forspecial_plate

From my experience...Creepy has a very caramel-y smell, kind of smooth and melty. Sugar Skull is more like maple syrup and brown sugar...more of a crystallized sugar smell...but no apple or cinnamon. That's my nose's opinion, anyway...maybe both would be worth looking into. I've only tried last year's Sugar Skull but I like it better than Creepy. : )

With Wrath I had my typical dragon's blood experience, which is, it smelled very brightly floral for a little while, with a little spicy cinnamon mixed in. Then the dragon's blood resin dries and it settles into sweet and spicy. Pleasant but somehow anything with dragon's blood just kind of sits on my skin, not doing much exciting for me. It's not bad, just kind of....unexciting for me.

Lenore smells vaguely green and herbal to me. I would never be able to pick out individual notes in this blend. It's well blended but on my skin turns kind of stale. Really all I can pick out is maybe the thyme...but I never would have guessed that it has vetiver. It keeps reminding me of some other GC blend....I want to say Black Tower although I don't think they have notes in common. Maybe it's just in the sense that they are both complex but blended to the point that they become kind of indistinct on me, and both turn just a little stale on my skin. Lenore is weird on me. I think I'll give someone else a shot at it.

The Count has been wafting around me for 4 hours now (with one touch-up), and I think I can safely say he has become another favorite. In the words of the evil doctor in Hellraiser II: "And to think....I hesitated......" Count Dracula starts out spicy, sweet and musky, almost like Devil's Night but more mature and not as sweet. Very subtle and delicious. I'm also reminded of the dark herbal/faint spicyness of Schwarzer Mond (which is what I traded for the Count)....much more subtle than that scent, yet spicier. After a while, maybe an hour or two, I swear I can smell a little bit of juniper in Count Dracula. Maybe that is what his coffin is made of. Usually I don't like Bpal's juniper, but here it's behaving quite nicely. It brings a hushed dignity to the scent that reminds me of Oblivion but again, more subtle. Then, after another hour or two, the sweetness comes back and with it, the ginger comes out. I love every stage of the Count, especially since through all this morphing and shifting, the overall mood of menacing quiet, dark and silky seduction, remains consistent. And the absolute best part is the subtlety....I actually wore this to a staff meeting, something I don't usually feel comfortable doing. Just a couple little dabs were perfect. It will be great for those times that I don't want to broadcast a scent all around me.

I'm on the fence about Oblivion...I read the description the first time I ever saw the bpal site, and I've been wanting to try it ever since. I finally got to try it thanks to the lovely projectx. My first impression is that it's close to a 'traditional' cologne or perfume, more so that most other bpal oils. No one note sticks out at first, then after a few minutes I start to smell......juniper. Uh oh, this might not be good. Yes, I swear I can smell a little bit of juniper which I have hated in Golden Priapus and didn't like in Burial....but surprisingly, it's not terrible here. It's more balanced by the labdanum I think (that's a resin, right?)...or maybe the musk, I'm not sure. There is some kind of sweetness that balances the woodiness of it. After a couple hours the sweetness has come out more strongly, making it more of an enjoyable scent. Overall I'm just not sure....this doesn't grab me right away as being a favorite, but I don't hate it either. I may have to try it again just to make up my mind. My basic impression is that Oblivion smells elegant, posh, something kind of glamorous and also desolate. There's very little warmth here. It has a pretty strong throw and staying power. Edit: First of all, sweet notes often amp out of control on my skin. That said, Oblivion does the oddest thing after drying down for about 30-45 minutes. Gradually, this soft, marshmallow-y note comes out, gets stronger and stronger, until it smells almost like Midway. Could it be the labdanum?? Am I crazy? It's almost like cotton candy. So weird!

Mme Moriarty starts out sweet and spicy vanilla, very similar to Snake Oil. Within minutes, I start getting a very distinct incense vibe...like little wisps of incense smoke...it could be the patchouli combined with the fruits. Am I the only one that smells nag champa in this? It builds stronger and stronger until after an hour or so, I'm getting mostly sweet incense smoke, backed by the vanilla and spices, and it's just amazing. This was really love at first sniff for me. It was kind of like Meg Ryan in the restaurant faking an orgasm, in that movie with Billy Crystal....except I wasn't faking it. At around the 1.5 to 2 hour mark, it does veer a little towards too-sweet, almost cloying, but thankfully it's now back to the sexy incense smell that I absolutely fell in love with, and the sweetness has backed off a little, letting the earthiness of the patchouli come out more. The vanilla remains throughout, supporting the other notes. It has been 3 hours since I first put it on, so I think it's safe to say that Mme Moriarty has taken a place in my top 5 favorites! : D Thanks, Beth, for making my day! Edit: I just want to add that Mme. Moriarty is incredibley potent on my skin. I really only wear teeny little swipes of it, and my decant is still mostly full (over eight months later!). I still want to get a bottle but I have been putting it off, because I use so little of it! I know that one bottle is going to last me for a loooong time....but I also know it's going to age really well so I'm not worried about trying to use it up fast or anything.

Bengal starts out a sweet cinnamon/clove mixture. The ginger and pepper support. Reminds me of a sweeter Port au Prince, with echoes of Silk Road. After a couple hours the honey really comes out on my skin, making it very sweet with a spicy depth. Actually works really well on me. I have so many loved imps to compete with, I don't know if I'll wear it much, but I'll most likely keep the imp.

When I wore this all I could think of was 'The Sweater Song' by Meryn Cadell: "The sweater has that faintly goat-like smell which all teenage boys possess, and that smell will lovingly transfer to all your other clothes If you get to keep it for a few days you can sleep with it but don't let your mom see, 'cause she'll say, "what is that filthy thing, and who does it belong to besides the trash man?" So you have to keep it under the covers with you You can kind of lie it beside you, or wrap it around your waist, or touch it on your legs, or whatever That's your business..." I detect patchouli, or vetiver, or both, maybe some clove or other spiciness...a little like Voodoo. Underneath it all is a faint, disconcerting note that I guess must be civet, because it's the same 'goat' thing that lots of other people mentioned. Basically Satyr is a little too wild for me, not tame at all...which I guess is fitting to the name and concept.

This sort of clashed and jangled on my skin...it probably doesn't help that I had a really bad headache when I tried it. All I could smell was cedar or wood, and a rose that didn't work for me at all. Now I'm afraid to try it again, because I feel like it might make me have a bad headache again just from the memory of trying it. Not a good feeling at all and now it's associated with P&T. edit: To be fair, I let this age for a couple months and tried it again. It's not as bad this time. Dry, woody, something kind of peppery, which I think is the labdanum. I can smell the rose, too. I'm not loving this, but there's something intrigueing here that's making me want to hold onto it, so I will, and I'll update again if my opinion changes drastically.

I can't help comparing this to Sugar Skull ('05 is the one I have)....because they are both very sugary and sweet. But where Sugar Skull reminds me of baked/baking, crystallized sugar, Creepy is all melted, liquid caramel-y sugar. With apple. The apple flows in and out of the mix, but I don't get much if any of the other notes.....no coconut that I can smell, maybe just a little booze. Changes very little if at all from application to drying/warming up. Nice comfy sweet smell. I find that it has just a little less throw than the Sugar Skull, which really broadcasts from my skin. I may end up giving this to my youngest sister, I think she would like it.

When I first tried Thanatos, I didn't get very excited about it....and yet...I knew there was something going on that I wanted to explore further, so I just set it aside for a few weeks. It stayed in the corner of my mind and then yesterday, I knew the time was right to try it again. I quickly realized that I love it, and I don't know what changed, maybe just that I've smelled a few more scents now and I'm learning what I appreciate more. Thanatos is really wonderful.....deep, sexy, dark, smokey sandalwood, but more than 'just' sandalwood. If I sniff up close, I can smell rose. Other than that and the sandalwood, I'm not getting much in the way of individual notes....just a smooth, quiet, incense-y yumminess. This has definitely entered my top 10 and I might need a bottle. Edit I love Thanatos, still. I think I still have that same imp that I first tried. Now the notes have kind of flip-flopped....the rose is stronger, and the wood and resin come out in the dry-down. It's heavy, strong, and nearly powdery, which is usually a turn-off for me. But this scent is so great. I don't wear it much, because it has the feel of a solemn, formal occasion. I'm wearing it now, though, and I just can't stop sniffing up close, trying to pick apart notes. Beautiful.

Oooh, I really like Baron Samedi. At first it's heavy on the almonds, which I love. There is some spice and bay rum in the background, that comes forward as the almond fades, which happends pretty quickly, within the first hour. Can't usually get almond to last on me but that's okay. For a while, this has clove and spices similar to Port au Prince, with the almond sort of lingering, and the bay rum starting to come forward more strongly. I kind of wish the almonds didn't fade so fast, but it's okay because I like the direction it takes. Bay rum is a funny thing....there have been other Bpal's that didn't work for me that reminded me of bay rum. Voodoo comes to mind, the final dry stage of it is like a strong bay rum that on my skin turns into cheap men's after-shave. I'm starting to think Schwarzer Mond does the same thing (sad, I know...). Baron Samedi, though, has a sweetness that stays around and joins hands with the bay rum, smoothing out that edge that those other blends have. This is a drawn out way of saying Baron Samedi works on me, in a way that other blends come close to but end up being too......dry, or something. I'm going to keep wearing B.S. from the imp and it may even be a 5ml candidate. It really does smell like something traditional with a twist.

Dragon's blood resin and sandalwood are both notes that I don't hate but haven't exactly embraced. However I try everything that comes my way, and the Ars Draconis line seems to be stalking me so I gave it a whirl. At first, as usual, the DB overpowers anything else in the blend. To me it is a sweet resin-y floral, not bad really, but not entirely my thing. Then the sandalwoods start to peek out, and after an hour or so, the DB has faded considerably...which it always does on me. The notes all actually start to blend now, more than I was expecting. For a while they were very 'seperate', so I could detect both distinctly. Anyway now they are blending together and this is an all around sweet, incense-y, sort of smokey and floral blend with a mild throw. Not bad, but just not doing much for me. I don't know why but I never really get excited about dragon's blood resin. Just not my thing I guess.

Quincey Morris is a wonderful surprise for me...I wasn't really excited about it, and swapped for a little sniffie of it.....Wow! I fell in love with it. On me it is simply leather, with the sweetness of pear and vanilla, and not much else....very simple and beautiful. The other notes quietly support the lovely clean leather smell. To me this is a brown leather, not black leather. It is sweet and surprisingly light smelling, reminding me of a rugged, sweet man with a good heart. I put it on 5 hours ago and it still has pretty good throw, and hasn't changed much from the initial application. Must get a bottle of this before it goes away! edit: Wanted to add that much later some musk did come out in this blend...but for the most part I didn't smell the musk very much at all, which after thinking about it I thought was unusual (not in a bad way).

Definitely smelling the musk in Theodosius, and the earl grey tea brings a citrus twang to the mixture. Also I think I can smell the vanilla bean, adding to the already sweet musk. As it dries, the musk warms up and becomes stronger. Sophisticated is the word I'm thinking of here, and also strikes me as a good gender neutral perfume. I like it.....however, I feel that it's similar enough to F5 that I don't need whole bottles of both (I have a decanted imp of Theo). Seems to be in the same scent 'family' as F5, but I like F5 just a little better. Edit, May 2020: this isn't like F5, I don't know what I was thinking

I was so excited to see what all the fuss was about! Shub really is good stuff. Starts out with a nice *poomf* of warm spicy ginger, kind of like baked goods but not quite as sweet. After a few minutes, the ginger backs off, and the spiciness comes forward. At this point it reminds me a lot of Port Au Prince's clove and spices, with a little of the sweetness of Aureus (amber or resin, but without the wood of Aureus). Actually at this point it kind of reminds me of Greed also. This lasts for an hour or two. Then the ginger comes back, only this time it's mixed with the resins and maybe I can smell the herbs too. Doesn't have a whole lot of throw on me, but it really is delicious. However....I'm not so obsessed that I'll go to great lengths to get a whole bottle. It will be nice to use the rest of the imp! (edited to add slightly more detailed descriptions...)

Here is another rare floral that works for me....Sheol is mostly floral at first, and I like it. Then a resin sweetness emerges and gets stronger....that would be the labdanum and/or copal. Interesting and pleasing combination. The florals and resins stay pretty balanced for a long time. Much later, something really powdery and violet-like came from this....although it might have possibly been another oil I tested earlier. I couldn't remember if I tested something else or not. But it might just be one of the florals finally dominating the rest of the notes. Anyway, this isn't bad but I think I know someone who might possibly like it more than I did, and probably get more wear out of it.

I like how this smells out of the imp, but as soon as it touches my skin it seems to just hide. It doesn't disappear completely but darn close. I can smell a fresh-ness that's a little bit citrus, a little leather, maybe some mint...it does smell sophisticated and posh to me. It seems to be very well blended and I have trouble picking out any individual notes, really. Later as it dries/warms, a little more sweetness comes out. Ahh, there's a little more throw...but not much! Manhattan is a very subtle scent on me, but nice. I think I can smell the amber, along with the same notes I picked up earlier. This seems to be in the same scent family as F5, so maybe I'm smelling the tea also. But really, F5 has much more throw, even though it too is subtle...so I don't see a need to seek out more Manhattan. If I did wear it again, it would be for the subtlety of it. edit: Later...this is strangely persistent, very present but so sublte as to be almost overlooked (oversniffed?). Sort of contradictory. I'm going to have to experiment with this some more.

There haven't been very many bpal scents that have struck me as mostly feminine, but this is one of them. It reminds me of a posh, elegant woman's perfume. I do like the sweetness of coconut and/or vanilla, whichever or both. I guess I'm not that much of an amber fan, though. Just not a scent for me!

Initially, Antonino wows me with a burst of citrus/verbena....so wonderful! But as with many bpal scents, the citrus doesn't hang around for very long...less than 30 minutes later, it's mostly gone. What's left is sweet, and I can make out the plum for sure, dancing around in there. I'm not sure I can tell the difference between the coconut and fig, or the lavender and musk. It's all swirled together to make something that stops just short of too sweet....very nice. Funny how much it changes from that first flash of verbena (I personally wish that stayed around longer). As time goes by the musk becomes more firm and grounding, I think. All around a really nice scent although almost too sweet for me to get much wear out of it. Plus I worry that the citrus/verbena note will degrade in the bottle before anything else, leaving me with just the sweetness. Oh and I would never have even guessed that there's vetiver in this. *shrugs* It just hides on me.

Um, since I'm getting an imp soon.... How do I pronounce Shub-Niggurath without uttering a racial slur? edit: found this on the net: SHUB-NIG-ger-ath

...excellent point! : )

This was sent to me as an extra, and I tried it without reading what was in it. Very strange blend that my skin doesn't play well with. Smelled like florals at first, and not in a good way...then something earthy, and sort of a weird indescribable almost plastic smell. Later on it dried to something cakey. I think the weirdness in the middle was the vanilla mixing with the apricot. The floral...well, I guess that's jasmine but it also is mixing with other notes to make a smell that's not very jasmine-like to me....smells closer to violet or something. And the cakey must be the vanilla finally playing nice. Bottom line: just doesn't work well on my skin. Kind of shifted around a lot and never settled into anything I can work with.

I really can't distinguish my resins, and this is no exception. All I can say for sure is that Cathedral reminds me very much of the Pit and the Pendulum (more PandP than Midnight Mass), with cedar when you sniff up close. But the throw is sweet resins, frankincense and myrrh I guess, and I do like it a lot. I had been thinking about seeking a bottle of Pit and the Pendulum, but if I can't find that, I know I have this to fall back on. And that's a good thing. I certainly wouldn't need both unless I wanted to try aging one....hmm, that's not such a bad idea actually! But as far as GC scents go, if I had to choose I would pick Aureus over Cathedral. The cedar in Cathedral is just a smidge too harsh and dry, whereas in Aureus the wood note is perfect. LOL maybe this post belongs more in the 'resins and incense scent' thread... Cathedral is a nice sweet resinous blend that, up close, has a sharp cedar note that keeps me from loving it more. I do like it and will probably wear it again but there are other bpals that I like more, that would take its place. There, how's that? : D

Devil's Night (2006) is wonderful. It's sweet, musky, a little spicy, and very appropriate for a fall scent. At first the sugar/candy is there a little bit, then that fades and the musk announces itself. I didn't get fires in the distance, although to me it does smell like Samhain from far away, with just a hint of apple or cider. That's a good thing because I wanted so much to like Samhain but didn't. Devil's Night might be the fall scent I've been hoping for. It's kind of subtle on me, not a lot of throw so far. It reminds me a bit of Blood Moon without so much of the cinnamon/spicy note. ETA: 2 or 3 hours later the sugar peeks back out. Musk is the note that stands out, throughout. This is a marvelous scent! I haven't tried the older Devil's Night so I couldn't say how this compares. edit again: I've noticed that in the final dry-down stage, the booze comes out more strongly than I noticed before.