Bpal and Arcana Haul!!

Hi Guys!
Here are some pics of my latest bpal haul. I got half bottles from a decanter and I am very happy about it:)
My next order will possible be when the much awaited Carnaval will be back.

Octopus:Pale moss, white kelp, sea buckthorn berry, ambergris accord, Somalian frankincense, rose geranium, and salt.

Desmonema:White amber and mimosa with tendrils of Italian bergamot, myrrh, green tangerine and green patchouli, sheer coconut, quince, and vetiver

Epibulia:East Indian Mango, cassis, blackcurrant, orange carnation, sugared coconut, and Maid of Orleans.



and two full bottles:

Self-Portrait:A quiet honey musk with gentle orris, rice milk, and white gardenia


Uncle-Brian:Raspberry sherbet dotted with orangesicle, merlot gelato, pink cotton candy, and iced lime



Then from The Rhinestone Housewife I bought two amazing perfumes from Arcana. If you love vanilla as I do you have to buy these now that you can still get them!  The owner Jeanine also sent me a blush as a freeby and I love it! This wasn't something that I could have chosen to buy but I tried it and it looks so good on me that I am thinking to buy a full size. It's a coral but it's not in your face coral and it blends in with my natural skin color!  It's part of this set

Now the pic!

Thaks for reading!!!!!!!!!!!!

A (late) bpal lupercalia haul!

This is my Lupercalia order. I thought to share with you some pictures!

I love all these blends and for the first time I was brave enough to buy them unsniffed!

Let me know if you want me to post reviews on any of these:)

 

OUR LADY OF PAIN

Sumatran patchouli, blood musk, white lavender, opium tar, and black orchid

Contemplating the Moon Through an Open Window

Milk accord, tuberose, oakmoss, Asian pear, opoponax, and carrot seed.

SIC ERIT

Slender arrows lodged in my heart: red amber, benzoin, red musk, bourbon geranium, oak bark, Atlas cedar, and 13-year aged Sumatran patchouli.

Delight and Consternation

Bourbon vanilla, custard accord, white rose, cocoa absolute, oudh, lemon blossom, and skin musk.

THE RAPTURES AND ROSES OF VICE
Red roses, heady Moroccan musk, cinnamon, lobelia, coconut flesh, magnolia blossoms, and tobacco tar.

En Eski Aşk Şiiri

This is a traditional Sumerian perfume, composed of juniper, tamarisk, almond, lavender honey, sesame, myrrh, olive oil, cedar, and rose.

Perfume reviews, a haul, Possets new update and a pic of my dog!

 Even though that it feels like Spring, I wore some fall scents the last few days!

Possets-Big Black Cat

Sweet and strong, but full of character, like a majestic big black cat! Buttery creme with a smooth caramel undercoat, bourbon vanilla (the kind with the tiny black specks), gourmet candy corn crushed and put in the mix, and a crust of burnt sugar with a crunch from some indefinable but thoroughly delightful source. All this with a kiss of cinnamon, a very small puff of clove, and one grain of allspice.

This smells like other Halloween scents I have tried. It’s not very unique but if you are looking for a simple sugar and spice blend this is for you.

Burnt sugar and allspice rarely do work on me and this is not an exception. Not a scrubber but not something I would wear.

If you like this you may like as well:

 Possets: Nom Nom Nom

Lots of thick dark sugary goodness here. Just a hint of spice, but it's sort of an indefinable spice like a new and exotic clove which you just can't quite put your finger on. Lashings of liquified brown sugar heat it all up and in the end you have a very hawt melange of foody lovers goodness. Just the thing for Halloween.

Possets: Damn if you do

Brown sugar drenched in a crunchy crust of turbinado sugar, a hint of molasses and a very very light dusting of clove and allspice to keep things from going cloying. This is for the child and gourmand in you. Let yourself indulge in it all and be at least darned.

None of these worked for me. Maybe Sugar hates me.

Possets -Limoncello: La Dolce Vita

Of course, Possets had to celebrate the superb desserts of Italy, and

the South has some of the most ineluctable temptations on the planet.

Neapolitan Lemons spike the Limoncello here, with the most creamy of

panecotta (a triple cream custard with a subtle vanilla and not too

sweet). All this is accompanied by a homemade almond biscotti. Just to

smell the fragrance of all these treasure is to be in Italy with your

love.

I thought this would be a winner but it smells so bad on me I had to wash it away. Limoncello, panecotta and Almond biscotti? No thank you.

BPAL- LE LÈTHÈ

Red musk and sweat-damp golden skin musk with labdanum, golden amber, nutmeg, tobacco absolute, black orchid, and hemlock accord.

This is one of my favourite poems EVER! I was so excited to receive this as a frimp from the Lab!

From the imp I get juicy red musk and Hemlock. Like a less sweet Smut.

On my skin the tobacco absolute is the strongest note.

Lasts 4 to 5 hours on me and I think I have to buy a full bottle soon!

On dry down I get a hint of spiciness from the nutmeg and gorgeous perfumy-floral notes  from the black orchid.

If you like red musk and Tobacco you have to try this.

I sawAmanda’s Arcana Haul from the More tea, Wesley? Blog and she described Cake Lust like  butterscotch cake. The perfume stuck on my head and I had to have it! So I bought it from a person on Bpal forum!

Arcana- Cake Lust

Golden bakery cakes spiked with blonde tobacco, pipe tobacco, Balsam of Peru, cardamom, and mace.

When I first put it on I get cardamom as a top note and a hint of mace( nutmeg).

Then the tobacco becomes more obvious. I love what Arcana does with tobacco and I love when they combine foodie scents with resinous top notes. For the record, Morphine is the Arcana which I love the most!

In a while, I get boozy vanilla like the vanilla they had in their Rich vanilla scent.

This is a morpher. It’s not that spicy  on drydown but more foodie. Grownup and Sexy Foodie. LOVE!!!!

Last but not least, Possets new Spring update is live! The theme is Sacred Geometry. I learned so many new things reading her description and I find this update very original!

If you are into Grapefruit or lime you will scream from joy!

If I had to choose 4 perfumes from this update they would be:

Arc of Venus: Sandalwood , black lavender, a very small hint of calendula, "abstract" musk, and a bit of sharp grey musk

3:5:8: Black musk, smoky vanilla, jasmine, night blooming cereus, incense

Dodecahedron: Green vanilla, nectar, smoke, citrus paradise oil

Arabesque: Madagascar vanilla, Arabian Amber, bamboo citrus

I am also curious about:

Golden Section, it says floral but not what kind of floral. Rose? Jasmine? Sunflower?

Phyllotaxis is ruined for me from the cassia and the spice which can make a blend very spicy for my liking.

Quantum Interconnect is ruined by the black coffee and black tea. I will keep an eye for reviews though.

 

So, Is anything that you find appealing in this update? 

 

Have a nice weekend!

 

 My dog!!! Iris!!!!

 

My perfume Week!

Hi guys! It’s been a week since I update my blog and I thought to share with you how my “perfume” week went.

First of all, I got a lovely package on the mail!

While ago I ordered a bottle from a lovely lady on Live journal. I love Arcana perfumes but sometimes they sold out quickly so if I find a bottle that I want second hand I go for it! She included three more samples and some candies as well.

Arcana-Frivolous aside

A silly, sexy little blend which flirts shamelessly, teases everyone at the party, and flashes the top of its garter on the balcony. Bubbly champagne cocktails, vanilla frosting, deep pink musk, sugar cubes, toasty coconut, and a soft compress for your head the next morning.

When I first put this on it is very bubbly and it remind me Bpal’s Old Man Ackerman's Instructional Toys.

 The bubbly top note it’s like when you open a bottle of sprite and you take a deep breath immediately. It stays quite a while on the skin that way and then the foodie notes come to play as well. Butter cream and toasty coconut flakes like the one that you sprinkle on the cake come to my mind and I am already hungry!

Then I get whiffs of pink musk which totally works here.

To me this is a foodie-cake scent for spring or summer. It’s fresh, sweet and yummy at the same time. Delicious!!!

The freebies that I got were:

Bpal-Kubla Khan

Sidhe Creations- Sluagh

Zomg Smells – Lizard Queen

This week I made my first eBay purchase ever! I won a L’artisan gift set with the following 15ml perfumes:

Timbuktu Eau de Toilette 15ml
Fou d’Absinthe Eau de Parfum 15ml
Méchant Loup Eau de Toilette 15ml

I am so excited to receive this but it will take a while till reaches me because I send it to my uncle in the UK and then he will send it to me.

I haven’t tried Timbuktu and Fou d’Absinthe but I love Mechant Loup. They are a little bit on the masculine side so, if they don’t work on me I will give them to my boyfriend.

My perfumes of the day were the regular Possets or Bpal blends, I wore:

Possets Nevada Heat

Nevada, it's HOT. It's exciting and it gets YOU hot! They work at that, and it's a natural phenomenon. Supersweet vanilla grabs a sassy orange/citrus for a fast ride through the desert at sunset. Resins drip into and out of the blend, and a blast of spice comes from nowhere to tie it all together. Heat isn't for everyone, and certainly not for the timid nor for the conformist, unless you really want to have a brief holiday from your hum drum existence. Gives you all the excitement of that last shake before you roll the dice. USA, spicy resin, long lasting.

If you like spicy orange scents you have to try this one! From the bottle I get a creamy sweet orange scent. On the skin I get spices and maybe a hint of patchouli. It’s borderline foodie and it reminds me a kind of Christmas cookies that we made in Greece with cloves, cinnamon and orange juice. I don’t know why I keep thinking of ginger whenever I put this on. It isn’t a listed note.

Bpal- Laudanum

The essence of the most debauched hunger encapsulated into a perfume. Desire beyond love, anguish beyond sanity. Nutmeg, sassafras, black poppy and myrrh.

From the imp get Nutmeg, myrrh and vetiver. Wet it smells like sassafras but it’s very well blended. In that stage it becomes a little bit medicinal but in combination with all the resins it works very well.

 I really like this and it reminded me their Midnight Mass scent.

Resinous, medicinal with a hint of spice but not very unique.

Possets-Perpetual Orgasm

The divine honey which the bees make on the dry and craggy plains is the starting point for such a melting blend. Malta is an arid country and the non populated expanses are covered with tough aromatic growth which needs little rainfall. It is in that hard herbal mat that the bees wrestle the tiniest drops of nectar out of sparse light blue flowers and somehow manage to manufacture honey of such brilliance it’s almost as if the sun was captured and liquefied. Added to this is a shard of sharp lemon zest and the smooth modification of orange, both citrus which can be found in abundance in the Mediterranean, and which naturally compliment Maltese honey, and you will have found a paradise in a bottle.

I can’t decide if I want a bottle of this or not. It lasted all day on me and especially on my clothes.  It’s a sweet lemon and orange blend. I don’t get the floral part but as I am thinking about it while I am writing this I get a hint of bluebell. I had a Bluebell fragrance oil for soap making and it smelled soapy and fresh. Very similar to that fresh note in perpetual orgasm. By the way what a lovely name!

Thanks for reading:)

My Twyla order and Perfume reviews

When I read Dee’s and Su’s reviews on Twyla I was really excited to try her perfumes. I was intrigued by her floral blends and the fact that she uses only natural ingredients, made me wanting to buy some samples even more.

I ordered: 9 samples + one free because was my first order. She also sent me another on as a surprise.

I used the code from Dee’s blog as well! So, it was a very good deal.

The shipping was almost 12usd but when I got my package I noticed that the actual price was less than that. I emailed Twyla and she sent me 6usd back immediately! That’s what I call costumer service!

So, the international shipping was only 6usd for 11 samples.

I bought All of her chocolate inspired blends! I couldn’t resist guys. I love chocolate scents and especially the chocolate+floral combo!

Chocolate Roses:  Rose otto, milk chocolate, tarragon and mint

From the imp I am getting chocolate and mint. No roses!! It disappears on my skin whatever I do… I put all the sample in one go and still nothing…. Colour me disappointed

Strawberries and Chocolate: Dark chocolate, vanilla and green cognac

This is super Yummy from the imp! It smells exactly like a chocolate that we have in Greece which is with cream and strawberry mouse!

If this was stronger and it lasted longer on my skin maybe I would buy a bottle.

Rasberries and chocolate: Dark ckocolate, vanilla and roibos

This is very similar to Strawberries and Chocolate maybe a little bit more tart. I can smell the tannins from the roibos tea it’s very nice and gives an earthy note to the blend but again it doesn’t stay on me!

White chocolate and apricots with vanilla and coconut

Starts a little bit weird with that alcoholic grapey apricot note but I really like the dry down. Again not very strong but it lasts maybe an hour on me.

Chocolate Violets: Dark ckocolate, vanilla, violet, tiare

From all the chocolate blends I was looking forward to try this on the most! I think this one is my favourite from all the Twyla chocolate scents. The chocolate note isn’t pronounced is a candied violets scent. The tiare gives an exotic tone to the whole. I guess this is how face powders of the past would smelt like1

All in all, I liked her chocolate scents but they were very weak on me. I won’t buy anything in full size but I was happy to try them.

Twyla uses a cocoa absolute to her perfume but I notice that it doesn’t resolve in the scent No matter how hard I tried. This has never happened to me before. Usually I roll the bottle, The cocoa absolute and the other ingredients mingle together and then I apply my perfume. I don’t know why this is happening here.

GENERAL CATALOGUE SCENTS

Bone Flower

Bone Flower, another name for the lovely tuberose; Tropical flowers on a grave - mysterious, cool, ethereal and beautiful. The complex tuberose blended with the musky scent of loamy, tropical soil and unearthed bones.Tuberose Absolute, Balsam of Peru, Maile leaf (used in Hawai'ian funereal services), Styrax, soft Musk & Sandalwood Absolute.

Tuberose is one of my favourite notes. When I saw that Twyla had a scent named after my favourite flower I almost bought a bottle unsniffed.

This is so light, no wonder why Su couldn’t smell this one at all…

If I try really hard I get a very beautiful scent but that is just for a moment… Bummer.

Honekakala

The Hawai'ian word for "honeysuckle".
This was inspired by the lei shop near my old apartment in Makiki-Tantalus. I would stop in at least once a week to buy a lei or at the very least a flower. Walking into the scent of that shop had a way of making me feel drunk, purely on the fragrance of flowers.
Honeysuckle absolute, pikake, plumeria absolute, Tahitian gardenia maceration/absolute, tuberose absolute, massoia bark, lilikoi accord, Monoi de Tahiti and a dribble of aged sweet patchouli

Gardenia, Honeysuckle, pikake, gardenia, tuberose! I love all of them! Let’s see if I have a better luck.

I think I smell Ylang Ylang too. This is nice but it’s similar to Narcosa from HoG and I like narcosa best. The patchouli is not very strong here. So, if you like white flowers don’t let the patchouli scare you!

Magnolia Street

Magnolia, pink lotus absolute, zdravetz, nagramotha, cannabis flower, coffee flower, peach blossom, sandalwood absolute, aged patchouli and a generous swirl of spice.

I get a hint of spice but it isn’t cinnamon or clove to my nose. This is nice and feminine. I get good amount of patchouli on the dry down

The golden lilies

Lily-of-the-Valley, tiare flower, apricot, tonka, davana, amber, sandalwood and fire tree.

Ohh Fire tree! This is a new note for me!

From the imp I don’t like this. It’s sour and sharp. Like I have said this reminds me sweet white wine. This has good staying power. So bad that I don’t enjoy it.

The Sacred Queen

Beautiful, ruthless and fiery - The Sacred Queen, with over 14 essential oils, is a deceptively sweet, complex and unmistakably regal blend of honey and smokey vetiver, amber and vintage patchouli, frankincense, neroli and bitter almond with smoldering spices, sacred incense and a heady blend of florals.  

Earthy patchouli and vetiver. Now this one I like! It’s smoky and interesting and has good staying power. I have similar blend but still this one is very nice if you love resinous scents. I don’t detect neroli or almond in this but I do get a white floral note as the vetiver burns of.

Breathless

Red and white rose, vintage patchouli, myrrh, cacao absolute, bourbon vanilla, and sandalwood. 

This one is my favourite from all the Twyla scents that I have tried. I have a similar scent from Arcana though.  The rose isn’t overpowering and it compliments the other notes and helps the blend not to become to earthy. Cacao and patchouli are the strongest notes here.

This has very good staying power too! I highly recommend it for patchouli lovers!

All in all, I loved the concept and the inspiration behind these perfumes but unfortunately none of these is full bottle worthy for me.  I even tried to put some of the in my scent locket but still I couldn’t smell them through the day.

Perfume is very subjective and has a lot to do with the body chemistry. For example I never liked any of The morbid the merrier scent but I know a lot of people who loved them!

Twyla is very friendly and I highly recommend checking her site out and her FB page where she has regular sales. You can always try before buying her scents and I always appreciate this in a perfume company!

Have a nice Week-end everyone!

Bpal Yule haul!!!

My last BPAL order arrived today!!!! I made this order just before the Yules come down. I got only 4 bottles and they are foodie to the max, well except Snake oil.
I am into Bpal more than four years and I hadn't tried their most popular scent: Snake Oil. What a blasphemy!
I know Su loves it and she has a great taste on scents so I couldn't go wrong!

My order: Snake Oil
                Sweet Lavinia’s Risalamande
               PetMagah Bird
               Mother Shub's Stygian Nougat


With My order I received as freebies: The inn atmospheric linen and room spray sample and four imps: Morocco, Djinn, Bohun Upas and Thorns.
I also got a lovely card with Bowie on it as Jareth from The Labyrinth movie!!! Me and my boyfriend both LOVE him!!! 

 

On the Bpal forum it was mentioned that they will bring Carnaval Diabolique back before the Lupers come down! I am very excited about that and I have to start saving money. Some of these scents will be very limited.

What I got today!

When I read last night on perfume shrine that L’artisan is going to discontinue Vanille Absolument I panicked! So, I bought it today first thing in the morning! This was in my full bottle wish list for a long time but it was quite expensive and that’s why I hadn’t bought it right away.

The first time I smelled it was in a small L’artisan boutique in France but I was backpacking and I was afraid that my precious will brake in transit… It still reminds me my trip in France when I smell it!

From L’artisan site:

A golden harmony of vanilla, leather and rum

Vanille Absolument was created by Bertrand Duchaufour to showcase the natural beauty of the vanilla pod. This is a uniquely textured interpretation of one of perfumery’s most sensual notes.
rum, narcissus absolute, vanilla absolute

I love this! Is a light, clean vanilla. It’s not sweet but boozy and deep. The narcissus gives a golden quality to the blend as well. I am so happy that I finally have a big bottle of this!!