indicolite

All I smell is the narcissus for the last ten minutes. Now I rather like narcissus, but I do not want to smell like it ALL the time. It is a clean fresh scent, good for a mood-clearer. However, I do not know if it would be one of my favourites. I had high hopes for Hades. I will give him a few more chances.

At first it was fruit, fruit, fruit - well, blackberry definitely. Now it has changed a little towards more musk, but it is still too sweet for me. It has almost the same candylike sweetness as Sacred Whore of Babylon on me, and I did not like that one either. I was hoping for the green tea.

Sorry Bewitched. Maybe you will find a better home elsewhere.

I know very few of the notes listed (let's be honest and say that for now, I do not know ANY); however, Sheol is a high clear floral, with something medicinal under it, probably the labdanum, and something I would guess is tonka if I had to guess.

Very interesting smell (I've said that too many times in the reviews I wrote today, but I've got a lot of stuff to review). Like Haunted but with an entirely different twist: if those were music pieces, and my synesthesia is running wild, Sheol would be an alto countermelody to Haunted's high part.

Now anyone here understand what I just said?

ETA: I fear, on the second try, I have to repudiate my compliments to Sheol. A heavy scent that I strongly suspect is copal (as tonka is in Red Phoenix and we get along there) bloomed and started dominating everything. I have a hard time getting it off, and I do not much like it.

I will keep on giving Sheol a chance, but I fear she will not be a daily one.

Very interesting scent.

At the beginning I smell something very sweet: possibly fig, although I have smelled fresh figs before; ah, I know; it is tamarind! Tamarind and rosemary together is quite interesting, although I also smell a - medicinal? - scent tying all this together.

I love mutable scents; I do not order many of the four-line-description scents since I have an idea they are more difficult for Beth to make - however, I love the journey of changing from smell to smell that they provide.

Nephilim may see concentrated use and lots of love. I want more of it, just for the uniqueness.

Wet on my skin: very - clear (I am synesthesia-prone, esp with smells, bear with me) but with a dark undercurrent. The ozone and citrus reviewers have described play together, making it, like so many of Beth's blends, seeming almost like a smell you have smelled before, but with that added touch making it extraordinary.

I like it. Nyarlathotep, Hunter in the Dark, I think we are going to be friends, you and I.

ETA: In the couple of days since, I have worn Nyarlathotep quite often, even neglecting my old favourites because of him. He seems to say "Wear me; you know you want to...Even one small spot on your wrist, that is reserved for me." He is one of those dangerous lads with a feline grace and a glint in his eye that you know are not the good ones, but which make your heart flutter and you hum and think about what you will wear for them just the same. All the time when I wear him, I fear the incense, but it is there just to give it that smoky dangerous feeling.

I am obsessed and addicted. And of course the Hunter in the Dark is in a big bottle in my next order, need you even ask?

When I first dab it on my wrist, I get a smell...like oatmeal I must have eaten often. I think it is the peach and clove and cinnamon altogether, all three of which have shown up in our kitchen in the past. The spices and the fruit come together so wonderfully!

Bottle. 5 mL definitely. The smell of the enemy of God has a place in my perfumes-to-use-often, and I hope no one is offended. I was right to dream of this one.

Indeed, as people said, it smells traditionally perfume-y - ironically enough, the perfume it most reminded me of is called Red Moscow (no, no accusations of plagiarism Beth's way, no, but Red Moscow is made in Moscow, where people should know what the smell should be).

However, the tangerine's strength brings this out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary.

I will write more in my review on later applications, but I would say this scent is a proper honour to a city. But then how could I resist getting at least an imp of this blend? It is one of the so-far-few cities of Wanderlust I could say I know - AND I liked the notes.

Moscow, city of my birth, Beth makes you smell prettier than you actually do.

This is a very cooling scent, with the lemon peel, sage and lavender. However, there is something there that does not let this get into a typical mold. It makes it a fascinating blend rather than just a cooling scent.

I like this one very much; I was right to dream of it in my order. Quite likely a bottle candidate.

This was on my wishlist, but fortunately I got it as a frimp.

It is deliciously fruity, but not too sweet. The apricot is definitely on the foreground, but indeed, as reviewers said, there is incense beneath the surface. However, the fruit and the incense interplay in a very lovely way, and scents that I would have disliked had they been the primadonnas of the blend do very nicely together.

I am definitely going to use my imp regularly (once all the other stuff I have to try gets its chance) and maybe get a bottle.

It must be the violet mixed with frankincense I smell, since I do not get any cinnamon, and cinnamon generally comes out to play on my skin. Faustus is...interesting. I can get the arrogance, but (despite what some who know me might say) it does not speak to me. I may use up my imp, but I do not think I would be getting a bottle.

On second sniff, I am getting a certain...cinnamon-like quality without actual cinnamon. Perhaps it is frankincense. I do not know. The floral that is probably violet (although it is not like the overused violet in cleaning products) has a strong enough throw for me to smell it while typing (it is on my wrist).

However, my opinion holds.

ETA: Ok, now I see what frankincense smells like, and I won't forget it. As is usual for my skin, the florals bloomed briefly, and then the resin/spice/incense came out. I like frankincense much better than incense, but still, Faust old fellow, there's lots of other stuff I have with frankincense in it.

Anubis is like nothing else I have smelled so far, BPAL or otherwise, but closest to balsam of some kind. Although I would not have thought of myself as an embalming person, I like him very much and keep on sniffing my elbow. His scent changes, but it is quite balsamic.

Of my buttload order, this is the first one I must truly say is getting a big bottle soon.

At first this smelled very very commercial-perfume: must have been the musks. It still smelled that way on paper, no matter how I sniffed. However, on me in a few minutes I got...peach! Very lovely peachlike scent, but why peach?

I may have been smelling something else that smelled like peach to me, but I know what patchouli smells like, and I did not think it was poppy.

Anyhow, I like it and want more (this was a sniff of someone else's imp).

ETA: A different imp is not giving me the peach note. Poppy raged, and as always, any opiates have me on my guard: you drug me, you will get me mad! But now it is settling down to musk and patchouli together, and is doing nicely - ooh, and there is the little hint I may have taken for peach before.

Quite a lovely blend, although I am not sure it is a daily wear one. But as previously stated, it may be nice for a make-out session.

The anise is definitely strong, but not unpleasantly so. There is something in there mixed with the anise that smells quite interesting; possibly the vetiver? It reminds me of something I may have had in my tea sometimes; as I brew crazy mixes of herbal teas, that doesn't help much, does it? I assure you it is neither oak leaf nor lichen, so maybe my skin is breaking up the civet bouquet?

Quite an interesting smell; not one I would wear regularly, but an okay occasional. I did not think of myself as much of a cave lichen person.

This did not last long on me; however, I will give the imp a chance.

Swap/gift from Abberlaine Arrol of a quarter-imp.

First sniff: mmm, NUTMEG!

Drying on skin: I seem to be getting cinnamon, although that is not listed. Probably not cinnamon, but whatever is in Silk Road, as this scent is reminding me very much of Silk Road - with nutmeg, which has faded down into the blend. It is spicy. No sign of the bergamot, rose, mandarin, sandalwood, which I regret as I like those notes. However, I will wait for them: sandalwood usually is last to come out on my skin after everyone else leaves, if Fallen is any indication, so if anything cool comes I will edit this post.

I would like a bottle of this. Because of the NUTMEG!

This is not just my first eBay purchase from BPAL, but my first purchase on eBay, period, but I decided to grab something from the lab's moving sale, and on impulse chose this one to concentrate on. It did not disappoint; I love love love it and have to figure out how to decant my bottle, because I want to carry this around with me.

The cinnamon-like note that dominates at first is, I believe, cassia, and I am getting hints of the musk and patchouli as well, and the faintest edge of plum. Also a rather clear note that may be benzoin or tonka, as I do not yet know exactly what those smell like. But it is well-balanced now, without any annoying edge, and it is one great scent, so much so that even with 5 mL I fear it going away.

Anyhow, love love love love love. Thanks lab for sending this to me on 6/6/6!

in the frimp, I get something that reminds me of melons, but not quite. Very sweet is the overall impression, and although it is not disagreeable, it does not arouse the desire to be that way. There is a smoky undertone to the sweetness, and something with a sharp edge that was probably the same sharp-edged thing in O.

I can see the "sacred" part, and I get the impression that most of BPAL's whore/seductress/sexgoddess blends have sweetness in them, so I guess that's where the "whore" came from. However, I do not see myself as the kind of person who would wear this. A couple more chances perhaps, but I will probably try to swap this one away.

A frimp from the lab.

When I first smelled it and when it was first on my skin, it reminded me strongly of some Asian dish; I cannot name the dish, but it must have had those spices in it for me to get such a strong image of those transparent noodles... As it dries, quite quickly, I get incense coming out stronger and stronger, although there is indeed a hint of wintergreen. After about five minutes, it is just incense.

I do not care much for incense; iit is not something I want to go around smelling like. But I will give the imp another chance in a couple of days before relegating it to the "dispose of profitably" section.

As for the individual Qliphoth - I would treat all the 'a's like 'father', all the 'e's like 'bet', all the 'i's like 'ee', and the 'iel' endings just like in the name 'Daniel' ('iel' means 'of God'), and q like k, since, as we said before, passing for a fluent Ancient Hebrew speaker is beyond the scope of this forum.*

What puzzles me is the difference between 'gh' and 'g' in the names: they are both gimmel, so there must be a difference that escapes me, but 'gh' seems to occur word-initially, and 'g' everywhere else, so I would guess they are allophones (sound different, but are actually the same sound in different contexts) and I personally would pronounce them both 'g' in 'get'.

Since I am a linguist, not a Kabbalist, I may be wrong, but on the other hand, if I mispronounce the names of evil powers, it may not attract their attention.

So I would stop my aid there, Galen. Hope it helped some, and wiser people can take it up where I left off.

*Sorry for the tone of that - proofreading too many syntax papers today, and their language creeps into mine :-).

One of the Hebrew speakers would be wiser, but I will do my best on Qliphoth:

Q is, I believe, a pharyngeal, but if you are a native speaker of English, pharyngeals will probably be hard (they are at the very back, deep in the throat, near the pharynx) So I think if you pronounce the Q as a 'k', no one would be yelling at you. The Hebrew letter given in the review thread have q corresponding to the letter known as 'kuf' - the one that looks like the logo for Mac OS 10 PowerPoint. In all my years of Hebrew study (and I took first grade completely in Hebrew), I have never been able to hear the difference between that and a k.

I could not find a Hebrew spelling of Qliphoth in the Review threads, so I would guess that the 'ph' could be either a 'f' (as in 'telephone') or an aspirated 'p' - the 'p' at the beginnings of words like 'pot' (hold your hand against your lips and say 'pot' and then 'spot'; you will feel a breath of air on 'pot' because that 'p' is 'aspirated' while the 'p' in 'spot' is not).

As for the 'oth' bit - that is the Hebrew feminine plural marker, unless I am mistaken (one Qlipha, two Qliphoth? I know phonetics, not Kabbalah, and if I am wrong here, someone who knows better please point this out), and in modern Hebrew, it usually shounds pretty much like 'ot' - like in 'not', not 'moth'. Now Hebrew pronunciation, like that of every other language, changes with time and dialect.

But in summary, I think that if you say "My next order includes some Klee-fot," you would not have murderous spirits chasing after you for murdering their names - I hope.

I am sorry, but O did not do anything for me.

I could smell the honey alternating with something medicinal; amber and musk in Haunted and Fallen are good with my skin, so it may have been the vanilla not liking me. It was not unpleasant, but..."This is what everyone is waxing rapturous about? This?" The musk scents mentioned above work way better for my sexy feeling, especially in wrist vs. wrist contrast.

I swapped it away. Bye bye O, find your lover in other places.

I love this smell. Musks are good to me, but after the musk passes, I can smell the dragonfire - that must be the dragon's blood resin I could never get the currant or fig notes; they all blend together.

Got this as my first frimp, and it was on the top of my next-order wishlist. I love the labbies, they read my mind.

This is a scent rather similar to Fallen on first application; Fallen goes through more different smells on me, but I mistook Dragon's Heart for it in the dark the other day.

Ah, smells in bed.

On me, Lightning smells like morning after the rain - exactly. I can see the dripping leaves and hear them rustle.

Today I, hoping to put it on (it is a good school-and-work scent) spilled half the imp all over me. Including some in my mouth, so I CAN give a review of the taste - stinging and acrid and "must run to rinse out my mouth" and "oh man, please, Beth, don't kill me with my own stupidity" and "here lies Indicolite, she died of eating lightning". I am alive, my shirt smells divine, half of my imp is gone, and kids, don't try eating lightning at home.

One word, LOVE. This oil did for me what O promised: musk and amber and patchouli, throwing in the floral, making me joyful and sexy and sniffing my wrists again and again and again... Many people seem to not agree with vetiver; it is wonderful to me. Sandalwood was one note I never got. But who cares!

EDIT: After applying it on my wrist at midnight and sniffing it again at around 3 pm the following day (another reason for me to love it) I do finally get sandalwood.

On order for 5 mL, thinking it should have been 10. Want more! Can't live without it in my nights!

Musk takes advantage of my skin and shouts its name to the winds. That is fine by me, as I love musk. With Haunted, amber and musk changed places again and again - like a procession of ghosts in a dark cemetery. I can see where it got its name. Cold musky, warm amber, cold musky, warm amber. I will be placing an order for 5 mL as soon as the bank balance permits, and for now, carrying the imp everywhere with me, for when the mood striketh.

On me, cinnamon is the dominant note, but enough other smells peek out around the edges - warm friendly smiles of the ghosts of the road to guide you on your way. I knew as soon as I tried it (I ordered it as an imp as my intro to BPAL spicy scents) that this one is my first priority to get a bottle of; I am waiting for it now.

There is a story about Silk Road and me: while heading to the States a couple of weeks ago, I accidentally tried Donna Karan Black Cashmere body lotion in the duty-free shop. It went horribly stinky on my hands, like bad bad pot combined with the worst incense ever, and it would not die down even after a shower and bed and being layered with Satsuma. Finally, I remembered that I had taken the imp of Silk Road with me, and whipped that out. My roommates and I are forever grateful to BPAL for saving our stink sanity! "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand..."