Leopard403
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High Noon Heliotrope
Leopard403 replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Single Notes, Layering Scents & Simple Blends
I’ve realized I know nothing about heliotrope. Online descriptions mention notes of vanilla, cinnamon, marzipan, and cherry pie. To me, it smells zingy the way citrus does, with a hint of spice. Every year of my life, my mom has bought a mix of autumn-colored mums and put them in a planter by the front door, and this heliotrope blend smells the way I wanted them to smell. -
Rose Moon: Red Rose Petals and Purple Fig
Leopard403 replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Duets & Menage A Trois
This duet is sooooo interesting. It’s deep and unexpected and really hard to describe. Both parts of the blend are slightly past their prime, and I like that. It’s not fresh cut rose or fresh fig; this is more like a red rose bouquet that has just started to sag has been set next to a bowl of sticky, overripe figs. You might imagine a lazy wasp nearby, weaving drunkenly low and slow because of these bursting scents warm from the sun. It’s a deep purple red color, a bruise, a bloody bloom, a hot glass of red wine. It’s dead sexy. -
Flower Moon: Passionflower and Wild Plum Hair Gloss
Leopard403 replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Hair
I don’t know much about passionflower but searches say it can read green, citrusy, or gardenia-like. I am a big fan of the Lab’s plum note, so I bought a deluxe sample of this to try. The blend is a bit more floral than I expected—this is definitely the gardenia version of the scent, with a hint of sappy green—but there is also a nice jammy plum scent just underneath which I really enjoy. I can’t compare it to anything else I know from BPAL; however, if you know Lush’s scent Rose Jam, this HG would be its sister if you replaced that rose note with plum. I use HGs both in my hair and on my body, and sadly the latter seems to have no staying power. It’s here and then gone unless you huff the skin reeeeeally closely. (I tried this both on its own, and mixed with unscented body lotion, with the same results.) It’s a bit better in the hair, but not by much. I’m wondering if this might’ve worked better as an Atmo because it’s quite nice on crisp linens at bedtime. In the end, I am glad I sprang for a 1 oz. decant rather than a smaller one, but I think that’s all I need. -
I am really enjoying Gentle Spring in all its finicky glory: This one’s a morpher! At first it is very reminiscent of the Strawberry Moon blend from the late aughts, all greens, dandelion sap, and ripe strawberry, but then a creamy white floral moves in front. It turns a little soapy, but something about that really works here and I think that’s the skin note. It’s not like smelling a cake of expensive soap, it’s like smelling warm just-showered skin that used expensive soap to lather up. It’s brilliant in its intimacy that way. I think I may buy a bottle.
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I expected a scent called Scarlet Petals to smell RED!!! so the actual experience was an adventure. A nice one. It’s hard to describe, though, because the smell of this blend is mostly about what it’s not. The floral note is there if I look for it, but I think the gardenia (which tends to smell “high pitched” to me) is grounded nicely by the slight spice of carnation. It’s almost more like a soft waxy night blooming jasmine (which, of course, isn’t jasmine at all), and I love it. The black cherry is mostly jammy (no cough syrup here!) and the almond has no overt bitterness. This smells mostly creamy and nutty to me, and complicated, with a top note of something ever-so-slightly fresh, which I think is the white tea. Everything about this blend feels like a surprise and I wish more people were noticing it, but how do you market something when you have to say “forget everything you think you know about those notes and just try it already”? 😆 I’m glad I found it, I might need a bottle.
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I was intrigued by the idea of this blend, if wary of how strong the incense might be, so in the end this was one of my second round Luper decants. I’m so glad I gave it a chance because it’s lovely! Identifiably cherry with nary a whiff of thick cough syrup or fake air freshener; nope, this is very much “face in a bag of chewy dried cherries” at first. This never moves into smoky lit incense stick territory, either, but there is definitely something slightly resinous that grounds the cherry scent and hangs around for a while. I might need more of this.
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Love that this starts off as rose and raspberry, both floral and juicy like you were eating rose jam. It’s well grounded by the other notes, too. Sadly, after about 20 minutes it is mostly white cake on my skin; still nice, but I miss those pink notes.
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My nose and brain don’t know the difference between apricot and peach. *shrugs* This is juicy and fresh and simple at first, but as the notes behind the apricot bloom on the skin it becomes surprisingly sophisticated. I’m considering a bottle purchase.
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2026 version. I have a tough relationship with amber. It tends to read as “the powdered and unwashed” in my mind, a sort of head-shop resin seeping from the pores that someone tried to cover up with cheap talcum powder. And wow, the first time I sniffed my Alleviate decant, I noped right out of there. But I’ve set a goal to review more of the scents that I purchase, to have a better record about what I’ve enjoyed or not, so I did in fact skin test this later, and it did get better! What is aaaaaaaall amber when wet quickly gains a juicy peach note upon drydown. I just wish that lasted longer. “Sugared amber” is definitely the right description for the scent that hangs around past the 10 minute mark, and while the sugar makes it more wearable that straight up amber for me, this blend just isn’t really my thing.
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I want to eat this. Luckily, I have a hookup at my local farmer’s market who sells me whipped raspberry honey, and I can eat THAT, which is basically the same thing.
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This review is for the 2026 version (which has the same description as the original, but I know sometimes components can vary from year to year and change a scent slightly.) Right off the bat this smelled like a pina colada to me, lots of coconut and pineapple are present. Then a lovely nuttiness comes out, though unfortunately with that floofy marshmallow note alongside it, there’s about 30 minutes of early wear time where I smell like a salty boiled peanut. (#IYKYK. Sadly this happens to me a lot with any kind of scent that has notes described as creamy or whipped etc.) After that phase, the fruity notes burn off a bit and it’s a scent that is distinctly vanilla nut, and at that point it stares very close to the skin. Early moments of wear are joyous and bright and I wish the scent remained that way, so I’ll wear my decant but will not upgrade to a bottle.
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White Honey, Strawberries, and Vanilla Cream
Leopard403 replied to doomsday_disco's topic in Lupercalia
For this review, I had literally written the sentence “This smells familiar, but I can’t put my finger on why” and then I had an experience that was part visual memory and part olfactory hallucination, and it came to me. Many moons ago, the TP released a line of bath salts. I was still fairly new to BPAL at that time and was only bold enough to purchase one kind of salt: Kitty. And here’s her review thread. That’s what this reminds me of. WHS&VC smells a bit like strawberry candy and white cake. Had to search white honey and basically it’s a milder version of the usual stuff, so it makes sense I might interpret that as cake. The scent is just shy of smelling like “strawberry sugar” (maybe red Pixie Stix? or Strawberry Nesquik powder?) but something keeps it just slightly grounded. It’s girly and flirty and really nice for spring. (As an aside, who do we petition to bring back those bath salt scents in perfume oil form??) . -
To see so many lovely notes listed for this blend, I find the scent to be disappointingly nondescript. It’s a floral, leaning white and slightly powdery, and it’s butterfly-light both in the decant and on the skin. It might be that the orris is blowing out the rest of the notes for me. It’s a nice smell, dainty and spring-like, but I can’t sink my teeth into it the way I hoped to when reading the description.
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I definitely understand the comparison to a cherry Tootsie pop! I actually wish it had more grass to cut the sweetness. (In fact, I have an old Chaos Theory blend that smells mostly of fresh-cut grass, and I layered a dollop with Doggone It! and it was very nice.)
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I’m surprised by how “juicy” this is, given the scent description and the reviews above: I don’t really get anything candy-like. No identifiable fruit notes, either, but that’s not a bad thing. (Sometimes I *want* to smell “like strawberries” but it’s okay to smell “like fruit” too!) Sandalwood can be really hit or miss for me, and here it is buried just deep enough that at first it offers a powdery puff base note, though with longer wear it tends more toward that plastic doll scent I dread.