Assimbya

This goes on quite sweet on me, with a burst of almond blossom and nutty, sweetened heliotrope, with the narcissus distinct but waiting in the background. I was unsure about it at this stage - a little too almond, a little too sweet. But as it dries down the almond blossom recedes, and the narcissus comes through truly gorgeously as the center of the blend. The lab's narcissus note fascinates me but has never fully worked for me - it has that paperwhite-like sickening edge (especially in perfumes like Langour in which is actually with paperwhites, bringing out that quality) which can't quite be described as indolic, but is somehow beautiful and queasy at once. I have several imps of narcissus-centric GCs which I've kept around because of that fascination, but never have quite found wearable, and I've wondered whether I would find a narcissus that I did actually want to wear. I think Interminable Grotesques may be it. There's a greenhouse quality to this narcissus, humid and sweetened, the perfume trapped within fogging glass. With the honey from the heliotrope, it reminds me of the stunning daffodil note in Flower Moon 2009, which is a gentler, more golden variation on bpal's narcissus, and one which has always felt closer to me to the true smell of the flower in nature (daffodil and narcissus, of course, being the same plant - their scent isn't noticeable most of the time, but is distinct if you actually try smelling a daffodil, or if you're fortunate enough to be in a place with overflowing beds of them in the springtime, amplifying their subtle fragrance). This is still much more indolic than the freshness of Flower Moon, which is definitely a field of wildflowers and not a bunch of blooms in a greenhouse, but there's a distinct resemblance. Over the course of wear, I also get what I could swear is a classic lily note rather than a lily of the valley - if I really look for it I can maybe find a sharpness that I could call lily of the valley, but I also get a very distinct daylily which mingles beautifully with the narcissus. I don't think I can quite track the opium poppy yet, but it's perhaps part of the subtle sweetness in the background. This had quite long wear length, even just a day out of the mail. So: okay but not great when wet, really beautiful on drydown. I'll need to wear it a few more times to get a sense of whether I do want a bottle, and probably compare it with Flower Moon 2009 as well, but I think it might very well end up being a bottle purchase for me; it feels the 'wearable narcissus' gap which has been present in my flower completionist collection.

Reporting back dispatches from my jasmine quest for anyone else who may be on one! From my GC exploration, Nyx ended up being precisely the jasmine + rose combination I was hoping for! The myrrh is much gentler than in Wicked, and on me it's a beautifully balanced combination of both florals. Delight, alas, was not so for me, and ended up rather dusty and pale. Defututa is a fascinating scent, but I wouldn't call it predominantly jasmine - the champaca feels more central to that one. Tomie is beautiful, sinuously elegant scent with a thread of cool jasmine, but I would agree that it's not jasmine-forward, and I would probably describe its main notes as almond blossom and vanilla. I was also lucky enough to acquire three old LEs which have entirely satisfied my longing for a creamy jasmine - Eostre of the Dawn, The Night Priestess, and Mrs Emma Marsh (though the last is more gardenia than jasmine on me). Each is very different in sensibility and in the other florals the jasmine is paired with, but each in their own way showcases jasmine beautifully with the billowy creaminess I was longing to hold onto from my in vivo jasmine experiences this spring and summer. I know none of those are readily available, but I recommend them to anyone else who may be searching for a similar kind of jasmine! For cooler jasmines (either herbal or perfumey), I continue to love Twilight, The Presence of Love, and Cold Moon 2024. I recently tried the Cold Moon duet Jasmine Absolute & Champaca Petals which is a very pure and beautiful jasmine experience as well. A Cup of Tea on the Verandah, from last years Yules, has also been growing on me - as my decant ages the sharpness I experienced from at first has softened out and the jasmine comes out beautifully.

Very much a related scent to Dawn: Maiden, which makes sense considering their similar inspirations/subject matter! The main difference between the two on me is Eostre's jasmine replacing Dawn: Maiden's olive blossom - and Eostre is a beautifully jasmine-centric scent on me (though I also get plenty of honeysuckle, I would call it more of a jasmine), creamy with a gentle indolic edge. Between that and the skin musk (which one me is subtle, it's not a musk-dominant scent, but is definitely an important element) this feels more langorous than Dawn: Maiden, which I find a little gently energetic. The lactonic element here also is more dominant than in Dawn: Maiden, and it's a slightly sweeter scent overall. I most definitely picture this one as yellow and creamy white, very much springtime but appropriate to wear at any time of year. This is lovely, very much my style and I'm so glad I ended up with it. There's a particular magic to Dawn: Maiden's olive blossom which means I think I'd go with that one if I had to choose between the two, but I'm so glad there's no need to! But, by that same token, the similarity to Dawn: Maiden means I'm not devastated about this one's discontinuation, and if anyone is seeking this I would strongly recommend Dawn: Maiden as an alternative.

What a delightful topic! The cheesy but honest truth is that all of my bpal perfumes make me happy - it's such a wonderful thing to have in my life, these scents I can wear everyday and feel such joy about. I think you're definitely definitely not alone in finding that scent helps with mental health stuff. However, for specifically cheering scents, I think the entire Alice in Wonderland GC collection has this quality for me - the ones I regularly wear are Alice; White Rabbit; Two, Five, & Seven; and Against Idleness and Mischief, and each of them, in their own way, has a bright whimsy that makes me happy in my everyday life (I haven't yet tried High-Strung Daisies, but @sunshinedaisybliss's suggestion of it reminds me that it's been on my list for a while!). Otherwise, I find that notes I read as 'golden' often have a very happy quality to me - honey, orange blossom, osmanthus, apricot, honeysuckle (not so much amber, though it definitely has a golden quality). Some currently available examples include: Katharina; Dawn: Maiden; Osmanthus & Honey Bells; Deadly Nightshade Honey; and Persephone's Ascent. Idyll, which I happen to be wearing today, is one of my favorite happiness scents, with beautiful orange blossom, honeysuckle, and osmanthus, and I love to wear it on days when I need some brightness, but it's a Lunacy Ars Anni from last year, and thus no longer readily available.

I know it doesn't help anyone much to review this blend after it's gone down, but I have been trying to make sense of it for months now! It's a tricky one to figure out. I definitely get strong resinous notes, certainly amber, possibly another resin, along with a sweet red fruitiness (red currant?) and a soft metallic sensibility. I definitely get a lot of musk here, though I don't think I could say what color. As it dries down, the fruitiness fades, and the musk becomes the center of the scent. Definitely red and gold, as in the description, definitely regal and queenly, but at the same time somehow hazy and undefined by comparison with other bpals I have with overlapping notes and qualities. I like this, and wear my decant occasionally, but something in it doesn't quite come together on me, and I ended up not going for a bottle. I'm not sure if it feels like it needs something additional, or if I'd want the balance of the notes to be slightly different and more intense, but either way it feels like it doesn't quite hit the mark for me. I'm glad though to have my decant and will continue to wear and contemplate it.

This is a pale, cool, clean white floral, predominantly calla lily and ivy on me with a soft backbone of iris. It has a clean, inedible fruitiness which I think comes from the calla lily, though I am not very familiar yet with gladiolus and delphinium as notes - it does smell the way I would imagine gladioli to smell! I definitely get the green of the ivy, and an image of flowers in a graveyard ringed by vines. I don't know if this blend would give me that spectral image without the association of the name, though - on its own it's clean unchallenging, slightly chalky, and almost commercial in a way that reminds me of Juliet. I get a little osmanthus (one of my favorite notes), but quite pale and muted, not its usual golden self. This is pleasant, but not a favorite, and I won't need a bottle, though the effect of the ivy with the white florals is interesting enough for me to keep my imp at least for now.

This is a lovely, gentle floral scent. I get lilac most strongly when wet, and then tuberose and violet more on drydown, but all notes are distinctly present throughout; violet doesn't take over here as it sometimes does on me. The tuberose gives a honeyed sweetness especially present as it's nearly faded. Each floral note is clear, but as though with a gauzy, pale blue veil over them; very much a dusk/twilight scent. This truly does feel like a Chopin nocturne to me! It fades quite quickly (which I imagine is not likely to improve with rest, since I think this is an old imp) and has little throw, but is quite pleasant. I don't think I need a bottle of this, given the low longevity/throw, and since I don't think I'm likely to choose it over any of my other lilac blends which are all more intense and vivid. But for lilac it's a lovely GC alternative which also showcases tuberose in a very pretty way. I'll definitely keep and use my imp.

I don't think this is silly at all! I think it's one of those places where the similarity of the names gets very confusing, and I was lost for a while too. I don't find the two notes very similar at all, though I have much more experience with champaca in BPAL scents than nag champa, because I seek out florals and not so much incense blends. Champaca is a magnolia-like white floral (a couple months ago I smelled one of the flowers in a greenhouse which also clarified this for me!), and nag champa as a note reads like sandalwood incense.

Like @Akurarei, I found this to be a pretty evenly balanced blend of the two notes, though the plum blossom takes center stage. And what a gorgeous plum blossom it is too - gently tart fruitiness with a silky wafting perfumey floral from the petals. Definitely the same plum blossom note which I loved in Lingering Plum Scent in the Sleeping Chamber from this year's Shungas but, just as I hoped, given space and prominence to really shine. The golden amber here is very smooth, gently and subtly vanillic, with a gleaming resinous quality. I would agree that the amber takes a few moments of drying down to come forward, but I definitely get both notes quite quickly. The complexity and sophistication of the two notes makes this feel like a very complete perfume to me despite being a duet; I didn't get the main Lightning Moon scent and don't feel a particular need to layer this, since it's beautiful and full on its own. (Also - just laughing at myself from a year ago who looked at the duets and thought that I would never be interested in one when there were so many more complex blends out there! How wrong I was.) Very much what I was hoping for, and I'm so glad I took a chance on blind bottling this. I will say that at the moment the longevity of this one is quite low, fading after only a couple of hours, but since my experience has been that this is often true of BPALs that are closer to pure florals before they've aged, I feel quite hopeful that the longevity will increase with time.

This feels to me like a slightly more mature sister scent to The Bride; it has a similar quality of billowing white floral supported by gentle, sensuous honey and vanilla, but the jasmine and gardenia in place of magnolia feels somehow less innocent to me. These feel like flowers within a greenhouse, rather than under the open sky as the magnolia of The Bride reads to me. I got this blend in my search for a good gardenia for my floral completionism project - I have tried many of the Lab's gardenias, but the ones I have tried haven't shown up as clearly on me, or have been too sharp. The gardenia in this turns out to be precisely what I was hoping for - it has the silky lushness of real, living gardenia, with its subtly piercing indolic quality, but the honey, vanilla, and frankincense keep it from going too sharp. The jasmine here is vivid and definitely present, but on me a supporting note to the gardenia, sort of like a jasmine bush surrounding a gardenia. I don't clearly get the rose, but I have a sense of it as an undercurrent giving shape to the blend. I really love this, and am so very glad that I ended up getting it almost by chance! It's very much to my taste, and I'm grateful that the honey shows up so well on me and supports the florals rather than detracting from them.

On me this seems to be the same lilac note as in Eusapia - bright and slightly citrusy, not as indolic or lush as in the White Lilac & Musk HG (which I also have on with it today), as green and fresh as the lab's blue lilac note, or as smooth as the lilac in Lorrainna. I agree with previous reviewers that this is quite nearly a lilac single note at first, though as it dries down I get some soft, resinous vanilla and benzoin evening out the lilac much as the beeswax does in Eusapia. A few hours into wear, the vanilla is significantly more prominent; it's a dry, nearly powdery vanilla which I experience as elegant and understated. It feels to me like it matches the color palette of the painting which inspired it quite well, though it's less overtly sensuous. This is similar enough to Eusapia that I don't think one really needs both, though I am obsessed enough with lilacs that I'm happy I now do - I'm enjoying the subtle differences, and I know I will wear them both.

This is a really beautiful spiced white floral, smooth and calm and definitely very appropriate to its inspiration. I can very much see this for the High Priestess of the tarot, and it definitely has a glowing, moonlike sensibility. On me it's predominantly jasmine and clove, but a luminous and smooth jasmine, not sharp or indolic. I get subtle hints of cardamom throughout wear, and when I look for them I can pick out some other indistinct floral notes, though the jasmine is definitely central. As I've been looking for a good night-blooming jasmine scent, this is a welcome delight. Something about the earthiness of the clove helps ground the ethereal paleness of the florals in this one and contributes to the olfactory depiction of a priestess, a woman who is very much human while also serving and in contact with the divine. It's lovely, and I feel very glad to have it. This has a reasonable throw and quite good wear length, fading around 7 hours in for me.

This is definitely predominantly a rose-sandalwood-frankincense on me, backed by pretty strong creamy coconut and faint vanilla. The rose note here feels like the same one in a number of the Ars Moriendi and Ars Amatoria GC blends, which reads on my skin as what I'd call a more dry, perfumey and less lush rose; it's a soft, pretty scent, but not my personal favorite type of rose that the Lab does. I get a sense of some light musk or perhaps the oud smoothing the blend out and holding it together, and some indistinct plumeria/frangipani, but I cannot pick out the other notes. Overall, this perfume gives me the impression of pale, veiled florals, which is something I also get from a number of the GCs classified in the 'soft floral' category. It's lovely, pleasant and inoffensive, but it doesn't grab me; I'm learning with time that I generally prefer my florals brighter and more intense. I'll keep my imp around for a while and see how often I feel drawn to wear it, but I don't think I'll be wanting a bottle of this one.

I got this as part of my search for a plumeria/frangipani-focused blend - I tend to be a little wary of coconut notes, but was encouraged by reviews here describing this as floral-forward, with the coconut working more to smooth out the blend. Having now tested it a few times, that description seems accurate to me. The coconut is moderately strong at first, but is creamy and smooth rather than aggressively sunscreen-like, and as it dries down the coconut recedes into the background and I get very gentle, subtle florals, primarily frangipani but with hints of gardenia and orchid. The ginger also definitely comes through for me, and has a gently fruity sense rather than being spicy. This is a very calm floral, not at all sharp or indolic, and would probably be a good entry point for people who are wary of florals. I enjoy it, but would also be happy for the flowers to be louder and brighter! It's also quite faint on me, with notably low throw. Now about five hours into wear I still get some soft lovely frangipani when I smell extremely close to my wrist, but I have to really search for it. I'll have to try applying more than I'm accustomed to, but in general I think this is going to be one I keep for times when I want a very subtle low sillage perfume, probably more than something to get me through my whole day.

I bought a decant of this off a fellow forumite to layer with my bottle of Cold Moon, and am so glad I did! This is a really lovely blend. I recently had the chance to smell a freshly blooming champaca tree in a botanical garden, and I found the scent so striking and vivid - similar to regular magnolia, but earthier and less perfumey. It's definitely recognizable to me here, along with a gorgeous dripping jasmine. There's something which feels gauzy to me about this scent, like light passing through thin cotton. Layered with the main Cold Moon blend it adds that sensibility, jasmine vines and flowering trees growing on the side of a river, their white blossoms almost obscuring the water below, though you can still feel it. It definitely brings out the jasmine already present in Cold Moon, and its delicacy strikes an interesting contrast with the aquatic and earthy notes in that main perfume. The combination is really beautiful. I find this wearable on its own and probably would do so if I had gotten a full bottle of it, but as it is I plan to use it mostly for the beautiful effect of the layering.