BPAL Scent Reviews V
Round five of the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab reviews. I'm not even close to working through my backlog of already-written reviews, let alone the box of imps I'm hoarding.
First, a word about the allure of perfume, and the peculiar problems posed by scent.
It's really not easy trying to describe something as inexact as smells.
First of all, our language is poorly equipped to handle the sense of smell. We do fine with sight and hearing, and we can manage okay with touch, since those are the three most dominant senses, but smell is the bastard little brother. There's a cultural bias against scent, as well. Unless something smells just wonderful, we aren't supposed to acknowledge it. Yet there are few words that mean "to smell strongly" that do not also mean "to smell unpleasant." "You smell nice!" is considered a more personal statement by many than "You look nice!" (visual) "You sure sound happy this morning!" (auditory) and "You're just a ball of fire today!" (tactile). The implication that I draw from this is that smell has more to do with the body than sight or hearing. So closely connected are smell and taste that it's almost like tasting someone, to smell them. Especially for someone like me. Smell is also intensely sexual.
Second, each perfume reacts differently on each person. A combination of poorly-understood factors can lead, say, civet to smell like hot buttered sex on one person, and rancid week-old cat piss on another. Therefore, my experience of the perfume is going to be different right down to the chemical level.
Third, since we are not taught scents like we are taught colors, nor are we encouraged to avidly smell everything we come across, each person must acquire by chance a vocabulary of smells. Even if we can distinguish between sandalwood, oakmoss, and patchouli, unless we know the names for all three of those smells, we cannot articulate what we are smelling. My smell vocabulary is small but growing; I do well with certain kinds of scents, such as most incense, food, or the animal musks, but with others, especially florals, I'm at a loss. I can't routinely tell ylang-ylang from jasmine, because I've never smelled them alone. Learning what carnation smells like required me to sniff three otherwise dissimilar perfumes with carnation in them, and then pick out the common smell between them.
I'm saying all this to point out that when I sit down to write a review, I don't just wave my hands in the air and arbitrarily decide that it smells like sunbeams, despair, or my high-school crush. I have to really work at it. The pleasure this gives me is the faintly naughty one of delighting a sense that never gets stimulated, of deliberately exciting myself by exposure to something new. Each perfume is like a logic puzzle, a game, a challenge. Even when I do not like a smell, unless it's giving me a headache I won't wash it off. The whole process is too fascinating to me for me to waste it. It's for this reason that I have a hard time parting with my samples. A smell that isn't necessarily all pleasant can still call to you days or weeks later, like a sad book or not-necessarily-happy movie.
Once you teach yourself to smell, to really enjoy the sense, you will want to exercise it, the same way you sometimes want to work with your hands by cooking or gardening, or want to listen to your favorite music, or want to watch your favorite cartoons. It's delightful, and given how close the sense of smell lies to the very root of our brains, it's not surprising that it's addictive.
Euphrosyne, Lab description: "Mirth. Gardenia, tea rose, vanilla and jasmine."
In case I have to say it, named for Euphrosyne, one of the Graces, personification of mirth.
In the bottle, this is sweet; not cloying, but clear, with the gardenia and tea rose right up front. The gardenia is floral, but it's a spicy, peppery floral that isn't too overwhelming. There is also an almost bubble-gum scent to this up close, but not in a negative way.
On, the vanilla and jasmine heat up, and the candy smell vanishes. I get a whiff of roses. This is a very sweet blend, both in scent and in disposition - the throw is vanilla and gardenia, beguiling and feminine without being sexy. There is no base note to this. Everything in it comes right out, and stays out.
This vanilla is so rich and warm, I adore it, and I'm not normally one for walking around smelling like cookies. Even the cookie-phase of this is brilliant, and it didn't take long for it to subside and blend with the florals. Oh, I like this. I like it a lot. It's very not me, but I think I'm going to have to keep it.
The second time I tried this, I didn't get the vanilla scent at all, it stayed in the background and the whole blend was much more floral. Still very, very nice.
Blood Rose, Lab description: "Sensual, robust, and silken: voluptuous red rose bursting with lascivious red wine and sultry dragon's blood resin."
In the bottle this reeks of cheap roses and grape Kool-Aid. But because I have learned not to judge things that smell too sweet until they are actually on my skin, and because I trust Beth, I try it anyway.
On my skin the utterly revolting stench of those loop-handled bank-teller lollipops immediately makes itself known, a grapey stink like the allergy medication I used to sneak from the cupboard and drink straight from the bottle as a child. (The fact that I used to do this probably explains a lot about me, by the way.)
That stench doesn't linger for more than a minute, thank the Powers That Be, and is quickly replaced by a soft, wet red rose. My body latches onto rose scents and pushes them to the front of the crowd, so the grape smell very rapidly gets pulled under. I still catch whiffs of it now and then, but it's relaxed to a winey smell, not a popsicle one. As it warms, there's a sweet resin smell, the dragon's blood, that brings up the slight fuzzy rasp of the rose beautifully, underscoring it without overwhelming or altering the floral scent.
An hour later, it's settled into a mix of roses and wine that I'd call nice, if that were in any way an adequate word. It's not aggressive, but not is it as polite as "nice" implies. It is distinctive and arresting, just a little sweet and fruity, and the wine note with the rose is profoundly, darkly, wetly, redly sexual. A throaty smell, almost too rich. This is a very womanly scent, but it's one with some real depth - both complex and overstated. Not many perfumes can claim both of those labels.
Wearing down, it's an equal blend of all three ingredients that is intriguing and arresting. I like this very well, but I don't know if it edges out "Zombi."
Fae, Lab description: "A brilliant, ethereal scent: white musk, bergamot, heliotrope, peach and oakmoss."
In the bottle, fruity and delightful, a sunlit combination of peach, bergamot (a jaunty citrus smell), and a flower that must be heliotrope.
On the skin, the musk warms up and underscores it with a delightful sweet and velvety note . . . like fruits and flowers laid on a velvet cloth. This is both citrusy and floral; I don't enjoy citrus or floral smells all that much, but the combination is lively without being overpowering. This is an edible, hard-candy smell, but not so foody that I find it off-putting. Like a sour peach candy. Tart and wicked.
Dry, it's toned down to . . . wow. It's smooth and bright, like sunlight through white curtains, or walking through an orchard on a windy, bright day. The citrus is no longer quite so strong, and the overall smell is one of peaches and musk. I think it's the oakmoss mixing with something else, but there's almost a vanilla smell here - very faint, but that same kind of low-key richness.
This wears down more or less without changing, which I like. It doesn't go sour, it doesn't go powdery, it doesn't go soapy. Delightful, sunny, and warmhearted, an utterly beguiling scent that is so goddamn cheerful I'm not entirely sure I could wear it without suffering from irony poison. Nevertheless, I really like this. A lot.
O
"The scent of sexual obsession, slavery to sensual pleasure, and the undercurrent of innocence defiled utterly. Amber and honey with a touch of vanilla."
In the bottle, a mouthwatering and succulent honey-smell, chased with vanilla and amber. Utterly tempting. Yes, this actually does smell like honey, that slightly grainy purr, thick and dark.
The amber just unfolds once it hits the skin, unravelling into a glorious, warm scent, with the honey melting off it, hot and soft. I'm reminded very strongly of vanilla beeswax candles, but this is not a cheap air-freshener vanilla scent, this is a rich, darkly golden vanilla that is crushed and herbal, not too highly refined.
This isn't a perfumey scent. It's personal, subtle, sexual; a close, mammalian, skin-smell. Like the smell of sex you can't ever quite wash off your fingers. The smell of a woman comfortable in her own skin, where there is no good or evil applied to pleasure.
It's sweet, undeniably, but there's that smoky rasp to it from the amber that keeps it from being cloying. This is innocence, yes, but it's not the untouched kind - this is innocence lying sweaty and trembling, slippery and dewy, wondering what the hell just happened. This is so pure, so pefectly its own, that it just doesn't understand the concept of degradation, so no matter how you bend it it remains unsullied. This is sin, and wanting to do it again.
It dries smooth. The vanilla and honey slowly and steadily fade, leaving the slightly musky amber. This is a very fleshy amber, too, almost dirty. I don't know how else to put it. It smells like sex. Undeniably one of the most sensual smells I've tried yet. And, no, that's not just the fact that Story of O is one of my best-loved books talking. It really is that good.
This is like Dorian's gorgeous baby sister. The two are sort of like a unit. It's hard to explain. They're in the same color set to me, but they contrast nicely.
Miskatonic University, Lab description: "A venerable New England university, whose vast library holds many rare, diabolical and obscure arcane works, including one of the few surviving legitimate copies of the Necronomicon. Home to innumerable scholars of the esoteric and the occult, and the notorious Dr. Herbert West.
"The scent of Irish coffee, dusty tomes and polished oakwood halls."
In the bottle: butter and toffee/coffee/caramel. Very, very foody. Alarmingly foody. But delicious. I feel obligated to point out that I do not drink coffee, but I find the smell of it simply divine.
Thankfully once it hits my skin the coffee roasts down to a toasty warm smell, and I don't smell quite so much like caramel. I smell like a chocolate-covered coffee bean. Hmmm. Interesting, but, again, do I want to smell like this?
Dry: DUST. I smell a puff of dust. The coffee smell has a little whiskey to it, now that it's toned down. I smell faint dust and wood. How on earth does Beth get these smells in a bottle? I smell like I pulled an all-nighter at the Salem Institute of Esoteric and Magical Studies.
After several hours, the smell is staying put very well. The violently sweet note in the coffee has gone, and left only the roasted, almost chocolatey smell, along with a whiff of wood polish. You wouldn't think that combination would be an appealing scent for a perfume oil, but it is. At the extreme of its weardown, it has a warm pelt sort of smell, like a cat that's been lying in the sun.
This is a warm, comforting scent that loses a lot of its foodiness, but not its depth, as it dries. I like it a lot. Very much a smell for sitting quietly and studying. I'll be hoarding my store of it, since it was a limited edition and no more is being made.
It is also, incidentally, only the second scent Tazendra has deigned to notice. She licked at it rather desultorily while it was wet. In any other cat, this would translate to cartwheels of delight.
With that, I leave you to cruise the remainder of your f-list, and hopefully, to consider.
Tiny scent icons are courtesy of Penance's BPAL Icons and Diana's BPAL icons.
First, a word about the allure of perfume, and the peculiar problems posed by scent.
It's really not easy trying to describe something as inexact as smells.
First of all, our language is poorly equipped to handle the sense of smell. We do fine with sight and hearing, and we can manage okay with touch, since those are the three most dominant senses, but smell is the bastard little brother. There's a cultural bias against scent, as well. Unless something smells just wonderful, we aren't supposed to acknowledge it. Yet there are few words that mean "to smell strongly" that do not also mean "to smell unpleasant." "You smell nice!" is considered a more personal statement by many than "You look nice!" (visual) "You sure sound happy this morning!" (auditory) and "You're just a ball of fire today!" (tactile). The implication that I draw from this is that smell has more to do with the body than sight or hearing. So closely connected are smell and taste that it's almost like tasting someone, to smell them. Especially for someone like me. Smell is also intensely sexual.
Second, each perfume reacts differently on each person. A combination of poorly-understood factors can lead, say, civet to smell like hot buttered sex on one person, and rancid week-old cat piss on another. Therefore, my experience of the perfume is going to be different right down to the chemical level.
Third, since we are not taught scents like we are taught colors, nor are we encouraged to avidly smell everything we come across, each person must acquire by chance a vocabulary of smells. Even if we can distinguish between sandalwood, oakmoss, and patchouli, unless we know the names for all three of those smells, we cannot articulate what we are smelling. My smell vocabulary is small but growing; I do well with certain kinds of scents, such as most incense, food, or the animal musks, but with others, especially florals, I'm at a loss. I can't routinely tell ylang-ylang from jasmine, because I've never smelled them alone. Learning what carnation smells like required me to sniff three otherwise dissimilar perfumes with carnation in them, and then pick out the common smell between them.
I'm saying all this to point out that when I sit down to write a review, I don't just wave my hands in the air and arbitrarily decide that it smells like sunbeams, despair, or my high-school crush. I have to really work at it. The pleasure this gives me is the faintly naughty one of delighting a sense that never gets stimulated, of deliberately exciting myself by exposure to something new. Each perfume is like a logic puzzle, a game, a challenge. Even when I do not like a smell, unless it's giving me a headache I won't wash it off. The whole process is too fascinating to me for me to waste it. It's for this reason that I have a hard time parting with my samples. A smell that isn't necessarily all pleasant can still call to you days or weeks later, like a sad book or not-necessarily-happy movie.
Once you teach yourself to smell, to really enjoy the sense, you will want to exercise it, the same way you sometimes want to work with your hands by cooking or gardening, or want to listen to your favorite music, or want to watch your favorite cartoons. It's delightful, and given how close the sense of smell lies to the very root of our brains, it's not surprising that it's addictive.
Euphrosyne, Lab description: "Mirth. Gardenia, tea rose, vanilla and jasmine."
In case I have to say it, named for Euphrosyne, one of the Graces, personification of mirth.
In the bottle, this is sweet; not cloying, but clear, with the gardenia and tea rose right up front. The gardenia is floral, but it's a spicy, peppery floral that isn't too overwhelming. There is also an almost bubble-gum scent to this up close, but not in a negative way.
On, the vanilla and jasmine heat up, and the candy smell vanishes. I get a whiff of roses. This is a very sweet blend, both in scent and in disposition - the throw is vanilla and gardenia, beguiling and feminine without being sexy. There is no base note to this. Everything in it comes right out, and stays out.
This vanilla is so rich and warm, I adore it, and I'm not normally one for walking around smelling like cookies. Even the cookie-phase of this is brilliant, and it didn't take long for it to subside and blend with the florals. Oh, I like this. I like it a lot. It's very not me, but I think I'm going to have to keep it.
The second time I tried this, I didn't get the vanilla scent at all, it stayed in the background and the whole blend was much more floral. Still very, very nice.
Blood Rose, Lab description: "Sensual, robust, and silken: voluptuous red rose bursting with lascivious red wine and sultry dragon's blood resin."
In the bottle this reeks of cheap roses and grape Kool-Aid. But because I have learned not to judge things that smell too sweet until they are actually on my skin, and because I trust Beth, I try it anyway.
On my skin the utterly revolting stench of those loop-handled bank-teller lollipops immediately makes itself known, a grapey stink like the allergy medication I used to sneak from the cupboard and drink straight from the bottle as a child. (The fact that I used to do this probably explains a lot about me, by the way.)
That stench doesn't linger for more than a minute, thank the Powers That Be, and is quickly replaced by a soft, wet red rose. My body latches onto rose scents and pushes them to the front of the crowd, so the grape smell very rapidly gets pulled under. I still catch whiffs of it now and then, but it's relaxed to a winey smell, not a popsicle one. As it warms, there's a sweet resin smell, the dragon's blood, that brings up the slight fuzzy rasp of the rose beautifully, underscoring it without overwhelming or altering the floral scent.
An hour later, it's settled into a mix of roses and wine that I'd call nice, if that were in any way an adequate word. It's not aggressive, but not is it as polite as "nice" implies. It is distinctive and arresting, just a little sweet and fruity, and the wine note with the rose is profoundly, darkly, wetly, redly sexual. A throaty smell, almost too rich. This is a very womanly scent, but it's one with some real depth - both complex and overstated. Not many perfumes can claim both of those labels.
Wearing down, it's an equal blend of all three ingredients that is intriguing and arresting. I like this very well, but I don't know if it edges out "Zombi."
Fae, Lab description: "A brilliant, ethereal scent: white musk, bergamot, heliotrope, peach and oakmoss."
In the bottle, fruity and delightful, a sunlit combination of peach, bergamot (a jaunty citrus smell), and a flower that must be heliotrope.
On the skin, the musk warms up and underscores it with a delightful sweet and velvety note . . . like fruits and flowers laid on a velvet cloth. This is both citrusy and floral; I don't enjoy citrus or floral smells all that much, but the combination is lively without being overpowering. This is an edible, hard-candy smell, but not so foody that I find it off-putting. Like a sour peach candy. Tart and wicked.
Dry, it's toned down to . . . wow. It's smooth and bright, like sunlight through white curtains, or walking through an orchard on a windy, bright day. The citrus is no longer quite so strong, and the overall smell is one of peaches and musk. I think it's the oakmoss mixing with something else, but there's almost a vanilla smell here - very faint, but that same kind of low-key richness.
This wears down more or less without changing, which I like. It doesn't go sour, it doesn't go powdery, it doesn't go soapy. Delightful, sunny, and warmhearted, an utterly beguiling scent that is so goddamn cheerful I'm not entirely sure I could wear it without suffering from irony poison. Nevertheless, I really like this. A lot.
O
"The scent of sexual obsession, slavery to sensual pleasure, and the undercurrent of innocence defiled utterly. Amber and honey with a touch of vanilla."
In the bottle, a mouthwatering and succulent honey-smell, chased with vanilla and amber. Utterly tempting. Yes, this actually does smell like honey, that slightly grainy purr, thick and dark.
The amber just unfolds once it hits the skin, unravelling into a glorious, warm scent, with the honey melting off it, hot and soft. I'm reminded very strongly of vanilla beeswax candles, but this is not a cheap air-freshener vanilla scent, this is a rich, darkly golden vanilla that is crushed and herbal, not too highly refined.
This isn't a perfumey scent. It's personal, subtle, sexual; a close, mammalian, skin-smell. Like the smell of sex you can't ever quite wash off your fingers. The smell of a woman comfortable in her own skin, where there is no good or evil applied to pleasure.
It's sweet, undeniably, but there's that smoky rasp to it from the amber that keeps it from being cloying. This is innocence, yes, but it's not the untouched kind - this is innocence lying sweaty and trembling, slippery and dewy, wondering what the hell just happened. This is so pure, so pefectly its own, that it just doesn't understand the concept of degradation, so no matter how you bend it it remains unsullied. This is sin, and wanting to do it again.
It dries smooth. The vanilla and honey slowly and steadily fade, leaving the slightly musky amber. This is a very fleshy amber, too, almost dirty. I don't know how else to put it. It smells like sex. Undeniably one of the most sensual smells I've tried yet. And, no, that's not just the fact that Story of O is one of my best-loved books talking. It really is that good.
This is like Dorian's gorgeous baby sister. The two are sort of like a unit. It's hard to explain. They're in the same color set to me, but they contrast nicely.
Miskatonic University, Lab description: "A venerable New England university, whose vast library holds many rare, diabolical and obscure arcane works, including one of the few surviving legitimate copies of the Necronomicon. Home to innumerable scholars of the esoteric and the occult, and the notorious Dr. Herbert West.
"The scent of Irish coffee, dusty tomes and polished oakwood halls."
In the bottle: butter and toffee/coffee/caramel. Very, very foody. Alarmingly foody. But delicious. I feel obligated to point out that I do not drink coffee, but I find the smell of it simply divine.
Thankfully once it hits my skin the coffee roasts down to a toasty warm smell, and I don't smell quite so much like caramel. I smell like a chocolate-covered coffee bean. Hmmm. Interesting, but, again, do I want to smell like this?
Dry: DUST. I smell a puff of dust. The coffee smell has a little whiskey to it, now that it's toned down. I smell faint dust and wood. How on earth does Beth get these smells in a bottle? I smell like I pulled an all-nighter at the Salem Institute of Esoteric and Magical Studies.
After several hours, the smell is staying put very well. The violently sweet note in the coffee has gone, and left only the roasted, almost chocolatey smell, along with a whiff of wood polish. You wouldn't think that combination would be an appealing scent for a perfume oil, but it is. At the extreme of its weardown, it has a warm pelt sort of smell, like a cat that's been lying in the sun.
This is a warm, comforting scent that loses a lot of its foodiness, but not its depth, as it dries. I like it a lot. Very much a smell for sitting quietly and studying. I'll be hoarding my store of it, since it was a limited edition and no more is being made.
It is also, incidentally, only the second scent Tazendra has deigned to notice. She licked at it rather desultorily while it was wet. In any other cat, this would translate to cartwheels of delight.
With that, I leave you to cruise the remainder of your f-list, and hopefully, to consider.
Tiny scent icons are courtesy of Penance's BPAL Icons and Diana's BPAL icons.