abejita

I bought this on a whim after reading reviews that suggested the "powdery notes" weren't the focus. I'm glad I did. This is a soft, soft, pretty scent. The citrus people are getting is the clover, I am fairly sure. I enjoy that particular note a lot. The musks are so gentle. The sweet is present, but not overpowering. On my skin, I keep thinking it has faded to nothing, but then I get that gentle softness again. In the scent locket, the clover lingers more, keeping a brightness in it. I keep thinking this smells like a clean, happy baby. 7.5/10

In the bottle, I get a dry, bitter, dark cocoa with a hint of cassia. On my skin, however, it starts to unfold into something really wonderful. I have always had a love for bittersweet scents and flavors, so this has totally grown on me. It's a dry scent. I don't want to say it's powdery, it's more like... crumbly? I definitely get the impression of a dry (though not old or anything negative) little dark chocolate cake that someone took a shaker of powdered cassia to. There is coconut, but it's very faint. I happen to love coconut, but I think even the haters might be able to overlook it here. It's like someone added a teaspoon of coconut liqueur to the cake batter. My final impression is that the bottom of the cake was very lightly burnt. And I mean that in a good way. It adds to the overall scent. 9/10. I'm very glad I got a bottle of all three Monster Baits. They are three of my consistent favorites.

I am the opposite of strawberry star. I got both Queen of Sheba and Eclipse, and opted to keep Eclipse because Sheba was too medicinal. Anyway, this one is interesting to me in how it represents its name so well. The almond, frankincense and vanilla are dark and warm, the cinnamon a blaze of heat. The heliotrope high note is the nimbus around the dark orb. Even the blend's timing keeps in with the name; it starts out with the warm, then you get the heliotrope, and much later, after the fade, it's all just warm and dark again. It's sort of a simple blend, but it showcases each note clearly and well. My only problem was that I have a bit of a reaction to the cinnamon, so I have to be careful where I put the blend. Inner elbows? Ow. Not a big bottle for me, but I have two imps and I like them. 7/10.

I should like this one. The notes listed tell me that I should at least find it pleasant, if not like it a whole lot. I love honey, almond, and spice. In the imp, I found it harsh and medicinal. I like bitter almond, but something about this one just smelled off to me. I put it on my skin, sure it would mellow. The scent was still harsh and ragged to me. Almost a camphor/rubbing alcohol quality to it. Even long after it dried down, I got none of the honey sweetness. Just medicine. 1/10.

Ooooh, this is rich. This and Dorian are the bpal blends that made me realize that not only could I wear musk scents, but that I am in love with them. While Dorian has pale, light musk, Smut is dark, dark, dark and dirty. Even the oil is deep brown. I get the lab's delicious sugary note and the booziness on top of the most intense, gorgeous, musk. I actually wore this to the Pride parade, thinking it was going to be so incredibly hot outside that I might as well wear something that smelled feral, since some body odor was inevitable. Well, amazingly enough, Smut actually sort of complemented my own body's sweaty smell. 10/10. I bought a bottle off someone after trying the imp.

The short version: perfection in a bottle. The slightly longer version: The description is true to my nose. I get the clean astringence of the tea, the pure sugar note, and the creamy vanilla. The light musks give it a very pleasant roundness. I don't get the lemon the people keep talking about, not at all. Dorian is definitely good on both men and women, and is a much loved favorite of mine and one of my partners. It's the bpal I reach for when I don't know what I feel like wearing, because it's always good. But that's not to say it's a default scent. Sometimes I reach for it out of sheer love. 10/10. Dorian will always have a place on my best of bpal list.

I got this one solely because of the "honeyed" part of the description. I adore honey. Honey honey honey! Okay. Review time: I didn't like this one when I first applied it. Wet, the honey had a powdery edge to it that reminded me of my much-disliked (though I tried, oh, I tried!) Osun. Strangely enough, when dry, the honey smells wet and juicy! There is a delicate floral behind the honey and lilies, but I think that the lotus root is what is really tying all of this together, keeping it from being a bunch of sweet top notes. Though the scent isn't faint, I would use "soft" as an adjective to describe it. It's very pretty and comforting without being common. I'm a little sad I wasn't around for this one's release. 8/10.

This one starts out as a mix of rich spice, musk, and resin hung over vanilla. On first sniff, it was pleasant, but I couldn't understand why people went so nuts over it. Then, about a half hour later, the plum ripens and comes up to the same level as the other notes, adding a rich fruit that is what really rounds this one out. It's dark and sexy, but even more than that-- it's intriguing. There's something mysterious about it that makes you keep wanting to inhale for more than just the sheer pleasure of the scent. This one is a 9/10 for me. I think that after some careful aging, it will reach 10/10.

I finally understand the hype. This scent is rich, dark, and delicious. I agree fully with Karen Z. about the old professor's office comparison. Though the notes aren't the same, there is a similarity between this and Red Lantern, another of my favorites. Same scent family. I am experiencing some serious longing for more scents with a deep coffee note to them. In the meanwhile, I'll be madly searching for a 5ml of this, wishing for another springtime in Arkham. 10/10.

Wow. I'm really thankful for my relatively uncomplicated skin chemistry (well, at least in relation to BPAL). Catbox and pee? Yikes. Anyway, I love this blend. In the bottle it smells almost overwhelmingly buttery and cake-y, with just a touch of berry. On my skin the blackberry takes center stage, with the buttercream and the oh so very accurate red velvet cake scents supporting it. I don't really get much of the booziness, other than just perhaps an extra decadent feel to the blend. Even though it's in the 90s here in Houston, I'm still loving this enough to wear despite its heaviness. I think it will be even better in cooler weather, though. I'm so glad I got a full bottle. 9/10.

I really wanted to like this one. I am a huge honey fan, and the description sounded right up my alley. At first, I get a burst of wet, sweet honey. However, it almost immediately dries down to something very unpleasantly powdery. It sort of burns the back of my throat. I tried it in a scent locket as well. Same thing. The only difference with the locket was that much, much later in the day a fruity tang (pomegranate?) started to present itself. It didn't save the blend for me, though.

This is a really delicate scent, very well-blended. I get a breath of the dragon's blood resin behind the cherry blossom and tea. The bamboo kind of grounds it. There is a dry, crisp feel to the blend. The cherry blossom and resin give it sweetness, but it's a very light sweetness. This one gives me a grown up, clean, elegant feel. My partner sniffed it on me and his eyes widened a little, so it gets his stamp of approval too. I think this could work on the right man, as well, it's not necessarily a girlie blend.

This is a very warm blend, which is to be expected from something called LaFlamme. The descriptions from other people of the scent are pretty right on. I get primarily rich spice and red musk, but there may be some orange zest in there. If there is, it takes the back seat. I applied this as a perfume, but with a purpose, of course. I used it twice, once with both my partners, once with a single partner. I'm not comfortable with the word "force" in the description, so my purpose was more to focus my partners on me, not just because I wanted to be spoiled (and I was), but so they could overcome being nervous with one another. Well, there was definitely focus, and the scent made me feel pretty powerful and sexy. I will hold onto my imp and use it again. And again.

The scent has been described pretty well throughout the various reviews. I get some bright, sweet floral (heliotrope is in there, I'm pretty sure) along with some pleasant powderiness (and I am generally not a fan of powder scents, but this works somehow). As for its purpose, I anointed a candle with it a couple of days ago, along with my pulse points and mane, I mean, hair. I have been going through a lot of anxiety about my job search, as well as some painful lovelife issues. Unfortunately, when I am anxious and depressed, I tend to suffer from it physically as well as emotionally. Lionheart didn't solve my problems, of course, but the terrible, knotty heaviness I had been feeling in my stomach/diaphagm area has lessened by about 90%. I am still very worried, but I do have a sense of "This will be hard, but I CAN do it." That, I attribute to the blend. ETA: I wore this blend to a couple of job interviews. I definitely felt more confident, and my Spanish was even more fluent than usual (I was interviewing for bilingual teaching positions and I'm not a native speaker). I felt really good, like I had a nice rapport with the people questioning me and I didn't falter under even their most "trying to trip her up" questions. And today I got hired for the position I wanted most. Lionheart wouldn't necessarily have been my first choice to use for interviews and jobhunting in general, based on the description, but it was what I had, so I worked it. I'd recommend giving it a try if you need to project confidence and cheerfulness.

assuming all goes well, i'll be interviewing for teaching positions very soon. depending on how i feel, i think i'll either be wearing dragon moon (elegant, regal) or embalming fluid (i have it coming from a swap, but the description sounds really classy and crisp). if i'm a nervous wreck, though, it may have to be TAL lionheart.

This is a simple, straightfoward blend. Wet, I get tart pomegranate and sweet rose in equal measure. Dry, the rose takes the background and the tartness grows. I like this one, it's evocative of a very rich, lush, wet red with maybe a hint of a pink undertone. It lasts a long time, hours later I could still smell the pomegranate, though the rose had faded. I don't think I need a 5ml, but I really enjoy my imp.

The second I opened my imp and inhaled I was immensely pleased that this is a GC scent. For me it stays pretty consistent through its wet stage, drydown, and through later wear. The coconut is superemly rich, the milk creamy, the shea butter richer still. But somehow the cool water is very present, keeping the scent's richness from going heavy. This is a pristine white scent with a shimmer of gold. I can detect a similarity in the coconut with Tarot: the Star, but this is less sweet. 10/10. This is one of my favorite blends, ever. I already bought a 5ml.

lolita is lemony honeysuckle on me.

I received this as part of an imp lot I bought off of ebay when I was just trying to get acquainted with bpal. It wasn't what sold me on the lot, and from its lab description, I wasn't particularly interested, so I didn't try it for quite awhile. Wow. At first I thought it didn't suit the Morrigan whatsoever. My first impression was just a light floral, sweet, but nothing special. Then I put it on. It's a clearing, after walking through a forest that was shadowed, but pierced with shafts of light. There is hawthorn at the woods' edge, blooming. In the clearing the grass is tall and lush. Spring is almost just a memory and summer's heat is already rising, and rising fast. Red clover is everywhere and the bees are drunk on it. Are those apple trees in bloom? The bees are swarming there, too. The meadowsweet and rue are lush and overgrown. I can't really detect the orchid, but I'm not very familiar with what black orchid smells like. It's wild and majestic, and definitely representative of the Morrigan. When my imp is gone, this is on my list. That red clover note is to die for.

I remember June, 2003. I remember many Junes before then, but this one was special. I think it will always be the very last June for me, maybe until I have my own children. I remember June and I remember strawberries. My grandmother was so happy that we'd come home to see her, home to West Virginia. There had been floods that year, flood after flood, so maybe there wouldn't be good strawberries, she said. Oh, Grandma, there are always good strawberries. My grandfather had died the year before. We'll go to the fields to remember him, I said. He had spent all his Junes in the strawberry fields, ever since I could remember. He was like a strawberry fairy (if a Pentecostal minister could ever be called a fairy with a straight face), leaving quart after quart on the front doorsteps of all his neighbors. He just loved to be in the fields. So we went, and remembered him, and picked more berries than we could ever eat ourselves. The fields were pretty flooded, and some of the plants had caught a moldy rot, but the day was clear and bright and everything smelled of green and bright, bursting red, with white wildflowers, just here and there. Maybe some honeysuckle. We drove home from the fields, the windows down, the air wafting raw, ripe strawberry joy from the back of the car. "Thank you so much for coming. We'll do it again next year, right?" "Yes, Grandma, and every year." But there wasn't another June. There was a stroke, the end of next May. A funeral on my birthday. She had a full, rich, happy life. The only thing I could have ever asked for was one more June. Just one more. That's where Strawberry Moon takes me. I have a single imp, since I discovered bpal well after this moon, but it's a very loved imp.

This started out as straight up Lemonheads to me, as in that old super sour, super sugary candy that was dyed bright yellow. It was verging on too sweet, but I didn't mind terribly, since that particular candy is tied to some good childhood memories for me. Lemonheads both in the bottle and wet on my skin. On drydown, the heliotrope has bloomed, honeysuckle emerges. The candy sweetness fades. When dry, the lemon candy has retreated. Honeysuckle takes over almost exclusively, with a breath of citrus blossom. Heliotrope is in there somewhere. I like this one in each of its stages. I'd like if a little more of the lemon and heliotrope lingered at the end, but I really enjoy honeysuckle. I have a feeling that if I were to go outside, I'd have some bees trailing in my wake. This is a great spring/summer blend. As far as the Lolita theme goes, I definitely get that in the beginning and middle, but at the end, that has faded for me. I will definitely try this in a scent locket, in hopes of preserving more lemon. On a scale of 1-10, I give it an 8.

I brew mead, and this scent is like nothing more than a well-brewed cyser (apple mead), aged on oak. It's crisp with a hint of sweetness, but saved from being candy-like by the oak. I noticed that it lasted about four hours on my skin, but I wore it in my scent locket too. As a side note, my students (ages 3-6) gave this one an enthusiastic, "¡Maestra, me gusta mucho!"