mrsveteran

An Ode to Pink Or, A Ridiculous Review What can I say about this Pink wig spray? It's a scent for all night and a scent for all day! Vague cotton candy and coconut too, the scent of a carnival WILL embrace you! Oh, Pink, lovely Pink! My heart's all a flutter! You make me so joyful I grin like a nutter! You're silly and sweet like a big fluffy fog, a fog filled with love and with cute puppy dogs. Um. Okay. Maybe not Dogs. Dogs actually smell quite different. It's more like the smell of the concept of cuddling a bunch of super-fluffy happy lovey puppy dogs. Like, if that feeling was a smell and not a feeling, PUPPIES! But I digress. *ahem* MOVING ON! This scent so refined that it near makes me drunk with the joy of removing my trusty wig's funk. So do not buy this, although it might call, because to be honest ... I WANT IT ALL! --- In all seriousness, I agree with those who've said "Midway in a bottle" and "cotton candy." It is hella hella hella HELLA good. Where Red is a terribly sophisticated and beautiful Duchess, Pink is like a perky cheerleader from a small town laughing at the county fair. Like, the kind of cheerleader who is just pretty and sweet without a mean bone in her body. Also, she is there with a farmer's son with whom she is terribly in love and terribly bashful. He worships her; treats her like spun glass, and is absolutely giddy with his luck in just being able to hold her hand. THAT'S what Pink is, folks. IT IS ALL THAT.

Red Wig spray My take: You have the notes. But the notes cannot convey the feel of this scent. Red musk and a sweetness with sharp edges blend into just a lovely whole that I can't quite put my finger on. Red is a gorgeous, sophisticated, unfathomably wealthy Duchess. Red has men fighting duels to the death over who will get to refill her champagne while she looks on, smiling a slight and unknowable smile with a vaguely haughty and bored expression. Out of sight of the struggling duelists, she winks wickedly and lustily at the busboy, whose heart nearly stops at the sheer beauty of that single, perfect movement. Red smells of wealth, and haughtiness, and complexity, all covering an undeniable zest and lust for life. Red is a beautiful courtesan with sharp edges, from a time when that word implied years of extensive education and highly sought skills. If you've seen Firefly, she is Nandi from "Heart of Gold." Red smells like a perfume custom crafted by the perfumer to the Empress; so rare that the only ones who can afford to wear it are the owners of entire small nations. It is strong, and bright and dark and soft and sharp. It is Red. ... The man friend's take: "Oh, that's very good. That's...okay, wait, I know this one! It's ... Steinway Showroom."

In the bottle and wet on skin: This starts out smelling like candy, necco-wafer-type sprinkles. I don't know how, but they do. Necco wafers: I don't even know what that smells like! Drydown Phase: After it's been on the skin for a bit, it smells like vanilla cake batter. Listen to me. It SMELLS like CAKE BATTER. How the heck do you even DO that? And it sort of wafts around as it's on my hand so I have this kind of vanilla, necco wafer, cake batter thing going on. Kind of reminds me of Cake Smash, but without the cream cheese frosting. Or like Eat Me without the currant. 15 Minutes Later: After more time, it's sweet, and soft, and somehow non-foody while being foody at the same time. I mean, it's almost musky, but not. It's almost cakey, but not. It's just a round, plump, soft, sweet, non-sticky smell like sugar cookies and a hug from your favorite grandmother. 30 Minutes Later: There is almost a wood smell in here. What. The heck? One Hour Later: Okay, there's almost a cinnamon thing going on. I think this is going to be amazing when it ages. For now, I think I'll put it aside and wait. Overall Verdict: Yep, I'm keeping my bottles. I really do like it now and I think it will be even more awesome in the future.

Okay, I gotta tell ya: I once went to a bullfight in Tijuana, Mexico many years ago. (It was my ex-husband's idea. Long story.) This scent, somehow, smells EXACTLY like that bullfight ring. It's somehow the smell of sweat and sawdust and many people sitting in the heat and smoking and eating various snacks and overall, just melting in the sun, because even if you pay extra to sit in the "sombra" (shade) section, you are still smack dab in the bright summer sunshine for most of the fight until you can feel everything getting just a bit surreal and the bull starts to look eerily like your pet dog and you start crying and cheering when the bull really WHACKS one of those guys out of the ring because, dammit, it looks so tired of everything as it staggers around the field with its tongue kind of hanging out... Yes. It smells EXACTLY like that. Now, what exactly "that" is -- well, that's a bit harder to articulate. Yes, patchouli, but it's blended really well with the tobacco, so I think those two scents twining about each other is the main experience here. It feels like a boxing ring in Mexico might smell, since I imagine it's probably very similar to that bullfighting ring. As a piece of art inspired by a Mexican wrestler character, I think it absolutely succeeds in presenting an overall feeling in scent of that character and his experiences in the ring. Notes? To me, there aren't individual notes so much as there is an entire experience, encapsulated in scent.

Just got this year's Luna Negra, and it is a LOT like the GC Kabuki. Very nice!

Gryphon, have you tried Eat Me? (Either the "real" one or the proto v6?) I believe it has black currant ... haven't smelled Sugar Moon, so I don't know how alike or not they are...

This is a prototype of Shill, originally from Carnival Noir. I received a bottle of Shill VI hoping it would be close to the original. However, there are significant differences, which I will attempt to enumerate here. In bottle: When you *first* open the bottle and sniff, in that moment, you THINK it's going to be the same as original Shill, and you say to yourself, "Oh YES! Thank the powers that be! It's my beautiful, beautiful Shill!" But that's only for a second: there is that sort of oily "movie theatre butter" kind of popcorn scent -- just a whiff. However, there is an almost fruity/boozy note there, making it almost like kettle corn -- a sweet smell. VERY vague, but there. You do smell the buttery popcorn -- it's there, but quite a bit less strong than original Shill. The more you sniff it, the less it smells like popcorn! Wet on skin: Now, this is really strange: on my skin, there's almost a FLORAL note to it. Not rose .. something heavier, like maybe magnolia but not as sweet. There's a faint scent of that "movie theatre butter," but it's extremely subtle. Then, that faint scent is totally gone! Drydown: After drydown, it's all that very mellow, somewhat heavy (not heavy as in strong-scented -- it's very subtle -- but heavy like the opposite of sharp -- maybe I mean smooth?) floral. No popcorn, butter, or anything like original Shill at all. It's kind of strange, actually. It's actually hard to smell anything at all in the bottle sometimes! I'll sniff and ... nothing. Shake the bottle just a tad and ... nothing. And the scent on my skin is extremely elusive. It's nice, I don't hate it, but I don't LOVE it like I love original Shill. Summary: If you have tried the original Shill, but have NOT tried the prototype, DON'T think you're getting something close to the original. You'll have a very, VERY vague sense of the buttery popcorn scent of original Shill, but it's almost so faint as to be nonexistent. If you have tried "War" from the Neil Gaiman "Good Omens" series, here's an analogy for you. War is somewhat like original Shill made super-strong and radioactive with power. Shill VI is on the opposite end of the Strong -> Subtle spectrum from War: like Shill made very faint and weak. So: War -> Original Shill -> Shill VI . In Conclusion: I love original Shill. I don't hate Shill VI. But if what you really want is Shill, DO NOT confuse the two. Also, if you hate florals, you will not like Shill VI, IMHO.

Interesting: I wonder if the 2008 version will be closer after 2 years -- maybe it's the aging that makes it closer to Opium? MV

In the bottle: Okay, this is Eat Me with blueberries! Or lemon! But WHATEVER, I don't care! It is my beloved Eat Me, at last, at long, long last! [[Edit to say: Okay, somewhere I got the idea that Eat Me had been discontinued. But now, it doesn't appear to be. So ... never mind. But this is still Eat Me with blueberries and sometimes lemon!]] Wet on skin: Yep, still Eat Me -- a lovely white cake scent but very fruity-tart. At this point, it's not really citrus or blueberry -- just tangy fruit and white cake. Drydown: Now this is the fun part -- while it's drying down, it's like LEMON! No, BLUEBERRY! No,LEMON! No, FROOT LOOPS! No ... well, and so on. Overall: it is really as though one put on Eat Me and got that lovely cakey foody scent, but instead of currant, you get blueberry lemon froot loops. I absolutely adore this -- I'm getting several bottles!

whateverish, I don't think it's so much that heat kills the oils, it's more like they don't last as long if it's too hot. Also, some oils change their scent after awhile. Heat may (or may not) speed up the process. If it speeds up the process for one component and not another, then the scent of the overall mixture could change. I've heard that some oils can go rancid-smelling after awhile, but I haven't seen that happen with BPALs. Then again, I've been storing most of mine in my little office fridge for over a year now, so I might not know. I do know lots of people who don't bother refrigerating their oils and who live where it's warm and they don't always have problems. Just remember that with or without heat, the oils will age and change over time. Sometimes that's a good thing -- just look at all the people looking for "aged Snake-Oil." :-) MV

The BPAL rep I spoke with said that oils are best stored at room temperature: she went on to say something like "If the temperature is comfortable for you then it's probably okay for the oils." I took that to mean not to refrigerate *or* let them get too hot, so I keep mine in a little "office fridge" set to 68 degrees F. I'm not sure there is an official answer to that or not, though, that's just what I was told when I emailed them. :-) MV

Thanks!!!

fiddledragon: is Namaste a GC? (I've added that under Concentration to the original post -- thanks!)

A friend of mine also thinks Bakeneko (2007) reminds her of Opium, but I have both and I don't quite see it. Maybe a little...

Thanks, Nia. Wow, we've got a lot more than I thought we had. I added your take on Anthelion to the first post. Not sure what other BPALs have gardenia, though, so I wasn't sure what to put up with White Light. MV