alterosen

What about Bengal (skin musk with honey, peppers, clove, cinnamon & ginger)?

I definitely get cinnamon & musk from it but the other spices are present, too - many people think it smells like chai tea.

Pickled Imp is also very cinnamony but not as sweet as you might expect. Maybe you could layer it with something musky?

Parlement of Foules is one of my faves, too. It smells like roses & raspberries to me.

Katrina von Tassel is very soft, sweet & creamy.

If we stretch your parameters to 19th Century literature, there's a bunch of things in Bewitching Brews:

Coleridge - Kubla Khan

Dickinson - I Died For Beauty

Keats - Ode on Melancholy, La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Shelley - Ozymandias

Swinburne - Hymn to Proserpine

Yeats - Ephemera

That's just in one category - I know there's many more

I'm feeling too lazy to check dates to see who qualifies as Victorian.

Pirate Moon!

Crowley- infernal musk smells pretty red to me

The Grindhouse is indeed yummy.

Also joining in on all the Mme Moriarty love - for sexiness, I would choose this one over Snake Oil anyday (my DH would probably protest since he likes SO more than MM, but vanilla & I have a troublesome relationship)

My favorite apple by far is Pumpkin Patch #1 (the '05 & '06 version). Pumpkin w. apple cider & mulling spice - basically spicy baked apples. One of my first BPAL loves.

I can't wait to try Fearful Pleasure & see how it compares!

Scrumptious!

On me, this is a peppery citrus/fruity floral with a background of non-powdery amber. Not too sweet, not too peppery, not too in-your-face floral - another perfect summery fragrance.

I can't get enough of Dorian right now, with Lady Una a close second. So, I guess I'm with the other people who've been recommending the tea scents (though sadly, Severin is pure bug spray on me) Last summer, I was wearing Titania & Mum Moon a lot for that sweet fruity floral kick. It's only moderately humid here, though, those two might be too strong if it's sweltering.

I love using slices of the BPTP soaps as sachets in my clothes drawers & in the totes I store my linens. Even a small slice really infuses things nicely & you don't have to worry about oil stains. My favorites are Shub-Niggurath, Dorian & Snake Oil. Perhaps Miskatonic University would fit the bookish vibe you're after?

I really like Phantasm (green tea, lemon verbena, jasmine & neroli). The tartness of the tea, citrus & verbena keep the jasmine from overpowering everything in sight. It's a great summer evening fragrance (provided you can wear lemony scents without having them turn into cleaning products). There are similarities to Embalming Fluid & Shanghai but I feel it's a bit more girly/feminine because of the jasmine.

I cherish my imp of Parlement of Foules so I was very happy it was re-released this Lupercalia & I could order a bottle.

When I first tried it, I was expecting it to be very close to Rose Cross since they both have similar notes (white rose & resins/rose & frankincense) but they're really quite different.

I must be the only person who's getting the smell of berries from the resins in this

It's more pronounced in the 2006 version than the 2008, so it might be partly an aging thing but is most likely my odd nose At least there's no sign of molasses.

For me, this is a lovely light sweet rose with a few raspberries on the side - yum! Very much a warm weather scent, while Rose Cross is more resiny & cozy so I prefer it in winter. They both remind me of the scent of old roses rather than that of modern varieties.

I adore this scent!

When it came out, I thought the notes all sounded nice but knew I would have to try it before I could justify a bottle purchase. I finally found some in a swap & moments after I tried it on I was trawling the sales pages for a big bottle

I was a bit afraid after reading the reviews that the blackberry would go bad, but thankfully, no cat pee, just tart berry goodness with a honey background. I often amp vanilla & find it cloying but this combines nicely with the green tea in a similar fashion to Dorian though there's no citrus listed in the notes.

Honey & blackberry are generally scents I don't really get that excited about but this combination with the Dorianesque vanilla tea & musk with hint of spice is incredible.

My only quibble is that it's quite light & requires slathering & reapplication throughout the day if, like me, you want to be surrounded by a Lady Una cloud. Fortunately, I now have a bottle on the way & can try doing some layering with lotion & major slathering. I imagine this will be one of my warm weather staples.

Gorgeous in the vial; nasty strong baby powder on my wrist.

Sometimes cinnamon behaves this way & ruins a blend for me by turning super sweet & amping like crazy. If only it would stay smelling like cinnamon - I'll take redhots any day over this stupid powder!

Sigh.

Hours later there's a hint of musk & rum.

For some reason, Imp smells like peaches & black tea to me. The notes don't suggest tea (peach, amber, patchouli, musk) but that's how my nose reads it. You may find it a bit sweet, though. I think it's really yummy.

Your best bet for finding those discontinued scents is the swap & sales threads or to post an ISO. I've found people to be very helpful & generous (all you fabulous evil enablers out there, stand up & take a bow!)

Good luck!

I was surprised by the green aquatic-ness of this wet. I was expecting something along the lines of Fae because of the notes but they're really not similar at all. I'm not sure if it's my cup of tea but my 4 year old son wanted to wear it, so there's some support for this one in the household I'll have to revisit it later.

Great review before this one!

I'm on the fence about this blend. I love the smell of it wet (I spilled some on my table & it smells grand) but on me after drydown it's teetering on the edge of becoming baby powder. I suspect the amber is the culprit. The creaminess is really lovely but I haven't decided if it's too cloying or not with that hint of powder. I'll have to try it a few more times because I want to like it

I agree with whoever mentioned the similarity to the Body Shop's Woody Sandalwood (& that I wore for years)

I William Blake & I was really looking forward to this one because it has so many notes that I adore. Unfortunately, I got the super cedar effect with sour wood/pencil shavings overpowering everything else. I never sensed any rose or sandalwood & the spices only came out faintly after hours of wear. Someone else mentioned Pulcinella & Teresina & the cedar in it behaved the same way on my skin, amping like crazy. No fair! I love the smell of cedar - why doesn't like me? Perhaps it will be better on the husband.

Pumpkin Patch #4 from 2005 & 2006 (pumpkin, sandalwood & orris) is a nice slightly spicy scent that has a bit of a yeasty component to it according to my nose. I find it very comforting & it definitely fits into the baked goods category without being sickly sweet (unless you slather) It's not that rare, so you should be able to find some on the swaps page.

Versailles is rather nice. It has a very sophisticated feel with the combination of citrus, rose, amber & jasmine. After testing it, I immediately thought my mother might like it, which is a first (she likes Lancome's Magie Noir & not much else).

Miskatonic University - I don't get any coffee, wood or whiskey just buttery caramel.

I found Calliope to be very peppery, though I think it's actually thyme. This is one of the soon to be discontinued GC's.

I wish I could help. I work in a library, too, but we're not supposed to wear scent to spare those of our co-workers with chemical sensitivities & allergies so I haven't had a chance to notice if things work or change. I keep imps in my bag in my desk to sniff during the day if necessary to keep myself happy. It's a large open building, anyway, so it's probably not the same kind of stuffy atmosphere (though the Special Collections division is a different kind of beast). Good luck!

I'm also a big fan of Samhain. It's not as sweet or buttery as Jack but is a bit similar with the apple & spice with an addition of smokiness. You might want to keep an eye out for some of the old Pumpkin Patch blends (2005 & 2006). Pumpkin Patch #1 is full of spicy apple goodness & Pumpkin Patch #4 smells like buttery baked goods to me though it's pumpkin with sandalwood & orris. I haven't tried any of the new Pumpkins yet so I'm not sure how they compare.

Another good autumnal scent is Harvest Moon. Though it has a floral aspect, to me the fruit & leaves are what really comes out. I also really like Sugar Skull. It's a hard one to describe. The sugar note isn't caramel but rather like sugar melting (if you've ever made candy or caramel yourself, you'd recognize it) with light fruit (I get pear) & a bit of spice & smoke as it dries.

If you get some Shub-Niggurath, make sure to try it layered with Miskatonic University. On its own, MU is pretty caramelly but added to Shub somehow brings out this fabulous smoky note in addition to the general yummy gingeriness.

There's always Black Cat, and Velvet has a nice soft fuzziness about it while still being sexy I wouldn't say my cats have that kind of scent but it evokes the feeling of fur, if that makes sense. Bastet would also be a good choice. It never hurts to smell like a goddess when attending a party!

So happy to finally try this version (thank you Ishtar!)

On me, it's like my beloved Samhain with cherries as the fruit note instead of apples - smokey, sweet and tangy - yum, yum, yum. Must find more...

My 3 year old little guy really likes some of the chocolate scents (no big surprise - he's got the biggest sweet tooth ever!), particularly the Candy Butcher & Velvet, though strangely he turned his nose up at Bliss.

I haven't checked to see if he still likes Samhain after he poured 3/4 of the bottle on himself - mostly because I don't want to share the super-precious until I get some more & I'm a little paranoid. He seems to have pretty broad tastes - yesterday he chose Fairy Market for himself

No scent gender-stereotyping here! Hopefully he won't outgrow his open-mindedness, though I suspect he'll start to care more what other people think as he gets older. I doubt I'll ever have to try to steer him away from nasty cheap cologne as a teen at least! Educate them young!!