BPAL - Gingerbread Poppet 2010

So close to Christmas we need more BPAL Yules!

Freshly applied this is for 2 seconds sweet cream (hate those 2 minutes, it's just far too sweet) and after those 2 seconds it's warm gingerbread fresh from the oven! Love it!

Dry: ... ?!

I tested this scent already a few times and always loved it! It lost a bit of the spicyness and turned into a sort vanillary gingerbread which was delightful. Today something is utterly wrong. It smells like plastic on me! It never did before! I guess that it's best to stop the testing today - my skin seems to be in a funny mood - or my nose. Will come back for this one!

Later: Okay, now it's back to normal! :o) Plastic gone, cookie back. Spicy, sweet and gives an overall good feeling.

It seems to have some throw - but I can only catch it when I attach my nose to my skin ... but a coworker told me "you smell sooooo good" - and was standing 1m away from me.

Verdict for me: A bottle please!!

Oh, but let's have a look at the lab's description!

Warm, cozy gingerbread spiced with nutmeg, clove and cinnamon.

Yes, can confirm that :o)

BPAL - The Waltz of the Snowflakes 2010

And the next Yule - this time from The Nutcracker.

Wet: The first second this is heavy and creamy - but right after that it turns into a mint scent with vanilla and some woods in the background.

I'm not a real big fan of mints ...

After a few minutes the mint blends in with the creamy-woody vanilla and it's just intriguing and wonderful. Comfy but not boring.

And now the lab's words:

The Snow Queen and Snow King greet Klara and the Nutcracker Prince as they journey through the Enchanted Forest: vanilla-laced snow, graceful and sweet, with fir needle and black pine bark.

Yes, fits :o) Vanilla + snow = mint, a bit wood from the bark and I guess the fir needle makes it so special.

After several hours this gets a chocolate note - I like the morphing of this one and it's so unique to me - definitely a bottle of this one!

BPAL - Jolasveinar 2010

It's Christmastime, right? So lets have a sniff at the BPAL Yules. BPAL Yules seem to work a lot better on me than the Weenies - so I guess it'll be difficult to figure out which ones are bottleworthy - or better: Which ones I can affort!

Let's start with Jolasveinar 2010!

Wet: Soap with some gingerbread!

Dry: The soap takes off more and more - the stage welcomes sweetmint and a light wood scent. The gingerbread have disappeared. After some minutes a light iced fruit scent blends into the woods and takes back the sweet mint.

This seems to be one of the few BPAL scents that does not turn sweet on me - quite nice! It's fresh and nice and cool. The more I sniff on it, the more it reminds me of a less sweet and less artificial but more herb "Cool Water" - strange!

Time to have a look at the description! The lab says:

The Jólasveinar are the seventy-some offspring of Grýla and Leppalúði, an ogre couple with a taste for chomping naughty children. This impish brood delights in causing discomfort, sowing confusion, and all-out raising hell during the Yule season. Their names are indicative of their malicious intentions -- Strap Loosener, Door Slammer, Window Peeper, Sausage Snatcher, Doorway Sniffer, Icebreaker -- and their creepy natures -- Lamp Shadow, Smoke Gulper, Crevice Imp. The devillish Jólasveinar finally cease their mischief and head for home at Þrettándinn.

Their scent is a mishmash of snow, dirt, Icelandic moss, marsh felwort, and the smushed petals of buttercups and moorland spotted orchids, with the barest hint of the scent of pilfered Christmas pastries.

Wow - somehow this doesn't match ... or does it? Snow = hint of mint ... no dirt in this one ... moss - yes, at least a little bit of it ... marsh - perhaps the soapy thing in the beginning? ... can buttercups and spotted orchids turn into something icy-fruity? The pastries have been there in the first seconds. Okay, perhaps this does add up after all! :o)

Anyway, this one is nice an different from my other BPALs and it's on my "would like to get a bottle" list!

And this one would be great on my dragon, will have to dab some on him.

BPAL - The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

This was a frimp from the lab :o)

Wet: warm fruit with a hint of spice and a background of grass and hay

Dry: still fruity but without any tartness to it. Perhaps sweet pear + something floral. Good that the spicy feeling didn't stay, in the first moment it felt like one of whose "spice" scents that make me nauseous and my skin amps them like crazy - instead it turned into a kind of honey underneath the fruit.

Later. Whoa ... this is just getting sweeter and sweeter, the honey seems to grow on me. Time to have a look if there even is honey in this blend from Rappaccini's Garden:

Whiffs of cinnamon bark, almond, and spikenard surround a perfect fruit, whose scent is akin to a tamarind, with the grace of a fine grape, as warm and rich as a fresh fig, glistening red like pomegranate seeds, and as crisp as an apple.

No honey. But okay, something like tamarind! Yes, that explains the sweetness. I really can't get any apple nor pomegranate - there could be a hint of grape - but it's a really overripe grape.

No no no, this just is not the right scent for me, far too sweet! I'm not the fruity scent person anyway but if I wear a fruitscent I want it to be fresh.

Easy verdict: Absolutly no bottle ;o)

BPAL - Haunted

Wet: Sweet citrus

Dry: Still citrus - this is funny because I pretested this scent a few weeks ago and back then it was a amber-foody beauty I adored - but now it's ... just so different! I'm not a citrus-fan, so this one is really not my alley.

Lets have a look at the lab's description under Ars Moriendi:

A mournful, poignant scent, thick with foreboding. Soft golden amber darkened with a touch of murky black musk.

Well - obviously my skin is confused. Back at the first test I knew that this scent should not be foody. Now it's not foody but fruity and that's wrong too. I just don't get it.

Both scents don't fit the description at all - todays citrus is everything but not mournful - it is sunny and happy. And the warm amber scent is very comfortable and nice - perhaps hauted by a nice blanket to wrap myself in ;o)

A bit later: Now it's baby-powder ... dead on.

A lot later: Aah, now it's like the first time I used it - amber and a bit foody, really nice. I'll have to think about this one. My favorite amber scent is still Blood Amber - and I'm not sure if I want to wait more than one hour for this scent to become nice. Without Blood Amber I guess I'd go for this one. I'll have an eye on it while the imp ages a bit, perhaps it becomes better, otherwise this won't pop up my bottle wishlist.

BPAL - Halloween: Brooklyn 2010

I confess: I just ordered this decant because I loooove NYC - so I just had to have this one, even if the labs description did not call out for me:

Flowering dogwood, weeping cherry, Korean pine, camellia, moonflower, Alberta spruce, arborvitae, and crab apples.

Wet this is a sharp scent. Aquatic mixed with smashed floral stems and a hint of some sour fruit.

As it dries down it gets a lot more gentle. Now there are wet trees, and wet leaves on the gravel in a park.

My skin seems to eat this one - it has no trow at all - which is too bad because it is a very interesting scent. It's not a "perfumy" scent to me - it's just very beautiful, conjuring up a perfect park scene after a heavy rain, paired with some melancholic thoughts.

I can't pick out the scents listed in the labs description - but on the other hand I don't know most of these scents ;o)

Cotton-test: On my cotton piece it's the fresh and aquatic scent with some crushed stems but without the fruits. Pleasant and rainy.

Verdict: I'm torn about this one. I only want to buy bottles of scents I'll truly want to wear - and I don't want to wear this one. But it's so nice - on my skin and on the cotton, even - or perhaps because - those scents are so very different. I enjoy sniffing it every few minutes ... but I wouldn't want somebody else to sniff it on me. So perhaps I should just keep my imp and enjoy it ... but I'm not determined yet.

BPAL - Satyr

Wet this reminds me a bit of Lush Tramp - not that it's the same scent, it's only the same feeling.

It's really hard for me to pinpoint what this scent could be. Musk and something wooden? A dab patchouli? A hint of lavender?

As it dries it's a lot like Czernobog which I looooooove. It looses the disturbing complexity it had in the wet phase and becomes sweeter and softer but still a bit wild and extraordinary.

I'll have to do a comparison between Czernobog and Satyr. Wet I like Czernobog better - but dry I'm not sure.

But lets have a look at the BPAL homepage, Ars Amatoria. The lab doesn't reveal a lot about this one:

Unleash the bawdy, unrestrained passion of the satyr! A ferociously masculine scent: sexual, vigorous, and truly wild.

Sexual: yes. Masculine: perhaps. Wild: a bit. Anyway: Dry it makes me want to eat my hand! It's gorgeous and will go right to my "need a bottle" list - and I'd love to try it on my dragon!

But this won't be a typical "go to" scent for me like Blood Amber. Blood Amber feels like a blanket I can cuddle in or like a second skin. It just feels "me" - Satyr is more "what I'd like to be" or "that's my mood today".

edit: Several hours later this becomes powdery in the best way possible - still in love with this one!

BPAL - Punkie Night 2010

Another Halloweenie from this year! The lab description says:

Once upon a time, on a wild October night many years ago, a fair took place at Chiselborough. The men of the village of Hinton St. George made their way to the fair, and spent the night in revelry, drinking and carrying on, far into the darkest hours. Their wives grew concerned, and went looking for their unruly husbands. In order to see their way through the autumn gloom, they hollowed out mangel-wurzels and crafted them into makeshift lanterns. The drunken men, in their sloshy haze, saw the ghostly lights approaching, and believed them to be goolies -- the furious spirits of unbaptized children. In terror, they fled in panic from their bemused, bewildered wives.

To this day, that night of foolishness is still celebrated! This is a light-hearted scent: apple orchards, bright cranberries, and a touch of warm cider.

Wet this is fresh and crisp, green apple! Nice, authentic and crisp.

After a while it seems get a floral sidenote, but it's very discreet.

Dry: It gets warmer and I can get some cranberries, but they stay in the background. It's still mostly apple but the cider part adds something mellow to it and gives it a boozy feeling (still wearable in public without someone thinking you drank ;o) ) - it's not the fresh cut apple anymore.

I like this scent, but I'm not often in the mood for a warm, cozy fruit scent. I'll keep my decant but I won't need a bottle of this one.

Still in regard to the day I'll get my scent locket, I tested this one on a piece of cotton to see how it behaves without my skin altering it.

Comparing my wrist to the piece of cotton approx. 45min after application:
While my skin turned this one into a warm scent, the scent on the cotton is still fresh. It's all about freshly cut apple with a really tiny hint of cranberries, no cider noticeable at all. I prefere the cotton version because of it's authenticity and freshness but I'm not tempted to buy a bottle of this for scent-locket use. While it is a beautiful apple scent, it's "only" an apple scent. I wan't more from a perfume than the feeling of a single note. But I'd like this scent as a room scent ... perhaps placing the cotton piece on my heater will help me with that ;o)

Update: The cotton peice on the heater is more red apple scent, a bit warmer than before - nice roomscent!

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 ...

BPAL - Khephra

A random BPAL, this time a discontinued one (it was from The Stations of the Sun: The Midnight Sun):

Hail unto thee who art Khephra in Thy hiding, even unto Thee who art Khephra in Thy silence, who travellest over the heavens in Thy bark at the Midnight Hour of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Evening.

Wet: I can't pick out any specific note but some cardamom ... this is just something golden and warm to me (I usually write my own thoughts before I go to the lab and read their description - somehow I wouldn't have thought the Midnight Sun to be such a warm and golden scent!).

Dry: The cardamom fades a bit, some soap appears ... and something herbal comes out to play. Herbal-floral. Perhaps camomille?! Nice but light. Suits this rainy day. Despite the soapy undertone in this one it's a very nice and warm scent which gives me a comfortable feeling.

Verdict: It's okay, even nice - but nothing I need more of. Other BPALs suit me much better and give me a warmer feeling overall.

BPAL - Bon Vivant

Random BPAL from Bewitching Brews. The lab writes:

An effervescent blend of crystalline champagne notes and sweet strawberry.

Wet: Artifical boozy scent, sparkling and fresh. No strawberries yet.

Dry: Gets sweeter and looses the sparkling scent and becomes nicer - reminds me of a bodyscrub I once had. I still don't get strawberries which is too bad because I love strawberries ...

Becomes a fresh and fruity, light scent. Pleasant but just not the right thing for me.

BPAL - Kill-Devil

Lets grab a new random BPAL! Again from Bewitching Brews:

"Rum punch is not improperly called Kill-Devil; for thousands lose their lives by its means. When newcomers use it to the least excess, they expose themselves to imminent peril, for it heats the blood and brings on fevers, which in a very few hours send them to their graves."

Sugar cane, molasses, oak wood, and honey.

Wet: Very sirupy.

Dry: Sweet, a bit mossy with a hint of wood. Not unpleasant but also not really my thing. And somehow this one is a very flat scent - I more fond of the complex BPALs. But this one could be nice for layering!

Still this one would be a good choice for a cold and sunny day, perhaps for a walk on a fair or something like that.

And while this is sweet, I'd still consider it to be unisex because it's sweet + masculine undertone.

BPAL - Black Forrest

Another random BPAL from Bewitching Brews.

This is the captured scent of a cold, moonless night, lost deep within the darkest wood. Haunting and desolate, this scent evokes images of fairy tale tragedy and half-remembered nightmares. Thick, viscous pine with ambergris, black musk, juniper and cypress.

Wet: Shower gel "Aqua". Cheap, soapy, blue with something sweet underneath (well, no wonder, I ruen everything sweet, right?!)

Dry: Still soapy, a bit piney - only the sweet note is a bit more prominent.

I don't really get the picture of a forrest from this one since there is a sweetness to it, I can't see any dark night or cold or desolate feeling in it.

After 1h: soap + shower gel seem to vanish and leave a nice sweet piney scent with something sour behind ...

My skin might spoil it - I think I'll try it once on my dragon, otherwise it gets a "no" from me.

BPAL - Bliss

A favorite of mine :o)

It's from Bewitching Brews and the lab description says

A shot of pure, self-indulgent euphoria! A scent that is very, very wicked in its own way: the serotonin-slathered scent of pure milk chocolate.

This is far from milk chocolate on me! It's the scent of my favorite chocolate cake the moment you take it from the oven and the whole room becomes one big yummy!

It's not too sweet and has a tart edge. I really love it!

My dragon and my mom think that it is masculine - and they don't get the chocolate at all - while my coworker agreed with the hot chocolate cake.

This scent is just perfect for cold and rainy days because it's like a blanket I can wrap around me. It definitively cheers me up and gives a warm feeling - and makes me crave for chocolate :o(

BPAL - Cathedral

The next random BPAL from Sin & Salvation:

Venerable and solemn: the scent of incense smoke wafting through an ancient church. A true ecclesiatical blend of pure resins.

Wet: Somehow soapy with a nice spicy background and a touch of eucalyptus.

5min: This reminds me of Aureus, I think ... it's somehow pleasant but the soapy note is distracting.

Dry: The soap is gone, the spice (guess it's the incense) is still there and is now accompanied by a very dry, wooden scent. Nice!

After 1h - either the scent almost gone or nose is stuck! There is only a light scent left, a bit spicy and somewhat nice but I really have to put my nose on my skin to smell it.

Verdict: A nice scent but somehow unsigificant on my skin and too faint. But I'll revisit it on another day to rule our that my nose is the culprit!

BPAL - Eclipse

Again a random BPAL: Eclipse from Bewitching Brews. The lab tells us

All the glory, warmth and majesty of the sun -- darkened. A delicious blend of bitter almond, vanilla, frankincense and heliotrope, with a drop of cinnamon.

Well, wet this is wonderful. It's cherry/almond, wonderful, not too sweet, just perfection.

Wet on my skin I almost went nuts: Perfect!! Still like in the imp!

Dry: Huh?! Where did all the cherries go ... ahm, almonds?! After 10 minutes I barely can pick up any scent at all! My skin ate Eclipse!!! And my skin is tingling a bit where I applied the oil. Strange. Everything left is a slight sugary note - absolutely nice, but nothing more or less, far too subtle for a perfume! I have to attach my nose to my skin to guess that there is something to smell!

2nd try: A bit of oil in my hair - perhaps the scent stays there! But again ... after some minutes there's only a faint sweet scent, not as sugary as on my skin - but no almonds, no vanilla.

This is sad - wet it's such a great scent!! Perhaps I should use it as roomscent in an oillamp - that could work.

Well, perhaps good for me: I escaped another "have to buy a bottle!"-trap.

Supplement: After one hour the scent came back. Well, not THE scent, more a scent. I'd say its a bit cinnamon and some vanilla ... it's nice but still not very intense. This is really a funny kind of morphing! From great to nice to nothing back to nice.

2nd supplement: And one hour later there is even some cherry in scent! (this time really cherry, no almond) - I'm not so sure anymore that I won't need a bottle of this ... damn! Make this a half favorite ;o)

3rd supplement: Okay, make this a favorite! I ordered a bottle! On most days it's a bit like Antique Lace + some almond - just beautiful!