Sacred Whore of Babylon

[Fyre_in_Winter]

And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth. An ancient formula that inspires unrepentant decadence, lechery and debauch.

Whatever is in Sacred Whore, my skin needs to stay far, far away from. At first I got a blast of spicy soap/gardenia smell that I've gotten from other blends that contain Dragon's Blood, except in this case it didn't fade. Add into that mix a note of licorice/ sassafras (my nose couldn't make up its mind) which I dislike and my stomach was a-churnin'.

Hmm, one washing isn't going to do the trick on this powerful blend. That's cinnamon peeking its dainty head (yep, cinnamon smells dainty in this concoction) out and I think a bit of myrrh in there as well. Huh, weird, it doesn't smell half bad now. I'll keep it around for a week and see if my reaction was due to that TOTM.

ETA: The complete drydown on me is burnt root beer. Double ick.

[rhubarbbear]

sacred whore is overwhelmingly jasmine/gardenia on me. its a strong blend and the little drop i tried grew big and strong and lasted for ages! at first i was quite worried, as jasmine etc often gives me a headache, so i kept my nose away from my wrist for a couple hours. by that time it had muted a tiny bit and gotten a sweet coating. i found myself eyeing my husband...this stuff works!

 

not a top 10, but one i'll keep!

[Gin]

Very floral out of the bottle, SWoB goes slightly cinnamony on my skin. Oh, and there's gardenias too. And maybe lilies. The jasmine that was so loud at first has gone away. And now, it seems that I've spent so much time trying to decipher the flowers that it's changed again. I'm back to a cinnamony, spicy, almost buttery-vanilla. And almond!? Wow. I was all set up to dislike this, and it's done a complete 540° on me. Yay!

[xoe]

Sacred Whore of Babylon made me feel very glamorous. Like a 1930s film star! It was mainly gardenia and jasmine, with some other indecipherable goodies thrown in. A little too heady for a trip to the grocery store, but perfect for some sort of black-tie, romantic evening.

 

Really, what more could you want from a Sacred Whore?

[brownbat]

This probably isn't going to be the most helpful review because I didn't wear this oil very long. In fact, this is probably the only bpal scents I've tried so far that immediately gave me a headache and caused me to wash the scent off right away.

 

Unfortunately, I have no idea what it was in the blend that generated this reaction in me, and due to the limited amount of time I had the scent on I don't even have a clear recollection of what it smelled like.

 

Hence, this unhelpful review

[mmcfa2]

In the bottle: cherries?? Where did those come from?

 

Wet ON: Cinamon and cherries

 

Drying, cinnamon and gardenia,, something waxy too, I think it is jasmine.

 

dry: very nice, spicy waxy gardenia, no soapiness, no grapefruit rind which is how bad ones go on me.

 

sadly the waxiness never goes away and the gardenia is overtaken by a vanilla smell so this one is a swapper

Edited April 6, 2005 by mmcfa2

[grrrlennyl]

at first: gorgeous. sweet and dark.

on: amazing. very womanly and sweet, like cherries.

2 hours later: i'm getting lots of warm fruits and cinnamon. yeah...lots of cinnamon.

6 hours later: much lighter. i'm mostly getting a spicy scent, and it isn't as sweet or complex as it was at first.

overall: this is very beautiful. i don't know if i'll commit to a bottle, but i'll definitely enjoy my imp.

[summer]

I don't know why, but I spontaneously slathered my wrists with the Sacred Whore after work today. I was just drawn to it.

 

Mmmm, it's wonderful. Golden, languid, and extremely feminine. It's like thick gardenia syrup -- that is, there's something almost honeyed about it. The spice is very subtle on me -- but just there enough to make the fragrance warm and heady.

 

Mmmmmmmmm. This isn't an "everyday" scent for me, but it's sweet, sexy, and quite beautiful. It will be a gorgeous springtime come-hither scent.

[lunalight7]

After my experience w/ Love Me, Sacred Whore confirms that cinnamon is amplified on my skin and therefore drowns out all other notes. Sad, since Sacred Whore began as a spicy incensey vanilla blend that I love in Beth's other such scents. Alas....

[misfitroxy]

The imp smells of a honeyed floral to me. Sticky and wet and very pleasant all-around. My skin doesn’t seem to want to allow it to stay in that state, though. It instantly pulls the white flower(s) to the forefront and grabs on to dear life. I maybe smell of bit of licorice, which I don’t particularly care for sadly enough.

 

As it warms, it turns a bit spicy. But I can’t get beyond the florals. They’re not a favorite perfume for me (or my allergies) and I don’t really see this morphing enough to where they’d be wearable.

 

Overall, the blend is heady yet light enough for everyday wear. It would be gorgeous on someone else, I’m sure, but isn’t meant for me.

[Sara]

Initial Imp Sniff: Flowers. Lots of crushed flower juices.

 

Swipe: Ooooh god, I'm drowning in florals now. It's severely cloying. I ordered single notes (when they were still available) of Gardenia and Honeysuckle a few months back...um..to my untrained (then) nose, they smelled super similar; in fact, I couldn't really tell them apart. This blend smells just like those single notes.

 

Drydown (couple hours later): The cinnamon finally made an appearance and it ever so slightly nudging the gardenia out - thank goodness! Honestly, the gardenia is kind of turning my stomach a little. It's just too much, too rich, too..just too. When I think of Gardenia, I think of the white pillars from Illuminations (candle place), which is sweet, light, and very much flowery pleasantness. This gardenia however is syrupy, thick, and cloying (can't stop using that word, it's too accurate). If it's possible to drown in a scent, then this one is definitely drowning me.

Edited March 16, 2005 by Sara

[magikfanfic]

In the bottle: Floral. Very floral. A kind of honey/vanilla floral, though, with an interesting cinnamon background note to it. It's not...well, it's kinda scary and thick and cloying in the vial so I'm hoping it might calm down when it hits the skin.

 

Wet: Cinnamon. Cinnamon and honey. And...maybe dragon's blood? I don't know. Something. It's...I think it has cinnamon in it. It makes my nose kinda flame. I don't think I light this one.

 

Dry down: The throw is still a fairly nice honey/vanilla floral but up close it's this burning cinnamon red hot thing that is just not pleasant for me. Cinnamon.

 

Dry: Not even letting it get there. This makes my nose hurt with its cinnamonness. The floral honey/vanilla scent that I pick up occasionally is nice, but I cannot take the cinnamon.

[Galena]

what I smelt in the bottle seems ver different to everyone else.

 

in the bottle it's LADYMUSK!

 

So you can imagine my panic, when I decided to give it a chance and ended up accidentally wearing the entire imp.

 

but then the air got to it, and the florals came through, and despite my fears I didn't reek of a rudebit.

 

and my boyfriend definitely liked it.

[girlmadasbirds]

i had a lot of trouble trying to figure out what was in this. it was very overpowering and i kept getting a whiff of gardenia, banana, and something very smoky and spicy. it didn't agree with me at all.

[RainyDayGrey]

I had no clue how this would smell from the description, I admit it, I got an imp soley for it's name. I figured if I could pull this one off, hell yes I wanted a perfume called Sacred Whore of Babylon, and you can bet your ass I will be wearing it over to the inlaws the next time I happen to wander over there. *evil grin*

 

I could not do this one justice trying to describe it. It's way to complex for me to put my finger on any one thing but insense!

 

In the bottle it's a very heavy sweet floral, wasn't all that impressed at first whiff. But once I got it on I was head over heals. This stuff is amazing. On me it's mostly inscense with something sweet, something spicy, and something floral playing around in the back ground. After a few hours of wear this turns into the most sexy dark smokey vanilla. I can not stop smelling myself when I wear it, not that I need to spend the whole day with my wrist glued to my nose. It's very strong and I can smell it every time I move. It lasts all day long too.

 

Honestly, this is a very heady blend, probably best suited for special occasions. Sutch as a night out when your going to be dressing up, or a night in when you plan on dressing down. Not that I care, it's so damn good I wear it all the freaking time!

 

ETA: The first time I wore this I was on my period, and my overactive hormones really love to amp up any kind of inscense note. I wore this one almost exclusivley that week, and then I finally moved on and tried out the rest of my imps, when I finally came back to the Sacred 'Ho I coudn't believe it, but it was even better! Since my hormones weren't making the Myrrh go haywire I could smell more of the lovely spicy floral, and the myrrh became more of a back ground note. I really thought that Three Witches was going to take it's place as "The Favorite BPAL", but nope, she's still holding the #1 spot.

Edited April 25, 2005 by RainyDayGrey

[cormeretrix]

i wanted to like this one, and i almost did, but the underlying florals outdid me, darnit!

 

at first, it was lovely, all spicy and warm, but then the bloody florals just had to come out and ruin it all.

 

'tupid florals...

[wickedgoddess]

Another oil that smells somewhat familiar, from my old days.

 

Wet, I'm not sure what I am smelling here, except for amber. No wait, it's myrrh.

 

Dry, it sweetens and gets more floral. I definitely smell gardenias. As it dries the gardenia starts to fade, and I get a delicous spicy scent. Is that just a touch of cinnnamon I smell? Yep, that's cinnamon and it's getting stronger. I think I smell clove now too. Yay, I love spicy scents! I like this scent quite a bit, but I don't love it, as I do some of the others. And it does give me a slight headache, never a good sign.

 

I will definitely hang on to the imp, and probably even get a second one, but I don't think a big bottle of this is in my future.

 

On the wicked goddess scale of 1 to 5, (with 5 being best) 4 .

[Orodemniades]

Hmm. Not sure what to write about SWOB.

 

I can smell violets and clove and some other superstrong floral note, maybe the gardenia everyone else smells...? It's a sickly sweet floral with that cod liverish undertone again. I couldn't take it for very long, but I'll try again some time in the future.

 

Oro

[Eros]

Sweet floral w/a bit of spice & ...cinnamon? Reminiscent of something I can't quite put my finger on.

Wearing, stays true to how it came out of the bottle. A very thick & decayed flowers sort of feel to it. Quite lovely!!

Waited until my second try wearing this before reviewing it and alas, just like the first time, although I adore it, I'm getting a headache Life can be so unfair, blah!

[LiberAmoris]

The Sacred Ho was a freebie from the Lab, thanks so much Labbies!

 

Like viciousviolet, I immediately thought: Dragon's Milk + Gardenia. That combination always smells like banana for some reason...what can I say, I'm weird.

 

This reminds me a lot of both Blood Countess and Serpent's Kiss. I think this is one blend that I would love to smell on someone standing near me, but it's just not really me. I'm going to give this imp to a friend and hope she wears it the next time we hang out!

[sarada]

I was very curious about this one and a little nervous -- I don't like florals much unless they're very complex and combined with dark incense scents or plum/berry scents. Given some of the reviews, I was hoping this might be one that I'd like!

 

In the bottle, it is a very dark and complex blend indeed with a strong floral component -- I'm going to have to join the ranks of those who can't tell jasmine and gardenia apart in a blend, but since this isn't giving me a headache I'll guess that it's either a type of jasmine that doesn't bother me, or some other floral that manages to be sharp, sweet and dark at the same time. A little bit smoky, a little bit of a spicy tingle. Actually, as it dries down it really smells a lot like root beer...but not so syrupy sweet.

 

There's nothing vaguely like cinnamon in this to my nose, though perhaps that's what I'm interpreting as the root beer smell. Cinnamon makes my skin burn a little and doesn't generally agree with me, but this is a very smooth, slightly sweet and dark, musky floral blend. No hints of anything resembling vanilla either -- again, that sweetness is just interpreted by my brain as root beer. I'm trying real hard to see if I can detect any cinnamon....if it's in there it's blended so well that it just turns into that sort of root beer scent. Cola and root beer always smell like a very complex blend of spices to me, so it's quite possible that there's a blend like that in here.

 

The floral notes fade after awhile and I didn't get a headache from this upon first wearing it, though I will be very careful with how much I apply since it's very heady and seems to have some headache potential! Ultimately I like it, and I'm glad I have a half-bottle to play around with, as it's definitely unique, and I might like to feel like a sacred whore occasionally!

[Ardisian]

Oddly enough, my imp smells exactly the same on me as in the bottle. There's a sweet floral in there, but it's mostly predominated by an intense, incensey spice. Smells like garlanded altars burning smokey tributes.

 

I've a fondness for incense, musk, amber and generally heavier scents, but Sacred Whore is the grandmother of them all. It absolutely smells of someone who should be anointed on a dais, and while I love and am keeping my imp, I can't for the life of me imagine a situation I'd be entirely comfortable wearing it. Wonderful and intimidating!

[inkstone]

A freebie from the Lab!

 

In the imp: Florals over vanilla.

 

Wet: Eh. Gardenias never liked me very much, did they?

 

Drydown: The vanilla note is clobbered by the gardenia note. I can pick up the faintest hints of cinnamon and a smoky note, but that's about it. The gardenias are out of control.

 

Final thoughts: I'm sure this is beautiful on someone with the proper skin chemistry. As it is, it's totally unbalanced on me. Boo. Off to swaps.

Edited May 14, 2005 by inkstone

[yummysushitoo]

A decadent scent, most certainly. I catch a hint of what seems like... musk? and perahps some Arabian spices. It's very exotic. For some reason, I also get a slight hint of a fruit. Or a dried fruit. Maybe an apricot or date?

 

When I smell this, I get a visual of the paintings from the 1700's that depicted very lush, rounded, sensual women. The Sacred Whore knows who she is, and what she wants. And she's not afraid to tell you about it, either.

 

I really like this, actually. It's a bit heavier, which makes me think it's more appropriate for evening. Maybe a good "date night" scent.

[nineveh]

Is there honey in this? I'm getting the same rancid smell that I get from honey blends. Something here smells burnt, not in a nice incense way, but in a burning plastic way. I wish I knew the ingredients for this one, because it definitely has something that I need to avoid.

 

It smells so nice in the imp. Too bad it just doesn't work on me.