Nepthys

Oh, this one makes me homesick. I live in Arizona and when I had 2 AZ friends smell this tonight, they considered it an autumn scent - that cool night in a pine forest association. But to me, who grew up in the forests of the Northeast, this is dead-on a spring night scent. It's powerfully evocative of both high school keg parties and Pagan spring rites - wandering through fields by starlight to get to a bonfire, that taboo excitement of a forbidden rite in the woods, wandering away to kiss someone in the dark and smelling the smoke of the bonfire in their shirt and hair. When I sniff this, I'm half-convinced I'm missing out on a witches' Bacchanalia going on in some nearby woods. It lasts a long time - but unfortunately the throw of this is a little too medicinal-piney. After a hour, I need to take a deep sniff up close to get all the lovely associations again.

I swooned when I first opened the bottle and my adoration has yet to cease. My first impression was strawberry honey - then I could smell the sugar note and then slowly the flowers came to the fore, particularly dogwood and what I think is daffodil. It's an interesting blend; the sweetness and innocence of childhood are there, but they're riding over a drowsy, sensual warmth. This is so pink and yet to me it's a languid pink and not, say, the girlish pink of Venus. I've not tried Sugar Skull and the other moons, so I can't make the comparisons other reviews have. Oh, I just want to drown in this. I usually am repelled by very sweet scents, but this is heavenly.

I'm not a big fan of anise so I was wary of this one; it was a gift from the Lab. It turned out to be one of my favorites in that whole order. Cherry and sandalwood, it turned out, balance each other's sweetness and woodiness in a beautiful way. This was so pretty and so fresh, I couldn't believe it. As for the anise... I sort of detected it in there, but it was faint and it worked. This is a great spring scent; it reminds me of walking home from school as a kid in March/April and reveling in that damp flower smell on wet, windy days. I love this on my skin but I think I might also want this in my car.

I love almond but my worst fears were realized with this - which is to say that jasmine flattened everything else in the blend. It started as sharp but interesting almond and then a plastic scent emerged; the jasmine got stronger and stronger and eventually drowned out everything else. This gets relegated to the room scent stash.

I'm discovering that rosewood absolutely takes over any blend on me, and this occurred in Fenris Wolf. Just a smidgen of sandalwood peaked through but on the whole this was a flatly wooden scent on me. I'd hoped my ever-favorite amber would save this but rosewood killed it.

The Hierophant is not what I expected - it's always seemed such a dour card to me and yet this scent is warm, mysterious and regal; something I'd associate more with the Strength card perhaps. Anyhow. In the imp this smelled vaguely woody and dark. But on my skin it turned just gorgeous - a warm spicy cinnamon and wood scent that married my favorite parts of Eclipse and Three Witches and Cathedral and Tushnamatay. All of the BPAL cinnamon scents thus far have been likeable at first and then too much for me; the Hierophant strikes the perfect balance.

This smells just too delicious to be true: a warm blend of amber and flowers that is graceful and feminine in a way that feels genuine, not fake as so many girly scents seem to me. It's not too sweet, no strange jarring notes emerge, and it lasts and lasts on me (through a humid club basement at least) for hours. It dries down just as it goes on and in a nice reversal of my usual luck, smells better on me than it does in the imp. I never would have expected to like carnation as much as I do with BPAL but somehow it tends to work on me in blends - and being the amber-fiend I am, this is a match made in heaven. I definitely get the comparisons as a less-sweet O or a less-spicy Bastet. Too, too beautiful.

I got this as a freebie with my new BPAL shirt but had been thinking about getting it anyhow. It just sounded so dashing. However... sexy as this is, it is complete overkill on me. Just from opening the imp to sniff it and some getting on my finger, then transferred to my collarbone, resulted in a powerful aura of scent that clung to me for hours. It smells very much like a department store cologne and has some delectable notes, but I would only wear this if I could turn down the intensity a few notches. As is, it reminds me of obnoxiously persistent nightclub guys who drown themselves in cologne.

This smelled very pretty in the imp, a hot bright gold. Unfortunately on me it went on quite smokey, then turned into a hot version of Vicks Vapor Rub. Eventually I got the Dragon's Blood everyone else could smell, but the medicinal sterile note underneath continued to bother me. Too bad.

Thick, sickeningly sweet honey and butterscotch. It gives me a glutted, overindulged feeling - the way I get after baking when I eat too much of the dough and feel so sick I never want to even see a sweet again. I thought the booziness was only there a short while but apparently my nose just turned off to it - someone came in my office later and accused me of drinking. This has inviting elements to it, it's just a bit too strong for me. I'll try layering it with something a little drier and sterner and see what that produces.

Sandalwood is probably my favorite scent in the world, but in BPAL I'm not a big fan of it. Something is in Shroud that was also in Cathedral and Tushnamatay that turns flat and dull on me; instead of exotic or spiritual it smells repressive, like an old house that really needs to be cleaned and opened up. I can't wear this without feeling depressed but it makes a decent room scent.

I wouldn't have tried this if not for the tempting reviews here. At first I was very excited - this went on as a feminine, expensive blend of amber and peach that was just perfect as the scent of a seductive, dangerous woman. I was thinking I'd found my next big BPAL love. Alas... as it dried down, both the peach and amber evaporated and I was left with a chilly and matronly floral. It's pretty but a bit too formal and fussy for me in the end.

This is what expensive men's cologne tries to be. It's masculine, confident verging on cocky, and sexy as all hell. I happened to get this hours before going off to this huge gay conference and carried the imp with me; two of my butchest friends were just swooning over this, it smelled so dashing on them! This is easily my favorite "boy" BPAL so far, definitely outclassing Wilde and Whitechapel (though they're both quite nice.) In the imp this smelled at first whiff like a Calvin Klein cologne. At second whiff I realized it was much more artful and inviting than any commercial cologne, and didn't (thank god) have that toxic note I associate with store scent. On me at first it was all lavender and tonka bean; there were clearly other notes blending in, but I couldn't really identify them. It was just a good blend. It started out with a very rakish air and yet as time went on, the scent seemed warmer and comforting in a strong way, like snuggling into a good-smelling man's leather jacket. Total BPAL genius afoot again.

I honestly only tried this because Santa Muerte is cool; I wasn't expecting to like it much, given that rose and I don't mix. What a surprise, then, to discover that this is a very beguiling scent. At first it was all cactus flowers with just a bit of vetiver --in itself a dry, dusty, western kind of scent. Then a complex but subtle sweetness came through so it all rounded off to a soft, dry green floral. This isn't my concept of Santa Muerte and yet it very much matches the art I've seen of her, a desert skeletal goddess in velvet robes. This is one of those BPALs that actually deepen and enrich your experience of a deity. Lovely.

This is the sharper, bubblier sister of Hollywood Babylon. At first the champagne and strawberry were perfectly balanced but eventually the strawberry triumphed. Luckily it isn't an overly sweet note like so many synthetic strawberry scents - this smells like the actual fruit, not the many products people try to make smell like strawberry.

I love the true scent of chocolate but most chocolate scents have always smelled synthetic and kind of sickening to me. BPAL is the exact opposite - I love Velvet, Vice, Kali, Dia de los Muertos - so I had to try Bliss. I have immediately fallen in love with it. It smells so rich and genuine and comforting, there's not a shred of plasticity in it. Best of all, this is the perfect oil to layer. I like it with all of the above, but right now I am really liking it with Samhain - wearing both is like carrying around a Halloween aura all day. Fabulous.

The ghostly White Women of the Scottish highlands. They seduce unwary travelers by night with their unearthly beauty and mesmerizing dancing. They engage their victims in a wild, hypnotic dance, and once they reach exhaustion, the demonesses exsanguinate their partners with their vampiric kiss. Talk about a quick courtship. Grapefruit, white tea, apple blossom and ginger. This goes on and stays on as a white powdery aquatic. I don't get any of the citrus or ginger - and ginger usually comes right through on me. Instead this smells like a soft, feminine French perfume. There is virtually nothing to match it to the description! This got a lot of compliments at work and I am finding it so nice on the warm spring days that I may have to get a big bottle.

In the imp this is mostly a sharp green lemongrass with a milder intrusion of lavender. On me, though, it is almost all lavender with a pleasant herbal afterthought. It's a decent enough scent but I only wear it right before I go to sleep so... Now. I've only had this a few nights and it's true they involved a partial eclipse with the moon in Aries, but still, my dreams have been complex and meaningful. Unfortunately they're so complicated that it's difficult to remember them all but I've been waking up with a true feeling of refreshment, like my consciousness worked out whatever it needed to, and I got a good night's sleep besides. Because this seems to affect my insomnia as well as my dreams, I think I prefer this to my other sleep oil, Somnus.

At first this smelled like other BPAL churchy/woody scents to me - I expect because of the frankincense, which has always drowned out all other notes on me. Then, surprisingly, a hot peppery note came through which saved it. I got the pirate assocation after that, though like others I somehow expected a salt water note that wasn't there - which I actually think is good. I don't think I would wear this just for the scent of it, but rather, when I wanted to feel kick-ass and adventurous.

I think Beth really nailed this one - this is exactly how Lady Death should smell! It's feminine, elusive and dry as a death rattle. What's unsettling is its shifting faces on me, elegant and ladylike-pretty on top, and then a sinister afternote of dry leaves and arid earth. It's quite remote, so that one sniff doesn't quite sate me - I keep going back for more and more, trying to nail down my impression. I wasn't expecting it, but this was a HUGE hit with two male friends tonight. They thought it was the sexiest scent ever. I know orris root is used in lust spells but that really took me by surprise... I like this ok but they went crazy for it!

The "somber blooms" just aren't in this for me, neither in the imp or on my skin. Instead it's a dark dry scent of pine trees and night - I don't know why the description evoked a chilly gray day in my mind, but this has a midnight association with it; and of course, it is called House of Night. This doesn't really remind me of a graveyard as much as a huge Victorian estate, the kind in gothic romance novels where there was always an overgrown weedy family cemetery on the premises. I could see a Bronte heroine wearing this - it's that kind of dramatic, tragic scent.

At first this was pure anise, which has never been a favorite scent of mine. But it quickly morphed into the smell of cigars and leather. This smells exactly like a certain breed of old men; I had to actually wash it off because though not unpleasant, I seriously felt as if the ghost of an old man was right next to me wherever I went. Incredible.

I totally get the occult bookstore smell from this - it makes you think of dusty tomes and obscure incenses and a general smell of old magic. For the first hour this is straight tonka on me, very dry, and then quite suddenly the sweet pea comes out and makes it rather feminine. I'll use up my imp because it is pretty, but I don't think I'd get a big bottle of it.

I was really looking forward to this - the description sounded so beautiful, I thought for sure it would work in some capacity. Yet my skin performed its oddest BPAL trick yet and deleted all of the amber, mango and lavender from the scent, leaving only sage with just a trace of musk. It's pleasant enough, just a very far cry from both the description and the lovely scent of the timp. As it dries down, it turns into a dead ringer for Cathedral.

The other reviews sound so subtle and nice! Leanan Sidhe is not at all evocative of twilight and mist and flowers on me - instead it smells like fresh, sharp, green soap. I like this; it gives me that clean, well-scrubbed feeling you get taking a cold shower with lots of bath gel after a hot grimy day. Very sudsy and herbal. I'll probably get a big bottle for summer to feel sweet and cool in the sweltering AZ heat.