ivyandpeony

ifinena, I found this post in the archive in an old, old thread - someone was looking for Christmas gifts for her sister and had listed Tresor as one of her sister's favorite fragrances for reference. And since this was posted there have been so many new BPAL scents - so maybe we can come up with some new suggestions too. Harikata (from the LE Shunga series) came to mind for me - it's a fruity honeyed floral.

Tresor is a floral, semi-oriental fragrance.

Top notes: rose, apricot blossom, lilac, peach

Heart notes: iris, heliotrope, lily of the valley, jasmine

Base notes: amber, sandalwood, musk, vanilla

 

...

 

Based on the notes in Tresor, I would recommend Tamora (amber, heliotrope, golden sandalwood, peach blossom and vanilla bean). O (honey, amber and vanilla) might be another good one, just don't tell her where the name comes from

 

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I was trying to think of the notes that most often get accused of being "soapy" (like that's always a bad thing). Lilies came to mind immediately, and of course, lavender is a common culprit. Frankincense is very soapy on me but not on everybody. As you try more blends you may find that one of those notes has a soapier, fresher feel on you than you expected it to.

It occurred to me that you might find some good suggestions in this thread - the OP is looking for scents that smell like a baby without the baby powder element, which to me evokes the idea of clean, soapy, warm scents.

I second the Zephyr suggestion. It's clean without being too crisp and bright. And Sudha Segara is a great one, too - very warm yet also clean and bright.

Morocco is gorgeous and to me, it has a wee bit of a soapy quality - the spices could take it out of the "clean" category for you, but if you haven't tried it, it's a BPAL must and you might love it even if it doesn't fulfill this particular quest. The Unicorn is very clean and simple, although the notes listed are predominantly floral I don't find it to be something that screams "floral" at all. Another blend that I find very hard to categorize, but that I think might fit your request, is Oberon - it smelled nothing like I expected from the listed notes (orchid, white musk, bergamot, juniper berries, and patchouli) and it's very soft and clean.

Please feel free to PM me with any questions or feedback.

I've noticed that people are recommending non-BPAL perfumes in their posts here a little more often lately. This really isn't appropriate here, and I'd like to ask you all to keep such discussions of other brands in the subforum designated for them, Retail Therapy, from now on. (This does not apply to posts seeking BPAL scents that are similar to a favorite perfume from another source - those continue to be welcome, of course.)

 

Recs is part of the section of subforums dedicated to Lab discussion, and its intent is for members to be able to seek others' advice about BPAL blends they aren't familiar with themselves. For another member to respond to a request by recommending a scent from a department store line, another e-tailer, or any source other than the Lab defeats this subforum's purposes and confuses people, especially the newbies that we want to welcome and assist.

 

Please feel free to PM me if you have any comments or questions about this or other issues in Recommendations. I don't feel like this is a huge problem yet, and I'm certainly not angry with anyone who may have done this previously. However, since we now have over 6000 members and are adding new members every day, I felt that spelling this out was important.

 

Thanks, everyone, for your enthusiastic participation in Recommendations!

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.

I like Black Tower a lot, but I love Two Monsters. However it's a Salon so not available in imp form (unless you can get a decant from the swap/sale forum). ...

The Salons are actually available as imps, but only as complete sets by exhibition - they weren't available when the Salon first made its debut, but I think when the second exhibition went live they began to offer them. Since they're not available as individual scents, if you are only interested in one or two Salon scents and don't want to commit to a bottle unsniffed, the swap/sale forum is the place to go. (I had no problems swapping or selling the imps that didn't work for me from the Salon set that I purchased, so it's a splurge that I personally would recommend )

I'm looking for blends that are pure unadulterated comestibility. There are a lot of sweet oils that have, say, a floral note or two, or some woods, or a resin, or what-have-you, and I would like to avoid ALL of that. I want to smell sweet and edible and NOTHING ELSE. Can you help?

 

Examples: Bengal (spicy), Eat Me (cakey), Fruitcake (fruity)

Sugar Skull is completely edible, nothing but sugary tooth decay in a bottle! Somehow it smells fantastic too. It's to sugar what Two, Five & Seven is to roses.

I've noticed that people are recommending non-BPAL perfumes in their posts here a little more often lately. This really isn't appropriate here, and I'd like to ask you all to keep such discussions of other brands in the subforum designated for them, Retail Therapy, from now on. (This does not apply to posts seeking BPAL scents that are similar to a favorite perfume from another source - those continue to be welcome, of course.)

 

Recs is part of the section of subforums dedicated to Lab discussion, and its intent is for members to be able to seek others' advice about BPAL blends they aren't familiar with themselves. For another member to respond to a request by recommending a scent from a department store line, another e-tailer, or any source other than the Lab is a bit disrespectful of this subforum's purposes, the Lab, and the original poster, who came here looking for BPAL recs.

 

Please feel free to PM me if you have any comments or questions about this or other issues in Recommendations. I don't feel like this is a huge problem yet, and I'm certainly not angry with anyone who may have done this previously. However, since we now have over 6000 members and are adding new members every day, I felt that spelling this guideline out was important.

 

Thanks, everyone, for your enthusiastic participation in Recommendations!

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. You can also visit this thread, where there's ongoing discussion of other products members have discovered that remind them of favorite BPAL scents.

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 there. This subforum needs to be limited to BPAL questions and recommendations. Thanks, and as always I welcome any questions or comments - just drop me a PM!

I think of clean laundry when I think of babies, I think my SIL was overdosing on the fabric softener back in the day when my teenage niece and her little brother were babies. So I would suggest Dirty from the GC, Enraged Bunny Musk if you are into hunting down past LEs.

...so I think I could try Candy Butcher. Except that's an unimpable, right? I'm still confused about that.

 

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There's a lot to learn and there are so many more blends and categories now than there were when I was a newb *nostalgic tear*, I know it's confusing (and intimidating) for a lot of people. Here are a few tips. You can check the page titled Samples on the Lab's site for the list of the "unimpables" - currently it reads:

Limited Edition

Carnaval Diabolique (which is a subset of LE)

Lunacy Blends / Astrological Blends (also a subset of LE)

The Neil Gaiman Series

The Stardust Series

The Good Omens Series

The Shojo Beat scents (technically these are LEs as well)

Any Twilight Alchemy Lab oils

Any oils offered at Black Phoenix Trading Post (also considered LEs)

Below that you will see a few categories of more expensive oils - for these, you can purchase imps as a set but not individually. Currently those sets are for the Panacea (aromatherapy) blends, the Chakras, and the regular Salons, broken down by exhibit (LE Salons, like the current Shunga series or the world-famous Dogs Playing Poker series from last year, have not been offered in sets of samples though).

Some rules of thumb that I find to work for the most part: General Catalog blends are going to be available as imps as long as they are priced at the "across the board" price, which is currently $15.00. The GC categories that are priced higher, like the Salons and Panaceas, are likely to be offered as sets of imps. Any scents that have a charity component (currently, the Neil Gaiman, Stardust and Good Omens blends) will not have imps available. Limited Edition blends never have Lab imps available.

So you're right about Candy Butcher, because it's in the CD series no imps can be ordered from the Lab. Thousands of happy, smelly people will tell you, though, that it's not too hard to find decanted imp-sized samples of most current and lots of recent LEs in the swaps and sales forums.

You're still pretty new so you have the whole GC glittering before you - you're smart to stick to that for now, IMO. As you try different scents and figure out the notes you like the most & that work best on you, it will help you figure out whether you want to take a chance on the LEs that are offered in the future. Tracking down older LEs can be fun but it can also be very time consuming, frustrating and wallet-draining.

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I'm looking for a deep, dark chocolate scent ...

The Candy Butcher has more of a dark chocolate quality than Bliss does, but both are extremely chocolaty. I'd recommend grabbing an imp of Bliss when you order again, since it's GC - then you can track down a decant of Candy Butcher and compare, and see if the creaminess works with your skin. Gluttony doesn't register as chocolate on my skin but I have this caramel-amping problem, so it turned into a very deep, nutty burnt-sugar toffee for me.

If you are interested in trying some complex and gorgeous (IMO) scents where chocolate plays an important role, I would highly recommend Kali (notes: cassia, hibiscus, musk rose, Himalayan wild tulip, lotus, osmanthus, dark chocolate, red wine, tobacco, balsam and honey), Velvet (cocoa with sandalwood, myrrh and vanilla) and Boomslang (Snake Oil with cocoa, rice milk and teak).

I had forgotten about Alison Gross - it really reminds me of the original Herbal Essence shampoo from the early 70s. I haven't worn it often, but the few times I've thought about parting with it I have tried it on again and just have to keep it.

I wish that sage didn't amp and turn into a crazy, burnt rubber smell on my skin. Out of the more than 30 BPAL scents that contain it, I can count the ones that work for me on one hand and have fingers left over: Croquet, Noche Buena, and Tenotchtitlan. I need to give Green Phoenix another whirl before I decide if it's hit or miss, but it's the only possible addition to the club - I've tried pretty much everything else that lists sage as a note and it has not been very pretty!

Willowtreeling, peach and apricot are extremely iffy on me (the only blends w/peach I can wear are Titania, Snow Angel, Aglaea & The Ecstasy of True Love, and just forget the apricot! Siren does have apricot listed in the notes and trust me, it reared its hideous orange face to mock me when I tried it.)

But nectarine has been a pleasant surprise! Angeronalia was a winner from Yule for me too. I really like Ebisu and it's on my list of bottles I need to pick up before Lupercalia evaporates. The combination of sweet nectarine with the earthy oakmoss and the light, warm musk is really pretty, all three notes balance each other very nicely. I love Croquet too, again the light musk seems to be a really good companion for the nectarine and the citrus notes keep it from being too sweet.

There's nectarine in Butterflies and Plovers, too, but that one wasn't great on me - I think it could be the ylang ylang, which can go either way on my skin. (The notes are blood orange, King mandarin, nectarine, patchouli, violet, ylang ylang, and amber.)

Thanks for resurrecting that post, that observation is hilarious!

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I am less clear about the myriad of other musk descriptors here: Arabian, Chinese, African, skin, warm, golden, green, pale, blue, crystalline, rough, glassy, creeping, gilded, sexual, body, lilac, deep, warrior's, ornery hedgehog...?!

Don't forget honey, vanilla, amber, blonde, crypt (a favorite of mine just for the creativity alone), night, sheer, Kashmir, feral, thuggish, wild, aggressive and furious, not to mention Bandersnatch, cranky groundhog and enraged bunny. There's vegetable musk in one of the Chakra blends, too, which always gives me a funny visual.

I am not an expert on all the musk notes of BPAL, but on my skin I do find that pale, blue, crystalline, Chinese and white musk share a little something in common, at least when I think of the scents that contain those "varietals." I don't know what ornery hedgehog musk is but I like it! I suspect it's in the white musk family. Maybe you can only get aggressive and furious musks from bigger, scarier pretend animals.

Green musk (it's in 51 and Pollution, I know off the top of my head) and glassy musk (Shoggoth) seem to have something in common but that could be that all three of those scents have a certain green quality. Shoggoth seems like it could be a very fruity cousin to 51, and 51 seems like a fruity cousin of Pollution, all on my skin of course.

is there a BPAL that smells like Lush's Retread conditioner? I just love the way it smells! but when I put BPAL in my hair after using it the scents conflict

 

or perhaps something that would compliment or enhance the smell of Retread?

My caveat is that sometimes Lush products smell as different to two people as BPAL scents do - but if Retread smells creamy and fruity with a dominant note of melon to you like it does to me, my suggestions might work.

Earth Rat, which is still available on the LE page, is getting lots of raves from people who love melon notes, although I have not tried it yet. Yemaya is the only GC scent that lists melon as a note and seems dominantly melon (although Ogun contains it in the description, the other notes in it are really strong and people don't seem to smell a lot of melon in it). Also from the GC, Titania smells a little melony to a lot of people as does Tzadikim Nistarim, and some others that get "melon" comments in reviews although it's not a listed note are 51, Eris and Tweedledum. Harder to find LEs and discontinued scents that you might want to grab if you stumble on them: Mi Go Brain Canister, Ingenue, Blue Moon 07 and 04, Fruit Moon and Selkie.

If melon is what you like about Retread you might want to try some of the BPAL cucumber or mango scents too, depending on what they're blended with, these notes can smell similar to some people.

umm..

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cilantro

 

how is cilantro not coriander?

 

Here in the UK it's the same thing, but I've heard American people using cilantro for the leaf and coriander for the seed, I think.

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The wikipedia entry says exactly that - from the same plant, UK residents will call the parts coriander leaf or coriander seed, but that in the US we call the leaves cilantro and the seed coriander. Nutty Americans. That's probably why several Americans have mentioned that cilantro and coriander smell different to them, because to us we're comparing the scent of the leaves to the dried, ground seed.

The enzyme theory is fascinating to me - my in-laws and my husband have always complained that they hate fresh cilantro because it tastes like soap! Maybe they all have that enzyme that makes it taste bad (or lack the enzyme that makes it taste good, the article wasn't specific about that). Nutty Texans.

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edit to add:

You are amazing with the search thing on this forum. I have a hard time with just finding a name let alone as specific as you were. Thanks!

Aw, I have just had a lot of time to practice But I am glad that you found those ideas helpful. The more you fiddle around with the search engine the easier it gets - once I got the hang of the tools that let you limit your searches (like just searching one subforum, getting results back as titles, etc.) I got much better results. But any time you find you need help (that goes for everyone!) just PM me or a mod for the section where you're searching, we're here to help.

I find the scent of cilantro and the scent of coriander to be very different, too. Cilantro is very bright and green, almost a little soapy but in a pleasant way. Coriander is sweeter, deeper and spicier to me although there is a little something similar about the two to my nose.

at the gazpacho scent, sorry...

Virgo 2007 is an extremely green, gardeny, herbal scent - I'd label it the herbal blend for people who think they don't like herbal blends, although those people probably won't ever read this thread It is unique among BPAL blends, I can't think of anything I've tried that it is similar to.

The notes are fennel, valerian, maidenhair fern, carrot seed, honeysuckle, and myrtle. They're extremely well balanced, the notes that made me pause don't stand out at all (like the fennel and valerian). And it doesn't seem to be impossible to find like some LEs, I see it in the swaps forum fairly often.

Black Hellebore is another scent that I found to be very green and herbal without smelling like cooking herbs - herbal in a plant-y, green stems kind of way instead.

BPAL doesn't seem to have made one - or if they have, cilantro wasn't included in the list of notes. Coriander is listed as a note in Tristran, Tenotchtitlan and Tavern of Hell. Although the two may not smell the same to you, you probably know they come from the same plant, so those might be worth trying.

Try a search of the Reviews forum for instances where people have mentioned smelling cilantro (if that link doesn't work, you can do this by going to the forum search form, typing in "cilantro," asking it to search posts and titles and give results as posts). When I did that, I didn't get a lot of results, but more than one person mentioned Spooky (very hard to find), Eden, and Tenotchtitlan. You can also try that search with "coriander" and see if you find some other blends that people seem to detect the note in where it isn't listed.

If you like herbal scents, you can take a look at this thread - if you can't have the cilantro you're craving, you may at least find something else green and herbal that you like. Good luck!

Although today we have alternating rounds of sunshine and snow flurries, the signs of spring have me craving white musk scents. I'm kind of on an anti-fruit kick right now, though, with the exception of citruses.

Dolce Stil Nuovo is really hitting the spot for me, Zephyr might be the best GC white musk scent of all... I need to pull out my bottle of Mr. Ibis for a whirl, and Mania is surprisingly good because the strawberry leaf is fresh and herbal instead of overly sweet (it's stuff like berries and peach and pomegranate that seem to be turning my nose off).

What else do I need to be grabbing?

I remembered this one as a vanilla musk but wanted to be sure... I couldn't track down the notes on her Etsy site or weblog, but found that a couple of forum members here had posted the description in the Ava Luxe discussion thread in RT and that the notes listed were "White Vanilla, White Amber, Milky notes, Musk."

Antique Lace immediately comes to mind, as do Black Opal, Lyonesse and Dorian.

Good luck finding something similar - it's really frustrating when a favorite company pares back production so severely.

Heya-

 

I was just browsing the bpal main site in the CD category, and realize that I've tried Australian Copperhead, but nothing else from CD. So here is my list of my top likes.

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Snake Oil

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Thanks!

Oh, if Snake Oil is a favorite, you owe it to yourself to work your way through the entire Snake Pit! There are so many fantastic blends and unique combinations of notes. I was also surprised that my predictions of what would and would not work on me were not nearly as accurate as usual (which I found sort of fun).

Seconding the Kataniya-Mechanical Phoenix comparison - they are reminiscent of one another although certainly not identical.

From your favorites, it looks like scents that are a wee bit too masculine on me might be fabulous on you (Dee, Hunter Moon, Mechanical Phoenix) and that made me think that Isaac The Living Skeleton and The Organ Grinder might be good bets.

And since you like sweet-spicy (like Chimera, Samhain and Snake Oil) I would suggest The Wild Men of Jezirat Al Tennyn.

I just put on Sea of Glass and it smells like Archangel Winter on me.

 

ETA: someone else already said this...sorry!

No need to be sorry - I think it's good to hear when more than one person agrees on a comparison like this, especially when you both come up with it independently. I haven't smelled Sea of Glass in ages but I really loved Archangel Winter, it was one of my favorite Yule blends from last year. So I'm definitely looking forward to trying Sea of Glass again.

This thread should have come up for you since the word orange is in the title... have you tried limiting your searches to titles only? It can also help to limit to subforum if you see that you're getting a lot of results and want to simplify.

To limit to titles only, you have radio button options on the lower right of the search form (there are four boxes under Refine Search); if you want to limit searches to subforums you do it by highlighting the area you want to search in the pull down box at the lower left of the search forum.

There are quite a few shortcut links by note in this topic, too, just for reference.

There is a small thread with discussion of tangerine & related notes here, but most of the orange discussion is going to be found in this thread.

My Butterflies and Plovers just arrived today and I have a terrible case of the flu, I can't even smell it to begin to compare it to anything else I've tried.

But as far as orange-patchouli blends, I have heard lots of people say Vixen becomes an orange-patchouli on them (even though it has orange blossom listed as a note, not orange itself).

Moxie (one of the Panacea blends) is such a delicious orange-ginger, if you find a patchouli blend you like that would be good with a shot of orange I think it would be great layered.

If you want to get some input on things that may be similar to Butterflies and Plovers, you could also post a request in the LE Equivalents thread.

Galen, that is the one that always comes to mind when people talk about "the Lush shop smell" for me too. Although I can wear all of those notes, for some reason I can't wear them in the combination that is Masquerade, so I just passed my bottle along to a more suitable home. It's such a lovely smell, though, I may have to collect some imps and make some sachets or something I can't let go!

When I have a minute, I need to go thru this thread and compile the most common blends people have suggested for the "Lush smell" and add that to one of the pinned posts, maybe the Short Guide to Common Recs or the one on comparisons to commercial perfumes...

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Does anyone have new suggestions for things that smell like Gavarnie/Flowertub (and Jungle, to a lesser extent)? I still have a sliver of Gavarnie left and I'll be so sad when it's gone, as it seems not to be getting any remake love lately.

We need to get cupide430 in here to answer this, she is the Gavarnie addict and springtime-floral expert! I love those green-floral-springtime BPAL blends, and although I've never thought to myself, "Ooh, exact match for Gavarnie!" both versions of Beltane, One to Tie, Two to Win (which I almost hate to mention), Prague, Pontarlier, Tarot: Temperance (another that's hard to find) and Flower Moon are the ones that come to mind. Garden Path With Chickens is awesome but to me there's a wee hit of something aquatic that takes it over the line from pure flowers, grass & stems - definitely worth a try, though, if you're having a spring fling, Gavarnie party.

There's a thread here about fresh, wet, green florals - when I went to look it up, I noticed that the OP actually mentioned Jungle and Flower Market when she was describing what she wanted. So you might find some ideas there, too.

Viva la Gavarnie! *punches sky*