tajana

Smells like a fancy mocktail from a fancy bar that carefully restored and reconstructed historical fixtures when it renovated its Victorian-era building to bring it up to code for the modern day. So this does smell quite a bit like a brandy/cognac cocktail to my nose, but non-alcoholic. Warm, smooth, autumnal liquor.. woody-nutty undertones, reminiscent of dried fruits, tobacco, and earthy soft spice. A mixed drink with plenty zhuzhing it up... some lift from lemon peel, twisted over the glass to express the refreshing citrus oils. Lavender and lilac are present in a way that makes me think of floral-herbal syrups and cordials rather than fresh cut flowers. There is quite a lot of dried fig, but I have to work hard to pick out plum... it's more like it is in the background to make things more purple. I can envision a glowing golden-brown cocktail that used butterfly pea flower infusions to create a pretty purple gradient towards the bottom of the coupe glass. After it wears for a while in my hair, the main notes I can smell are brandy, fig, and lavender. This smells very festive, like an autumn/winter scent to me, especially Thanksgiving and Yuletide. Flame-of-Burnt-Brandy Dragon feels like a perfect pairing for winter holidays, but I will reach for this all throughout the cooler months when I want to indulge in a particularly fun hair gloss. I think the official description is a great indicator of the vibe of this particular dragon.

Halfway between a classic gentleman's amber cologne and a holy church/temple frankincense smoke smell, Gamboge Dragon gives the impression that a hot but holy man or androgynous cloaked figure just passed through the room in which you sprayed it. The saffron reads as a leathery spice embedded in the ancient golden resins. Just a tad ominous and smoldering, it's got character despite being a mellow scent with no high or sharp edges. Would be an ideal atmo spray for an office/study/library if you wanted to create a dramatic backdrop for silent reading or hushed whispers.

In the bottle, the aldehydes glitter true to the description of dazzling kleig lights. Applied, I get fizzy, sparkling bubbles, a syrupy golden amber soda. Sometimes frankincense and labdanum have a cola-like aspect so maybe they're part of the proprietary golden resin blend, helping extend the aldehydic glitter effect, pushing the effervescent special effects to the limit. I feel like there may also be benzoin folded into the formula because there's a vanillic creaminess turning this into a curiously NON-gourmand cream soda. Brown sugar is toasted until it melts and starts bubbling along the edges, it's not like a typical brown sugar scent. The soda-like ambery scent bubbles along for hours on end with above-average sillage... a little goes a long way here. In the drydown there is a waxy candle-like feeling that emerges on my skin, but it's not unwelcome. We're dimming the "lights, camera, action!!!" lights on the movie set and transitioning into candlelight after hours. I think this will age really well and I'm curious to see how it settles over the months and years to come, if I can make my bottle last all that long.

I really enjoy the 13 blends that have kind of a kitchen witch feeling... a swirling mix of different herbs, spices, roots, resins, and powders that land the overall impression somewhere between tasty, medicinal, and magical. This one smells like a nugget of copal-infused caramel resin, melted and studded with bits of nutmeg, crushed hazelnuts, assorted little shreds of ingredients (zesty tea-like bergamot, bittersweet herbs, warm red carnation, a curiously gourmand cedar) and drizzled in creamy tonka and chocolatey patchouli. It is chewy-sweet and choco-hazelnut forward, but spicy and and herby and rooty enough that it never threatens to turn into a sickly nutella mess. I think the orris is doing some magical work in the background to make this smell "pretty," but any one of the ingredients could be pulled out from the mix if you are looking to find it. The overall effect is nutty, resinous, autumnal, and cuddly. Bonus: The little black cats on this label are extra cute. I feel luckier already.

"Telling the Bees," to me, is primarily wildflower honey, anchored to soft black musk that keeps it going for hours. There is a clear, sweet, bright clover honey tone from the bottle, a sharper jab of crushed grass and flower stems that pops on my skin when I freshly apply, and then the meadow-fresh floral nature of the honey takes over. The roses are part of the perfume but they are in the background, indeed like a wild rosebush growing near the beehives you are visiting. I love the use of colors in the official description - red and white, the implication of green and yellow, and velvet black - and if I think of that as I wear it, I can picture an idyllic cottage garden on a sunny day. The bright, sunlit nature of the honey note contrasts and then melds nicely with the plush dark musk base. If you get your hands on Telling the Bees, please give it a moment to rest after getting it out of the mail. Even though I got my bottle secondhand, I wasn't so sure I liked it at all when I tried it on day 1, but when I revisited it a week later it was a keeper that made me nostalgic for a countryside life I've never lived. Bit of a throwback comparison so I'm not sure how useful it will be to you, dear reader, but the honey note reminds me of "Litha," the 2009 edition. I was inspired to review this now because of this year's Spiritus Arcanum scent "Dark Baptism," which is another pretty but unconventional spring floral married to BPAL's lovely black musk.

A Rovin' deserves to rank up there with other BPAL icons. As a fan of The Bow & Crown of Conquest, I do love a good carnation-sandalwood-leather combination, and I do love the slap of leather in here. The red musk-leather also reminds me of Crowley, and the overall vibe of the A Rovin' is more femme and floral than either of those. The decadence reminds me of the old Mme. Moriarty, but A Rovin' is not nearly as fruity, and so it feels more wearable to me, with enough dryness to stop it from ever going cloying, even in hot weather. The jasmine is front and center from the get-go, it's a really fabulous example of how magnetic a big, unapologetic white floral can be, and the luscious jasmine stays true through a long portion of the wear time. This is also a great example of a BPAL where you can sniff closely to discover each note, or sit back and enjoy as all the parts converge into a harmonious blend. The honey-dipped jasmine petals are deeply inviting, the 'hay' of the hay sugar plays off the tobacco to weave it in artfully from the more textural top notes to the warm dry-down, the spicy clove-y quality of the carnation flower enhances jasmine's allure and playfully traces its fingers along the leather and sandalwood while it's all enveloped in the crimson glow of red musk.

I love this perfume. It would have the depth and character to serve as a "signature scent." Thankfully I do not need to commit to a single perfume, but if for some reason I had to start over, Winter Night, Figure on the Bridge is one of the first bottles I would seek out. Through the combination of the chilly aquatic "snow" accord and the indigo musk, there's a gloomy, androgynous core, sleek and ozone-clean. It's tinted dark purple with lilacs and the tart taste of plum skin, moody and dark with opium and tobacco flower. Over time it melds together in a way that makes it challenging for me to pick out individual notes, and I do suspect that if you have issues with any of the notes, you might dismiss it an air freshener or laundry scent. But to me, it creates a twilight ambiance, like the first stars appearing in a cloud-streaked sky. It is really lovely.

This is a vampy night-blooming fruity floral that opens up with a ghostly kiss of luminous bergamot and an opium-backed jasmine. Bittersweet berries, slightly currant-y and slightly wine-y, come in next to dye the scent a purplish, dark red color. The perfume settles into a floral incense, though in the end the berries hang on longer than the jasmine does. Based on the label art I was hoping for plenty of that sugared absinthe, but I don't get any hint of absinthe... any spooky glow is coming from the bergamot blossom and the 'white' of jasmine petals.

If you are reading this in time to buy it, and you love lilac, you do NOT want to miss out on this one. This is a heady, slightly indolic and moody, timeless floral with enough mystery to entertain you all on its own, but with an elegant simplicity that plays well with many complimentary or contrasting perfumes. Secret garden vibes, with lush green moss creeping over the cool gray paving stones, branches of lilac heavy with morning dew on a cloudy spring morning. It's heady, true, heartbreakingly lovely lilac in abundance, with just enough moss to provide an atmospheric, outdoor garden sense of place. Creates a gorgeous fairytale cloud of lilac scent that lasts many hours when worn in your hair.

Ultraviolet - freezing cold mentholated violets for ice queens. Good for faking a cool, perfectly collected, detached aura. Bow & Crown of Conquest - badass leather jacket exterior meets cuddly vanilla center. I always wore this for midterms + final exams.

To me, this smells like pomegranate hibiscus tea steeping with sprigs of fresh mint when freshly applied. The drydown gets totally swallowed up by what I assume is the mulberry. As others have mentioned, this starts to smell like generic red candles. Naturally, since I didn't care for it, the throw was immense.

Honeyed frankincense and creamy lilac musk, with a little burst of glossy pomegranate juicing things up a little bit. I would've also guessed there was a touch of vanilla in here. This is the good kind of honey - neither baby powdery nor crotch-y, ahaha. I do not sense much in the way of rose, and I couldn't pick out sandalwood as a distinct note either. All in all I liked this a lot more than I expected, but the scent overall was somehow really... familiar. A scent memory I couldn't quite place, or maybe it just smells like perfume oils I've already tried! Overall this smells a bit sensual, but classic.

This sounded like it would be pretty, but it was a total drag. Awkward apple strawberry bubblegum, artificially flavored and dusted with violet powder and sour, rotted flowers. On me it smelled like something I might expect to find kicking around in Rite Aid's clearance section, collecting dust. I can't speak to lasting power, because the nauseating fake fruit drove me to scrub this off with soap and water. For me this was the only dud in the apple series - even though I don't usually like apple scents, I thought the rest of the ones in this series ranged from fairly pleasant on through lovely.

This one is quite musky on me! Right off the bat I get a fair but of ambrette and clean white musk along with the florals. Unfortunately, I don't like narcissus much, and that's the floral that sticks out most to me here. The throw is surprisingly powerful for what I expected would be an ephemeral scent, and the scent that wafts up is quite pretty - crisp muguet and creamy gardenia musk. But when I take a closer whiff, I get a nose full of uncomfortable narcissus.

This was high on my list of anticipated scents to try, and it was probably the biggest disappointment. Wet, it's very foresty, but off kilter. Oddly alcoholic tones with turpentiney pine and a general crisp decidious leafy feel, and just a tint of underlying fermented fruitiness. The dry down makes me think of wet soil, full of worms, but not in any good sense, especially since there's an odd sweetness to this scent, like a glaze of really weird, toxic honey, which in turn clashes with the hint of nuttiness. Quite frankly, this smelled rancid on me. I barely made it through half an hour before I had to wash it off.