ivyandpeony

I'm one of the few people who didn't click with Black Lace. It was super-heavy masculine tobacco on me to the exclusion of all the other notes. I love Snake Charmer but it is a va-va-voom scent so I don't slather it on every day - still, my collection wouldn't be complete without it. I find Mme. Moriarty to have lots of red musk in comparison to SC. Regardless of which one you choose, I am sure you can swap it for something else that's equally sought-after if it turns out to be a disappointment!

I am pretty sad to see that the Salon series is going to be discontinued as of July 30th. I have quite a few favorites in that category and I'm hoping that I haven't missed any treasures that I wasn't aware of. So anyway, I thought I'd start a topic so we can all share info about our favorites as we plan final orders for those scents. Please share your favorites. My big faves are: And There Was a Great Cry in Egypt (Dark myrrh, white sandalwood, amber, hyssop, frankincense, honey, cypress, red musk, cardamom and saffron) - gorgeous spicy ambery red musk. If you love red musk blends, this one really needs to be in your collection. The Fox-woman Kuzunoha Leaving Her Child (White tea, cherry blossom, wisteria, star jasmine, and teak) - a light floral despite the wisteria, the white tea & cherry blossom lighten things up Three Brides (Moroccan rose, king mandarin, red sandalwood, Egyptian amber, orchid, carnation, benzoin, tonka, calla lily, vanilla flower) - just gorgeous, a little more "formal" in feel than some of my simple favorites Itasô Kansei Nenkan Jorô No Fûzoku (Osmanthus, white honey, ti leaf, hibiscus, and sugar cane) - I love the blends that have an Asian feel and this is another favorite of mine. Sweet without being sickly sweet and lightly floral. Philosopher in Meditation (Smoldering woodfire embers, Galen''s Kyphi, and Abramelin incense) - such a deep and intense incense scent. It's like a cranked up version of Sri Lanka or Midnight Mass. Schlafende Baigneuse (Skin musk, white cream, honeycomb, yellow rose, King mandarin, chrysanthemum, golden amber, honeysuckle, and wide-throated yellow monkey-flower accord) - you can probably tell I love florals and this one's really special. The mandarin, chrysanthemum & amber offset the sweet flowers and provide a bit of a spicy base.

I'm really excited about the myrrh single note! I love resins and I can ID frankincense and amber pretty easily, but I think sometimes myrrh gets tromped by other notes.

I think Antaria's advice is spot-on. Grab any "holy grail" LEs that happen to come along while you're pregnant and you can swap or sell them later if they end up not working or if your chemistry decides that a certain note doesn't work anymore. Congratulations!

Hi there pznivy! I am sorry that you were disappointed in your first imps - but hopefully you feel better after getting so much good advice from other members. I wanted to give you a link to an existing thread - Why do scents turn to baby powder on me? Feel free to continue the dialogue here - ultimately I will probably merge this thread into that one so the valuable discussion will be there for whoever may need it.

For a figs & honey scent, Hetairae would definitely be my pick. Those are the predominant notes on my skin. When I sampled the White Sandalwood and Fig hair gloss, I got so much sandalwood that I am having trouble remembering exactly what type of fig is in it! Eden is a really bright green fig scent - it is lovely, but it's very different from Hetairae to me. Hetairae is rich, dark, ripe figs.

I thought I would bump this thread since we have vetiver single note available from the Lab this month. Here's my take on it! Vetiver isn't a note that I can wear often - I actually like the smell of it but it's usually bad when it's on my skin. It amps up and doesn't ever mellow for me. Still, I love it in a couple of blends, particularly Tombeur. I smell it in a lot of blends where smoke or leather are listed as notes. It also seems to age really well. Older bottles of vetiver-containing blends seem much smoother to me. If I had to recommend vetiver scents, Tombeur would be first for me and I would also encourage everyone to try Azathoth. So what are your recs? Do you have any "vetiver for the vetiver-adverse" recommendations? Are you going to buy the single note while it's available?

Rose Red is the scent that makes me think of a florist's shop - but now you all have given me the idea to try it layered with Spanish Red Carnation.

Just a mod note - I had to unapprove quite a few posts in this thread that were recommending scents from other companies and steering people to other retail sites. Please remember the place for those discussions is in Retail Therapy and not in BPAL Recommendations. If you are curious, you can read more about this in the pinned threads at the very top of the Recs index. Thanks!

Lehua is a scent that Villainess has done as an exclusive for The Soap Box company - I opened my little jar of Smooch and thought, "Oh wow! Ace of Hearts!" They aren't mirror image twins, of course, but finishing your bath or shower with Lehua Smooch would set a lovely stage for Ace of Hearts. For those who weren't around the BPAL world in the spring of 2005, Ace of Hearts is the absolute pinnacle, end-all and be-all of BPAL white florals and possibly my favorite LE of all time, with the exception of Snow White - they fight it out in my brain all the time. I would encourage anyone who loves white florals to go hunt down a bottle of it, and go to the Villainess page at The Soap Box Company and get you a Lehua fix. (I did notice that Lehua soap and smooch are sold out at the moment, but since they haven't been removed from the site altogether, I am pretty sure that means that they will be restocked.)

Why, ivyandpeony, I had no idea we were scent-sisters! You've only omitted Arrival on the Sabbath from my Salon favorites, and you've introduced me to Philosopher in Meditation which I had overlooked based on the notes. The Asian-styled ones don't appeal so much to me, but you interest me... <looks speculatively at the casually rejected imps...> As I sadly retest imps before the Demise of the Salon, I've added Madonna and The Cup of Death to my possibles, as well as Philosopher. I'll be watching this thread and reading reviews as well - what will I regret missing? I wanted to love Arrival on the Sabbath but I have a terrible caramel problem. It is heartbreaking, but every blend with caramel that I've ever tried does two things on my skin. First the caramel note keeps amping and amping til it's all I can smell, then it morphs into a burnt-sugar-on-the-bottom-of-the-oven instead of a creamy caramel. It's a curse, I tell you - I just look at the notes for that blend and swoon. I checked my wishlist & I have Love and Pain & Le Mort Qui Danse on there. . . will have to dig up the imps I have and re-test before I decide. I have some other Salons in my box of loot as well, so I'll try to remember to go thru and post mini reviews of those ASAP.

This was the latest announcement about shipping rates, from January of this year. Could it be that you were eligible for the flat rate shipping this time around? At today's exchange rate, 19 USD is about 12.35 BPS.

I did leave a message for the review moderators about Frederic, so they won't be confused about what we've chatted about.

Yes, you are right about that. My point is just that if you are anxious to review the new version of Frederic, go ahead and post it in the old thread and report your post. When the review mods make the new thread (in fact, if they are off schedule creating new threads this will remind them), they can move your review of the new version to the new thread. Or was there something I am missing? This won't help you if you are just interested in reading new reviews, of course.

If you're ready to review it, you could just post your review in the original Frederic thread and report the post. If the review mods are going to start a new thread for the current version, they can send your post to the new thread when it is created.

Since today is Valentine's Day I thought it would be a good time for us to start chatting about this. What Lupercalia scents are this year's must-haves? Did any disappoint you? Did you discover an incredible sleeper hit that no one will know about unless you recommend it here? I have to confess - I haven't tried any yet! But I have quite a wishlist and hope to be placing my order ASAP.

Absolutely! Remember that customer service is there for exactly these moments.

Hey bookandbroom - I just got my 2/14 order yesterday. The CnS came on Tuesday 2/28. So if you don't see anything soon, I'd drop the Lab a line, but I don't think you're quite in danger turf yet. In fact, I think my order might have come sooner but I ordered a bottle of Theotokos along with a bunch of Lupercalias. I think most of the Lupers are shipping quickly but Theotokos was a newer one waiting to be blended and bottled. Good luck!

No worries at all, y'all! I actually had just made the posts invisible, but then I forgot to PM those people, and then I remembered that the newest version of the forum software doesn't let the OP view their "invisibilized" posts, then all of a sudden at least 36 hours had passed

I'm 46 and I TOTALLY want to feel 20!! I have The Vine on the way to me so I can't give you a review of that, but I love Endymion. It's a really nice combination of white musk, woody notes and creamy pear.

Just one of those periodic bumps. Please feel free to PM me with any concerns, questions, issues, etc.

Please feel free to PM me with any questions or feedback. I'm bumping this because this has been happening a little more than I'd like lately. With the increased size of the catalog and the huge increase in membership, I think it's important that this area remain devoted to BPAL only. If members are interested in recommendations for other brands, we have Retail Therapy for that. It's hard enough to navigate the longer threads about more popular notes (vanilla, patchouli, etc) and keep track of the BPAL recs, and I don't like the idea of turning this General Perfume recs subforum for that reason and the reasons I stated in my first announcement. The one exception that I think may be appropriate is when there truly is no BPAL scent that can be recommended - for example, the recent thread about cilantro or the bakery scent earlier this year, where someone wanted something that smelled like bread. So if you are looking for recommendations for general vanilla scents or what have you, by all means visit Retail Therapy, it's there for you to enjoy and the sky is the limit. This subforum needs to be limited to BPAL questions and recommendations. Thanks.

Hi guys - just a quick comment about recommending other companies' perfumes in this section. Some time ago we got to the volume of posts and membership where opening this section up to other companies' scents was going to make it a big free-for-all mess. It's not something I even issue reminders for, but periodically I bump the post that's here: http://www.bpal.org/topic/42782-please-bpal-recommendations-only-in-this-subforum/ Feel free to contact me with any questions, concerns, etc.

I love the illustrations! And the recommendations too.

thanks for your input, Alethia! I am a big, BIG floral fan too. The only ones that haven't worked for me have been scents with two extremely assertive floral notes, like lilac and wisteria together or jasmine with another sassy, assertive floral. I am always drawn to the florals with every update and this time around Lady in Speckled Pink Kimono really caught my eye.