All Activity
This stream auto-updates
- Today
-
On my skin initially this feels very 'vintage perfume' the resins are slightly fizzy and the rose came across as dried. Something about this threatened to go screechy for a bit (I wonder if champaca is involved?) could be the oakmoss but I haven't had issues with it before. It dries down to a soft but dark scent, rich oozey resins and tobacco with a breath of rose over the top.
-
This year’s Christmas fell on a Wednesday, which was just stupid. Worked the day before; worked the day after. No time to get into the spirit and no time to settle down afterward — the most ridiculous Christmas ever — I felt like I totally bypassed it. Tonight is New Year’s Eve, this scent arrived in the day’s mail, and oh my stars! It is Christmas in a bottle. I did not miss the holiday after all. Icy cold to match the weather of the season. And evergreen, the whole deal: the liquor of pressed fresh needles and tips, the scratch of icy rough bark. A bit lemony like fir tip tea. Reminiscent a bit of Skadi or Humpback Whale, but moreso really of a forest of living trees in winter, in snow, in fog. Reflective, happy, natural, quiet, even ancestral; impeccably pretty for this time of year!
-
My Sugar Plum Snake Oil is definitely much more the former than the latter. Lots of sticky purple sugary plum, lots and lots; just a little Snake Oil, and only after a couple of hours of sweet plumminess. Good throw and longevity; I just wish I got as much snake as some of the other reviewers have.
- Yesterday
-
Our last Lunacy of 2024 is LIVE, and of course it brought some friends along for the sleighride: https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/product-tag/december-2024-late/? Happy New Year, everyone!!
-
Oh, this is definitely a sweet vanilla musk! I haven't smelled Millennial Pink so I can't speak to the ruby chocolate from that. I tend to avoid chocolate or cocoa or cacao notes on me. This is so subtle that it's just a grounding note well after dry down. It's not foodie but is a sweeter vanilla scent than I usually wear. I like this.
-
When I smelled this extremely robust coffee scent, I thought, "woweee, this smells like spicy Krampus coffee shop romantasy #booktok drama!" KRAMPUS'S FORBIDDEN GRIND #1 in Demon Romance (CW: coffee addiction, consensual soul bargaining) When artisanal coffee roaster Peppers McGee* accidentally summons Krampus with her darkest, most potent brew yet, she doesn't expect him to become her most demanding regular. The way he salaciously savors her honey-kissed foam and black pepper sprinkle makes her wonder if he's hunting for more than just the perfect cup. Between the scorching intensity of fresh-ground beans and the sweet heat of their growing attraction, Peppers must decide: keep playing it safe with her usual roasts, or risk it all on a blend that could consume her completely. "The coffee shop demon romance I never knew I needed" - BookTok "People are mad about the foam art scene but whatever" - GoodReads "Finally, a Krampus who knows his way around an espresso machine" - Literal Demons Book Club *Peppers McGee has a lot of adventures and shows up in a lot of perfume reviews!
-
Through mist and gloaming, phantom hooves prowl and roam - a nutty-woody-resinous haunting that refuses to settle into silence. The wood whispers like morning fog, barely there; a subtle saltiness clings to the chestnut's echo, while grey amber broods beneath it all, murky as twilight in forgotten hollows. Like those ghostly horses that never quite reach their destination, these notes circle and hover, their spectral stampede more whisper than thunder, more shadow than storm.
-
A single bloom emerges from craggy castle walls like a long-lost, long-gone friend impossibly appearing in morning light - its petals glowing rosy with the same translucent warmth as sunbeams through stained glass. The stone beneath holds secrets in its tea-stained shadows, cool and tannic as bitter centuries of words unsaid, feelings unreturned. Memory blooms here, unbearably delicate yet persistent and softly strangling as ivy, reaching through time toward a cup that was never filled.
-
always tempted to try a blueberry lavender so I had to get a decant of this. it's unapologetically foodie when I first sniff the vial, a perfectly crisp-edged crepe with absolutely decadent amounts of sugar. surprisingly neither the lemon zest nor the limoncello are really coming through for me, but the blueberry is riiiich and slightly boozy as it goes on the skin, and this is where the sweet, creamy lavender peaks out. I wore this out to go to the store this morning and it wafted around me rather pleasantly like I'd been in the kitchen for hours beforehand. a few hours later it was mostly a baked golden powdered sugar scent with a murky purple background. very pleasant all around.
-
I have the 2024 bottle. It reads Ava without the almond. Amazing. Light. Floaty. Not gourmand at all. Instant love. I hope it doesn’t change as it ages, it’s amazing as it is.
-
A possum-riding gnome rolls up in a car made of twigs and acorns. "Get in, loser," they grin, "we're having cider with the Green Man." What they pour is fresh-pressed and unsweetened, with something unexpectedly verdant lurking in its depths - like drinking autumn sunshine filtered through new spring leaves. The old magics are simple ones: apples and leaves, earth and air, each sip tasting of secrets whispered between the roots of ancient trees.
-
She sits pristine in tissue paper, this porcelain child with cool milky skin and frost-pale curls, radiating a sweetness both powder-pure and glazed smooth - like marshmallows dissolving in winter air, like sugared pears turned to frost on the windowsill. Though she glows with innocence, you know better. That's why her tiny severed hand lives in your pocket, wrapped in a handkerchief, small and impossibly perfect, still trailing that haunting whisper of confectioner's sugar and cold cream. You tell yourself it's for safe-keeping, and perhaps that's true in a sense, but really, you're keeping yourself safe --from her gaze in the dark each night, as she watches you from high on her shelf, with a smile that's patient and sweet, and ever-so-slightly wrong.
-
2024 release The tangerine and sweet orange burst jovially on the skin. It's such an uplifting combo. The lavender and anise balance out the citrus notes, making sure they don't go into soapy territory. The drydown lasts a good 2 hours, so reapplying will do the trick to increase longevity.
-
I get a full on meaty black cherry jam with a thin layer of pastry with a hint of powdered sugar texture. The cherry note is a tricky one for me, but here it's very well balanced with the dough pastry. Lovely!
-
Similarities Between BPAL Scents - GC and general discussion
SkySamuelle replied to Shollin's topic in Recommendations
Hello, can anyone rec a perfume similiar to La Belle Au Bois Dormant ( tuberose, pear, gardenia, Damascus rose )? I loved the balance of delicate white florals and sweet fruity there and I found nothing like it since then. I have Titania that on me is more fruity and summery, the Lady Of Shallott that is suitably sweet but very aquatic and Juliet that is great for the white florals. -
Hmmm…. This one is way more tart than I was expecting…. I was hoping for a sweet powdery candy smell but it smells kind of clean and citrusy? If I didn’t know any better I would definitely think this was some sort of citrus cleaner.
-
More pomegranate than milk on me although the milk comes out stronger in the dry down. Definitely the same milk note that is in Snake Milk. Idk if this one will be as full size worthy as I was hoping but I’ll see if resting it changes my opinion at all:)
-
This one is super good! The yummiest cherry filling with just a touch of pastry. It’s truly mouthwatering. Smells exactly like cherry filling rather than a fresh fruit. Kinda reminds me of the smell of a cherry Toaster Strudel. This will probably be the one Yules I’m tempted to full size.
-
The red sun races through winter-stained snow like Dracula's eyes in that final chase - all grenadine turned lurid and glowing with the day's dying light. Why does this perfume also remind me of Japanese candy discovered in the back of an import shop, that distinctive musty-sweet chalkiness? Perhaps it's the way time and context reshape sweetness into something stranger - in sunset's crimson hour or years on a forgotten shelf, what was once simple pleasure takes on an elegant decay.
-
I get sweet chestnut while wet, and then it's all champaca all the time. Yea, even after showering. This was a very small amount to test, and it's got throw *and* staying power.
-
When I read the notes on the label before testing, I thought maybe I had requested the wrong Lash. I love vanilla, but I don't wear gourmand, and I don't care for pine. Regardless, that is indeed what I had ordered, and I was SO pleasantly surprised! On me, there's a burst of sweet and then it settles into a huffably gorgeous clean unisex scent. It's not soapy, mind you, but fresh and sweet. I don't think I could pick out notes beyond that. I want to bathe in this.
- Last week
-
I braced myself for the marzipan in this one; I didn't even realize I did it, but when I finally smelled what was actually happening in the scent, I realized I had been holding my breath. Though I love marzipan --adore it!-- both in scent and taste, it can overwhelm with the high-pitched peal of sugary sweetness. What I got instead was the deep, full, resonant, sonorous richness of barely sweet, dark, dark chocolate. The marzipan was a soft, trilling frill, fluttering at the edges. A duet between Darth Vader and Megan Mullally, where the Dark Side of the Force becomes velvet cocoa-dusted truffles and somehow makes Karen Walker's signature giggle feel like sugared almond stardust on snow.
-
This is for the 2024 version... Like opening a forgotten storybook, where the forest's scent rises between pages tinged with the echo of vanilla - not the sharp bite of pine or wet earth, but something once growing but softly bespelled, slumbering and subdued. The musks feel antique rather than wild, a soft sepia tone rather than vivid green. It's what you might smell if you pressed your nose to an illustration of dark woods in a Victorian fairy tale, where the ink itself carries old magic and time-worn pages hold the memory of primordial forest and ancient greenwoods.
-
This is for the 2024 version... Like preserves made from petals gathered too early for dew - a tender, translucent jelly that holds summer's sweetness suspended in light, the way an altar holds its morning offerings. Fresh figs split open like pale stars, lotus petals floating in milk-white bowls, and unburnt sticks of sandalwood waiting patiently - sweetness as a promise, like tomorrow's devotions already taking shape in the quiet hours before sunrise
-
2024 Yules version This IS the perfume that I have been looking for! i have tried several smokey BPAL perfumes which haven't quite cut the mustard (for me): -SHEREZADE is super hot sexy but too "hot" and intense for me -SPECTRAL ARMIES is such a lovely gunpowder but fades so so quickly on me, even after ageing. However, HEARTHFLAME AND INCENSE is just perfect. I haven't loved a perfume THIS MUCH since PYRAMID OF SKULLS (despite the notes being very different). The Hearthflame is clean and the incense is friendly. This is manly but a very refined manly. For someone who wears cufflinks and smokes pipes. Of course, perfume shouldn't have a gender and I am certain that anyone could rock this.
