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BPAL Reviews and Infodump
I haven't been good about doing the "six reviews a day with little links to them" thing with the BPAL, and I've got a big pile of notes I wanted to share here. So, here they are. More organization later perhaps. I just ordered half-imps from a decant circle of the ten new salon scents, and have around a dozen other things either waiting here to be tried or on their way.
Estimated time to burnout and/or picking 3 scents and wearing them: six months. I realized I've kind of been neglecting some of my incense evaluation to do this stuff, and since that's supposedly business, I should try to motivate myself to get back to it.
Anyway, pile of reviews. Probably not well edited.
Whip
Agony and ecstasy: black leather and damp red rose.
In the bottle: Rose with a background of raw leather/animal.
On the skin: Just a medium-heavy rose. Really not very interesting. The leather doesn't come through on me.
Sybaris
The pinnacle of wealth, luxury, self-indulgent pleasure, voluptuousness and sensuality. Bright violet with sweet clove, Mediterranean incense notes and tonka bean.
In the bottle: sweet and woody.
On the skin: Wet sweet in a way that's disturbingly unrecognizable. Not evocative of anything. After a bit, it starts to be evocative of...agar plates with pink bacteria growing on them in the lab. Gah. I thought I loved violet, but maybe it's the taste I like and not the smell? Very light and disappears quickly.
Carnal
Bold, bright mandarin paired with the sweet, sensual earthiness of fig.
In the bottle: two clear notes, mandarin and fig. I love that fig note.
On the skin. Nice, much brighter than Hetairae. Not as blended or composed. Want to make a tart that smells like this, more than to wear it.
Lampades
crisp, inviting bittersweet tang of cranberry with smoky dark lilies, heady, sensual musk, a tingle of ginger and a brush of Mediterranean spices.
In the bottle: Cranberry with an underlying heaviness.
On the skin: Wow. This explodes almost instantly into something between a cranberry bog and dark poison berries in the middle of a dangerous dark forest. Impressed! Bounces right on the edge of smelling like a Cosmopolitan made with gin rather than vodka. This was a frimp I never would have ordered, but it's compelling.
Torment
The ominous scent of vetiver with a swirl of bay and gardenia.
In the bottle: Vetiver.
On the skin: Vetiver and a bit of mustiness with a tiny sweet undercurrent that reminds me of sweetly rotting wood. Intimidating and masculine. Certainly not features I want to emphasize in myself. :P (Discontinued scent.)
Embalming Fluid
A light, pure scent: white musk, green tea, aloe and lemon.
In the bottle: Lemon and light undertones.
On the skin: Fresh lemon peel. Pleasant, I guess, but too lemony, cleaning product like. Morphs into a very light floral with a lot of lemon later, but still mostly lemon. Aww.
Leanan Sidhe
Her perfume is a crush of Irish herbs and flowers, Gaelic mists, and nighttime dew.
In the bottle: Aquatic floral, very mainstream perfume like, but pretty.
On the skin: Light and evening like floral. Very reminiscent of Irish Spring type soap. Very girly but not sweet. Well-balanced. Might be good for mainstream occasions, but doesn't make me feel alternative or exotic.
Blood Amber
Slivers of warm, pulsating blood forever crystallized in golden amber resin.
In the bottle: An unappealing bright red color, very synthetic amber aroma.
On the skin: Like a poorly designed magical oil. Bleh.
Lenore
A dark and bellicose scent that speaks of loss, lament, bitterness and breast-beating woe: thick black vetiver, sharp white musk and lemon peel, smoke and saffron, patchouli, thyme and black plum.
In the bottle: Heavy and morose.
On the skin: Heavy, morose, bitter B.O. Too Goth for me.
Aeval
sage, sweet pea, bold pale musk and warm tonka.
In the bottle: A field of wildflowers with fresh mown hay behind.
On the skin: I'm mostly getting sweet pea coming out on my skin, with the herby note behind. Smells like what I had expected from Leanan Sidhe, very Irish feeling, indeed! Nice and interesting without being odd. Some folks on the forums describe this as the scent of a used bookstore. I can see that – it's got a bit of a musty paper thing going on as it sits on the skin. But without the dusty sneezing. Yay!
Mata Hari
five roses with soft jasmine, warmed by vanilla, fig, tonka bean and mahogany, spiced with a drop of coffee bean.
In the bottle: Florals with a weird bitter thing behind them.
On the skin: Complex floral with a sharp undertone. Definitely can get the fig undertone if I look for it. Roasted coffee? Note is there too, though the description here was definitely critical to finding it. Mellows out to a warm jasmine scent with coffee beans behind. Doesn't suit me as well as I'd hoped. As a medium-heavy floral it isn't too bad, though it had too much jasmine. Gets rosy after about an hour, and is really a moderately nice “evening garden” scent. Lasted all evening.
Bastet
Luxuriant amber, warm Egyptian musk, fierce saffron and soft myrrh, almond, cardamom and golden lotus.
In the bottle: Cheap Amaretto liqueur. Ugh.
On the skin: After a little while the cherry almond note's blowing off a bit, and some nicer musky amber notes are coming forward. A little longer and the almond's fading to the background, and this is turning ito the smell of a caravan traveling through a warm desert. Pretty and feminine but not girly. Sexy, but introspective, narcissistic sexy, not projective sexy.
Wolfsbane
In the bottle: Dense, bitter herbal, a little grassy, vetiver.
On the skin: This promptly turns to herbal peanut butter on me, and stays there. Odd. Definitely one my skin hates.
The Apothecary
Tea leaf with three mosses, green, grass, a medley of herbal note, and a drop of ginger and fig.
In the bottle: Grassy/herby. Very light.
On the skin: WTF lemon? This is like a lemon tea party in the park to me. The lemon keeps getting stronger on me, though it's not even listed. Lemon, lemon, I hate you go away! It dies, in about an hour, but the pleasant grassy thing that's left has faded so far I can't really enjoy it much any more. So disappointing!
Kitsune-tsuki
Asian plum, orchid, daffodil, jasmine and white musk.
In the Bottle: Oriental Floral
On the skin: Plum wine dancing with oriental florals. Very pleasant, and mainstream “exotic”. After about half an hour it has something of a character of candied flowers, and dances on the edge of cherry lollipop without actually getting there. Pretty!
Nocnitsa
lightless fir wood, nighttime air, wet forest mosses and upturned earth.
In the bottle: Pine with soft florals.
On the skin: This manages to miss both the Christmas Tree and the Pine-Sol diretions that pine often goes, so I'm impressed with that. It's not inspiring me the way I thought it would, though. I think I need to pull this back out in the deep winter and try again.
Danube
Rhododendron and bellflower petals swirl through deep, cool, dark aquatic notes.
In the bottle: “Rain” scent.
On the skin: Wow. This is like a classic “rain” scent (which doesn't smell like rain), but an exquisite one. Cool and breezy. It's dancing underneath a scent that reminds me of flower bulbs and opened flowers together, kind of a peppery floral. I'm finding this really appealing.
Cathode
A negatively charged scent. Ambergris, Spanish Moss, oakmoss and three electric mints.
In the bottle: Ambergris with sharpness underneath.
On the skin: Better than you might think for a concept scent at least at first. I can kind of get the “zap” she's aiming for with the mint/ambergris combo. And I like the mint/oakmoss combo –like pulling all that extra mint out of the flowerbeds in the side yard. But the ambergris gets headachey on me really quickly (as that note often does). I had to wash this one off.
Flower Moon (LE)
a bouquet of vivid, sexy blooms… tulip, daffodil, violet, dewdrop, rhododendron, iris, daisy, and a mix of California wildflowers.
In the bottle: Floral. Yup.
On the skin: Floral, but a fresh bulby green kind of floral, not syrupy or powdery. Nice and springy. Pleasant.
Sleepy Moon (LE)
A nearly-narcotic blend of opiate-touched bark and blossom reflective of the bleakness and solitude of winter, the quietest point of the year : black opium poppy, bamboo pulp, ylang ylang, lavender, chamomile and white sandalwood.
In the bottle: Lavender and other stuff.
On the skin: Still smells like lavender with a bunch of woody-floral stuff I can't pull out separately dancing underneath it. (I love lavender, so that's good.) This is in fact restful, and when I put it on before bed, it helped me sleep. Would possibly make some phenomnally indulgent bath fizzies.
Next time around, there's a lot more of what I guess is the poppy note obvious to me. Still really nice and calming.
Marquise de Merteiul
Opulent galbanum and amber, glistening peach, and a bouquet of French florals, with a merciless undertone of jonquil and heartless vetiver.
In the bottle: French floral perfume, with a sweet underpinning that doesn't match it.
On the skin: The kind of perfume I don't like, with a juicy sweet note (the peach, I guess) than doesn't blend with it at all fighting to dominate from underneath. Somewhere between generic and just not working right at all. Bleh.
Euterpe
carnation and white poppy, honeysuckle, lemon, iris and white musk.
In the bottle: Heavy women's cologne.
On the skin: Hairspray and chokingness. Gah.
Chuparosa
In the bottle: Sweet honeysuckle
On the skin: Warm, soft rose and honeysuckle, sweet floral, but not heavy. Very good-natured and pretty. Feels like a good scent to inspire good will and forgiveness of old hurts. I could use that.
Delight
Frangipani, with rose, tuberose, and jasmine.
In the bottle: White florals and jasmine.
On the skin: Something is bitter/green in here, and it doesn't blend right for me. Settles down later into a pleasant but not that interesting jasmine. Darn. This one really ought to have worked for me from first principles, but it doesn't.
Intrigue
Black palm, with cocoa, fig and shadowy wooded notes.
In the bottle: Identical to Hetairae. Sweet fig.
On the skin: Like a thinner, less rounded version of Hetairae, and more changeable. There's a hit of spicy wood that shows up after a minute or so, and fades back after about 20. Need to try the two side by side to check, but I think this one is overall similar but not quite as nice. (Later note: Nope, not nearly as nice.)
Swank
the scent of a crisp pomegranate martini
In the bottle: Bright red fruit.
On the skin: Pomegranate martini? Try strawberry wine cooler, with a hint of cleaning solution in the background. Reminds me intensely of working in the lab at Seagram. Not a memory I need to evoke.
La Belle au Bois Dormant
Plumeria and white pear, Damascus rose, tuberose, magnolia and evening dew.
In the bottle: Crisp tree fruit and tea roses.
On the skin: This is sparkly and effervescent, like gentle roses and glitter. Innocent and girly and a little giggly, like a Disney sort of princess. I'm unlikely to have the mood for this very often, but it's very light and pretty, yet strong.
Calliope
lavender and bright mint with bergamot, verbena, thyme and a touch of sweet orange and warm almond
In the bottle: Cherry cough syrup from the dollar store. Vile.
On the skin: Nope. Not Putting it on.
Umbra
East African black patchouli, cedarwood, vetiver and a dribble of cinnamon
In the bottle: Wet paper and leather with a hint of spice. Very masculine.
On the skin: That peanut-butter note (I think it's the BPAL vetiver) comes out strong at first, then fades. This is very strongly reminiscent of sitting in the reading rooms at Yale. Including making me sneeze after a little while. If I ever wanted to masquerade as a tenured professor, I guess I could wear this in a scent locket and not have it touch my skin. As it is, not a keeper.
The Caterpillar
carnation, jasmine, bergamot, and neroli over a lush bed of dark mosses, iris blossom, deep patchouli and indolent vetiver.
In the bottle: Perfumey Indian incense notes, a touch of wetness.
On the skin: Well blended and perfumy. Nothing spectacular.
Scent locket: Very good throw. Pleasant, gender neutral perfume. Not striking me emotionally in any way, and not particularly interesting. I feel like this ought to be good for me, but it just isn't.
Estimated time to burnout and/or picking 3 scents and wearing them: six months. I realized I've kind of been neglecting some of my incense evaluation to do this stuff, and since that's supposedly business, I should try to motivate myself to get back to it.
Anyway, pile of reviews. Probably not well edited.
Whip
Agony and ecstasy: black leather and damp red rose.
In the bottle: Rose with a background of raw leather/animal.
On the skin: Just a medium-heavy rose. Really not very interesting. The leather doesn't come through on me.
Sybaris
The pinnacle of wealth, luxury, self-indulgent pleasure, voluptuousness and sensuality. Bright violet with sweet clove, Mediterranean incense notes and tonka bean.
In the bottle: sweet and woody.
On the skin: Wet sweet in a way that's disturbingly unrecognizable. Not evocative of anything. After a bit, it starts to be evocative of...agar plates with pink bacteria growing on them in the lab. Gah. I thought I loved violet, but maybe it's the taste I like and not the smell? Very light and disappears quickly.
Carnal
Bold, bright mandarin paired with the sweet, sensual earthiness of fig.
In the bottle: two clear notes, mandarin and fig. I love that fig note.
On the skin. Nice, much brighter than Hetairae. Not as blended or composed. Want to make a tart that smells like this, more than to wear it.
Lampades
crisp, inviting bittersweet tang of cranberry with smoky dark lilies, heady, sensual musk, a tingle of ginger and a brush of Mediterranean spices.
In the bottle: Cranberry with an underlying heaviness.
On the skin: Wow. This explodes almost instantly into something between a cranberry bog and dark poison berries in the middle of a dangerous dark forest. Impressed! Bounces right on the edge of smelling like a Cosmopolitan made with gin rather than vodka. This was a frimp I never would have ordered, but it's compelling.
Torment
The ominous scent of vetiver with a swirl of bay and gardenia.
In the bottle: Vetiver.
On the skin: Vetiver and a bit of mustiness with a tiny sweet undercurrent that reminds me of sweetly rotting wood. Intimidating and masculine. Certainly not features I want to emphasize in myself. :P (Discontinued scent.)
Embalming Fluid
A light, pure scent: white musk, green tea, aloe and lemon.
In the bottle: Lemon and light undertones.
On the skin: Fresh lemon peel. Pleasant, I guess, but too lemony, cleaning product like. Morphs into a very light floral with a lot of lemon later, but still mostly lemon. Aww.
Leanan Sidhe
Her perfume is a crush of Irish herbs and flowers, Gaelic mists, and nighttime dew.
In the bottle: Aquatic floral, very mainstream perfume like, but pretty.
On the skin: Light and evening like floral. Very reminiscent of Irish Spring type soap. Very girly but not sweet. Well-balanced. Might be good for mainstream occasions, but doesn't make me feel alternative or exotic.
Blood Amber
Slivers of warm, pulsating blood forever crystallized in golden amber resin.
In the bottle: An unappealing bright red color, very synthetic amber aroma.
On the skin: Like a poorly designed magical oil. Bleh.
Lenore
A dark and bellicose scent that speaks of loss, lament, bitterness and breast-beating woe: thick black vetiver, sharp white musk and lemon peel, smoke and saffron, patchouli, thyme and black plum.
In the bottle: Heavy and morose.
On the skin: Heavy, morose, bitter B.O. Too Goth for me.
Aeval
sage, sweet pea, bold pale musk and warm tonka.
In the bottle: A field of wildflowers with fresh mown hay behind.
On the skin: I'm mostly getting sweet pea coming out on my skin, with the herby note behind. Smells like what I had expected from Leanan Sidhe, very Irish feeling, indeed! Nice and interesting without being odd. Some folks on the forums describe this as the scent of a used bookstore. I can see that – it's got a bit of a musty paper thing going on as it sits on the skin. But without the dusty sneezing. Yay!
Mata Hari
five roses with soft jasmine, warmed by vanilla, fig, tonka bean and mahogany, spiced with a drop of coffee bean.
In the bottle: Florals with a weird bitter thing behind them.
On the skin: Complex floral with a sharp undertone. Definitely can get the fig undertone if I look for it. Roasted coffee? Note is there too, though the description here was definitely critical to finding it. Mellows out to a warm jasmine scent with coffee beans behind. Doesn't suit me as well as I'd hoped. As a medium-heavy floral it isn't too bad, though it had too much jasmine. Gets rosy after about an hour, and is really a moderately nice “evening garden” scent. Lasted all evening.
Bastet
Luxuriant amber, warm Egyptian musk, fierce saffron and soft myrrh, almond, cardamom and golden lotus.
In the bottle: Cheap Amaretto liqueur. Ugh.
On the skin: After a little while the cherry almond note's blowing off a bit, and some nicer musky amber notes are coming forward. A little longer and the almond's fading to the background, and this is turning ito the smell of a caravan traveling through a warm desert. Pretty and feminine but not girly. Sexy, but introspective, narcissistic sexy, not projective sexy.
Wolfsbane
In the bottle: Dense, bitter herbal, a little grassy, vetiver.
On the skin: This promptly turns to herbal peanut butter on me, and stays there. Odd. Definitely one my skin hates.
The Apothecary
Tea leaf with three mosses, green, grass, a medley of herbal note, and a drop of ginger and fig.
In the bottle: Grassy/herby. Very light.
On the skin: WTF lemon? This is like a lemon tea party in the park to me. The lemon keeps getting stronger on me, though it's not even listed. Lemon, lemon, I hate you go away! It dies, in about an hour, but the pleasant grassy thing that's left has faded so far I can't really enjoy it much any more. So disappointing!
Kitsune-tsuki
Asian plum, orchid, daffodil, jasmine and white musk.
In the Bottle: Oriental Floral
On the skin: Plum wine dancing with oriental florals. Very pleasant, and mainstream “exotic”. After about half an hour it has something of a character of candied flowers, and dances on the edge of cherry lollipop without actually getting there. Pretty!
Nocnitsa
lightless fir wood, nighttime air, wet forest mosses and upturned earth.
In the bottle: Pine with soft florals.
On the skin: This manages to miss both the Christmas Tree and the Pine-Sol diretions that pine often goes, so I'm impressed with that. It's not inspiring me the way I thought it would, though. I think I need to pull this back out in the deep winter and try again.
Danube
Rhododendron and bellflower petals swirl through deep, cool, dark aquatic notes.
In the bottle: “Rain” scent.
On the skin: Wow. This is like a classic “rain” scent (which doesn't smell like rain), but an exquisite one. Cool and breezy. It's dancing underneath a scent that reminds me of flower bulbs and opened flowers together, kind of a peppery floral. I'm finding this really appealing.
Cathode
A negatively charged scent. Ambergris, Spanish Moss, oakmoss and three electric mints.
In the bottle: Ambergris with sharpness underneath.
On the skin: Better than you might think for a concept scent at least at first. I can kind of get the “zap” she's aiming for with the mint/ambergris combo. And I like the mint/oakmoss combo –like pulling all that extra mint out of the flowerbeds in the side yard. But the ambergris gets headachey on me really quickly (as that note often does). I had to wash this one off.
Flower Moon (LE)
a bouquet of vivid, sexy blooms… tulip, daffodil, violet, dewdrop, rhododendron, iris, daisy, and a mix of California wildflowers.
In the bottle: Floral. Yup.
On the skin: Floral, but a fresh bulby green kind of floral, not syrupy or powdery. Nice and springy. Pleasant.
Sleepy Moon (LE)
A nearly-narcotic blend of opiate-touched bark and blossom reflective of the bleakness and solitude of winter, the quietest point of the year : black opium poppy, bamboo pulp, ylang ylang, lavender, chamomile and white sandalwood.
In the bottle: Lavender and other stuff.
On the skin: Still smells like lavender with a bunch of woody-floral stuff I can't pull out separately dancing underneath it. (I love lavender, so that's good.) This is in fact restful, and when I put it on before bed, it helped me sleep. Would possibly make some phenomnally indulgent bath fizzies.
Next time around, there's a lot more of what I guess is the poppy note obvious to me. Still really nice and calming.
Marquise de Merteiul
Opulent galbanum and amber, glistening peach, and a bouquet of French florals, with a merciless undertone of jonquil and heartless vetiver.
In the bottle: French floral perfume, with a sweet underpinning that doesn't match it.
On the skin: The kind of perfume I don't like, with a juicy sweet note (the peach, I guess) than doesn't blend with it at all fighting to dominate from underneath. Somewhere between generic and just not working right at all. Bleh.
Euterpe
carnation and white poppy, honeysuckle, lemon, iris and white musk.
In the bottle: Heavy women's cologne.
On the skin: Hairspray and chokingness. Gah.
Chuparosa
In the bottle: Sweet honeysuckle
On the skin: Warm, soft rose and honeysuckle, sweet floral, but not heavy. Very good-natured and pretty. Feels like a good scent to inspire good will and forgiveness of old hurts. I could use that.
Delight
Frangipani, with rose, tuberose, and jasmine.
In the bottle: White florals and jasmine.
On the skin: Something is bitter/green in here, and it doesn't blend right for me. Settles down later into a pleasant but not that interesting jasmine. Darn. This one really ought to have worked for me from first principles, but it doesn't.
Intrigue
Black palm, with cocoa, fig and shadowy wooded notes.
In the bottle: Identical to Hetairae. Sweet fig.
On the skin: Like a thinner, less rounded version of Hetairae, and more changeable. There's a hit of spicy wood that shows up after a minute or so, and fades back after about 20. Need to try the two side by side to check, but I think this one is overall similar but not quite as nice. (Later note: Nope, not nearly as nice.)
Swank
the scent of a crisp pomegranate martini
In the bottle: Bright red fruit.
On the skin: Pomegranate martini? Try strawberry wine cooler, with a hint of cleaning solution in the background. Reminds me intensely of working in the lab at Seagram. Not a memory I need to evoke.
La Belle au Bois Dormant
Plumeria and white pear, Damascus rose, tuberose, magnolia and evening dew.
In the bottle: Crisp tree fruit and tea roses.
On the skin: This is sparkly and effervescent, like gentle roses and glitter. Innocent and girly and a little giggly, like a Disney sort of princess. I'm unlikely to have the mood for this very often, but it's very light and pretty, yet strong.
Calliope
lavender and bright mint with bergamot, verbena, thyme and a touch of sweet orange and warm almond
In the bottle: Cherry cough syrup from the dollar store. Vile.
On the skin: Nope. Not Putting it on.
Umbra
East African black patchouli, cedarwood, vetiver and a dribble of cinnamon
In the bottle: Wet paper and leather with a hint of spice. Very masculine.
On the skin: That peanut-butter note (I think it's the BPAL vetiver) comes out strong at first, then fades. This is very strongly reminiscent of sitting in the reading rooms at Yale. Including making me sneeze after a little while. If I ever wanted to masquerade as a tenured professor, I guess I could wear this in a scent locket and not have it touch my skin. As it is, not a keeper.
The Caterpillar
carnation, jasmine, bergamot, and neroli over a lush bed of dark mosses, iris blossom, deep patchouli and indolent vetiver.
In the bottle: Perfumey Indian incense notes, a touch of wetness.
On the skin: Well blended and perfumy. Nothing spectacular.
Scent locket: Very good throw. Pleasant, gender neutral perfume. Not striking me emotionally in any way, and not particularly interesting. I feel like this ought to be good for me, but it just isn't.
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the time you must put into the thought to review all these scents!
thank you!
(i'm definalty gonna go throu and se about getting imps for the beguinning of june)
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If you want any of the ones I'm not thrilled with/that are on my swaplist, and want to do jewelry swappies, let me know.
no subject
where is your swap lsit agian?
also, you should put all this up on a web site or somthing!!
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no subject
Thanks for making my morning. :)
This seems like a hella lotta work to pick out a perfume!
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