Nepthys

I suspect this one will be very different depending on the wearer. It smelled heavenly in the bottle, but on me, it quickly became a dry pomegranate with the fir and cypress almost invisible. It faded quite quickly.

Rose and I don't always get along, so I was nervous about this one. But it wound up being my favorite Yule. I would describe it as the baby of Snow White and Snow Zombie, with a tiny bit of Frostbitten Alice thrown in. The snow and leather predominate and the rose and amber are much fainter. It's incredibly well blended. In the bottle, it was a very dry and stiff scent; on me, it dried down into a feminine and elegant chilly scent. I've been wearing it nonstop.

Very cozy, very warm. Similar to Jo Malone's Gingerbread Biscuit but warmer. It dried down on me exactly as it smelled in the bottle, so no surprises there: gingerbread being the strongest note with the cocoa fainter but steady.

Thick lumps of pumpkin cake with cardamom-cream frosting and a dusting of cinnamon. Absolutely love this. The perfect blend of pumpkin and cake, just like I wanted. This reminds me of visiting roadside cider/donut stands in the fall, where you could pick out a pumpkin and then buy some fresh-baked sugary treats to take home. Some of the Lab foodie scents turn cloying on me but the pumpkin keeps this fresh.

Our first anniversary! We were still working from the basement at the time, so to speak. (It was actually the spare room at Ted’s place.) In 2003, the scent categories on our site were Bewitching Brews, Funereal Oils, Dark Elements, Sin & Salvation, Love Potions, and Diabolus, and a selection of conjure and hoodoo recipes that I had reformulated for cosmetic use, including #20 Love Oil, All Night Long, Crucible of Courage, High John the Conqueror, and Van Van. Some of the first scents (our original posse!) available on the site were Anathema, Black Rose, Haunted, Darkness, Debauchery, Faustus, Pulse Points, Satyr, Silentium Amoris, Thanatopsis, Venom, Vixen, my interpretation of the four elements (Burial, Inferno, Hurricane, and Undertow) and, of course, Snake Oil. Snake Oil was the first, and Snake Oil will always be part and parcel of who I am. At the end of 2003, we offered the first LEs (Samhain and Spooky) and the first LE series ran (“Five fiendishly festive holiday scents!”), limited to one-hundred 5mLs and seventy-five 10mLs of each: Gingerbread Poppet, Midwinter’s Eve, Rose Red, Snow White, and Yuletide. Cotton Phoenix has a base of our foundation scent, Snake Oil, with a sliver of Snow White, almond milk, and a pillowy poof of marshmallow layered over a sheer cotton blossom musk. It's happened: I've found a new scent to join my pantheon of all-time beloved BPALs. In the bottle and on, it's mostly an almond/marzipan blur of Dana O'Shee and Snake Oil. Every now and then a sniff will conjure the ghost of Snow White mixed in. I love Snake Oil but can get sick of it quickly - somehow that doesn't happen with Cotton Phoenix, it's not heavy or cloying at all. Definitely buying a backup bottle.

My favorite Lick It. This is exactly like the description says, with the strawberry, wine, and honeycomb all in play and perfectly balanced. It's very much winter-turning-to-spring and reminds me a little of Snow Bunny from BPAL days of yore.

Refreshing and clean without being sharp. The grapefruit dominates in the bottle and on my skin - even after an hour. There's not a lot of morphing here. Luckily, I adore grapefruit and bought it for that note so I'm pretty happy. If you like Jo Malone's Grapefruit perfume, imagine that laced with faint strawberry and you've got this scent - at least, that's how it smells on me. I may get a second bottle because I can already tell this will be my go-to scent on hot summer days. It's just such a clean, pretty scent.

A gorgeous Luper. It smells exactly like I was hoping it would - light, sweet, feminine, predominantly cherry, without being overpowering or sickly sweet. It smells essentially like walking under cherry trees in bloom on a fresh spring day. The honey is quite light, so if you're worried about the honey drowning out other notes (as happens to me with some scents), this isn't an issue here. My only issue is that there isn't much staying power.

For 2022. LOVE THIS. I had a bottle of Snow White years ago that I was "meh" about - and later a decant that I liked better. Now I have a new bottle that I am absolutely crazy about. Did my nose change? Not sure. Anyhow. This smells like a very delicate blend of different flowers covered in snow. Chilly, fresh, pretty, and very feminine. Absolutely gorgeous and I am buying a bottle as backup.

This goes on wet as a syrupy hazelnut. After a few minutes, the faintest cocoa comes to the surface and that's how it stays. Not getting any coconut at all. I could smell this anywhere and know it was BPAL. If you like the Lab's baked goods/pastry scents, you'll like this.

When I first applied this, my heart sank -- it smelled exactly like Smut, which does not work on me. But I gave it a chance and within about 20 minutes, it shifted to something less rank and more like a pungent musk covered with frost. About 30 minutes after that, it smelled like snow-covered earth. And that's how it has stayed. I like it but it's not my favorite of the snowy Yules. I'll probably use this as a ritual scent since it doesn't work well for me.

Absolutely as expected. A cool, snowy lavender that is calming and restful. Will it replace Sopor for sleep purposes? Maybe but I see this more as a pretty scent to wear in the hours before bed when you want to wind down and chill.

I was looking forward to this Yule the most because I adore Zombi and the recent Bobbing for Zombies from the Weenies. Unfortunately, this just kind of vanished into my skin, leaving nothing but a faint waft of chilly rose. Must be a chemistry thing. Still pretty, just not very strong.

Holy cow, this is stunning!! It is exactly what I wanted from my Weenies, even though it's not formally a Weenie. SO GLAD I got this! I was worried it would be too sweet or overpowering or smell too much like Harvest Moon (which I love, but 1 bottle is enough.) Instead this is delicate and well balanced, like walking through an apple orchard in fall with a few final wildflowers lingering in the grass. The rose and cacao are faint, but provide a nice counterpoint. This is just heavenly. Even if you don't want to take advantage of its romantic powers, get this for the scent alone!

Never have I been so wrong about how something would smell on me. Unfortunately, it doesn't start out great wet and then dries down to smell like plastic. The sorcery here just doesn't work well with me.

Utterly gorgeous. I have always loved Zombi, and adding an apple note makes it even more beautiful. Wet: smells just like I thought it would, walking through a leaf-strewn cemetery on an autumn day. After 30 minutes: a unisex cologne note comes out. It's pretty and chilly and slightly obscures the soil note. But the effect on whole is still gorgeous.

Blush amber, wild carnation, French lavender, hay absolute, strawberry candyfloss, and vanilla cream. In the bottle, this didn't seem like anything I'd like. On my wrist it was a 180 - I loved this and it's my favorite Luper so far. These notes are blended together so expertly it's hard to pick them apart. However, lavender is eventually what predominates, graced with an underlying note of amber. I get no strawberry or vanilla at all for the first half hour and then slowly the vanilla comes out. It's a very light, feminine scent, more of a traditional perfume than one of the Lab's more experimental blends. Highly recommended.

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. Almond, wild fig, red rose petals, cardamom, and oudh. Absolutely beautiful. At first sniff, it reminded me of Bastet but then it became more complex and turned into a very warm smell dominated by almond and cardamom, with a hint of red rose. If it evokes anything, it's a Middle Eastern bazaar on a warm desert night. I normally don't do rose well and I worried about this working - but this is an occasion when the rose takes a back seat and lets the other notes dominate. I just love it.

You dirty bird. Incredibly sexy and a must-have for any Perversion fans. Everything dark and alluring about Perversion is still here, but it's shot through with bright streaks of the pumpkin spice. In that way, it smells exactly like you'd expect it to - it doesn't become a different creation. Absolutely gorgeous scent for adventurous autumn nights.

Love this! It reminds me of Kali, without the chocolate. Gorgeous, warm and rich, a perfume to wear to a winter's ball. Normally I'm afraid of rose and I often find honey overpowering. But here they're all balanced perfectly. Only downside: vanished like a mystery woman in 20 minutes.

Gingerbread with amber, sandalwood, black patchouli and cinnamon. Absolutely stunning. I actually tried this on blind - unbelievably, I forgot what I ended up ordering for Yule this year. I retrieved my order from a dark mailbox, grabbed a bottle at random and applied before driving off to the mall. I had NO idea what it could be but it smelled absolutely incredible and so I couldn't wait to get to a lighted parking lot and see that I had applied... Gingerbread Sin. I was stunned because the ginger in this is so cool and refined on me, unlike last year's much warmer Gingerbread Snake. This smells like a sophisticated, classy, expensive perfume (yet it's cuddly at the same time.) I could see this in an elaborate crystal bottle. While I can smell hints of Sin in it, this doesn't come off as a hybrid of Sin and Gingerbread but rather an entirely new scent. Patchouli always makes me nervous but it's barely detectable here. Probably the strongest note on me is the amber, which warms it up a little eventually. Otherwise it stays the same, no morphing. I imagine this is going to be wildly popular and would encourage anyone on the fence to get a bottle. It's probably one of my favorite BPALs of all time.

Lovely scent befitting the Lupercalia Vulva tradition! On me, the gardenia and plum slightly outweigh the cherry blossoms, and the cream and honeysuckle barely come to the fore at all. It's very delicate and feminine and I'd say more sophisticated than previous Vulva incarnations. Still debating on whether I need a back-up bottle - but this is a perfect spring scent, no doubt.

Absolutely gorgeous. The Lab's honey can be cloying or beautiful on me; this scent is sheer perfection. It reminds me a bit of Bastet, warm and golden, but more sweet instead of spicy. You might think the "marzipan" makes it a heavy pastry scent but somehow it stays light and clean.

Ive run away from a little old woman, A little old man, A barn full of threshers, And I can run away from you, I can! I was tempted by several Gingerbreads, but this is the one I picked. And wow do I love it. In the bottle I got a sharp, acrid whiff of pepper and winced. But as soon as I actually put this one, that vanished and I got a very warm blend of sugar-crusted gingerbread. I've had gingerbread scents before that went dull and too earthy, and I've had "vanilla sugar" scents that were sickly sweet. Neither of those are a problem here. This is such a cozy winter scent that is never overwhelming while having good staying power. Don't miss this one.

This didn't work for me as perfume, but worked nicely as a room scent. Applied to my skin, it smelled like an oatmeal cookie dipped in cleaning fluid. Really not good. I tried multiple times but it was always both doughy and astringent, so I gave up and burned it as a room oil.... and then it smells like oatmeal and apple.