Threemoons

I took a chance with this one as oud can go either way on me, but I love balsam. In the bottle: Perfect scent memory of a lumberyard--kind of a resiny woodiness with an almost but not quite plastic note? On, wet: Plastic note explodes initially and then thankfully vanishes. Swings oddly between a dry dusty wood and wettish resins. On drydown, I'm getting something like very dry pinewood sawdust and a bit of dusty tar. Not what I expected at all! Sits very lightly on the skin once it dries down, with low throw and wear length. I keep getting little pops of sawdust when I move around the apartment; really interesting! I mean, one of my Grandfathers was a cabinet maker and this really reminds me of when he would cut up damaged/remainder bits of pinewood 2x4s to make gardening stakes, wedges for setting other jobs in progress, etc. I can literally smell the fresh sawdust, hot from the bandsaw but from cold pine....

Jasmine really can go either way on me, but when I saw cucumber listed as a note I had to get it despite my cart overflowing already. When I first put it on I got a Jasmine Bomb and not really in a good way. OTOH, it shifted very quickly, with the white tea note immediately stepping up to calm things down. After a brief drydown, I'm getting the bergamot notes and some of the cucumber. The cucumber is really the "deepest" note in this one. Medium throw but it sits very lightly on the skin; great way of feeling like I'm outside when I'm in isolation.

This is a truly gorgeous spring scent. Glad I have this one to help me through quarantine. In the bottle, it's fresh crisp green apples. On, it develops some gorgeous apple blossom notes, and finally dries down to a very light, green skin musk that isn't really "musky" at all. Love it.

Used this today as an all over body spritz as well as in my hair. Unlike the perfume oil, the HG on me dries down to a much more honey note, but it's still kept naughty by a goodly hit of red musk and leather.

Wearing this for the first time today. Truly gorgeous. I'm getting a resinous, spicy, yet uplifting background overlaid with healing flowers and herbs.

Alas, I also really wanted this one to work on me, but I wound up giving it up as a swap. Oudh and jasmine can both go either way with me; the oudh being more problematic. I get ZERO rose on this, just overpowering sharp oudh with jasmine; also getting a cat-pee note overall that I never got on any BPAL before. Zero rose. I tried giving this a full day to dry down, I finally got a hint of rose at the end of the day with a tiny hint of "nice" jasmine but the oudh just never really quit. I feel bad; I have 10 boxes of BPAL and really wanted this one to work.

Okie dokie...wanted a challenge/something fresh today so I reached for one of my older boxes in search of items that I haven't opened yet. Came across America's New Gods and pulled it. Let me tell you folks, this is NOT a beginner BPAL scent and NOT what you buy someone as a BPAL intro. Like others have said, it's a difficult one. In the bottle: Almost overpowering fresh plastic--not vinyl, more like a freshly set-up temp office space--the simultaneous collision of freshly-unwrapped generic computer keyboards and mice, of new thin clients that still have their stickers on them and have been running all night and getting hot; new spools of wire and cabling, the somewhat gross smell of brand-new carpeting squares, the smell of new cheap office chairs, and the odd scent of piles of freshly-torn off plastic wrap and packing peanuts. I started to have second thoughts. I put it on anyway. On, wet, initially: Aldehydes blow up into an almost effervescent explosion of new-car smell--that smell of new, chemically-treated fabric x10, along with something like the silicon spray that you treat new suede shoes or sneakers with. I got dressed and hoped that nobody would kill me on the subway. During the course of my 2-train commute, the scent kept shifting as I moved around--I had layers on today (T-shirt, zip hoodie, leather jacket) and whenever I moved little poofs of chemical smells emanated from me. By the time I got the office and threw off my jacket and unzipped my hoodie, things had finally calmed down. For the rest of the day, I smelled like...new suede shoes. Really. As in when you mail order new suede shoes and they just smell like...new suede. Maybe the same shoes after you treat them with one coating of silicon shoe spray and let them dry overnight. So, on me anyway, it dries down to an OK New Suede Thing that is really unisex. However, it's also absolutely unpairable with anything else. I MAY experiment with it in a Clocket, but I'm afraid it will stay too strong without my skin chemistry. I wouldn't call it a miss, but it definitely needs to be used in small quantities and I'd get an imp first to see how your skin chemistry responds. PS the only thing I could see pairing this with would be Whip or Riding Crop to really get the Full Leather Thing going. And seriously folks, if you know anybody with a shoe fetish they will love this. I mean, I think of every single year of High School when I got my new black suede ankle booties for the school year and sprayed them....Sorry for the long review but this one really threw me for a loop. Oh yeah, medium throw but LONG wear length on me.

For me, this is the ultimate Winter Woods Blend--all the evergreen resins, and a hint of not-sweet, not-cloying bayberry. Love it.

This is really lovely, and really matches its haiku. On me I am getting some kind of tonka husk, a lot of cedar, and a sort of odd cool not-foodie berry note...frozen berries? Unsweetened berry granita? Stays close to the skin, but lasts a long time; I was getting pops of the tonka note and berries all day against a background of faint cedar. REALLY nice. You really do feel like you're in a dry, warm temple made of precious woods while its snowing outside and you're watching the light on frozen tree berries.

SOOO gorgeous. Getting raw pumpkin, dry-leaf amber, and some shimmering sugar snow...SO nice! There is a bit of spice, but it's not a Pumpkin Spice Bomb...

I get a lot of black pepper and marine notes in the bottle, along with undernotes of green tea. On, it gets both more green tea-e and the marine note develops more. Black pepper blast hangs around for a while also. Long unfold, medium throw and length.

Okay, finally got my mitts on a bottle of this, and using it as a HG and body spritz. I thought it would be much stronger on me as I tend to amp vanilla, but a ton of people said it was like high-end tropical suntan oil which is what I was going for, so I gave it a shot. SO glad I did! On me, the "lotion" note dissipates quickly and leaves behind a very soft, faint veil of vanilla and tiare with some coconut notes. Luckily, it is NOT a gourmand-y blend on me, which is what I was hoping for. Unlike a lot of my other faves, which tend to run to the very strong (think patchouli/creosote/red musk notes) this one is not only office safe but job interview safe and NYC Gross Sticky Summertime safe. So so gentle and pretty.

Wow, first! This is a SUPER fresh garden cucumber smell; it even has a sort of "fizzy" edge that reminds me of the fuzz on cucumber vines. Fresh, light, vegetal. Reminds me of picking cucumbers in my grandma's garden when I was a little girl, right down to the fresh sappy/sharp smell of the freshly-twisted cuke stems.

This one is such a morpher on me...goes from strong smell of brand new suede shoes, to cheap high-alcohol men's aftershave with leather, then morphs to a sort of woody/almond thing with some citrus, down to a resiny non-gourmand almond with wisps of bergamot...

On me, this is another "blink and you'll miss it" scent. In the bottle: Almost nothing; getting very faint whiffs of an almost citrussy iodine and clean cloth. On, wet: Very faint metallic ozone notes start to pop up. Still very light, almost not there. Drydown: An almost invisible linen and ozone scent. Perfect for really hot summer days; just wish it lasted longer on me.

This one on me, like a UFO, only appeared in flits and was almost invisible. I got a sort of citrus vapor that flickered in and out of being detectable, and at the end of the day had settled against my skin as the faintest sweet skin citrus.

Okay, I'm going through some Great BPALS of Ages Past and pulled this one today. It has settled down SO nicely! Gorgeous incence herby dark floral on me.

I have a bottle of this and it's ageing gorgeously for me. It was never super-masculine on me, but now it really wears like an expensive woman's sandalwood soap, like the old catalog item from Caswell-Massey. It's NOT like the Chinatown Bee Flower sandalwood soap, nor the Mysore Sandalwood soap from Indian shops. Sweet tobacco flower is what I think the floral side is, and I am getting more of a light/floral sandalwood rather than a masculine one. The leather is really staying in the background on this one.

Tardy to the party but finally got my hands on this. Loving the maple syrup note; finding it oddly comforting in my scent locket today even though it's as hot as hell in NYC and this is such a fall/winter scent!

Got #143 of the Frankincense series as a frottle with a large order. How to even go about describing this? In the bottle--a WHACK of resin, almost like bowling alley polish, with a floater of institutional white hand soap of the sort that the dispensers are filled with in office buildings, etc. On, wet: The soapy note unfolds into the most unusual dried white flower petals scent--still planty/resinous but perfumey also, with a sort of interesting background waxiness (magnolia???). Drydown time is relatively short, and a sort of lingering lilly/magnolia/resin scent lingers behind, along with the faint smell of..oddly enough--hot glassware coming clean out of the dishwasher. Unfortunately low wear length and low/medium throw. Very office friendly though! Really surprised by how delicate and complex this one is as the rest of my Chaos Theories (both perfumes and HGs) were much stronger. OTOH this has had 10 years to mellow out, and it did so very nicely! So glad I have this; I love unique editions! Feel glad to have gotten this aged treasure out there.

Holy cannoli! I have been hunting and searching for the perfect New Leather Jacket scent from BPAL and I think I finally found it (and yeah, I don't have a bottle of Riding Crop yet but I want to fix that). Really totally New Leather Jacket on me, start to finish!

I am a total sucker for retail exclusives, and all of the other BPAL creations done for this publisher have been fantastic--as is this one! I just got this, and it was a little bottle-tight this AM, but I put it on anyway. In the bottle--furniture workshop wood resin; almost hints of the faintest whiff of fresh wood polish, like a new door installed in an old apartment. On, wet: I normally amp red musk like nobody's business, and I am very pleased that in this case, it's really staying in the background, adding just a liiiiiitle lift to the leather and the black musk/oily notes of labdanum. The leather notes come out first, followed by more complex woody smells. After drydown, a sort of resinous cherrywood lingers on (hard to describe unless you've actually worked with cherrywood in a woodshop and/or pruned a cherry tree--think almost sour cherry notes blended with sapwood). At the end of the day, after a longer drydown, what lingers on on me anyway is tiny hits of the leather accord and a resinous black musk/sap smell. Very low throw on this--it stays very close to the skin on me--and medium to low wear time before re-application. I really like it as the black musk is the ruling musk here, not the red, which as mentioned I wouldn't even know it was there if it wasn't listed. Glad I got it!

Honored to be first post on this! I am in LOVE with BPAL citrus notes, and their red musk, and when I read the description I had to get it. In the bottle: Fresh-squeezed lemon juice with only the tiniest bit of dragon's blood; it's really all about the lemon. On, wet: Starts to unfold immediately with red musk notes, but the citrus keeps up very very well; getting notes of sweet grapefruit in here; maybe that's the "coppery/sharp" note in the description? Drydown, short-termish: The citrus is still hanging on really well, which is great as lemon normally just vanishes on me after 10 minutes. The red musk seems to deepen/develop a bit more and becomes more complex over time. Day's end: Even without re-application during the day, the red musk held on faintly, along with distant bitter citrus notes. So I give this one a long wear rating and medium throw. Going to try re-application during the day to see how it builds up, but I am really loving this as it is pretty much just what I expected--two of my favorite BPAL notes in one place.

I am so glad that I got this blind-bottle. On me, the rose comes out swinging when wet, but upon drydown, the orange blossom and the white sugar notes (think the sugar rim on a cocktail glass) come forward. I wish wish WISH this was available as a body dust/powder.

I just tried this last night, and I was very surprised at how strong the oudh was--I was expecting sweet nutty notes with a down-note of oudh; this comes out smelling almost sour it's so sharp. A little goes a VERY long way it seems, and one should spritz it up into the air rather directly on sheets, etc...it calms down after a very sharp, strong start but WOW that first hit is a PUNCH...