Hollywood Babylon

[taramarie]

The essence of innocence shattered: glittering Egyptian amber and heliotrope, infused with the sweetness of strawberry and vanilla - dragged into debauch by lusty red musk and a dribble of black cherry.

In the imp, Hollywood Babylon is mostly strawberry. It smells almost exactly like Maenad. Wet on my skin, it's strawberry, vanilla, and cherry, in that order. This is really good. This is what I expected Beaver Moon '07 to smell like. Dry, it's just strawberry and once again smells like Maenad. I'll keep it for now and see if it ages into something more distinctive.

[heathercaley]

Oh momma come to me....

 

I purchased this bottle over a year ago and just let it sit and age... it's become soooo beautiful... and I am very proud of my sniffer. I put it on.. and said.. "hmmm... red musk?" and yessuree its red musk! But not like Midnight Kiss or Mme. red musk.. it's a trampy sugared red musk.. with the warmth of amber.. it's almost like amber musk, rather than Egyptian amber and red musk. If you huff it, like I just did, it becomes much sharper. You can sense the berry rather than smell it... it's almost like the berry itself has been warped to fit into a puzzle, so that you don't know where berry ends and amber and then musk begins. It's perfect.

 

 

I almost thought of swapping this lovely off, but nope... HB is here to stay baby!!! Mmmmm....

[Dark Alice]

I tried this after looking at the BPAL Website at my last will call and I fell in Love!!!!!!!!!! This bottle is in encapsulated in the description itself: Cherry and Strawberry represent innocence and youth of one beginning a bright new career and the vanilla, musk, and amber come and steal it away from me reminding me grown hollywood starlet that has been long forgotten by the hollywood that once loved and adored her! This is my grown up perfume for days when I hate being an adult and wish I could be a kid again!!!

[couscous]

Hollywood Babylon is a must for red musk lovers. It's undeniably red musk, very sugary but thankfully not syrupy.

 

I get the definite idea of cherries and strawberries, but without the cough medicine of the former and the stickiness of the latter. It ends up being more of a general berry candy smell, with an incense quality to it on the drydown. Thankfully, the incense is not overtly head-shop and is very light and sheer.

 

It's a very young fragrance, totally tarty and fun, but it's very wearable and pretty. One of my my all-time favorites.

[brsis]

Initial thoughts: Unf. Gimmee.

 

I'm a film studies student, so attach the words 'Hollywood' to anything and my ears prick up. Aside from that, the list of notes sounds like the lovechild of Ahathoor and Shango. In other words - LOVE.

 

In the imp: Primarily the strawberry, but with a hint of cherry too. I can't quite pick out anything else, except maybe a glitter of heliotrope. This is incredibly sweet, but the amber and musk are giving it a pretty heavy, solid base.

 

On the wrist, wet: Vanilla strawberry - fresh, tangy and toxicly sweet. There's just the slightest tang of amber and man - this is potent stuff. A quick swipe and it's already making my eyes water.

 

Twenty minutes later: Still a thick, vanilla strawberry syrup with a powdery amber undertone. This is very gooey and yummy, but a tad too sickly sweet for my tastes. It might work well layered or on days I'm feeling especially edible, but it's not about to topple any favourites.

 

Verdict: I'll keep the imp but don't think I will wear it frequently.

 

Tl;Dr: Sickly sweet vanilla strawberries with a heavy base.

[thelaurenator]

BPAL strawberries don't work well with me-- it tends to turn into a kind of sickeningly sweet, strawberry marker kind of smell. Not very pleasant. On me, Bordello's all overripe, sugary strawberry with the faintest hint of spices. Too faint to really make the scent more than one-note perfume on me, and I don't want to smell like fake strawberry.

[ChloeKEvil]

Hollywood Babylon fades on me quite quickly. The dominant note is the strawberry here and it's quite pretty. I got some up in my nose when I was sniffing my wrist and I can smell the vanilla, too. I would say this is very pretty but I'm not a fan of things that fade so quickly.

 

Update, 08/06/08: This smells like Snake Oil except with strawberry instead of vanilla. The resemblance is uncanny, and it doesn't fade as quickly as I thought. I like this.

Edited August 6, 2008 by Chloe K Evil

[galahad]

In The Bottle

Light cherry (thankfully) and vanilla with an undertone of amber.

 

On Application

Very different when first applied. Amber first then the cherry with less sweetness than I expected

 

Dry Down

Really quite surprisingly light. The cherry dies down after about 5 minutes, but it is still there, and the strawberry wafts up softly. 10 Minutes in and the cherry reappears a bit stronger. I am really liking this one considering the cherry/almond notes do horrible things on my skin.

 

Rating (0-5)

4

[mgrazulis]

In the vial: sweet overripe fruit

 

Wet: red musk and plastique vanilla, red fruits, cherries, strawberries that are beginning to rot. Not sure that I like this...however it is fitting for the theme of the scent. Might work in the end if it all balances out. DH walked in and asked when I started wearing hairspray!

 

Dry: No amber or heliotrope yet. The red musk is still making a big entrance.The fruit is not delectible--still overly ripe, sticky. There is a faint incensey smoke--like cherry cigarettes.

 

Later: Overly sweet still. Somewhere there is a slithery note that could be the red musk.

 

I think this could be fun on the right person. Overall the fragrance is appropriate--a mix of innocent and overindulged. In many ways it reminds me of Lolita with deep dark twist. Not exactly my usual fare when it comes to scents but well worth visiting....

[iiinterstate]

I applied this and completely forgot about it until about 10 minutes later.

 

Delicious strawberryvanilla, with just enough Egyptian Musk in the background to keep this going over into the "candy" area of my brain. I didn't get any florals at all. I like this quite a bit.

[maika]

In the imp, sweet vanilla. Very nice!

 

Wet on me, vanilla and almond. Very marzipan like. Absolutely innocent, which is a far cry from the description.

 

Dry, the heliotrope is coming out, and things are looking up. I could enjoy this one a lot, I think. Cancel that thought, I do like this a lot! The marzipan is gone, the musk is out, and this is GOOD! Definitely a keeper, and very possibly an addition to my big bottle list!

 

Interestingly though, I can't smell either the strawberry or the cherry, but that's not a bad thing, because those are the notes that are most likely to misbehave for me. Fingers crossed they behave themselves though.

[vikitty]

In the imp: Strawberry and vanilla.

 

Wet on skin: Same as in the imp but with musk.

 

Drydown: The strawberry has settled and now it's mostly vanilla and musk. A softer musk though, not at all unpleasant -- I just wish the strawberry had stuck around.

[Delirium1009]

In bottle/imp: Powdery amber and cherry… something about this burns my nose a little.

 

Immediately on skin: Uh oh. I smell it: the dreaded plastic vanilla note. This is the exact same vanilla that is in Dragon’s Milk, and it turns into total plastic vanilla-scented babydoll heads on me. Behind that is a little amber, and a bit of strawberry or cherry… but the vanilla is too distracting for me to really find the other notes in this.

 

After a little while: That annoying plastic vanilla note is still center-stage, but the amber and heliotrope have come out a little more. The strawberry and cherry are nowhere to be found, as is the red musk.

 

Overall Impressions: This sucks, really. I can smell some of the other notes and this would be sooo nice if the vanilla didn’t turn into the plastic note of doom. The amber and heliotrope give this such a warm feel. It’s really too bad this goes so horrible on me.

[AlarmAgent]

In Bottle - This smells exactly like my favorite candy when I was a kid. It was this extremely sour/sweet powder that came in little test tube style vials, and the whole brand had a 'mad scientist' theme. I loved the 'red flavored' ones, and they smelled exactly like Hollywood Babylon does in the imp. I already like it, because not only does it remind me of happy childhood candy-eating times, but it also just smells good, and fruity fragrances are completely underrepresented in my fragrance collection, because they usually don't work on me. I don't think I have a bubbly enough personality to pull off anything crisp and fruity.

 

Wet on Skin, First Applied - Which is why I'm so glad that Hollywood Babylon darkens up once it hits skin. Cherry tobacco? Hm, maybe. Cherry incense? That seems about right. I'm not too familiar with red musk, but something back there is adding a lot of depth and intrigue to my sour powder candy. I'm digging it.

 

Dry, on Skin - Not much has changed since the initial wet application, except the cherry may have faded just a bit over time. It's lovely, and very different- at least for me. It will be nice to have a fruitier option for days where I may actually feel a touch cheery and bubbled up, haha.

[quigza]

 

This is such a beautiful fragrance. All the sugared fruity trampy goodness. But either the musk note gets "turned" during the drydown, which amps the amber into headache zone.

 

It's sweet & fruity & calmost cakey... yet totally not at the same time. It's a gorgeous fragrance.

 

On my friend Judy (she can wear most fragrances that turn on me): This develops from fruity goodness to a womanly vanilla musk- with a touch of the cherry left. Gorgeous!

[Electric Maenad]

Lab frimpage! W00t!

 

 

Definitely smells like the description, or at least the initial part of it (innocent, but not particularly debauched). It's a sweet, but slightly artificial fruit scent - like a tube of strawberry-vanilla lipgloss. I can smell a tiny bit of amber and musk a couple of hours later, but the dominant notes are the vanilla and fruits and they fade pretty fast. A little too "Lolita" for my liking, but I'll keep the imp because I actually kind of like the smell of strawberry-vanilla lipgloss.

Edited October 11, 2008 by Electric Maenad

[icecreamcone]

This one started off sickly sweet. But, after a few hours it died down to a scent resembling black cherry kool-aid, which I kinda liked.

I'm not sure if it's worth wearing a scent that you can only enjoy the last couple hours of though.

 

I might try this one again before I decide what to do with it.

[angelicruin]

In the bottle, I get cherry, vanilla, and yummy red musk.

 

Wet on the skin, I can smell the strawberry now too.

 

As it dries, the amber emerges, but this is still a beautiful musky fruity oil.

 

Definitely bottle-worthy for me.

[Rouge]

In the vial - Fruity and sweet, but with a powerful, musky base.

 

Wet on the skin - A wonderful, deep cherry with a powdery hint of amber.

 

Next stages - There's an almost plastic note here that shouldn't work, but does. It certainly makes me think of artificiality, cosmetic surgery and the barbie-doll perfection of a Hollywood starlet!

 

Dry down - This is a youthful and bright scent with a deceptive sweetness to it. It's lovely, but not one for winter.

 

Similar scents - Kabuki, Scherezade

[kjirstiben]

Hollywood Babylon is a fun, bright, sweet, sparkling scent. Going on, it smells like sweet strawberry bubblegum, but on my skin, it quickly develops a floral note that had me thinking "lotus?" but no, it was the heliotrope.

 

The floral tone tends to amp a bit as the scent is wet, but backs off again during the dry stages--a boon, because this showed some slight tendencies toward being a disturbingly powerful floral-strawberry with possibly some headache-inducing qualities.

 

Over the next couple hours, it turns into a very nice berry-vanilla-amber scent. Pretty, pretty, pretty. (Very girly and pink smelling!)

 

Perhaps a little too frou-frou for me... it feels a bit like slipping on a pair of pink maribou-feathered mules and a feather boa to match, but very appropriate to the theme!

[Dybael]

This smells freakishly identical to Midnight Kiss on me, minus the dark/dusty vibe from the cocoa. Other than that, they might as well be the exact same perfume. I still haven't made up my mind about Midnight Kiss - I want to say that I hate it, but somehow I keep wearing it anyway - but Hollywood Babylon doesn't have the complexity that keeps me bizarrely gravitating towards Midnight Kiss. I think I'll give my imp to my mom, she grabbed my arm to sniff at my wrist when I first put it on.

[FallDaze]

Honestly I hope the amber is drowned out and that the strawberry is prominent.

 

imp-> A dark and fizzy strawberry. It's like someone made a dark cherry and strawberry soda.

 

wet-> Oh wow, I agree, this is way similar to Midnight Kiss but with no cocoa and more strawberry. Red musk and a shiny bit of heliotrope which is becoming more obvious.

 

after a while-> Not a big morpher here. A lighter, brighter Midnight Kiss minus the cocoa and with a little bit of florals and strawberry. So I guess maybe a close cousin of Midnight Kiss. Quite nice and sweet and very girlie. I will probably hold on to the imp, but not sure if I'll snag a bottle.

[tdgnika]

In the imp, a faint smell of strawberry and plastic.

 

Wet on the skin, a rather unpleasant mix of fruit and musk.

 

As its drying, smells more like incense, but still has a plastic-y undertone that I don't care for. I often find that strawberry-scented or flavored things smell fake to me, so I'm sure this accounts for the plastic smell. I blame it on my Strawberry Shortcake toys I had as a young 'un.

[Reaver]

STRAWBERRIES! Perfect strawberry but not overly childish due to the base of amber. The fruits aren't too sweet, tempered by the throw of the red musk. On me, the vanilla is fairly understated until all the other notes have had their fun.

 

This is another scent that's hard for me to review as it's one of my very favorites, and an everyday blend for me.

 

It's not really evocative of anything - this is definitely a scent that you have to wear, not let it run off for itself. It's cute and playful but would be suitable for a night out too because the red musk carries it from day to night with ease. It lasts about 3 hours on my skin for it's 'full' stage - strawberries and everything - and about 6 hours as just red musk and vanilla.

 

So well blended it could be considered sweet and simple. I love it.

 

10/10 and getting a bottle soon as it's a worthy investment. This has aged beautifully so far. (6 months of careful application from a lab-fresh imp - I don't want to ever run out but there's only a few drips left! It's strictly needs-only now...)

[magikalbrownies]

MABYE im an alian but this smells like a whole lotta amber. strawberries are subtle and so is the vanilla.

 

applied, I SMELL like strawberries but not wholely....like i said theres a strong amount of amber in this one and the vanilla is thrown in there like a little melder between the two.

 

wet - still fantastically amberlicious.

 

YES - I AM GOING TO FIND A BOTTLE AND HOARD IT IN MY SCENT BOX...and? its fantastic. (must love sweet smells)