smellies

Yesterday was a good day for BPAL. First, they posted the full moon update five days early. A rerelease of Carnaval Noir, a bunch of new Alice in Wonderland scents, and the best part is, the grapefruit scents are back! Apparently the spike in grapefruit oil prices is over. They're leaving the limited releases up a full week because most of the staff are going to a convention next weekend, but I went ahead and placed my order yesterday. I knew what I wanted so there didn't seem any reason to wait:

• Phobos: Chilling white musk, lemon verbena, white grapefruit and lemongrass. 5 ml. Normally I don't buy bottles unsniffed, unless it's unavailable in sample imps. But this sounds so me, I couldn't resist a bottle. I love all these ingredients, and reviews describe it as "lemon sherbet." I want to smell like lemon sherbet!

• Baobhan Sith: Grapefruit, white tea, apple blossom and ginger. 5 ml. Another grapefruit rerelease. I had an imp of this, sold it, and have been regretting it ever since. Apparently this is pronounced "bay-oh-ban shee." That confused me immensely until I saw someone use the alternate spelling "baobhan sidhe." Those wacky Celts!

• Kunstkammer: A sensory jumble, a true cacophony of odors: black pepper, benzoin, blood orange and olibanum. 5 ml. I'm not sure about this one; it may be too resiny for me. But it was the only scent from last year's Carnaval Noir I wished I had tried. This is my last chance, so what the heck.

• Shattered: A blend of white champagne notes, grapefruit, lotus, slivered mint and crystalline aquatic blooms. Imp. Another grapefruit scent. Some of the ingredients sound iffy, but still worth a try.

• Drink Me: However, this bottle was not marked 'poison,' so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off. Imp. I hear that the quoted text is not totally reflective of the scent. But I almost don't care what it smells like; I have to at least try it.

• Eat Me: Three white cakes, vanilla, and red and black currants. Imp. This sounds like it will work well for me.

• Mouse's Long and Sad Tale: Vanilla, two ambers, sweet pea and white sandalwood. Imp. Amber doesn't much like me, but Beth keeps blending it with other ingredients I love, so I keep trying.

• Tweedledee: Ridiculous! Kumquat, white pepper, white tea and orange blossom. Imp. This could be great for summer.

• Tweedledum: Absurd! Green mango, fig, patchouli and green tea. Imp. I shouldn't have ordered this: I love fig and green tea, but loathe patchouli. But the imps come in sets of six, and it is part of a pair and all.

Then after placing my order in the morning, in the afternoon my March 14 order arrived! I managed to test most of it:

• Monster Bait: Underbed: Cassia-caked cocoa coconut over angel food cake. 5 ml. When will I learn that BPAL cinnamon hates me? In the bottle this smelled lush and chocolately. On me it smelled like a rancid cinnamon car freshener. Seriously vile. After a long while it settled down to a nice chocolate with a touch of cinnamon, but it's not at all worth two hours of gack. Waah.

• Usher: This is Roderick Usher: a faded genteel light musk and fougere, heightened by hectic white mint, gleaming mandarin, ethereal tea leaf and gritty blackcurrant brushed by the scent of the tarn that surrounds the House, and the gloom and decay of the walls that hold him. 5 ml. I bought this because reviews described it as a more subtle Dorian. I don't agree with that assessment at all, but I do like Usher. It smells a little weird for the first 10-15 minutes, then dries down to a beautiful skin scent. Very soft and unaggressive. It smells like I'm not wearing scent, I just happen to smell really good. (And how do you know that's not the case anyway.)

• Sundew: A carnivorous enchantress: diverse, lovely and graceful, emitting a sticky, glowing golden, sweet and terminally inviting scent. This smells exactly like the mini daffodils blooming all along our driveway. It's uncanny. Unfortunately, I don't want to smell like that. It's nice in the garden, but on me it's cloying and heavy. Ah well, at least I only bought an imp.

• The Mock Turtle's Lessons: Blurry aquatic notes, with a confusing, contrary splort of iris, ambrette, green apple, vodka, white mint and a squish of lime. This was a pleasant & light aquatic, but by this point I was a bit scented out and can't really review it. I'm going to give it a try another time and see if I get a stronger impression.