darkitysnark

I split Hope & Faith with kittyflop as she is on the quest for a good rose blend, and I've recently become All About the Violets.

In the bottle and wet, this is more soapy floral than sugary floral to my nose. I have recently discovered that my skin loves the sugars so I knew it was just a matter of drydown and time... I'm now enveloped in a warm, sweet, light purple haze of deliciousness.

This isn't an everyday scent for me (it is just on this side of going soapy at any moment), but definitely one I'll reach for when I want to feel girlie with a touch of naughty.

I've only whiffed Crumpet Rebellion on inanimate objects (in edenssixthday's scent locket along with MB:Underpants (I think?), and on the sample card I've got heavily baggied right now) because of some irrational fear that this would morph into some holy grail foodie scent on my skin.

So my review is a bit one-sided. But what a delicious side! Seriously, I wanted to nibble on that locket. And I'm trying very hard not to huff my little baggie o' scent right now too.

This is a dark, purple berry (flips between blackberry and black currant for me) with a buttery, crumbly crisp. I'm usually pretty butter-shy (Shill scared the bejeezus out of me, and I don't care for Jack because of the butter I have to get through to get to the rest of it) but this butter seems to be held in check by all the purple (which also tends to be a bully note for me).

This is really well balanced and just absolutely delicious. It not only has me craving baked things, but a nice strong coffee too!

Intriguing!

I am not normally a fan of the aquatics. They go immediately to dryer sheet on me and don't come back. But I love woods, and anything that is not traditionally "perfumey" like stone will always get my attention.

It seems for me that my monthly special time doesn't turn anything into cat pee (which is a blessing) but my skin does tend to eat up more delicate scents. It seemed like in comparing the same blends with other BPALers this weekend, several blends veered off into completely different corners of their components. Shanghai Tunnel was no different.

Though it started with the in-the-bottle startling dryer-sheet wetness I've come to associate with acquatics and bamboo scents, that dissipated within the drydown phase. What was left was what kittyflop likened to "something sort of green and slimy, but in a good way". It was like a muddled non-food herbal releasing it's odor into the initial liquid.

About half an hour later or so, I picked up a very subtle, cool wood note and a sort of gritty, gravely stone. Very clean and really different from anything else I've tried or have.

It's not the usual blend that I reach for, but just for fascination alone this one is at least worth trying, if not having around for the occasional ol factory shake-up.

Since I have been smacked upside the head by Murphy's Law of Lunar Cycles, and How They Line Up Way Too Well with Massive BPALing, I have been smelling The Unheavenly City on a number of other people. I wanted to get this for my MIL as a replacement for her bottle of gardenia SN that was lost in her house fire and loved the idea of the other notes going into the blend.

This is a very red blend. The wee dab I put on my wrist from the tester looked like a dollop of lip gloss! I can see the red musk before I even smell it!

On me, but more importantly, on everyone else that tried it, the predominant note up front is an assertive (but not meaty and aggressive, as it can sometimes be on me) gardenia. There is jasmine and rose as well, but it's gardenia's show.

This all calms down a little later (probably due to the creaminess), but still remains mostly gardenia to my nose. The bit of spice is not proportional to the shade of the oil to me - it's very subtle and unobtrusive. Beautiful. Now... how to explain the nekkid lady to the MIL...

Huh. I think I might have tried two different biggerCritters in the last two days? Help me out folks, here's the scenario:

Trial 1

moontess () recommended biggerCritters as a possible alternative to The Unheavenly City as I was concerned that my choice of this blend for my MIL would be somewhat tempered by how she received a blend with such a name and such label art (she's a very conservative, deeply Lutheran woman to whom I gave a bottle of gardenia single note a few years ago prior to a house fire in which the perfume was lost. Cry for the loss as well as my run-on sentences.)

The bottle had what I consider more of a "regular" Lab label, no special art, just text.

On me the blend flashed sweetened gardenia and immediately went to a warm, creamy vanilla frosting place. On moontess the blend stayed a candied gardenia. At this point I was convinced this was the (non-scary-making) MIL blend to beat.

Trial 2

Today I went to the BPAL vending table at Convergence and discussed my strategy with my companions (as one is wont to do prior to a major spending spree...) who recommended I give the tester a try. The tester bottle at the table had a cute four-color drawing of oogly eyed monsters. On all four of us the predominant floral note was jasmine.

I have no beef with jasmine anymore, but jasmine is still the ol factory bully for me. Once something goes jasminey, it's nigh impossible for any other note to get any leeway.

Eventually, I got a very light foodie-frosting base underneath the jasmine, which was nice... but still jasmine.

Of all the jasmine blends of Beth's I've tried, this one is probably one of the most balanced. Having said that, it's still jasmine.

So... has anyone else experienced this? I am going through hormonal shifts this weekend so I'd understand if the difference only happened on me, but based on how bC was on moontess I just have to wonder...

Another frimp included in the One Week Journal #1 traveling package!

More often than not, I find that I am refining my BPAL tastes more by what I don't like than what I like.

This blend has a lot of lovely things going for it: warmth, spice, strength. But I'm turning out not to be a fan of red musk. So far, just about anything "red" (wine, musk, currants, other fruit) just go to a bad fruity place on me. It's not sour, it's not gross, it's just... not good. Maybe I had a traumatic experience with fruit in the time before remembering. Hm.

Other than the off-ness of the red musk, this is a great blend. Everything one could hope for, really. Back into the box you go!

Peony Moon was one of the frimps included in the ginormous One Week Traveling Journal #1 box that was recently resurrected. (:waves: to all the ladies on the loop!)

And, oh, my. I'm sorry, ladies, but I believe I'm swapping this one out. It's... this is exactly the smell of playing with my cousins in their old condo in Hong Kong... the one just down the street from my father's family's first dry-goods store (the one that started my uncle's real estate empire).

So it was peony perfume I was smelling when we made those little plaster Sanrio-esque figurines. And I can almost see my grandmother's little altar with the rice bowls filled with offerings. And even though this blend itself doesn't have the incense she used, I can sense them too as a ghost of smell that my minds is pulling up to complement the peonies.

It's been a long time since I've had this kind of reaction to BPAL, I figured I had reached my "wow" saturation point. But it looks like there's still moments to be unearthed.

Amazing.

On to the actual review of this blend: it's almost as light as Jabberwocky, which is unfortunate. This is definitely a private blend, not for sharing with the masses (it won't throw that far anyway). I'd love to share it with everyone around me, but I'll settle for working to inspire the same sense of play and wonder that that time in my life held.

I gimp from my unbelievably generous Switch Witch Diana .

And like whoa. I applied this as I apply most of my BPAL... I might have even been a bit heavy handed as some of the Lunacies seem to go poof on me after a while.

That was a mistake.

Because this sucker has serious throw, waft, what-have-you. I was a blaring announcement of honey and resin and crushed flowers for most of the day.

It was just too much! But at the end of the day what was left was great. Sweet to the point of being a bit corrupted. I just need to have a much, much lighter hand when applying in future.

I got an imp of Hunter Moon from my Autumn Switch Witch Diana!

It's been a looong time since I've reviewed any BPAL (at least if feels that way), and is seems like my nose have become uneducated during my time away. Please bear with my vagueness.

Wine is a very hit-or-miss note on me. It teeters on the edge of being the same kind of cloyingly annoying fruitiness that I get from currants and berries, or it goes to a nice, dark, somewhat smoky place.

The wine in Hunter Moon is very strictly on the fence between these two extremes. I think the base lunar blend might be what holds it back from going too fruity, but it is also what keeps it from going darker.

Strangely, the smoke part comes across as an aftertaste of graphite pencil shavings in the back of my throat. This note comes out at first, and comes back again hours later.

I have to agree - this is an autumnal blend, but a cold one.

A generous gift from my Spring Switch Witch lexile!

I think I had this wishlisted because of the sandalwood and red musk, which I have since discovered makes me think of manly berries.

At first (in the bottle and wet) this is surprisingly fruity. Fruity and almost tropical (more pineappley than coconutty). This effect dissipates quickly and is replaced with what I have come to know as "old skool BPAL".

I know that's very unhelpful as we all cut our teeth on different BPAL blends, but this one is definitely conjuring my first brush with BPAL almost two (!) years ago.

There's a dark, musky sweetness backed by the dry incense/wood, with a top tinge of the bergamot (which comes off as a non-pledgey lemon just this side of BO... a very fine balance that is jointly compelling and repelling).

I'm feeling very sensuous, mysterious, and sexually aggressive right now, so this is probably not a good "work scent". I don't know if it's even a good seduction scent. This is more something I would wear for my own pleasure and Pleasure (ifyouknowhatimean, nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more).

A thoughtful gimp from my Spring Switch Witch lexile!

This starts out very, very almond. Crazy, buttery, wet, creamy almond. Slightly scary almond (not green and biting on me, and not cherry-almond either, just really aggressive).

Then it immediately breaks down into myrrh and musk, but both these notes smell like the children of almond. They aren't the crazy almond, but somehow carry the genes.

Four hours later I'm getting mostly sweet musk with a vaguely almondy top note and resinous aftertaste (bottom note?). Sort of like al-MUSK-(myrrh), if that makes any sense at all.

It's very lovely now, but still sort of overly aggressive somehow. This is the first blend I've tried in a while that triggered a sort of "fight or flight" reaction. Usually it's the smoky blends that do that to me, but maybe I've got some issues with almond. Hm.

I would use this again, sparingly, and for those days when I need a kick in the pants.

A lovely gift from my Spring Switch Witch lexile!

And... what an enigmatic one this is! This is the first sun station I've tried, so I can't compare against the other ones. This is both sweet and bitter, dark and light, cool and warm.

She started out bright and sharp, which translates to a greenish herbal tinged with something citrus and/or spicy. The throw is about medium and pretty consistent for the first four hours. She calms down into a cat-like warmth -- seemingly calm, but you can tell she's alert at all times.

The main note I'm picking up via waft and huffing my wrist now (almost eight hours later!) is a very clear-headed frankincense backed by a very dry and solid wood. Not sweet like sandalwood, but more... tart? This is a fascinating blend.

I'm a horrible note taker, and my BPAL spreadsheet hasn't been updated since... oh the Yule '05 release? So I think this was a really generous frimp from the Perfumed Ferret, but it might have been a gift from my Spring Switch Witch lexile and I'm just really embarassed for not writing this down beforehand.

Having bumbled through all that, I gotta say, I'm getting something vastly different from y'all for Yew Trees.

There's almost no pine, though there might have been a spike of sharp, bitter herbal forest at the very beginning. This quickly turned into a deeply cologny scent on me almost immediately. In this case, when I say "cologny" I don't mean "department store generic man-alcohol" but more like this is the sweet bosom of the essence to which all those colognes aspire.

Because this is definitely powdery (ambery?) sweet, but somehow manly too. There is a faint, gummy resin behind all this agressive sweetness, but mostly what I get is sweet man-flesh. Usually berries are a very particular kind of sweet on my skin that is not to my liking, but this sweet is... dunno how to describe it. It's... very compelling (can't stop sniffing my wrists) but sort of alarming too (wanna nibble on earlobes and pinch cheeks... either ones).

This feels like that scary headspace where familial and sexual love sort of press up next to eachother and threaten all kinds of catastrophe.

Maybe I'm getting all this because I'm reading Kafka on the Shore right now. I sorta hope so. I'll have to try this again when I'm in less of a suggestive mood.

I gift from my Spring Switch Witch lexile!

I had this on my wishlist primarily for the red sandalwood and amber. I noticed some passing comments upthread about red sandalwood lending a coconutty tone to the blend, and that is also what I'm getting (though I had it classified more vaguely as "tropical").

This is a changer on me. It starts out sharp and herbal and very "men's cologne". Then there's the tropical sweetness that I'm having trouble placing, but it definitely like something I've tried before (A less fruity Masabakes?)

I am drawn to the incense and woody "aftertaste" but the sweet, plummy top notes are a bit off putting for me. There's also something very neutral and play-doughy in the middle that I'm only picking up on my right wrist.

I'd love to attack The Mister with this to see how his skin reacts... though I agree, this is neither masculine nor feminine. It's not androgynous either. It's more hermaphroditic. Intriguing!

A gimp from The Perfumed Ferret!

This is as light and fleeting as a sigh. As per usual with any blend containing jasmine, my skin throws JASMINE! back at me with great force at first, but then the blend calms down to a very subtle, cool and creamy floral. I'm not picking up much plum at all, though maybe it and the ylang-ylang combined to give the general impression of gentle sweetness.

I did back off when I got the first hit of jasmine in the bottle, so my hand might have been too light on application. This one was swallowed up by my skin fairly quickly. I'll need to test again for nuances, probably slathering heavily next time.

This was a generous frimp from The Perfumed Ferret.

I'd put my standard jasmine disclaimer on here, but over time and through various circumstances (mostly frimps from the lab, but also other generous forumites) my jasmine prejudice has been worn down to a tender little nub. I'm just not getting the "meat flower" scent I used to. Strange how that all works.

Having said all that AMGP starts out all jasmine, as all jasmine blends do on my skin. Perhaps sensing that this would happen, I backed off on my application... or maybe it's just the nature of this blend, but AMGP is extremely subtle and gentle. I'm getting almost no throw on it now (about four hours later)

I do get the slightest hint of the lemon peel and sage wafting up from my neck, a very slight tinge. This is just about the most lovely lemon of the lab's I've ever had. Most lemon comes off as Pledge for me, so this is a huge accomplishment. Maybe "peel" is the way to go for me.

Close to the skin the jasmine is all but gone. In its place is a creamy, summery scent that I'm guessing is the sandalwood and musk (which are always lovely on my skin, but usually not this... diaphonous?).

This is not at all anything I would have picked for myself, but I'm very glad it found its way to me (thanks again, PF!). The "aftertaste" is very similar to another BPAL blend I tried very early in my BPALing, but I can't quite remember which one. Possibly Sudha Segara (less Pledgy) or Queen of Sheba (less sultry).

A generous gimp from my Spring Swith Witch lexile!

Fruit and I have a very hit-and-miss relationship. While grapefruits and blood oranges get along well with my skin (meaning they smell like they ought), currants and lemons become cloyingly artificial/medicinal/yuck.

Luckily, this particular blend of a bazillion fruits seems to be all pluses!

This is beautifully blended. My nose isn't educated enough to pick out the lunar base blend, but it did manage to snag onto a fresh, juicy cantaloupe during the wet/drydown period.

This is incredibly sweet, but not sugary sweet like candy. This is a natural, fruity sweet. There's a bit of the Juicy Fruit gum thing going here, and a bit of the Flintstones Daily Vitamins, but not enough to get cloying or medicinal. This is a great nostalgic blend that doesn't tie in to any particular memories of my own, but seems to feel like it should evoke some long-past summer night anyway.

Lovely.

Courtesy of sookster's Aerosmith contest \m/ (you ROCK!).

Jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine JASMINE!

Like most blends that contain jasmine, my skin seems to suck up all the other parts of the blend and just throw back jasmine with great force.

But this jasmine, unlike the others I've tried, doesn't go meaty on me (thank goodness). I'm assuming that the juniper and rose geranium play a tempering sort of supporting role here. I can't really pick them up, but I'm also not trying to run away from my own wrists so something is working here.

This is a great lush summer scent. I want to give it a couple more tries to see if I can coax the other two kids out to play. Funny how the lab takes everything I though I hated (rose, jasmine, pathouli) and turns them into if not grand loves, then at least lovely daliances.

Al-Shairan

A wonderful gimp from Valentina!

Me + clove = a deep and abiding love

Me + patchouli = casual, sometimes hostile acquaintances

Me + fruit = sometimes it's pull-my-pigtails like me like me, and sometimes they just wanna pull my pigtails

Me + incense = the love that dare not speak its name (while clove is around, because clove can get kinda jealous)

So add that all up and you get a real jumble. This is heavy and sweet but also a bit light and soapy, and the sweetness is grounded (and sometimes ground out) by incense and pathouli. I really can't make my mind up about this one. It's both compelling and repelling all at once.

I can say with certainty that this is a scent best worn by me in cooler months, so I'm gonna let this one age a bit and save it for either an upcoming cool night (we still get those around here) or next fall.

This is probably one of the more complicated blends I've worn in a while.

Oh wow. My impressions while testing (during the forum down time, so my recall is imperfect) had nothing to do with the actual notes.

This started out, for lack of a better word, "manly" on me, a sharp flare of astringent cologne. But it dried down and warmed to a really lovely, creamy, almost ambery feeling. Much like QueenFae's phantom Snake Oil reaction, I'm picking up implied notes that just aren't there. But I like it.

Mania, Roman Goddess of the Dead, Matron of Madness, Governess of the Ancestral Spirits, Bestower of Divine Frenzy. Her scent swirls with a high-pitched tumult of laurel, stargazer lily, splintered woods, peony, mandarin and white musk, and is spiked with pale pepper.

Straight up dirty musk slap. Ka POW. And that's.... pretty much it. I've gotta try this again, but my first reaction was just a back peddaling "no no no no NO!".

This single note lives up to the hype.

Thanks to my AwesomeSuperFantastic Winter Switch Witch, minilux () I have this to hoard and use and love and gaaaah!

This seems to be short-lived on me; however, please keep in mind that I am being beyond sparing in my application. I should just suck it up and douse myself once (OK, let's not get crazy, I'll step back to "slather") because this? Is perfection.

Warm, sweet, comforting, just a bit spicey. All the clovey goodness you expect without tipping over into abject foodiness. This is... heaven. And it layers so well with everything I have (namely earthy, resiny, slightly manly blends). And it just goes well with me.

Ah. If I had known how wonderful this is.... I would've ordered Multiple Bottles (a huge friggin' deal for a BPAL skinflint such as m'self) prior to discontinuation.

So glad I got to experience this. My effusive thanks will never be enough!

Sublime, in the compelling/scary sort of way.

This started out gritty mortar 'n pestle cocoa bean with a sharp green bite.

The sweetness of the figs helps this out, but there's still a sharp woody, pencil shavings sort of zinger at the back of my throat.

Definitely masculine in the way that compels and repels at exactly the same time.

I'll sniff this again, but if I get the same "run away! jump my bones!" I might have to gimp elsewhere.

Heh. Stardust.

A swap from hepkitten.

Hm. Love the frankincense, but boy howdy this is nothin' but le frank for a good long while. Frankincense and a weird, feral sharp after-smell that hurts my nose and makes me want to run to my mamma! (Maybe it was rabid cinnamon? Otherwise, I didn't get what I usually consider cinnamon.)

Hours later, though, and this is just all powerful ego. Very forceful. This really helped my little pow wow with my boss just now. I was able to interrupt his rambling digressions and get to the point already, puny hu-man.

And now, finally, a hint of violet. Very nice. I'd like to layer this with the LUSH Skinny Dip buttercreme I got (and use only for special smellin' occasions).

I strongly recommend a light hand on application. I was and still am wafting like a egomaniacal mofo.

Edited to note: what a difference a couple months makes! Not sure if it's aging the oil, or changing of me, or just the season changing or what... but now I'm getting mostly spicy dark violets, and not so much the frankincense. If there's cinnamon, it's definitely in a supporting role. This has become the Signature Scent of Chez Snark.