Swank

[grrrlennyl]

Simply cool, the essence of Lounge: the scent of a crisp pomegranate martini.

at first: exactly as advertised - "a crisp pomegranate martini".

on: smells wonderful. going back to the "crisp pomegranate martini" description. i love it. then again, i love pomegranates, so...that makes sense. it smells like it has alcohol in it, too. some clear alcohol, like gin or vodka.

1.5 hours later: still loving it. and i mean loving it. it's still pretty strong, which is surprising, since more fruity smells seem to disappear quickly on me. i have a feeling i'll be getting a 5ml bottle of this once i'm done with my imp's ear.

6.5 hours later: i can still smell it. it's wonderful. the pomegranate is becoming more subtle, but it's definitely still there.

overall: i'm definitely going to be getting a 5ml bottle of this.
more to come...

[any_old_actress]

such a crisp and uplifting scent! i'm all about the pomegranates and loved this perfume. it really wakes you up and is great for going out. another bonus is that it lasts a super long time, you'll never stop sniffing your wrists.

[divajen]

Oh, this one is just gorgeous. I don't know what Pomegranates smell like, but if this is it, I like their scent. It is nice and sexy and lasts quite a while. This is one that I think I would like to buy in a bigger size (have to try a bunch of Imp's Ears, though, then I'll buy the big ones).

 

Jenny

[fuschienne]

This one was very refreshing and alive, almost orang-ey. Outstanding staying power. Loved it.

[Pookymum]

Wow, very very fruity. If someone had asked me to guess the fruit in this I wouldn't have thought it was pomegranate at all. Hubby thought it smelled like opal fruits! Very strong sweet smell which dries down wonderfully and is still going strong hours later. Wonderful scent. One of my very favourites.

[chai_girl]

I just got this in a swap. I love my cosmopolitans and this smells just like one...I'm loving the scent. It is still very fruity and hasn't changed with the dry down like many do. It has stayed true to the original scent.

 

I don't think this will be an everyday scent for me, but it is a nice uplifting fun scent for those days when I need that extra ooomph! to get going.

 

 

Lisa in Austin

[faerowan]

This one I like, NOT love, like.

It smeels like fruit punch wet, not my style..but as it dries down you get more and more just nice fruit smell. It occassionally has that sour note, probably from the alchohol smell, but otherwise it is a crisp sweetness of pomegrante. A full bodied scent, I guess it would be good for a party where you don't want to attract anyone, but just be the cool relaxed person in the room without being either just a spirit or plain cold. Grounded sparkelyness. That's it, grounded sparkelyness.

[Glitzie]

I really like this.

 

It really makes my mouth water is it smells tart- which I really like.

 

There is a sweetness to it as well a little juicy in fact, but the tartness overwhelms the sweet beautifully.

 

This is nice and longlasting and I am quite sure I will invest in a 5ml for my next order.

[blackrayne]

Very crisp. Light. Refreshing. Juicy, yet slightly sour, as if the sweetness was cut with a hint of lemon or lime.

 

I really like this. It is not the slightest bit me, though. While it's yummy, I can't see myself wearing it more than once in a blue moon. I think I will keep the imp I have, though, just to be on the safe side...I may decide it's more me than I think it is.

[andie]

I love this. It's sweet and fruity, but there's a note in there that makes it crisp, too. It's not sweet in a Juicy Fruit sort of way, more of an adult way. I don't get a boozy smell from this at all. I think it'll be perfect for the warmer months.

[Jettgurrl]

Wow, my very first scent review! I can't get enough of Swank! I can't say it smells like a pomegranate martini because i've never had one! But I wil say that it smells sweet and succulent! My 89 year old grandma( whom i live with) got a whiff of it on me one day and demanded that I order her a bottle!

[Dispatcherbert]

This is a wonderfully crisp scent. We had our first day over 90 degrees here in Minnesota and it really hit the spot simply for being refreshing. Untill now I guess I never really knew what a pomegranate smelled like; but if this is it, I'm in!

 

A keeper!

[Donnababe]

Sniff Test

 

Very strong. Sweet and rather bitter, must be the booze smell. Very intruiging.

 

After Application

 

The booziness disappears very quickly on me . It's still there if I concentrate but it's mostly a light fruity smell now.

 

Drydown

 

Very sweet and creamy, almost. Uplifting. I don't think I'm getting pomegranates, more an orange/berry thang. This is very nice indeed.

 

After A While

 

Since the drydown it hasn't changed at all, just faded. When I've finished this review I'm going to top up. (Approx 4 hours since first application.)

 

Verdict

 

After the booze factor faded, (which was too quick IMO), this is like Jester's sweeter sister. It doesn't have the sharpness of Jester (shame) but it's very nice indeed. I definitely will consider buying a bigger bottle if only because it makes me think of certain Captain B.F. Pierce.....

[Ishtar]

In the vial: Pomegranate martini indeed! I cannot smell the alcohol (vodka) note, but I can feel it at the back of my throat if I inhale deeply. A truly surprising scent, unlike anything I have smelled before! Very crisp and fruity

 

On: Fruitier and fruitier! I get this slightly orangey note that fuschienne and Donnababe wrote about

 

Drydown: unlike other reviewers, this faded rather quickly on me, and became a tad sour in the process. Not downright unpleasant, but nowhere as nice as when wet.

 

I will give it another try to see if it was just a bad chemistry day. This could be a really great scent for going out.

[Mitzy]

LOVE this!! When wet I can smell the *martini* aspect, slightly boozy but I cant pinpoint any particular scent. This smells to me much like oranges or berries - I was thinking Body Shop scents like cranberry or satsuma. yummy!! When dry it gets sweeter and yet bitter at the same time. I'm very glad I have a big bottle, I will be wearing this often.

[Laurel the Woodfairy]

I got Swank in my first imps order but am just reviewing it now because I didn't get really attached to it until the temperature started climbing--it is insanely hot in the South and even my usual light florals are suddenly too much. Even Persephone--which also has lots of pomegranate--is too much. Swank, though--ah, Swank seems to be a great summer scent. I hate most fruity smells (except for fig) but pomegranate is a little more exotic, a little out of the ordinary. I don't get much "booziness" from this--just a faint sparkle, like I cut a glass of pomegrate juice with seltzer water. Very refreshing and bright--I feel like the vial should come with a little paper umbrella garnish sticking out of it!

[Shollin]

First sniff: Wow – Swank really does smell like a cocktail. It’s a little bit snobbish – a cocktail at a trendy club like the girls of Sex and the City might go to. It’s a scent that wants to be seen… a scent that struts.

 

Wearing: Juicy! It’s a bit too sophisticated to be classified as bright, but it definitely wants to be noticed. There’s a very faint hint of powderiness that makes me think of SweetTarts.

[ismene]

I've never had a pomengranate martini, so I can't tell if the description is entirely truthful or not. However, it certainly smells like a cocktail and I'm really surprised that I like it, given that I dislike pomengranate juice. I'll probably order a big bottle - this stuff is fucking fabulous.

[UltraViolet]

This smells of crushed red pomegranetes or any red berry for that matter. There's a cocktail scent underneath but it is not alcohol-y, It also reminds me of the way lipstick used to smell in the 40's, 50's or 60'3. All of this blended together are absolutely lushious and intoxicating.

 

This imp becomes a 10ml real soon.

 

I highly recommend this one.

[hypothermya]

Initial Impression

 

In the vial, it smells of honest to god pomegranates (not the juice, but the actual fruit) and alcohol. It's a bit sour smelling, and a bit sweet, but mostly boozey. Yum.

 

Wearing It

 

When I first apply it, it maintains a bit of a boozey scent, but that dissappears quickly. What's left is a tart, almost sour, berry smell...almost like cranberries and oranges...But much more reminiscent of pomegranate. It's a little sweet, but not knock-you-off-your-feet sweet like a lot of the other fruity blends that I've tried (Lady Macbeth, Jester, Bordello, etc.). It's also not as strong as some of the other oils, so I don't actually have to be careful as to how much to apply. I like it.

 

Lasting Power

 

I think this is my only complaint with this blend. It vanishes on my skin in a little under an hour. There's a little bit of scent left over, but not much -- it kinda smells like if you'd spilled a fruity drink on your skin and wiped it off with napkins...But without the stickiness. Basically the booze is much more aparent at this stage, but you really have to strain yourself to smell anything.

 

 

Mmmm....I'm really liking this one. It may become a favorite of mine, if I can get past how quickly it vanishes. One of the first oils that I tried was Persephone, and I couldn't smell the pomegranate at all for the strength of the rose. But this smells more corrupted, much more how I'd envision Persephone to smell during her stays in Hades.

[Miggins]

In the vial: Definitely a martini. With pomegranate. *Almost* good enough to drink.

 

Wet: An explosion of pomegranate, which swells and grows, picking up a faint hint of blood orange for a short while.

 

Dry-down and beyond: I really like this one. It dries to a cool deep red which is both mouth-watering yet incredibly dry. It reminds me of pictures of my beautiful grandmother in the 1940s - porcelain skin with blood-red lipstick.

 

I also feel very clear-headed and focused whilst wearing Swank. It has cut through all the crap in my head and I’ve just got through a pile of work in 40 minutes!

 

To add: Swank also lasts very well. I initially applied a wand-swipe to each wrist at about 8pm last night. When I woke up at 7am, I could still smell it (although it was quite faint by then).

[Splendid Molerat]

Instant Pavlovian response -- I must have more of anything that can induce salivation at first scent.

 

The pomegranate is very rich, and backed with the citrus note others have commented on. It isn't a sweet citrus on me; the closest would be a mandarin peel, just a spiral twist in the coctail.

 

The fruit scents are very tart, with just a bit of sugar-sweetness to balance them -- every now and then I get a hint of candy-apple red.

 

For the sake of the scientific method I just licked my wrist, but the oil doesn't taste the way my nose expected. Dang.

[darkitysnark]

Ah... my first ever review!

 

Dabbed on some Swank fresh out of the box on our way out to see "Hero" this evening, so my first impressions are a bit rushed...

 

In the bottle:

Sweet! Fruity! A little bit boozy! Mostly I smell red, if that makes any sense.

 

Initial application:

After the first few minutes (and several not so subtle wrist-sniffs) I got a huge wave of booziness. Not straight up alcohol, just sort of a rush of "adult beverage". The sweetness stays in the front of my mouth while this rolling, darker feeling is in the back of my throat.

 

Over the course of dinner-and-a-movie (about three hours):

The booze-effect dies down and is replaced by... more of that red smell. And something tart on the very edges. There's a soapy aftertaste when I inhale deeply. I haven't decided if I like it or not (which means probably not). It's really incredibly sweet (baby powdery, even), but I can almost feel the pithy seeds and membranes on the edge of the sweetness.

 

Staying Power:

Since this is my first BPAL scent, I don't have anything with which to contrast and compare. I don't wear perfume, but am extremely picky about my toiletries. I'm almost four hours into this first test, and I can still detect it pretty strongly. My control group (the Mr.) is suffering from a summer cold, so he's no help this go 'round. His gut reaction, btw, was to call it "nice, like potpourri". Sheesh. He keeps this up and I'm not sharing my imp of Wilde.

 

ETA: I ended up gifting this to my best friend. She instantly fell in love with it. It smells wonderful on her (not so crazy sweet) so I'm happy it found a good home.

Edited September 16, 2004 by darkitysnark

[sarahmarie]

In the imp, I wasn't sure about this one, but the moment I put it on, my mind started to change. It went right from sweet and overpowering in the imp to crisp, bright, and sparkley on my skin.

 

I don't really smell what I can definitively say is booziness - I smell a sort of sparkle, a tingle behind the fruit that I assume is the alcohol. The pomegranate smell...well, it's been a while since I've smelled a pomegranate, but it reminds me of one. It's a bit orangey too, but not very much (I don't like orange scents, but I love this). And it appears to have more staying power and throw on me than other scents do.

 

My husband came home and smelled me (a common practice in the last few days, since i just got my first two orders) and told me I should wear this one all the time. So it gets his vote as well. I will be adding this to the big bottle list. It just smells so bright and happy, and I know I'm going to want it around.

[violetblue]

Bless Lorajc for sending this my way.

Absolutely fell in love at first sniff - so maybe you all won't have to listen to me whine about red moon anymore, haha. I detect almost the same fruitiness as the red moon, just different and more complex I think. A definate keeper!!!

10ml, here I come... This one is DELISH!!!