ImperatrixMundi

If a compost heap was reincarnated as a perfume it would smell like this.

The wet stage is the best, I get the dirt and some red fruit with a very sharp, boozy tang and some wood. But what starts so great fades so fast!

I get the same thing as cranberry two posts above me. After 20 minues it has turned from dirt to light incense. Then it goes away.

If it would just stay it would be so great but it seems to have zero staying power.

This just went so wrong. While I had hopes for the orange blossom carnation and cream took over and the same thing happened that ruined Alice too. Zarita and Alice both turned into a sickening sweet/sour carnation scent. Carnation has something that always makes me awfully queasy and cream and milk are very hit and miss. This was a big miss.

Lots of myrrh and very darkly spicy cinnamon, not a foody cinnamon at all. Not so much smoke here.

Sounded nice, warm and dark. Well, it is. But myrrh turns very powdery after a while and this makes no exception. And it looks like I just cant stand smelling cinnamon in a perfume I wear. Love it in the kitchen, hate it on me. If you want a cinnamon scent that is not foody sweet you have come to the right place.

Starts as a rich and spicy chocolate scent. Cocoa notes are wonderful but fade very quickly. Just thinking of it makes me crave hot chocolate now. The Snake Oil vanilla does not come through but after an hour or so it turns into something smelling like a very rich and sweet incense scent, with barely a hint of chocolate. I love both stages.

If you normally dont gravitate to sweet scents like me you might still want to try this, it is not really foody and was a really pleasant surprise.

Initially after putting it on it is mostly Snake Oil. Then it starts smelling like I imagined Coral Snake would smell - apple and florals? Huh?

But a short while later it moves on to washing powder with Snake Oil. This is a very clean floral snake to me, very dry, white and fluffy with vanilla sweetness. It is nice but turns a bit sharp on my skin, but all florals do that to me. The drydown lasts for a long time.

All in all it is nice but not my favourite snake by far because it is just not the kind of thing I tend to wear.

Kali is quite complex, very floral underneath, in a sweet and tropical way, with all the heavy and rich notes on top. Chocolate/wine/tobacco is very dominant but does not drown out the floral base.

And now I finally know what it reminds me of. Black Magic massage bar from Lush It is a floral massge bar but the top layer is scented with chocolate.

Anyway, it is nice but not my kind of scent.

Unsure about this one. It is a very dark and sensual leather scent but on the downside the red musk does not show and myrrh and black amber have the tendency to degenerate to powder very quickly.

The upside really is that this is the first BPAL where the leather note really comes out on me and stays, in all the other leather scents I tried so far it gets beaten into submisson. But yeah, this is dominatrix leather. Unfortunately the dominatrix has used too much powder today to squeeze into her tight leather outfit

I will still be keeping it.

Vanilla all the time. There really is nothing faded, subtle or remotely complex in this imp. Not that it smells bad, it is just very very plain. I was expecting more florals and that "clean linen" note to be in there but it just smells like the vanilla in Black Opal to me and nothing else.

For a plain vanilla scent I dont find it rich and sweet enough so I am unsure about keeping it.

No smoke, just leather and db. db wins over leather, I amp db and swallow leather, always. A bit more complexity from the smoke would have been nice. But hey, maybe I should try layering it with that unloved imp of Djinn sitting in the swap box?

It does have something warm, sexy and commanding though.

Many reviewers mention something flowery about this but to me it was just salty dragon's blood with maybe a hint of ozone. But really salty. The only other thing I have tried that was as salty as this was Penthus. Amazing, actually, but I ended up swapping it because I would not wear it. It went to a very loving home though

The initial scent is dominated by the Dragon's Blood but the Sandalwood takes over on drydown. Sandalwood turns kinda powdery-soapy on me which is a pity. It is a very simple sandalwood scent and as long as it lasts on my skin before the soap phase (30 min) the two notes compliment each other nicely.

Cant believe I never posted a review for this. But anyway, here I go:

Wham! MUSK!

The Dragon's Blood does not stick around for very long but gets subdued by all the musk veeery quickly. I cant pick out individual kinds of musk, it is just one overall very sweet musk scent. Not manly musk, more like candy musk.

It is incredibly strong and lasting and my other half loves it. He always loves musk

Wearing this for the first times I was worried that other people would find this intense cloud of musk floating around me offensive. I know I dont like cheap musk-heavy perfume on other people so I was worried it would come across as a bit too much and always apply very lightly.

The weird thing is that when I wear it I generally seem to get very positive reactions from people - I dont mean compliments but people generally seem more friendly or look at me differently, especially men Now I am worried that that much musk is like wearing pheromones

In the imp there is a real blast of citrus. On skin it stays citrus but vanilla and musk peek out and for some time the tea is very strong.

However - the citrus note never fades away and in my locket it is still citrus-musk. Why? I really expected more sweetness and jasmine with the fougere being more lavendery.

Yeah, well. On my skin it fades quickly and the tea note is much stronger. Maybe I should get a bottle and bury it in my clost for three years until the citrus is gone?

The '06 version here.

Whow!

You never know what you might like! This sounded so not for me but I decided to give it a shot and seriously - whow!

Sugar and fruit. It smells like cane sugar and molasses but turns a bit boozy on my skin, the fruits dont come out in front (thank god, any kind of fruit usually smells awful on me!) but add nicely to the sugar. On the whole it turns out really nice, extremely sweet but it still smells like perfume on me. That makes the sweetness not only bearable but enjoyable. Incredible throw too and lasts for hours.

Extreme masculine cologne manfume. Wait, something is odd here. Smells slick and oily, like motor oil. No metal, but very oily as long as it is wet. Might be nice on a good looking, bare chested machanic splattered with motor oil.

Not on me though. I dont mind masculine scents on me but this is a bit too much. My chemistry turns it into manly deodorant with suntan lotion But it gets points for staying power, it is resisting my attempts to wash it off very valiantly.

Damn that grape. This starts out so nicely with all these resins, especially the labdanum. And then? Grape takeover. That is a bit of a disappointment because the resin smell with just a touch of wine and snow would have been great. Alas it was not to be.

Nice!

Smells green, herbal and grassy with a hint of tropical sweet fruitiness and now I finally know what green musk is like

It is a bit too complex for me to pick out individual notes except the papaya and grass. It is really grassy in a good way.

Tested 51 on my other hand and these two scents definitely are in the same family but 51 is a lot sweeter and fruitier.

And the green musk is fascinating! The scent fades a bit too fast and the musk soon is all that is left, however, I dont mind that so much.

Nice!

Smells a bit more like commercial scents than most BPAL but it is much nicer than 99% of those. It is clean, green and refreshing while being fruity and sweet and mysterioulsy musky

When it dries down on my hand I get something weird, a stage where something in there reminds me of dry mushrooms Maybe that is just the "splintered wood" notes in there. But it goes away.

The white and green musk are all that is left on my skin after a few hours so I actually might want to put this in a locket or in my hair or clothes.

Tested Green Phoenix too on my other hand and if you like 51 but find it a bit too sweet you might want to give Green Phoenix a try too, both have the green musk but Green Phoenix is grassier, greener and less fruity and sweet.

Cordelia goes morphing all over the place.

The imp smells of floral lemon.

Wet on skin it is lemon tea over lilac. When it dries down the lemon tea fades and for some time it smells mostly of lilac and wisteria and then turns into something floral in a very classic way for some time. Osmanthus likes me. A lot. I clearly get a lot of that apricot-like fruity smell it has over musk and cedar. The cedar gets even stronger with time, sometimes sending out a whiff of spicy pencil shavings

Chinese musk is very nicy and on the whole I would have liked it to come out a bit more.

It starts out as a great springtime scent but the drydown is that of a very classical floral perfume, the kind my mom wears. Which brings me to the conclusion that it is nice but not me. Maybe I will test it again in my hair though, it might go less floral.

Sounded lovely. It goes on as a dry and sweet and very herbal scent. Nice. Unfortunately my skin never likes "herbs" in broad general and changes these notes to something sharp and unpleasant while the resin background goes very very sweet.

I am sad to have to list this as a chemistry failure.

I love it!

This turned out to be my only bottle purchase of all of Lupercalia.

It reminds me a lot of Lush's Tramp with added musk and honey.

On my skin the honey and musk quickly took over and it turned super-sweet over a hint of rather masculine earthyness.

But when I put it in a locket it was something different all together, like warm, wet earth and beeswax. It actually smelled like the crocus blossoms in a pot of wet soil standing in the sun in my courtyard. The crocus blossoms have a deep honey-like smell. The real smell of spring.

Left in the locket for a long time the sweetness faded and the deep and masculine patchouli smell that reminds me of Tramp came through and stayed, enhanced by a bit of musk.

Never added a little correction... The above review was for a decant, not for the bottle I was waiting on. Expecting to love the bottle just the same I swapped the decant away. But when I got the bottle it was a horrible powdery oakmoss mess I want that decant back!

Whow, there is something else in there then pomgranate? I never would have guessed because this is straight out pomegranate for me.

Very fruity and red. Like most fruit notes it fades really really fast, like in 20 minutes on me.

I got hooked by the barley, hyssop and so forth. Where are you? No, this will be a swap.

Melon, most definitely.

In the vial: Melon

Wet: Melon

Dry: Melon

3 hours later: Melon

Where is all that other stuff? It got completely snuffed out by - guess what - Melon.

I hate Melon.

Ummm.... Is there anyone else who thinks that Luperci 2008 smells like Tramp with honey?

On my skin the honey and musk take over very quickly but in a locket it stays very Tramp-like with a lot of sweetness added.

HOPE & FAITH - I've been reluctantly eyeing these two for a while! A great, sweet rose is what I want above all, but the violet made me nervous. But I'm takin' a chance, since violet seems to be growing on me and sugar makes everything better anyway!

Hehe, if you dont like Faith I am pretty sure you will have no trouble at all selling or swapping it.

I also saw Paris on your list. Somehow it sounded great to me but when I tried it it was the single worst lotus experience ever. I hope you have more luck with it though!