Implacable Beautiful Tyrant

[Jenjin]

Golden amber, frankincense, white ginger, and oudh.

 

When, with flame all around him aspirant,

Stood flushed, as a harp-player stands,

The implacable beautiful tyrant,

Rose-crowned, having death in his hands;

And a sound as the sound of loud water

Smote far through the flight of the fires,

And mixed with the lightning of slaughter

A thunder of lyres. 

 

 

[HerbGirl]

I was so excited to be able to wear a perfume oil version of this!!! The white ginger note was so fantastic and made this, which was originally a hair gloss, what it was. It made me nostalgiac for the days I wore Bvlgari Blv and the amazing White Tea and Ginger from BBW...and I enjoyed the scent of that hair gloss sooo much but the glosses were just too heavy for my hair.

 

When this first arrived two days ago, I could barely smell anything in the bottle. I put some on about an hour ago and there is barely any scent to this. ?! What scent there is reminds me of a dirty diaper. I don't understand. There's no ginger. None. I wonder if my bottle is a dud or if this is the intended scent? I am curious to read other reviews as they come in. In any case, my bottle smells nothing like the original scent, and honestly that's disappointing enough without the diaper hint. Good grief. I will hold onto this for a bit, but I have no hope that this will suddenly turn into something it's not. 

 

Eta: looks like I'm not alone. What a shame they couldn't create a good perfume oil version of that stunning hair gloss.

Edited June 4 by HerbGirl
Disappointing

[ShadowEtienne]

This scent is much gentler than I would have expected from something called Implacable Beautiful Tyrant. I never experienced the original hair gloss, so I can say nothing to the comparison, but i am enjoying this scent for itself! I do get all the listed notes, or at least implications of them, even if it wasn't quite what I would have expected.

 

The base of this on my skin is mostly frankincense, but the gentlest frankincense I've ever encountered! It's a softly creamy, resinous, spicy layer. It's warmed by soft amber that adds to the gentle resinous creaminess. There is just a hint of slightly sour wood from the oudh that adds a layer of interesting contrast.

 

The white ginger sits on top of this creamy resinous base as a bright, sweet, zing of fresh white ginger. It's much more delicate than some gingers, almost slightly floral, but it is bright and harmonious with the spiciness of the frankincense.

 

Frankincense and ginger continues to be a winning combination on my skin, even if not in the way precisely I would have expected from this name and description.

 

[SimonsSays]

I just got the hair gloss of this, and it does indeed tame them flyaways all over my long straight hair, and is so much lighter and drier than I expected. It's really nice. It's a spritzspritz. I expected a super oily syrup of some kind, I was pleasantly surprised by the light mist.

The scent is all sweet amber to me, basically a one note amber to my sick lame olfactory unit. Maybe it'll develop in the heat of summer, with age, or become more complex if I ever fully heal from the back to back illnesses I'm trying to recover from currently. Would be nice to detect frankincense ginger and oud. I like those notes, generally. Pure amber is still pretty good, though.

Edited April 4 by SimonsSays
FumbleFangers

[WhatAHoot]

I tried the HG of this scent previously, and while it was nice, I didn't find myself drawn to it as it always felt like there was something a bit "sharp" in that blend. That said, I was curious to try the oil format, so I picked up a decant.

 

This is a pretty scent, but it's probably the faintest scent I've ever smelled from BPAL. I do get the white ginger, but not much else, and it's incredibly faint. I'll let this rest for a while longer and retest before I make any final judgements. 

[Amoraexcena]

Lovely sweet golden amber, bright airy ginger, and grounding oudh. This is the IBT I've known and loved ever since it came out 10 years ago.

 

I wear this in hair gloss form all the time. It does have less immediate throw than the hair gloss, but my theory on this is that our hair has TONS of surface area - which means the scent molecules are flying off your hair and into your face all the time. Once skin-warmed, the perfume version does have some throw too, though it's rather subtle. I'm reminded of Failmingo's funny review of Glowing Vulva - I'd call this a golden bokeh sparkle scent, where Glowing Vulva is all pale pink bokeh sparkle scent.

 

I'm very glad I got two bottles, because I'll be slathering this one. I'll also be layering it a lot as I do with IBT HG (Zorya P+IBT HG has long been my "go-to" combo). 

[doomsday_disco]

I have used up one bottle of the original hair gloss and have less than half left of my second bottle of it.

 

I actually tested the hair gloss on the back of my hand when the Lab hinted that the Our Lady of Pain line might be returning. The hair gloss is mostly about the resins on me, like a cousin to Hesiod's Phoenix (I think they may share the same golden amber and oudh notes). I figured I'd blind bottle the perfume before it leaves the website, to wear with the hair gloss and try layering it with other scents. So I didn't order a decant... but I lucked out and the universe gave me one anyway!

 

Now... I know that a scent may not be the same in a different medium, but I'm surprised just how light this is compared to the hair gloss. And it does not smell the same. I mainly got some faint white ginger, and when that disappeared, some barely there resins... that were so soft that sometimes I'd smell that spot on my arm and not be able to smell anything unless I did a really deep inhale.

 

I am going to set this decant aside and retest it in a few months. I hope that it gains some oomph if it has had more time to settle. But if it stays as it is, it will not be a bottle upgrade like I had originally planned. 

 

 

[MischiefofRats]

Weirdly, this reminds me of Mummies of Mexico City.  I will put both on at once and compare. It's lovely though.

 

Edit: comparing them both, they are very distinct on the skin but they are absolutely cousins. IBT is much sweeter. My girlfriend described it, comparing MMC to IBT, as what raspberry tea is to raspberry sherbet, although obviously not raspberry at all. If you wanted to love Mummies but it wasn't sweet enough, you'll like this 

Edited April 27 by MischiefofRats

[patina]

This is indeed an amber silk scent. I can imagine it would be better diffused by spraying and might smell better that way but it isn't exactly weak on me either. It probably helps that oude usually plays nice on my skin. The ginger doesn't go bitter on me and right now the sweet gold amber is triumphing over everything else.

Edited April 26 by patina

[Elspethdixon]

In the imp: Sharp, fresh, almost citrusy ginger and warm/sweet amber. maybe a hint of frankincense 

Wet/freshly applied: once on my skin, the soft amber becomes more dominant, with the ginger and frankincense as just the faintest whiffs. Everyone who said this was lighter than the HG was right - much lighter and not much throw. The oude does not become barnyardy and take over, though, which is what I was most worried about given Herb Girl’s review.
 

Drydown: After a few minutes, everything smoothes out and it’s like a light, sheer haze of gold with a faint sharp, sophisticated edge. It’s recognizably the same scent I love in the HG form, just much fainter (I have a more recent bottle of the HG, bought around 2019).

 

Sadly, it fades very quickly, and by an hour later it was entirely gone, even from my hair where I also applied it to check how the scent profile evolved without my skin chemistry in the mix (less amber, basically). However it’s worth noting that I live in the Mojave desert right now and a lot of oils have about half the wear time here that they did back on the East Coast. 

 

[samanare]

A pale oud scent on me more than anything else. I'm a little surprised how light this is on me, given the notes. Oud is the strongest, having a pale, musky quality to it. I think I'm getting a little bit of the amber, but not the resin of the frankincense. There's a slight zing to the scent, but it sits close to the skin and reads more as a general zest than ginger specifically. Overall, a surprisingly light oud scent, with just a touch of ginger.

[amoray]

Faint, almost non existent. Smells nothing like the hair gloss. I wouldn't even know this was the same scent, but seeing as it's so faint it's super hard to even tell what it smells like. It's almost like something went bad. Sad about this one. I wonder if there are multiple mixes of this because the one I got is similar to the reviews of it being faint and very odd. Kind of wish they'd revisit this one and try to fix it.

 

Edit: I swear there is no ginger or resins in this. I've sat here and slathered some more on. Let it dry. Nothing but oudy amber. It's not dirty diaper, but has a soggy diaper vibe to it. 

Edited May 28 by amoray