It's the most wonderful time of the year!

[kore]

BPAL Halloween time, that is! What is an instabottle for you? What is a no no no (black) cat? I thought it might be fun to discuss here (I know there's discussions on the forum, Twitter, Facebook et al), so here are the breakdowns behind the cut:

All Souls
An incense blend that invokes the higher qualities of mercy and compassion, mingled with the soft, sugared currant scent of offertory soul cakes.

Dia de los Muertos
This is a Mexican paean to La Huesuda: dry, crackling leaves, the incense smoke of altars honoring Death and the Dead, funeral bouquets, the candies, chocolates, foods and tobacco of the ofrenda, amaranth, sweet cactus blossom and desert cereus.

Feeding the Dead
A barrel of beer, a pyramid of cakes, and three sticks of incense.

Frosted Pumpkin Spice Cookie
With cinnamon, nutmeg, browned butter, and cream cheese icing.

Le Revenant
A shroud of gardenia, narcissus, and sandalwood with ambrette seed, white cognac, muguet, davana, and white musk.

Magnificent Autumn
A scent that wanders through the Ages of Autumn, from the last green leaf to the first breath of winter.

October
Dry, cold autumn wind. A rustle of red leaves, a touch of smoke and sap in the air.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Cupcake
Because this is all that I’ve wanted out of life for months.

Pumpkin Lager
A peculiar point of contention: you either love it or hate it, and however you feel, it’s passionate.

Samhain
Truly the scent of autumn itself — damp woods, fir needle, and black patchouli with the gentlest touches of warm pumpkin, clove, nutmeg, allspice, sweet red apple and mullein.

Second Spring
An accolade: drifting leaves tinted in the bold reds of pomegranate and current, the golds of amber and honey, russet myrrh, a touch of cypress-green, and crisp patchouli-brown.

Sonnet d’Automne 2015
Tenebrous Love: a shivering white musk with vanilla-infused white cocoa, amber incense, and dead, dry leaves.

Sugar Skull 2015
Vibrant with the joy and sweetness of life in death! A blend of five sugars, lightly dusted with candied fruits.

Sweet William’s Ghost
A scent of unendurable grief and longing: pale orris root and honeyed white lily chilled by wild carrot and cognac, pulled into a winding sheet of white jasmine, tobacco flower, tuberose, and patchouli.

The Unquiet Grave
One kiss of clay-cold lips: frozen white roses, frankincense, white gardenia, white sandalwood, and vanilla orchid.

The Vampire Bride
Icy skin touched by a perfume of violet leaf, white tea, olibanum, elemi, myrrh, wormwood, crypt dust, and saffron with a dribble of blood red musk.

The White Witch 2015
Love pain-ecstatic, cruel-sweet: gold-flecked honey amber pulsating with red musk, patchouli coeur, bourbon vanilla, inky vetiver, pomegranate rind, myrrh, blackened violet leaf, and blood red rose petals.


PILE OF LEAVES
Dead Leaves and Tobacco

Dead Leaves, Black Pepper, and Sandalwood

Dead Leaves, Bourbon Vanilla, and Myrrh

Dead Leaves, Frankincense, and Copal

Dead Leaves, Honey, and Oudh

Dead Leaves, Red Musk, and Neroli


BOBBING FOR APPLES
Apple I - Apple with hay absolute, oats, honey, cream vanilla, and goat’s milk accord.

Apple II - Green apple with pink pepper, Himalayan cedar, juniper berries, and lemon rind.

Apple III - Appalachian black apple with sweet tobacco and patchouli, orange blossom, vanilla champaca, lavender, and white honey.

Apple IV - Red apple with blackcurrant bud, black clove, and vanilla bourbon.

Apple V - Apple with white coconut, fig, and tiare.


SINGLE NOTES
Apple Cider

Bonfire

Candied Apple

Clown White

Disappointing Pencil

Graveyard Dirt Redux

Polyester Spiderweb

Pumpkin Spice Everything

Stage Blood


PICKMAN GALLERY
A Phantasmagoria: Scene – Conjuring Up an Armed Skeleton
Wig powder, amber-perfumed leather gloves, and rose petals with a sliver of oak bark and cauldron smoke.

A Witch Riding on a Dragon
Blackened tonka, patchouli, dragon’s blood resin, and scorched oak.

A Young Woman Appealing to a Witch
Honey, cream and white rose petals buffeted by toadstools, creeping moss, bog cypress, and myrrh.

Départ Pour Le Sabbat (Aufbruch Zum Hexensabbat)
Bourbon vanilla, sweet red patchouli, oudh, goat’s milk accord, and white honey.

Liebeszauber
Honey, rose petals, and carnations – a drop of blood – red clover, cubeb berries, and vanilla cream.

The Magic Circle
Vanilla-infused frankincense and clary sage with 7-year aged patchouli, jasmine sambac, honey myrtle, and oudh.

The Sorceress
An evocation incense of frankincense, styrax, lavender buds, mastic, and white sandalwood mingled with moonflower, violet absolute, tuberose, and dark musk.

The Witch and the Mandrake
Mandrake root, apple blossom, dusty brown sandalwood, coconut milk, woodmusk, and soft leather.

The Witches
Pumpkin cream, honey, vanilla sugar, and smoked vanilla bean.

The Witches’ Rout (the Carcass)
White sandalwood, opoponax, shriveled black plum, and vetiver.

The Witches’ Sabbath
Burgundy and champaca resin with immortelle, leather accord, wine-soaked red fruits, rose geranium petals, red patchouli, guttering candles, and smoke.

Witchcraft Scene
Black lily and black pepper with narcissus, white musk, and white sandalwood.

Witches’ Kitchen
Belladonna accord, sprigs of rue, crushed hyssop, white sage, beeswax, mandrake leaf, bay rum, black honey, hemp, and myrrh.

A Holy Man Advises a Woman to Invoke Mary Against a Devil
White musk, tobacco flower, white tea, Tunisian neroli, and blonde leather.

La Femme de Satan
Red musk and cacao with clove, caramelized tobacco, aged patchouli, red currant, black leather, and vanilla-infused amber.

La Ronde du Sabbat
Oman frankincense, black clove, and tobacco tar.

Pan Twardowski and the Devil
Brown leather, bay leaf, tobacco leaf, lavender, and oudh.

Portrain of an Unidentified Man as Mephistopheles
A debonair lavender fougere cloaked in smoky red musk, red mandarin, and oakmoss.

Satan Starting from the Touch of Ithuriel’s Spear
Golden amber, carnation, blackcurrant, aged black patchouli, red musk, and vetiver.

Satan Summoning His Legions
White leather and cypress-tinged white musk with cardamom, smouldering incense, Ceylon cinnamon and white sandalwood.

Comments

[kore]

What I've noticed: there seem to be fewer standbys?, and more of the smaller specialized groups -- SNs, leaves, apples (I remember apples and pomegranates and 'x in the pumpkin patch' from earlier Weenies, I think). Delighted to see the Pickmans again, altho this year's don't do it for me -- the height of the Pickmans for me were the beautiful music ones. There seems to be a LOT more foodie stuff -- cookies, cakes, pumpkins, beer, lager, cider. Big notes are cream, honey, leather, patchouli, tobacco, milk, apple, vanilla. A sweet crunchy leafy red-gold fall, with big ripe apples in orchards, piles of leaves waiting to be burned, and bonus Satan.

As far as I can tell The Witches is going to be this year's Glowing Vulva -- everyone wants to know what pumpkin cream (SHUDDER) is like. Pumpkin spice cupcake, cookie, and everything also seems popular, along with some of the apples and leaves. The Satan line seems to be appealing!

[lunabee34]

Too many foodies scents, which I'm not into, and too many white florals that I can't wear (La Revenant sounds really cloying).

Goat's milk accord? I don't even know what to say about that.

Not a lot I'm interested in TBH.

[kore]

Yeah, I'm not into foodie stuff at all, and white florals give me headaches typically. So does patchouli, which cuts out a lot of stuff right there, and the green note. My skin is picky!

....did this stop me from getting some decants anyway? NOPE. But at least I went for stuff I might be able to wear (All Souls etc.)! It's not like my first Weenies when I returned to BPAL and got a bunch of bottles tho....well for one thing I really can't afford that anymore, hah.

[lunabee34]

Heeeeeeee. I hope they work on you!

I'm always so leery of buying a big bottle without being able to smell it first, but I'm very intrigued by some of the ones they sell only in big bottles (like the book inspired ones).

[elfin]

I'm most excited about the Dead Leaves ones. I'm still really trying to learn how differentiate different notes, and I think they'll be really helpful for that. I also like the smell of dead leaves. ^_^

[kore]

I would be all over Dead Leaves were it not for the dread green note, which is impossible for me -- it shows up even in leaves, branches, etc. Le motherfucking SIGH.

[kore]

And then I went for Second Spring anyway, which is leaves, but I'm hoping some of the other notes might drown it out and it's only a decant, not like the time I ordered Two, Five, Seven and wound up scrubbing it off with dishwashing liquid in horror.

(Also fierce Olivia is awesome.)

[elfin]

I alllllmost went for Second Spring, but I did Samhain instead.

(I <3 Olivia!)

[umadoshi]

Samhain is one of my all-time favorites. *^^*

[elfin]

That icon!! ^_^

[kore]

Sadly I tried Samhain like three years in a row, but....so not for me. I wanted to love it!

OLIVIA WOULD WEAR SARA PEZZINI (one of my weaknesses is matching characters to BPAL scents).

[elfin]

Ohhh, I've never smelled Sara Pezzini. I need to, though. I think Olivia wears Tattie Bogle. ^_^

ETA: Oh, and if I layer it with either Devil's Night or Smut it's Alt!Liv ('cause I <3 her,too).

[synecdochic]

I'm glad that Stage Blood made an appearance again -- I only had a few drops of it left over after decanting last year, and I loved it a lot. I don't have anybody signed up for it right now in my circle, but I might wind up buying it anyway. :D

The whole Dead Leaves series sound fascinating, even the ones that have death notes for me (honey! BPAL's honey hates me) and I'm also looking forward to smelling Second Spring, A Witch Riding on a Dragon (which will either be awesome or the patchouli will make it awful), The Sorceress, The Witch and the Mandrake (although I'm dubious about that coconut milk), The Witches' Rout (The Carcass), A Holy Man Advises a Woman To Invoke Mary Against A Devil (dubious about the neroli, but hopefully the rest will overcome it), La Ronde du Sabbat (which is alllll things I love and which will hopefully be the winner), Pan Twardowski and the Devil, Satan Starting From The Touch of Ithuriel's Spear (again, if the patchouli doesn't kill it), and Satan Summoning His Legions.

[kore]

I bet the Witches and Satan scents will be really popular. But I also bet the Dead Leaves series will be the one that might not sell out so fast, but will be really hard to find later on. And even with my newfound willpower to resist all scents with a patchouli note, I still went for decants with....patchouli! But not too many! And I'm sure the patchouli will....just subside quietly. Sure. Yes.

(I dunno what it is about patchouli and vetiver but they are surefire migraine triggers. Even if Beth just like carries a capped bottle of something through the lab too close to patchouli, apparently.)

[synecdochic]

Ugh, that sucks! I like precisely one of her patchouli notes ("white" patchouli) but sometimes can tolerate the other stuff if it's not too overwhelming in a blend. And I love vetiver.

[dejla]

Luckily, the only perfume that triggers a migraine for me is Poison. That and a migraine = me & toilet ASAP.

[ranalore]

Oh, wow, see, the white florals are terrible for me, but the foodie scents are gold. And The Witches looks to combine two notes that do amazing things on my skin: pumpkin (not sure if the cream just means creamed pumpkin or pumpkin combined with cream, but cream also does good things on my skin), and honey, which does on my skin what vanilla apparently does for most people.

Mind you, I don't currently have the funds and don't really need another bottle, given that I don't currently wear the scents I do have all that often.

[kore]

(not sure if the cream just means creamed pumpkin or pumpkin combined with cream, but cream also does good things on my skin), and honey, which does on my skin what vanilla apparently does for most people

Everyone wants to know if it's creamed pumpkin or pumpkin + cream! I am wondering.

....I think the Weenies are going to be up until what, early Dec.? Might even get extended....but yeah, I don't wear a lot of what bottles I do have. /o\