Hollywood Babylon

[pinkstardust420]

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.

Lots of amber - but sweet amber. I've got the vanilla coming in for a visit, with a light tang of the strawberry and cherry. Red musk coming through but very faint. All in all, very sexy!

[milo]

Mmm, red musk and berry are the first impressions of this lovely blend. I did not know it was strawberry, though. Normally I don't like strawberry, but this blends very well with the red musk, and it doesn't smell "little girl like" at all, which I find strawberry can sometimes do. This kind of reminds me of a cross between Schezerade and Snake Charmer, only fruitier. This would be a great "summer" red musk blend. I really like this a lot, and I foresee a bottle purchase very soon.

[Bluestocking]

In the imp: Sweet, candied fruit. It's actually more difficult to pick out individual notes than I expected, but I definitely get the spicy-golden amber adding depth, the sweet-tart strawberry and cherry and the red musk and heliotrope. The vanilla isn't as prominent as I expected. It's bright, extremely sweet and intoxicating, a bright pink or red scent.

On, wet: Lots of sweet heliotrope and creamy vanilla, scattered with very juicy, fresh strawberries, though the black cherry has disappeared. The amber and red musk ground everything, giving this a sensual undercurrent, although this is still very young feeling. I am surprised at how relatively light this is for me; I expected that with so many sweet components, overkill might be an issue, but not so far.

On, dry: Heliotrope with strawberry and light vanilla, with more of the ambery red musk—less creamy than before, but still sweet and fruity-floral. I appear to amp heliotrope, because it shows up strong in just about every blend I've tried with it—it smells good and it doesn't drown out the other ingredients, but it's definitely the major player here, assisted by the strawberry. The throw is actually stronger now than it was wet, which is a pleasant surprise. Also a pleasant surprise: the amber and red musk are restrained, providing a nice, steady base.

Later: The heliotrope finally reined it in a little, and now the strawberry is out front, still with some vanilla and red musk. The strawberry and red musk combination actually smells a lot like yummy strawberry incense, candy sweet but with some depth.

Overall: This is sexy in a girly, young, flirty way, and it's a lot of fun--not completely floral, not completely fruity, not completely candy, but some combination of the three. It's much lighter than I expected, sweet but not cloying or overwhelming. In its early stages, it's mostly bright heliotrope and fruit for me, with a dollop of vanilla for creaminess, but later on the strawberry really takes center stage, combining with the musk and amber to create something that's still sweet, but more sensual and less candied. I think a big bottle of this one might be in my future.

 

 

[rayvn1]

Vanilla cream and lots of fruit. Not my cup o' tea at all but very pleasant. I was hoping the Egyptian amber would rear its lovely head, but so fa no luck. Good throw, though!

[revinn]

Initial Sniff from Imp: Well, hello strawberry.

 

Wet: Oh dear, this smells like Halls cough drops. Ugh, I really don't like it, it's burning my nose. I don't get any red musk, just Halls.

 

Dry: I don't know what in this is disagreeing with my skin chemistry, but it's BAD. Cough drops and something sour. I am a sad girl.

 

Out of 10: 1, unfortunately. I had high hopes for this one.

[ouch!]

On paper this scent sent me doolally! I was thinking oh my gosh vanilla, red musk, amber and cherry together? Sounds like my dream blend. I was worried a bit about the Heliotrope.

 

Unfortunatley the vanilla gets lost in this, so so strange as I amp it times a gazillion usually! It's still wicked nice though! The main notes are the Heliotrope *groans* and the red musk *rejoices*. The cherry is there too and the stawberry is not the sweet plasticy kinda strawberry usually in BPAL blends because it's being dragged to the darker side by the red musk.

 

Maybe the vanilla will come through later..

 

Yep it does. Not too much there but it's enough to add to the blend slightly.

 

I really thought I would like this more. I'm happy with the imp though.

Edited April 17, 2009 by ouch!

[anna1850]

Warm, deep red scent. Nice but not as fruity as I'd imagined. I get a touch of cherry but not really any strawberries or vanilla. It's quite a bit darker and deeper than I'd imagined. A lot like Kabuki but with less cherry and more musk.

 

3.5/5 A bit too dark and heavy for me.

[buryheratsea]

I get a very sugared floral scent off of this, it actually smells like floral palmolive dish soap on me

[Suu4LC]

Ooo-I like this in the imp! Rich strawberry and cherry musk...a very red, swirling kind of scent-hopefully the amber won't turn this to straight pink powder on my skin!

 

On my skin this is mostly black cherry and red musk-a very deep black/red kind of scent. I get the heliotrope too, which isn't one of my favorites. This is nice, but it's not really grabbing to me.

 

As this is drying it is getting a bit powdery (amber tends to do this on my skin), but not horribly so. I would still say this is primarily a red musk/black cherry scent.

 

On full drydown, this did get rather powdery. Not unbearably so, but enough to make the blend totally meh on my skin. I think on someone with the right chemistry, this could be a gorgeous, rich, robust musky red cherry scent, but if you turn amber to powder like I do, this just ain't gonna work ;_;

[caffinatedangel]

I had kind of hoped this would pop with fruit. My first bottle buy ever happened to be a bottle of crawdad, and the fruit notes in that were juicy and delicious. Since then, I've been diving into any bpal blends with fruit (also that apricot note in depraved is solid juicy yum).

 

But, this isn't juicy at all. This is candy. Thick, melting candy in summer heat. You know those suckers that end up in the sun too long and you can bite into them because the outer layer is squishy? That. It's a very very deep crimson scent. Beautiful in a dark way. "Dragged into debauch" is perfect. It's like a mature, beautifully sexy woman idly gnawing on a sucker for too long.

 

I personally notice all the notes, equally balanced for the most part. None are missing, and none are sore thumbs. It's just such a dark scent. Sort of slothlike, thick.

 

Melting candy. No. Sexy melting candy.

 

Very little throw on me, I have to huff my arm. but it has staying powder. It's an intimate scent. One I may keep just to pull out and slather on myself before a night with the boytoy. we'll see how that goes before I decide to trade this or not P:

Edited July 20, 2009 by CaffinatedAngel

[donnatron]

Imp: Artificial cherry/strawberry with a bit of weird oiliness (amber) and a touch of musk.

 

Wet: The heliotrope comes out but now it smells like heliotrope and red twizzlers (WTF?).

 

Dry: The red musk thankfully comes to the forefront and gives this a needed incensy kick. The strawberry and cherry still give it a kind of weird, plastic-y sense and the amber is doing nothing at all. It's pretty and I get the concept, but I'll take Kabuki or the Dodo for my GC fruity red musk jonesing. It is strangely addictive, however. Sometimes I like to smell like Hollywood Bablyon because I can even if I know I shouldn't (IE: confined spaces).

 

Throw: Strong.

 

Overall: I am a big fan of red musk and not trying HB would be craziness. I think I have other scents in the GC and LE that cover these bases but I wouldn't discount a bottle considering how oddly alluring I find this scent.

[earlgreyellie]

my first impression is that it's fruity, but also has other scents (that i can't pinpoint) to cut the fruity-ness so it's not overpowering. it's pretty sweet and remind me a little of sweettarts candies. it's not very strong on my skin, so it's pretty nice. it's not one of my favorites, but i like it.

[undream]

beautiful! sweet & fruity in the imp, warming into a (somewhat commercial-smelling) vanilla perfume once on my skin. i generally loathe most commercial vanilla perfumes (they prickle unpleasantly at my sinuses), but after about ten minutes something spicy comes through and makes it a little more sexy and exotic. the throw, though, occasionally still smells like that vanilla perfume on me. the scent as a whole reminds me of something that i just can't put my finger on right now, and it's driving me a little nuts! but it is definitely a beautiful scent, sweet, floral, almost candy-like with a spicy undertone. because of the peek-a-boo vanilla perfume note, i'm not sure that this one is an oil i will keep, but it is tempting. we shall see!

 

ETA; a couple of hours later, &i am pretty sure this one will be going into the swap pile. it really is lovely, but it's slowly morphing into a kind of foody scent on me, one of those foody scents that i just can't tolerate, unfortunately. perhaps it will make some other bpal fan happy!

Edited August 6, 2009 by undream

[biocarolyn]

This was way sweeter in the imp than I expected. I am finding that not only do I dislike floral, but my skin makes flowers go to 11. But heliotrope worked in Fae, so maybe...

 

In the Imp: FLOWERS!!! Generic Candy Sweetness, too. Hrm- not so good...

 

Wet: ACK! Flowersflowersflowers, no strawberry, no black cherry, no vanilla, nothing.

 

Dry down: After about two hours during which this gave me a viscious headache, it has faded to a sweet vanilla/amber/red musk which is inoffensive, but not incredible.

 

Not loving it. It just isn't ME. I am disappointed- I wanted to smell like a Misfits song. No chance for a "Teenagers from Mars" blend, is there?

[RachelElizabeth]

In the imp and wet on my skin, this was amber, heliotrope and musk with a background of fruity sweetness. As it dried, I started to get a little bit of the strawberry. It threatened to turn powdery for about 30 seconds, but, thankfully, never did.

 

As the drydown wore on, I got hints of cherry, but never very much.

 

The vanilla came through in the drydown, but it wasn't a cloying, overly foody vanilla - it was very smooth and sophisticated.

 

The final drydown on me was musky vanilla.

 

Overall, I liked this, but I don't think I'll spring for a bottle - I can get what it gives me from other things I like more, like Bordello and Les Bijoux. I can see people loving it, though - especially if they love musky blends. I have musky skin anyway, so I don't seek out blends with musk

 

Edited because I forgot to remove my notes

Edited August 11, 2009 by RachelElizabeth

[kerikeri]

Very, very sweet-- my initial reaction was that if somebody dumped strawberry syrup all over a bed of flower petals, it'd probably smell like this.

 

Dry, it's less syrupy and more powdery, but still just this side of sickly-sweet. I don't get any vanilla or black cherry, just straight-up strawberry amber. Something about it reminds me of champagne, but that may just be a psychological association with the strawberry.

 

I don't love it, but it's nice enough, and has really great throw. It's getting a lot of use right now because it's one of the only blends I own that's light enough for summer.

 

Edit: Ooh, I always forget that this one actually gets much nicer after a few hours. It loses its initial sharp, cloying tendencies and becomes more subdued and creamy-- I think I may actually be getting a little of the vanilla now. There are still a lot of other scents I prefer, but this last stage is almost good enough to merit a full bottle purchase.

Edited August 12, 2009 by kerikeri

[wheresyourshoe]

This is a cute oil. The champagne note is true, but odd as a fragrance, I find. I had this strawberry champagne lip balm for a while and I loved it to death. I hoped this would smell like that, but no, it's a little more complex. The strawberry is like fruit punch spilled on a cement floor. Otherwise, it's good for a certain bubbly mood but it's sweet without being sweet. I mean it lacks a charm and endearing quality I ask from my sweet fragrances. It's too romantically dissipated for me in the end, I think. I find myself too unsophisticated for BPAL, often. I love Magdalene, which by the way becomes amazingly sexy when layered with Highwayman. Go figure.

[claudia6913]

When I'd first received the imp, I took one whiff and stuffed it away. It was very sharp and spicy in the vial. However, I'm glad I decided to try it out. Turns out it's very warm and lovely on my skin. There's still a hint of spice, but it's tempered by all the things around it so it's more of a warm, close smell. I'm not getting any of the fruits that are supposed to be in this blend, nor am I getting the vanilla. Mostly it's just the amber, heliotrope, and red musk. Out of those three, I'm not sure which is giving off the 'spice' smell. I have a feeling it's the Egyptian amber, but I'm not familiar enough with individual scents to truly pick it out.

 

Overall I'm really, really pleased with this scent, and think it's perfect for colder nights when you want to feel warm, but also has a little bit of a kick to make you motivate a bit.

 

Edited on 7/2/10: I ended up buying a bottle 4/10 - fresh it is not something I would touch with a 10-foot poll. It was so sharp it burned my nose. Now, a few months later, it is starting to temper a bit and be more like my imp. It's still not there - but aged Hollywood Babylon is definitely worth waiting for.

Edited July 2, 2010 by claudia6913

[redderz]

In the imp: I can definitely smell the amber and the strawberry!

 

Wet: Ooh, there's that red musk. It smells a bit like a tattoo shop now. That means... antiseptic. Oh no!

 

Dry: I really wanted to like this as I love strawberry and vanilla, but it has gone antiseptic on me. I might keep it to see if it's just a bad day for it.

[Ohmaude]

Free-association time!

 

In the vial and wet: Leather miniskirt, strawberry chapstick, cherry cough syrup.

 

Dry down: Heavy on the Red musk, head-shop Amber and Strawberry chapstick.

 

This smells sweet, but seedy. Like a waitress with a heart of gold at a dive bar with red vinyl booths and a slight sinister feel.

 

The innocent ingenue in a Lynch movie.

 

 

Edited September 6, 2009 by Ohmaude

[Seismogenic]

This was a frimp with impeccable timing. And by "impeccable," I mean, "for maximum stick-it-to-you frustration." See, I got this one at Will Call. I've gone every month for quite some time, but for the last few times, I've been coming from places other than where I live. But this month, I came from Riverside again, and I forgot which freeway got me to the Sherman exit. Long story short, I ended up taking the wrong one, which led to a good half hour to 45 minutes of driving around Hollywood/North Hollywood/Universal City surface streets in utter confusion. I did not realize that North Hollywood is a grid until I finally found the Lab. Will Call was, as usual, awesome and fun, and it certainly calmed me down after that much road frustration. I made my order, I got in the car, and I checked the bag before I drove off. And what was sitting there as a frimp? Hollywood Babylon. HOLLYWOOD. I swear I am not making this up. It's all too evilly perfect! So what am I doing to get it back? I'm testing it today, when I am dressed in entirely unglamorous funky weekend clothes, when I am planning on going nowhere near Los Angeles (aside from the whole thing where Riverside is practically a suburb of Los Angeles...). HA.

 

In the imp: Over-the-top candy-sweet artificial cherry and strawberry. My blood sugar feels scared.

 

Wet on skin: Fortunately, less sweet already, and with less sweet, it's less artificial. Still cherry and strawberry, but I can smell the vanilla and amber now, too.

 

Drydown: Freshly dry, if I didn't know better, I would swear this was a different oil from what I sniffed in the imp. I get none of the fruit anymore - none! - and am left with a soft blend of predominantly amber and musk, with just a bit of sweet vanilla. Despite the serious 180 this scent did on me when I first put it on, at one hour, it's pretty much exactly the same as when it first dried: predominantly red musk and amber, with some vanilla smoothing it out.

 

Five hours later: Still not much change from the initial drydown point. I think, perhaps, the amber might be more prominent than the musk now, as opposed to vice versa a few hours ago, but they were always so close in importance that this is a minute detail. The vanilla still smoothes and sweetens the mix.

 

End of the day: Still a little bit of red musk and amber. Not so much on the vanilla anymore. The scent isn't strong, but it's certainly still present without having to sniff too hard.

 

Overall: I had expectations for two possible outcomes: first, that this scent would be hideous doom on me, as a continuation of Hollywood's road nastiness; or second, that this one would turn out to be absolutely freaking amazing on my skin, Hollywood spiting me for my complaining about it. I have to say that I'm pleased to report that neither came true. This scent dried down to something that smelled perfectly good, though not in the sort of way that makes me squee whenever I sniff my wrist. I'd say this one was probably too feminine-sensual to work for me, though that's an impression that makes sense for the side of Hollywood that isn't always facing the cameras. Under normal circumstances, I'd say this was one for the swap pile, but considering the "relationship" I have with Hollywood, I figure I'd better hold on to this so I can keep an eye on it, or something.

[Dominique]

I grabbed the imp more or less at random, acting on guilt. (I have a Large Pile of untested and unloved imps, so maybe I should sample them, rather than wearing my favorites again. And again. And...yeah.

 

So - Hollywood Babylon. I've had it on for maybe 4-5 minutes now and I can't say I'm impressed. Amber, check. Hints of strawberry and vanilla? Check. The same wonky scent that made Thorns and Blood Kiss so utterly unwearable? Yep, that too. And it really confuses me. If the unwearable-ness was limited to Hollywood and Blood Kiss, I'd say that cherries hate me, and avoid perfumes that have them - but Blood is fine, if unremarkable on me, Vice is lovely and the Red Queen, for all that it's not my shtick, behaves on my skin. So, it's not the cherry, and nothing in Hollywood's description mentions vetiver (the other note that hates me with a passion), and I have no idea why it smells wrong on me.

 

That said, Hollywood Babylon has decent throw and doesn't appear to be going anywhere, now that I've had it on for about 45 minutes, give or take.

[Venneh]

In the imp, I get this dark, red scent (which makes sense, given that the oil's a reddish color); I can't necessarily pick out any notes, but I think I'm getting some of the fruit. Wet on my skin, I think I'm getting the vanilla and the black cherry? I can't really tell at this stage, but it smells quite nice... No, it's vanilla and strawberry, with the black cherry in the background.

 

This turns into a fruit blend on me; a cherry-vanilla-strawberryish sort of smell. I'm not getting the heliotrope, red musk, or amber so much. It's a nice scent, but I think I'll be staying with just an imp of this.

Edited October 7, 2009 by Venneh

[superpopkid]

The name led me to expect something old-school glamorous, and I was not led astray! I'm not familiar with heliotrope as a note, but it registers as lovely soft floral mingling with the musk. I always find it hard to pick out amber if it's supporting a blend rather than showcased, but I definitely got the spicy-sweet musk and I think the amber filled it out and gave it a bit of glow. If champagne, vanilla, or strawberry were in there, my skin ate them, or they were blended in thoroughly enough that I couldn't pick them out.

 

What struck me most about this blend was the strong ribbon of cherry running through it. It turned me off at first, because it reminded me of the dragon's blood in Blood Rose. I've only experienced DB as a sharp, sour cherry nightmare, but fortunately this was a kinder, gentler, mellow cherry. The cherry was strongest while wet and wore away after a couple of hours. The strongest notes in this as it dries down are the flowers and musk. Throw was fairly good. Overall, this was a warm, resonant floral. Color impression: like burgundy crushed velvet. I should mention that this was an imp purchased off the forum so I'm not sure of its age; a couple months old now at the least. I don't think I would want to wear it all the time, but it's the perfect thing for feeling both vampy and elegant.

[London]

Imp: Smells like black cherry candy and flowers.

 

Wet on me: Sweet cherries, with spice. Cherry mulled wine. Yummy-ness.

 

Dry on me: The vanilla came out as it dried, making it creamy. Then the flowers poked their heads out..and gobbled up all the fruits. Mean flowers.

 

The phases the oil went through while drying were very interesting.