Nepthys

I love the idea of a snow scent, but actual snow scents - from BPAL and elsewhere - rarely hit the mark for me. Maybe because I grew up surrounded by the real thing.

 

Anyhow. This is my favorite snow scent from the lab so far. (2014 edition.) It's very soft and comforting, like slipping into new sheets - cool but cozy too. It's what I imagined Snow Bunny would be like years back. It's not terribly mint on me, but more like a soft, powdery snow sweetened by a breath of cinnamon and spearmint. My only complaint: it fades quickly. On the upside, it's not overwhelming to others.

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.

I'll admit, I really wanted a perfume called The White Witch. Alas, this doesn't work on me. If I sniff it up close, it's quite pretty and I can pick out the rose and amber and musk; but just going about the course of my day, I feel cloaked in a overbearing head shop incense smell.

I got the first Devil's Night ever and fell in love with it - it was such a rich autumn night smell. So I was excited to try the '14 version. Unfortunately, this was my one fail of my 5 bottles. It's a light, candyish scent with a faintly artificial plastic note, and it evaporates fast. I'm going to play with layering it with others before giving up on it entirely.

On me, this is like a muted, more thoughtful Womb Furie. Very cuddly and warm and autumnal - it makes me feel like I'm burrowing into a beloved sweater. I get almost no cinnamon at all - it's pretty much straight up honeyed patchouli, with a flicker of vanilla. Of the 5 Weenie bottles I ordered, October and Halloween 1914 are "outside scents" and this is an "inside scent" of a warm cozy evening.

This was one of the Weenies I was most looking forward to and when I opened the bottle, my heart sank - it just smelled like wet wood and dirt. Same once it went on my wrist. But after about 20 minutes, it morphed into a rich autumn smell that reminded me of walking down a country road late on a fall night. This actually could be called Devil's Night too - it's evocative of fall nights outdoors, that smokey smell of trees and earth with something sweet. Definitely glad I got a bottle and waited it out.

This smelled exactly like I hoped - like my first Pink Moon from days of yore, sprinkled over freshly baked vanilla cake. Sometimes the Lab's cake/baked goods stuff can go syrupy on me (Sprinklecake and Monster Underbed) and turn me off very quickly - this doesn't do that, thank Goddess, but retains that warm strawberry cake smell. It is very long-lasting and strong - just a teeny dab is enough. Love it - this is very girly and innocent.

In the bottle, this is a beautiful scent, warm, sensual, earthy and cuddly, with a side of dominance. Unfortunately on me, it morphs almost immediately into the dirty animal smell I got from Smut. I'm going to layer with regular Snake Oil to see if I can steer it in a more wearable direction.

One of my favorites of the 5 Yules I bought. This is my first Skadi, and it reminds me a lot of Snow Bunny - cool and snowy and sharp, with a hint of something berry-sweet. The snow and pine definitely dominate, and it fades quickly. A keeper for sure.

This is SO pretty. It has an comforting powderiness that is sexy but innocent at the same time. It kind of reminds me of old middle school perfumes like Love's Baby Soft and Bonnie Bell's Skin Musk - not that it actually smells like that, but has that same cuddly feel. A keeper for sure.

This is one of those scents that is so quintessentially BPAL. As in, you could blindfold me and give me dozens of non-BPAL scents to sniff besides this one, and I would know this was the BPAL one.

 

In the bottle it was very woody and I was lukewarm. On me, it turned into the child of Snake Oil and Cathedral - still woody, but a little sexier and warmer. This isn't a hippie patchouli, but a drier, more earthy one. The honey doesn't really come out on me, but instead amps the amber and makes it a bit cloying. Not sure if I'll be keeping this one or not.

The reviews that compared this to Hexxenacht got me excited, as that was one of my all-time favorite scents. This wasn't actually even a cousin to that - not on me, anyhow. It starts out as a severe snow & pine blend that is absolutely, sharply wintry. And a bit masculine (which I like.) Then as the first hour went on, it softened and became more suggestive of spring, like a damp forest and floral scent. I really love this; it's fresh and invigorating and doesn't turn cloying. Definitely don't regret buying a bottle unsniffed.

This is the description, exactly. Very green and marshy and wet, with some berry sweetness and poisonous florals, but mostly green. A neglected, wildly overgrown garden in a wet climate - more of a spring scent than an autumn one to me. I really like it.

I can see why other people love this so much. I think I might like it if I can tamper down its intensity, but right now its throw is quite powerful and the effect is a bit sickly-sweet after an hour.

 

What it smells like: Snake Oil and Smut buried under a floral powder. That incensey base is very much present and after a while the floral powder part evaporates, leaving a smell like honey cake and something dirty.

This is for the 2011 version. I am so glad this smells just like my old bottle, which I really loved and smelled like Lush's Snowcake soap. It's eggnog laced with a creamy, sweet almond, and it's light yet persistent. Perhaps my favorite holiday BPAL of all time.

I was hoping for more gingerbread, but this smells like lemon drops and sugar cookies on me. It's sort of Sprinklecake's cousin. It's pleasant enough but fairly unremarkable.

This is for Boo 2011. In the bottle, it's absolutely delicious - a deep, creamy, inviting scent that smells like cream and fresh laundry. Seriously, I wanted to turn this into a fabric softener. But Boo was meant to be worn... and on me, it turns into a much simpler creamy vanilla. I have to be in the mood for this, because it reminds me so strongly of Bath and Body's Warm Vanilla Sugar scent, which a friend of mine slathers on to the point of making me sick. I'm thinking this will be a nice scent for cold winter nights.... it's still hot in AZ where I live, so it's not the right time for it yet. But overall, a nice scent.

In the bottle, this smelled cloyingly sugary. (And I like sugar.) On me, it morphed into something totally unexpected. It does smell like cake, but not the cake described (or that my mind imagined, more accurately); it smells like a combination of the vanilla cupcakes with chocolate icing from Sprinkles and those rich chocolate cakes with raspberry preserve in the middle. Do I like it? Yes. But it's a little deeper and darker than the fluffy cake scent I had hoped for.

I'm only going to review its efficacy, not its scent.

 

I've had this for months now and used in several rituals. I find it to be deeply effective in the work of transformation and re-direction; it's helped unmoor me from some entrenched bad habits and move me into more positive behavioral patterns and mentalities that have changed my life at a fairly deep level. Definitely one of the more powerful TALs I've worked with, though perhaps I perceive it as such because I use it for major inner work as opposed to more superficial spells for love, protection and money.

I tried this at a Meet and Sniff and fell in love with it. It reminded me a lot of my long lost Strawberry Moon and Pink Moon. I've been wearing it for two days now and.... it's beautiful. More beautiful for the first two hours than later on, but still nice. Honeyed strawberries underscored by that base BPAL note is how it comes on, but the sweetness eventually recedes and the sandalwood comes to the fore for a more incense-y scent. Still very pretty, though, and I can tell it will be my favorite scent this summer.

I tried two different bottles of this last year and one smelled like straight up Snake Oil, while the other smelled like a blend of O and Snake Oil. I like both (and am out of both) so I took a chance and ordered the 2011.

 

At first it's just Snake Oil. Gradually a cake batter smell emerges from it, and then the O comes out, until it's pure honey cake. It's not as heavy as Snake Oil or O, oddly, but more like a lighter blend of the two. I am so glad I bought this.

Pretty scent, though I'm not in love with it. For about an hour, it is way too heavy on the clove and ginger, a dry, almost burned-out scent. Eventually the cream and honey come forward just enough to soften this into something nice. This is a cozy autumn/winter night scent, and I'll probably layer it with scents like O or Womb Furie to bring out the honey in it.

I loved this for the first half hour it was on, then began to find it a little cloying. It smells initially like vanilla, honey and pepper and is sweet with a bite. Then the orange blossom begins to make it a little too sweet and it drowns out the leather, ginger and pepper. That lasts for a short while, and then it goes back to a perfect blend. Still, I can see myself getting sick of this if I wear if too often, especially as summer comes on, so I might dilute it and ration its wearing.

Scent-wise, this is a bit off-putting to me. Too sharp and astringent, which is a shame, because it's so powerful I would like to wear it everywhere. I haven't much to say other than this does what it says: attracts. This has become my most used oil in spellwork simply because it dovetails so nicely with almost every goal. Love, money, running into a specific person, creativity, finding the perfect sofa - you name it, high magic or low, this oil is your ally. Lately I've been using it in conjunction while visualizing more amorphous goals (peace, abundance, security, rewarding relations with my parents, and so on) and it definitely seems to help. I feel that my deepest energy is more aligned with my conscious desires. Great stuff.

Definitely works. I ordered this specifically to help silence wagging tongues in a matter that was hurting my reputation and social life and for no reason other than jealousy. The situation was wildly out of control and as always with gossip, whatever you hear is being said about you is often just the tip of the iceberg. So I used this in conjunction with War and - wow. The ensuing silence was stunning. This after months of gossip, rumors and lies. I've since used it for more general purposes, such as when I know people might react badly to someone I'm dating, or in another case, when I suspected a "friend" was talking shit behind my back but I had no way to prove it. Lovely results each time. A definite must-have for anyone who leads a controversial life or simply is surrounded by gossipy people!