500ml

Just a little bit relaxed my nerves and made me feel warm and comforted. Incredibly strong and ever so nice, I love the spice/sweet combination. On my skin all the notes mingle together making it hard to pinpoint them, but to me it seems like there's at least some carnation hiding somewhere. What I really do know however is that I really really like this, both the scent and how it works for me.

First sniff cleared my head and calmed me down. This is actually the first TAL blend I've tried out and I wanted to give it the respect it deserves. I think this would be perfect as a candle anointing oil, but I also really like the way it smells on me. A bit woodsy, I can definitely get some vetiver (but not the strong in yer face kind, it's still quite soft) plus something else that I can't quite figure out - herbal grasses? Either way it's calming and very grounding so there's not much chance I'll part with this.

Um, so I tried Lush's B Never Cocktail guest soap, and I am obsessed!! It is soooooo gorgeous, it smells so awesome....and it's a holiday-07 limited edition soap.....

 

Well you can always still buy it from the B Never site, but the shipping is outrageous apparently

 

If you can't live without Alkmaar you can always use Turbo Bubble or FAIRY jasmine.They smell the same!Also 17 Cherry Tree lane is supposed to smell the same as Skin Sin body Lotion...give that a try!

 

Turbo Bubbles was disconned a while ago and not that easy to find these days methinks *sobs* I love it so much. I think Silky Underwear also has the same scent. To me 17 Cherry Tree Lane doesn't smell like Skin Sin at all which is a good thing for me as I can't stand the scent of the soap! Skin Sin is now a discon though. Anyhoo, Sakura is supposed to have the exact same scent and that's still available everywhere

I don't think Snow White has any rose in it

I've only tried a little bit at the moment and even though I do like it, I also get chemical and plastic notes. They fade away after a while, but it leaves me a tad unsure about this blend.

Woodsy and ozoney, this quickly turns into a very fresh smelling toilet cleaner. It's not bad, it's just not my kind of scent as I was expecting a bit more wood and a bit less toilet paper.

I think you can also find them in the FAQ on the lab site.

It smells perfectly fine: sugar, toffee, foody, even a bit like cheesecake (there's a sour-ish note) and after a while some tobacco creeps in and at the very end, a musky woody note. It's truly all fine and dandy, I'm just not that impressed. I'm very glad I got the chance to try this out, but I have to say that I'm also quite glad that it does very little for me.

My goodness, this smells like actual medicine. Only about an hour after applying does a jasmine note pop up (Dragon's blood always smells like a fresh jasmine to me), but it's a tad too late. Not my kind of scent, not at all.

Boy, this is quite something. Wet on skin it smelled ever so strongly of aniseed which then slowly turned into a musky/woody scent. Next stage was lemony and then it turned into something very very nice. I found it hard to pinpoint the notes after a while, but I was amused with how many times Litha changed.

I'm so pleased I finally got to try this out and I am quite a foody lover, but this? Doesn't work. It reminds me of Eat Me in the way that I'd rather be wearing that right now. Wet the cheesecake made me feel a bit sick, dry it's less strong, but still there. I can smell some spices, but there's just something that's keeping me from loving it.

This is for the original version:

 

Uhm, I don't like. Chocolate cakeyness with carrot, bordering on gingerbread and bitter cookie crumbles. I'm certain I can smell some honey and something citrusy in this, but I just don't like it To be honest I wasn't expecting I would, but I just wanted to try it out.

As much as I don't really go for chocolate or cocoa blends ever, this one really isn't too bad. The chocolate is nice albeit a bit cakey, but it rather quickly wears off and I'm left with a foody/fruity scent. It's nice, but I can smell the golden peach and that really isn't a favourite of mine. The honey definitely makes this quite sweet, but it's not cloying. Wish I could smell more of the clove.

I adore carnation, it's one of my most favourite notes and basically my Holy Grail of the single notes. This was a very generous gift to me, a testable sniffie! Naturally I was a little worried, I had been trying carnation SNs from other etailers with no succes whatsoever. Every time the oil immediately smelled far too soapy with no spice. I was therefore incredibly relieved to find that BPAL's carnation is completely spot on (I had noticed the high quality of the note in certain blends, such as Pink Moon '07), wonderfully spicy and just plain fantastic. Happy that it works, sad that I don't have more Still, I'm incredibly pleased I finally got to try it out!

Dublin is truly a beautiful scent. Both in the vial and on the skin it smells lovely, slightly masculine (but in a good way), a bit woodsy and very fresh. After drying down some pine comes out, but it doesn't overpower and actually succeeds in making the blend a tad more mysterious. Sadly there's no white rose for me, but I think I can live without it.

I find Hemlock is really nice for when I have a cold.

I was truly anticipating the arrival of this little lady and her home as for the most part all the notes just seemed so perfect for me (iffy on the raspberry, it's not a fruit I enjoy, unsure about the blood accord). Then I opened the bottle... Cloying sweet, oh no Wet on my skin this is like ultra sweet bubblegum. Maybe it's all the fruit, but all I could smell was bubblegum. To be honest, I kind of enjoyed it, but I was secretly hoping that it would quickly morph into something a bit less kid-ish. Thank the gods it did, turning into a plummy sweet scent with an underlying earthy note. At this point it smells like a very grown up and mature blend, totally awesome. Then at last, the patchouli and the rose musk finally start to pipe up a little and the blend turns a bit dusty and more earthy. The fruits are still there, but they're mingling happily with the earthier notes. I can't say I get much floral which does sadden me, but this is already pretty damn good.

So far I've understood that only certain dirt notes in certain blends work for me. Nosferatu... doesn't quite work for me. I get flowers and a slight hint of dirt, but as I said, not the good kind of dirt. In the end I found that it was still nice, but it wasn't rattling my bones so to speak.

Very underwhelming, I could barely smell anything! I could smell a faint metal overlayered by some sweetness. To me Tintagel was boring and even a bit bland, which made me just a tad sad as I'd really been looking forward to trying it out.

Wet I'm first hit with a musky almond, which then slowly gets a hint of incense. I have to admit that I could barely pick out the notes in Bloodlust, I just ended up really liking it. It smells very lovely and mature. The Dragon's blood most certainly helped, I love that note so much.

I like Kostnice, I really do... but not as a perfume. I see it more as a high class room scent. The fresh flowers smell glorious and I love the hint of greenery, but I'm definitely only going to be using this in my oil burner.

There is a quick and a slow way to do this review of Severin and the quick way goes like this: YUM! Fresh tea in vial which turns to tea and leather on my skin - who could have thought up a better combination? The tea does settle down after a while leaving a faint leather, but it's ever so nice. I think what I like most about Severin is that the leather isn't too much in yer face as I've found that leather can amp on my skin. The tea really keeps the leather note under control.

A disappointing one for me. It starts off with a lot of neroli, which I truly don't mind at all, it's light and a bit sweet. Then it starts to morph into... oranges? Hmm. I'm starting to figure out that this blend just isn't doing anything for me, I'm left feeling quite unimpressed by it. Even the final appearance of the amber does nothing to change my mind, Titus and I were simply not meant to be.

Wet I found the lime to be the strongest note, it's quite fresh and citrusy and hard not to notice. The mint was also well represented, but seemed too much like eucalyptus to my nose and that's one note which never ever works for me. After a while these two notes started to settle down a bit, a bit of herbally dirt pops up and I'm starting to like the blend a bit more. Sadly, that's when the lavender suddenly decides to put in an appearance and the whole blend turns into sweet lavender with no trace of lime or mint. It's too flimsy for me and to make matters worse, I don't like lavender much.

To me this was sweet, a bit like bubblegum, in the vial. On the skin it turned into an incensy honey with a slightly sweet tone hanging in the background. Nice throw, it reminded me a bit of Cairo and so it's a blend that definitely works for me.