BPAL Reviews: Pumpkin I 2009, Pumpkin V 2009, Serpent's Kiss, Ether, Ephemera

PUMPKIN PATCH I (LE, Halloween 2009)
Pumpkin, almond, brown musk, and honey.
( Review. )

Verdict: This isn't my favorite of this year's pumpkins, but I am perfectly pleased with it. It's a difficult scent to describe, unfortunately—the pumpkin/brown musk combination needs to be sniffed to be understood. But the pumpkin is glorious, and the notes which accompany it make for a unique scent, warm and glowing, textured and slightly spicy in the nose, altogether remarkable and lovely. I feel lucky to have a bottle.


PUMPKIN PATCH V (LE, Halloween 2009)
Pumpkin, chocolate, coffee bean, vanilla bean, and hazelnut.
( Review. )

Verdict: Pumpkin Patch V is El Dia de Reyes (2008) meeting his new best friend, pumpkin. I wouldn't have expected the blend to be so powdery, but it has a lot of El Dia de Reyes's powdered milk/cocoa mix dryness. That's not a bad thing, though—it meshes well with the dry spiciness of the pumpkin, and the vanilla and hazelnut keep the powderiness under control. And Pumpkin Patch V is simply beautiful. Comforting, warm, foody but tempered, this is my favorite of this year's Halloweenies and I'm thrilled that I have a bottle.


SERPENT'S KISS (GC, Diabolus)
Seething with passion, yet utterly cold-blooded. Dragon's blood, vetivert and spice.
This was a frimp from the Lab, but I've been curious to try it.
( Review. )

Verdict: Serpent's Kiss is at once exactly what it says on the tin and nothing like I was expecting. All the notes have the potential to be very bold, but instead they're toned down: a wet, reddish resin; a smooth smoke; a hint of warmth and depth. The combination is warm, dark, and spicy, though not quite "seething with passion"—but it is certainly cold-blooded. The scent has a sense of distance, coldness; I feel like it's pushing me away even though I'm the one wearing it. So while it's pleasant enough, nuanced and skillfully blended, I don't imagine I'd wear this much. I like a scent I can cuddle up in, and this isn't that. I expect I'll trade away my imp.


ETHER (GC, Phoenix Steamworks & Research Facility)
Translucent blooms, ethereal white resins, and davana.
A frimp from the lab.
( Review. )

Verdict: Pale scents and florals rarely work for me; I generally hate lemon. So it's something of a surprise that I find Ether quite pleasant. I like its earlier stages more, when the lemon scent keeps it fresh and the florals are gentle; the later, more floral stage is decent too, but not quite as light or distinct. Regardless, this isn't the scent for me. I imagine it's lovely in the summer, but airy lemony sweet floral scents will never suit me regardless of the time of year. I'd love to smell it on someone else, though. I'll trade away my imp.


EPHEMERA (GC, Bewitching Brews)
The scent of loss, love and the echo of time without end: sorrowful violet and chamomile with muguet, white geranium, calla lily and tea rose with a hint of autumn leaves.
A frimp from the Lab which I would never have ordered for myself—I'm not a big fan of florals, but mostly it's that rose tends to amp to epic, horrific levels on my skin.
( Review. )

Verdict: It's not unpleasant, but it's a little conflicted in its constant battle between lily and rose—and regardless, the florals in Ephemera just aren't to my taste. It also fades so quickly that there's little point in applying it in the first place. Neither my skin nor my nose much like this blend, so I'll send it on its way.

BPAL collection picspam, with a bonus picture of the view outside my window just before dawn.

While I'm spamming you all with BPAL reviews, I might as well pile on some pictures of my BPAL collection. I've not taken pictures since October 2008—and my collection has grown a bit in the passing year, mostly as far as bottles go.


My BPAL collection as of 10/2009.
I stocked up on bottles of some of my GC favorites, and have indulged in some LE purchases, and so my bottle collection has more than tripled. It may not be a lot by some people's standards, but it more than keeps me happy. As a result I've been more-or-less forgetting my imps lately, though I did move them into a new storage container (see below) so that they were more accessible and so that their old box had a chance to air out its so-strong-you-don't-want-to-open-me perfume haze.

Anyway, from left to right, top to bottom (also you can click through to see notes, or view it in a larger size if you're the type that likes to read labels):

Top row—rejected imps, empty bottles (for testing purposes), GC bottles, LE bottles.
Middle row—non-BPAL perfume, GC imps.
Bottom row—LE decants, imps to test.

( My BPAL collection, boxed up. )

My current storage solution is nothing too special—everything's just filed away in BPAL shipping boxes, now that I have one large enough to hold standing 5ml bottles. But as mentioned, the larger containers prevents them from gathering too much of a mixed-perfume fug. Boxes, from top to bottom, are: rejected imps, imp collection, and bottle collection. I have a temporary box full of imps to test, too.

I've currently been doing a lot of testing, which has been fun—but when I'm not testing out various unlikely blends on my skin, I'm neck-deep in autumnal scents. My late birthday/early Halloween order was wonderful success, and the Pumpkin Patches in particular are getting a lot of use. I'm also wearing a fair bit of Fearful Please (dried orange peels floating in simmering cider, roasted apples, smoldering firewood, chimney smoke, sassafras beer, warm hawthorn wood, and oakmoss) and Penny Dreadful (soft perfume evocative of noir heroines over rich red grave loam)—the latter of which is finally starting to age to its perfection of sticky gingerbread-ish dirt. I love autumn and cold weather for the chance to wear foodier, darker scents as well as my beloved musks and resins.

While I'm picspamming, I have a random photo for you:


The view out my window just before daybreak.
( This image is better larger, so see it 1000px wide below the cut. )

Last winter I posted a picture of the condensation on my window—this is the same window this fall. The picture is entirely unedited save for cropping. Weather's been cold and wet as hell (yes, having just posted I am now realizing the irony of that statement) lately, but I'd not trade it for anything.