SmellsPrettyGood2Me

Glowing liquid passes through the fogged retorts of ancient alembics, sparks fly from behind a massive workbench, and a cloud of thick incense smoke hangs low, all casting strange and surreal flashes of light and shadow on tall bolted-steel walls. The chug and hum of gargantuan machines echo through the chamber. Burnished gold and oiled bronze notes with Abramelin incense and sage. "Burnished" is exactly the right way to describe this scent! There is a warm metal aroma that envelops your senses as soon as the bottle is opened, amidst a backdrop of beautiful incense. Unlike actual historical steamworks buildings I have been in, this smells like well-maintained equipment and pipes in actual use; there is no sticky, thick, dirty, old burned-on industrial oil component here at all. The sage, which may have been more prominent when the fragrance was first blended, is fresh here but not overwhelmingly potent. Applied to skin, it gets slightly more metallic, and the sage perks up a bit, but as others have said never runs cold. I had to look up Abramelin incense (the composition of which seems to vary) and get a really nice whiff of some cassia, one of my favorite notes. During dry down, the only note that takes a step back is the sage after a couple of hours. I would consider this to have medium projection, but the longevity is where it really knocks it out of the park; I could still smell both the burnished notes and the incense on my skin the next morning. Something about it just hits my brain in all the right ways - I love it. The balance between the lighter and heavier notes is perfection. I've become enamored of many of the Steamworks scents since discovering BPAL, and I hope this particular scent can be considered for resurrection someday!

This scent is a fall day at a New England apple farm stuffed in a bottle. First sniff from the cap gives me almost all freshly pressed, photorealistic apples (somehow green to my nose, rather than the golden ones mentioned in the notes) with a little bit of some newly hewn cedar shingles that were used to patch the barn roof. Applied to skin, I start to get an amberish sweetness that smells like juice changing into something more concentrated as it is pasteurized into cider. Once the transformation to cider is complete, it's time to take a tractor ride around the farm, and the smell of sunshine comes through in the saffron, as does an ephemeral waft of oud hinting at a pasture earthiness rising to your nose when a breeze catches it. Now the sun is starting to set, we're unloaded back into the parking lot, and it's time to go home. The various smells of the day have all melted together on our skin to form a layer of happiness. Five years on, this bottle has lost none of the cheerful top notes that give such a strong apple open, but the base notes don't stick around particularly long (less than 3 hours) and not all listed notes manifested for me; in particular, I got no orange blossom honey at all, and barely any vanilla outside of a brief appearance in Act 2 during the drydown process. There is no spice to provide depth or interest, and in the end it goes a bit sour wood-ish before disappearing. An interesting journey - these same notes in different ratios may have yielded something more continuously appealing for me to reach for, and wear. Aging did not materially alter it for the better to my nose; my favorite part of the experience was the first 30 minutes. May see if I can turn this into an atmo spray or otherwise use it somehow other than on my physical self to enjoy it that way!

Absolutely gorgeous, bright smoked lavender in the imp that leans more smoke and less herbal as it is applied and dried down on skin. I also get the fenugreek / maple-y undertones others mentioned around an hour in once the lavender has settled, and I am completely smitten with it. The nag champa and tobacco ride together for a good 3 more hours in a lovely sweetness before fading away. I do wish it lasted a bit longer, but have no issue with reapplying. As someone who battles some significant and occasionally debilitating anxiety, I feel like this scent is a talisman of sorts. I often keep lavender EO handy for comfort in difficult moments, and Gaueko is like an elevated level of self-care to wear. I was not expecting it to have such a profound effect on my mood especially with just one small dab on each arm. Adding this to my top 10 favorite GC offerings, immediate FS + backup bottle to keep with me at all times.

How now, brown cow? Cocoa, musk and hay announce themselves in a sweet, shaggy trio wet in the bottle. Whether the power of suggestion or an actual element of real hay is here, I promptly sneezed 3 times (into my sleeved arm, with my head turned away, because nobody wants or needs my germs even in our current pre-apocalyptic hellscape of a society). Satisfied that this was The Good Stuff, I proceeded with a gentle dab on skin. Here comes the labdanum, tonka, and the barest smudge of vanilla! There is a hint of dust, but it's sunwarmed and not musty. On drydown the cacao continues to be prevalent, and then once the hay burns off the amber comes to the front and things get even sweeter. Throw is low, cozy, and steady for about 5 good hours, and detectable for another 2-3 when given a close sniff. I love it! I grabbed a nicely aged secondhand partial bottle of this during what I like to call my "Oh, hay!" phase, where I basically wanted to smell like a field of grain or stalks or something reminiscent of Little House On The Prairie. With that imagery in mind, I've decided that this could easily be either what Pa Ingalls would smell like if homesteading men in the 1860s bathed more than once a week, or what James Taylor smells like when he plays Sweet Baby James and talks about cowboys and their cattle on the range. Others have suggested this could be a good gift for a masculine leaning person in your life, and I wholeheartedly agree. This is another perfect gateway scent to introduce your Messers young and old to the magic of BPAL.

This smells so absolutely delicious (in the emotional sense, not the edible sense) that I huffed the bottle cap for a good 30 seconds before I was finally ready to put this on skin and let it do it's magic. Beautiful sweet red musk with a decent but not overwhelming amount of spice (cinnamon and nutmeg?) and what I agree with others is a nutty pumpkin underneath it all. The poppy slowly grows in olfactory influence as the drydown happens and is a light playful floral that keeps the scent from being too dark and broody. Others have mentioned honey, and to my nose it's a lot less prevalent than what they have experienced, possibly due to the age of the scent and the effects of time. If this was a returning scent it would be in my cart in a heartbeat!! Wear this to the bar when you want to lure someone back to your place for co-ed naked spiced hot drinks in front of a fire 😉

Inhaling deep from the bottle, I mostly get musky, dusty leathery wings with a suede-like undercurrent of orris. As soon as it hits my wrist, the orris absolutely blooms into powdery sweetness, and the vanilla plaster comes alongside it in harmony. The frosted element smells cold, but not minty, and is more of whisper than a shout. The musk is there during drydown without being too animalic to my nose, and it doesn't threaten to overpower everything else. The leathery wings don't really become noticeable to me until about an hour in and really just blend in nicely with everything else. Vanilla largely takes a back seat here, appropriately so, letting the other notes shine. Although it wears close to the skin, most of the scent lasts for about 7 good hours with just one small dab. I could still catch a slight whiff of it when I woke up the next morning. Accounting for everyone's tastes being different, if you love orris this could be a complete stunner for you. I anticipate gladly reaching for this as a nighttime scent in any season.

Bought despite my crushingly bad personal track record with the Lab's "dead" note, whether it manifests in either leaf or branch form. I have (mostly) given up on the Leaves variants, but as an aforementioned ho-bag for the Lab's leather note I consoled myself with the possibility that it may overpower the dead branches in ways that I would ultimately find appealing. I did not even have to open the bottle to catch the initial whiff here, and it was all decay, all day. Untwisting the cap, that scorched, acrid, dirty-in-a-truly-not-ok-way dead pungency gave my nose a full frontal assault, while some barely spiced, slightly rindy pumpkin came along for the ride. Mercifully, it did not even take 15 minutes for that dead branches note to abandon it's dank campaign and instead let the pumpkin get a little smoke-y for me. And then, at about minute 30, the leather arrives with a chewy thickness, like the Hearseman is wearing a vintage Wilson's bomber jacket. Hello, friend! When fully dried down, this is the spooky fall festival scent of your dreams. Now I'm enjoying myself, digging through my streaming services to find some place to watch Hocus Pocus and feeling like I need to bake a pumpkin bread pudding in a cast iron pot over a campfire on the night of a full moon. Sillage starts to soften after an hour, and after 4 hours I find myself having to get much closer to my wrist to catch more than a passing whiff. I really like every aspect of this other than having that dead note smell pollute my bottle storage space and torment my turbinates for that opening run when applied to skin. It really settles down fast and gets surprisingly soft. It was worth it in the end!

I can't get enough of the Lab's leather notes and had to give this a try. Wet in the imp there is a really bright, very mildly sour, watery green aloe note that borders on citrus but doesn't quite completely get there, coupled with something deeper that you aren't able to entirely make out. Applied to skin, that embalming fluid note kicks up a notch and burns bright for a good 20 minutes, much more than what I would personally consider a "trace", and it smells amazing. I start to get the curtains and leather about 10 minutes in and there is almost a light dustiness that is playing in the background. The leather doesn't smell particularly tanned or aged, more vegetal, and I would agree it has a bit of new upholstery sense to it. (If I had my druthers I'd take the embalming fluid down a bit, increase the leather, and give it just a touch of sandalwood or oud for the hint of the cologne or perfume of the driver.) Sillage here is bold, and maintains a steady presence for the first 3 hours as it gently transitions into something more like sweetgrass and leather gloves for the next 3 hours more before fading away. I applied just a dab and it really took over the whole room, so I would not consider it particularly office or enclosed public place friendly as it is gorgeous but enduringly loud. Do I like it? Yes - it's unexpectedly awakening for a scent named after a transport vehicle for the dead. But it's not something that feels characteristically fall-like, so I'll probably put it away for the late winter / early spring months when my nose needs a little zing.

Wet in the imp, a nose tickling citric acid aldehydic wave with bold undertones of Eau De Chien Mouillé (better known as "wet dog"). This must be the sandalwood variety that my nose simply cannot process. On skin, same. No vanilla, no sweetness. Immediate scrub and destash!

Had to grab a bottle of this after loving the Atmo Spray from 2024 and am so glad to see it in wearable form!! I hemmed and hawed about how to review this properly, and decided to give impressions as a standalone scent first and then compare/contrast with the spray for those who may have tried it last year. In the bottle, the aroma of recently wetted soil is the first thing to hit my nose. It doesn't smell too dank or like decay, just fresh, clean garden dirt. Underneath is just the tiniest hint of vanilla and patchouli, but you really have to sniff hard to find them. Initial application on skin really causes that soil scent to bloom with a green, mossy brightness that I was honestly not expecting, coupled with what seemed like mostly Dorian along with it. I never really considered dirt as a top note, but it seems to be here, at least. The loamy tang starts to settle and then, 30 minutes in, I start to get a whiff of the Snake Oil. I am genuinely surprised at how simultaneously deep and bright it feels at the same time. It's an absolute banger, and in my mind strongly deserves a place in the permanent collection alongside all of the other Snake Oil flankers. Don't we deserve to smell like vanilla and patchouli flavored* dirt year round? That said and done, in comparison to the 2024 Atmo Spray, this is much more dirt and green moss forward in general, and most specifically in the first 30-45 minutes of wear. Because personal skin chemistry is likely a lot more variable when it comes to scent impression than the air around us (or maybe it isn't? what do I even know?), I would say that for me the perfume oil is more Dorian forward, whereas the spray seems to have Snake Oil as the dominant scent. If you love both OG scents and initially got the spray because of that, the only reasons you may not like the perfume oil as much are if 1) you like fresh soil, but not to this level of initial intensity in the open 2) your personal skin chemistry for some reason doesn't dig Snake Oil and Dorian competing for attention in a way that's unique to each one of us I will resist the urge to keep gushing over this for the sake of brevity, and urge you to try a sample of this to see for yourself how amazing it is. *I speak of olfactory flavor and not actual taste flavor. Do not eat or drink your BPALs.

2025 Version I first heard of this scent in an old DISO post, interestingly enough, and anytime someone gives the Bat Signal for a scent they feel like they can't live without I trust that it is for good reason. For them, and for me, I was so excited to see this fragrance make a comeback for the 2025 Halloween release. I'm also a big fan of the BPAL plum notes (shoutout to my favorite plummy damask girl Advanced Manifestations for Members Only - I heart you boo) so I was highly susceptible to wanting to see what it was all about. Wet in bottle, I get big, juicy plum honey and a bit of dustiness that I think is coming from the velvet myrrh. I want to think the labdanum is in there contributing to the sweetness, and maybe it is, but the honey note is definitely dominant. On skin, the juiciness translates for the initial application, but starts to deepen fairly quickly. About 15 minutes in I start to get more resins, a hint of the ink, and the dustiness increases. There's the black champa and nagarmotha! By 45 minutes into drydown most of the initial fruit bomb has receded and I'm left with a lightly spicy scent with a ghostly echo of the plum and honey. Incense lovers will rejoice in the softly smokey place it gets to in the end. This scent changes fast but does not disappoint at any stage of the process. Where I may personally prefer a bit less honey upfront, I can see why this is a beloved favorite and expect it will be a very popular offering for diehard fans as well as those trying it for the first time like me. I can also see that it will probably age like a dream so now I have to decide if a backup bottle is needed. Mental note to let this sit for 2 months and make a final call when I place my Yules order!

In the bottle, a very beautiful, waxy group of white petals covered in what smells like wet powdered vanilla sugar. When first applied to my skin, the vanilla becomes what I can only describe as "commercial" and somewhat synthetic in tone. I started to be concerned that there was a brewing war between my skin chemistry and the fragrance, but it settled nicely over the next 20 minutes into something much more wearable. Does this share DNA with Dahlia? I will have to do a side-by-side comparison and report back. I did not get anything like patchouli but feel like there may be a faint hint of a dried tobacco leaf in there with the tobacco flower. This feels romantic, and would make an intoxicating bedtime scent either on it's own or layered with a skin musk for even more interpersonal appeal. Medium projection and longevity at about 5-6 hours of solid wear before it starts to become less detectable. I will definitely pickup a backup bottle as I think it will be even more beautiful when aged.

This is potent stuff - I can smell it through the unopened imp. Highly chlorophyllic wet, you will swear someone has freshly crushed aloe leaves and left a pile of the grassy, watery skin pulp behind on a table and wandered off. On skin, the green tea is only discernible when I really get my arm up in my nose and search for it. The incense never shows up, even after 3-4 hours of wear. I inadvertently splashed this on my shirt closing the imp and it was all I could smell for the next 6 hours, so she's a beast. Although the intention here was not a fresh cut green grass scent, this is a very highly saturated, almost lemony vegetal fragrance which definitely evokes similar feelings. It also strongly reminds me of Target's Aloe Hand Sanitizer, minus the obligatory nose hair burning alcohol effect. I found it much more activating than soothing, and I'd put this on for chore day to remind me of the reward of time outside when done checking those adulting boxes.

I could swear that this smells of white peaches. I'm reading that some crocuses smell like freesia, so that must be it! Definitely fruity, a little minty, and much brighter than what I usually get from a fragrance that also includes lillies. Very "pink" and Bath and Body Works body spray adjacent - nothing indolic or stinky here at all. Delightfully uplifting to the mood and in no way dour or funerary. There isn't much difference for me in how the notes present between wet in the imp and in the drydown process on skin, and it sticks around for 8+ hours without losing too much steam. I had to give a good scrub in my morning shower to get 90% of it off the next day. You will absolutely not get away with committing any crimes while wearing it, because the sillage is bold enough to announce you as you enter a room and haunt it when you leave. I would apply just a little bit less than you think you need to avoid unsettling any sensitive noses around you in closed spaces or close quarters. Prague presents as very youthful and fun, of which this old biddy is neither. I like it, but I'll leave this to you kids (chronologically or at heart) and retreat to more patchouli pastures.

Wet in the imp this is pure Orange Julius - creamy citrus with a vanilla powdered sugar undertone. On skin, the narcissus appears and takes over. For those who love a bold white floral with a light citrus backdrop, this is worthy of a try. For me, it is too indolic to be enjoyable.

Wow, this is great!! Wet in the imp the chilled air note is incredibly photorealistic; intellectually I know it is mint helping my brain make that association, but it doesn't smell exactly MINTY, more just fresh and cold. I had to double check the notes on this after applying, as the wet open on skin evokes stone for me more than clay. I get more freshwater here as the perception of salinity is that it is either very low or barely present - it is not briny, kelpy or giving fermenting vegetal matter. There is a dustiness to it, rather than decay, which becomes more prominent as it dries down. The flowers and incense are pretty, but non-specific in variety other than being light and fresh rather than dark, brooding, or smokey. I am not often prompted to think of scents with gender associations as I enjoy notes across the olfactory spectrum, but this scent strikes me as soundly non-binary. I love it for sticky, sweaty summer days when your nose isn't the only thing clamoring for cool relief. Currently out of stock but hoping it makes a comeback so that I can get my hands on more of it.

I try most florals with the metaphorical polite smile you reserve for tasting something you know you don't like made by someone who means a lot to you. While there's always a chance you'll be pleasantly surprised, you're sort of bracing yourself with the expectation of tolerating it, at best. Crossroads on my skin is creamy jasmine and damp dirt for about the first thirty minutes, and I'm thinking "Ok! Sun-warmed Tibetan monastery garden, humid summer day, I dig it!". As the drydown progressed it sharply veered into dirty-diaper-on-the-sidewalk-grass territory. Blergh! This phase lasted for about an hour before the incense attempted to come to the rescue and things ultimately settled down into a decidedly early-90's floral bathroom spray. While I can't claim this particular scent is a hit for me, it has awakened my appreciation for dirt notes, and for that I am grateful.

Wet in the imp there is a boozy, resinous sweetness, but no mint is apparent to my nose until it hits my skin and really starts to shine. The sugar is very caramelized, giving the impression of non-fizzy fermentation and barrel ageing. It doesn't actually smell alcoholic, per say, just a condensed, syrupy sweetness that is really enjoyable. I have the sense of some powdery sandalwood and amber in the bourbon note. This is a 6 out of 10 for me - enjoyable, but not amongst my GC favorites. Anyone looking for a beverage type scent that doesn't smell overtly alcoholic would probably like this as well!

If an atmospheric and aquatic had a baby, it would be Egle - this scent strongly evokes John William Waterhouse's Lady of Shallot for me. Kudos to the fir note here, which keeps this scent from being either too sweet or swampy. I like that the star jasmine and hyacinth petals are very restrained relative to the other notes! Overall this is very well balanced, although it fades quite a bit on me after the first two hours. Perfect for an afternoon spent floating down a heavily coniferous flanked river.

One of the rare citrus (and most specifically grapefruit) containing scents that my skin did not amp to a nauseating level of grossness. My imp looks pretty aged, based on the label, and smells pleasantly fruity fresh with the smallest hint of something coconutty and/or creamy floral underneath. The flamingo imagery fits perfectly, except in this case it's a plastic flamingo on a perfectly manicured 1960's Las Vegas lawn, and I'm sipping a cocktail in my heels and pearls poolside. Although I can normally pick out a rose note at 50 paces, it's harder to discern here, even after the sage and bergamot top notes fade into a memory. Probably one of the biggest morphers I've tried so far in the GC, and once it finally settles into a sweet, woodier musk when all is said and done you are left enjoying the both the journey and the destination. I regret not having discovered this earlier in the year when the weather was warmer as this is an amazing all day scent for spring or summer! Will grab more to tuck away for next year.

Agree with others who have said this is lemon balm (80%) and lavender (20%). The lemon smells both pulpy and waxy, and is so strong that I can smell it through the closed imp; this is particularly impressive given the age of the sample! Of the Somnium blends, this is my least favorite; it's just too bright and perky to be a sleep scent, and much too furniture polish-esque during drydown to enjoy wearing as a daily fragrance. Softness did come, about 2 hours later, but by then I was already looking forward to washing it off.

This scent has a lot going on! The fizzy aldehyde note is much more present wet than on my skin, and as it dries down it gets even less effervescent. I much prefer this amount of a champagne grape type composition than one where it's all you can smell for the first hour. It definitely reads "purple" as others have said, but unlike other BPAL scents it doesn't veer too far into fermenting fruit or drug store candy territory - it's more like a tug of war between the grapes and the plum blossom where no winner is declared but everyone walks away happy. I really like the little hint of carnation spiciness that helps to balance out the sweetness of the honey and sugar cane. None of the other notes are individually detectable, but the mélange is gorgeous. Three hours into the drydown I smell amazing and have to resist the urge to slather more on. Fruit and wine type scents are not usually my jam, but I should know better by now that the General Catalog is full of unexpected hits that pleasantly push the boundaries of what I enjoy. My next order will have a bottle of this in it for sure.

Tested from a verrrrrrry aged imp that smelled like a deliciously sweet woodland forest when I opened it up. Extremely mentholated, condensed sap when wet; I inhaled it on the "bad side" of my nose half expecting it to perk me up and clear me out like some sort of liquid Vicks Vaporub smelling salts. It didn't, but as I kept inhaling I got a whiff of something just a little bit sour that made me contemplate if I was really brave enough in that moment to put it on my skin. I was. I did. Amazing. No fig, all cypress, all day. Big, juicy spruce-like projection with nothing dirty or stinky as you may find with some forest type scents. The oakmoss is here, restrained, taking a backseat to the brighter top notes for a bit. Lavender-adjacent, but not dominant. Definitely gives early winter, snowy night coven meetup vibes. Love it!!

"Holy grape jelly, Batman!" I did not sniff the imp before applying this to skin, so these are all post-application impressions. The muscadine bursts onto the scene and takes no prisoners, as it is all I can smell for a good 15 minutes. Projection is STRONG! I was grateful I tried this on my arm on a short-sleeved day as I think it is so potent that it would cling to your clothes in perpetuity. Around 30 minutes in I can sense the nag champa trying to break out from the back of the pack as the sweetness deepens but starts to fade to something more powdery. The smoke is definitely more incense than campfire. The grape jelly note fully inverted to incense with a slight fruity twang around 90 minutes in, and the projection also dialed back to something more reasonable with it. I never really got any patchouli at all. You know those intense clips on the news every Black Friday where people damn near kill themselves to stampede Wal-mart when the doors open to get their limited flatscreen TV deal? That's the vibes Urd gives - a frenzy, followed by a fizzle when almost everyone has to console themselves with $50 off Beats by Dre instead.

There are so many reviews of this scent already that it would be impossible to say something original about it, but here's where my experience agrees or disagrees with what others have written: Agree: soft, intimate throw, baby powder/dryer sheet adjacent, slightly waxy Disagree: not overwhelmingly sweet or floral, no cherry/almond/honey I think this would be a terrific scent for those who suffer from fragrance sensitivity as it is incredibly inoffensive and non-triggering. Office and general public safe as well as there is nothing dirty or sweaty about the musk. Much more gentle than sexual!