steelfaerie

People have probably already contributed these, but I think Xiuhtecuhtli and Tristran are two of the strangest scents ever.

I adore them both and have gone through multiple bottles of each, but they are in fact very odd.

Okie-doke, here we go. This is my first experience with Chaos, but amber is my favorite, so I had to swallow my trepidation and buy two bottles.

#33.

From the git-go I can tell that this is not going to work. In the bottle it smells like straight bubblegum, which is just a no-go. There is some kind of fresh woody smell underlying that. Interestingly, this is the fullest bottle I've ever seen - it's full, basically, to the lip of the bottle.

On skin: Yup, bubblegum. Bubblegum and (because my skin chemistry is terrible) urinal cakes. Where is the amber? I feel like this could definitely work for someone else, but it just won't work for me. As it's drying, a cool scent is also coming out in there that I can't pinpoint.

No. No, no, no.

#55.

Okay, this has potential. In the bottle it is warmer than #33, deeper and rounded.

On skin: Oh my gosh, this is really beautiful. Wet, it reminds me of Pink by Victoria's Secret, only... you know, good. As it dries... holy crap, this is very hard to pick notes out of. The amber is definitely there. I feel like the amber is making the rest of the notes glow, somehow. There are florals in there - maybe very light, white florals. There is also a very faint underlying incensey smell. This is gooooooood. Oh, here comes the incense -not overpowering, but stronger, meshing with the other scents and blending it into this mysterious-smelling deliciousness. This one is gorgeous.

I was so excited for this and it was a horrible letdown. In the imp it smelled REALLY nutty and buttery, but on my skin I got the mental image of being in a stinky craft store and the guy behind the counter was drinking a big old cup of medicinal Theraflu. I get no fig and no wood.

Not my bag.

Okay, Prada's eau de parfum lists:

Bergamot Oil Italian, Orange Oil, Bitter Orange Oil, Mandarin Flower, Mimosa India, Rose Absolute ABS, Schinus Molle ABS LMR, Peru Balsam, Patchouli Oil LMR, Raspberry Flower, Labdanum Resinoide LMR, Tonka Bean ABS LMR, Vanilla Absolute, Musk, Sandalwood Oil.

And BPAL's "The Sea Rat" from the 2008 Wind in the Willows lists:

Seaweed, ambergris, and sea buckthorn berry with exotic herbs, incense smoke, ship wood, and Burmese musk.

Yet on me, the two scents are all but identical. I don't know if my chemistry has gone absolutely haywire or what, but I can't tell the different between these two.

Too bad 10ml no longer exist! I think i need 10ml of Xiuhtecuhtli! And quite possibly of Antique Lace and Dorian as well!

I'm with you - I'm on my third bottle of Xiuhtechuhtli. 10mls would be more economical, but I understand why they stopped making them. And I'm A+ in favor of anything that speeds up turn-around-time so I get my precious faster!

My all-time favorite apple scent is the magnificent Hesperides!

Alas, this may as well just be a vetiver single note for all it does for me. I can't even smell anything else when it's wet in the imp.

Where are you, musk and tamarind? Wahhhhh.

I love this stuff. The balsam and amber come out in my bathtub and make me never want to get out. I haven't tried it on my hair yet, but this is definitely the kind of smell I'd like my hair to have, so I'll have to give that a whirl. I've got two bottles of this and I hope I can pick up some more from folks who aren't crazy about it!

You know, I can see where other people get the candle badness, but it doesn't happen to me. This goes on sweet and fruity and dries down into utter magnificence. It loses a bit of the straight-up sweetness as the clove comes out and just becomes sexy. I normally HATE fruity scents but I have a whole bottle of March Hare. I generally treat it as a summer scent because the fruit to me seems very summery and warm-weathery (although the bees like it too, alas). It's both a bright scent and a dark scent. It's just heavenly.

*loves it severely*

In the bottle, I got all excited because I perceived a vague similarity to my beloved Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, and I am fruitlessly searching for a GC to replace it in my heart and nose.

However, once applied, my skin turned Cthulhu to crap like it does with most things that I really want to love. Within 30 seconds it had transformed into strong, cheap men's cologne on me and I was scrubbing it off with alcohol. Win some, lose some. Sigh.

Oh my gosh, that bottle is so cute, and the squat green one is too!

Personally, I do believe that BPAL is all-natural - but that's only from what I've read on the forum, not from the site itself. Why not be proud of this and state it clearly in the FAQ?

I completely agree, ClareN. It seems to me like this nitpicking over what the phraseology means has been going on for long enough. I really would love some actual clarification.

For a light, appley scent, I am really amazed at how Hesperides is capable of lasting at least a whole day and sometimes two. I put it on at 8 AM, it's 4:30, and I can still smell it strongly without even huffing my wrist. o_o;

Nocnitsa smells like pure pine on me with a sort of underlying sweetness. I wear it constantly, as the tree smells are some of my favourite notes. I was apprehensive about it turning into air freshener, but no, it stays moist and wet-pine smelling. It's absolutely fantastic, and the longer it's worn, the sweeter it becomes.

I was resistant to even trying Antique Lace because the foody smells are not one with me. I don't fancy smelling like vanilla; I avoid the note as a rule.

I finally decided that I needed to see what all the fuss was about. Today is the first day I'm wearing it, a rainy awful day, and I'm sitting at my desk and I can't stop smelling my hands. Oh my lord. The linen is coming out in full force, the vanilla is completely unoffensive, smooth and lovely, and the florals are floating dreamily in the background. This may be the most "girly" BPAL scent that I have become attached to thus far. I feel extremely feminine wearing it and very sophisticated.

I'm going to buy a bottle at the will-call.

Wait, wait, is Love Spell the one that smells like Fruit Roll-Ups?

I just got my new bottle of Silk Road and it smells like a cinnamon single note. *groans* I'm not sure if my skin chemistry changed somehow or something is amiss with the blending, but this particular bottle smells like getting hit in the face with a bat made of cinnamon. It smells nothing like the amazing notes in the imps.

Oh my god. I know exactly of the smell you are referring to, and if I could smell like that (or make my entire house smell like it) I would be a damn happy person.

*ponders*

For me the dirt came through immediately, very strong - flowers in the moist, black earth - it was instant love.

Unfortunately I'm getting a little bit of the butter now on the drydown, and it's making me feel uncomfortably like a movie theatre employee. I'm not getting any of the perfume on me, but the dirt is very, very pleasant once the butter scent eventually fades away.

The reviews of this made it sound so pastoral and gorgeous that I was aching to give it a try.

In the bottle it smelled like pleasant light florals, a bit heavy on the jasmine and lavender (which is fine for me, I love jasmine). Then I made the crucial mistake: actually applying it to my skin.

The first couple of seconds were okay until the steep and evil downturn into The Land of Soap From Whence There Is No Return. Seriously, I smelled as if I had been rolling around in powdered laundry soap in my birthday suit - the soap smell was powerful and had an amazing amount of throw. Within minutes my nose was running, followed by several explosive sneezes.

I'm still scrubbing my arm with an alcohol swab. Apparently this one is really dependent on chemistry, at which I fail, again. To the swaps!

You know... my overwhelming adoration this is almost peculiar, given that I really, really hate plums.

Notwithstanding, I think I am in love. As others have noted, it does quite smell like a country store - and I'll be damned if it's really not a bad thing. Spicy, autumnal and delicious. And among the Mad Tea Party scents I've tried so far, Bandersnatch alone has a great deal of throw on me. I am pleasantly aware of it without having to do the delightful wrist-huffing motion we all know so well.

Win.

Oh, man. I pulled this back out as part of the Autumn Oil Fiesta I'm currently having, because it's about six hundred degrees here in DC and I'm longing for fall.

This is definitely my favourite of the Patch scents. Not as foody or comforting as the others, in this one I'm sitting in a dark pumpkin patch with a chill wind, smelling a nearby wood - and further beyond the wood, someone is having a fire. Yet it's not a spooky or lonely smell at all, really. More like I'm just kind of chilling in the Patch, maybe waiting for the Great Pumpkin.

I'm going to flit about the apartment wearing this today and try to forget that it's hot enough to cook an egg on the sidewalk.

Fnargh. I obtained a decant of Samhain 06 from someone over on Livejournal, as I've been intent on getting my greedy little hands on as many fall scents as possible before fall actually gets here. I was so excited when it arrived in the mail yesterday.

Unfortunately, my skin chemistry turned on me again. Pure Vicks Vap-O-Rub, no chaser. The entire scent progression goes from a light almost-cinnamon straight down Vap-O-Rub Street within seconds.

I'll be passing this one on and hoping the imp of Samhainophobia I've got coming in will agree with me a little better. *mourns*

I'm a newb to the forum, but I had been using Neo-Tokyo for several years before it was DC'd and am currently also on a quest to replace it properly.

To second what someone said above, I did not find Manhattan to be similar whatsoever. The two go in completely separate directions when applied to my skin. Ultraviolet definitely has a similar cool/airy mojo working for it, but it does the mint thing for me way too much.

I will let you know if I stumble upon an appropriate successor, though.