BPAL - La Belle au Bois Dormant, Vampire Tears, Yew-Trees

[chomiji]

Another three scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab tested! Have I done anything else lately? Not much ... .

 

La Belle au Bois Dormant (8/10)
Plumeria and white pear, Damascus rose, tuberose, magnolia and evening dew.

• in bottle: sweet spring flowers
• on skin: similar ... makes me think very much of the gardens at U.Va. on warm spring evenings! (Must be the magnolia.) Or possibly Hawaii ... I was only there for a week or so, so that smell-memory isn't so well implanted.
• drydown: faint tropical scent

Huh, not bad. Certainly the best so far, for me.

Vampire Tears (2/10)
wisteria, white grapefruit, neroli, green tea, jasmine, white ginger, honeysuckle, iris, and tonka.

• in bottle: faint herbal/food - sweet and nutty
• on skin: food-like, with floral overlay. I like the floral part, but the nutty smell (tonka?) keeps putting me off
• drydown: most of the more pleasant scents are gone, leaving a strong perfume-y smell that's making me feel headachey and short of breath - I have to wash it off!

Eeek! The only reason it didn't get a 0 or 1 out of 10 is that I know other people have liked it, so my reaction is probably not the norm.

Yew-Trees (5/10)
Piercingly sweet berries over evergreen boughs, deepened by the tree’s sacred wood.

• in bottle: sweet + pine, which makes me think "tropical" for some reason
• on skin: sweet for the first few seconds, then like cedar shavings ... kind of like Christmas potpourri. Warmer and spicier as time goes on.
• drydown: now it really smells like a room fragrance

OK, it wasn't that bad, but it doesn't small like something for a person to wear ....

---

Hmmm, not so promising. But it's fun to do, so I'll order some more, I think. (And actually, I still need to do Croquet and Zephyr properly.

Hee, the music's really to the point! It makes me think of both BPAL's scent names and the "Cupidity" story, which is the other major amusement on my mind.

Comments

[sanada.livejournal.com]

Hehe, sometimes it's almost as much fun to try the really awful ones. The nastiest was definitely "Herr Drosselmeyer"... it smelled like a combination of ashtray and old man. I generally have good luck with BPAL, but there have been a few oils I haven't liked... Herr Dross, though, was so vile that I threw the imp out immediately. *laugh* I don't think I've ever smelled something so foul.

Hmm, I don't really have any florals I can recommend... but I got a bottle of "Prague" for my sister since she's going to study abroad there, and it's actually pretty nice. Unbearably girly for me, but she likes it. I want to try some of the Salon ones next! It's cool to have a visual to go along with the scent.

[chomiji]

The Drosslemeyer sounds appalling ... I think they must mix some of these up just for kicks, without expecting that anyone will like them!

Someone online mentioned that "Amsterdam" smelled exactly like the big lake near their house, while the spring flowers were blooming. I think I'll try that one, for one of my next, and the Lion one telophase mentioned, and maybe another of her amber suggestions, and Shanghai. I'll have to look at some of the others on the site, too.

(Hey, are you reading "Cupidity"? Should I e-mail you about it? Or you could comment on the post I set up ... .)

[sanada.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like the one for Good Omens that's supposed to smell like milk and moldy raincoat!! o__O;;

*laugh* I think I'll order myself some more imps as a thanksgiving present (every holiday is for gift-giving! hehe) but it takes me daaaaays to make a list!

I just started reading it today! *laugh* I was actually trying to read it on my cell phone during today's marathon 6-cat session at the vet. x__x;; But it certainly made my vet trip more fun! I was apprehensive about the AU at first but it actually works!

(And did you get my last email? Don't worry if you've been too busy to write back!)

[chomiji]

(I did get your e-mail! And I need to answer it!)

As of chapter 8 (I think), "Cupidity" takes a very diffeent twist ... it's being very, very cool (and also very, very hot, but that's a different issue!).

So what's with the kitties? Was it just a checkup/shots, or are they all sick?

[sanada.livejournal.com]

(Oh, no rush!! Gmail's spam filter is a little aggressive sometimes so I was worried that I'd missed something. ^_^)

Oooh yes, the hotness... hehehe...

Aww, it was just everybody's yearly shots. Tuna needed some bloodwork done because at his age (about 17) we were worried about renal failure, but thankfully his kidneys are in good shape and he's just going to need thyroid medication. Giving pills to a cat isn't fun... but it's a lot better than something untreatable!!

[chomiji]

So let me know when you get to where the story stops being just about this really rich guy and his boytoy ... you'll know!

I'm glad the buns don't need shots! (I should probably get them checked up, though - they are getting very middle aged for bunnies.) Kat's Jezebel was having kidney issues at the end of her long life. The vet's assistant used to make house calls every few days to give Jez intravenous fluids: Kat used to say that the lady was "watering the cat."

[chomiji]

I'm not generally really big on room scents. Putting out some actual flowers, or using something with a natural scent to wash the floor - things like that are as far as I go. The Mr. is really sensitive to smells: we use unscented detergents (and both Clorox 2 and liquid Tide are now available unscented - yay! - although I'd love to try the lemon verbena scented Tide).

Those two scents sound as though they'd smell nice. I loved Hawaii when we were there - the way you didn't have to make a big differentiation between the indoors and the outdoors was really magic, and the way the air smelled was just yum! But I can't imagine living there - I'd feel so cut off from my own native landscape, which is - here! (Although the Appalachians from Maryland on down into North Carolina feel very much "home" to me as well, becuse we went there every summer in my childhood.)

[chomiji]

I'm not really happy with winter, either - I seem to have a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I don't like it when there's not enough daylight, and when I have to I feel like the outdoors is an enemy and put on lots of clothes to protect myself from it. But without winter, you don't get the joyous, greener and greener forward momentum of the spring, which is my favorite time of year.

The rainforest in Hawaii, with the little waterfalls running and no significant pests to worry about, was very dreamlike to me, in a good way. The Applachians in late spring and early summer are like that too, but more grounded, somehow. (There's a reason why the descriptions of the waterfalls and cascades in "On the Rocks" were so loving ... .)

[chomiji]

Hmmm ... I sure don't remember any pests ... you know, I don't even recall what time of year it was! Are the mosquitoes seasonal?

I may also be confusing it somewhat with Domenica, which had virtually no pests when we stopped there on a cruise a few years ago. It also has tall volcanic peaks and lovely rushing streams and waterfalls.

I dunno, there's just something special to me about spring in this area. But as I said, it's imprinted on me!

I can't deal with houseplants. I don't know why, because I love bontanical garden greenhouses.

[chomiji]

Huh. Well, believe me, East Coast mainland mozzies have absolutely no problem with munching me up. Tiger mosquitoes are a big problem in Tacky Park, and after we moved in 4 years ago, when I spent a bunch of time just standing around directing the movers, my legs looked like I had the pox. But I don't recall having much of an issue at all with bites in Hawaii.

My father used to grow orchids under lights in the basement. He was very good at it - he'd bring them up to show them off when they bloomed. But I didn't inherit much of his yen for fussing about with plants like that!

[chomiji]

Huh. Well, after reading that article you linked, where it took only two components for the perfumer to make the author think she (he?) was smelling chocolate, I guess it was just some weird combination. But it wsa very odd - there was this distinct toasted nut smell, and I didn't like it. In fact, the whole think was very unpleasant - I felt like I was having a panic attack as time went on.