icing

I have the same issue, I've never seen that before.

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First: *hugs*

Vice, Boo!, Cake Smash, Eat Me... foody scents make me feel happy and comforted.

Sometimes something obnoxiously floral does too (oh, how I miss you, biggerCritters).

What makes you happy, either from scent or name? Or reminds you of something special?

Which blends are closest to Velvet Unicorn?

I get a tropical, almost pina colada-esque coconut-cherry-citrus sugar cloud scent from it.

Detestable Putrescence smells mostly like honeyed vanilla to me. (:

It's also a lot like LUSH's Mange Too massage bar.

Kindly Moon.

Crystalline, ethereal, yet very regal and sophisticated. I’ve yet to find another BPAL blend like it.

I consider Fazia, the Black Mamba to be a humid, heady, ever-changing, dark-seductive scent. It smells kinda sweet, kinda resinous, but nothing’s exactly easy to define, and the green adds a slight bite to it.

Perversion’s also another steamy-sexy-but-kinda sweet blend.

Maenad is sweetened up with strawberries, orange blossoms, and carnations but there’s also a heady twist of black poppies.

Malkuth, the Sephiroth blend is similar to Maenad, but more juicy, and incense-soaked.

…and Death Adder is sweet vanilla-coconut, with opoponax to make it interesting, but then there’s a dark twist of vetiver that acts like the leather in Perversion.

Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo tends to make me a little bouncy, no matter what.

Have you tried Beaver Moon ‘05/Beaver'versary?

It is the only foody BPAL that's stayed foody on me, and with it's description of "Cheesecake and cupcakes, yo! This is Beaver Moon 2005 resurrected!" it might fit what you're looking for.

Today I wore Midnight On The Midway and it reminded me a lot of nag champa.

I think Midnight on the Midway is the best nag champa-esque blend I’ve tried.

Hi there!

Could you help someone who likes Vanilla but has skin chemistry that does not?

My problem is that some of the vanilla scents, like Antique Lace for example, smell incredibly fake and like plastic on me.

 

But the Vanilla Bean note in some of the blends seems to be much nicer, richer and a little bit more buttery. I dont like rich, sweet, buttery foody stuff usually but that is the vanilla I like.

Am I just imagining things or are there really distinctly different vanillas? I'd very much likr to find one that my chemistry likes too.

I have the issue of vanilla, tonka, and benzoin usually not showing up, at all, on my skin, but sarsaparilla, especially after it’s aged a few months, turns into a thick, creamy vanilla on me.

I know your chemistry is a different sort of mean, but have you tried Tombstone or Stimulating Sassafras Strengthener?

Fresh, Tombstone can smell okay, or just like charred wood and root beer, but it turns into a heavy, rich vanilla with a marshmallow backing... and Stimulating Sassafras Strengthener smells similar to Love's Philosophy (only with the addition of wood), on me. Strangely, I typically amp woods into Super!Evil Throat Closing and Blend Ruining Monsters, but the wood notes seem to stay in check in those two.

 

I was also looking for a strong vanilla note in my first order. Didn't quite find what I was looking for though. O, snake oil and the others are very spicy, as you may have noticed (which can be delicious, sometimes). Other than that Mouse's long and sad tale was perhaps the most vanilla-vanilla of those I tried (O, snake oil, lyonesse, Antique lace was the ones I tried).

 

I also want more berry-scents! Perhaps it's because of my lovely, most loveliest bordello-imp. Tell me what you thought of the others.

 

You can satisfy both your needs with one scent: Eat Me!

 

This is my favorite GC -- delicious, slightly boozy currant cakes. This is a sweet scent, and new imps do have a buttery note that I'm not too crazy about, but the butter fades quickly (and a little aging almost eliminates it).

 

Eat Me is definitely worth trying! I don’t get the cake or butter notes, but depending on my chemistry, I get a currants and cream, or Snake Oil, minus the amber.

 

Vanilla tends to vanish on me, so I really only get the berries, but Hollywood Babylon’s another berry-vanilla blend. (:

It's funny you mention that -- sometimes the comments I get from other who smell Eat Me are that it smells like sweet incense. Since I usually can't do resiny blends, this suits me just fine (though I often wonder how my skin does such crazy things ).

Hah, I read so many reviews on different things and think, “Wait, they must have something mislabeled, those notes can’t do that!” or, “No way, I amp that note, and it is NOT in this blend!”

Then, “Oh yeah, since when are notes normal on me?”

crebbsgirl: YAY for Perversion!

Also, it’s another non-vanilla on me, but Le Père Fouettard is a subtle (in feeling, in wearlength, it lasts longer than a most blends do on me), booze-free Perversion variant on my skin.

 

I was also looking for a strong vanilla note in my first order. Didn't quite find what I was looking for though. O, snake oil and the others are very spicy, as you may have noticed (which can be delicious, sometimes). Other than that Mouse's long and sad tale was perhaps the most vanilla-vanilla of those I tried (O, snake oil, lyonesse, Antique lace was the ones I tried).

 

I also want more berry-scents! Perhaps it's because of my lovely, most loveliest bordello-imp. Tell me what you thought of the others.

 

You can satisfy both your needs with one scent: Eat Me!

 

This is my favorite GC -- delicious, slightly boozy currant cakes. This is a sweet scent, and new imps do have a buttery note that I'm not too crazy about, but the butter fades quickly (and a little aging almost eliminates it).

Eat Me is definitely worth trying! I don’t get the cake or butter notes, but depending on my chemistry, I get a currants and cream, or Snake Oil, minus the amber.

Vanilla tends to vanish on me, so I really only get the berries, but Hollywood Babylon’s another berry-vanilla blend. (:

I'm hoping someone can help me here. I have recently fallen head over heels in love with Black Lace. As it's ridiculously hard to come by and apparently I suck at Ebay, I need a good recommendation. BL on me is all dirty smutty, vanilla. I think it's a combination of the boozy cognac and tobacco and musk that makes it quite so awesome. Does anyone have any recommendations for dirty vanilla-y scents? I'm not looking for foody here. Most of the comparisons to BL from the wonderful list that ivyandpeony compiled are too clean-smelling for me. (Black Lace: Antique Lace, Euterpe (dc), Dorian, Haloes, Black Opal, Zephyr, Desire, Anactoria, The Sailors’ Den, The Antikythera Mechanism, Galvanic Goggles) I'm not looking for something that necessarily smells like BL, more like something that has the same vibe.

Vanilla typically hides on my skin, but Smut is a rough and dirty vanilla smell... and Perversion isn't vanilla on me, but it has vanilla-esque notes, along with tobacco, musk, and booze.

I’m not sure if you’ve tried them already, but…

Eat Me is cakey with a twist of citrus, but it’s mostly currant and a more creamy cake... at least on my skin.

All Souls is another cake one, but that one’s still more like Eat Me.

One of my all time favorites is Glitter, the original version. It's lemon and heliotrope with a kick of musk, and dries down to a warm muskiness But it's hard to find. A couple years ago, suggestions were made - Feu Follet (tried it, don't think I liked it?) and Fae, which I think is kind of, um, pale?

 

Any suggestions for a replacement?

Carnaval Diabolique’s unfortunately not a GC, but at least it’s LE that’s still around - and on me it’s mostly heliotrope and lemon, wrapped in soft layers of opium and musk, with the added twist of vanilla and coconut.

Any recs for any GC scent that is similar to The Illustrated Woman ... minus the pine note?

O is almost identical to the Illustrated Woman, on me (minus the screaming candied pine death).

This is the cream of Snow White and Zarita.

It’s beautiful, delicate, clean (but not in any way linen-y or soapy), soft, and innocent, yet classy and alluring.

I loathe roses in most perfume blends. They often smell dry and scratchy, perfumey, boozy and slightly rotting, soured, fat, dark and spoiled. I look at otherwise perfect blends with despair and avoid them at all costs because of that loathsome flower.

But roses hold a deep significance to me, regardless of how they turn out, so now and then I go on the hunt for a delicate, pretty rose.

The rose in Kat Van T works. It blends seamlessly and evenly with the cream, only lightly laced with the honey (think, golden, warmed, drizzled honey, not thick, rich and musky honeycomb), to give it an added touch of depth and a slight dewy richness.

It’s a soft, fresh, live, and unpicked white rose, soft and damp, and while still fresh, devoid of green, yet that newness is still conveyed.

I can only really associate it as a white Zarita (Zarita screams “orange cream” to me), or the rose rendition of Snow White (which is a closer fit than Zarita), only I don’t get the touch of coconut milk that I pick up in Snow White.

This is a really soft, and lovely blend, yet it’s not faint, and the wear-length has lasted into the next day. As time goes on, the honey gets stronger, and the cream/rose become more of a dewy, slightly sweet, clean but damp skin musk, yet it never becomes cloying.

I can’t believe I love wearing a rose blend.

I have a black and amber-tinged marble looking candle that I bought from the little new age-y store between a German café (which sold the world’s greatest muffins) and one of my chiropractors’ offices… when I was…11?

Whenever I’m stressed out, anxious, sad, have an extra-enthusiastic-skull-ripping headache, or just need a fix of that candle’s magnificent scent, I find a quiet space to sit and inhale the scent of my precious candle.

I’ve never lit it’s wick, because I never want to melt away. I love the scent of that candle so much, and I cannot cope with the thought of not having it around one day.

Schwarzer Mond 2008, mail-fresh, and through the amber colored glass of its bottle, smells like my beloved black candle.

Since none of you have had the luxury of smelling my waxy little treasure, that wasn’t very helpful, but I wanted to convey the psychological significance I associate with SM’08’s smell… which feels a little easier to describe.

Schwarzer Mond 2008 smells similar to the incensey base of Midnight on the Midway.

In other words, it smells like really well blended incense, almost like nag champa, but in Schwarzer Mond 2008, the patchouli is stronger than that in MotM or the nag champa I’m familiar with, and unlike Midnight on the Midway, there is zero sugar.

I was terrified of the zdravetz, but for once, the hell-geranium doesn't surface and smell like anchovies. I wouldn’t even know it was there if I hadn’t looked up zdravetz on Google.

SM’08 also smells like thick black religious candle smoke and candle soot, the really good kind, up close, mingling with my skin, where applied, and in the throw.

The black amber and myrrh don't amp and turn sticky, glycerin-y or sugar-sweet, they just seamlessly blend with the black, smoke-caked dry incense.

Schwarzer Mond 2008 is dry, but not papery, scratchy, or too dry, because the hint of rum, which comes off more like cognac grapes on me (unlike super!candy, it mimics a slight beginning of steam, flushed and dewy skin hinting at an almost sweetness).

The amber makes it feel thicker, deeper, and darker, it's blackness in a warm, ritual chamber filled with blown out candles and smouldering incense, or other enclosed, dark space, not just smoke diffusing in the air.

There is also a smoky, deep peppery but not exactly spicy hit in the initial wet stage. Think, deep, dark, red-brown, but almost an espresso brown. It conveys heat, and blends with the dry, woody incense sense, without being too woody (I amp woods into foul, throat-closing saw-dust, so in nearly all other cases, I avoid wood notes and ‘dry’ blends). I don't get the men’s colognelike smell black pepper can sometimes inflict on my skin, etiher.

Schwarzer Mond 2008 just smells hot, initially dark red-orange-brown, then black, deep, almost seamlessly blended (almost because you can catch a hint of one thing, and go, 'oooh', and then there's something new... then something else... then…).

Embers and incense.

I have a moisturizer that smells like cool coconut cream (the cream with a hint of that good, decandant cream tang), mixed with a delicate swirl of slightly honeyed coconut milk, and I've been wishing for a fragrance like it (the scent fades pretty rapidly).

After the initial assault of dryer sheet musk (this is how red and white musks smell on me), Ashlultum turns into a long-lingering version of my moisturizer, only with the added twist of tobacco, giving it little darker sweetness, and some extra depth.

On me, Faiza usually equates to a lush, humid, wet, and musky, tropical forest.

Clémence really is a great pepper blend!

Pepper notes usually vanish on me, but I do get a really lovely hit of black pepper in that blend.

I missed out on Tanuki, but does anyone know of any other blends that have any persimmon notes in them?

Depending on what my chemistry’s up to, Faiza can to mind a humid, tropical rainforest on me, or fresh, broken green stalks, branches, and flowers during a nice cold, pouring rain.

Zarita’s a beautiful , creamy orange blossom on me… Vice sometimes is too.