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 - 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 - 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 - 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!