be making an order SOON. For plenty of this and whatever bath oil or hair gloss that takes my fancy.

I was very sad when I ran out of this bath oil. According to my notes in the bottle it smelled delightfully rosy but in the tub it smelled like honey. It was extremely faint on my skin post bath so more of a super nice pampering tub experience that didn't interfere with any perfume I might choose. Every time I reviewed it while it was in use I said it was disappointingly faint but then I really did get dismayed when I ran out.

Gorgeous. I love the orchid note and the sampaguita took me from liking some jasmines to unffff love. Or maybe it is because this shares the same jasmine note as sampaguita did. Perfect for layering with either my orchid perfumes or my jasmine beauties although it certainly is strong enough to stand on its own. I should definitely have ordered more. Much much more. Every time I bathe in this I am reminded of the orchid from Great Vampire Bat. Not as high pitched an orchid as Shadow Witch Orchid but lusher.

:wub3:all around.

Hi WednesdayFriday

the lab cannot be expected to combine orders... I sometimes make a note when ordering from say etsy with I will order X from lab as soon as this one goes through and then when I make the lab order say I just ordered from etsy transaction # this so they could cross reference if they wanted to but it is a time kill for them. Expect 2 boxes full of joy. I wouldn't even email them after the fact. Sadly that means double shipping charges for you but if they do notice it and ship in one box they *maybe* will refund the double shipping. Tho honestly I have never asked them to since they went and cross referenced two tickets :-/ Unlike the European poster above, where shipping is humongous, I just figure it is the price I paid for not being organized.

I think wormwood field starts off as grapefruit pith then turns to ruby red grapefruit sprinkled with sugar. There is a bit of muskiness I think from a melon in there as well. My daughter says it smells like pink lemonade with a hint of grapefruit... which she claims is necessary to turn the lemonade pink

it doesn't have many reviews and I think that mellifluous said herbal essences ????? and everybody else said extremely bitter grapefruit pith. I honestly get a sticky sweetness from it. I can send you some if you like to try. I think I have your address.

editing to add I do not get grapefruit from Vampire Tears but I can decant some of that for you as well.

The great imp backlog is being worked on....

Oh My! It smells just like a lily on a warm sunny day. Was sad to see it was discontinued. I will have to put a call out for random imps floating about.

I am one bath away from being done with my bottle. Purchased directly from lab by me so I am lots of baths into this. Somewhere along the line I got a tinge of spic n span and now associate that with this scent. Which is the sadness. I was a great deep dark rose scent with lots of resins in there. Mainly resins with a rose undercurrent. I believe frank tends to amp on me {I have avoided both frank and myrrh heavy scents for a while now--- I have enough perfumes that I go on floral kicks or resin kicks or ahem coconut kicks so I guess it is less avoidance and more focusing on something else lately} and so I cannot think of which of the resins stomps all over the place at the moment. Overall I am looking forward to being done with this one.

I have been giving myself a break from it with virgins blood and sugared peach bath oil. I guess it is safe to say I am wishing for lighter and brighter instead of deep and contemplative which is probably coloring my judgement. I also decided to start using/wearing stuff pretty religiously in an effort to cull the heard {along with PIFs and giftedness} and have finished several bath oils this way. This one has been the most difficult to finish. HOWEVER it is much lighter in the bath. Nowhere near as overwhelming in the tub as it is in the bottle

for the record, and nothing at all to do with the scent itself, the religious scent of last winter was Glasya and the two layered beautifully. And I finished up a bottle of Glasya to boot. Both scents were heavy dark rose scents to my rather unsophisticated nose.

editing to add I like my roses girly instead of dark... rose water, tea roses, pink roses, sugared roses, roses with cream, roses with strawberry 'LOVE' instead of dark roses. If you like somber roses this one is probably for you.

I accidentally clicked on this forum and the topic popped out at me... in my experience the lab is super generous. I have decanted a wee bit now and I easily get 6 imps out of bottles. I have been told I fill my imps very very full so it is not me being stingy either. Most bottles go into the neck so if I get one that is just below shoulder I figure it is what it is 'supposed' to be. Now I have gotten plenty of bottles of hair gloss and atmosphere sprays that are just barely at top of label and I assumed they packed them that way since the bottles are squishier than glass until I got one super full. I certainly do not complain. I have enough hair gloss and bath oil and atmosphere spray to last a long time. Way longer than when the lab/post manages to tempt me with something oh so shiny and new.

I have total anesthesia love since it is my sleepy time scent ~~ take a picture and send it to lab if you feel like your bottle is not full. The staff is really nice. But I do suggest that the lab's typical generosity may have skewed your sense of what a 5 ml looks like in the bottle. Not to sound rude but if you got a bottle of Dorian full to lid and one just below shoulder yeah that is proof that there is no exactness but to shoulder is still above 5 ml in my experience {and some people look at the dip of meniscus to gauge fill level and seriously if the top of the curve is at shoulder and you are decanting you can generally get over 5 full decants out of the bottle... trust me on this}. I have added two full imps from lab to full from lab {at shoulder}bottles and not hit the lid and not thought I was shorted in the bottle department.

Wow, this thread has been a real eye opener for me, I kind of want to open every single favorite blend that I have and compare them with each other, those I have backups of I mean, I am ashamed to say that when buying backups, I don't even open them to smell/test! I never knew there was such big variation issue, maybe cuz I never really finished a full bottle (other than Morocco) of anything and then moved on to a second one! At the same time, I kind of don't want to test them all for fear that my heart will be broken if I discover something does not smell the way they are suppose to!

yeah it is kinda sad sometimes when I get a back up and it smells nothing like my bottle or imp. Well it smells like but just not as awesome. I did recently take a old bottle of Dragon's Milk that is almost empty and a fresher bottle to show a friend the massive difference aging makes. My older bottle {from '07} is thick and gloppy and deep deep red and rich and lovely and smooth but my new bottle from '13 is relatively fluid and not nearly as blackened red and is raw smelling compared to the old. I know that dragons milk smells kinda raw on me when I first put it on and dries down to the creamy smooth resins and my old bottle starts off with the dry down smell and stays there whereas the new requires wearing for an hour or so to get close to it. I will be crying when my last few drops of the precious aged bottle is finished. Aging accounts for a lot of variance as well.

I had two imps of the same scent acquired a few months apart directly from lab. One was clear the other was orangish. So yes there are batch variations. And I would say a 4 yr old bottle is closer to a 1 year old imp than the other way around aging wise.

If you look at reviews or requests for some LE's you will see batch variations in requests... i.e. red musk heavy version please. I was once offered my choice of note heavy scent from a seller.... apparently they had gotten 2 different batches and could tell the difference between them. Otherwise I would say personal skin chemistry accounted for the disappearing or amping notes.

I am not so sure of mislabeling although I suppose it does happen. I know when I decant I am very careful about that.

Defututa is my absolute favorite smoky sweet scent. I admit to not having tried many of the ones recommended and certainly not Liz with it's leather note of doom but sharing my love of the def

Olive blossom, honey, smoky vanilla, cinnamon, jasmine, sandalwood, and champaca flower.

vetiver strikes its evil funk when wet. White scent in bottle and when wet during dry down unless the vetiver peeks through. Turns into a lovely skin scent that is slightly fruity due to peach and currant. There is coconut husk and a tinge of plum to it during dry down. No plum listed so probably the fruitiness mixed with resins gives it that depth. No throw at all for me and disappears within 4 hrs.

I don't like aquatics in general but I try try try as many rose scents as I can. The rose in this is lovely and I like the scent after the first half hour burns off the sea. Interesting but a wee bit more gender neutral than I like. I know I won't reach for it so it might as well go to somebody who might appreciate it more

I was recently frimped some gun moll and I hesitate to review it due to my wretched cold from hell that just won't go away. Everything smells terrible on me atm and even my favorites are noxious so I assume this will be even more appealing when I am feeling better. Yes appealing and it isn't my style. I am getting bergamot heavy zinginess from this and finding it very refreshing. Not cloying, heavy, sexy or any of the other reviews. Maybe a hint of gunpowder. As a lover of all the notes listed except for bergamot and ummm gunpowder I am surprised I am enjoying this since that is all I am getting from it. Will be back laters when my nose isn't broken

Defututa is a definite favorite of mine. I am not sure it is a gentle skin scent. I might amp something in it tho.... it reads as very heady to my nose. But I second the suggestion in regards to it's beauty.

using the Lab's new fabulous search page I peeked at honeycomb and honey scents… the two that popped out at me as soft skin scents were

Dana O'Shea and Door

obatala is a sweet gentle skin scent but to my nose the coconut makes it a just washed off the suntan lotion but it is still lingering…. a summer day skin scent to me. It is lovely

PS mouse circus smells like buttered popcorn heavy on the buttered.... it is not spun sugar at all to my nose. I am pretty sure I disliked it enough to frimp out my tester. And I rarely do that. I am a hoarder. A bpal hoarder. nods nods

Old-school Bathsheba (with the older labels) was my plum heaven fragrance, but Midwinter's Eve and Budding Moon were good too, though the plum in BM tends to fade to let the florals in.

 

Bordello is also plummy but with a dash of red wine, seems a bit boozier.

 

Was surprised that Purple Snowballs was as plummy as it was - was hoping for more blackcurrant

wait wait wait a minute...Bathsheba was reformulated? I have a bottle from '06 and decided I loved it so much I purchased a back up ummm a year or two ago. By older labels do you mean pre yellow things they use now? Off to check labels. Off to check and see if they smell different... I saw no sense in opening the back up while I still have one in use until this. What is this? Are you sure that it smells different?

High Strung Daisies smells like spun sugar to me: Daisy, pink carnation, pink pepper, and sugar. It is so sweet you can feel the crunch of the sugar... you know how cotton candy has the slight crunch then stickiness. yeah