smellsgood | Entries tagged with reviews: black phoenix alchemy lab/bpal

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.

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

lunabee34

BPAL Reviews.

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

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:
Scalia: Looming Spectre of Inutterable Horror 4/5
Scalia: Mummeries and Straining-to-be Memorable Passages 3/5
Pretty Deadly: Ginny, The Reaper of Vengeance 5/5
Bewitching Brews: Bliss 1/5

Full reviews over on my DW.

elfin

I finally got around to posting my notes from the 2014 Weenies that I tried.
Link to post on my journal

sathari

First off, a couple of shorts which I neglected to write up as I was trying them, so this is a sort of after-the-fact synopsis: I tried Autumn III and IV, October, and Samhain: both of the Autumns smelled "like fall" on me--- spice and woods and the warm bite of the season--- while October was the bitter version and Samhain the sweet.

Now, onto the in situ reviews:

( The backlog, oh, the backlog--- and I still have a few more to test! )

Current Mood: accomplished

kore

OK, this scent is definitely one for the jasmine girls. If you are one of the people on whom the BPAL jasmine note turns to cat pee (and they filled up the forum review thread in their understandable distress, which always makes me wonder if that's why it got axed), SO NOT for you. I know, so often there is a scent which sounds so good we think "OMG I must try it in spite of the death note" (I do this all the freaking time with patchouli), but it's not worth it if you can't wear the BPAL jasmine note, I have only seen that lead to cat-pee-scented misery.

( But if you can.... )

Current Mood: jasmine!

sathari

So I actually have a few reviews for posting and probably will do so later on in the week, but OMG, I just had to squee about Siren at all of you.

The website description is: Bewitching, tantalizing and dangerously seductive. A thrilling, exotic blend — deceptively sweet, but spiked with malice. White ginger, jasmine, and a touch of vanilla and apricot.

In the imp: it was kind of cold and pale as a scent (the jasmine and maybe the white ginger?) but it wasn't sticky-sweet like their vanilla and fruit scents often are, so I figured I'd bite.

On me, intial reaction: ooh, glad I did! Something in my skin chemistry is strengthening the overall throw/effect of this; the ginger and jasmine are strong and sharp, still a little "pale-smelling" for my taste, but the vanilla/apricot are these great background notes that keep this from being too pale or sharp, though it is a near thing. I keep sniffing my wrist, trying to decide how well I actually like this; there’s almost an... aftersmell, the olfactory equivalent of an aftertaste, that’s much warmer and sweeter that I’m really enjoying. It is a little too floral/gardeny for me in its actual scent, but definitely not bad.

And then, within a couple of hours... the squee set in: because it is totally, totally, one of those sweet golden scents that I've shared my love for here in the past, another Osun or a Jezebel or a Morocco--- if I can bring myself to tolerate the initial stages of this scent, and if it proves to have staying power, this may become a new favorite. It's got that sweet spiciness that I always love, but... I think it's the jasmine?--- that adds this subtle fresh lightness to it. It is AMAZING, and what's really amazing is just how much it shifted on me, how much it went from, hmm, this is nice, to OMG DO WANT. I don't think I've ever had a scent change quite that markedly on me--- I've had plenty that wear off in different ways, or leave different notes behind, but this particular change is a new experience for me.

Current Mood: happy

sathari

So, inspired by

lunabee34 's idea of weekly postings, here are the ones I've tried lately--- all BPAL, one Yule and assorted imps.

( Reviews below the cut! )

elfin

Notes for Black Rose, Channel Snow, Croquet, Dance of Death, Dragon's Tears, La Petite Mort, Manila, Nosferatu, Orb-Weaver Spider, Oblivion, Scarecrow, skekZok the Ritual Master, The Burying-Ground, The Isles of Demons, Zombi.

Link to post.

fleurrochard

Reviews of BPAL's Spider, Coraline Jones, The Cat, The Other Hot Chocolate, The Silver Stream, The Snowglobe, The Three Ghost Children, and The Potter's Field.

synecdochic

Reviews of BPAL's Old Demons of the First Class, Dwarf, The Lion, Rage, Half-Elf, Morocco, Lear, Blood, Sjöfn, Haunted, Good, Elf, Mr Vandemar, Black Lotus, Coyote.

synecdochic

Two sets of reviews that I forgot to post to the comm:

6 full reviews, 38 "gong show" reviews, in which I was going through our general-catalog imps and giving things five minutes to convince me.

Full reviews: Villain, Bien Loin d'Ici, Tweedledum, The Cat, Cobra Lily, Glasgow

Gong show losers: King of Hearts, Horn of Plenty, Velvet, Melpomene, Fallen, Dorian, Hecate, Oneiroi, Blood Pearl, Viola, Thanatos, La Petit Mort, Phobos, Mania, Nemesis, Loup-Garou, High-Strung Daisies, Akuma, The Isles of Demons, The Lotus Tree, Shub-Niggurath, Mouse's Long and Sad Tale, Aperotos Eros, Y'ha-Nthlei, Spellbound, Maenad, London, Hell's Belle, Al-Shairan, Yggdrasil, Tavern of Hell, Tombeur, Lady of Shalott, Veil, Incubus, Yorick, Blood Kiss, Ouija, Wanton

14 full reviews, including a bunch of stuff I've been decanting recently: Muilearteach(*), A Moment In Time(*), Embalming Fluid, Smokestack, Strangler Fig, Evil, Nyarlathotep, Scherezade, Dragon's Blood, Autumn Cider (*), Stage Blood (*), Samhain (*), Magnificent Autumn (*), Visions of Autumn VII (*)

elfin

Review of BPAL's scent Goofballs, from the 2014 Lilith Collection at my journal.

elfin

( Goatweed Leafwing, Little Metalmark, Question Mark, and Yucca Giant-Skipper... )

devon

.
I recently went over to my stash, and I re-discovered one of my early favorites: Drink Me from the Mad Tea Party collection. Reviews here.

It's GC, with a long description ending in:

However, this bottle was not marked 'poison,' so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.

I get a lot of butter and toffee, along with some sweet fruits. Some people smell turkey, but if I do, I'm not aware of it. The only down side to Drink Me is that it fades quickly and doesn't have a big throw. Although the small throw is also a feature, since my housemate hates perfume. :>

I'm a big fan of sweet and foody scents. In mainstream perfumes, I like Prada Candy and Aquolina Pink Sugar. (samples from Sephora - I don't buy full size bottles of alcohol based perfumes because even when I like them, they mess with my sinuses. What are you gonna do?)

Another BPAL that I'm extremely fond of that is also sweet and foody, but more foody and less sugary, is Araw Ng Mga Patay, from Halloween 2011. It's not to hard to find it on swap/sell sites like the ones on LJ - that's where I got my partial bottle.
description:

A cheerful, raucous celebration of life and death: bouquets overflowing with gerbera daisies, waling waling, sampaguita, ylang ylang, hibiscus, night-blooming dama de noche, santan, and everlasting flower with piles upon piles of bibingka, ube halaya, rice muffins, champorado, purple yam cake, and turon, and plates of gooey kalabasa leche flan.

I just get warm comfort foods, breads, and caramel (from the flan). I'll admit that I don't know anything about Phillipine foods, and I didn't look them up, but they sure do smell good!

mathemagicalschema

The lovely

rising was kind enough to send me an imp of Whip, and my sister stumbled on a sample of Estée Lauder Beyond Paradise. They have been... mostly my first forays into perfume. I will attempt to review them.

Whip claims to be rose and leather. On me, it started out as sort of a grandma rose with a rotten edge. I didn't like it. I was planning to find someone to swap with.

Then I kept sniffing my wrist.

It mellowed out, until it smelled more like a rich, sexy rose. I've worn it about a zillion times since.

It doesn't seem like anyone gets very much "leather" out of it, more just, leather sitting underneath and creating the richness. So uh, if you like rose, go for it, but don't expect this to be perceptibly leathery, and don't trust it to be polite.

Beyond Paradise is something I never would have sought out, and I could pretty much tell from the bottle that I would hate it, but it was there, so I figured I'd give it a try. Fragrantica tells me it's supposed to be a "white floral", whatever that means, but what I get is more like: fake flowers, fake "clean" smell, generally horrible generic "perfume". I washed it off immediately but it's still there augh. And the edges of it smell a little rotten too. Of all the things to have so much throw and staying power... ew. Perfumes of its ilk don't seem to be particularly popular in this neck of the woods, but if mainstream white floral perfumes tend to be your cup of tea, I'd be happy to eject it from my house in your general direction.

synecdochic

in my journal: Paladin, Night's Bridge, Mr Croup, Neutral, Captain Cully, Lawful, Fire for Thy Stepmother's Daughters, The Bow & Crown of Conquest, Cleric, and Spider.

momijizukamori

Because I actually wrote notes! GO ME. Little Sister Is Watching You and Channel Snow from Kabuki, and Adam, Diamond Star, Hal, In Templum Dei, Quintessence of Dust, There's Water Here, and This Is Your Wilderness from Only Lovers Left Alive
( Reviews and final thoughts )

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Entries tagged with reviews: black phoenix alchemy lab/bpal

more BPAL reviews

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BPAL Reviews

Are there any fragrances that completely countered your expectations--but that you liked anyway?

Link: Four BPAL Reviews

BPAL: 2014 Weenies

I told you I had a backlog.... (Scent reviews for a BUNCH of BPALs from GC, Halloweenies, and Yules)

BPAL review - Zorya (Excolo, discontinued)

Review: BPAL's Siren

Reviews!

BPAL notes

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Catching up on BPAL review posts

BPAL Goofballs

4 scents from BPAL's Metamorphosis collection

BPAL Drink Me

BPAL Whip, Estee Lauder Beyond Paradise

10 BPAL reviews

10 decant circle reviews

October 2023

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