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…when you weren’t wearing any? And what might have accounted for it?

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

I’ve had this happen specifically on my way home from outdoor music festivals: redolent of late spring-to-early-autumn seasonal flora, the sizzling aromas of food stalls, the saturated head-shop funk of incense/candle/fragrance oil vendors, and…whatever else might be wafting through the air at outdoor music festivals.

Current Mood: puzzled

kindkit

I've got another round of reviews for some BPAL General Catalogue scents: Plunder, Lightning, Azathoth, the Apothecary, The Antikythera Mechanism, Dracul, Miskatonic University, Calico Jack, Czernobog, Mary Read, Voodoo, Golden Priapus, Uruk, Snake Oil, Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo, and Defututa over here at my journal.

devon

.

Last night I was looking for some fragrance supplies in my scent drawer and discovered this summer-y frag I had put away for the winter. A Scent by Issey Miyake. I tried it out again, and it is *so* green and refreshing, and also strong. I can still smell it after sleeping in it all night! (I seem to get average wear from most fragrances fwiw.) The Galbanum keeps it from going sweet. The Hyacinth is more sharp than soft, and the Lemon verbena really rules it and wraps things together. It's interesting how it stays fresh and sharp unlike other frags that lose their citrus impact during dry-down. I think it must be the Galbanum, but maybe Lemon verbena is stronger than regular citrus. Either way, I love it in this hot, muggy weather.

I discovered Issey Miyake kind of late, but I now have 3 of his fragrances - A Scent, L'Eau d'Issey (pour femme,) and Pleats Please!

Anyone who likes green, unisex scents, check out the reviews.
https://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/Issey-Miyake/A-Scent-by-Issey-Miyake-6432.html
Bonus: it's like $40 on ebay for a new bottle.

devon

.
I was chatting with someone about BPAL perfume oils and how their complex blends never end up smelling that complex. I think their duets and trios (menage à trois) hold up very well and smell like the listed notes. This is a comment I wrote that I thought would be relevant here.

I've had good luck with their "limited edition" duets and trios, just 2-3 ingredients. They tend to be very accurate to what they say. They usually run for several months, so there's time to get a sample from someone's decant circle and also a bottle later, but I have blind bought a few of them.

here are some I like for reference, even though they're not all in current production.
Milk, Burnt Honey & Ambrette seed **nice for its genre**
Cacao & Oud **nice**
Honeysuckle & Wisteria
Elderberry Flower & Sandhill Plum (not as interesting)

There are a lot that I find intriguing, but I've been trying to buy less BPAL over the last year. A few I'm pretty interested in now. (they are on their way out this month to make room for new ones.)
https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/a-little-lunacy-limited-edition/menage-a-trois-a-little-lunacy-limited-edition/

Caramel, Teakwood, and Vetiver
Almond Blossoms, Patchouli, and Sea Salt
Coffee Bean, Oak Bark, and Patchouli
Oakmoss, White Sage, and Woodland Fern
Sandalwood, Lime, and Tahitian Ginger
I have a lot of florals, so I'm not as interested in those offerings rn.

Looks like Duets are not live, but this is their page:
https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/in-memoriam/a-little-lunacy/duets/

kindkit

I hate patchouli. Except, apparently, when I love it.

Much of my experience with patchouli comes from encountering people drenched in it, and in those circumstances it literally makes me queasy. So, as I explore perfumes, I thought that hating patchouli gave me a guideline.

However, some years back I had a sample of BPAL's Mary Read, which is sea salt and "ocean" and rum and a pretty significant dose of patchouli. I liked it, but I thought I liked it despite the patchouli.

Recently I got a new sample, and now I love it, and what's more, I'm pretty sure I love it because of the patchouli. And yet the patchouli-soaked hippies I deal with at work still make me gag. I'm baffled!

So what's the difference between the nice patchouli and the rank stuff? Is it the quality of the patchouli itself? The amount (but I put on quite a bit of Mary Read and still loved it)? Is it the fact that Mary Read is made with aged patchouli?

I googled around a bit looking for articles but didn't find much. I did see the post at Kafkaesque with recs for patchouli scents she recommends, but it seemed written more for enthusiasts than skeptics. Can anybody point me towards some info? And I'd also welcome recs for perfumes with a patcholi presence but where the patchouli is smooth, gentle, not dirty.

Thanks!

kindkit

I bought a bunch of BPAL General Catalogue samples recently and have posted reviews for the first batch I tested: Victome de Valmont, Whitechapel, Jolly Roger, Aelopile, Black Forest, Satyr, Absinthe, Chimera, Goblin, Tombstone, Anubis, Black Tower, Incantation, and Sloth.

If that's of interest, you can read the post here

sporky_rat

Can anyone help me find a sample of Inexcusable Evil?

kindkit

I've posted reviews/reactions to Entre Ciel et Mer (Pierre Guillaume Black Collection), Costarela (Carner Barcelona), PG22 Djhenné (Pierre Guillaume Perfumerie Générale), Every Storm a Serenade (Imaginary Authors), Bosc (Bravanariz), Panorama (Olfactive Studio), Lune d'Eau (Pierre Guillaume - Cruise), 801 (Bon Parfumeur), Bohemian Lime (Goldfield and Banks), 1861 - Naxos (Xerjoff), New York Intense (Parfums de Nicolai), Elysium Pour Homme Parfum Cologne (Roja Parfums), Bois Sikar (Atelier des Ors), and Musk Extreme (Perris Monte Carlo) at my journal.

kindkit

I've tested some more of the large number of samples I bought recently, and my reactions are here at my journal.

These are all perfumes in the unisex-to-masculine range, because that's what I prefer (with all due recognition of how arbitrary those classifications are). The specific scents I tried are: Jardins de la Bergamote, Psychedelique, Oud for Greatness, Hacivat, Invasion Barbare, Tonnerre, Coeur de Noir, Fathom V, Vi et Armis, Lignum Vitae, Seahorse, Marquis de Sade, and Myrrhiad.

chestnut_pod

On my journal, I posted a few reviews of Fantôme and Poesie scents that smell (to greater or lesser degrees of success) like various kinds of haunted forest! They're over here breathing fog and cracking twigs.

kindkit

I'm trying to get back into fragrances and recently ordered some samples from Luckyscent. Over at my journal are my notes on 8 of them: Ganymede (Marc-Antoine Barrois), Molecule 01 + Mandarin (Escentric Molecules), All the Queen's Men (Fort & Manle), Route du Vetiver (Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier), Wonderwood (Comme des Garcons), No. 2 (Frank Los Angeles), L'air du desert marocain (Tauer), Bois d'Ascese (Naomi Goodsir).

Post is here.

full_metal_ox

Prompted by

flamingsword‘s post here: https://smellsgood.dreamwidth.org/51602.html. The same stipulations apply: time and expense are no object, and your creative olfaction reigns supreme.

So what would your Summer in a Bottle be like? What would it contain? Would it be an olfactory postcard? A love letter to a person—flesh-and-blood or fictional? An abstract fantasia? A snapshot of a memory? A simple collection of all the things you happen to like about summer?

Current Music: ”Pretty Persuasion”.

flamingsword

I just cancelled my scentbird subscription, because while they have stuff that sounds good in theory, most mainstream perfumes don't work very well on my highly-acidic skin. Does anyone else have this problem? Is there a way to fix that other than scent lockets?

Also, are there perfume subscriptions for oil-based indie perfumes? All I can find is Possets.

In other news: what are you sniffing lately?

flamingsword

You have been hired by Company X to make their new Spring scent for next year, and to take all the time and money you need to on producing it.

What does it smell like?
What notes do you want to put in it?
Does it tell a story or paint a picture?
How complex or simple or well-blended is it?

What are your scent inspirations for this Spring season and what are you loving? Let's talk perfume.

full_metal_ox

For a number of years, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab has issued limited edition fragrances commemorating the animal/element combination for each Lunar New Year:

https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-category/in-memoriam/lunar-new-year/

https://www.bpal.org/tags/Lunar%20New%20Year/

They’re continuing to issue Lunacy full-moon scents (most recently Wolf Moon 2021 on February 5), and are saluting Wellermania with a line of Sea Shanty fragrances:

https://us4.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=50266fc02a3b75767125e0ed2&id=384a8bbdf4

So. I’ve waited for fifteen years, and I’m looking at a Significant Birthday in a few days: does anyone know if there’s going to be a BPAL Metal Ox fragrance this year, or is that another casualty of the COVID hammer?

Current Mood: vexed

lunabee34

BPAL Reviews.

I'm trying to dive back in to perfume testing!

kore

I'm not sure if people here are watching WandaVision, but it has some very clever "fake" commercials and one of them featured a hilarious bath bomb!

( Spoilers for WandaVision )

Current Mood: amused

kore

I have fucking FINALLY bought a perfume other than BPAL, lol! I have weird chemical allergies and have to hold my breath walking through the perfume counter at department stores, and I can't use alcohol sprays, but I saw Demeter has inexpensive little roll-on perfume oils so I thought I'd see if I could wear those. I got Lavender, Natural Lavender, and Petrichor (because how could I not get Petrichor, for the boy or girl who's tired of waiting). I have some friends who really love Demeter, has anyone here tried their stuff? Any recs or non-recs?

https://demeterfragrance.com/most-popular.html

Current Mood: curious

lunabee34

I reviewed a handful of BPAL plus Crepe de Chine over at my journal

HERE.

I'm trying to get back into reviewing my sample stash, so I hope to be posting more here. :)

katarik

So while I'm working from home, it occurred to me this week that I could just as well take advantage of not being at work with our scent restrictions to play with some of my perfumes. Anybody else doing some perfume experimenting right now?

Some of them, unfortunately, I don't care for. So! Swap party in the comments! I have partial imps of Eve, Anubis, Eternal, and Schrodinger's Cat to swap (more to follow, I am Certain).

If anybody has imps of Dracul, Druid, The Other Hot Cocoa, Centzon Totochtin, or The Rose, and wants any of these, or if anybody else wants to do some other swaps in the comments, let's go!

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It's all about the smelling good

Recent Entries

Have you ever been complimented on your fragrance…

more BPAL reviews

A Scent by Issey Miyake

BPAL duets and trios

confused by patchouli

BPAL reviews

Help?

14 fragrance reviews at my journal

I've tested some more perfumes

6 ways of smelling like a haunted forest

I've smelled some things

So what’d be your Summer in a Bottle?

subscriptions

let's play pretend

Is BPAL doing a Chinese New Year fragrance this year?

BPAL Reviews

Amusing "commercial" on WandaVision for bath bomb

Demeter?

Perfume Reviews

BPAL swap post

October 2023

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