laslibres

Okay, so I was a little disappointed to realize that this was about a Poe character and not about Shakespeare’s Prospero, because I love The Tempest and did my undergrad thesis on it...but no matter. I don't care what literary reference this perfume is, because it smells GREAT. At first, I definitely get wine, and plum, and something else...that might be the champaca flower, because it smells sort of floral but smoky too. On me, a bit more plum comes out, bit more flowery, and WINE. A really delicious fruity wine that I kinda want to drink right now. It's a very deep, opulent, and sexy scent, and I looooove it.

In the bottle, ooh, I smell tart berries!...and not much else. That’s what acai smells like, huh? On me...the berry gets a bit more powdery and vanilla-y, but not Snake Oily at all. This is probably the least like SO of the Snake Pit scents I’ve tried so far...just berry and faint musky vanilla in the background. Thankfully I get no cardamom or neroli out of this...whew. Those are both total death notes on me and I didn’t notice when I swapped for the decant of this. Er...okay, maybe a little bit of neroli comes out after a while, but it doesn’t turn bitter and stink up the whole thing. This also gets oddly faint for a Snake blend...all of the notes recede after a short while. Maybe that's because I'm used to slathering Snake Oil and related blends from a big bottle, rather than dibbling from an imp, but it does seem like it's rather fleeting. Nice while it lasted, though!

Ultra-blue water. And...that’s it! It takes on a little bit of that BPAL-aquatic flowery quality, which Tempest had also...kind of like a hint of white flowers floating on the river's surface. But this is just fresh, blue, happy water. A tiny bit of metallic too, but barely perceptible. Basically, if you like aquatics (and I do!) this scent is your thing. If not, uh...seek elsewhere.

Grass, in the imp…then on me, uh, citrus? Yeah, citrus and grass, probably from the verbena. I get the rain and the ginger in the background, very fresh and very real. It’s definitely a summertime scent...fresh and outdoorsy, but also with a sense of warmth to it, probably from the amber (but only just barely in the background, and not turning to baby powder or feet like amber sometimes does). It’s one of those wet green garden scents, which is one of my favorite categories, but it’s more complex than that too, with the citrus and ginger and the just plain _warmth_ in the scent. There's some note in here that basically just...smells like sunshine. I don't know how Beth got sunshine in a bottle, but here it is.

Pretty much what it says it is on the tin. (except chrysanthemum...I'm not sure what that smells like, so I don't know if I smell it or not.) Plums and carnations, lightly spiced with cinnamon. The plum was more prominent in the imp, but it takes a backseat when it's on my skin. Altogether it makes a sort of...reddish-pink-smelling scent? I don't know why, but that's the color it is to me. Spicy plums, with flowers. It's a really delicious combination! Smells like a holiday dessert.

I can’t believe I got a FRIMP of this in a swap…man, you BPALers are generous! I only put a teeeeny bit on, because I really like the smell in the bottle but I have so little of it. I smell dark boozy grapes and blackberries, with a touch of woodsy something. The vanilla is here too. This is very tasty...the combination of the fruity wine, plus the vanilla and warmer notes is a really nice one, and one I haven't found often (maybe Athens). Also, if this were a wine? It would be my favorite ever (and I'm kinda picky!), and it would be the one that I brought to all the dinner parties and passed around going, "you guys have to try this, it's delicious!"

Yeah, this is kind of like a Bath and Body Works cherry blossom scent...except it's BETTER! It's very dewy and fresh, and I think I even smell hints of actual cherry underneath the blossom, but that could be my nose playing tricks on me. It really smells true to cherry blossoms, and it's exceptionally springy. Beautiful! I'm glad I finally have it, although also a bit disappointed that I couldn't get my hands on it until the fall...it's not terribly season-appropriate right now, although it'll be getting a lot more play on me once it's spring.

From the bottle, initially I can get some fig, apricot, a little bit of herby and spicy stuff. I think the spiciness I’m getting is carnation and maybe tonka also. On me, I get hints of...coconut? Or something? Weird. All of the notes listed in the description show themselves at some point...I get whiffs of jasmine and honeysuckle too, but only whiffs, because most of this scent is honeyed fruits and spices. Sort of powdery (fig sometimes is on me), but also sort of juicy (apricot!), and also sweet (honey, carnation), and I insist that I still smell freakin’ coconut in this. There's also not as much honey as I was expecting, but it's still damn good in spite of that.

Very earthy and sweet…reminds me of some Lush scent or another, maybe Karma? On me, whoa, emphasis on the EARTHy. It really does smell like rich, fertile soil somehow. It’s sweet and spicy, as well…I can smell the clove for sure, and the honey a wee bit. And a little bit of fruitiness, probably the fig. It’s like baking spices, and gingerbread, and then DIRT. It’s very interesting, and it defies classification. It's a beautiful scent, and it's sexy in an offbeat way...this is the scent that a really _fascinating_ as well as beautiful woman would wear.

In the bottle, it's like Candy Phoenix had a love child with Sugar Skull. Sugary fruit candies, and caramel. On me, a bit of smoke and violets come out, although there are still fruit candies underneath that…apple and pear, maybe? And currant? It’s not a strictly "candy" scent, though. The smoke and flowers make it more complex and mature than that, as well as give it a bit of a powdery feel that you don't find in either Candy Phoenix, Sugar Skull, or any other candied scents. Keeps it from being overly sweet.

Why yes, almond and Snake Oil IS an awesome combination! The almond is very creamy and sweet, but it's not the kind of sweet almond that the Lab sometimes uses that becomes burnt plastic on me (which is rough, because half of their almonds are amazing and half are icky, and it always just says "almond" so I don't know what the difference is!). I can smell a teeny bit of myrrh, but no mandarin, mostly almond and Snake Oil. And the almond is sweet enough that it pulls the whole scent into the desserty/foody category. It still retains that powdery quality that unaged Snake Oil has on me, but it'll age out of that and become AWESOME, like all the SO blends do.

Straight-up aquatics in the imp, with seaweed, very cool and clean. On me, some of the scent's complexities start to come out...and it IS complex. I get hints of spice, and tobacco, leather, and salty wood. Not as much salt-sea-air-smell as I was hoping for, but a really interesting, unique combination that's very evocative of what it claims to be. An appropriate pirate scent. It's a little bit androgynous, yeah, probably leaning more towards the masculine side...but I feel like, as a woman, I personally smell really good in masculine scents. It's like wearing a man's suit, but tailored to flatter a woman's body. So...this is a keeper.

In the imp, it's apples, blackberries, and...booze? Weird, but the boozey smell burns off when it gets on my skin. The apple blossom comes out a lot more, much like in The Hesperides, except this one also has a lot of fruit to back it up, not just pure floral. I smell just about every fruit mentioned in the description, and they all combine into a cacophony of juicy goodness that makes me want to drink it. This could be an all-year-round scent too - apples for fall/winter, blackberries for summer, blossoms for spring. Also, have I mentioned lately that I looooove BPAL's apple and apple blossom notes? This bears repeating. Kthx.

This is awesome. In the imp, it's mostly delicious toasty hazelnuts and coffee, and on me...hmm, the chocolate and vanilla poke their heads out a little bit, although I don't think the pumpkin does. Still mostly hazelnuts and coffee, but it's a very true scent imitation of both of those things. Like in Dia de Reyes, it somehow manages to smell like a hot beverage, like you can almost feel the steam coming off of it. It's the kind of coffee drink that, if something like it were served at my local coffee house, I would order it every time. And damn, this sucker LASTS. I put it on in the afternoon, just a little swipe from the imp on each wrist, and the following morning I still smelled a bit of hazelnut and vanilla on me. That's good stuff.

In the imp: mostly cinnamon, a little bit of musk. On me, it goes through a brief, terrifying phase of smelling like root beer flavored bubblegum, and I went, "oh no, it's Smut all over again!" but that phase was over and it went back to cinnamon. It's that deep, smoky, woodsy cinnamon like in Priala...maybe that's what's supposed to smell like a bonfire. The sugar and musk end up not turning to root beer on me, fortunately, which is what they did in Smut, but in this one they still just smell like...sugar and musk, and they give the cinnamon a really sexy vibe. I like this one a lot...it's exactly the kind of spicy-sweet blend that I go nuts over.

Well, that's definitely cherry...it smells like a whole jar of maraschinos, or like chocolate covered cherry filling. In the imp, anyway. On me, it takes on, like...a weird floral scent. Like powdery white flowers? I dunno where that comes from. It makes it sort of smell like...cherry toothpaste. Yikes.

In the imp, very sweet and sort of cherryish, although the cherry fades when I put it on. On me, it starts to smell creamier, with a hint of something...crunchy? Like toffee? Still smell the almond too. It smells like the best dessert EVER...until it starts to turn a little weird and sickly-sweet/plasticky. Argh! I don't know why some almonds do weird things on my skin, but some are heavenly...it's a real toss-up with my skin chemistry. And it's too bad, because in the initial stages it was really nice, sort of creamy and nutty and sweet, but then it veered into car air freshener territory. Damn you, skin chemistry!

Spicy, boozy apples! The apples have a bit of a smoky quality to them, sort of warm-smelling, very autumn-appropriate. I don't get a ton of ale, or milk, although I do get hints of them in the background, but apple is the dominant note, followed by baking spices (nutmeg mostly). I really love the Lab's apple scents, and this is a great showcase for their apple note, as well as a very cozy fall scent.

Sol Bacio and Dorian might work (for the lemon), or Night Gaunt (grapefruit, yuzu), or Aizen-Myoo (don't remember exactly what citrus it has, but there is some). Since it's fall, I've been reaching for Jai Mahal a lot more often...the BPAL that I find goes best with it is Saw-Scaled Viper. Love! Also, although it's not BPAL, Arcana's Solstice Sugar is really good with Jai Mahal.

GINGAAAAAAHHH! It's very strong, and it does sting a little bit when it first goes on my skin. O_o However, once the sting wears off, hooooboy is this ever good. It's really cinnamony, and very dark and spicy. It has that same sort of...serpentine quality that Snake Oil has, sort of slithery and dark and sexy. Although it's really gingery and spicy, I wouldn't call it foody, exactly...it's sort of sweet, but it's really not sweet enough to be considered foody...too dark and resinous to fall under that category. If you're a foody hater you might like this anyway.

Hmm...let's see. Faustus always makes me feel very confident, and Mama-Ji does too, but the cinnamon and spices can make those seem warmer and more approachable, so that might not be quite it. When I think of "cool, detached, professional," I think of crisp green scents, and maybe also light aquatics and ozone. Perhaps, if you ignore the scent name, Garden Path With Chickens. Ides of March, which I wore today, might also be good. And a touch more feminine (with fruit in addition to the greeny-rainy smells) is Kitsune-Tsuki. Hope that gives you something to go on!

Even from the first sniff, this is so fruity and dewy and flowery and GOOD! At first, without looking at the notes, I had guessed it was apple and yuzu, but the...plumminess of the plum came out after a while. It started out being very crisp like an apple, but it got riper and dewier as it wore on. I definitely get flowers and leaves and a tiny bit of a rainy, aquatic sort of scent, but only as backing notes to the plum. They make a lovely background to the plum, though...altogether the effect is like an orchard in the rain. And the plum in this is spot on: very juicy, and a little bit tart, like a real plum should be. It's very good, and I can see myself getting a lot of use out of this scent.

How interesting...I get zero green from this at all. It's really sweet right from the imp, and smells like baked goods and not foresty like I expected! Huh. On me...I guess it does smell sort of woodsy, but it's a very light wood, like cedar, not a deep, damp, rootsy wood. Something in it is making it very warm and sweet, too, like vanilla. Maybe I'm just smelling figs...I actually don't know what figs are supposed to smell like, and my nose might just be confused. But it's really sweet and sugary! Hints of tobacco, also...? Yeah, so not at all what I thought it would be like, but pretty nice anyway. It's sort of comforting...warm, spicy, sweet woods. It's a cuddle scent.

I wasn't sure what orchid smelled like before, but I guess this is it, then...? It comes across as very tropical, and to me it smells like _expensive_ sort of perfume. A snooty lady perfume. It dries very light on me, though, just leaving a pleasant tropical aura...it would probably be nice to layer this with something to add a bit of floral, because on its own, on me anyway, it isn't really...much.

Wolf's Heart starts out being reminiscent of Faustus...what smells like frankincense and flowers, possibly violet or rose? Rose seems like a funny choice for a fortitude blend, but that's what I got out of it...it's kind of a white rose like the kind in Maiden. And a sweet, spicy sort of frankincense, maybe backed up by clove, very warm and comforting but feels kind of elegant and queenly at the same time. Overall it's very pleasant and spicy-sweet, with a light breath of flowers in the background. Not sure if I find it confidence-inducing...maybe if I wore it under more trying circumstances. I do find it comforting and grounding, though.