Arkham

[mermaidsdream]

A shadowy, unapproachable forest of maple, birch, dogwood, cypress and pine softened by a garland of New England wildflowers: bergamot, columbine, rue anemone, blue violet, creeping phlox, bloodroot, toadflax, and pixie moss.

 

Going through the ABC's of my "try me now" Imp box (75 days worth of imps, if I do one per day with no duplicates!), this was next up ...

In the Imp: I get mostly the aquatic notes, with a hint of something else, something sweet.

Wet, applied: (as a side note, I do roll the imps between my hands for a bit before applying) wet blueberries. Seriously, blueberry. Looking at the notes, I think it's the violet screaming at me (maybe to run the other direction). It's not bad, I'm just not 100% sure about this.

Dry: Okay, there we go. The violet is now cowering in terror, and the woods & aquatic notes come out to play. It's almost smoky, with a hint of sweet. Something lurking in the shadows, promises & whispers.

I'm still not 100% in love with this scent, but my co-workers seem to like it a lot, so I guess that's something ... we'll see how we're doing by the end of the day.

[Mayhem27]

Arkham was a frimp included in my last order, which was awesome because I had it on my list to buy next time! In the imp...wow this is stunning! The first thing that hit me was the grass, and I LOVE grass scents. It also had a watery, aquatic smell...like a meadow with a little trickling stream nearby. On my skin, the light flowers came out, I definitely could smell the columbine. I'm not great at picking out florals but I have columbine in my garden and it smells very much like this. :-) The lovely watery grass is still the main element...so glad it didn't disappear on my skin. A few hours into wearing, this hasn't changed much, except for a light, woodsy note has appeared. The throw is moderate on Arkham, and it lasted all day for me. Gorgeous scent, like Spring in a bottle! I can't wait to buy a big bottle of this.

[hexnut]

Pale yellow oil, tested blind.

In Vitro Sharp and bright, perhaps citrus or lavender.

Wet Fresh on this was a citrusy bright floral. It quickly mellowed a bit but remained a bright floral blend.

Drying Slightly soapy after less than ten minutes. A bit later I wrote, "innocuous perfume with soapy note that comes and goes".

Soap is the fate of many BPAL florals on my skin so that didn't surprise me, but I got a chuckle from seeing the label after testing. The brooding, festering horror of the shadowy unapproachable forest, reduced to mere sudsy flowers...

EDIT Oh for crying out loud. I'm working through my notecards this morning in chronological order and I see I got frimped Arkham again from one of the Will Calls. A blind test produced results almost identical to the first review. Nice to know my nose isn't completely wonky.

[Gwydion]

In bottle: I expected this to be woody, but it’s very bright floral. It’s violet dominant, with the other florals in support painted across a delicate canvas of very soft woods and herbs. I am not good enough at florals to tell which of the less common ones here is which. It’s very pretty, but I can’t carry violet, so I’m not skin testing.

[patina]

A delicate, dry, grassy, foresty thing. This was underwhelming as a perfume, but put into water in a spray bottle it made really amazing room spray. Best "waste" of an imp ever.

[Teaker]

I was NOT expecting spooky Arkham forest to be so sweet and girly! This smells like pink minty gum. It's cool and refreshing, I think it would make a fabulous summer work scent.

 

It's very well blended and I can't pick out any single notes, except perhaps the violets. I think the pine must be what my nose reads as mint. I wouldn't describe this as a floral scent, it's more like a dewy meadow filled with mint and flowers. Very lovely, my only complaint is that it has very little throw on me and doesn't last long.

[Zii]

Wet: Bitter floral. It sweetens up pretty quickly, but it is just so not my type of scent. Very girly and light. None of the strong woods I was hoping for. And now, like so many florals do, it's going to my head...

[psychocygnet]

Wet: Wood. Lots and lots of old wood. Reminds me a little of the antique dorm room I stayed in a couple years ago.

 

Dry: Pink Softsoap. With the occasional hint of wildflowers, but, sadly, the hand-soap note remains dominant.

[tailoredshirt]

I didn't remember the notes for this one, and my first impression before looking it up was soapy-soft floral leather, although the leather-y quality disappears quickly under all the florals. I think the combination of woods and moss was giving the impression of leather. I also got the impression of some kind of citrus at the beginning (bergamot, I'm assuming), though this faded quickly too.

 

I can't pick out any specific notes other than violets, sweet maple, and maybe a hint of coolness from the pine. Too sweet and floral for me to wear on a regular basis, but it is pretty.

[radioaction]

I got this in my very first BPAL order last November and immediately hated it. It was way too bitter and harsh, with kind of a soapy, dryer sheet vibe. I tried it a few more times with similar results so it’s sat in limbo since. Today I wanted something that reminds me of New England woods so I decided to give it another shot. It seems to have gotten a little sweeter and softer. I realized that the violet may have been an issue before - other violet blends have a really harsh edge on me - so perhaps that note calmed down with age. It still seems very 2 dimensional - lots of floral and green notes with not much to back it up. I don’t really get much in the way of woods until hours later and it's really faint. I’d love a Halloween or Yule take on Arkham with something rich and dark to play contrast.

[blacksh33pboi]

My experience:

 

Light floral with a sharp whiff of pine and a slight woody note. Eventually, the pine dies down and its main focus is on the light floral with a soft, sweet woody base. After quite a long time, the sweet woodiness becomes more pronounced but remains sweet wood as opposed to more sharp or dry. Very nice daytime scent, not too complex. But certainly a very forest/wild floral (as opposed to more stuffy/fancy) with a decent amount of sillage/throw!

[Lunasariel]

In the imp: Mostly smooth, pleasant woods, especially pine. But there's a slightly synthetic fruity note (cherry???), as well as an odd sort of herbaceous-floral, woozy note that I wouldn't call strictly pleasant, but isn't *un*pleasant, if you know what I mean. Interesting.

 

Wet: After an initial strong blast of woods (mostly pine/cypress), it mellows out into a blend of springtime florals over a wood base. The fruity/berry note also softens up, becomes less synthetic, and mixes with the florals in a way that makes me smile. This is certainly nothing that's going in my "power bitch" scent category, but very possibly in the "princess dancing through field of wildflowers" category. It's a very light scent, a very young scent, and what I would describe as carefree.

 

Dry: It fades to a skin-scent remarkably quickly. But even more than that, it just feels faint - faint florals, fainter woods.

[DiesMali]

In the imp: Mmm, greenery.

 

Wet on my skin: Lots of wildflowers and trees...and VIOLETS.

 

Dry: Unfortunately, violet does its thing on me, as usual, and what should have been a gorgeous wildflower-forest scent turns into fakey-sweet girls' bubble bath. I can tell that the other notes in this are so pretty, but powdery, soapy, purple violet rudely elbows its way to the front and stubbornly refuses to budge.

[Veronica]

I get mostly pine and green and white florals. A pretty, bright spring scent.

[elka_knits]

I don't smell the pine, cypress or any of the woods. I guess it is all a jumble. I also don't smell the flowers or moss. It is sharp like a jolly ranger and cool somehow. I guess that is the bergamot being sharp and lemony although it doesn't smell lemony just that tang you get from citrus. For me this scent is more about how it feels than how it smells. I feel cool. I feel sharp. I feel airy.

Regardless I won't wear it. To swaps

[freyasfae]

This has a dark fruity, but not overwhelmingly fruity scent, that I find enticing, probably all the other notes help this. It has a mischievous, devious quality to it, seems very fallish.

[PrinceofcatS]

I wanted a crisp twilight woods with wildflowers, feared dark heavy woods and nothing else, and got... faint woods, beautiful flowers, then ALL FLOWERS in the drydown. What??

 

I am starting to realize woods might not show up much on my skin, which baffles me.

 

This goes on with a strong lemonish scent that's probably bergamot, but fades into a really pretty floral. The violet dominates a bit (that note definitely amps on me though), but it doesn't crush the other notes, it just lends a prevailing sweetness that I detect as violet. If you sat in a flowery glen and far behind your field was a big old forest, maybe that would be how this smells. I really wish the forest notes were stronger, because I can tell they're gorgeous, but on me this is mostly sweet flowers. I am sad.

[Casablanca]

Bottle: Violets, a touch of orange, and then a mix of other flowers and woods. The smell starts blue with orange hints, and turns green.

Wet: Orange and woody florals. The bergamot leads for me here. After a half-minute I can pick out pine and cypress (I don't know the other woods listed), and the greenery comes out more in general. The violets are much quieter on me than they were in the bottle. These are much less playful and welcoming woods than in Elf, not morose like in Burial, and less rich than in Black Forest. They are flowery woods, likable but not totally comfortable, like the woods of a neighbor with a bad rep. It seems to be an earthy or even mushroomy smell doing that. Maybe it's the moss.

Dry: Dries down to a slightly woody wildflower blend with no single distinct note.

I like this frimp, but I already have Elf, Ranger and Black Forest, and I'm not sure I like this more than any of those. Wood lovers: this is more the wildflower than the wood, but there's both.

[joopjoop]

This is a fresh ‘out for a walk in nature’ scent - the maple and dogwood and pine are softened by a meadow of wildflowers - all mixed up - it is hard to pull them apart but the overall impression is of a sun-dappled meadow, with just a hint of sweetness that is woody and a little bit fruity - like blackberry brambles in July just before the berries ripen.

 

I would say that this is primarily a floral scent but one that smells very fresh and outdoorsy to me. It reminds me a lot of Elf - I think I need to do a side-by-side comparison to see if I can tell the difference. It is not a big morpher on me and, also like Elf, it fades rather quickly, but it is lovely while it lasts.

 

I think that Arkham would be a good floral for someone who doesn’t like traditional florals. It is very youthful and 'springy' smelling to me. I can see my 14 year old niece loving it. Hmm, I think I’ll give her the imp!

[agirlnamedfury]

My boyfriend said this smells like gin and he's not far off. It's very herbal as well, though, and probably too soapy for me. Green scents don't usually work for me, and this one is very, very green. Just not my style, really.

[gloame]

This was my first (and first favorite) scent from BPAL. I bought the 5ml blind, got it in the mail, and loved it instantly. I still love it. It has aged steadily over the last 5 years. I am so afraid that it will discontinue. It is the most beautiful slick, green floral. It's feminine and unexpected and so sly. Forever and always my favorite BPAL.

[Coldfire]

Imp: dark pitch-y woods with dark floral with the Violet being the one I scent the most
Wet on Me: still that dark pitch-y wood notes and the violet notes.
Drying Down: less wood now. the floral is a bit better blended and smoother under the nose
Dry: The throw on this is very short. This is a right under your nose sort of scent. IT's sweet but not sugar sweet. But as nice as it is I think I'll put it on the trade pile.

[achildoftime]

In the imp it's all pine and trees. It kind of reminds me of a lumber mill I drive past to get to work.

 

When it goes on the skin, though, a big bouquet of wild flowers stands front and center. They are sweet and cheerful, almost bubble gum-y. It really is a pretty chipper scent, which is all well and good, but not what I was hoping for. All the lovely trees got gobbled up and violet bubble gum is all that's left on me. Dry it's much of the same and doesn't change. Usually anything with mostly green notes stay true to form, but this just didn't follow that trend.

 

To be fair, anything sweet does tend to just get sweeter on me so YMMV, but it's just not for me.

[voodoobaby]

I was 100% not expecting to like this since I'm not a big floral fan, but BPAL proved me wrong.

 

It smells a bit acrid out of the imp, but on the skin it's actually beautiful. To me it's a green woodsy aquatic with a mix of sweet floral notes. Something about it reminds me of a cheap gas station incense I used to love to burn when I was much younger; I always thought it smelled like candy, and I get that from this scent as well. As for the wood/aquatic notes, I definitely get the New England association. It's reminiscent of walking along the seaside wooded paths of Peddocks Island in Boston Harbor, which is something I've wanted in a perfume since I went there. It's more natural-smelling than perfumey.

 

I think this is going to be my springtime scent. I have plenty for fall in winter but not enough for warmer weather, and this fills the niche nicely.

[ShunnerOfHugs]

I LOVE Arkham. It smells like a bouquet of really sweet wildflowers on me. I don't smell any of the woody notes like pine or maple, but the flowers smell so nice that they more than make up for it.