ImperatrixMundi

Whow! I almost missed that one!

Received it as a frimp from the Lab with my Halloween order and tried it back then. This is really really weird because it likes to behave differently every time I try it. Huh?

Love the notes but the first two times I tried it it was nothing but sweet and lightly spicy dragon's blood with no throw. I put it in swaps and it has been there since October. Today I updated my swaps and dug through my imps and decided to try it again.

It smelled like my skin was burning, heavy and bitter like smoke with a swirl of cinnamon, strong throw. After this stage the red musk showed up and it got less bitter. Then I had to wash my hands and only red musk remained.

Now I just tried it again. On the back of my right had I smell dragon's blood and wtf? almond? On my left arm it smells more like earlier today but not as smokey.

I love it now, at least when I get the red musk and smoke impression. It totally confuses my sniffer though! A good thing noone wanted it because now it stays with me!

Really unusual. Nectarine and oakmoss make an orange/green combination that is hard to imagine and even harder to describe. It is bright and sweet.

It smells somehow watery and makes me think of shower gel. Not in a negative way! But I keep thinking how much more I would love this if I could take a shower with it. That would be perfect.

After a few hours all but the skin musk is gone. Skin musk by itself is just lovely too!

When Lupercalia came out I really wished for a teak and cream blend. And hey, there it was! So I got all excited. Sigh.

In the imp the cream is almost buttery.

On my skin this morphs all the time, going through all the notes. Sometimes I get caramel, than it reminds me of Al Azif (safron? huh?), next minute I get strong and spicy wood notes and then lotus comes out and a little bit of the usual bubblegum appears. So one minute I like it, half an hour later I dont. Unfortunately both times I tried this the cream note sooner or later smelled very artificial and a bit like plastic over sharp wood with a caramel-like almost but not quite foody sweetness. Somethig about it is still compelling and my boyfriend says it "smells very nice" which is as good as his comments get. But there is something about the combination of cream and lotus that bothers me, both notes are troublesome for me anyways.

After reading all these reviews here I regret selling my decant a little bit and feel very heartbroken. I think I never was so sad about a blend not working for me before because I was so looking forward to this and almost everyone else loves it.

Annietoes, your description--"warm soapy fresh"--made me think of Egyptian musk. It's warm and sort of sexy, but in a very fresh, almost soapy way. It's like warm, clean skin.

This sounds like a case for Mr. Ibis if you want to try out the Egyptian Musk suggestion.

The notes are papyrus, vanilla flower, Egyptian musk, African musk, aloe ferox and white sandalwood. It does not say Soap! but I really have to agree to this being warm and clean at the same time.

Right now there is Harikata. Osmanthus, honey, golden musk, vanilla flower, and ginger. While I got more osmanthus than anything else many reviews say that it is almost pure floral honey, so I guess it depends on chemistry.

Ylang ylang and violet have conquered and subdued amber and all that citrus and are subsequently warring for domination over patchouli.

Seriously, where are those citrus notes? Violet and ylang dont blend at all, both notes usually dominate on me and with them together war is going on. I will be passing this one on.

How can this smell so much like wintergreen for the first fifteen minutes? Ugh.

The initial intense wintergreen fades quickly when the vanilla takes over but a chalky hint of wintergreen is still left after an hour. The vanilla scent in itself is not overly foody but creamy and warm. It also lasts long. But that fake wintergreen impression. It just kills this scent.

This must be one of the strangest BPALs I have tried so far and I had absolutely no idea what it would smell like, I kinda expected something sweet and salt with a little minty coldness.

Now I was surprised to smell no mint but air freshener at first. But wait, that stage fades and now it really smells more like I expected, sweet with a salty overlay and a somewhat powdery depth. And I am having some sort of visceral reaction to this. It is sexy, in a musky way. Since I never smelled ambergris before I am unsure about what it does in here. But it is weirdly clean and salty too.

I am considering a bottle of this. It has a very unusual feel and is aquatic without citrus, yay for that.

Buhu. I am really glad I got decants this time, otherwise I would have bought a bottle of this.

But it does not turn out well at all, while I was hoping for musk, honey and ginger with something a bit floral-fruity on top this goes all osmanthus and honey instead and reminds me, of all things, of melon.

It is not bad but not what I want and does not last at all. Sometimes the musk shows up later on but not here, it just gets even more fruity and sour in a bad way. So possibly osmanthus, honey and I dont get along. Maybe it should be revisited some day, I am really sad about this because all the notes for themselves are great.

Baku. No notes listed but IMHO it is lander with a backdrop of anise and maybe liquorice, the lavender faded to leave a sweetish anise smell.

Smells almost like Monoi oil. Mainly gardenia and vanilla, the violet lends a little duskyness, like a shadow.

Dries down to a vanilla dominated scent that reminds me of incense, for some weird reason.

Not a gardenia fan here, so not a favourite. The gardenia has a weird sharpness under that sweet scent that I dont like. Was surprised this did not turn into more violet.

A strange purple scent, the vetivert is bitter as usual and mixes with the violet, which seems to be the exact opposite, scent-wise. The violet does come through but normally turns sweet and powdery. Here these two notes together turn into a bitter yet sweet, sharp and almost unpleasant smell.

Tried it again after a few months now to review, now the violet comes through more and the vetivert has lost some bitterness. Maybe I am just imagining things. Anyway, I will keep it some more, it is compelling in a way but can only get better with time. Bluebeard remains my favourite violet-vetivert combination.

Woohoo!

This is all vanilla and amber, the type of amber that reminds me of gingerbread. It is really sweet and the foresty notes are nowhere to be seen. I love to sniff it on my boyfriend, it is very compelling even as I do not normally love sweet scents. The woody things must be somewhere in there after all and keep this blend from running away to sugarland.

And the throw is huge, my nose is not very good but I can smell this on Him from quite a distance. Lasts long as well. I like it.

Roses and grape spirit and not much else. Not heavy roses though, light and fruity one, probably because of the other notes that got beaten into submission by the rose.

The grape spirit smell remains. It is not boozy and not a grape scent for me at all, it really smells like actualy grape spirit to me, like Grappa, mage from what is left of the grapes after sqeezing the juice out to make wine. Weird because everyone else seems to get actual grapes. To be honest I would have preferred smelling grapes to smelling rose.

Merry Meet!

 

I'm another newbie. Launched on this by a friend (a/k/a enabler) who gifted me with an imp of Fenris Wolf. I *LOVE* it. So much so within a day I'd ordered a bottle. It came with an imp of Katherine & something else I can't remember.

 

Anyway, I go to the BPAL website & I'm hopelessly lost in the poetic descriptions. I'm hoping somebody will take pity on me. This thread looked like the place to add my questions because of what I like.

 

I love Fenris Wolf. LUV LUV LUV.

 

Commercial perfumes that work well on me: Youth Dew, Opium, the Opium knockoff called Ninja (actually I think it is better than the original, but alas, no longer available), Emeraude, Magie Noir, Ciara & Red. The theme here is orientals. Not florientals, I don't care for floral notes much, but orientals.

 

Single-ish notes I like: musks, vanilla, spices, woods, incenses, resins, particularly amber resin & dragon's blood. I don't like most food-ish scents other than spices & vanilla.

 

I'd like to order some imps, and I'd like to keep it down to no more than 12 because my budget is busted due to a sick cat. Any and all suggestions would be gladly received.

 

Merry Part & Merry Meet Again,

Betsy

Hi! Have fun exploring BPAL!

You might also like to try Al Azif from the Picknick in Arkham series and probably the number one popular BPAL - Snake Oil. And Ars Draconis is definitely worth looking into. Golden Priapus is a nice amber scent.

I am getting an orange-black impression from this, a sweet, dusty and very dark resin scent with bitter neroli and bergamot. The neroli-bergamot combination gives it something orange-y.

It makes me think of orange chocolate, even as it really is no chocolate scent at all. It is gender neutral and gets slathered quite liberally on my boyfriends as well as myself .

A bottle must be somewhere in my future...

Yes, this is the lust GINGERBREAD of a corrupted Astarte!

Sweet amber with spices can mimic gingerbread very well, so a lot of stuff just smells like gingerbread to me. Chimera, Golden Priapus and this as well. The three gingers singed my nosehair, very spicy.

So I guess if gingerbread is what you are looking for here you go...

My boyfriends first BPAL love, one of the very few scents he really likes and applies by himself. He is always drawn to green and foresty stuff and I dont mind at all

Oakmoss and juniper over myrrh. Where is that patchouli?? I like patchouli but it seems to hide from me!

After some time the myrrh really comes out and goes a bit powdery. Omen really starts to smell like incense then but not in a headshop way.

If you want a deep green but dry forest scent without pine you should give it a try.

Rose and coffee may sound weird but they do go well together. Unfortunately the rose is very dominant. The coffee note is lovely and the whole blend is pretty sweet with all the vanilla, tonka and fig in the background. Never smelled any jasmine though.

The rose is just too much for me.

How to put it? This is like Greed without as much dirt. It is a warm and golden scent but not glittery and bright gold. There is something very dirty here. Imagine a golden coin, not fresh from the mint but dug out in an archaeological site, tarnished and dirty but still golden.

I expected something a lot brighter for something described as "true, perfect golden light", not as much dirt layered over those "golden" notes. My guess would be amber and other resin stuff with some of the typical dirt things, patchouli, a little vetivert and wood.

The lemon verbena is very strong and dominant but starts to fade a bit after half an hour. It goes through a stage of smelling like tea, a lemony mixture of black tea and verbena with added herbs. Then it goes on to smelling like powdery frankincense with just a lemony touch.

Overall it is nice and I liked it very much at first, however the drydown is too much powdery incense which I dont like so much.

I got three(!) frimps of Somnus with my locket from the Trading Post and have one more coming in a swap because I did not know I would be flooded with frimps soon.

Fortunately this was the best dream formula so far. It goes on as mostly lavender but as it dries down something floral comes out and blends with the lavender. Smells like yellow rose and... bergamot?

When I tried it on and kept sniffing I started to yawn, either from the lavender or the psychological effect.

Put it on my pillow in the evening and slept very well. My smell-sensitive boyfriend did not complain about it. In the morning the pillow smelled of rose. Nothing I would ever wear but really a nice pillow scent

I am considering finding an empty bottle to house all those imps.

Nanshe smelled like a very astringent and medicinal herbal potion, with maybe something a little lemony. It does no really smell like perfume and was too sharp and bitter to put on my pillow.

More lemongrass would have been nice, but no, not from this imp.

It sounds wonderful from the description but the sniffie I got just smelled horrible. I am still very greatful for said sniffie but I really hope there was something wrong with it after all. I wanted to try this so much, mostly because of reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and it turned out to be ne of the worst things tried so far.

There is some kind of note that I also encountered in R'Lyeh, dont ask me what it is but it is there for me. A hard to describe darkly bitter and chemical smell, very unpleasant. I will definitely try to get an other imp of this and see if there is a difference because I cant believe it is supposed to smell like that

Rose, jasmine and leather. Smells a bit strange on me but I am not keen on rose.

Smells a lot nicer on my boyfriend. He is indifferent about it but will wear it to please me. He is cute that way I think it is a rather romantic concept and scent and one of the few floral perfumes that can be worn by a man without coming across as "unmanly" to the uneducated nose.