LIBER RESH VEL HELIOS: KHEPHRA (Excolo - Stations of the Sun) -- Hail unto thee who art Khephra in Thy hiding, even unto Thee who art Khephra in Thy silence, who travellest over the heavens in Thy bark at the Midnight Hour of the Sun. Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm. Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Evening. (from the website)

Khephra, the Midnight Sun, is one of four scents in the Stations of the Sun sub-line, and the only one I've tried so far. (The others are Ra, the Rising Sun; Ahathoor, the Midday Sun; and Tum, the Setting Sun.)

Wet, I get a warm, foody scent, rather like eggnog. Clove, nutmeg, sugar -- very nummy. As it dries, there's a bit of baby powder but it mellows down into a more resin-like note, with some incense or maybe sandlewood. This is a nice, dark, bronzy-gold scent that feels appropriate to the long, dark, winter. Bonus points - Dad likes it so either it isn't clove or he doesn't dislike clove as much as he thinks.

THE RAVEN (Bewitching Brews): Sleek, dark, and ominous. Violet and neroli mingled with iris, white sandalwood and dark musk. (from the website)

Hmmmm, I'll have to take exception to the 'sleek, dark, and ominous'. This is pure violet to me, clean and green and sweet. It's soft and a little wet, like fresh-picked flowers still covered in morning dew. Lovely, with little wafts of sweetness eddying up around me as I move.

BLOOD COUNTESS (Diabolus): Elizabeth Báthory, also called Erzsébet Báthory in Hungarian and Alžbeta Bátoriová-Nádašdy in Slovak, was the Bloody Lady of Hungary. In order to preserve her youth and loveliness, the brutal and incomparably savage countess captured, tortured and slaughtered innumerable young women and bathed in their blood as part of her beauty regimen. Ah, vanity. Corrupted black plum, smoky opium and crumbling dead roses covered by a deceptive veil of Hungarian lilac, white gardenia and wild berry. (from the website)

Come to mama! I love florals and they love me. The sweeter and headier, the better -- rose, lilac, violet, gardenia. Blood Countess is all heady, juicy sweetness on me, ripe and dark. On my skin it gives me some of the plum and a spiciness that must be the opium along with the floral/berry notes and I keep getting wafts of the most wonderful juicy berry. It's like a dishful of bruised and over-ripe red and purple fruits with just a bit of sugar to sweeten and draw out the juices.

Somebody described this as a feminine Tintagel and I can see/smell the resemblence. It doesn't have the golden, candle-light feeling but it's lush and rich and very happy-making for me. Not powdery at all as some of the white florals get on me; rather, this is ripe and drenched. I get the imagery of the name, too. I feel like I'm leaving a scent signature behind me, seeping into tapestries and velvet hangings, waiting to tease passers-by and remind them of my presence.

I feel great. Sometimes slaughtering all those virgins is totally worth it.

I had a few extra dollars a month or two ago and decided to sucumb to Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's siren call. ::eyes flist balefully -- you know who you are, vile temptresses!::

For those not yet in the cult know, BPAL makes perfumes, scents, olfactory dramas-- a bit precious, a lot goth, and an all-around interesting experience when compared to the usual department store counter product, lovely as many of those are. And it's possible to order sample vials (1/32 of an ounce, called "imps") of most of the products.

However, as a newcomer to BPAL, where to start? The descriptions can only tell you what a scent is intended to smell like, not what it's going to do on your skin. So I turned to eBay, that great enabler. Not only do many people sell unused imps (or ones that they've tried lightly and determined don't work for them) but the Lab itself will sometimes sell off random assortments with smudged or imperfect labels. It's the perfect way to dive in and start figuring out what you like without feeling like you're wasting a bunch of cash. I successfully bid on one such batch and it arrived yesterday -- the 6 imps up for sale plus 2 thrown in for free.

Mom was very excited, too; perfumes often (usually!) turn sharp, sour, and/or chemical on her very quickly. We were both hoping that the more intense, less chemical-driven BPAL stuff would do well on her skin. We decided we'd test just one and settled on Tintagel from the Wanderlust line.

TINTAGEL: According to legend, the birthplace of King Arthur. The scent of a castle's great hall in the midst of joyous feasting. Spicy mulled wine flowing through the musky heat, warm leather and bright clash of armor, the damp branches of Cornish hawthorn, blackthorn, juniper, English elm and bayberry, and the magical tingle of dragon's blood resin. (from the website)

Opening the vial, my first impression was -- HOLIDAYS! Candles and cider, greenery and warmth. I brushed a little on my wrist, then rubbed the other wrist across it. A cloud of scent surrounded me. My mood instantly picked up. It's... it's food-y without smelling like food. There's no cinnamon or clove --it's warm without the fuzzy, buzzy sharpness I associate with those notes (notes I generally do not care much for), and it's winter-forest without being piney. Definitely an indoor woody smell -- firewood but not smoke -- unlit pipe tobacco with dried apple in it?

I don't know how much throw it has on me -- I felt surrounded in a warm envelope and made a good attempt at inhaling my wrist, muttering "I smell good!" for hours. The cider notes warmed and mellowed out though I did not identify "cider" until this morning. I put it on at 8 pm last night; there was still a nice light scent at 7 am. And my mood was still great.

Mom's scent wore off in a couple of hours (we'll have to test with a heavier application) but did not turn at all. It didn't deepen and mellow out as much as it did on me, though. But she did have the same mood lift. She really wants to try it out as a holiday room scent. Dad grumbled a bit about the house smelling good without any actual food being served to him but he seemed to like it well enough.

Other items of note -- no headache, no chemical "burn" in my nose or odd taste on my tongue. Very, very good dreams -- Brad Pitt and I were dating while working together in some lovely old European city. He held my hand in public, took me on long walks, shared his coffee, and fed me oysters. I can interpret that, thank you very much. I'm just not sure what the fluffy llama, all saddled up and decked out in shiny tack, and the dashing gaucho following it through the picturesque cobblestone alleys that Brad and I kept running into was all about.

Tonight, something floral. Possibly Bewitched or Muse. We'll see. I'm a little nervous since the very first scent I tried was so damn good on me.