tziporra

Remember how Blood Countess was all opium smoke and plum and some florals?

 

Yeah.

 

This is like that.

 

Smoky. Plummy. Florals to make it smell like perfume instead of a beverage. I was hoping for a bit more patchouli, since this could be a little dirtier and Id be a little happier. I dont like the scent of plums after theyve been on my skin 8 hours, they smell like crumbled dusty jolly ranchers. But its ok because I verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry much that smoky poppy top note and Ill just wash it or whatever at the four hour mark.

 

Chosen by my friend and stolen by me because it smelled much too clean on her skin chemistry.

It starts out just as you are dreading it will, corn chips and dryer sheets. And its the DRYERSHEETS shrieky type scent that some aquatics are just determined to morph into.

 

And then an hour later its all delightful warm salt soaked dried silk and you wonder why you were ever worried about the thing.

 

My friend asked when I ordered it what silk smelled like and I said, I dont know except that it smells like silk. Which this does. Exactly and evocatively. I love it, and its even worth the pain of corn chips and dryer sheets to get there.

My label says vivid enjoyment of the memory of rapture which is a different thing entirely and slightly disappointing considering the art. But no matter, on to the scent. This is very chai tea on my skin, heavy on the green juicy ginger and cardamom. But it doesnt feel terribly edible to me. More like this is a morning shower scented by someone inspired by their ginger heavy chai tea with rice milk. Its incredibly bright and energizing but there are no citrus notes so doesnt do that bitter pithy thing that bright energizing scents usually do on my skin.

Back in the day I had a ginger-heavy tea scented body spray that I loved, and this is definitely the closest Ive come to matching it. Delighted to have a bottle.

There are very few roses that dont go sour rose potpourri on my skin, but it doesnt stop me from trying, because for whatever reason a good rose scent just smells S-E-X to me. And being that I am a passionate fan of the labs ambergris note (yes I went through an entire bottle of the SN in six weeks) this one seemed worth the risk.

 

Yes indeed this is teh bomb. Giant damp rose petals sweetened with Orris and dirtied with ambergris. Very similar rose to Roses Pearls Diamonds, but with the salty naughty ambergris instead of coconut.

 

Did. It.

This is a spectacular variation on the brown fuzzy theme. To me, it's cleaner than Tombstone, as if this brown cat is carefully groomed, but I definitely feel the comparison - if instead of sassafras you have just a powdery dusting of golden cardamom. I definitely get a menthol-y aspect, but maybe that is a thing the cedar is doing on my skin. If this theme appeals to you, and you use up the bottles of outlaw and unicorn and ram as quickly as you get them, this one will be extremely satisfying.

I have not had a good relationship with bpal tea. I have tried and tried and tried and the tea always went all strangely sour on me or was mixed with sugar which does horrific things on my skin. But here is a tea I can wear! And the drydown here is pretty much straight tea with slivers of musk keeping it from getting too sour.

 

But first, the opening, it's a really spectacular bergamot top note rush, citrusy and heady. I loooooove this kind of bergamot opener, so this one had me at hello. I also get some iris at this stage, but it's not nearly as floral as I would have expected.

 

Then Silver Dollar dries down to tea and musk and it behaves perfectly on my skin. I'm madly in love, and definitely keeping.

I blind bought three bottles, and Beneath the Kotatsu was the runaway favorite.

 

Wet it's the warmest fuzziest floral (iris) vanilla cedar. It's perfumey, and beautifully so. As it dries down I get the vegetal-y aspect of the orange blossom and it smells delightfully like some orange blossom drawer liners my grandmother used to use in her house when I was kid. Very golden and sunny. The vanilla does a lovely job of sweetening and grounding the whole scent, keeping the flowers in check. The cedar in this is utterly gorgeous, doing everything a wood should do with the warming and dry edge. I can still smell it when I wake up in the morning, but mostly just the morning after of the orange blossom.

 

Absolute love, and a big thanks to everyone in this thread for your great reviews that led me to purchase this one blind.

 

Tzi

I bought this one because apricot and Aristocratic couple but this is all about the orange on me. It's potpourri orange on my skin too, which is making me sad. I get some honey and a little apricot when wet, but then it's orange orange orange. Im going to try it again but despite my absolute love of the artwork I think it might be a pass for me.

 

Tzi

I've been blithely ordering from the box of chocolates for a few years without considering that these little treats are _supposed_ to be foodie (because I've picked out the ones that contain the fewest ingredients of actual food, I guess). This one scared me in the bottle (lab fresh, weekended inside waiting for me to return from a trip) because it's a caramel-y blast of the most foodie kind, and usually that note goes scary wrong on my skin. Besides, I thought sniffing the bottle again, this caramel thing is a nice _house_ scent maybe not a nice person scent.

 

But I bravely slathered some on my free wrist and was surprised at how very quickly the caramel was tamed (dare I say overwhelmed?) by the extremely rich dark decidedly un-sweet whiskey. There is almost a chewy vetiver-esque edge to the booziness and it has a certain dirty edge to it that would make me a lot less likely to eat this chocolate caramel. Speaking of chocolate, it's there in its lovely gourmand way, supporting both caramel by grounding it and booze by (oddly) sweetening it. No cardamom detected after 12 hours of wear, but there are a lot of other powerful scents here, maybe I'll find it in time - or in the scent warmer, where I shall try it next.

 

In summary, I will 100% try it again. The whiskey skews this one strongly masculine, which I really like. I will also try it in the scent warmer.

 

Tzi

Why am I the only one who gets mint?

 

A minty snowy blast out of the bottle the wet stage is by far my favorite. Then the "lead" sets in and it's very sweet (coconut-y) mentholly woods. The dry down is where we lose the mint (so sad to see you go emphemeral and beautiful top notes) and it's woody with the sandalwood and the rose-y impression I always get from dry patchoulis. The impression is very much heavy gray skies (but no ozone) with piles of snow.

 

I like this and it's one of the reasons I can't hang out with people who "hate patchouli" -- I'm not crazy in love with every patch I meet but when I find one l like I'm not giving it up for anyone, not ever.

 

Tzi

 

edited: for too many verys

I am always excited to see "fougere" without "tea" or "lavender" and so I blind purchased.

 

This opened up as a nice herbal honey (as opposed to the sticky dirty kind) supported by lilac at the edges and topped of with fizzy lime. It starts out soooooooooo beautiful I can't even. An interestingly it really sang to me like a musical composition at this point. As pointed out above even though it's a "fougere" it reads quite femme and while I know all manner of boys would be able to pull this off quite nicely, they should be ready for that.

 

Unfortunately it dries down to straight honey. It's a nice honey, and I don't have a honey scent right now so it's still a definite keeper, but oooooohhhhhhh I really liked it wet....

 

Tzi

I bought this because I recently ran out of Hope and Fear Set Free and I was hoping this would be close. It's much better. The vanilla infused benzoin is a stronger balance against the piney frank here, so it doesn't run away with the show like in HAFSF. There are almost floral undertones to the scent here, and it's nice and sweet and golden. Just lovely, so happy with it.

 

Tzi

I blind bought six Luper bottles, and they were largely winners (there is one I'm going to rest to see if it improves before ditching it) but Hidden Pearls is the best of the lot.

 

So it's coconut and vanilla and orris and pear - I find it more similar to Black Pearl than Blood Pearl but either comparison works - but gah, it's just so much more. It's such a sweet heavenly soft cloud of graceful white scent. Of all my Shungas this one feels the most oriental to me, the tiny greenery found in the pear sets it off perfectly.

 

Funny enough a dear friend of mine took me out to a tea shop last night and I enjoyed a tea named "pear la France" - it was a green tea infused with pear, flavored with vanilla and served with cream. If the drink had been coconut based instead of tea based it would be a dead ringer for Hidden Pearls. And the blissed out feeling I'm getting wearing it is just the same I experienced sipping sweet tea, listening to the new age spa music and the playing of the fountain.

 

Tzi

Oh NOM, this is my kind of gourmand. Goes on ooey gooey sticky tobacco with dusty sticky chocolate and a smoky haze of vetiver. For me the smoke stays for the whole experience, doesn't get any less dirty or intense. I also find the vetiver veers into burnt rubber territory, but I don't care. It's still good. Scorched deliciousness.

 

Tzi

So yeah. This smells like, um, standing on the porch.... in a cool spring rain, which is unoriginal but really that is mostly what comes to mind. I get a few whiffs of clean laundry coming through, and the scent reads _intensely_ feminine to me - my 6 year old wanted to try it and I got some dissonance with him wearing it since he usually prefers more unisex scents.

 

I have not fallen in love with a BPAL aquatic since Ulalume and that one had beautiful rotting leaves to dirty it up, but this one is quite lovely. Very wearable, reads as straightforward "perfume", but utterly unlike anything in a department store right now. Unexpected and wonderful.

 

Tzi

Well, this was my big risk from the Lupers this year. I've been longing for something along the lines of Philologus (my favorite book scent) but with something floral to soften it up. Is that scent The Book?

 

To throw a wrench in the works BPAL rose and I don't often get along. I often amp it to sharp sour monstrous proportions.

 

Unfortunately, with The Book what I get is exactly Philologus with some sharp sour rose tossed in. Not monstrously proportioned - as other reviews have stated this is a close soft scent, but not softer or sweeter or sexier than my other book scents.

 

Despite my skepticism regarding "aging" I am going to let this one sit for a week or two to see if the vanilla comes out more and if the rose will meld more into the scent. Otherwise this one is going to be gorgeous in a scent burner.

 

Tzi

Tested immediately out of the mailbox because who can wait?

 

In the bottle: FREESIA. I know freesia is not listed as one of the notes but toodamn bad, that's the floral that this reads to my nose.

 

Wet on skin: blast of floral. So much flower. Big soap. Sticky sweet orange blossom like they are littering the slushy street.

 

After a few minutes the soap calms waaaaaaay down and it's all chilly florals and sweet snow. The florals are still prominent, but it's become a more comforting snow scent along the lines of Go to Sleep Darlings (no mint though, or coconut, it's just the florals that give that impression).

 

I love this even though I wear almost no florals right now. It's very much floral perfume and could be worn all those places one worries BPAL is too dark and dirty. Light and delicious and lovely. So happy I blind bought.

 

Tzi

I was scouring the Scalia's because I wanted one so very badly at the same time that my bottle of Hope and Fear Set Free ran out. Hey, I thought to myself, Looming Spectre of Inutterable Horror has frankincense and bourbon vanilla, maybe it will be the same deal. And so I blind bought a bottle.

 

(Spoiler: this smells nothing like Hope and Fear Set Free)

 

In the bottle I get the generic bitter sludge scent that affects so many champaca/patchouli blends. But this is absolute magic on my skin. It is very very very dark, but it is a cozy black spectre, not a terrifyingly cold one. This spectre has fur (or leather). Lots of very dark bourbon vanilla, a hint of flowers, some sharp edges from the patch and the frank, and an overall snuggly feeling from the leather. I think this one might very well be too much "dirty hippie" for some, but I used to be one who dismissed all scents in this vein untested, and I'm just loving this one.

 

Absolute love.

So very interesting how this apple is most definitely cooked, while the apples in the Weenies this year are crisp and raw.

 

It's definitely not pure, as per the description. There is an apple scent, and then there are many other things going on. Sweet things. Really sweet things. The sugar and tobacco and tea combination reads as slightly caramely but with a pipe smoke type edge. So I guess this smells like applesauce and tea eaten in a study redolent with pipe smoke. Very pleasant, but I like a few of the Weenies so much I'm going to go that direction for my apple instead.

When I looked at the notes list for this oil I was quite confused. Why did I order this decant? It's chock full of Things I Don't Wear. But because I am a good little tester I try it out.

 

In the imp it's all sandalwood and vetiver. Sharp and dry. I do like vetiver, or rather, I like the things vetiver does in a perfume, so I'm game to plop it on my skin. It's bedtime and this is the only scent I'm trying before I go to sleep. Suprisingly, the sandalwood, usually just too dry on my skin, is kept well in check by the vetiver, and underneath it blooms the plum. Now, plum is A Thing I Don't Like, but this plum is reminiscent of something I might keep in a drawer to make the linens smell good. In fact, the whole concoction is evocative of opening a heavily scented dusty drawer to find a long forgotten treasure. It's actually quite beautiful.

 

In the morning the plum lingers on like the scent of fall baking (although it's not a terribly foody plum, I just can't break the association between plum and jam, which is a reason I don't wear it).

 

I deeply appreciate this fragrance. It's lovely and well constructed. I'm still not sold on smelling like plum, so I will not further our relationship with a bottle purchase, but I will use up every drop of my decant.

 

Tzi

So sometimes I see a blend with rose and amber and I think, "oh I wonder if this will smell like The Shadowy and the Sublime?" Even though the blends share no other notes and it's not really within the realm of possibility. This smells nothing like TSatS in case you were wondering. And on me it doesn't really smell like much of anything. Powder? Yes, definitely sweet, powdery sweetness flavored with dust. And then it vanishes.

 

Not for me, but then again, I wasn't looking in the right place.

 

Tzi

Oh goodness I don't even know how this is possible. Apple saves Coconut Tiare from Tropical Mess! Adds much needed freshness and tartness! This dusty powdery fig is just stunning in this blend, adding a woodsy note that grounds the whole confection. It's marvelous. What I love about these Apples is that they aren't reading FALL in some kind of spiced cider we've all been here before retread. This one especially is unexpected and very welcome.

 

Tzi

Oh this is lovely of its type and I find myself thinking "maybe I _do_ want to wear incensey spicy scents after all." Very rarely do I decide that a scent is too masculine, but this one fits the bill. I would love to slather this on a date.

 

I mostly get cinnamon and snuggly leather, with hints of cardamom. I can tell it has grounding sandalwood in there, but I never got any musk. Very heavy on spices, very warm and snuggly. Satan is clearly the kind of guy who likes to cuddle in front of a fire.

 

Tzi

2015

 

This started out very promising in the decant - a very cool sparkling white musk and the lovely dry leaf note I adore. Alas, I think it's the "Amber incense" that mucks this up for me. It's much like Bastet or other primarily Amber blends on drydown. Cozy and vanillin and golden, which are all not things I wanted nor expected given the top notes and description. Could very well be someone else's bag.

 

Tzi

I have fallen for exactly zero lunacies in my complete BPAL experience up to this one.

 

Oh. It's so sexy. It's so very very sexy. Like riding a motorcycle behind a clove cigarette smoking, black leather jacket wearing, vanilla infused person of ambiguous gender on the way to dirty dance the night away and shoot whiskey for good measure.

 

Insanely sexy. I cannot get enough.

 

On me it dries down to much more innocuous sweet vanilla laced with the faint after effects of clove and that wild night.

 

Gah. So glad I have this.

 

Tzi