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 ....

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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

[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.