BPAL Reviews X
I'm taking a break from the Thing to bring you a roundup of reviews from the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, and this batch includes some of the best scents yet. I begin with a scent in honor of the Thing itself, and finish with a review that veered off into softcore bondage porn. Here we have two Limited Editions, two rose scents, two bondage scents, and the green fairy crowning it all.
Absinthe, Lab description: "Fall under the spell of our Green Fairy! An intoxicating blend containing wormwood essence, light mints, cardamom, anise, hyssop, and the barest hint of lemon. (Gender Neutral)"
On first sniff immediately after receipt, spacezombie and I agreed that this smells like Ny-Quil. This alone was horrible enough to keep me from trying it for quite a while.
Clearly, I had been sniffing too many fumes, for once I decided to brave it, I loved it. In the bottle I smell a licorice-sweet blend spiked with mint and a dash of thin and pungent herbs.
I must try it on.
The anise and fennel in absinthe is what smells like licorice; in this blend it expands to an herbal scent, not candylike at all, then it draws aside like a veil to let the rest of the perfume through. There is a scent here like mums or marigolds, peppery and pungent and wild, and greenly herbal. Bruised and torn mint. A close whisper of lemon, citric but not candylike. This is medicinal, fumigatory, dry and a little sour.
Dry, it's very, very nice. A cool, sweet herbal that absolutely does not smell perfumey. It's also very light and clean. I love it, and I don't particularly like licorice (though those who are strongly averse to the smell of it should probably avoid this blend). Even on extreme weardown this remains fresh, green, and moist, and never goes powdery. Huzzah!
People? Try the smells you hate in the bottle. Delightful!
Snake Charmer, Lab description: "Sensual, sibilant, sexual and hypnotic: Arabian musk and exotic spices slinking through Egyptian amber, enticing vanilla, and a serpentine blend of black plum, labdanum, ambrette, benzoin and black coconut. (Gender neutral)"
In the bottle, it's sweet musk and vanilla with lots of resinous overtones - the ambrette and benzoin, I think.
On, oh my God. It's just a warm golden smell that has no discernible notes. The blend is very unified and smooth. Sheer delight. I can smell the coconut and the vanilla, but they aren't dominant, they're only influencing the overall tone; it's not foody in the slightest. The amber and resins are simply divine. This is a very close, warm smell, a body smell that is not overtly sexy to me, but rather sensual. At the same time, there's something in this that is just a hair high-pitched for me that gives it a sharpness like a snake's tooth.
Beautiful, with just a little bit of bite.
Carnivàle, Lab description: Bright, intoxicating, hectic notes masking a twisted, corrupted core: sweet wild berry, spicy carnation and heliotrope layered over deep amber and musk.
Hmm. Oh, my! This is sweetly berry/floral without being cloying. It's slightly peppery - I can definitely smell the carnation. I like it! Quite refreshing! Let's see if it's repulsive on.
Oh my goodness. The carnation comes leaping right out, and the amber is a rough blast of golden warmth. It eats the berries and worries at the heliotrope. This is nice, but very strong and almost harsh. And there's an aggressively powdery note to it that might be a dealbreaker if it persists. Yes, now it smells like makeup taken off with baby oil. That's . . . icky.
This is really beautiful at first, but then it just gets dirty, and not in a good way. On extreme drydown it's almost tolerable, and just becomes a sort of pleasant carnation scent. Sadly, this isn't what I'm looking for, so out it goes.
Spellbound, Lab description: Perfectly enchanting! An irresistibly sexual, utterly rapturous blend of three roses, radiant amber, and sensual red musk."
Just looking at the ingredients in this one makes me wobbly. There's nothing in here to go foul.
I pop the bottle, and oh, holy Asherah, this is some sexy, sexy stuff! Roses and musk. It's sweet, but not a candylike, girlish smell, though. It's thick and dark and womanly. The oil itself is so dark brown it's nearly black.
On, it's amazing. The roses and musk blend perfectly, neither overwhelms the other, so it's like one smooth smell. Together they're a lot like the Lab's wine note in bouquet, without that awful grape wet phase that wine always has to go through. The rose is like the dirty rose that's in Zombi. I love it. The musk is red musk, so it's hot and soft and buoyant. Of all the musks, red musk is the biggest on my skin; it hits my body heat and just expands. Rose does the same thing, so combining them . . . genius. It really, really works. The throw is fierce: my husband tells me he can smell it two rooms away, so apply with caution.
Wearing down, it hardly changes at all on me. It's very stable and long-lasting. The sweet fruity note dies back a little, but it's still exactly the same smell. I never get a clear amber note out of this, just a sort of general underlying warmth, influencing the musk more than the rose. It also lasts all night. I put it on at three, and this was still going strong at eight, even through a couple of handwashings.
A heady, powerful scent.
Whip, Lab description: "Agony and ecstasy: black leather and damp red rose. (Gender neutral.)"
I can't smell anything but roses in the bottle, wet red ones. On, it warms up to a rose like the rosewood in Old Scratch, which is spicy, or Rose Red in that it's very saturated and juicy. But where is the leather? Hellooo? Leather?
My, this rose is strong and boozy, and the longer it's on, the boozier it gets! This is a smell that'll climb right up your arm, and it has a glorious throw, more like a halo. Very beautiful, but even after an hour there is still no leather. I can tell the leather is hiding in there, and as the scent wears there is a nebulous darkness that rises, like roses left in ink slowly soaking up the black, but it never comes right out and shows itself. It's just sort of subtly there.
I'm devastated by the failure of the leather to appear. I have other rose perfumes I love whose notes do show, so that means this won't make my top ten list. I'll try mixing it with De Sade, certainly, to get the effect I wish it'd had.
This is still a very sexual rose smell, and one with enough bite that I could even see a man wearing it. I just really wish I could smell the leather!
De Sade, Lab description: "The essence of pleasure heightened by pain: the raw scent of leather."
A word about the Lab's leather scent: if you're expecting a perfect new leather jacket/leather store smell when you order, that's not really what you're going to get. The scent used for leather in the Lab's blends is like that used in other leather colognes and perfumes, and is really more reminiscent of leather than it is an actual leather scent. Those of you who have smelled commercial leather colognes will probably know what I mean; think of the murky, throaty, slick note in English Leather. All that said, it works very, very well as a kind of olfactory shorthand, and is quite sexy in its own right.
De Sade is as close to a pure leather single-note as the Lab produces, and is considered the king of leather blends by most hardcore Lab leather fiends. I have such strong reactions to leather scents that this one is virtually a shoe-in for best scent ever.
When I ease the tester open, the thick smell of expensive leather comes wafting up, a soft-sweet and smoky aroma. At first sniff, this isn't smooth store leather, this is hard briefcase leather, crisp and shiny. It's not a leather store smell. It's a leather belt smell. Lusty, lusty leather.
I apply it sparingly, since leather is almost overpowering on my skin. One dab, rubbed between both wrists, and suddenly I'm surrounded by a halo of the scent, which unfolds like a heavy black leather coat. It goes from a hard and shiny scent to a thick, hot, tight smell, a close-to-the-skin smell that is threatening and yet soft, like low-hanging clouds. There's so much warmth in this, and a dry brush of something else, something smoky almost like charcoal. It's dangerous, it's not subtle, and it's profoundly forward.
Sargon comes in and the first words out of his mouth are "That smells great." And it does.
This isn't a new leather smell, it's a smell that's been broken in but not worn out, dirtied up a few times but cleaned well in between. This smell has been around, it's seen use, my darlings. It smells like a very fine but well-worn glove; you can almost hear the creak of the leather as this hand closes over your nose and mouth, stifling you. You can smell it, smell him, leather and a breath of smoke, the skin-smell of worn leather flush with body oil and just a little sweat. Slick, leather-clad fingers force their way into your mouth, across your tongue. You taste the leather as you breathe, back in your throat. They slip out, slide across to the back of your neck where a firm and merciless grip pushes you, pushes you down.
And De Sade is a deceptive bastard. He has throw, even though you might not think it for such a low-toned scent. The whipcrack can hit you from ten, fifteen feet away. And though he mellows as the night wears, even at the last he still glares at you with those great, hollow eyes from the leather chair in the corner, and those eyes say he knows just how to bend you to his will. And it doesn't get any better than that.
Not for the faint of heart, or the faint of loins.
This morning I got a small package of imps from kentraine, and am enjoying those.
I find these smells stimulating, and several of them have been interesting and sexy enough to make me want to write vignettes about them. I'm toying with the idea of writing a short series of eponymously-titled scent-inspired erotic shorts, about 1,000-1,500 words each, but I'm not sure how I could submit them to an outside site, book, or magazine and still be able to give the Lab credit. It's something to think about, though, and the blends certainly are inspirational to my general work since so much of what I write is so sensual anyway.
I enjoy this, in other words, and I'm glad most of you appear to enjoy it when I share it with you. It's a pleasure.
Tiny scent icons are courtesy of Penance's BPAL Icons and Diana's BPAL icons.
Absinthe, Lab description: "Fall under the spell of our Green Fairy! An intoxicating blend containing wormwood essence, light mints, cardamom, anise, hyssop, and the barest hint of lemon. (Gender Neutral)"
On first sniff immediately after receipt, spacezombie and I agreed that this smells like Ny-Quil. This alone was horrible enough to keep me from trying it for quite a while.
Clearly, I had been sniffing too many fumes, for once I decided to brave it, I loved it. In the bottle I smell a licorice-sweet blend spiked with mint and a dash of thin and pungent herbs.
I must try it on.
The anise and fennel in absinthe is what smells like licorice; in this blend it expands to an herbal scent, not candylike at all, then it draws aside like a veil to let the rest of the perfume through. There is a scent here like mums or marigolds, peppery and pungent and wild, and greenly herbal. Bruised and torn mint. A close whisper of lemon, citric but not candylike. This is medicinal, fumigatory, dry and a little sour.
Dry, it's very, very nice. A cool, sweet herbal that absolutely does not smell perfumey. It's also very light and clean. I love it, and I don't particularly like licorice (though those who are strongly averse to the smell of it should probably avoid this blend). Even on extreme weardown this remains fresh, green, and moist, and never goes powdery. Huzzah!
People? Try the smells you hate in the bottle. Delightful!
Snake Charmer, Lab description: "Sensual, sibilant, sexual and hypnotic: Arabian musk and exotic spices slinking through Egyptian amber, enticing vanilla, and a serpentine blend of black plum, labdanum, ambrette, benzoin and black coconut. (Gender neutral)"
In the bottle, it's sweet musk and vanilla with lots of resinous overtones - the ambrette and benzoin, I think.
On, oh my God. It's just a warm golden smell that has no discernible notes. The blend is very unified and smooth. Sheer delight. I can smell the coconut and the vanilla, but they aren't dominant, they're only influencing the overall tone; it's not foody in the slightest. The amber and resins are simply divine. This is a very close, warm smell, a body smell that is not overtly sexy to me, but rather sensual. At the same time, there's something in this that is just a hair high-pitched for me that gives it a sharpness like a snake's tooth.
Beautiful, with just a little bit of bite.
Carnivàle, Lab description: Bright, intoxicating, hectic notes masking a twisted, corrupted core: sweet wild berry, spicy carnation and heliotrope layered over deep amber and musk.
Hmm. Oh, my! This is sweetly berry/floral without being cloying. It's slightly peppery - I can definitely smell the carnation. I like it! Quite refreshing! Let's see if it's repulsive on.
Oh my goodness. The carnation comes leaping right out, and the amber is a rough blast of golden warmth. It eats the berries and worries at the heliotrope. This is nice, but very strong and almost harsh. And there's an aggressively powdery note to it that might be a dealbreaker if it persists. Yes, now it smells like makeup taken off with baby oil. That's . . . icky.
This is really beautiful at first, but then it just gets dirty, and not in a good way. On extreme drydown it's almost tolerable, and just becomes a sort of pleasant carnation scent. Sadly, this isn't what I'm looking for, so out it goes.
Spellbound, Lab description: Perfectly enchanting! An irresistibly sexual, utterly rapturous blend of three roses, radiant amber, and sensual red musk."
Just looking at the ingredients in this one makes me wobbly. There's nothing in here to go foul.
I pop the bottle, and oh, holy Asherah, this is some sexy, sexy stuff! Roses and musk. It's sweet, but not a candylike, girlish smell, though. It's thick and dark and womanly. The oil itself is so dark brown it's nearly black.
On, it's amazing. The roses and musk blend perfectly, neither overwhelms the other, so it's like one smooth smell. Together they're a lot like the Lab's wine note in bouquet, without that awful grape wet phase that wine always has to go through. The rose is like the dirty rose that's in Zombi. I love it. The musk is red musk, so it's hot and soft and buoyant. Of all the musks, red musk is the biggest on my skin; it hits my body heat and just expands. Rose does the same thing, so combining them . . . genius. It really, really works. The throw is fierce: my husband tells me he can smell it two rooms away, so apply with caution.
Wearing down, it hardly changes at all on me. It's very stable and long-lasting. The sweet fruity note dies back a little, but it's still exactly the same smell. I never get a clear amber note out of this, just a sort of general underlying warmth, influencing the musk more than the rose. It also lasts all night. I put it on at three, and this was still going strong at eight, even through a couple of handwashings.
A heady, powerful scent.
Whip, Lab description: "Agony and ecstasy: black leather and damp red rose. (Gender neutral.)"
I can't smell anything but roses in the bottle, wet red ones. On, it warms up to a rose like the rosewood in Old Scratch, which is spicy, or Rose Red in that it's very saturated and juicy. But where is the leather? Hellooo? Leather?
My, this rose is strong and boozy, and the longer it's on, the boozier it gets! This is a smell that'll climb right up your arm, and it has a glorious throw, more like a halo. Very beautiful, but even after an hour there is still no leather. I can tell the leather is hiding in there, and as the scent wears there is a nebulous darkness that rises, like roses left in ink slowly soaking up the black, but it never comes right out and shows itself. It's just sort of subtly there.
I'm devastated by the failure of the leather to appear. I have other rose perfumes I love whose notes do show, so that means this won't make my top ten list. I'll try mixing it with De Sade, certainly, to get the effect I wish it'd had.
This is still a very sexual rose smell, and one with enough bite that I could even see a man wearing it. I just really wish I could smell the leather!
De Sade, Lab description: "The essence of pleasure heightened by pain: the raw scent of leather."
A word about the Lab's leather scent: if you're expecting a perfect new leather jacket/leather store smell when you order, that's not really what you're going to get. The scent used for leather in the Lab's blends is like that used in other leather colognes and perfumes, and is really more reminiscent of leather than it is an actual leather scent. Those of you who have smelled commercial leather colognes will probably know what I mean; think of the murky, throaty, slick note in English Leather. All that said, it works very, very well as a kind of olfactory shorthand, and is quite sexy in its own right.
De Sade is as close to a pure leather single-note as the Lab produces, and is considered the king of leather blends by most hardcore Lab leather fiends. I have such strong reactions to leather scents that this one is virtually a shoe-in for best scent ever.
When I ease the tester open, the thick smell of expensive leather comes wafting up, a soft-sweet and smoky aroma. At first sniff, this isn't smooth store leather, this is hard briefcase leather, crisp and shiny. It's not a leather store smell. It's a leather belt smell. Lusty, lusty leather.
I apply it sparingly, since leather is almost overpowering on my skin. One dab, rubbed between both wrists, and suddenly I'm surrounded by a halo of the scent, which unfolds like a heavy black leather coat. It goes from a hard and shiny scent to a thick, hot, tight smell, a close-to-the-skin smell that is threatening and yet soft, like low-hanging clouds. There's so much warmth in this, and a dry brush of something else, something smoky almost like charcoal. It's dangerous, it's not subtle, and it's profoundly forward.
Sargon comes in and the first words out of his mouth are "That smells great." And it does.
This isn't a new leather smell, it's a smell that's been broken in but not worn out, dirtied up a few times but cleaned well in between. This smell has been around, it's seen use, my darlings. It smells like a very fine but well-worn glove; you can almost hear the creak of the leather as this hand closes over your nose and mouth, stifling you. You can smell it, smell him, leather and a breath of smoke, the skin-smell of worn leather flush with body oil and just a little sweat. Slick, leather-clad fingers force their way into your mouth, across your tongue. You taste the leather as you breathe, back in your throat. They slip out, slide across to the back of your neck where a firm and merciless grip pushes you, pushes you down.
And De Sade is a deceptive bastard. He has throw, even though you might not think it for such a low-toned scent. The whipcrack can hit you from ten, fifteen feet away. And though he mellows as the night wears, even at the last he still glares at you with those great, hollow eyes from the leather chair in the corner, and those eyes say he knows just how to bend you to his will. And it doesn't get any better than that.
Not for the faint of heart, or the faint of loins.
This morning I got a small package of imps from kentraine, and am enjoying those.
I find these smells stimulating, and several of them have been interesting and sexy enough to make me want to write vignettes about them. I'm toying with the idea of writing a short series of eponymously-titled scent-inspired erotic shorts, about 1,000-1,500 words each, but I'm not sure how I could submit them to an outside site, book, or magazine and still be able to give the Lab credit. It's something to think about, though, and the blends certainly are inspirational to my general work since so much of what I write is so sensual anyway.
I enjoy this, in other words, and I'm glad most of you appear to enjoy it when I share it with you. It's a pleasure.
Tiny scent icons are courtesy of Penance's BPAL Icons and Diana's BPAL icons.