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(Disclaimer: I'm severely hyposmic and synaesthetic, so my perceptions may not reflect common experience. Also, my downmarket taste and experience range are going to be on display here.)

In a previous post here, I mentioned a fruitless yearning for a big, extravagant, uncomplicated rose note that I'd encountered in an industrial hand soap--only to happen upon it in BPAL's Blood Rose. By another happy bit of serendipity, a similar unequivocal old-fashioned (1) rose scent that I'm still capable of perceiving turns out to be available for three bucks a bottle; I was wondering whether anyone might recognize it in other fragrances.

(1) I suspect that a heavy rose note is the sort of thing that's come to be stigmatized as old-ladyish; it's been decades since I've come across it in a mass-marketed grooming product. Perhaps, now that the grandmas who wore stuff like Joy have been dying off, it's acquired the patina of period charm?

flamingsword

A friend gifted me a roll-on bottle of SIXTEEN92's Supercell, the perfume that smells like a hailstorm, last year. I am running low now, and I don't know how to tell if they are ever planning on re-releasing it. How do I find that out? Is there anything else like it?

SUPERCELL
Electric ozone, sharp green grasses, asphalt / Petrichor, windblown hay, damp florals / Crushed stems, soaked earth, cracked branches
2015, Spring LE

pengwern

Has anyone ever encountered a dupe for L'Artisan Parfumeur's Traversee du Bosphore? I can't identify the topnote (which might be apple, with a sliver of almond?) but I worry slightly about finding a dupe years later at Bath and Bodyworks.

I ask only because one time I opened up a vial of Onda in full anticipatory awe and smelled instead a LUSH face mask (Brazened Honey, to be exact. It might not seem like it on application, but if you leave the little jar in your fridge for months and months like a barbarian who doesn't do face masks and it turns out to have expired long since so you proceed to slather your extremities with the goop and end up leaving scent trails of vetiver-ginger around the house, comma, you'd know that smell too.)

pengwern

I spitzed some Fracas onto a strip at the mall recently, and decided to try the Serge Lutens Sarrasins* today, and noticed a briefly similar note which I'm guessing might be indoles. It doesn't go anywhere unpleasant on me -- actually, it reminds me of some sort of rice based dish (jasmine rice?)

Are there any perfumes known for a huge indolic note that I should try, the next time I snap when looking at perfume sampling websites?

*the hide I could detect in it was......fetal pig in formalin, which mercifully faded out after a few minutes.

kore

Because I was looking for this info, so I thought other people here might be too:

Here’s the ongoing down date list for BPAL’s Limited Edition sets:

Weenies - Jan. 23rd, 2019
Masque of the Red Death - Jan. 23rd, 2019
Yule - Feb 22nd, 2019
Anniv - Feb 22nd, 2019

As of right now these are available until further notice but be sure to check back:
Activism:
Nasty Woman
Nevertheless, She Persisted
Alternative Facts
Fake News
Theio Nomioi
Seven Word Story: Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Sloth, and Wrath
Covfefe
Lordy
Irish Coffee Buttercream
Spiced Rum Buttercream
The Nobodies
Aros Morbus: Mors Nigra
The Collective Poetic Works of Antonin Scalia
Blue Bonnet
Single Note: Flor De Maga
Take a Knee
Douglas Iris

And the Liliths just dropped!

There are also two new imp packs:

Imp Pack: Seven Word Story Perfume Oil
$28.00
Imp pack based on the 7 word story contest 5ml versions
—Envy
—Gluttony
—Greed
—Lust
—Pride
—Sloth
—Wrath

and

Imp Pack: RPG – Classes Perfume Oil
$25.00
—Druid
—Fighter
—Mage
—Paladin
—Ranger
—Rogue

recessional

I feel like this is the place to share this deeply amusing thread.

splix

It's not quite cool here yet in the high desert, but I'm eagerly anticipating the crisp weather, which means I swap my spring/summer perfumes for fall/winter.

I got four new fragrances for fall: Serge Lutens Arabie and Jeux de Peau, a 11ml of Maison Francis Kurkdijan Grand Soir [that stuff is spendy!] and I swapped a Dior Eau Fraiche for a bottle of Chanel Coromandel [because I adore it but I don't like putting money in the house of Chanel's pocket]. I love them all.

Have you acquired any new fragrances for fall? And do you swap summer for fall perfumes or do you wear the same kinds year round?

rydra_wong

Fannish perfume discussion!

What do your favourite characters wear? What should they wear? What perfume signifies them in your head? What fannish associations do different perfumes have for you? Please interpret however you'd like!

full_metal_ox

Out of curiosity, and/or to save shelf space--and with what results? I have:

(Disclaimer: I'm severely hyposmic and synaesthetic, so my perceptions may not reflect common experience.)

One part each of Axe Instinct (leather) bodywash, Axe Anarchy for Her II (orange blossom) bodywash, and Suave Vanilla Floral (actually cinnamon-dominant) shampoo added up to an intense sticky dark oriental in the approximate Tabu/Youth Dew range--so surprisingly good that I regret the discontinuation of all three of the above products.

One part each of White Rain Restoring Violet shampoo and Suave Essentials Lavender Lilac shampoo merged into a sweet, extravagant, and dreamy purple spring floral--surpassing either of its components, which individually I found quite faint and nondescript (and which, again, are now defunct.)

theora

A couple of you were interested in my experience with ordering decants from Ajevie. I received my order of two BPAL Lupers a couple of days ago. Here's what I got:
( Image under cut )

theora

( More random BPAL reviews )

theora

I'm working through a huge backlog of untested imps as I declutter my house, and I'm completist enough to want to review them all before I get rid of them. Going to post reviews here in case someone finds them helpful.

( Ten reviews enclosed, including a few I wrote last year and forgot to post :P )

theora

The BPAL Lupers went up a week or so ago. Anybody order anything? Excited about anything? Curious? I've been trying to be good (too many untested imps already), so only ordered two decants: Body, Remember and L’Intention Fait Valoir les Bagatelles.

Body, Remember: Profoundly sensual. The echo of caresses: raw black coconut, ambergris accord, ambrette seed, champaca flower, and sugar cane.
Named for the Cavafy poem. I love Cavafy, so there was no question I was trying this. But sweet, musky coconut sounds pretty awesome in its own right. Fingers crossed, if it's as good as it sounds I'll be getting a bottle (at least!).

L’Intention Fait Valoir les Bagatelles: Black tea, lavender buds, Italian bergamot, and Siamese benzoin.
This sounds quite drinkable :). I love tea, lavender, and citrus on their own. We'll see how well they combine.

And I may break down and get a bottle of Womb Furie at some point. The decant I got two years ago has mellowed wonderfully with age.

full_metal_ox

(Disclaimer: I'm severely hyposmic and synaesthetic, so my perceptions may not reflect common experience.)

My own experience includes a couple examples from BPAL:

This is the website's description of Iago: Malevolent, dark and shadowy: sinuous black musk, wet leather and vetiver. Anticipated synaesthetic color: matte black.

I love the hell out of vetiver, and menacing gravitas is among the aspirational qualities I seek in a bottle--but the fragrance came across as a soft, dry, somewhat dusty leather, whose synaesthetic color was a muted Santa Fe clay pinkish-red. I'd signed up for a date with Tom Hiddleston's Loki, only for Chris Evans' Steve Rogers to show up at the doorstep--but damned if it didn't work just fine as the aspirational scent of my inner Good Guy.

Here's the blurb for Blood Rose: Sensual, robust, and silken: voluptuous red rose bursting with lascivious red wine and sultry dragon’s blood resin. Anticipated synaesthetic color: the overwrought velvety cherry red of a Mister Lincoln rose, or--should the bloodiness dominate the sweetness--blackened yet intense red of a Black Magic rose--the color dubbed "sangoire", and reserved for those of the heroine's rare and cherished neurotype, in Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy.

The scent that came out of the imp was a capslocked and bolded ROSE!!! of an altogether different color--this was a buoyant summertime Tropicana rose, whose translucent neon hue--straddling orange, red, and pink--was a soulmate to the aqua of swimming pools.

More prosaically, it also happened to coincide with a fondly-remembered smell I'd been seeking to approximate: that of Kutol Clean Shape hand soap; the church that hosted my old anime club's shenanigans used this liquid soap (which seems to be available only in institutional quantities) in their restrooms, and I'd despaired of ever taking it home--yet darned if it hadn't come into my hands by complete surprise, in a conveniently portable vial.

(I note that the tags include "horrible hilarious failure"; is "triumphant serendipitous failure" a thing?)

Current Mood: amused

muccamukk

I recently tried Lady Godiva, The Empress, and Haven.

Reviews here.

kore

It's the most wonderful time of the year! What are you planning on getting, if anything? Notes behind the cut.

( Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief — oh, no! — it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. )

splix

I just read that Tom Ford is coming out with a fragrance called - wait for it - Fucking Fabulous.

Edgy, huh. Anyway, the name, which some folks are absolutely clutching their pearls over, isn't what's making me gasp - it's the price. $310 USD for 1.7 ounces, or 50 ml. I think that's freakin' crazy. And I don't own *any* TF frags because the price is just so prohibitive - though I like Santal Blush and Neroli Portofino, and I'd like to have some Noir de Noir for sure.

Which makes me wonder - is there a holy grail fragrance for you? Would you be willing to shell out big money for it?

For myself, I'd love to have some original Ralph Lauren Tuxedo, and Catherine Deneuve Deneuve, both big 80s scents. Le Labo came out with Belle du Soir which is a pretty good dupe for Deneuve, and I have a solid of that, but I'd still like the original. And I have an Irma Shorell version of Tuxedo which, sadly, smells nothing like the original I remember, which was so glamorous and sharp and sophisticated. I was a kid when I had the tiny bottle of the stuff, and I kept the bottle long after the fragrance was gone, just to smell the faint dregs. Sigh.

I wouldn't pay 300 for an ounce, but I would consider *maybe* 100 for each, if decent unturned bottles were to show up. It's so risky to buy blind, though.... :-/

What's your long lost fragrance dream?

lunabee34

Let's talk fantasy perfume, fellow scent aficionados.

Tell us about a perfume you've always wanted but never been able to find. This can run the gamut from, "I wish I could find a perfume that has X, X, and X notes," to "I wish I could find a perfume that smells the way looking at Cate Blanchett makes me feel inside."

I'm really interested in hearing about the perfumes you wish existed that don't.