Hollywood Babylon

[Rock Geisha]

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 bottle: Fruity candy. Fake fruit but intentionally so.

Wet: Still fruity but the vanilla and strong amber appear.

Drydown: Spicy musk, with a faint fruit scent.

 

As this dries, the musk and red cherry overpower the more delicate scents. Fragrance as metaphor--I love that. It reminds me of Francesca Lia Block's descriptions of LA a lot, "opiate dazzle" and all that.

 

Would I buy it in a bottle?: Signs point to yes. I'll get it but it's not a OMG have to order next! scent.

Edited January 24, 2006 by Rock Geisha

[niter]

Imp

The first smell is creamy and like berry syrup. This smells like it will wear thick, golden, and lavishly.

 

Wet

Very sweet and syrupy...reminds me of cough syrup at first (but that is because I was sick all last week). This is very thick and pretty. A lot sweeter than I expected, but I am excited to proceede.

 

Dry

All of a sudden this started to expose a gorgeous blend of light, sensual musk, creamy cherry (I bet from the cherry & vanilla blending), and a touch of spice for good measure

 

This is intensely gorgeous

[ABrokenAngel]

In the Bottle: Very sweet. It’s like a weird cherry amalgamation of fruits and that’s all I smell.

 

Wet: Cherry. Oh my lord cherry. It’s nice. It’s what Kabuki wanted to be in the bottle only it’s on my skin. Let’s hope it goesn’t go sour.

 

Dry Down: Oh my. This is deffinately stars and glitz. It’s the scent you werar when you know you’re going to be seducing someone.

[smallvoice]

I got this as a frimp from the lab, and I've wanted to try it for a while now, so that works out well. I love this one. Hollywood Babylon, don't ever change. Please? Okay, you can do that cool morph thing on my skin where it goes from smoky musky loveliness to creamy strawberry sweet dreams with the smoke still present... but please don't turn plasticky like it sorta smells right now... I can't tell what it's going to do, but it seems a little fake after only a few minutes on me, and that distresses me. I love that the scent is easing up, like maybe I might be able to wear this in the daytime, with enough regularity to warrant a bottle. Hm. I'm undecided now, but I so desperately want to love this one.

[jazlyn]

In Hollywood Babylon I can smell… wait, this smells the tiniest bit like White-Out at first! I can detect the amber, heliotrope, and red musk at first then a bit later comes the sweet black cherry, which is kind of creamy. There’s a bit of strawberry in this too. Hmm… kind of pretty, but uh-oh it’s gone a bit plasticky, boo. And later on… yeah, this one is for the swaps; it’s definitely sweet and plasticky.

[Mountaingrrl00]

Mmmm, creamy-fruity-glittery musk. It smells like having a kiddie cocktail in an adult bar. I like to put this on after I've had a day of being a grownup. It lightens my mood. It does have considerable staying power, but the super-sweetness fades to more of a warm evening scent. This is my second-most-frequently-worn scent so far. It's next on my 5ml list.

[valentina]

This scent makes me laugh, because it's so perfect in relation to the concept. In the imp, it smells sweet, sugary, bubble-gummy. Very fruity, vanilla, teeny-bopperish. Once on my body, it gets sweet and floral for a while, again, the smell of girly florals and bubble gum. And then the red musk shows up... ooh, the dark side appears! And the very musky darkness lurks and blends with the sweetness. Hollywood Babylon has a lot of throw and staying power on me, but then musk seems to do that on my body.

 

What it really makes me think of is the fresh-faced small-town girl who shows up in LA looking to become the latest movie ingenue, but ends up as a porn goddess. It's a really great dichotomy of a scent, and somehow it works.

 

valentina

[Lizzie]

In The BottleCherry Sucrettes, or Cherry Blistex...something cherry and medicinal. Kinda icky.

 

Wet On Cherry Whiskey!!! (or Cherry Brandy I suppose, just a very boozy cherry.) Still sorta icky.

 

Dry Slightly fruity but mostly just warm and almost spicy. I don't really smell the cherry anymore, and I don't get much strawberry, I think I'm smelling mostly the Amber, musk, and vanilla, which is a shame because I was hoping for strawberry/cherry vanilla. It's still nice, but nothing for me to swoon over. I won't be getting a bottle, and I may later decide to swap the imp, but for now I'll keep it. I'll atleast give it a good slathering and a whole day's trial before I banish it to the swap pile for good.

[AlaskaSnows]

Very faint cherry and vanilla. this dies down quickly on me, which may save it from being WAY too lollipop sweet. Okay, but an unremarkable candy scent on me.

[gingersnapp]

Holy red musk, Batman! In the background is the slightest hint of heliotrope adding a bit of floral to the mix, but this blend is all red musk, all the time on my skin. Which is okay, because I've found that BPAL berries don't tend to work with my chemistry all that well. In the vial, I could smell a little bit of the strawberry and black cherry... enough to make me nervous. But it's barely present on the skin. I think I'm only smelling a little bit of them because I know they're in there.

 

That being said, there are a lot of blends with red musk that I like better than this one. Off to the swap pile.

[mskittenpatricia]

ok yum! I smell like sensual heaven. This scent is not too fruity but sweet and sensual. Very Nice!

[candygirl]

I got the tiniest hint of the White Out smell too when I sniffed from the bottle. It was hiding in the background, but my overall first impression was sweet and happy. On my skin, I got a very strong almond/fruity bubblegum smell. After about an hour, it faded a lot but the scent didn't morph into anything else - still almond extract with a dose of Juicy Fruit.

Edited February 25, 2006 by candygirl

[Rewth]

very strawberry. The vanilla comes out as a more creamy note in the background. Then what I can only guess is the musk there's a subtle under layer of naughty. Reminds T of a cheerleader, very peppy. she also thinks its "A summer weekend at the park." Reminds me of a cheerleader as well... though its a specific cheerleader i knew back in school and "peppy" is not the term that first pops to mind on her. All told this is interesting and will be sticking around.

[LittleGreyKitten]

Dear lord. I've been totally blown away by the loveliness of the last, oh... 5 GC imps I've tried. Evil, evil! I didn't need to covet yet more BPAL. Anyway, about Hollywood Babylon... oooh! This is hot stuff. It's intensely sexy. The red musk is yummy, and the most pronounced note on me. The vanilla and a hint of strawberry swirl around over the musk, making an interesting contrast, an innocent touch to an extremely sexy scent. I don't smell the cherry, thank god. Heliotrope is perhaps adding a sweet touch to it, but I've hated some blends with heliotrope, so I'm glad it is good in this. I definitely need a bottle of this.

 

Five out of five.

[themerrybaker]

Seriously strawberry and wow this is sweet. This is one I’d give to a young girl, but it’s not my type.

[tarotbydiana]

I ordered an imp of Hollywood Babylon from the lab in attempt to find a catalog scent similar to my beloveds: Strawberry Moon and Pink Moon. The strawberry note begins the first inhalation and then the red musk leans in for a kiss.

 

Hollywood Babylon makes me think of an untouched maiden clothed in a linen dress standing before a red velvet curtain. The light coming through the burgundy curtain touches her and casts a glow of red over her dress and shadows her pale flesh. The strawberry and heliotrope are the natural flush of her skin while the vanilla is her white dress. The red musk forms the curtain and the Egyptian amber is the light filtering through.

 

I would wear this scent in winter or perhaps a cooler spring evening because of the strong throw. Gorgeous. I must have a bottle.

[storme]

In the imp: amber and fruit and musk. sweet but with a fusty edge.

 

On me, wet: musky cherry and amber. It's sort of cherry medicine-like. It's very sweet, although less fusty than in the imp. I keep thinking this has dragon's blood in it.

 

On me, dry: the cherry decided to skedaddle, leaving behind a faint strawberry-ish amber-and-vanilla scent. After a while, all that's left is the sticky sweet vanilla.

 

Verdict: This is just about on the edge of how sweet I can tolerate scents being - and it would probably be over that edge if it was much stronger. The SO claims to smell a sort of bleachy undertone to this - he likes it aside from that, but I think I'll give this one up.

[nancybridget]

Sweet, sexy fruits and flowers. I love the addition of vanilla to give some base to the blend. There's some thing deliciously naughty about this....

[TheStormCellar]

When I first put this on, the amber and vanilla came out very strong, which I liked, and I wish it would have stayed exactly that way. But when it dried down, it smelled like those Strawberry Shortcake dolls. Seriously, if you ever owned one of those Strawberry Shortcake dolls when you were a kid, this smells exactly like that. I might wear it again, when I feel in a really fruity mood, but it's not going to be on the top of my list.

[Abbie]

In the bottle: Sweeeeet. I do not like me the sweet. This was a frimp and not one I would have picked. This isn't too hard-core sweet, so it might be tolerable.

 

First on: Not as cloying as most sweets, with a kind of black-cherry tone to it. Like Cherry Garcia ice cream, actually.

 

Dry: More intense cherry-cream scent. Much the same, really

 

Overall: It's not bad, but I don't love it, and there seem to be lots of people who do. It deserves a good home so it is swap-pile bound.

[Aredhel]

Rating (on skin): 2/5

Summarised in a word or two: Sticky strawberry

 

Preconceived notions: I'm not sure. Maybe... strawberry and vanilla?

 

In the imp: Ooh. Amber, vanilla, lovely musk and a bit of cherry.

 

On skin, wet: OK, this is really nice. Something in it -- the musk, maybe? -- reminds me of Vixen, but without the patchouli. Vixen with amber and vanilla? Yes, I'm loving this.

 

On skin, dry: Aww. Strawberry. As it dries, the strawberry becomes much stronger, amping much the same way rose does -- to the point of blanketing everything else. Kind of smells like Pink Phoenix, minus the sweet pea. Musky Pink Phoenix. Sweet and almost sticky.

 

Conclusion: If this had stayed true to its wet stage, I'd buy a 10ml without thinking. Unfortunately, I'm not a big fan of sticky-sweet Strawberry. Maybe I'll give it a go in a scent locket...

[PixieSkull]

Imp: The mixture of scents screams WINE! to me. I can smell the black cherry very heavily and it's a little weighed down by the vanilla. The amber is keeping the scent from being too sweet, as is the red musk. I can't pick either out right now, but I know where they are mixed together.

Wet: Black cherry, STRAWBERRY and vanilla for sure right off the bat. There's another sweetness, the heliotrope. It's very fruity and nice so far.

Dry: It smelled like stale cherry cigs to me at first but I think that was only because I wiped a lot of it off on my workshirt. The strawberry and vanilla stay beyond with the amber to give off a smoky fruity smell.

 

Category: Dark fruit

Rating: 3/5

Overall: The smell of cherry, strawberry and vanilla cigars minus the smoke would be this scent. Imagine a bunch of older men smoking these flavored things in a room where smoke doesn't exist, that's what I did. I like it a bit, even though fruity scents aren't really my thing. I don't wear candy scents all that well.

[quinkel]

It took almost 6 months before i got to try this impie, so its aged i guess

 

Lovely sweet incency. I dont get any seperate notes and no strawberry, only warm sexy sweet. This captures almost the BPAL 'Box' scent, you know when you sneiff your box full of impies

 

Like it! not enough for a 5 ml, but still, the imp will be used

[nerdcraft]

preconceived notions: This was one of the first scents that made me want to try BPAL. I'm a huge, huge film person, and have always been really captivated by classic Hollywood. As in, I read biographies of Louis B. Mayer in my spare time. So, I love the name and concept of this one. I expect it to somehow capture all of my idealized visions of Old Hollywood - starlets, Clark Gable, the Paramount lot, Sunset Boulevard, gossip columns, movie premieres.

 

in the imp: Very much a cherry, fruity scent. That's all I get at first.

wet: Still mostly cherry, but that fades pretty quickly and the other notes come out to round things out. It gets deeper and darker after a minute or two.

dry: At first, I wasn't too hot on this one. I liked the fruity notes, but it felt a little headshop-y at first. Very much a strawberry incense smell. After half an hour or so, it began to blend in with my skin into a musky but still darkly fruity scent. I liked it more and more as it went on.

 

season: any

office-friendly? Possibly. Yeah, probably not, it's a little heavy.

 

overall: Really complex and nice, by the end. It's a bit lovely and glamorous, and a bit vulgar and sweet. Perfect for the concept. Lasted several hours.

[moonarcana]

sniffing from the imp - this is totally NOT something that I would like to wear. It has a real faux-fruitiness to it that doesn't appeal to me.

 

But I'm so glad that didn't keep me from trying it on. It still does that little tutti-fruitti thing for awhile on the skin, but then the amber and the musk totally rise to the senses as the perfume mingles with my chemistry. I'd say about an hour after applying the oil is when I start to feel the seduction of the scent take over.

 

This is one of the sexiest scents I've tried so far (out of 25 or so...at the time of this review) and it also does a 'lip venom' stinging effect to my wrist or inner elbow where I often apply fragrance, so unless I want to 'feel the burn' a bit, I apply it to the top side of my wrist. I thought about trying in a scent locket, but what I really like about it is how it reacts on my skin, so that might not work either.

 

Hollywood Babylon rates a 4 (out of 5) for me. It's a keeper!

 

- Sally