Janis

Normally I am not much of a floral person. A floral hater, even. This is not something I would have ever picked myself. And yet, I like it. There's a gentle cool-toned jasmine and soft night blooms that remind me of my garden at night during the summer, all on a base of lightly tangy benzoin. Everything is soft and cool. This is a floral for the floral haters  

A soft, sweet frankincense with a mix of spicy herbs. Really well blended - I can't pick out individual notes. Patchouli and cinnamon take turns peeking around the edges, but never stealing attention from the whole. It's basically everything I'm hoping for in a frankincense scent that feels solemn, comforting, and ancient, without being church incense.

Settles quickly to a soft skin scent after applying, and did not morph or fade further. Very low throw - the huff is gorgeous, though.

It definitely has dried peach, but not particularly identifiable as incense. Instead I am getting what I can only describe as salty Indian food with dried peaches. Unexpected!

Starts out as a very fresh berry+herb. On the drydown, the berry & herbs soften into sweet honeyed milk. I can pick out hints of mushroom and pepper at this point. The milk isn't sour or tart at all, unlike the other "goat" milks in the monster milk series. Soothing and fresh!

This is spicyyy! There's a slightly fruity ye olde holiday spice blend going on, with a base of powdery balsam and amber. This gives me similar vibes to Knecht Ruprecht except with a spicy opening (that fades eventually) and a smoother amber finish.

A really great fudgy brownie in the bottle that plays second fiddle to weed on the skin. This weed note is WAY stronger than the one in Magic Double Chunk Chocolate Chip Cookie. Stayed linear for the full duration of wear.

Chocolate chip cookie indeed! The weed note is present but not overpowering and the cookies are crispy, right on the edge of becoming burnt. Bakery gourmands usually don't play nice with my skin but this one is perfectly realistic. Consider me impressed.

The violet and rose combine into what my nose insists must be tart fig! So: an opening of tart fig, cold loam, and a drydown of sweet, powdery florals. Very interesting, and very unexpected.

This is entirely musky brown fur and raw honey on me, with a bit of maple sugar on the edges. No berries at all!

So I tried this twice on different days and got two completely different impressions-- both rested more than a week.

First time in ~70 degree weather, I got the wonderful, 'BPAL incarnate' spicy rose and snake oil. Not much amber, just the way I like it! Faded really smoothly and I got the roses/spice all the way through.

Second wear was a couple days later in 90 degree weather. It was amber. All amber. Antique amber, sure, but AMBER. I could barely detect any rose, and only the tiniest hint of SO.

Based on the first wear, this upsize worthy - but the second wear has me scared. Temperature-sensitive, perhaps?

Tea House opens with a gorgeous fresh blend of green tea and bamboo, and I love this stage. Unfortunately the drydown is powdery wood (mostly cypress) for the rest of wear. The plum wine is very pretty, but only really detectable if I huff my wrist directly.

This starts with a banana top note that quickly develops into a wonderfully snuggly sweet wool. It really reminds me of You Are Not Alone, except without the lavender and less vanillic (though the wool is a sweet cashmere that more or less does the same thing that the aged paper note in YANA does.) It is kind of masculine, dry woods toeing the line of cologne, but the rich sweetness of banana keeps it in check. As a fan of slightly sweetened unisex scents, this is PERFECT.

I adore YANA too and I'm delighted to have found another scent in the same family! This is "my sweater but better."

I do smell spiced cardamom coffee in the bottle, but it quickly turns into Morocco on my skin. Slightly less sandy, perhaps. Not a bit of coffee to be found.

I like it, and I'm a sucker for cat-themed scents, but I don't find it different enough from Morocco. I wish I got more coffee and resins!

Sweet strawberry cotton candy in the bottle, a blast of mint developing on the skin - settling down to cotton candy with a bit of vanilla frosting on dry down. I tested this by dabbing on one wrist and transferring to the other - and found that one wrist smelled more of strawberries while the other was more blueberry. Interesting how skin chemistry works!

Either way, I like it. Cheerful and easy to wear. I don't regret the blind bottle. 😀

The dry leaves are a bit much at first, but calms down after a bit. When wet I also got sugary whiffs (Dorian?). Drydown is soft and warm with a bit of kick from lingering dead leaves. I'm not big on standalone DL or SO but they balance each other out wonderfully here. Dorian is very quiet but adds a complexity I love.

Honeyed-vanilla-marshmallow-cream with the barest edge of sweet clove. It's definitely a sweet scent, but not tooth-achingly so. The berries never showed themselves beyond adding a hint of tartness (at best). I found it to be a very linear scent that dries down and fades gracefully. Give it a try if you like honey and marshmallows.

Unfortunately for me I came for the clove and berries, so I'll give it some time to see if they appear..

(Rested a full month before testing) This is all cacao all the time on me. Goes through a chocolate incense phase (possibly nag champa, but not distinct enough for me to tell) that is odd but not unpleasant before settling into - you guessed it - just cacao. Fades gracefully, but I wish I got any of the leather at all! Sadly, I think I also have a skin chemistry issue with the leather note.

This hair gloss has no chill and I LOVE it. Great throw, a single spray is enough to give me a cloud of Alice that lasts all day. I would say it's mostly sweet and spicy carnation, but the other notes round it out so well into a scent that's sophisticated and easy to wear. Cream and honey are iffy notes for me but they behave perfectly here.

Warm, creamy lotus on a background of sweet almond. The feminine companion to Martial Arts - my nose is picking up the same gentle sweet almond in both. No tea rose.

INSANELY STRONG, JUICY PEACH!!!

There's a smooth frankincense somewhere in the background, but right now, it's allllll about the fruits (and honestly too much for me to handle), even many hours later & through a couple hand washings. This could be beautiful if the fruits settle down with age - I will be retesting.

Beautiful. Spicy frankincense, but make it dusty and faintly sweet. Quiet, sacred, somber. Spot on to the description and name. I'm transported to the warm, dusty crypts with every whiff. This is exactly the type of resin scent I love.

This smells like freshly cooked basmati rice. It actually smells like rice! Becomes sweeter and the amber gains more of a presence with time. If you like warm rice notes, get this!!

(2021 January restock) this is all soft, creamy coconut. The other notes are very well blended - I can't pick any out individually, they work together to enhance the coconut without stealing the show. Lovely, a very sophisticated and comforting take on coconut. Medium throw and longevity.

I'm amping hearth smoke right off the bat! Citrusy smoke, bordering on savory, with mossy stones and the 'unconventional aquatic' note in the background. There's also something bright and fizzy that reminds me of cleaning products. Not what I expected at all, but if you like smoke notes and happen to amp it like I do here, this is a very pure, sparkling smoke that I haven't experienced before in BPALs.

I also got a bit of oil on my shirt sleeve: there, the smoke is very faint. It's fresh cucumber water.. it reminds me exactly of the smell of my local Indian grocery store.

(Note: I don't usually amp smoke, and I think the smoke note used in this scent is something different.)

Cool aquatic pine (the 'snow' accord), and stone. There is incense far in the background, but it's indeed an 'echo'.. one that only appears later into drydown, when the opening notes grow faint. The way this scent morphs evokes the temporal experience of ducking into a sheltered alcove, a respite from the snowy forest that surrounds.

I was hoping that Klosterruine would be just stone and incense (as I associate pine so heavily with winter that I find it difficult to wear at any other time), but it's a lovely and evocative scent in its own right.