smillaraaq

Another recent frimp, and between the Keats and Baudelaire references in this last batch I was halfway convinced somebody at the Lab was readng my mind, or at least scanning my bookshelf! In the bottle: light, sweet faintly fruity floral, lots of orange blossom, seems very much in vein with the current trend towards really sweet fruity blends in conventional perfumes. Wet: more of the sweet fruity notes, particularly peach, start to come out. Drydown: the apple note becomes more dominant -- and to my nose it's not the red apple of the described notes but a sharp, crisp green apple like a Granny Smith. It's almost a little too sweet-and-fruity for my tastes initially, although the crispness of the apple helps keep it from being too cloying. As it settles more the apple fades down a bit and the honey, musk, and incense notes assert themselves a bit more, but I can never manage to catch any of the rose notes and the orange blossom only shows up in the bottle. Towards the end of the day the incense notes come up a bit more strongly as the sweeter fruity notes start to fade. Interesting and fairly pretty all in all, but just not quite me -- a little bit too sweet, a little bit too fruity; if there'd been a lot more spice and heavier incense or woods to help darken all that fruit it would have been more to my tastes. This one's getting packed off to a friend who has more of a taste for sweet edible notes than I do.

I had really high hopes for this one because I love the Keats poem...but alas, on my skin there's nothing remotely beautiful or seductive about it! It is pretty merciless, though... In the bottle: sharp, bitter citrus. Wet: that same sharp citrus note, maybe a hint of a very crisp lavender or some other sharp green herbal scent around the edges, but absolutely nothing sweet to round and soften the sharp edges. I'm not getting any of the roses or softer floral notes other reviewers have mentioned. Drydown: the green/crisp notes fade, the citrus starts to lose the harshest of its edges...but then it begins to turn to soap. It's not quite as horrible as what Embalming Fluid or to a lesser extent Shanghai turned to on my skin, but it's still not very nice, either. Something in these citrusy blends doesn't like me very much, and that feeling is mutual. This one had a fair bit of staying power on my skin, too -- the next morning there was still a hint of citrusy-soapiness clinging to my wrist. Such a shame that a scent that lingers so well isn't anything I actually want to have lingering. Oh well, off to the swap pile with this one.

In the bottle/wet: sort of clean, cold, green, faintly minty...reminds me a little bit like the pennyroyal in Mad Hatter. Drydown: well, I guess the "China Rain" note must be everything I'm smelling that isn't the familiar faint murky woodiness of vetiver in the background: it's sort of a wet, green, vaguely sweet smell, but the vetiver keeps it from being too cloyingly sweet. The vetiver gets a little stronger with further wear, but never enough so to dominate the sweet-green stuff. Since I'd never really tried any China Rain notes from other perfumers before I had no idea what to expect, and was a little startled when a little research showed me it's classed as an ozone scent -- the clean-coldness of it makes sense, but I'm used to thinking of ozones as a little sharper, somehow! But it went insanely sharp on the friend I passed the imp on to, so maybe that's just a quirk of interaction with my skin chemistry. The scent definitely doesn't remind me of any of the hurricanes I lived through as a child, and really didn't even have a particularly "air" feel to me, but it was interesting enough to sample. Ozone/marine scents generally don't do much for me in other perfumes, though, so I guess it's no great surprise that they're not my thing in BPAL either.

Another recent frimp, and of all the freebies I've ever received from friends or the Lab, this is the first one I've ever fallen head-over-heels insanely in love with... Oh, wow. I am RIDICULOUSLY in love with this -- best frimp ever! In the bottle: tea, really strong, spicy, tannic black tea -- something like chai without the roundness and sweetness of the milk and sugar. Wet: more strong black tea, like a Russian Caravan style blend, heavy and tannic, with spices -- cardamom and clove for sure, maybe some pepper? and aromatic woody incense, like Nag Champa or cedarwood joss sticks, maybe a hint of patchouli. Drydown: the woody sandalwood/cedar incense notes are getting stronger, but the spice and tea elements seem to still be there. Not nearly as strong as I'd have expected from those sorts of notes, and it doesn't have very much throw at all unless I slather it on pretty heavily, but this is absolutely lovely close to the skin. It's definitely one of those scents that's evocative of a man-made place rather than the natural world: I could swear that I've been someplace before that smells JUST LIKE THIS BLEND, a tea shop or a temple or a spice dealer or an herbalist's shop or a little ethnic grocery, or maybe several such places that are all blending together in my mind so that I can't narrow the memory down to more specific locations. I am not getting any of the flowers or herbal notes the description or other reviewers lead me to expect, to my nose this is aromatic but entirely dry -- dry tea, dry wood, dry incense, dry spices. Not a dead, musty fading sort of dryness, but lots of tannins and things that are just sort of preserved and sleeping, waiting for a touch of water or flame to bring them bursting back into full life again. Oh geeze, I love this so much it's ridiculous, there's not an ounce of sweetness to it but it's not sharp and bitter at all; it's just rich and warm and dry and oh-so-achingly-familiar and almost comforting. I love incense/spice scents and scents that aren't sticky-sweet so this really is just perfect for me...and it's so dry and gentle and almost neutral in a strange way that it even can play nicely alongside other fragrances that I love -- it doesn't clash at all with my Perversion-filled scent locket, or my Black Vanilla spray conditioner. It doesn't have quite the insane staying power on my skin that some scents like Perversion or Nyarlathotep do, but even as it fades throughout the day it stays lovely and balanced. This is definitely one I'm going to need to get a full bottle of when the imp runs out.

Another recent frimp, and my first try at one of the RG scents... In the bottle: yeah, lily lily lily. But a fairly soft lily, nothing quite as spicy-strong as a stargazer; I'm so not getting the goth-as-fuck name, there's nothing particularly dark here yet, just pure soft lily. Wet: yep, still a very soft lily, like an old-fashioned lily-of-the-valley perfume; there are faint hints of something dark and woody underneath it, but it's hard to notice under the soft powdery creamy lily scent. Drydown: more of that same sweet soft lily with a hint of darkness under it...until it dries completely after a few minutes, and then the lily just vanishes in an instant, leaving behind what smells like the same rich black musk that's in Mad Hatter, softened and sweetened with something powdery-vanillaey like tonka. There's not a lot of throw, but that vanilla-musk clings close to my skin and lingers for a very very long time. I love black musk and tonka so this is a very nice thing, even if the actual lily is mostly a blink-and-you'll-miss-it element!

Eternal desire, unquenchable passion: red musk, cocoa absolute, Nepalese amber, red sandalwood, aged patchouli, nicotiana, and blood wine. Got this as a frimp, had high hopes based on the listed notes... In the bottle: SWEET sweet sweet almost fruity floral, must be the tobacco flower and maybe a hint of the amber and cocoa amping the sweetness? Wet: more floral sweetness for a second and then the patchouli and sandalwood come blazing up over it, shoving the sweetness to the background. Drydown: the red musk is coming up more to keep the patchouli from dominating quite so much, and the sweet florals are flaring up around it again. I can't really seem to pick the wine out on its own, although it may be contributing to the overall sweetness. The sweetness seems to settle down again as a bit more time passes, leaving the same red musk that's in Fenris Wolf front and center -- really, with the red-musk-and-patchouli blend here mixed with sweeter elements, on my skin this could be Fenris Wolf in slightly overdone, ineffective drag -- glittery hot pink lipstick and a ruffly dress that doesn't really hide the hairy legs, cooing "please dear, call me Fenrietta!" in a thoroughly unconvincing falsetto. It's not bad, decent throw, but not great either; I like Fenris Wolf just fine as it is, I really don't particularly need a girlier version of it in my collection, so this one's going to be swapped away. Oh well!