stellans

A very wonderful and anything but foolish blend. The huckleberry note is prominent at first sniff, but then the greenery takes over and you can smell Spring’s approach. The rose (which is a note I’m quite fond of) never shows up, but white rose isn’t a very strong rose, so I’m really not surprised, given the strength of the other notes. I’m glad I have a bottle of this, and can herald the April Fool with it. Fresh greenish scent, with a trace of florals. Very, very nice!

Sooooooo sad: the mint in this prevented me from even putting any on; when I carefully opened the decant (so kindly sent me by a fellow forumite as a frimp), the mint blasted forth like an armed missile and attacked my nose. This decant has been passed along to someone who might appreciate it more than I.

Again proving my fondness for this line isn’t misplaced, Sybaris is a truly remarkable blend of incense and violets, debauchery and innocent fun. When first sniffed out of the bottle or when first applied, the bright violet note is what one is immediately aware of, but then underneath, the tonka and other spices bloom slowly but recognizably. As the oil warms upon my skin, the violet is much more a peer than a leader of the variety of scents, and plays very well together with the other spices. This blend has tremendous throw (on me), and lasts a good long while. I put this on first thing this morning (around 6:30 am), and it still has as much throw 2 hours later. The last time I wore this, I didn’t have to renew it at all. Now that’s getting one’s money’s worth!

OK, let's just get this out of the way first: I love this blend! Really, really love it. It is better aged than new, so if you've only tried a brand new Lab-fresh imp, let it age then give it a shot. I recommend at least 6 months' aging, more if you can stand it, and then try again. The lemon note is uppermost when first applied, but as the oil warms on my skin and slowly begins its drydown, the sandalwood really comes into its own. It smells like my favorite sandalwood incense I bought when in Jakarta in the 90s, and that’s a scent I love. After drydown, all the other notes (even the lemon!) are subordinate to the sandalwood, but the lemon lends a brightness and the florals lend a sweetness, but none of the fruit notes seem to come to the party at all. That’s ok; though; I love this blend for the sandalwood and that is reason I bought a bottle of this blend. Oh, and the jasmine, which sometimes hates me? Isn’t there at all, yay!

I went out in my yard this morning, cool though it was (36 degrees), and saw crocus blooming in my large flower bed. I thought how lucky I was to have Prague in my bottle box to wear in celebration! This is such a nice spring scent--fresh and floral, with a hint of green-- and I think I’ll break it out to wear more often, now that Spring has actually sprung... The lily notes don’t overpower here, as they sometimes do with my skin chemistry, and I’m not really sure what snowdrops smell like, having never had any in my garden, but this blend is delightful to my nose. Highly recommended: 3 stars!

Marianne is even better than it was last summer! I love the patchouli in this, even though it’s a bit muted by the other notes. And it has aged amazingly well, for such a relatively short period since purchase (8/08). This is one of the few blends which contain red musk which works on me, and it’s the 1st ingredient, yet! I think the other notes (mimosa, bergamot, black currant, etc.) help keep both the red musk and the patchouli in check, so that neither strong ingredient overwhelms the others. In any case, this is a sexy strong woman of a scent, a real show-stopper... The reason I wore Marianne today instead of the scent I had planned was I sold my back-up bottle, and the buyer rhapsodized over it so much I broke out the bottle I kept and 'discovered' Marianne all over again. Not that I'm sorry I sold the back-up; I have enough to last me a while, even though it's just one bottle of this scent now.

ok, I got my Mar 13 09 bottle today, and whoa! Am I the only one who thinks the label is blood red with navy script? I wish my camera were working so I could show you! My phone camera, while adequate normally, is useless for color commenatary.

This scent is rightfully named for a queen, and especially one of Shakespeare's tragic queens at that. The violet note in this blend is not the sweet sugarine violet of the Carnaval Diabolique Twins, nor the somnolent violet of Nocturne. This is the feminine violet of a powerful female. It's fantastic, and I'm finding the other notes listed for this blend are all subordinate to this power feminine violet... I want to wear my <a href="http://stores.channeladvisor.com/Holyclothing/Items/h332700?sck=10557884&caSKU=h332700&caTitle=Alyssa%20Gothic%20Bell%20Sleeve%20Empire%20Butterfly%20Dress%203X" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">long purple Holy Clothing dress</a>, and my black boots so I can take long, powerful strides. I want to wear my large-brimmed purple hat, and my dark sunglasses. I want to stare down a rude sales associate, and laugh as I saunter away. Rawr.

check Twilight_Eye's Flickr journal; I bet she does!

XXXIX (39) woo-hoo! I had high hopes for this, as I love the incense/resin of Penitence, and my CTV bottle didn't disappoint! Today's original scent didn't work, so I moved on the CTV series, and Penitence was first up. Again I say: Incense and resin are among my favorite ways to smell, and this has both in spades. There's something just a little sweet in the drydown which is missing in the original Penitence, but that just sets this blend apart from its namesake, and in a good way, IMO. The sweetness seems to be floral in nature; maybe a deep red rose? I'm not sure. I am still not very good at picking out individual notes, but there is the requisite smokiness I associate with the myrhh and frankincense of Penitence plus that sweetness which just makes this altogether a lovely blend. Hooray for taking a leap of faith for a Chaos Theory...and it works out! I am going to enjoy sniffing this all the rest of the day...and in the future. I'll bet this is a blend which ages marvelously well.

well, isn’t this just crappy. Jasmine strikes again and turns this lovely-sounding blend into sourness and strife on my skin. Sidhe beag-Sidhe Mor, anyone? And I had such high hopes for the black orchid and sandalwood, and I won't even mention that the rose note never even shows up...but the final word: who needs a Faery War going on right on their very skin? Not I! Oh well.

anybody know what the label color is for the March 13 blend?

Definitely black pepper in this blend; it’s the first thing which hits my nose. It takes a while to get past the pepper, but the wait is definitely worth it, as honeysuckle is such a treat. Dragon’s blood is also a favorite note of mine, and it serves well in this blend, especially given that Aries is a fire sign. The opoponax is not a scent I was familiar with until finding BPAL, but it has come to earn my respect because of the depth it adds to blends. In my scent locket, the pepper never really goes away to let the other notes come to the forefront, but on my skin it mellows away very nicely. I wore this blend today to honor my youngest child's birthday. She isn't active on the forum (claims she has too much to do with WoW and LJ as it is, hah!), but Happy Birthday, Ginny!

oh, this blend is definitely one of the Lab’s fabled sex-in-a-bottle blends! The spices which are playing so well together with the red musk make me want to tie some scarfs around my hips, put on some jingly bangles, and shimmy till I just can’t shimmy any more... it’s a belly-dancing scent, it is...much more than a story-telling scent, thought telling tales is the main reason Scherezad is famous! I like spices, especially non-foody spices, and I love incense, so I was pretty sure this would be a good blend for me. The red musk in this one wasn't the reason I wanted to try it, but it turns out to be one of the reasons I love it so much. Who knew?

Being that today's pick didn't agree with me at all, I turned to my Top Ten box for a pick: Twisted Oak Tree is what I'm wearing instead, and I noticed that I hadn't yet written a review for it even though it's been a couple of years since release! How could I be such a slack, especially for a blend I've named to my Top Ten??? My BPAL database notes: strange but lovely aquatic (not overly woody) note on skin; the wood and green notes are wonderful in this blend, despite the description sounding icky. In the locket, there’s a bit of char smell but not unpleasantly so. And def. NO rot! I wonder how this will age? Well, to answer myself: it ages marvelously well! This is just an amazing blend of odors which from the description (Blackened, rotted oak wood blanketed in moss and choked by a cloak of grasping ivy) do not sound too nice, do they? Except when one know the Lab, as those of use who love BPAL do, one know that descriptions aren't always quite what they seem. This is a tricksy blend, which seems one thing but then turns into yet another. There's the aquatic note, but it's not of the sea nor rain nor other fresh water; there's the wood, but it's not your dry wood, oh no. It's the wet wood you smell in the forest, the fallen wood on the ground. I honestly do not get ivy from this blend, nor anything green at all. If ivy is indeed in this, it's dead ivy, withering away. This blend is marvelous, and I wear it quite frequently, especially when something I'm trying for the day doesn't work out. Today (3/20/09) was such a day, and wearing Twisted Oak Tree made it a lucky day for me indeed.

I bought decants of this inquisition, thinking that if one of them absolutely grabbed me, it would come up for sale sooner or later. Well, this one did indeed grab me right out of the decant, and so I stalked and waited, and waited and stalked...and got my own bottle! Woo-hoo! Not so fast. What was fresh spring blossoms, with a touch of greenery and early morning dew in the decant for whatever vile reason has turned to the nastiest sort of plastic-y aftershave today! I can't stand it now, and and I have a bottle! crappity-crap-crap.

This blend is a puzzler; sometimes I like it, and sometimes I don't. I totally blame the night-blooming jasmine, as jasmine in any form is not always a friend of mine. When it hates me, it smells like sour death; when it doesn't hate me, it acts all innocent and sweet, like "me stink? Never!" Today, though I was afraid jasmine was in a snotty hateful mood, it actually turned out to be very good for me with Morgause. This isn't a blend I wear very often, because my younger daughter wears it a lot, and I sort of identify its scent with her (as well as Black Dahlia, but that's another review). But since today we took her to the airpot to fly to her sweetie in Canada (wedding bells may well be in the offing within the year) I wore Morgause in her honor (she wore the Black Dahlia ). It smells very differently on the two of us; hence my calling Morgause a puzzler in my first sentence. On her, it's all lovely violets and incense. On me, not so much with the incense...but at least violet shows up with the rest of the florals. I love violet, and it almost makes up for when jasmine plays her nasty little tricks on me. Almost. Sadly, even dry I get no incense (which I love!) and not a lot of violet (see above). I have a rollerball bottle with several imps' worth of Morgause; that will do me -- no bottle purchase for this blend, though I bought a 10ml bottle from a LJ seller for DD#2's Yule gift a couple of years ago. I'll let her wear the Morgause for me too.

In the bottle, there is a bitterness which does NOT translate to the skin, thank goodness. I was afraid some unnamed jasmine had wiggled its way into this blend, but evidently not. I don't know what the momentary sourness was, but since it doesn't show up while I wear it, it's not something I'm going to worry about. This blend reminds me of walking in my yard, early in the morning, as the iris and other spring flowers are beginning to bloom: fresh, dew-sprinkled, green, and lovely. There’s even a note of what the stems smell like when you pick them; you know, the slightly sticky-smelling, really green liquid smell, though very faint -- it's just enough to make you think of a basket of blooms carried in from one's garden to grace a guest room. This is just a genius blend, and I love it, even if no sandalwood or myrrh ever makes its way to my nose, I like this very much.

I am a big rose scent nut. And I like both orange blossom and rosemary. Therefore, I was predisposed to like this blend, and when I tried an imp, it really made my nose happy before I ever put it on my skin. Once it hit my skin, even bigger love set in! Rose is usually a sweet scent (though it can have a sharp edge; Peacock Queen, I’m looking at you!), and orange blossom too can normally be counted upon to deliver a certain sweetness to one’s nostrils. Rosemary, in contrast, is a much sharper scent, very astringent, and cuts through the incipient floral sweetness of the rose and orange blossom. On me, there is sharpness to be sure, but no bitterness. The florals are enough to keep this a very lovely scent, and the rosemary keeps it from being cloying. I like it! This scent definitely evokes the memory of one of history’s most ruthless women: Catherine de Medici, Queen-Consort of France, Regent of France, and Governor of France.

It is well-known in my family that rose is my favorite scent, but violet is another , and when I saw that the Lab’s Marie was violet and rose, I figured it was a blend I would probably like. Yay! I was right! The sweetly sad note of violet is uppermost, which is very appropriate for a scent named for the tragically executed Queen of France. The rose comes in only softly, and underneath the violet, and lends an extra sweetness to the mix. I wish the throw was a bit stronger, but with two such soft notes, that really isn’t very likely. This blend has a shorter length of stay than I would like, but it stays strong and true for a long time in my scent locket.

I just have to say, again, how very much I appreciate TwilightEyes's posting her bottle-label pictures for us all to see... thank you, thank you, thank you! Yours is a very useful resource!

This is delicious, and was such a good trade. The apricot’s sweetness really helps bring out the incense (musk?), though there’s not a lot of citrus in evidence. As I’ve written before, I think citrus is one of the less lasting notes, and in this case, it doesn’t matter at all. There's just a hint of it under the apricot, slightly cutting the sweetness, but not much. I was a little afraid of this after seeing so many Evil Candy of Doom type reviews, but yay for incense-y sweet fruit instead! The only small downside of this blend is the throw is a bit short, and it doesn't last very long on me, but while it does...glorious!

me too! I have some GC favorites which are nearly the bottom and I want the new labels too, LOL! I'm in a decant circle for the Bards, so I won't order any that don't work on me; I wonder if you still get the Leprechaun imp if you don't order a full set?

I have to admit the ginger gave me pause when I applied this first thing this morning. Evidently I amp ginger like whoa. However, upon drydown, this blend is amazing! The chocolate notes are perfection, and give way smoothly to the spicy goodness which comprise this blend, which also seem to keep the ginger in a nice check so that it merely spikes my nose a bit, not overwhelmingly. And the brown sugar/molasses notes are very, very warm and appealing...Yum!

I wish I were better at picking out notes, especially when there is no official note listing to guide me. However, this blend is amazing in its resin-y goodness! There is definitely patchouli there, which alone would seal this bottle as a keeper, but there are other subtle components which only add to the deliciousness. The spice which enriches the patchouli is lovely, and doesn’t burn my skin as blends which have cinnamon or cassis usually do. There is a sweetness under the spice and patchouli which I can’t identify, but it is nicely balancing, and welcome to my nose. Others have mentioned a fruitiness and I wouldn't rule that out; I just don't have the expertise to name it. Bottom line: I have a big bottle of this, and I will enjoy it to the last drop.