Assimbya

Reviving this very old thread! I have recently been lucky enough to have some glorious experiences smelling freshly blooming jasmine, and have been experiencing this very specific almost creamy smooth jasmine scent from them. I have a number of BPAL jasmines I really enjoy (Twilight, Cold Moon 2024, The Presence of Love), but the jasmine in them tends to be a sharper note, either perfumey or more herbal. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a creamier jasmine scent! Most of the obvious suspects seem to go other directions on me - Poinsettia Gown goes unfortunately soapy, and Vasilissa is very sharp on my skin. Eos looks like it would have been a great fit, but unfortunately long ago DC'ed! I'm considering Delight, as I'm also seeking out a good frangipani, and I wonder if that particular floral might soften the jasmine too.

This is such an interesting example for me of how reactions to scents are so personal - I like this one quite a bit (and it's really grown on me the more I've worn it), but my experience of it is really quite different from most of the reviewers here. Though the throw isn't too much, I find the overall experience of the scent really quite intense, in a way that I find elegant but also quite distinctly sensual. I feel similarly about Like the Very Gods, which I agree belongs in the same family - both of these scents are quite enthralling to me, but a little personally overwhelming; I don't feel comfortable wearing them to work, or to other settings which require external focus. I think this must be something about my relationship with heavily skin musk/"your skin but better" scents, that the way these scents offer a sweet, perfumed fantasy of embodiment really pulls my focus in a way that more classic florals, in which there's a sense of the scent more differentiated from my body itself, doesn't quite. I'm curious whether anyone else has the same experience! To get more specific about notes in this one, on me it's predominantly sweetened amber, skin musk, and orris butter. The rose is present but subtle on my skin (though I really don't ever amplify rose, so that's unsurprising), and so is the vanilla, though from some of my other vanilla blends I'm learning that may change with aging. The dominance of the amber and musk gives this a quality related to commercial perfumes, but it feels substantial and textured in a way that's distinctly BPAL. This works for me as a Grace/Charites perfume - it makes me think of them welcoming Aphrodite after she rises from the ocean, the sense of curves and body beneath billowing tunics in the Botticelli that the Lab uses for the labels on these.

I ended up with this one somewhat serendipitously, but am so glad I did, because it's stunning and exactly right for the height of spring. I've been on a bit of a honey notes kick lately, and this is such a wonderful showcase for them - the description of the flowers as "coated" in honey feels viscerally accurate; there's truly a sense of the smooth and sticky texture of the honey enveloping the floral notes as it goes on wet. Particularly at this stage the flowers are very well-blended and it's difficult to pick out individual notes, sort of like looking at a field of brightly colored wildflowers, blurring and made indistinct in the yellow sunlight. As it dries it feels sort of like the honey starts slowly to drip off, and though it remains definitely present, I can start to pick out individual flower scents, even if perhaps not all of them. I feel especially taken by the daffodil in this one, though perhaps it's because I recently had an experience of smelling a field of daffodils very distinctly after not previously having quite noticed them as their own scent; the feeling of that experience is captured so well here, along with beautifully elegant wisteria (a scent I'd like to experience more in perfume!) and some clean, creamy jasmine and honeysuckle. I can't distinctly identify the other florals here, but perhaps with time I will. Overall it's a wonderfully joyous blend, while also feeling somewhat mature; there's a sense of a defined, adult sexuality without being as blatantly sexy as some of the skin musk scents are to me. It has strong longevity (even this bottle from over 15 years ago!) and moderate throw; to me it feels appropriate to wear in a lot settings, but where I do it's like getting to bring a field of flowers with me. What a lovely experience to be given by a perfume. An interesting skin chemistry note - on my partner, who tends amplify sweet notes, this is a nearly unwearable mess, with the honey becoming cloying and drowning out the flowers. The Lab's honey note has very consistently worked on me so far, keeping a defined almost resinous edge to it; sometimes I lament my astringency-intensifying skin chemistry when it makes blends too acrid, but here it's a lovely good fortune.

Ended up with some of this one mostly because my partner wanted to try it, but I was curious too - it sounded like a balance of notes which could really go either way on me, but dragon's blood and honey historically work well with my chemistry so I was hopeful the balance might tip in a direction that worked for me. Unfortunately, it tipped otherwise - on my skin the amber here rather takes over, and combines with the kush and Arabian musk into something sharp, heady, incense-like, and more New Age shop than sexy for me. I get barely any honey, just a hint of red currant, and no dragon's blood whatsoever. I don't get the sweetness other reviewers have described, though I can get something must close to it from the bottle scent. Since I have other beautiful honey and/or amber scents which my skin much prefers, that's okay, though I would have enjoyed the scent I had hoped this might be! I'm learning that the notes which the Lab refers to as Arabian and/or Egyptian musk seem for the most part not to come off so well on my skin, despite almost every other of their musk varieties pretty consistently working well for me. It makes me curious about the differences between those accords.

This is such a gentle, comforting scent - on me it's a light, golden, waxy honey with some herbal sharpness defining and enlivening it. I can definitely pick out the chamomile, which I find lovely here even though chamomile tea isn't a favorite of mine; there's a fuzzy sensibility which feels like it's coming from the pollen and/or tonka but I can't pick those out precisely. This definitely reminds me of a sunlit summery afternoon on a blanket in a field. I liked this one when I first tried my imp quite a while ago, but it didn't make a huge impression; lately I've been enjoying and reaching for it a lot more, and am considering a bottle. It's just so cheerful and soothing, and brightens my mood whenever I wear it. I'm so glad to have skin chemistry which works so beautifully with honey notes so that I get to enjoy it!

I adore this one so much. Peacock Queen perfume oil is stunning, but so far at least it fades pretty quickly on me. This may change as my bottle ages (though I in general have some problems with my skin devouring rose and leaving none for me), but for now I was so thrilled to discover that the hair gloss lasts forever and ever in my hair, with a gentle but distinctive throw. It's a deep, pure, dark red rose, velvety and smooth and delicious. Whenever I wear it I feel happy all day to get hints of rose from my hair. Highly recommended for rose fans, especially those who like me generally do the opposite of amplifying it. Right now this and Laura are alternating as my two everyday hair glosses, and I need to get some more in the rotation to avoid using them up too fast! But Peacock Queen HG is a delightful addition to my routine.

I like this quite a bit, though it's not an everyday hair gloss for me, and I feel like I have to be a little selective as far as which perfumes I pair with it. It definitely feels like it belongs in a set with a number of the other Carmilla perfumes especially, as @LavenderCoffee mentioned, You Are Mine, You Shall Be Mine. Dark but with warmth, a polished wood sensibility without being overpoweringly woody. The notes are very well blended and none of them stand out particularly strong to me, but they create this very vivid, darkly sensual overall picture. I am very glad to have it in my hair gloss rotation, even if Laura has become much more my usual daily hair gloss.

This is very fresh and clean on me, with a feeling of salt spray against rocks. The floral notes are both very light, though I get more lavender than lilac. There's something in this that reminds me of more commercial fragrances, though certainly fresher in feel. On me I don't get a ton of either throw or longevity compared to the other hair glosses I've tried; it gives more of an ineffable atmosphere in my hair. This is very pleasant, but I was hoping for something more intense as both a floral and an aquatic. I imagine it will appeal to many, but it's not for me.

I have been a little bit obssessed with this one; it feels really like the essence of early spring to me. The honeysuckle nectar is sweet and fresh and pale green, gently enveloped by a smooth floral vanilla; the whole has an incredibly lovely creamy sensibility without being at all foody. I don't get the sandalwood really at all, which I am perfectly pleased with. I find it both intoxicating and innocent, deeply joyful. I don't personally experience it as at all similar to Poinsettia Gown, which I found very heady and perfumey. As a lover of Persephone who doesn't like wearing pomegranate and as a lover of spring, I am so very happy to have this one, and it's rapidly becoming a new favorite.

I was frimped a decant of this and I'm glad I was. I was initially quite confused because I looked it up and found the perfume oil, which shares none of the same notes, and I kept wondering where the pomegranate was! Definitely agree that this is a woodier, sharper Snow White; the snow and oudh notes are pretty evenly balanced on me, and the sweet-woody combination works well. I'm wearing it right now alongside White Rabbit, which helps also to bring out the black pepper note just a bit. It's quite pleasant, and is making me curious about the Snow White HG, which previously I hadn't felt so interested in.

This scent made me lose my mind when I first tried it a few months back, and I feel so tremendously lucky that I was able to obtain a bottle. It feels very special both as a scent unto itself and also for me personally, and, though I know it's difficult to find and so my review won't be a help to many here, I wanted to write one just for the sake of reflecting on my experience with it! Backstory here is that I am a major fan of the novel Dracula, and have been for many years; the novel has been really important in my life in a variety of ways, and still has a very particular place in my heart. As a fan of it I've always tried to champion the characters of the Brides of Dracula, who get so little space in the book, and who so often are represented in adaptations in really misogynistic ways. A lot of my participation in the fandom has been about trying to open up the possibilities for what the undead lives of these characters could have been like, as full people rather than stereotypes. So when I learned about BPAL's Order of the Dragon collection I of course really wanted to try the Brides of Dracula scent for the sake of that connection, but I didn't imagine it could really match or live up to my own associations and experiences with these characters; I tried to keep my expectations low. And Brides of Dracula doesn't seem like much for the first few minutes that I put it on - a hint of spice, of sandalwood, faint floral; a little pretty but nothing special. But something happens as it blooms on my warm skin, and it becomes utterly intoxicating. The skin musk is smooth and sensuous and quietly enveloping; it mingles with a beautiful golden perfumey osmanthus and the sharp edge of the plum blossoms; honey and amber are very well-blended in but each give their own kinds of glow to the scent, unearthly and shimmering. It has very little throw on me, but I don't care; I'm happy with this as a private skin scent just for me. And it lasts for hours upon hours, and gets better and better over that time. Every time I put this one on there are a few minutes where I think maybe I've misremembered how good it is, maybe my sentimentality about the source material has clouded my judgment, but each time I am proven right again. What's so special about this, aside from the fact of whatever perfect alchemy it's doing with my skin chemistry, is the fact that this is a scent for Brides of Dracula as I see and imagine and want other people to see them - beautiful and unearthly and dangerous but also with their own dignity and sorrow. It's not the kind of loud, overtly gothy scent that would be fitting to the movie/pop culture versions of these characters. It's a very special thing to know that this perfume was being made back in 2006 when I was developing my own deeply felt relationship with these characters but had no knowledge of BPAL, and that I get to wear it now, nearly twenty years later. I am so grateful for that.

Sweet fruit nectar, very green and pink, with just an edge of floral and plantlike sensibility under the juiciness. This is very fully realized but just so incredibly not me; it makes me think about how something that's been really interesting for me in exploring BPAL has been experiencing the way different perfumes seem to evoke different types of self-presentations to me, across all different arenas. BPAL has a lot of different variations on what ideas of femininity or masculinity can be or, or what sexiness or sensuality can be, and having the intensely visceral reaction to a scent of "that's me" or "that's not me" is fascinating. Penetralia feels like a sexiness that is just so alien to my own - this is frothy pink lingerie, clean contemporary girlishness. It seems like an edges towards more of a mainstream body spray type scent, but done with a freshness and naturalness that those products never seem to achieve. I'm sure there will be a lot of people who love wearing this (and I think of some in my life to whom I could give my decant!), but I am not one of them.

On me, this is a predominantly lemon blossom scent - a softer, gentler floral lemon, wearable as lemon notes rarely are for me. As it dries down, a warm, caramelized (but not at all foody) sense comes through which I think is the combination of honey, cedar, and amber. Just a hint of frankincense and ylang-ylang for me. There's something very enthralling about this scent, a way that it's at once sensuous and cozy, and I find myself repeatedly smelling it to try to make sense of the experience. It doesn't personally quite feel like me, despite how well-done it is, but I appreciate it very much. On the other hand - on my partner it totally blooms (really all the notes come out, especially the neroli), and feels all of us a beautiful piece; it's a new rival for his favorite scent. So our household is definitely getting a bottle, but probably I won't be the one who mostly wears it.

I like this one a lot! The combination of notes (clove + honey + dark fruit + floral) reminds me a little of some of the Carmillas (especially You Are Mine, You Shall Be Mine.. and Mircalla), but it has a particular complexity all its own. I've been really obsessed lately with the blooming apricot trees in my area, which have a very unique and gorgeous scent - slightly sharp, complex, with that fuzziness characteristic of fresh apricots? It's so difficult to describe. The Ume note in this perfume isn't quite that, but it's the closest I have experienced in a perfume; it's distinct and I love it. The mogra/jasmine, as others have noted, is quite gentle here, very well-blended with the other notes, lending this atmospheric white floral sensibility. The plum is dark and not too sweet, very balanced with the honey and clove. I'm not noticing the lavender, which I'm okay with. Overall, this feels dark and complex without being overwhelming, predominantly floral but not purely so, and subtly sexy.

Hi everyone! I'm on a bit of a floral completionist journey, and one type of floral note I love but don't have in any perfumes at the moment is frangipani, also known as plumeria. I was wondering if anyone had recommendations for any blends that really showcase this note for you, whether one of the current GCs/unimpables I could add to my wishlist or even a past LE I could keep my eyes out for moving forward! In particular I'm wondering if anyone who has tried Delight or Touched Twice can speak to how much the frangipani comes through in those against the other notes? La Belle au Bois Dormant also looks beautiful, both for frangipani/plumeria and also for a number of other florals, but unfortunately that one is out of stock. Thank you for any ideas!