noumenon

I am way too sexy for the office right now. I slathered some one this morning, figuring I couldn't possibly hate it, and wow am I impressed. It's extremely sexy, and after dry down the vanilla is the strongest, richest note I can smell. It's super powerful, like all patch scents the Lab makes - I'm a gigantic cloud of vanilla and hemp right now. The patch was much more present when it was wet.

I am sorry to say this, but this is fantastic. I hope Urban Outfitters gets more in stock!

I could definitely smell the fig when it was wet, but once it dried it turned into a delicious, masculine earthy leathery scent. It stays close to the skin, but it lasts forever, a rich ribbon of warm earth.

I actually tried to wash it off after a full work day so I could test some other things, but it is still stuck to me. It's really fantastic, and would layer really well with something like Carnal and anything with vanilla.

I just loved that this has magnolia in it - it's one of my favorite trees, in part because I grew up with one in my yard. I think it's my favorite kind of tree, and to have such a revolutionary and patriotic scent include smoke billowing past giant magnolia blooms just bowls me over with pride.

When I first put Liberty on, I got a burst of flowers. Though I couldn't pick magnolia out of the bunch, I still liked it. They smell full and natural and really pleasant - neither cloying nor dry. Then the smoke came out in force, and now it has dried down into beeswax and smoke. The whole thing is fascinating, and though I somehow turned into a foody person, I just love this. It's completely wearable and tells such an amazing story through scent.

I wish I had this when I took my AP US history exam!!

Sliterhing, Sweaty vetivert. Not even a trace of the other notes in here. Though maybe I should admit I'm testing a decant...perhaps you have to roll the bottle to mix the oils before applying/decanting?

I got #75, which like 74 has strong apple and clove elements. Plus some sweetness, like lotus or something else that resembles bubble gum. Even though there's no cinnamon in here, it reminds me of cinnamon red hot candy and a bit of Zombie Apocalypse, but with apples and spice. Total winner - absolutely wearable autumnal perfume!!!

I am in LOVE!

There's a strong Alice base note - some milk and tea on dry down that probably connects all the blends in Mad Tea Party together thematically. And the sweet sugar note is just awesome - it probably appears in other blends, but it smells completely one of a kind to me. The daisies are not themselves strong (daisies not being known for having much of a fragrance in gardens, either), but there is a faint floral in the blend too.

I absolutely love this. It is the perfect depiction of what "High Strung Daisies" would be like, it's divine, it has awesome throw, and it makes me blissfully happy!!!!

Many, many bottles in my future. This is an instant favorite of mine.

Weeeeird! It's dried oregano sprinkled over whole milk! I can't think of a single "herbal" blend that I like, but this one is really fun. Totally bizarre, but very pleasant. Fortunately, it doesn't have much throw, so there's no danger you'll have people exclaim, "I smell oregano! And milk!" as you waft by.

I love this! In the Dark Delicacies thread Tramp called it "watermelon musk" so I tried really hard to picture than when I finally put Citrinitas on, but I get a strong Sweet Tarts vibe instead. Up close it seems like orange to me, maybe with a hint of melon. The net effect is a cheerful orange scent. It's light on throw, but I am still catching it (i'm in exceedingly powerful air conditioning at the moment), and up at skin level it's very present.

Unlike Lamia v.3, which seemed a little unbalanced, Citrinitas seems like it could have been sold as a perfume as it is. And there are so few orange scents that it would have been a welcome addition!!!

Wow, this is SO MUCH cardamom my eyes are watering! It wafts like mad - I put a schmear on both arms and probably should have used a fingertip full at most. There was a hint of sweetness right at the beginning when it was went, making me think it was Mme Moriarty with cardamom instead of patchouli, but the spice ate everything in its path.

If it was wearing half as much, I'd call this stunning. As it is, it's more like taser than a stun!

After a few-hours nap, the cardamom lightened up and there's sarsparilla or sassafras underneath! Now it's a really charming cardamom-and-sasparilla scent.

At least there's no danger of using up a bottle.

LOVE this! It smells like a Lush store! And when it's really dry and has been on my skin for a while, it smells like Arabian Nights specifically. A little clay, a little spice, lots of warmth.

Since Lush products always gunk up my pipes, this is the perfect substitute!

Even though oakmoss scents often work really well on me (Banded Sea Snake, Fae and Jolasveinar are three all-time favorites), plain old moss doesn't turn out so well. Bat Woman, Parthenope and now, sadly, this one are perfect examples. That moss note just lands flat in my nose, a kind of dull, pasty note that swallows everything else in its path.

And it's so sad, because Whoso List to Hunt is one of my all time favorite poems, and the notes in this scent just sounded heavenly. I must have a blind spot in my nose....

Rock on. I freaked out and bought four bottles of Zombie Apolcalypse and it's totally working on me so far. Granted, it's been 60 seconds, but with four bottles, I really need to love this scent.

I can see why reviewers at Will Call said caramel, but I actually think one person nailed it better by saying there's a tart fruit in there with a sugar note.

I confess, the first thing I thought when I smelled the tartness was "inner tube!" and not in a nice way. But the more I think about it, the more I've decided that's just the tartness of the fruit note. Also, I mostly notice it when I stick my nose up to my arm and huff...when I let it waft (and it's crazy strong) I get a spicy berry smell.

I probably won't wear this much until Fall and Winter, because it's really heavy and sweet and that doesn't gibe well with humidity, but I like it a lot. I'll definitely keep at least two of my bottles.

Oh, I freaking love this. I don't get any rose at all...I get unbelievably authenic smell of leaves on chilly, heavy fall morning, and the spices from Devils Night (must be osmanthus) that make me think of cider. It's almost sickly sweet, and crazy strong - I was wafting all day at work and it still smelled freshly applied when I went to bed that night.

If Devil's Night is a fall evening, this is a fall morning. It is so, so, so beautiful. And I love that it never fades.

Attendees to the Harvest Moon Lunacy Will Call who brought food donations for the Burbank Temporary Aid Center in California or the Water Street Rescue Mission in Lancaster, Pa. received an imp of the Horn of Amalthea:

When I first put it on, I got a lot of the notes at once - fig and pomegranat and some of the vegetable notes as well. The net effect was a blast of powdery sweetness that reminds me for all the world of the omoxycillin I had to drink as a kid when I had an ear infection! Which I loved, by the way.

Now that it's been on my skin for 45 minutes, one of the vegetables (the carrot or lettuce I'm guessing), smells a lot like sage. Cream and Honey, in my experience, tend to be finishing notes that perform solos many hours later, so maybe I'm just posting too soon to notice them.

Pear is a lovely midnote that gives the perfume a gentle and comforting familiarity, even with all those unusual notes playing supporting roles.

When I hold my arm a foot from my face and waft it back and forth, all the notes together are fantastic. I can't even think of what to compare it to - something a bit like Hanging Gardens, but not as red. Much lighter, sweeter and warm. I really love the total effect. Also, the throw is very good and this imp will go a long way.

Ok, I thought one of the funniest things was when I searched for BPAL, a book called Ants are Having Sex in Your Beer came up.

Win.

Now that I know it's legit (thank you, Rheliwen, for linking to the post above that shows it's official Lab product), I went and checked it out. That's so cool! It's amusing to see what else gets pulled in when you search "BPAL" (though I would REALLY like to know why that Love Potion bottle gets pulled in - don't tell me after everything they put the Lab though with its "Love Potions" category, they've become keyword spammers now!). Even that gives me a giggle, though.

Oh man, I love this Dorian 10ml I was able to swap for. It is in a cobalt blue and it's aged and perfectly delicious.

A bpaler (I think theling but don't quote me) gave me her empty 10 ml cobalt bottle of Dorian, and then one day it dawned on me: I can fill it back up! i don't know why that took me so long to think of. So now I has my own 10 ml full of Dorian. And I just acquired a Dana O'Shee 10 ml, too. Joy.

Oh, and I totally ditto the idea of LE 10mls for the top ten catalog blends. I have pretty conventional tastes, so I think that would work out nicely for me!!

CLXXX (180) is strong and full bodied. It smells clearly of cardamom and what the primary note in Highwayman. I thought for a while it was the leather, but now I think it might be the vetiver. This is a fantastic masculine scent, but a little to butch for me.

CCIII (203), might very well be mint and oak combined, which is gentle and somewhat pleasant but very weird. The scent floated above the skin by several inches and never became powdery or acrid, so over all it works as a perfume.

This bottle of mine has literally NO throw at all - I have to press my arm right into my nose to smell it. But the scent is amazing - candy, sugary amber, prettier than any other amber scent from BPAL that I own. No powder, no chemical, no flowers. Just nom nom nom.

If ONLY it had some throw!!!

L'Autunno smells like creepy without the apple to me. The apple in Creepy is loud and vivid, but behind it are spices and sweetnees, and this scent, to me, smells just like that sweetness and spice in the background without anything in the foreground. I totally love it.

Um, has anyone else noticed that Paypal now only lets you put 300 characters in? For bigger orders, it will be impossible to get them all into the comments field.

 

Am I the only one experiencing this?

It's really going to screw up the next Inquisition at the Trading Post.

And yes, I'm talking Lab imps and Lab bottles, although same thing goes for decants and Lab bottles. For example, I loved my frimps of Morocco and Scherezade, and while I love the bottles I ordered too, they're noticeably different, even after a couple of months.

You could have an exceptionally sensitive nose, of course - do you have this reaction to other scented products? Or foods that you buy all the time that taste different from batch to another?

I suspect that bottles are made to order, so tend to be exceptionally fresh, whereas imps are made with runoff from bottle orders, so they can sit at the Lab for a while before they are sent out. Since you never know how long an imp sat, it's impossible to match it up to a bottle of the same vintage - especially for a sensitive nose that's picking up such differences in the first place.

My nose is average at best, so while I can tell differences between my bottles of Red Lantern - which I picked up used from forum members - and the Lab version I got last year, I can't tell any difference between my four bottles of Banded Sea Snake, all of which came from the Lab at different times in the past two years. So I'm probably experiencing everything very different from you anyway...

Look, you've already read through 9 pages of posts saying it smells like butterscotch; why are you still reading?

I have one thing to add that only half the people above me have pointed out already: it's so much like the background notes of Red Lantern, without the opium and asian spices. It's so awesome. It's like Red Lantern deconstructed!!!

Love it!

I love the idea of Bewitched - all those berries! I adore berries! And I can't think of a nicer scent to wear! But Bewitched goes through a difficult soap phase just as it starts to dry down and warm up. I think it's the sage, which I've always been wary of in perfume. Now the sage has mellowed after about 30 minutes. The berries re-emerge, but they are weak and watery compared to when I first put them on. It does waft prettily up to my nose, however.

I think I was hoping for something hearty and overpowering so I could just hide myself behind a cloud of berries. But this is actually a light, gentle scent instead. I have to check my disappointment and realize it still smells like heavenly berries and doesn't vanish on my skin like Vinland used to do!!!

I am guilty of taking the general catalog for granted while I chase rare LEs and marvel at the new moons. I was just frimped Carnal by the Trading Post and now suddenly I wonder how many other better-than-LEs there are lurking in the catalog that I've been missing all these years!!!

Carnal is foody heaven! That mandarin is sweet and desserty, the fig is spicy and warm. Together they are really amazing. It's summer here, and hot, and I love smelling this in this weather, because the sweetness really cancels out the putrid air on the streets and makes me feel less wilted.

In Autumn, I bet this will really come into its element. But I refuse to wait that long to start bathing in this. I need a bottle of it, now!!!