tajana

Wet: Dark, dark pine, with a gust of cold ozone. The cedar, always a favorite of mine, strengthens after just a moment. Mm, woods! There's a strong incensey undertone to it, though. Dry: The ozone has backed down, but the cedar remains pretty strong and pleasant, just a tad spicy, and mixing with opopponax and what I think is frankincense to create a smooth, dark incense. The pine lays pretty low, but adds a great hint of green boughs. Incense scents are a mixed bag on me, but this is just beautiful. I keep taking whiffs of my wrist. Overall: I know this was released as a Halloween scent, but it feels super appropriate for December! I didn't really have high expectations for this scent, but the decant is staying with me for sure, and I may eventually hunt down some more of it. It's a lovely, shadowy, gloomy scent.

Wet: Soft, sweet grasses, lit with sunny, dusty amber and warmed with a fuzzy musk. Throw is minimal. Dry: It's a soft skin scent, a little bit powdery from the amber. It's animalistic, but not in a vicious, feral sense, like I'd normally use the word... "downy and gentle" are good words to describe the musk. It's practically cuddly. I think that there's a bit of dry wood snapping around the edges. After it's settled down a bit the "doeskin" comes out. It's a soft leather, not at all sharp like it can sometimes be. Overall: A gentle skin scent. It's very natural and "down to earth" smelling, and solidly unisex. Lovely, but ultimately too subtle for my tastes.

Wet: Fresh on the skin, there's a fleeting, high, tart note, which quickly dissipates into a sweet purple, fainty fruity velvety soft floral, tropical and lush. There's something lurking at the edges that makes me uneasy, though. Dry: Oh no, ylang ylang, that's what it was! The sharp, sour-sweet, generally bad-news ylang ylang gets stronger with time. It's tragic, because I'm still getting wafts of dusky orchid, beautifully realistic and a bit heady... but when I take a closer sniff, the ylang ylang assaults my nose. Overall: This would be a lovely floral fragrance, if only I didn't fare so badly with ylang ylang (I both amp and warp it).

Wet: Sometimes, there's an initial waft of buttery pumpkin... thick, rich, and just too much. But then it turns to cheerful orange citrus with a lightly spiced, tasty layer of white vanilla cake underneath. I really like the citrus, it's really brightening and lightening things up. Dry: It smells like some kind of baked pumpkin dessert with a lemon glaze. The citrus fades down with time. There's a definite red ginger note, which is lovely. The neroli and benzoin add a little something extra that keeps this from being too straight up dessert like... still, though, this is making me hungry. After a while this becomes a warm autumnal scent, not too heavy... all tasty ginger-spiked pumpkin infused with vanilla bourbon and a persistent hint of brightness that I can only attribute to some seriously persistent hint of blood orange! My boyfriend commented that I smelled like tea, and I think I can see that: the ginger spice and citrus are reminiscent of some ginger teas I've had. Overall: I was very curious about BPAL pumpkin, but also very wary: "buttery" is usually an adjective of doom. This is really nice though, since it has some notes I really adore, like ginger and citrus. It's a very pleasant, comforting smell, and it would also make a great room scent. I worried at first that it was too too foody for me to wear, but after the cakey, thick feel of the top notes wears off, it dries down to something far more buoyant than I'd expect. I ended up upgrading my decant to a bottle. I simply can't imagine a better pumpkin patch scent!

Unknown year. Not 2009. In the Imp: Plastic doll heads, haha! An artificial vanilla with Lush Snowcake-like almond frosting. I love Snowcake, and BPAL almond is nice but usually short lived on me. But I'm not so sure about this... a lot of my favorite BPAL has vanilla in it, but a lot of the fan-favorite vanilla-dominant scents fall flat on me. Wet: Bam. For such a "light" scent, it has an intense sense of potency... I slathered on a bit based on the weak scent in the vial, but a tiny dab would have probably worked just fine. It's a white scent, mostly vanilla, with subtle hints of coconut and marzipan. Reminds me of assorted lotions. If I huff, I can catch a hint of delicate white florals with stems attached. Dry: Play doh. Not a bad odor, but it's definitely reminiscent of play doh... not what I want out of a perfume. Overall: I'm not feeling the love. It smells pretty "cheap" on me, like drugstore vanilla lotion with a subtle hint of sunblock and marzipan. I have a feeling that this would last hours and hours if I didn't wash it off.

In the imp: Patchouli, that's good. And, oh dear... I sense ylang-ylang... that's bad news. Wet: Somewhat creamy, somewhat sweet, rather clean floral soap, with a nauseating edge. I can't decide if it's sweet or sour, powdery or sweaty. Perhaps it's a bit of all of the above. I think oleander and ylang-ylang are coming through strongest. The throw on this is pretty serious. Dry: I can smell the patchouli at the base of this, but it's obscured by flowers gone wrong. When this dries down a bit, the impression of soap turns to pure baby powder. Really strong, clouds of choking baby powder. It's starting to give me a headache, and I'll have to wash it off before I find out how well it lasts, or if it morphs to something nicer. Overall: When it's wet, it smells like someone really dirty and sweaty desperately lathering up. When it's dry, it's cloying baby powder. Not a good match for me, but then, ylang-ylang never is.

Wet: Herbal notes over chewy dates and figs... the herbs do really strike me as dark, a bit spicy... I'd guess that there's a liberal dose of anise in here. There's also dusky, dirty vetiver-like edge. I just barely get a hint of tart currant. Dry: The herbal, slighly medicinal notes prevail, but it fades into the background. I'm mostly getting subtly dirty vetiver and perhaps some wood, balanced with a anise-spiced fig-date smell. I just ate a fig and anise marmalade the other day, so Gomorrah reminds me of a dirtier, more herbal edition. Overall: It's not bad, but there are other figgy scents and smoky scents that are more my style.

Red ginger, black spices, patchouli, honeysuckle, and three blood-soaked red musks. Wet: HARSH. I only dabbed a little bit on because this was pungent straight out of the vial. I get the ginger, for sure, but it's crowded with honeysuckle and black pepper and something unpleasant. It smells sharp, and sort of... sour. I think one of those red musks must be going bad on me... most musks are at least OK on me, but a few have gone hideously wrong. I think this is one of them. Dry: The sour, acrid tone just intensified. As it warmed up on my skin the tiny dot of oil packed a lot of sillage. The waft is weirdly creamy, but in a gross sticky honeysuckle and sweaty musk sort of way. After a bit of time on the skin it's mostly bitter spices, mostly black pepper, dusted over rancid, sour yuckiness. Overall: A scrubber! To think that something that was on my wishlist for so long turned out to be one of the worst matches with my skin chemistry ever!

In the bottle: Mostly fresh, clean sake, which I recognize from Hungry Ghost Moon and Lantern Ghost of Oiwa, finished with a fresh cut, pale wood... almost sawdusty. Wet: The apricot peeks out upon application: I was expecting fruity, sweet, bright apricot like in Katharina (fruity scents often end up smelling like body wash or candy on me), but here it's very much reined in and outshined by the cool, almost minty-greenish, alcoholic cologney note of rice wine and the austerity of the dry wood. Dry: It develops slowly. After a few hours, it's evolved into soft apricot sake (evenly balanced) and the woods have softened into a smoother, gentler form. Subtle throw, but stunning longevity. I could distinctly smell this on me the next day. Overall:This turned out to be a surprisingly nuanced unisex fragrance. I really like it, it's very clean, but not in the usual, hum-drum sort of way! It's the kind of thing I see myself wearing a whole lot because it feels so strangely comfortable yet appropriate and versatile. I wouldn't normally think of apricots as very masculine, but I'll have to test this out on my boyfriend, I think this would be absolutely delectable on him.

Starts off with a squirt of lemon, turns into a minty anise, dries down into an anisey, vaguely spicy-herbal scent close to the skin. The throw is subtle and all anise. Smells green and absinthe-y. Not much else to say about this. Meh. It's light and refreshing in its own way, only slightly boozy, but I rarely appreciate anise, so I don't care for this blend either.

Slightly sweet, somewhere between powdery and watery, definitely paper white and clean. I'm getting mostly calla lily, but the flowers all kind of mash together after a moment. The green ivy pops out as soon as it starts to dry down. When combined with the delicate florals, it conjures up the image of a bar of nice white soap. Its lasting power and throw are minimal. It's an unobtrusive, inoffensive, transparent smell... I guess that's appropriate for a perfume called "The Ghost".

You know, I have to throw in another for Kabuki. It's strange, because I usually hate anise or licorice. And yet... Kabuki is so compelling! One of the best red musk blends I've tried... the combination of notes is just pitch perfect.

I've been wearing Noche Buena a lot recently. It's got a lot of different floral notes mingling, but the tuberose note stands out as one of the stronger elements, at least on my skin. I'm not usually a "floral FLORAL FLORAL!" kind of girl but for some reason this combination is really fun and compelling: The light, uplifting incense of the Misa de Noche Buena, purple sage, and a vibrant bouquet of plumeria, chrysanthemum, tuberose, Angel's Trumpet, Mexican tiger lily, dahlia, and azucenas.

In the bottle: Chocolate mint. Nom nom nom... Wet: I get the impression of moss covered tree bark... but the tree bark is fairy tale tree bark that's part way through the process of metamorphosing into chocolate. After it dries down, it's mossy wood with an open tin of peppermint hot cocoa mix off to the side. It sounds strange, but it's oddly pleasing. It's also very cohesive: it's an odd combo of notes in a way, but it doesn't read as "complex" on the skin, it just melds into one brown and green smell. The chocolate reads to me as milk chocolate, but it's not too sweet. The vanilla is a subtle sweetening aspect, but it's not sticky or creamy, as it's very much held in check by the dryness of cedar and the wonderful foresty green of oakmoss. If I wasn't looking for it, I would have missed the nutty twist of pistachio. The cedar and oakmoss harmonize beautifully with the cocoa vanilla. The mint is very light on me, just a slightly cool edge that blends well with the oakmoss, pistachio, and green cedar to create a decidedly green feel. Given the crocodile theme, that makes me smile. It's not green in the way I'd usually apply the word to a perfume... it's more of a cool, velvety soft, dark kelly green moss in the woods kind of thing. Dry: It doesn't change much from start to finish... the chocolate note gets weaker, but that's about it. Lasting power seems about average. Overall: Little Crocodile has a tasty chocolate element, but it's balanced and outweighed by green and woody notes. It's not nearly as foody/nauseating as Boomslang, smells more intriguing than Velvet (both are woodsy chocolates) and bears a passing resemblance to Wulric. I can't pull this off as a "perfume" because it's just a bit too foody at the outset, but as a comfort scent, it works for me. I've adored mint chocolate flavored things since early childhood, and I'm a total cedar fiend, so Little Crocodile feels like a cozy blanket.

Wet: Knowing this had jasmine in it, I almost tossed the imp aside without trying it. But I took a whiff of the imp when I uncapped this, and found it strangely... not jasminey. (Jasmine is a death note on me. 97% of the time it turns to cat pee and horror, and takes over the entire blend, eradicating almost all evidence of any other notes. 2% of the time it smells like a flower but gives me a headache, and the remaining 1%, it's like it's not even there.) Freshly applied, it starts off with what I believe to be olive blossom, an interesting light floral with green, herbal edge, underpinned by creamy smoky vanilla. Dry: The smoky vanilla gets smokier as the champaca amps up a bit. It brings with it an absolutely divine cinnamon note, warm and glowing, distinctly hot without being overtly spicy. As it dries down the primary floral shifts over to jasmine... and it is just barely recognizable as jasmine... astonoshingly, it doesn't make me want to scrub myself raw. There's a base of golden, glowing honey sweetened sandalwood, tempered by the enduring incense smokiness of champaca. Overall:All together, this blends into a smoky, sweet but not too sweet, floral but not too floral, cheerful but sensual perfume. There is something about the way it mixes together that does remind me of a bit of a tropical drink, and it's not the power of suggestion... I was thinking pina colada before I even looked at the forum! I really enjoyed this when I first tried it, and wore it for a full day twice... but then I got sick the second time... and haven't been able to bring myself to wear it again (or any other honey scents!) since. Let's hope I get over that, because my notes about this scent are glowingly positive.

Wet: The cherry is the most prominent note right off the bat, red, syrupy sweet, and voluptuous. It's juiciness melds perfectly with the red musk, whose slightly incensey, drier qualities still shine through thanks to the addition of a light breath of anise. I usually dislike/hate anise, but it's perfect here: it's spicy but fresh and coy and ever-so-slightly dangerous, and adds the perfect high note... it really makes this work. Dry: The cherry really calms down after a bit. Ultimately, all three of the listed notes balance each other out, and smell a bit more complex than such a short list would imply. Overall: There really is something alluring and charming about Kabuki. It's hard to pin down. I like it more each time I wear it... it keeps reeling me in. I thought I was set for fruit red musks (Mme. Moriarty) but I like this better, it just smells younger and more interesting. If you're a fan of red musk, I would definitely urge you to check this one out.

Oh gosh. This one is intense. However, as usual, the strongest blends are the ones you can't stomach. The name gives it all away: as soon as I saw it I could predict that it wouldn't go over well with me. This is a really dramatic smell, but I'm not hardcore enough to wear this and have no desire to ever smell this again! Fresh out of the imp it's extremely pungent and a bit acrid... intensely smoky and charred, yet with a slight metallic edge. It's almost scary, but I dabbed a tiny bit on anyway. As it starts to dry down it's all vetiver, glowing embers, and other intensely smoky things, but not really woody... it reminds me more of charcoal than campfires.

I was really excited to try this because of the comparisons people have made to Hungry Ghost Moon, which is one of my absolute favorite BPAL perfumes. However, this has only a passing resemblance. Sure, it's got the ho wood and rice wine, but it's got an entirely different sort of ghostly feel. Freshly applied, the chilly white mint is first and foremost. It's clean, cool, and breezy. Beneath the delicate mint is a fragile, airy blend of distinctively alcoholic rice wine, crisp pale calla lily, and very dark black tea that's been steeping for a long while. As it dries down the mint backs down, but the cool and clean feel remains, partially thanks to the ho wood, which has a slightly medicinal, camphorous effect. It harmonizes beautifully with the rice wine and the slightly floral, chilled black tea. The soft, silky-powdery cherry blossoms are definitely easier to pick out after the fresher, greener calla lily note dies down. All this dissection of the notes is pretty trivial, though... the overall effect is well-blended and cohesive, and this is definitely a perfume, not a jumble of independent notes. I am not having any issues with lasting power... it's a light scent, but it wafts for hours. It's clean but not soapy, ethereally pretty without being sweet, and feels gauzy soft to me, in an almost creamy sort of way. Hard to describe, incredibly easy to wear. I love it! If the notes appeal to you, you shouldn't hesitate to try this gem of a scent.

I would have guessed that there was some golden lotus in this, a la Bastet, from the slightly bubblegum-like note that sweetens this up. As it dries down it retains that golden, bubblegum like sweetness and glows with high, almost citrus like notes, enriched with a bit of zesty spice (galangal) and golden-green herbs. Wisps of light incense smoke hold it all together. Frankincense can smell a bit oppressive and churchy on me sometimes, but this is a perfect example of what happens when frankincense does work. It's gorgeous and uplifting. It's subtle (read: not very potent) and wears close to the skin, but I am going to keep this imp because it's so very pleasant. It smells intriguing, but also totally wearable... I'd have no qualms at all about slathering this on any day. If I was wealthier I'd just go get a bottle of this so I really could slather it on with impunity. My imp is lab fresh, so maybe this'll intensify as it ages... I can only hope!

This starts off great, like a gentler, less bracing cousin of Ultraviolet. Where Ultraviolet smells frozen, metallic, and futuristic, Violet Ray smells like gently glowing frost-rimed violets. Soft purple violets, glowing with a soft sweet musk, chilled with lilac, and frosted with gentle mint. However, my skin chemistry kills it for me. Ylang-ylang is the kiss of death for me. It swells up and takes over the scent, turning it from something pretty and purple to a mess of acrid, sour soap.

I usually do NOT go for these types of scents (simple, girly, sugary, foody), but the concept just called out to me. Also, the bottle art is adorable. This is all marshmallow candy, sweet but not toothache inducing, and with an undeniably pink quality. It seems more identifiably fruity (the tiniest bit tart, and I mean "tiniest bit"... there's not much edge to this scent) when it's freshly applied, but when it dries down it just has a sort of powdered pink strawberry sugar type aura about it. The dandelions, unfortunately, do not pop out too strongly, but they're there at the edges, adding a faint touch of slightly weedy, bitter sap and grass. The throw is minimal, but this lasts a long time on the skin without morphing much. I was hoping that this would remind me of TKO, but what it actually reminds me of is Fairy Market... both of those scents are light and pretty, with creamy sugary candies, the faintest suggestion of fruit, and delicate hints of grass, only PPF is pinker and couldn't be described as a floral. I feel like this is missing a heavier dose of something clear/sharp to cut through it... some citrus or herbal note. Layering a tiny drop of Aizen-Myoo with it helps immensely... with a dab of that blend, this goes from fun and pleasant to totally addictive. I feel like this would probably layer well with a variety of other scents, too. I'm not normally one for layering, but it's easy to imagine adding pink marshmallows to a lot of things.

In the imp this smells really good, but on the skin, it's very dessert like: buttery, rich baked pastry, filled with sweet blackcurrant jam. It's intense: thick and aggressive, with incredible throw. This might be good to eat, but its a smell that I can't tolerate wearing... I'm not much of a foody. When it dries down and the rose starts to kick in, I get even more nauseous. Rose is usually a bad note on me, it goes sour and powdery and off, but the butter is probably worse... the dessert-like aspect of this definitely crushes the hint of floral underneath. This is a relative of Eat Me, only more "pastry" and less "spicy cake", and with "bluer"/blacker fruit. Not my cup of tea. It was so cloying I had to wash it off.

Wet on the skin I get some lovely pine sap, with sweet and spicy overtones. The pine gets progressively weaker, but the sap interacts with the other scents in a subtle, but kind of a weird way, that calls to mind the "pickled" namesake. As it dries the spicy clove and cinnamon amp up along with a whole lot of creamy vanilla. It smells warm and creamy, like some sort of hot custard. The longer this sits on my skin the more vanillic this gets. The throw is almost all vanilla... ugh... way too sweet for me. I do tend to amp vanilla, so I'm sure that's what killed this for me.

To me, this smells like the black leather accord present in a lot of other BPAL blends, isolated. Testing out De Sade would be a shortcut I'd recommend to any newbie curious about whether or not they'd like "leather" to feature in their perfumes. It smells somehow very clean, a bit sharp and raw, and undeniably leathery. Lasting power and potency doesn't seem to be very good for this particular imp, but I am definitely keeping this around for layering with scents that need a little extra oomph.

The scent of the wild, hauntingly beautiful Pine Barrens of New Jersey! Pitch pine with blackberry leaf, cranberry, cedar wood and tomato leaf. The pine pitch is a wonderful note... the pine is dark and green and lovely without being terribly aggressive. The cranberry and perhaps the blackberry as well pop out immediately on the skin along with the pine, and it's a very sweet, uplifting combination. The tomato leaf and cedar arrive as it starts to dry down... the tomato leaf note isn't that high in the mix, but it is really distinctive... it adds some summertime warmth. I love cedar, so I really appreciate its presence here, and love that as time passes, the cedar becomes the heart of the scent. After an hour or so, it's mostly cedar, brushed with a bit of pine and sweetened up with berries. Even later on, it's faded mostly to an indistinct sweet scent, mostly squished, juicy berries with an undercurrent of wood. It's a cousin to a favorite of mine, Nocnitsa. Both have evergreen and berry notes. But whereas that blend is chilly, this one has a warmer feel. This one is a great bet for somebody who likes pine as a supporting note rather than a central element. I've grown more and more fond of The Jersey Devil with each wear. At first I thought an imp would suffice, but the other day I took a nap and when I woke up I felt wrapped up in this gorgeous outdoors scent, sunlit cedar and cranberries. It was dreamy. My boyfriend likes it too, he says it smells spicy but sweet. I see a bottle in my future.