portalkat

Uh, did someone say Leo - I'm a Leo, double Leo - Jarvenpa told me I like dark resiny scents, nothing really spicy, but resins and woods and dark florals. I like vanilla, I even do foody, but resins and woods are really my thing. Oh, I like patchouli and dirt notes, leather, smoke and tobacco. I like very dramatic sort of scents.

This is very, very sweet - dark brown sugar sweet. I can smell the honey, but I'm not sure that I like the way it smells combined with the wine. I agree that the cakes smell like those in All Souls, very dry and more savory than sweet. A very interesting combination of notes, but there are other honey blends and cake blends that I prefer.

This reminds me of a more complex O. It has the creaminess and the sweetness from the honey, but with the added spiciness of the patchouli and the cognac. The musk is close to the skin and wafting over everything is the myrrh combining with the florals to produce a delicate incense. This is very beautiful and unexpected.

Mmmmm, deep chocolate, sweet vanilla cream and a hint of floral. This reminds me so much of the first two versions of 13, however the chocolate here is creamy and not powdery and sticks around for the duration. The vanilla is more like vanilla orchid and perhaps that is the floral that I smell. This is so delicious - deep, rich chocolate cream, stirred with a vanilla orchid flower.

I was going to suggest Antique Lace

I just received 23 BPAL products from a very dear, generous friend. There were three discontinued scents, 19 current ones, and one that I could not identify. It is in a 10ml amber bottle with a regular label that says "0". She, my benefactor has no memory regarding this scent. I'm really not sure, but it seems to be slimmer not fatter, so I think it is the number, not the letter. I tried searching on "zero" as well, and no answers. Any ideas, anyone? AuntPat

It's probably "O" as in the letter and it is in the Love Potions category.

This is the perfect spooky night scent. This is the sound of crackling leaves behind you as you walk and of the smell of fabric and leather. This is the feeling that you get when you turn around and there is no one there, but the scent of something feral hangs in the air. This is dark and mysterious and just a little foreboding.

There is a sharp earthiness from the vetiver, oakmoss and patchouli with flashes of sweetness from the geranium. This is truly a dark and evocative blend.

This is rose at the top and beneath the flower is the musty moss. I can smell the sandalwood, but it is the type of sandalwood that's in Dragon's bone and not the deeper sweet wood. This sandalwood is the one that always reminds me a bit of gasoline. The myrrh sits beneath the sweet rose. This blends moves and shifts around a lot - notes flashing in and out and wisps of resin blowing through. Thanatos is a very interesting blend and I'm glad that I have a bottle.

I know that it must be my rather agreeable skin chemistry, but this smells rather good on me. It starts out with a sweet wood note with a pretty tame civet in the background. I used to walk at the San Diego Zoo every morning for exercise and this is the smell that I would get walking around the binturong enclosure. After I've been wearing it for 20 minutes, it becomes a sort of ambery musk scent. Maybe I should wave my wrist under my husband's nose and test this out.

This is a bright, effervescent strawberry scent. I can smell something resinous beneath all the sugar, perhaps Frankincense. I think that I'll try this at the beginning of the day and see how it goes, but I think that it would be difficult not to be uplifted with this happy scent wafting around.

Is Yahoo mail okay to use?

 

I wish I had read this thread before sending email to the lab. I was starting to panic when the form says it's been shipped on the 10th, but it's the 20th now! I've lost many a package in the mail, so I was panicking over the fact that I might not recieve my LE goodies.

I think that the email thread said that they had problems with Yahoo mail.

I am curious - while I've bought several fragrances on EBay, I placed my first order direct to BPAL on 9/18, and have received nothing. No notification the order's in queue, no click-n-ship (though I'm having trouble figuring that forum out, or if there's some site I'm supposed to check), and _definitely_ no fragrances.

 

I did get an email from Sara on 9/19 after I asked a question about CCNow vs. paypal, saying "the order looks fine", but that's all.

 

Money cleared out of my account 9/21.

 

Sent email requesting update on Friday 10/13, have received no response as of yet.

Sent another one this am, not expecting response really.

 

I'm about ready to chalk this one up to experience and count it lost, except that y'all seem to get orders successfully and even quickly. Is there something I can do, or a way to get even a status update, from BPAL? Or should I just stick to EBay from now on?

ophymirage, you can also check these two threads here on the forum the CnS and the I got my order threads. That way, you can sort of follow the orders that are going through.

I know that the lab has often had problems with email because of spammers and sometimes it is best to send messages using a gmail, fastmail or hotmail account.

This is really pretty. It starts out with a heavy dose of honey and orange blossom with the rose peeking through. The sandalwood comes out about 15 minutes later and adds a lovely woodsy spiciness and now the rose is the stronger of the two florals. This is a beautiful creamy blend.

My #1 scent right now is Cairo. It doesn't specify "honey" in the description, but since honey is used to make Kyphi, I'm pretty sure that it's in there and it does smell like it to me

06 version - The first and strongest note is the floral. It's rather sweet and cloying and sticks around for about 45 minutes before I smell anything else. Finally I begin to smell the candies and they smell like caramelized sugar. The florals waft in and out and it is another 20 minutes until I smell the tobacco and smoke. It's an interesting scent because it tends to shift around quite a bit. This year's version is quite complex and at some point, I will edit this post to include reviews for the 04 and 05 versions.

06 version - This is softer than the 05 version and, I think, a bit smokier. The smoke wafts over everything, but it isn't overpowering. The boozy notes are subtle and sweetened by sugar. The sweet notes are fairly delicate and the musk helps to soften the sugar and the smoke. This is very nice and more complex than the 05 release. Definitely on my "to buy" list.

Kindly Moon is gentle and smooth. I found it very well blended, the floral notes mingling to form a soft cover over the whole. On me, the gardenia is the strongest opening note, but soon dries down and I begin to notice the other flowers. The sandalwood, musk and vanilla bean are very faint and I was really hoping to smell more of those notes along with the beeswax. I did try layering it with Midway to bring out the vanilla and I think that if I was to wear this much, I would use this as a layering blend.

04 - This opens up sort of buttery, woodsy and smoky at the same time. There is a hint of floral in the background, mostly roses, but everything is very soft. After about an hour, I can smell something wonderful, but I can't figure out where it is coming from because it was so different than the way this began. The floral notes are stronger now and I can smell the resins coming out, creating some lovely incense. The florals are so pretty - I smell mostly the lily and the gardenia, no longer the rose. This is very beautiful and I'm glad that I was able to get a hold of the 04 version.

05 - Please see my review here.

06 - This version opens up with a very deep, dark, smoky, resiny incense and I am reminded of Schwarzer Mond. What follows is a medley of florals, but it doesn't smell like rose, gardenia or lily-of-the-valley. It reminds me of more of geranium than anything else. I wish that the original strong incense stayed around longer, but instead it fades and what is left are the floral notes. There is also a sort of acrid note and I'm wondering if there is some ambergris in this. Some of those whose skin eats florals might just get the lovely resin notes. I'll wait to see how this ages, but so far, this is my least favorite version.

I love anything with wood and I love all of the BPAL wood blends, but Anne Bonney and Tushnamatay are two of my favorites for sandalwood

Hmmm, I thought that I had already reviewed this. This is a scent that is part of my regular rotation with Penitence, Midnight Mass and Cathedral, Rose Cross and Parlement of Foules. On me, Hymn has a little less of the resins than in the other blends and the flowers are a bit sweeter because of the Lily-of-the-Valley, but it is in that vein. It is also a bit more subtle, without the drama of the others. This must be the regular Sunday scent in the small neighborhood church.

It's pretty much as I imagined, fresh, green, grassy and herbal. The mints were strongest in the wet stage and have faded behind the anise. It's very subtle. I don't know that I would wear this as a perfume, but it might be nice mixed in with some unscented lotion. Well, I take that back, I can see wearing this right after my shower because it's sort of a fresh scent. Totally not me, but I like it.

This has been sitting in my box untested for a week because, although I bought a bottle unsniffed I was not that crazy about the pumpkin scents from last year, some of them reminding me of candles.

The first thing that I smell is the butter, but then it fades and is quickly replaced by the pumpkin. The pumpkin is lighter, not necessarily in strength, but in feel, more like pumpkin souffle and there is a hint of something that smells like apple cider. I was afraid of the traditional heavy spices, but the cardamom, orange peel and red ginger have a more exotic aroma. The amber makes it a bit creamy and for some reason, I keep thinking that there is vanilla in this because some element is reminding me of the monster baits. This is definitely foody, but I can smell the autumn air and wood smoke wafting in through the window. Maybe this is what I will wear for Thanksgiving - absolutely lovely For now, I'll just continue to drool all over myself

Cherries are not my favorite note in perfume, so I am a bit skeptical about this, however I love wood so I am anxious to give it a try. One sniff and I have fallen hard. The cherries and the currant add a wonderful sweetness to the deep dark woods. It is almost like that sweet cherry pipe tobacco and so very smooth. It does not really morph and is not that complex, but it is beautiful in its simplicity. I am so in love with the Red Queen

I am so glad that I bought a bottle of this. The strongest part of this blend is the champaca flower and the sandalwood all sweetened by the tonka. There is a spiciness, too and over everything is the opium. This is an absolutely wonderful take on the basic nag champa blend and hoardable in my book.

I have been wearing this now for about 5 hours and I just need to say that this scent sends me swooning