tajana

Kyoto in the imp smells vague and floral. On the skin, it's an explosion of licorice! I don't like the taste of black licorice, and I don't particularly like the smell of star anise. I expected a cherry note based on some of the other reviews but that's not so on The anise tones itself down to let the sandalwood poke through, and then the cherry blossom. I love cherry blossoms, but this licorice flavored edition just isn't doing it for me. The sandalwood and cherry blossom duo is pleasant but demure... it would be soapy, were it not for the strong twist of star anise. The licorice, by the way, is the only note that seems to have any throw on me. The licoricey anise tones itself down very gradually over time until nothing remains unless I huff my wrist to get a ghost of pretty cherry blossoms underscored by pale sandalwood.

I bought this on a whim, just because I've been on a lavender kick. However, there is so much more to this blend than lavender. In the bottle, it smells something interesting. It smells wild and magical, somehow... there's just something about that combination of cool pine and natural soft lavender, with something darker underneath it. Freshly applied, the pine/evergreen note strengthens. At this point I was just totally blown away. It smells really beautiful. I am a big fan of the smell of pine and other evergreen plants in nature, but in perfumes it rarely works out for me... something always goes wrong and it ends up smelling like Christmas or potpourri or pine-sol. Not so here. Just, WOW. Beautiful dark green sap, with the most perfect cooling, purple lavender note harmonizing with it perfectly. I think there's definitely some sort of balsam here that adds a richness and sweet warmth... I'm no expert on balsam but based on my experience with Bezoar I think there must be some of that in here. This smells so calming and serene and regal so far! As the scent dries down further the evergreen note dims, the lavender stays strong yet soft, and the balsam (I believe) note melds with what I think is sandalwood and frankincense. Guh, the wood note behaves divinely on me, it's light and airy and smooth. I'm not usually a big fan of prominent frankincense as it tends to go out of control on me but it really stays in check here... it reminds me of the straight up frankincense note that was in Anne Bonny, but it's so much more well behaved here, it's just one note among others. I think there really may be beeswax here... there's a note in this that reminds me vaguely of Hanerot Halalu. After a while I'm mainly getting a resinous blend (myrrh?), like an earlier reviewer said, a lighter Schwarzer Mond... without whatever weird soda-like note and bitterness that ruined that scent for me, and with lavender, balsam, and maybe a touch of vanilla added. This stage isn't as drop-dead gorgeous as the first half hour but it's still really great, and it smells like classic BPAL. It's deep but not heavy, light and shadowed, cooling yet with undercurrents of warmth... I can picture wearing this pretty much in any season in any weather. I need to try this a few more times! *I* think it smells really beautiful, but I'm wary of resinous blends as sometimes they indeed turn powdery on me, and couple of times somebody said I smelled like baby powder when I was wearing something I thought smelled dark and resinous and complex. Sooo the jury is still out on whether or not I'll keep my bottle of Hermes... it was a pleasure testing him out, now I just have to test out the reactions of my boyfriend, family, friends, and general public. ETA: I've since tried No. 93 Engine, and these two blends do indeed share some common blood, but No. 93 Engine is warmer and brighter. They're quite different in feel (I agree about the "mythical" atmosphere!), but still close enough that I won't need both... wellll, I'll keep a bit for myself!

I was curious about Enraged Groundhog Musk because it featured cardamom and black cherry, but freshly applied, it's buttery musk. Eesh. Not a promising start! As it dries down it gets a little more complex and a little less buttery. The cardamom establishes itself after a minute or two, lending a welcome dose of spice, and the vanilla gives it characteristic sweet creaminess. Cherries make brief appearances here and there, adding moments of really vivid black cherry, covered in a bit of dark chocolate. But the moments of fruitiness don't really punch all the way through the dense caramel vanilla musk. I smell like a cardamom-spiced, caramel drizzled chocolate chip cake with a bit of cherry turnover filling. With a musky base. This is just WAY too foody for me. I almost washed it off, but I left it and after another hour or so it faded to a really pleasant, cardamom and caramel flavored soft musk. It sticks around for a while, too. If I could just skip the opening foody stage, I would keep this.

There were some great reviews for Haunted, so I really wanted to give it a shot despite my patchy track record with the listed notes. In the imp and just applied, it's so pretty. A warm, sweet, golden amber. Simple and heartbreakingly beautiful. As it dries down, though, my worst fears are confirmed. Muskiness is identifiable for just a brief second, and then the dark musk and amber disappear. Nothing but extra-sweetened baby powder. Various ambers and also occasionally dark musk blends have turned rather powdery on me, so I guess I half expected this outcome.

Smells nice and citrusy out out of the imp. I had long forgotten what notes were in Spider, but the lime really leaped out at me. Freshly applied, it's really bright: mostly lime and bergamot, with the bite of freshly grated ginger. As it dries down it gets really green and herbal, cool and refreshing. I have no idea what artemesia smells like but I guess that's what's adding this scent. Really herbal, almost vegetable-y. There's just a vague hint of something floral, it works really well to make this perfume smell well rounded. There's a great base of vetiver underneath it all that really holds it together, adds a bit of "refined dirtiness" (aahh, I can't explain it) that really meshes well with the greenery. The nutmeg only comes out when the perfume fades down and clings close to the skin... the lasting power isn't that great, sadly... I'll try it in my hair next time. It's definitely a masculine scent but I quite like wearing it too. It's a very well blended, pretty expensive smelling perfume, and has a great, sprightly, kind of mischevious/dastardly vibe. (Randomly, I strongly get the impression of a pale green color from this scent.)

Wow, the Warrior Queens have gorgeous labels! It's almost enough by itself to make me wish I had ordered a set instead of a few decants.

I just realized I never posted a review for this! (I have a strange fondness for posting reviews, and I haven't had the opportunity to test very many new smellies lately...) Anyway, Shango was a frimp that I was quite curious to try, as I had seen a few raves from Shango sprinkled around in the past. I never sought it out myself because excessively fruity perfumes don't always sit so well with me, and banana made me especially wary. Shango is certainly a unique scent, right out of the imp... On my skin it's a swirl of fruit, emphasis on the banana, pineapple, and apple. It's not a typical tropical fruity smell, though, because there's a dusky, spicy quality to it. The chili pepper is really prominent and really life-like, which is interesting and unexpected, but odd. When it dries down it's just "potpourri" to me (it's just what I'm reminded of with certain combinations of fruit and spice)... a brown, somewhat powdery, almost musky scent of chili powder, sugar, and fruit.

Smells candy-like in the bottle but like a true fresh berry after it settles on the skin, probably because as it dries, the greeness of the dandelion comes forth. The trace of vanilla rounds out the tart edges of the strawberry. I didn't think I liked it that much at first but after it dried, the dandelion and grass added a delightfully fresh element. Grass notes I've tried before smell soapy but the "dandelion sap" smells really realistic and fresh and not sterile at all, it reminds me of being eight years old and lying down in a grassy field at the park, picking a handful of dandelions. It harmonizes really well with the strawberry notes, which smell like a bowl of finely chopped up strawberries, succulent and brilliantly ruby red, mixed with a spoonful of sugar. I'm salivating at the thought. Totally delicious and summery. Interestingly, my sister, who reflexively hates just about any perfume oil went ballistic for it. She whiffed it in the bottle and said it smelled like gummi bears and ring pops and made her really nostalgic, and then after she put it on it settled down to strawberries and dandelions... she kept huffing her wrist and demanding I give the bottle to her. Even though it isn't cloyingly candylike after it dries, it is still childish, if only for the memories it conjures up. Longevity and throw are about what I'd expect from a perfume this light... which is to say, not very long lived, but the throw is just right while it's around. It fades eventually to soft powdery, sugary vanilla (powdered sugar?) with a bit of "pink" and "green" from residual strawberries and dandelions. I didn't expect to like this as much as I do... as the hours have passed, I've definitely decided that I'm glad to have some of this. The bottle art is gorgeous, too! EDIT: LOL, I still like it, but my boyfriend isn't the biggest fan. He says it smells like "diabetes"... by which I think he means hyperglycemia.

I was hoping for a Hungry Ghost Moon relative with more tea and less citrus, and something light, gently floral, gently spicy and tea-infused to replace the hole Bakeneko left in my heart (the amber went too powdery). The glowing reviews piqued my interest, but I haven't seen a reasonably priced bottle until recently. Fresh on my skin it's soft and peachy. It's pale and light, but pretty. The ginger is just part of the mix, but it's what really holds the blend together and piques my interest. I wish the ginger was stronger, personally. It plays nicely off of the tea note. It's got a soft floral element, and seems quite "creamy", yet its neither vanillic nor milky. The sandalwood never really asserts itself, but the skin musk certainly does. Dry, it's a soft, subtle skin-scent with a delicate, Oriental sweetness. The throw is mild, and if I whiff it up close I still get the impression of white peach tea with sweet, creamy blossoms. Beautiful, yes, but too subtle for my personal taste!

Sado-masochistic holiday cheer: whip leather, cardamom, patchouli and bourbon. I was really excited to try Spanked: cardamom, patchouli, leather? Sign me up! The only note I was apprehensive about was bourbon, but that's the subtlest element of the scent on my skin: it's just a slight splash of booziness, spiced with a bit of cardamom. I was hoping for more cardamom, but no such luck... my skin has a tendency to suck up cardamom and mellow spices out, though! The heart of this scent is patchouli with leather. This leather note is the softest I've smelled in BPAL, probably because of its age: instead of sharp-edged whip leather, it smells more like a buttery soft leather jacket. The patchouli is definitely the most prominent note of all: it's smooth, smooth, smooth, dark and rich, just a bit of sweetness. I tested with just a drop but it lasted for ages and ages: rather close to the skin, but powerful. Ultimately, it's nice but not mind-blowing, and there are sexier leather scents in the BPAL repertoire, IMO... Crowley certainly comes to mind, even Tezcatlipoca... both feature patchouli and leather, and are much easier to get your hands on.

Wet, it's a bitter and bright swirl of citrus: pink grapefruit, lemon, and bergamot, with a sweetened edge. When it dries down the sage is more prominent, which lends a nice herbal note: I'm really digging herbal notes lately. I don't sense much musk, but the patchouli is a really nice base for this scent. But, the rose is rosey and increasingly prominent after a bit. Curiously enough wild rose is more well behaved on me than any other rose I've tried with BPAL. It's not unpleasant but it outweighs the other notes too much. If the rose was swapped for, say, cherry blossom or neroli (or another "blossom", really), I would love Croquet and wear it a lot. It's a lovely citrus-floral, and a quintessential springtime scent.

Wet, it was Dorian's "Victorian fougere" with an extra dose of lavender. It dried down to delicate lily of the valley and lavender with light musk. It smelled like flower petals, mainly, much to my surprise. Then, it morphed to lily-lavender over a warm vanilla base, halfway between Dorian's staighter vanilla and Snake Oil's smoked-yet-powdery vanilla. Just a trace of fennel. It's not unpleasant, but my chemistry does nothing for it, resulting in an really unmemorable scent.

Oya smells very strange. Some notes I'd never expect to sniff together are rolled up into one place, and they're blended so that they would be very hard to discern if I didn't have past reviews to look over. I guess the best way to put it would be a general light incense smell. Now, I know that incense comes in a thousand varieties, but this just smells like, uh, one of them. There's this cherry note, and a plummy presence... two fruity scents which I adore in the right context. But they're paired with a light, sharp, airy notes. There's ozone (very odd paired with the fruit, to my nose) and a medicinal overtone, with some herbs I can't identify. When it dries down, it's similar, but a touch more floral and even more ambiguous. It's not bad, but it's not working for me.

In the imp, it's quite piney. I have high hopes, 'cause I've been questing for a good pine-rich scent that doesn't smell like Christmas potpourri or Pine-Sol. Wet on the skin, it automatically turns to patchouli and golden resin, freshened by pine. As it dries down, I can definitely see where this is heading: it definitely feels like an archetypal "Carnaval Diabolique" sort of scent. As it dries down it's got some decent throw. Smoky tobacco and vanilla darken and sweeten a resinous base that continues to feel very golden and amber-colored. I forgot that there was honey in here, but now that I reread the description that must be the sweet gold bit! It's got lots of character for about an hour and a half, and then it fades down to a vaguely tobacco-smokey sweet skin scent. It lasts for hours and hours close to the skin. If I huff my wrist, I can tell that the sweet musk also has tobacco, patchouli, and vanilla blended together. It's nice, but it's not blowing me away! I wish there was more pine, less vanilla. I'm glad I got to try this, but I don't think I'll keep my decant because I have other oils to fill this general scent-niche.

The orange blossom and vanilla do make me think of a floral creamsicle (not orange as in the fruit, but really creamy), but this scent is full of well, darkness. I had NO idea what black narcissus smells like but I'm guessing it's part of the very bold and dark floral here. There's a sinister, musky-animalistic tint to this despite the extreme creaminess of the vanilla and the brightness of orange blossom. I would have guessed there is some sort of woodsy note here as well. There are aspects of it that I do like... the creamy orange blossom is really nice, but the narcissus or something else is adding a disjointed edge that is really unpleasant and hard to describe on my skin. A bit sharp. With the prominent smoky vanilla, this does remind me of Vixen and Snake Oil.

Fresh out of the imp this is a blast of pure maraschino cherry! As it dries down the cherry deepens into pure dark red cherry, almost alcoholic in its intensity. As it dries down the mahogany really takes over. Mahogany wood is unmistakably at the center, though I also get cedar. The wood is dark, polished, luxe and almost smoky. The cherry colors it red, but doesn't really sweeten it, hence the unisex feel. After a while on the skin the sweet currants and dark cherry reassert themselves and balance more with the woods. I don't know why I passed over The Red Queen for so long! I think it's because somewhere I saw someone recommend it as a scent appropriate for an older woman, so I jumped to the conclusion that this was going to be somehow stuffy or matronly. Not so! It's regal for sure, but in an ageless, classy, slightly androgynous way. I'm fairly confident that this little imp will stay with me until I use it all up: I love cherry, I love woods, and this is a great scent... too haughty for everyday wear, but I'll find appropriate times to dab this on!

This smells a lot like Morocco and Black Opal. I think they share the same light and almost powdery yet cloying/sweet vanilla note. There's not much more to Antique Lace than the vanilla. if I huff my wrist while its still recently applied, I get some light, vaguely pretty floral tones, but there's also something quite sharp. After it dries, it's that sweet vanilla with a faint, clean powdery edge. This isn't particularly potent in terms of throw but it does last a long time on me. I was hoping that I'd like this based on all the positive reviews, or hoping that it would be a great vanilla to layer with things that need a bit of girly sweetening sometimes, but it's just the wrong shade of vanilla for my tastes and my chemistry. I guess I've finally learned and accepted now that highly vanilla-centric scents, no matter how well loved, simply aren't my best bet.

Bon Vivant is just packed to the brim with that too-sweet grapey note that killed Perversion for me. Wine and champagne notes in BPAL don't register as such to my nose, they just seem like white grape juice. The strawberry note is delightful at first, but goes quickly to strawberry-flavored candy, and finally to artifical, crushed up powdery straberry candy residue congealed by grape juice. Too sweet, not for me!

Lots and lots of fresh "splintered" woods and florals, definitely lots of lily and peony! I don't sense any mandarin, but there's definitely a strong white musk in here... not one I really like. "High pitched" indeed... the scent of a crazy grandmother, perhaps. Well, at first at is. The soapy white florals fade away after a little while. The pepper, after lying in wait for twenty minutes or so, goes crazy and stabs all the florals with freshly cut wooden swords, sparing only the pale, sharp musk and a trace of the laurel. This is a weird one!

This perfume is complex. The night-blooming florals in Medea give me a headache when I huff them up-close. It's herbal and leafy, but in a poisonous way. The juicy black currant seems similarly sinister, there's a creepy wateriness to this scent, and the poppy (one of my nemeseses!) lends its trademark oppressive smoke. This smells positively evil and witchy. Appropriate for its namesake, but not something I can enjoy wearing! The throw is dark and floral. After some time passes this goes to currant-sweetened night flowers over cypress and myrrh.

I've never tried a scent with dragon's blood (as a listed note, anyway) so I was pleased that the lab frimped me with an Ars Draconis scent! Unfortunately, I'm not left with a very good understanding of what dragon's blood resin smells like, and the other notes here simply don't play nicely on my skin! The ylang ylang is ferociously loud, and the opium poppy (never a good note on me) gives this blend an oppressively smoky quality. There's s vaguely creamy undertone that feels misplaced, and the overall impression is too sweet. It's got wicked throw, but it's just too much of the wrong kind of flowers for me.

This is fantastic for the first half hour or so. Sage and lavender, with a citrus twist, laid over a base of dusky sandalwood and vetiver, with just a breath of ecclesiastical frankincense. Gorgeous. Resinous, cleanly herbal, almost spicy, in a chilled way: its sweet enough on my skin that I'd classify it as unisex rather than masculine. "Thin, dark, and shadowed" indeed. I was surprised by how much I loved it, but after some time passed the complexity faded away and I was left with vague powder. Tragic! On my boyfriend, it just disappeared.

I'm about to send this imp on its merry way, but I had saved a review of it. Wet, it smells really delicious: yellow vanilla cake with syrupy, tart currants slathered and piled on top. The fruitiness is the star player for a little while, but then the cakey vanilla takes over. It's not too sweet. It's at once powdery and buttery. When it sits on my skin for a while, though, it stops being delicious and starts being a sickly vanilla with a sour edge. Not for me. It might work well in a locket, but I personally don't want to smell like a human cupcake. I'm glad I got to sniff it, though, and I can see why it's so well loved!

Berries! I got a LOT of berries out of this, significantly more than I was hoping for. There's just a bit of booze and sharp leather at the edges, but start to finish this is predominantly fruity on me. I think I can catch a whiff of paper bag if I look for it. After it dries down the tart berries soften and sweeten up, and the fig gets more prominent, which does a lot to make this feel a little more nuanced. The creaminess is subtle, the edge off the leather chills out, the cognac isn't a major player, and the end result is a light and fresh berry cologne. Not much throw, but decent lasting power. It's not bad, but it's not the rich, debauched scent I was looking for.

A scrumptious blend of spices! The first day I put this on the brown sugar went a bit funky on me but since then it's behaved well, adding a lovely sweetness to the deep, rich spiciness. It is delicious but dry. This is a spice fiend's dream! The ginger is wonderfully prominent, with a fair dose of nutmeg and allspice most immediately noticeable after that, and the tonka replaces brown sugar as the primary sweetening agent after about an hour of wear. Not much anise, which is fine by me, as I don't care for that note! There isn't much dark chocolate here but I've got plenty of other scents to go to if I'm feeling like chocolate. I like this better than Shub, it has a more unique, complex, and intriguing blend of bakery spices (probably thanks to the strongly rooty/herbal undertones), and it doesn't do the buttery cookie or powdery resin thing that Shub does to me on a bad day. (Then again, I've only worn 13 three times, all within the past week!) ETA: This has aged very well so far, I'm very glad I have a bottle of this gem. It's gotten more potent, and the smoky, dark, herbal rooty scent really came into its own, and it's better integrated with the blend of spice and brown sugar. It's gotten smoother, but, thankfully for me, not sweeter. Weirdly enough, after hours and hours of wear... over eight... the only thing left is a hint of dark chocolate. Strange that it's the only survivor after being virtually nonexistent before.