tziporra

Wait, what?

I've never reviewed this?!? It's one of my top three BPALs!!!

Okay, so Lady Death is amazing and then more amazing, and then some amazing after that.

This is a bright sparkling well behaved vanilla that smells amazing on me and I can't wear any other vanillas on this planet (at least not that I've tried, except Tombstone, and come to think of it this vanilla reminds me a lot of Tombstone). Not a hint of foodiness (bah cookies) or candle connotations, true perfumery vanilla.

Lady Death is super bold and on my skin super sweet (did I mention amazing?) and like drowning in the illustration's beautiful eyes. I catch hints of the bergamot (for sparklies) and lots of fabulous resins grounding this, but not much floral. All the people who said "leather catsuit" have it right on. It's as if this were a vanilla catsuit instead of a leather one.

In college I wore Karl Lagerfeld's Sun, Moon, Stars nonstop (okay, so i could wear that vanilla too) and on me Lady Death is a dead ringer for that scent which makes me so very very very happy. The scent last and lasts and clings to my clothes and bed sheets and has great throw.

Cannot recommend highly enough. There are two BPALs I own multiples of, and this is one.

Tzi

I have wanted to try this one ever since the Pharmacopoeia was announced, so hurray for frimps!

Wet: soooooooooooooooooo much moss! Cheap aftershave territory for Tzi

20 Minutes: still lots and lots of moss. I can kind of detect the patch and the violets (or I just really really want to and so I'm imagining it), but it is still mostly straight up aftershave. It takes me back to my grandfather's bathroom. His aftershave smelled exactly like this.

Dry: I don't think I'm going to make it to the dry down. I usually like masculine scents, but apparently not ones with oakmoss!

Tzi

I was sooooooo excited about this one because MANGO which I love, but it was not meant to be.

Wet it is all dripping wet mango in coconut cream and cassis, with just a hint of Jasmine (I am one of those jasmine ampers for whom this behaved really really well), which was lovely so I slathered. But then, alas, the sugary edge of the coconut started going very very plasticky on my skin, and that is where the whole blend ended up. Plastic. Yuck.

So still looking for the perfect mango.

Tzi

So MY this is woody on me.

First I smelled wood. Then nice incensey wood. Then on the dry-down, it's pretty much wood!

I had really high hopes for this, because I like Asian blossoms, and leather, and all the things (well, I didn't know about elemi and was worried because of "pickled"), but yup. Wood.

I am wearing my FAVORITE woody scent on my other wrist (Olisbos) and it is so much better than this that I'm just going to go wash this off now and apply more of the other.

Tzi

In imp: Vetiver

Wet: Apparently I am a lemon pledge person I smell exactly like lemon pledge. Soooooo saaadddd.

Dry (30 minutes later): now there isn't the strong lemon pledge smell and it is just a lovely lemony apple scent with dark Vetiver lurking underneath. Strongly reminds me of Ulalume but with apple instead of Lily.

I am not going to be able to survive the lemon pledge stage to even try this again, but the dry down is lovely.

Tzi

Okay, I am now dying to find an oil like Doc Constantine's Medicine Show. LE, doesn't matter. Send recs quick, I adddddddddoooooooooooooore this scent!!!

Tzi

So I love patchouli on other people, but less so on me because I amp it to insanity. The one bpal blend I have with patch is Voyeuristic Monkey, where the honey is also amped so I can wear it, but it is still a little too roughly bright for me so I don't wear it that often.

But today I slathered some SN dandelion on top of my monkey (heh, heh) and OMG. The patch is a perfect base for the creamy milky super green floral of the dandelion. So now I want to know, are there other creamy floral blends with patchouli? And no roses please.

Thank you!

Tzi

Just tested Roses, Pearls and Diamonds today and found it very similar to Raptures and Roses of Vice. But GC! So I know where to go when my raptures vanish!

Tzi

Okay, I'm working on Chandra Naalar cosplay. She's a planeswalker from Magic: the Gathering. Kind of a Steampunk Pyromancer. Here is a pic:

Chandra

I'm not so good with the usual "hot" scent suggestions, but I will go back through them and make an effort. No. 93 Engine comes to mind, but it doesn't seem feminine enough for this girl.

Suggestions warmly (hee!) welcomed,

Tzi

I found a list of notes:

Lilu is a combination of Hawaiian wedding flower, macadamia nut, and salty ocean breeze.

I wonder if Black Pearl might fit the bill? It's iris instead of wedding flower, hazelnut instead of macadamia, and lots of coconut, but you might give it a shot.

Tzi

Uncle Travelling Matt is my favorite bpal fig:

Dark chocolate, figgy vanilla, pear, and quince

Tzi

 

tziporra, I second the rec for Perilous Parlor. On me, it was overwhelmingly syrupy sweet pear and sugar, almost sweet to the point of having to wash it off. Since you're looking for "pear cough syrup", this one might be more up your alley!

Sounds right up my alley! I have tried Endymion and it is much too light and fresh, more "sparkling" less "syrup".

Leaving for Las Vegas, and while I've spent the past 2 weeks planning what to _wear_ I haven't quite addressed the scent issue yet.

Looks like it's going to be at least 100 degrees all weekend (I'm a Seattlite, so this is HOT). I plan to shop, dance and er, booze. I liked the idea of wearing one scent for the whole trip so you can associate the scent with the memory, but I'm not sure that any of my usual heavy scents (resiny florals) are quite the thing for Vegas and the heat.

Thoughts?

Tzi

Just want to second Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo. Very happy-making.

My hands down coconut favorite is Black Pearl. Raptures is a close second, they feel very similar to me, except that Black Pearl has no rose to interfere in striaghtup coconut bliss. Also, GC is cool.

Frimp from the lab.

Opening all the imps to test and this one hits me over the head with Copal and I must immediately slather. Flowers-with-copal is my favorite brand of perfume!

Mmmmmmmmm..... Copal, a good flower (gardenia?), spiciness that reads as cinnamon or cassia (but could be cardamom), a verrrrrrrrrrry nice vanilla (not a note I can usually wear, but this one is like Tombstone's vanilla) and a bad flower - almost certainly jasmine. It's the cat pee smell.

So everything except the cat pee is so lovely and so very perfume-counter-y and exactly what I look for in a scent - this is like the summer version of Sheol - sweeter and wetter. But I don't know if I can live with the bad flower smell.

Thinking......

Tzi

ETA: later in the car I get a wafting scent and think, "am I wearing Tissue?" So definitely gardenia, and definitely on my buy list now. Tissue is one of my top 5 scents, and this can now be my backup.

So I am still looking for a BPAL that reads like Pear Glacé. I used to drench myself in this stuff. It was one of those fragrances where sometimes you'd catch a whiff of it on someone else, think about how amazing they smelled and how you wanted to marry them. Then run home and put some more on!

The listed notes in Pear Glacé are Pear (duh), Cassis and Violet. I found a negative online review (funny how the negative reviews are the ones that can be the most useful) that described it as Pear Cough Syrup. And while that doesn't sound great, it exactly captures the feel of the scent and why I haven't found a comparable bpal. It is an extremely sweet rich almost cloying pear. Like a honeyed or sugared baked pear studded with Cassis. Even though it is described as "sparkling" there is nothing light about this pear. It has presence.

I'm not generally a fruit wearer, but I am passionate about this scent. I would try an apple that gave the same impression. Or maybe even a stone fruit.

Tzi

My Mom with the Sun in her Hands is a dead ringer for Chanel Allure on me - even my husband said, "it smells like when were dating!"

I must've said this already, but Tombstone is SO much like Lolita Lempicka au Masculine - I'm wearing it today and I feel I'm in the men's department at Nordstrom 10 years ago when they were hawking it with all their might (Angel lovers might like it too, those fragrances always rang in the same 'family' for me).

Tzi

SN Wild Dandelion.

Oh, but florists don't sell dandelions? This is such a bright gorgeous green scent that you won't care either.

Tzi

DANDELIONDANDELIONDANDELIONDANDELIONDANDELION!!!!!

RAWWWWWWWWWWWWR!

I have a dandelion sheet spray that I love and have long wanted to wear as a scent, and this is like that only WILD.

This is for everyone who has ever posted saying they want the scent of a florist shop to wear. I know that florists don't generally sell dandelions, but this is so crazily dizzily green and wet and earthy and floral sweet all at once. It is everything a big cool room of fresh cut flowers _could_ smell like, if only the shop was just a little bit more like an overgrown yard in front of a thirty year old trailer with six abandoned pickups and thousands of sunny yellow heads cheerfully bobbing in the wind.

This is a single note of awesome.

Tzi

Package arrived from the lab, I immediately opened the bottle and slathered.

I opened and sniffed and was instantly transported to endless hours at the perfume counter, sampling different scents. This is definitely a BIG perfume.

But it was sooooooooo familiar! Like an old friend! Like something I'd worn before, but I couldn't place it. It wasn't one of those scents I'd worn with a really LOUD note, easy to pick out of a crowd, this one is so beautifully blended, it just reads as lovely perfume...

When my husband got home, he sniffed the air and smiled. "It smells like perfume. It smells like when we were dating!"

And there! He hit on it! The perfume I wore when we were dating (14 years ago!) was Chanel Allure, and Mom with the Sun is very similar to that on me. Unsurprisingly, they share a ton of notes, including the bergamot - which I can smell early - and the magnolia - which this dries down to in a lovely fashion. Allure doesn't have lemon, but the rose always read very lemony on my skin. I don't get much Champaca, this does not smell like incense on me.

It is gorgeous. It's ridiculously sophisticated stuff, and worth keeping for the reaction it got out of my husband alone.

Oooooooooo..... No.93 Engine is probably just that thing, and I already own it!

Hi there,

I'm looking for suggestions for my tabletop Star Wars character. She's an imperial officer from "deep core" world nobility, passed over for promotion due to family political problems. She is a very charismatic leader, but arrogant and a little bit of a live wire at the moment since she doesn't really have a career to destroy.

I'm thinking Major Kira Nerys from DS9 crossed with S.H.I.E.L.D's Maria Hill with a dash of Brave's Queen Elinor.

So what does she smell like?

Oh, her planet is expert in nanotechnology, so she will be able to recreate any scent with NANITES.

Thanks for your help!

So six years after my bpal obsession starts I finally try Lyonesse.

Huh?

I can't explain it either. I guess since the other wildly popular bpals failed so miserably on me (O, Dorian, Snake Oil, Morocco) I just started trying the less loved sections of the catalog and the LEs and gave up, especially on things with vanilla.

But looking at the notes list of this past vanilla.......? Reads like a list of Tzi's Favorite things! And the vanilla here is so well behaved! It does not turn into cheap drugstore candle like so many other, Dorian, cough, scents do! Hooray!

The throw is incredible. I can't smell most bpals unless I am right on top of them, but this one I get wafts of golden vanilla lily musk all the way from the crook of my elbow where I applied. Delicious!

Not foody at all on me - very perfumey. Ambergris does that on me, makes things all expensive scented in the most amazing way. Sigh. Off to edit the wishlist!

Tzi

New request: my favorite B&BW ever is the delicious and discontinued (and now priced higher than a bottle of BPAL) Sunset Mango from the awesome Temptations collection. Mango seems to be a pretty rare note here, but is there anything from BPAL that is very mango-y?

I find The Dodo to be verrrrrrry mango, but others in the review thread disagree...

Red musk, lemon peel, sugar cane, cassia, white sandalwood, mango, and agarwood.

It's just yummy.

Tzi