BPAL: Amsterdam, Shanghai, Envy, The Lion, Tenochtitlan, Venice, Mag Mell

[chomiji]

These writeups have been sitting for a couple of months ... kispexi2 and smillaraaq were talking about their favorite BPAL scents and reminded me! Sadly, still no huge winners (and in fact, one huge disappointment).

Amsterdam (9/10)
Tulips, peony, fresh flowing water and crisp green grasses

• in bottle: lightly floral
• on skin: sweeter floral, faint water
• drydown: Gets faint very quickly - still pleasant, fresh floral. But it seems to be giving me a tiny bit of a headache.

Shanghai (8/10)
Green tea, lemon verbena, and honeysuckle

• in bottle: fake lemon
• on skin: lemon/herbal - honeysuckle starts coming through
• drydown: lemon's gone almost entirely

Envy (7/10)
Green herbs, mint, lime, lavender

• in bottle: tropical greens (!)
• on skin: plants, plants, plants! Like walking through an overgrown garden and breaking stems all over.
• drydown: Urrgh, weird. I think it's the lavender and the last of the mint - it makes me think of those odd flower-scented plastic dolls we used to have as little kids.

The Lion (8/10)
golden spiced amber

• in bottle: generic perfumey smell
• on skin: spicy, amber
• drydown: spicy and maybe (?) sandalwood? Something vegetative.

It's nice, but it's not really me ... of course, now I'm remembering an old William Hamilton cartoon, where a Big Business type is shopping for a toupee, and he's looking cross with the one he's currently trying, and the salesman is saying "Of course it's not really you - the real you is bald."

Tenochtitlan (5/10)
Amber, hyssop, coriander, epazote, Mexican sage, prickly pear and Mexican tulip poppy

• in bottle: sweet and mild spice
• on skin: the same, but the spiciness is increasing. It's beginning to smell like bayberry candles.
• drydown: And ... still like candles. Like that store in the malls that sells the things. Meh.

Venice (6/10)
Lemon, red currant, wisteria, red rose petals, heady jasmine, Florentine orris root, waterlily, red sandalwood, violet plum, and violet leaf

• in bottle: string mixed floral
• on skin: jasmine coming out
• drydown: faded to floral soap. sigh.

Mag Mell (4/10)
Amber, white ginger, verbena, with fresh grass, sage and summer rain

• in bottle: fresh "green" floral
• on skin: more of the same - almost tangy
• drydown: Bleah! It went all weird and stinky and too intense. I'd blame the white ginger, which was also in Vampire Tears, which had the same awful delayed reaction, but the white ginger was also in Siren, which didn't.

Such a pity - at first sniff, I thought this would be "the one."

Comments

[chomiji]

I guess I should have been more explicit than "candles" for Tenochtitlan - yes, I was thinking of fruity candles. Those scented candle shops are the main place I run into that kind of scent. Very fruity, and stinky thereby.

Envy was one of those that was very nice until the drydown. I think that one is sanada's favorite. The Lion is telophase's favorite.

L'Eau d'Issey sounds interesting. Sephora has it turn up under Fresh/Water in their Fragrance Finder, even though the notes listed in the description of the perfume itself are only floral. Maybe the Union Station Sephora will have a tester.

I have to dig that vial out and try it again - I don't remember what my reaction was (obviously not horribly negative, therefore). (I'm actually about halfway finished with the beaded bracelet - I need to figure out how to do the loop for the button.)

[chomiji]

Duh, of course I meant Douglas. The perfume-and-makeup thing. They're all called Sephora, right?

The smell was similar enough to Acqua di Gio that I started researching the notes, to see what they had in common ... except I don't have it here with me, drat! I'll have to dig it out at work and post it.

Whole Foods has some single-scent sampler things in their cosmetics section. I tried some white ginger, and it may be what's giving me a headache in some of these. They had amber, too - I'll try that this week.

[chomiji]

The thing is, I wear perfumes so seldom! So it was close enough to AdG that I wasn't inclined to buy it (especially at that price ... O.o;   ).

So maybe that was just a cruddy white ginger scent ... but there are complete natural scents (like some lilies) that can also give me headaches. I remember the air smelled delicious in Hawaii, but if we weren't having such flakey weather, it would smell pretty good around here now, too.

Ulta in Silver Spring is where I get my shampoo and conditioner - ARTec Kiwi.