A BPAL package arrived today! I have to say, these LJ swapping people are the best. It only took a couple of days, she must have mailed it immediately. And she included a freebie! She went and read my blog, saw that I was looking for crisp, light scents, and sent me Water of Notre Dame. Which is a perfect choice; it was already on my wishlist.
It was fun to smell them all (though I think the scents tended to run together after the first couple), but I had to try Embalming Fluid first. Described as light, crisp, and summery, it's the one that I've been most anticipating. I had already ordered an imp from BPAL, but couldn't bear to wait two months. So I bought a half-full 10 ml bottle from the very generous person on LJ.
Embalming Fluid: A light, pure scent: white musk, green tea, aloe and lemon.
In the bottle: Tea with a little lemon. Really nice. The bottle, by the way, is a pretty cobalt blue. There's a little plastic doodad in the cap for applying: turn the bottle over to wet the cap, then remove the cap and press it against the wrist.
Wet: Slightly sweet, lemony: lemonade! I was worried about lemon in perfume smelling like lemon pledge, but this doesn't at all.
Drydown: The tea is coming forward. Not sweet at all now. Very light compared to the other two I've tried. I can hardly tell it's on, in a good way. It's that "me, but better" feeling, but so light and cool. Unlike Wanda which was warm and rich. Wow, I can really understand why people get so into these perfumes.
Lasting: Not so good unfortunately. I guess it's too much to ask that such a light scent would last. Georg says he can still smell it on my wrist, seven hours after applying, but to me it's as faint as Wanda was the next day. On the other hand, we did go to a cooking class tonight so maybe the food smells overwhelmed the perfume. Besides, the faintness of the scent is nice. It's about as far from "whoa! perfume!" as you can get.
Repurchase: I've already got about 5 ml, but I can see myself wearing this every day in warm weather. I will definitely buy more when this runs out.
Embalming Fluid is on my wishlist too, so I'm glad to hear you liked it.
One thing I notice when I get a package from the Lab is that everything in it sort of smells the same on the outside. I think of this as the "Lab smell", compounded of all the various notes they use all mixed together. I like to separate my imps, at least putting them into individual small plastic bags; that way, when I open the bag (a day or two later) to try an imp, I get more of an immediage sense of what *that* one smells like.
I also generally try only one scent per day, which it sounds like is what you're doing as well. That way my nose gets less confused. If I don't like a particular scent and want to override it, I go back to something I've already tried and wait until the next day.
Embalming Fluid is one of my husbands favorites. It is pretty light on him as well, he will leave for work smelling like it, but by the time he gets back its gone.
Sounds wonderful!
With Living Flame, which also tended to disappear on me, I found that if I put a tiny amount on my sleeve (just from faintly touching the spot I'd put it on my arm while it was still damp), it stayed around much more, and mingled nicely with the scent on my skin.
Maybe we can swap decants from EF and LF when we both have more?
Lee: It seems like I read that someone used little bead canisters from Michael's to store their imps so the scents wouldn't mingle too much. I've still got them all in one padded envelope, which is starting to reek. I need to come up with better storage!
Bummble: I would love that! Maybe we could share some of the Tarot blends.