treska

This is the candle we use in our gaming room (which was incidentally the first room in our house to have furniture set up). I initially bought it for that room because of the delightfully geeky connotations, but we have fallen in love with the gorgeous scent. I mostly get warm, sweet coffee from it. Like dementia_divine I don't pick up too much in the way of the oakwood halls, but I don't mind because it smells amazing and has great throw. It makes the whole room smell delicious, warm and inviting. It's an excellent complement to the shenanigans we get up up to while gaming in that room. I'm glad it's not limited edition because we'll be needing a regular supply of this in our house.

This is from my notes on the first time I tried Crowley: This smells like a hot guy who's kind of wicked, but you really want to hang around him. Or, in my case, jump him. Dark and musky and patchoulistic, with wood and a little spiciness going on. I like it. Mmmmmmm, I really like it. But mostly I want to smell it on some guy I'm making out with. Is that so wrong? The lemon rind starts to flirt a little after a while. This scent gives me really improper thoughts. ---------------------------- And then, some time later, I got to try it out on my new boy* and it's even better than I could have hoped. Mmmmm......in the immortal words of Jayne Cobb, "I'll be in my bunk." *who not only lets me put BPAL on him, but voluntarily puts it on himself

Oh wow. Those are beautiful! Green is especially stunning. I would so love to have t-shirts of all the Phoenixes

Does anyone have pictures of the new Phoenix labels? I'm dying to see them (especially Mechanical Phoenix)

"Many things -- such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly -- are done worst when we try hardest to do them." This smells like a soft, pillowy lavender-marshmallow hug. I wouldn't have thought that I would like anything with lavender, as it's not one of my favorite scents, but this is just wonderful. It's comforting and delicious at the same time. How does it work for me? Well, let me tell you about my night yesterday. I decided to completely restore my iPod, as it had been acting up. What I forgot was that in addition to music, I'd been using it as something of a glorified jump drive for all of my graphic-intensive school work (working on my master's in architecture). Including all the images and layouts for my portfolio that I'd been working on for weeks. That is due for review at the end of the month. All of which is now gone because idiot me forgot to back it up (I do have some copies on my computer, but they're old and recreating everything will take a lot of time and effort, assuming I remember what was there and what the layout actually was). So.....worst night in a long damn while. Tears and bitter self-recrimination. All I wanted to do was go to sleep and worry about things in the morning. Not only do misery and stress tend to keep me up, I'd had a nap earlier in the afternoon so it seemed like I was destined to be awake until sunrise, feeling wretched. I'd just received my Panacea imp pack earlier that day, so I thought I'd try TKO because if there was anything I needed, it was to be knocked out. I confess, it did take me about an hour to actually fall asleep, but I was able to relax right away and the time before sleeping felt almost like a meditative trance. I felt peaceful, not stressed (ok, denial had something to do with that as well ) I managed to get a very good, restful, refreshing night's sleep and woke up ready to deal with the debacle. Well, mostly ready. But better than if I'd been up all night sniffling and berating myself. I definitely need a bottle of this. I don't think I can survive the rest of grad school without it.

Soft, pretty rose. Oddly reminiscent of my much-loved Barbie Perfume maker, but more sophisticated and definitely prettier. There's a depth and a variance of color to this one that must be the other flowers. The more I sniff this, the more interesting and complex it is, but it's still primarily pretty, pretty rose.

Wulric was very interesting and complex. When I first put it on, it was pretty much just "Hello, I am vetiver and I'll be your server for tonight!". Fortunately, the cocoa came up and asserted itself after about 15-20 minutes, which was a definite improvement. The two duked it out for a while, and it looked like vetiver won, but it turned out that cocoa had merely retreated to gather reinforcements. I'm not entirely sure which notes it picked for its allies -- there was a very colorful, almost fruity note, among others -- but it ended up very interesting and complex. I liked it a great deal more than I had expected at first sniff. I don't know if this is a scent that's really me, but I do enjoy it. It would definitely smell good on the right man -- maybe I should save it until he comes along?

Wet: very rich and grape-y. But there's more than just grapes. There's something lush underneath. Hm, as it dries I think I can spot the violet, very nice and rich and velvety and classy. This makes me think of a sophisticated grape Jolly Rancher for high society dames.

This starts out like super-sweet fruity red candy. It reminds me of visiting a candy store at the Shelburne Museum when I was a kid -- it's that old fashioned sweet of long-ago childhood. After about an hour, it grows up. The amber comes out and the fragrance gets more mature -- but still sweet. I like this a lot, but it's not the sort of thing I'd wear often. Still, I'll enjoy my imp.

There's some serious amber and vanilla lovin' happening on my wrist. Seriously, those two are going at it like frenzied teenagers. The end result for me is a very lovely, very sweet smell with a lot of throw. I do like this a lot. It reminds me a little bit of a more reserved, shy O or like Dragon's Milk's kid sister who wants to grow up to be big and buff (and sweet) just like her big sibling. I'm not really picking up any sweetpea (although I don't really know what sweetpea smells like). If I shove my wrist up to my nose, inhale deeply and thing "heeeere floral, floral" I think I can kind of pick up something, but only barely. This is really a lovely scent, warm and comforting. It's a perfect snuggle for those dreary rainy days.

Melisande provided me with an entirely new and unique experience. Yes, I can smell the jasmine, but here comes the vanilla bean floating up. And oh, is that violet? How nice! And over there, could that be the musk? I'm not sure, but it's certainly something nice. Such a symphony of scents. I'm waiting for the jasmine to start up the All About Me Revue, but that never happens. Everything is mingling politely with everything else. This is a first for me: jasmine playing well with others. It's lovely and entirely unexpected. Happiness

For me, this scent is really best described in dialog format: Me: < dabs Nyx on wrist> Jasmine: Hi! I'm Jasmine! Me: Well, it's certainly nice to meet you. Will you be so kind as to introdu- Jasmine: I am Jasmine! Me: Indeed you are, and a lovely scent you are, too. Now, may I--- Jasmine: I! Me: um... Jasmine: AM! Me: uh... Jasmine JASMINE! Myrrh: Hello, ma'am, I'm Myrrh, and it's truly a- Jasmine: JASMINE! Me: Yes, dear, I know, but I'd also like to--- Jasmine: I love you! Me: Well, isn't that sweet, but--- Jasmine: LOVE ME TOO! Me: *sigh* Of course I do, you know that, but--- Jasmine: ME! LOVE! ME! Rose: Excuse me, I don't mean to interru- Jasmine: LOVE THE JASMINE! Me: *sigh* Yes, dear, whatever you say, dear. And that's pretty much how it continued....

Yesterday, I was burning a Pacifica Spanish Amber candle in my bedroom. On a whim, I poured the melted wax into my burner and then poured some Brisingamen in as well, then lit the candle underneath the burner. Mmmmm......warm amber heaven. It was like walking into a big, golden hug. Even the Boy commented (without prompting, no less) how much he liked the way the room smelled. I will convert him yet. This is less of a living room/dining room type of scent, I think, and more of a bedroom scent. It's warm and comforting and indulgent and, well, kinda sexy.

I highly recommend it. That's what I have in my living room and it's just lovely. Sunny and cheery and warm.

I love this. It works so well with my skin chemistry. It's a lovely, warm, sweet amber, but there's also the peach (not too much, just enough to make this smell juicy) and I think I can pick up the vanilla and maybe some other notes my non-refined nose can't quite parse. Lovely, lovely, lovely. Everything blends so well. I've already ordered a 5ml. This is also the only one out of dozens of BPAL scents I've tried that caused The Boy to spontaneously remark "mmm, you smell good". That denotes a winner in my book.

For the first hour or so, this was very spicy and warm and incense-y. I could smell the amber, just a bit, but for once (on me) it wasn't trying to dominate. Very lovely and so well-blended I couldn't pick much else out individually. Over time, it grew a little sweeter. I guess the amber and honey decided to join forces and show those incense ruffians a thing or two. Still warm and deliciously complex. My only complaint is that it's much fainter on me than I might like, given how gorgeous it smells. In short, I love this. Love, love, love. It reminds me a little of The Masque at first and Et Lux Fuit as it winds down, and seeing as I have bottles of both of those, I should probably just try and be content with my imp for the time being. I really hate being sensible. But...I did study Egyptology in college, so it's only thematically appropriate that I own this, right? Right? Hmmm, maybe I should start a thread on how we justify our BPAL orders. (I stubbed my toe. BPAL! I got an A on my quiz. BPAL! The cat tore through my yarn stash. BPAL! This fall I'll be taking 3 classes and working full time at a job that's 2 hours away. BPAL, dammit!)

Whoa, hey there, peach! Lots of peaches. Bushels, I dare say. I think my feeble nose can detect the amber and myrtle buoying the peach up and making it deeper and more complex, but I can't really pick them out. It's like they're the silent "e" of fragrances. Peaches are nice and all, but I don't really want to smell like one all that often. I like this enough to keep around, but I probably won't use it that often unless I develop a sudden yen for fruit salad.

The Dark Side of Water: clean and purifying, yet menacing -- lotus and juniper with a hint of mint. A scent dragged up from the depths to the Stygian shore. Once, when I was a wee, small thing I decided that for the next Halloween, I wanted to be the undertow. I'd heard of it on our family trips to the beach. My brothers and I were repeatedly told "beware of the undertow". It was a dark, mysterious thing which you couldn't see, but could grab you and drag you off to deeper waters. How cool was that? Don't ask me what I had in mind for a costume. Maybe I could have just grabbed people's ankles and given them a good yank? Anyway....given such a history, I really had to try an imp of this. On me, it turns out that it's mint, mint, mint, minty mint. There's occasionally a hint of something darker and more complex under the surface but then the mint decides to take over again. Nothing wrong with mint, but that's not how I want to smell most of the time. I'll still keep this imp, for nostalgic humor if nothing else. Maybe the next time I visit my parents, I'll put some on, cackle "I am the Undertow" and try to grab their ankles.

I am one of the lucky ones who has a warm and friendly relationship with jasmine. We go way back. We're good pals. So, it's no surprise that Perfumed Garden is quite kind to me. I can't pick out specific notes, but this is very sweet, floral, and maybe a little fruity on me -- but not at all cloying. I generally groove on the warm, incense-y, amber-y scents more than this, but I love how this smells on me. Who cares if it's not a "me" scent, it makes me so happy to sniff it all day. It's even helped to keep me cheery during a company-wide internet outage and email squalor (I work at the help desk). That's some potent perfume!

I got this one as a frimp. It's the second BPAL for me (after All Saints) that turned out to be much more about the memories it brought back than the actual scent. This started out smelling very much like wood -- not like trees in a forest, but like freshly installed wood paneling. Then the fig started to come out in force, which made for an interesting combination. After about 15-20 minutes it morphed some more and I found myself thinking that the smell reminded me of the 70's. I couldn't figure out why, until I realized that it smelled like the summers my family used to spend at the beach when I was a kid, down in South Carolina (back, you know, in the 70's). I'm not sure what notes are involved in that, but the scent takes me right back there, to days running around on the porch in my pink innertube, swimming in the ocean, and making drip castles in the sand. I'm not sure I love the actual scent, but the memories that it evokes are enough for me to keep and re-use this imp.

Sadly, this one isn't for me. It smelled like the cleaner I use to scrub my tub and it gave me a mild rash. I wonder what caused that, since my skin is usually pretty stoic about these things. Fortunately for me, it's a gift for a bunny-crazed friend. Hopefully it'll work out better for her.

In the bottle it smells like Medieval Barbie -- girlie florals, but with undertones of something richer (myrrh? frankincense?) . This is not a bad thing, but I don't know if it's really me. After wearing it for about an hour, wow. The rose comes out, but in a very complicated, intricate way. It reminds me of nothing so much as my elegant, warm, classy Dutch grandmother and the gorgeous Tudor house she used to live in. I can't quite unravel if it's the house, or her, or her lovely gardens that smelled like this. Maybe this is just the scent of my memories. I'm compulsively sniffing my wrists, remembering running through that amazing house as a kid, over and under the furniture, through the gardens, climbing the fence, curling up in the window seat..... Wow. This is not what I expected from All Saints, but I love this. It takes me back to an idyllic time in my childhood. This is one to treasure.

The first time I tried this, it was okay, but not too great. Nice, but would have been nicer without the dishsoapy overtones. The second try went a lot better. It was still a little remeniscent of dishsoap both in the bottle and wet on my wrist (I gather from other reviews that's the buttercup?). However, this was very lovely, expensive dishsoap from the kitchen of an elegant lady. Plus, it went away very quickly. What remained after drying was the warmth and sweetness of the honeysuckle, with the jasmine keeping it from being too sweet. Just lovely. I keep sniffing my wrists obsessively. Definitely a keeper.

So much amber love! My skin adores amber. Given the option, it will pick up the amber note in anything and run with it. I don't mind this at all, as I love the way amber smells on me. On me, Brisingamen is a very complex amber scent. It's richer than some of the other BPAL amber-types I've tried. The description does say "five ambers" so it seems to me that they're all getting together and having a very nice amber soiree on my wrist. I think I can also pick up a little of the carnation as well, which blends in beautifully. In conclusion, I love this. I think I'll have to order a vial, but unfortunately, that will have to wait until I have recovered from my latest BPAL shopping indulgence.