BPAL - Halloween: San Francisco 2010

I was so waiting for this decant! The lab's description just sounds too great:

Salt air wafting in from the bay. Rain falling on rain-soaked leaves.

I love the idea behind these "Halloween memory" scents from Beth :o) Thank you for sharing your Halloweens with us!


Lets see what my skin does to it:

Wet this is salty + fresh sort of herbal. I don't associate this one with leaves - for me it is too sharp for leaves.

Dry: This is definitively playing in the "fresh" class! It really reminds me of taking a walk on a foggy autumn morning next to the sea.

But I don't get enough from the leaves in this one - it's only foggy and fresh, that's why it's not really what I was hoping for. It's drawing a nice picture and I really like the idea of it but I don't think that I'll need a bottle of this one. But I'll appreciate my decant.

I could imagine this one on my dragon - will have to ask if he'll finally give in and try his first BPAL! If he should like it, I consider one bottle as a gift for him - always wanted to enable him!

BPAL - Wanda

This was one of the lab's frimps in my last order. So without reading anything - here are my impressions:

Wet: booze!

Dry: First there is some cherry coming trough and the booze is not overpowering any more. This is nice and fresh and feminin on me! And there is a faint floral undertone coming to the surface.

After one hour or so there is mainly rose with a fruity-boozy background to it. No "old lady's rose", I'd say.

Well ... this is nice and I think I'm going to wear it again but it's not something I'll really crave for. Overall conclusion is: Feminin, subtle, an everyday scent for someone liking floral scents with this extra fruity stuff - but not in a foody way.

And what is in the lab's description from this Ars Amatoria blend?

Along with Loviatar, she has become something of a Patron Goddess of all Dominatrixes, Wanda is the breathtakingly beautiful sable-wrapped marble queen of Sacher-Masoch's fantasies. Her scent is a deep red merlot with a faint hint of leather, sexual musk and body heat over crushed roses, violets and myrtle.

Oh okay, so it really was booze in the wet phase! But I really don't get any leather nor musk - but yes, merlot and roses - perhaps with a hint of the myrtle!

But for a Patron Goddess of all Dominatrixes this is somehow demure ... ;o)

BPAL - Ghoulish 2010

I snatched myself some Halloweenie decants - hate to buy bottles unsniffed. And even if these are LE I still want some of them.

So today's scent will be Ghoulish 2010. The lab site says:

This season's Ridiculous Scent! Creepy like Creepy and as spooky as Spooky, this is the scent of a black cherry and coconut amaretto confection gently laced with saffron.

Wet: Gorgeous cherry! Rich and deep and great!

Dry: First this gets spicier. I guess it could be the saffron and the amaretto comes out to play while the cherry is almost gone which is too bad because I really liked it a lot. This is sweet, but not toothaching sweet due to the spicy background. This scent gives a warm feeling to me and reminds my of a fire cracling in the chimney while having a cup of tea and nibble a some gingerbread (even if there is no resemblance to fire or gingerbread in the scent, don't get me wrong here!).

While this is a nice scent I can't see myself wearing it a lot.

After 1h: Oh no :o( This is getting more and more spicy on me like usually only BPAL pumpkin and caramel does. Gnah. It's not that bad that I'd have to wash it away but it's just not good on me.

I'll have to try this one under scent locket conditions (I don't have one yet but I'll change that in the future) - if it should stay the way it's in the wet phase, I'd love it.

edit: I tried this one on a piece of cotton for a scent locket test: It is spicy cherry + amaretto cookies - it's true to the description but I don't really like the spicyness it has - so no, this one is truly not for me.

update: But after 1 day the cotton smells like some wonderful cake/cookie - and this scent stayed for 4 days *sigh* wonderful!

BPAL - Dorian

After several years of BPALing I finally ordered an imp of Dorian from Sin & Salvation. It's one of those legend BPALs that are loved from a lot of people - so it's just time to try it (even if my cold is still lingering).

So, the lab description says:

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself. Inspired by and created for my beloved Tedwin: my eternal, beautiful, wicked Dorian Gray. Refined, elegant, and lovely, with a noble bearing and seemingly gentle air. This blend is an artful deception: a sweet gilded blossom lying over a twisted and corrupted core. A Victorian fougere with three pale musks and dark, sugared vanilla tea.

Wet: Tea, lemon and vanilla - a bit foody. This could be nice!

Dry: Gets more bitter and lemony, right like the black tea my dragon likes to drink.

After some minutes: Unfortunately this goes sour on my skin - very unpleasant. No musks and no vanilla left.

And again: One bestseller BPAL that does not work on me!

One of the rare occasions I had to wash the scent away ... but it reminds me that I still have the unread Dorian Gray book at home.

BPAL shopping

BPAL shopping is a ritual - and it requires a certain amount of patience ...

First I check which bottles I really need. Which is always 1 bottle of Blood Amber + some additional scents.

Then you go to the Lab site and search through the site, make a list with scents that sound good (typically way too many). Usually I stop searching the labs site after a while because I consider it to be too hard to narrow my wishlist later - so better not let it grow too big in the beginning.

After that I go to the forum and search for recommendations and reviews - which usually ends up in adding more and more scents to my wishlist, crossing out a few, reconsidering others.

Then comes the day when I finally allow myself to order - a lot of BPALers do that on lunacy updates (for 1-2 days you can order a special lunacy blend) - I try to avoid all lunacys and Limited Editions because I fear that I fall in love with a scent that might never come back again. So I usually stick to the GC (General Catalogue - which is huge and filled with wonderful blends). And then comes the waiting ... mostly it takes about 3 weeks for my orders to arrive.

And then - after a looooong time - I finally get this magical little parcel filled with beauties ...



4 bottles, 13 imps and a lot of frimps (free imps - I'm so glad the lab tosses them in! Somehow I often end up loving the frimps more than the imps I chosed! ... of course ending up in buying more bottles ... so thank you BPAL!!) and a card.

And then the testing beginns ... usually ending up in trying up to 4 different scents at the same time and asking the dragon "And this one?!" - and after that comes the careful testing, only one scent at the time and allowing it to morph over the hours.

This time the package just arrived at the wrong time - I'm having a cold and my nose is just unfair, depriving me of sniffing thoroughly through my new treasures - but I guess one day my cold has to go away ...