tajana

Wet, it smells... wet. Damp. It has a chilly vaguely sweet, vaguely mineral quality... when I read the scent description of "damp air trapped in limestone caverns" I totally got what Beth was going for! As it dries down on the skin, the next notes to unfurl are green, leafy, waxy, and dark. Then, floral notes, soft and clean, tropical, and undeniably pretty. The orchid is the only thing I recognize, but it's lovely! I wouldn't call this scent too sweet, but there's a sticky element lying low that I'm tentatively attributing to palm wine, offset by swirls of smokiness, and the prevailing deep greenness. Weirdly enough, after the oil has been on my skin for an hour I suddenly get a distinctly citrusy note that plays well off the damp jungle notes. The tail end of this scent's existence on my wrist is all smoky vetiver, wet leaves, and flower petals starting to curl up... it's a little sour in an bad way, which is really sad since up until the death throes, it's quite lovely. That's certainly the fault of my unforgiving skin chemistry... I bet this'll smell divine all the way through on a lot of other people. It's not terribly strong: I applied generously, but the throw is very light and it didn't last more than a few hours before it was a pale whisper. Apart from the wonkiness in the far drydown, this was really lovely to wear... it was very evocative, a real scent experience!

I got a testable sniffy of this... I couldn't smell much in the vial, so just I slathered on all the remains and hoped for the best! Wet, it's herbal and softly evergreen with a creamy shea butter base. It's fresh, leafy, grassy, with twigs and green wood... fresh, cooling, and sweet, with a gentle creaminess that melds in and softens all the edges perfectly. The throw is chilled and green, a bit "watery", but it works here. After half an hour it's still definitely present close to my skin, but the throw is pretty minimal. It's an interesting green scent, complex, a bit woody, a bit watery in a just-rained-on forest clearing sort of way... it's quite pleasant, but I'm not desperately in love. I wouldn't pass up a full imp, but I don't need a bottle. At the same time, I'd definitely recommend this to someone looking for a unisex fresh, clean, green scent.

A sharp stab of disheartening jasmine, acrid and powdery, and a whiff of something weirdly sweet and pink. But soon, the scent is replaced by sultry, lush magnolias and orchids! It's a luscious, full-bodied, and almost velvety floral scent, but the jasmine sneaks back around the edges, threatening to turn nasty. In the end, it was the rose that leaped out of nowhere to do me in, with its powdery black amber accomplice, to turn this perfume into a mess of sour, stale powder. I loved the brief moments of magnolia and orchid, but this turned into something I couldn't stand to keep on my skin. Drat.

Tons of sweet jolly-rancheresque plum at first, a lot like Bordello! As it settles down on my skin the grapey and astringent wine note comes on strong, adding a distinctively boozey edge to the bonanza of succulent dark red and purple fruit. It's very sweet and hard candy-ish, but the wine, for once, is really expressing its alcoholic quality on me, which definitely makes this smell a bit more adult. Eventually this goes a bit powdery-perfumey with the champaca, and the sandalwood stays quite low in the mix, sadly. The blend of dry incensey powder and uncomfortably squelchy, juicy fruit isn't sitting well with me, but then, I'm not usually one to enjoy a lot of fruit and wine in my perfumes. As usual for scents I don't like (ha) the lasting power is very good and the throw is quite strong. I see the resemblance to Mme Moriarty others have mentioned, but this is much sweeter, simpler, and heavier on the fruit.

It's a little unfair for me to even post a review of this! I got this as a frimp, and with a name like "delight" I wanted to dive in without seeing the notes first. As soon as I popped open the imp, though, I got a bad feeling. Jasmine! I've tried too many BPAL perfumes featuring jasmine (it just FINDS me!) and it's killed the scent almost every time... I think it almost behaved a grand total of two times. Still, it DID almost work twice... so I steeled myself for the worst, hoped for the worst, and dabbed it on. Sure enough, wet on the skin, it was a blast of maybe-floral cat pee, acrid and sour, nauseatingly wet yet powdery. I didn't wash it off just yet, but I kept my wrist far away from my face, and tried delicately taking a whiff after about ten minutes. Unfamiliar floral cacophany, drenched in cat pee jasmine. Eesh. After twenty minutes, the rose bursts through. It's not the friendly variety, it's the harsh, stale, "I hate you, tajana!" variety. This is just disastrous with my skin chemistry. Rose and jasmine are generally harbingers of doom for me... if they aren't for you, chances are you'll find this scent a lot more delightful than I did!

Freshly applied on my skin, I'm all YESSSS because I love cedar, but cedar is typically a bit shy with me (it's a stellar supporting element in a lot of perfumes I try on, but it never really takes over for me). Magus, though... it's a blast of dry cedar! Well, the waft is all cedar and frankincense when it's wet. If I huff it, it's a lot of cedar, but also a lot of churchy burning frankincense, with a bite of galangal and an underlying sweetness. After it settles down on the skin for a while it's almost medicinal and camphorous smelling. Very odd. I'm not exactly sure what high john essence smells like, but I'm guessing that's adding the weird magical potion feel. As the minutes pass by the waft remains spicy and cedary, and it's really only when I lift my wrist closer to my face that I get the full effect of the wizardy potion smell. After it rests on the skin for a while it's less cedary, more sandalwoody, with residual frankincense and subtle, chilled herbaceous notes. I can't imagine wearing this just, out and about, unless I'm going to a creepy ancient library or off to watch a Harry Potter movie, but I feel like I want to keep the imp just for the scent experience. It's kind of comforting, in a weird way.

I impulsively and blindly bought a 10mL bottle of Fenris Wolf, and I think I'm glad I did! The notes listed looked quite good, and I want to test this on my boyfriend, too. It unfolds in a lovely way, first mostly splintered rosewood and a sprig of evergreen. As it dries down the amber comes out to play, sweet and glowing. I've definitely found that amber is a note I can't wear at all when its fresh, but some aged varieties are very nice indeed. The amber melds with warm musk, and later on a strong sandalwood presence infuses it. The musk has a slightly animalistic quality that I can't quite explain, and it's offset very nicely by the clean amber and crisp wood. After hours wear on, it's woodsy, subtly spicy red musk. I can't vouch for fresh Fenris, but the aged stuff is beautiful in its simplicity. The overall effect is very wild and wolfish indeed, with enough of a wood presence to feel delightfully foresty. It's a bit feral, but also a bit comforting, like having a big, furry, personal wolf guard that likes to snuggle with you but won't hesitate to bite the arms off of your nemeses, hehe. I feel like this would be appropriate at almost any time of the year, and would be equally at home on someone of any gender. It melds harmoniously with the skin, and it feels very natural rather than harsh and chaotic as the description and namesake might imply. When applied with a light touch, its throw is subtle, but its effect lingers for hours. It smells like a classic. ETA: This doesn't smell like much on my boyfriend... he says it starts off oddly plummy and then disappears before long. On me, most days it goes very sweet. The red musk and amber has aged to the point where it's all very smooth, quite sweet, and feminine in an earthy sort of way. I love the hint of evergreen forest that sticks through at the end but I don't know how I feel about the sweetness... it's a bit much for me sometimes.

The original Snake Oil was great wet, but dried down to vanilla and baby powder. Boomslang is similarly not too wearable on me, as it dries down to chocolate-vanilla. Still, I had high hopes for Green Tree Viper. I was delighted to be gifted with a two year old decant... so, for once and for all, if I don't like this, I'll probably never like any Snake Oil variant. It opens with fresh green tea and a dab of mint, which are the perfect accents to enhance and bring out the slight "medicinal" notes that Snake Oil has. There's a faint crisp bergamot presence but it burns off fast. Aged snake oil vanilla sweetens and softens the mint, and I'm reminded of mint ice cream, yum! As it sits on the skin for a while the mint starts losing ground to spicy-resin-vanilla, emphasis on the vanilla. Somehow the resins, patchouli, and spice that I expect out of Snake Oil stay very low in Green Tree Viper, and I just get the impression of "warm" vanilla melting into a bit of cool mint. It lacks the potent, aggressive throw of the other two snakes I've tried, but for a while I was thinking, "Hmm, I like this!" But after a while longer the creamy green ice cream touch wears off and I get slightly powdery vanilla. In summary, like every other Snake Oil type I've tried so far, Green Tree Viper starts out fantastically and goes downhill from there.

Wow, this one smells really lovely at first. Lightly minty tea, brightened with lemongrass, sweetened with a pinch of sugar. As it dries down, the lemongrass dissipates, the mint slowly fades, but to make up for those losses there's a trickle of pale golden honey, and the orange blossoms begin to bloom. Gorgeous: I could not stop sniffing my wrist! I see that a lot of people complained that this was weak and a quick fade, but I was satisfied with the potency and throw. I thought that I was in trouble, that I'd need to cough up the cash to secure a bottle of this perfume. However, after an hour passes Gennivre stops being so well-behaved. Honey has betrayed me yet again! The glorious tea is nowhere to be seen, and the honey, alas, has turned to powder.

Freshly applied it's sharp evergreen, pine with a sweetness that makes me think there's juniper, and a cold sharp edge that reminds me of mint or eucalyptus. The sweet, almost candy-like berries were a definite undercurrent near the beginning, but after half an hour the evergreen is secondary to the fruitiness. As it spends more time on the skin though, things get interesting. Ultimately this dries down into sweet berries with a dash of pine, a plank of light wood... and, unexpectedly, creamy coconut milk! It fades rather close to my skin after a while, but it smells really clean (the pine really hangs on and the berries are fresh, not syrupy) yet also very coconutty. I'm not quite sure what to make of this!

I usually go for something to counteract the heat (Hungry Ghost Moon, Aizen-Myoo, Ultraviolet), but for something that works "with the heat", I immediately thought of Hell's Belle: "Sweet, smoky and sensually wicked. A thick, steamy scent, truly sinister in its voluptuous sexuality. The perfume of a demon's favored consort, or of the devil herself. Oleander with wet, sweet mandarin, lush magnolia, a rush of deep musk and a touch of spice." The mandarin gives it a fresh top-note, but the combination of sweet magnolia, musk and spice make it a touch heady and very sultry... just like the lab description would lead you to believe.

I got this as a lab frimp and had no idea what it would smell like, but the color of the oil was fantastic. After I popped open the imp, it strongly reminded me of cinnamon candy, like red hots or "sizzling" jelly beans, without actually packing any heat. I applied a dab to the back of my wrist and instantly remembered that dragon's blood has that crazy color, and indeed it smelled like dragon's blood. Sweet and floral, slightly resinous, with lilac and whatever else goes into dragon's blood. The cinnamon red hots candy stays prominent, but strangely devoid of heat, like the sweetness just drowned out whatever bite it has. Weird, for a scent called wrath! After I looked it up and saw that the note description had cloves and black pepper I felt like my skin had cheated me. I didn't get much of either out of this scent! It lasts for a while, but it's not much more than nondescript red candy sweetness on me.

I was hoping for woods with a bit of flowers, but instead I get just a bit of rosewood around the edges of a big bouquet of lilacs, lilacs, more lilacs. It smells almost minty. It's not what I expected at all, but I sort of like it, because, well, I like lilac. After it dries down, lilacs, fragile dried roses, and a bit of dry, dusty dark wood. Teak and rosewood are particularly distinctive wood notes, and I definitely recognize them here. I wish they were a little bit stronger, because after an hour or so, it's almost all floral, mostly rose. Rose "turns" on me a lot of times, but it doesn't here, it behaves very well. The throw is light but the lasting power is very good. It does have kind of a creepy feel, and evocative of the concept, but I can't imagine reaching for this often.

Huh- I did not expect to like this at all. Apricot is a surprisingly pleasant note (for some reason I was expecting this to smell a lot like Fae, all over-sweet peaches and kind of yuck). It's bright and sharp, and also fresh, vivid, and tangy-sweet. I'd guess there's a dash of lemon in here, too. It melds well with the orange blossom, and this particular fruity-floral combo does indeed smell "willful" and "lovely", especially with the addition of the strong white musk component. I've become quite fond of BPAL's white musk: it's a light "skin" scent that's clean and airy yet a bit creamy-sweet, and here it really works to anchor the other notes. I'm not sure what to do with my imp yet because despite the fact that part of my brain says "hmm, no, too generic, I've smelled body sprays and shampoos like this", there's something strangely appealing about Katharina.

I think I tried this scent before, but I guess I never reviewed it. I got it as a lab frimp and decided to give it a shot again because I couldn't really remember what it smelled like. Freshly applied, it's really lovely. I am not generally a fan of florals but this is totally appealing. The ginger is wonderful at first, and blends beautifully with the soft white flowers, and it's almost creamy ginger, kind of like the way I wished Sudha Segara smelled, but it burns off fast and the ginger is indistinguishable in a haze of light flowers, orchids and lily-of-the-valley and other things I'm not well-versed enough to pick out. There's a touch of green to this as well. But it's a really frustrating scent because it is so very light! It stays so close to my wrist that it's not even worth applying. I feel like I'd need to dump out the whole imp on my wrist for the full effect. It's great, but faint. I wish my fresh laundry would smell like Pele.

Jasmine usually turns to a horror show on me, but tea leaf, leather, ginger, and bergamot are usually winners on me, and pink musk sounds like it can't go wrong! So, I was really intrigued, and a little worried, by the prospect of Hua Mulan. Miraculously, the jasmine does not turn into a monstrosity. It's actually recognizable as a jasmine flower, quite soft and pretty, not headache-inducing at all. Wet on the skin it's quite gentle, a light bergamot tea with flowers, and a tiny bit of zing from the ginger. It's almost fruity, somehow, and I'm wondering if perhaps the pink musk is responsible for that. It's very clean smelling. This scent has just a snap of leather, not nearly as much as I would have hoped for! For a "warrior", this sure smells gentle. On the dry down it's a pale floral musk with a subtle fresh leather edge. Decent throw, but a relatively fast fader.

Wet on my skin, it's light and heavy on that "green mandarin" note and freesia. As it starts to dry down I get more of the honeydew melon, contributing to a scent that does smell really airy, luminous, dewy and green. The other notes melt together, and it's hard to pick out one over the other, nothing really takes dominance. It's floral (freesia, mostly) and cleanly musky and a touch fruity, very light and appropriate for wearing during the summer. After an hour it's musky, a little sweet, and a little powdery: all white musk and amber with a touch of guava and wood. It smells nice, but definitely the most "commercial" out of all the BPAL I've ever tried! I'm not in love with it, but like a ton of other people have said, it would be good for enabling new people who do like department store perfumes.

Vice was a frimp whose list of notes didn't sway me one way or the other, but I gave it a shot, as usual! Freshly applied, Vice really is deep, dark, chocolate... bitter, not at all sweet, but reads like a chocolate bar to me, not like cocoa powder. The black cherry became more apparent as it dried, but so did the orange blossoms. The orange blossom amps up, and it just doesn't go well for me. The dark chocolate goes dusty with musty orange flowers, and the cherry adds a plastic tone. Nope. I'll pass on this one.

Umm... that's a tough review to follow! I am a huge fan of cedar and carnation, and often quite pleased with cloves, pomegranate, most incense, and many musks. However, roses often end up really awful on me. Nonetheless, I sprung for a decant of Ysabel. Freshly applied, there's a lot of velvety rose, with a bit of carnation on the side. The flowers are really lush and true, and for once rose behaves beautifully on my skin. Dark, resinous incense rises up after this starts to dry down, and it really takes center stage. It's the perfect accompaniment to the rose. The cedar and clove add a bit of extra bite, but not too much, as they are tempered by smooth, subtle musk and the faintest hint of pomegranate. After a couple of hours, it's mostly womanly red rose melded with clove-spiced, smoky musk. It's hard to for me to say much more about it, since it really blends into one cohesive scent that definitely feels "crimson" in character. Very regal. I could definitely picture Queen Isabella herself smelling like this.

Freshly applied to the back of my wrist, this is all bright, juicy mandarin orange! Unfortunately it almost immediately warps on my skin... lately I really have not been wearing orange notes well, and since the wet-stage is all mandarin it just doesn't smell very good at all. But as it dries down the mandarin orange settles down and blends with all the other notes and the effect is truly lovely. The sweetness and tanginess of the mandarin wind through a bouquet of lovely soft flowers (I mostly get the lilac and cherry blossom, mmm cherry blossoms, my favorite floral!) with a fresh, wet quality from the bamboo. The plum blossom is more evident after a little while longer, and as the orange fades, the plum blossom kicks up and fills the gap with its almost-fruity quality (but not as fruity as the plum blossoms as Lovers in a Ricefield). I'm often averse to straight-floral blends, as they often give me headaches or just smell kind of blah on me, but the florals here are soft, cool, and gentle, and they're strewn across a strong base of smooth but dry sandalwood. It's really nice, one of my favorite floral perfumes so far. But besides the brief wet phase of orange (it just goes sour and... off on me) Jingu has almost no throw on me, so I'm not keeping it for myself.

I wanted to try this if only to better get to know BPAL's apple notes. I was curious, but I can't say I was that hopeful, even with the glowing reviews some have left. It's all ripe, ripe apple in the imp vial. On the skin, it's ripe red apple with a dark, waxy leaf green quality. Much nicer than I expected from the almost crudely plain scent out of the imp. It all goes downhill from there, though. There's a faint floral note that gets mixed up in the dark green note I liked so much, and the apple gets progressively sweeter and mushier. And then... opium. Why did I ever want to try this scent, knowing that it had an opium note? It's not particularly strong, but it adds a poisonous, oppressive powdery-floral-smoke undercurrent that has never once worked out well for me. It doesn't morph much over time: it just fades to a weaker version of lots and lots of red apples with a bit of opium smoke and greenery. Not for me.

I wanted to get this because I love the way a forest smells, but haven't found the perfect foresty BPAL yet. Black Forest isn't the whole package, but it's quite nice for a while. Natural pine needles, sweet juniper, and woody cypress, in that order. It gets sweeter, muskier, and softer as it dries. It doesn't take long for the dark evergreen goodness to disappear in a cloud of slightly sweet powder with a slightly sour edge. Black Forest is probably drying to powdery doom on me because of the ambergris and black musk combo: don't have much experience wearing the former, but the latter occasionally turns on me. There isn't much more to say about it. I definitely prefer Thanatopsis for a good earthy pine/juniper perfume.

I was contemplating buying a bottle of this unsniffed, but I bought an imp of it first instead. Well, I should have jumped straight to the 5ml! This is my favorite of the Come and See series for sure, and really, one of my new favorites overall! The first time I wore this it reminded me a lot of Crowley, but it's not as sweet and it's $10 cheaper! (And I like it more than that perfume now!) Like Crowley, it's an ostensibly masculine scent that didn't fare too well on my boyfriend's skin! It did however, smell great on me. Wet on the skin, it's a rush of carnation and leather. Yummmm, carnation! After a minute I notice the underlying complexity: along with the wondruous duo of carnation and sexy leather, there's herbal sage and sharpened, cooling lavender, a bit of softening and sweetness from a not-too-pushy warm vanilla note, and a base of cool, clean musk. As it dries down cedar really shines, and it combines forces with the carnation note to create a lovely, natural spiced floral-woodsy scent that harmonizes divinely with the leather and herbal notes. I wouldn't mind even more prominent cedar, but then, I'm a cedar fanatic. After it spends some time on my skin, it predictably goes through a phase of being quite archetypally "cologne" like, but it smells like goood cologne. Sure it's on the masculine side of the spectrum, but my girly chemistry sweetens it up a bit and it also smells pretty and clean and irresistible. It eventually dries down to what more or less amounts to some gently vanilla-sweetened leather musk with an occasional whiff of spicy cedar. After a lot of time passes (i mean, hours and hours here... lasting power is pretty great) it's all vanilla, but that's what reapplying is for and my decant is significantly aged so I'm not sure how fresh Bow & Crown would behave. This perfume is SO well blended and seamless, and it features a ton of my favorite notes! It's the kind of thing I could wear every day. It's beautiful, powerful, and definitely has some sex appeal. I aim on getting a 5mL at some point for sure!

Aelopile fresh on the skin is verbena, verbena, verbena, and a bit of bitter citrus, mostly grapefruit and lemon, as far as I can tell. The oud gets stronger after a little while... oud is a unique wood note, earthy and kind of musky/animalistic somehow, hard to compare to other woods. Cedar is in slightly spicy, fresh form here, and it's on even footing with the oud, brushed by the verbena/citrus. The amber melts into the gaps, and it's high and a bit powdery on me. Somehow all of this comes together to form something that smells like the accompanying illustration and description! It's somehow metallic and cold. After the citrus notes burn off it's mainly oud and labdanum (I didn't notice it was there at all until an hour after application) glazed with translucent, barely sweet amber. An interesting scent experience, but not something I'm personally inclined to wear.

This is a really, really great perfume. In the imp it smells light and sweet: a really promising blend of resinous and "incensey" smells and honey. Freshly applied, it's already complex and mechanical and golden, vibrant and warm and gleaming. Tart lemon balm, sweet honeyed beeswax, and balsams swirl together to create a cheerful, almost candyish smell, punctuated by a bit of sharp, somewhat peppery bite and herbal white sage. After it sits on the skin for a while, those top-notes lighten up just a bit, a bit of a woodsy note peeks through, the frankincense wafts beautifully, and the sweet benzoin and soft balsams and exotic resins really take center stage. Fantastic scent. It's hard for me to pick it apart more and analyze it because it does not morph much at all after it dries down, it just very slowly fades (lasting power is very good), and because so many of the notes are unfamiliar to me. The overall effect is really beautiful. A golden honeyed, sweet, zingy, resinous scent. Unique, very evocative of the "steamworks" theme, and a new favorite of mine for sure. I think it's really gorgeous. In an attempt not to be too hasty, I'll use up my imp until it's dangerously low before buying a bottle, but I really think this'll end up being a 5mL buy. ETA: Would like to mention now, about a year later, that this is one of only two scents I have a back-up bottle of. It's just that good.